Got to Freedom Resort after dark, the last stretch involving a stumble down the beach and a climb up flight after flight of super-steep stairs – challenging with the full packs, but we made it, to be greeted by smiling faces and a room with a view. Also a shit-spattered toilet, which even travellers less picky than us might have found disappointing, not least given the premium pricing for the great location. But hey ho, rough with the smooth, what?
The morning dawned to a stunning view from our verandah, looking down over a large, tree-fringed sandy beach, shortly followed by a large and delicious breakfast – everything from dal and noodles to toast and jam, and a big plate of chunked melon, pineapple and banana. Then down to the beach – wide, long, sandy – just lovely. Which is where we’ve spent most of the day, just lazing about reading, in between splashing in the warm waves. Lovely!
For lunch, Virle had found a place on Google which promised, V said, lunch for 1,000, rather than the 2,000 elsewhere. When we found the place it looked like a near-abandoned shack, hard by the highway. Still, a friendly-looking man welcomed us and we thought why not. Could we see a menu? No menu. The menu was curry & rice. Um, curry & rice twice then, please.
Reassuringly, we had a fair wait, while pans clashed and clattered behind the wall: our food was clearly being cooked to order. The delay gave me the opportunity to suggest to Virle that maybe we needn’t be too worried about the whole economy thing: “We’ve come a long way and paid shitloads to come to Shangri La, and here we are having lunch on the hard shoulder.” Then the food arrived: a large platter of rice, and five or six separate little curries: green beans, dal, some sort of herb, jack fruit, and what we discovered was a kind of mango chutney, but made from the stone of the mango. All of it delicious. We got a rather infantile extra kick when the guy was clearly surprised and impressed by our fire-proofing. “Hot?”, he asked, slightly nervously. “It’s delicious, we love it!”
As we left, Virle asked me to guess the bill. The book had said 1,000, but I felt we’d been given a special tourist spread (locals were eating much the same, but all piled together on a single plate), so I guessed 3,000. Long story short, the entire spread came in at 1800 – a fiver, with tip.
Then back to the room for a bit of a rest before heading back to the beach for a frolic in the afternoon surf, followed by tea on the verandah, watching the monkeys playing in the trees.
