Day 17 - Local Dining

Woke up to the birds chirping at dawn. I watched a couple of hours of Netflix on my iPad and finished my blog.

It was around 9.30am, when we headed to the beach in glorious sunshine. We selected our deckchairs and pulled them out to prevent anyone daring to sit in front of us. The rest of the deckchairs became occupied, without the Germans or anyone else, trying to sit in front.

It was a hot day, a tad too hot for Jackie, and the tide was high. We took many walks and dips in the sea to cool down. We had a cheeky Chang each, then headed back to Mum Aroi Ko Samet Bar and Restaurant for lunch. I ordered a spicy omelette on rice and Jackie ordered a Pad Thai. Both dishes were delicious and cheap. We probably be returning for lunch most days of our remaining time in Thailand.

The afternoon was much the same, but Jackie had to retreat into the shade under the umbrella for an hour when the sun was at its hottest. We got our monies worth out of the deckchairs and didn’t leave the beach until virtually 5.30pm.

We had a couple of Hong Thongs, then headed out. There was one more restaurant on the island that had taken our fancy, that we still hadn’t tried. It was fairly near the port. We passed Banana Bar, which again had a queue of people waiting to get a table.

We continued on to the restaurant, which has a Thai name, but is a Noodle Bar. It took us a while to get a free seat, but eventually one became available just before we gave up and moved on. We sat down and studied the menu. It didn’t take long there were only 8 dishes to choose from and the descriptions nearly all included the same three words pork, noodles and soup. The pictures of each also all looked pretty much the same.

We ordered two dishes that were apparently different and sat back with a Chang to enjoy the hustle bustle of the place. It was only now that we noticed that we were virtually the only westerners in the restaurant. Everyone else was either Thai or another Asian nationality, many still in their work uniforms.

On a dining table behind us staff were chopping up meat which didn’t bear thinking about the hygiene of it for too long. Jackie visited the free salad bar and returned with two small plates of unidentified leaves and accompaniments. The only thing I recognised was some beansprouts.

Our dinners arrived in bowls with meat, small balls of something maybe meaty, crushed nuts, noodles and an accompanying small bowl of broth. They both looked the same, but mine had darker meat. We were given chopsticks and a small ladle to eat it with. We poured the broth onto our dinner, then the salad. Jackie then poured a ladle of chilli flakes into hers and in the confusion, I did the same, then immediately regretted and unsuccessfully tried to fish them back out.

Let’s just say it was a fantastic experience and ridiculously cheap. We both left pouring with sweat and with our top lips on fire.

We stopped at the 7-11 for some essentials, then got home and lay in our air-conditioned room until we had sufficiently cooled down. We had a Hong Thong on the verandah and called it a night.

Song of the Day - Fire by Kasabian.Read more