Uh oh. We both woke up today DEFINITELY sick. We were both super congested with some mildly sore throats and feeling totally wiped out. We were pretty confident we had both gotten colds. We took it very easy this morning, laying in bed and watching some news. We eventually got ready for the day and headed out to walk to a new area of Patong for lunch.
We walked quite a ways, always trying to find the safest and best shaded part of the street to walk along. We made our way through an indoor market along the way, and eventually got to our lunch spot – a small hidden outdoor restaurant with a huge beautiful garden along the fence line and covered with beautiful plants hung on awnings at the front.
We were the only customers, which was nice as we didn’t want to spend too much time around people and give our colds to anyone else.
We ordered a fried fish in curry sauce as well as a wide rice noodle dish, and Caitlyn decided to try a papaya salad. It was interesting that our server was a young boy no older than 13 or 14. We looked it up and saw that school is mandatory in Thailand, so we were a little confused about this. He was sniffling some, so we figured maybe he was home sick for the day and was helping work (also made us feel better about our sniffling!). We quickly realize that the kitchen is also open-aired, which was really neat.
While we waited for our food, we stared at the garden and enjoyed seeing the enormous bees (we think) buzz from flower to flower. We saw a ton of wild cats, a dog, and David even saw a mouse moving around near a tree 30 feet away or so. We even watched a fish vendor come by on a motorcycle with a side car with tons of bags of fresh fish and shrimp in bags, and even a giant fish sitting on the seat behind him. The chef came out and picked out a few fish and some shrimp before heading back to the kitchen.
The food took a little while, but was all clearly being made very fresh. Caitlyn saw fresh coconuts on the drink list for around 50 cents USD per coconut, so she ordered one to sip on in the meantime. She was very happy with the flavor and was pleasantly surprised that it was cold, too.
The food came out and we dug in. There must have been a translation error, as the fish we had ordered was plain and had no sauce, but it was still very tasty. The wide noodle dish was also good and had big juicy chunks of chicken. Caitlyn thought her papaya salad was tasty, not knowing what to expect as it was her first time trying it. There was something about the dish that kept her coming back for more.
We finished eating and decided that we both felt crappy enough that we just wanted to head back towards the hotel. We got back in the room and rested for a few minutes before changing into swim suits and spent the rest of the day lounging by the poolside in our chairs and taking it easy.
We ordered a few happy hour cocktails and tried to work on the blog, but we were pretty distracted by the current events.
We headed back to the room to shower off when Caitlyn remembered that we had planned for Caitlyn to give David a haircut sometime in Thailand. We pulled out the clippers and David sat at the edge of the bathtub facing out while Caitlyn stood behind him in the bathtub. We put some Friends on the iPad and soon enough Caitlyn had created a masterpiece.
Tonight we wanted to head to a night market for dinner, so we headed out towards the beach to Bangala road, a big walking street. We got to the market and saw dozens and dozens of stalls. We tried to walk around seeing what there was to eat, but it was difficult as the vendors harass the living shit out of you to sit, shoving menus in your face and following you around.
We eventually stood in the middle trying to figure out how to even decide which place we wanted to eat at, when one of the vendors started fanning us with a menu. We eventually decided to go ahead and eat at his stall, so he sat us down and handed us two menus.
We didn’t really know what to order, so we went with pad Thai for one dish, then asked the price of the mantis shrimp. He told us the price, and said he would grab some and weigh them for us so we could know what we were getting. He came back in a minute or so with a scale and a place with 3 enormous wriggling mantis shrimp. These were each ~1/3-1/4th the size of a full lobster. The price was not great, but we were committed so we told him we’d like it. He asked what style and we chose the garlic and chili seasoning. They were clearly very happy with us, working hard to treat us well. The food came out and the server (same man who was fanning us) brought a fresh pack of disposable gloves so that we didn’t have to get our hands dirty when trying to get the meat out of the mantis shrimp. He kept periodically coming by and fanning us, which was a little bit goofy but we didn’t mind as it is pretty hot in Thailand, even at night. The pad Thai was okay, and the mantis was good, but it was really really expensive compared to other food in Thailand.
When we were almost done, the waiter brought by a bowl of water with some slices of lime in it and told us it was so we could clean our hands after eating. We weren’t planning on doing this as we didn’t know where the water came from, but he was a little insistent so we went ahead and did it (sanitizing afterwards once he walked away). We moved on and explored the rest of the market before walking down other parts of the area. The Main Street was packed with people, lights, and noise. We walked around and almost every store was a bar (all covered outdoor so you can see the whole bar without having to go inside). Half of them were clearly trying to attract a male party vibe, as more than one had stripper poles hanging down on all of the tables with women kind of dancing. We decided to avoid this as it isn’t our scene as much, so we went down a street parallel to this one.
It was much quieter here and still seemed fun. We stopped by another area with a smaller night market (a few restaurants and bars next to eachother and maybe 4 or 5 stalls spread out). We decided to grab a cocktail, so we went and ordered and sat down at a small table outside.
Caitlyn wanted a sweet for dessert so she went to a stall and got a baked dough with cinnamon sugar. It was a nice flat crispy bread with delicious sugar on top and was a great dessert. We eventually spotted a massive cockroach near a table a few from us and we observed his journey until he retreated down a pipe, theoretically back to his cockroach wife and children.
We loved these drinks so much that we got some to-go cocktails as well to bring back to the room. Back at the hotel, we sat on the bed with our drinks and stayed up far too late watching the news.
David’s thoughts of the day: I don’t think people realize that the pushier you are to very someone to eat at your stall/restaurant, the less they want to. Maybe it’s just me…
Caitlyn’s thoughts of the day: I have heard several people say that trying Thai papaya salad for the first time was revolutionary, and I couldn’t wait to try it. I enjoyed the one I ate today, and while I wouldn’t say it was revolutionary, I also couldn’t stop eating it. I may need to try a few other versions to test this theory….
Steps walked: 12,347
Miles walked: 5.96
Bluming Travelers 