Randy Saves Fishy. And what about the Jellyfish?

Route: Hua Hin outskirts to Hua Hin proper, and back again
Distance: 43km

It was a rest day today, but somehow a 43km ride and a 5k walk happened. There’s always just so much to see and do.

Firstly, we (Randy & I) woke up at the crack of dawn to go see if the tide deposited my sunglasses on the beach. Surely I have a greater chance of winning the lottery, but it was still worth a try. It allowed a chance to get a picture of the sun rising and for Randy to rescue a fishy that had been stranded on the sand. I thought Fishy was a lump of something-or-other but when I moved it with my foot it wiggled and flapped. Randy picked Fishy up with a few nearby sticks and returned him to the ocean (where my sunglasses now live). A couple of nearby walkers noticed and applauded Randy for the rescue operation.

We made the mistake of reading about dangers of jellyfish, and honestly it gave us the heebies. We decided to skip the ocean swim here and try a beach about 12km away that had installed “stinger nets” to keep tourists and jellyfish separated. We hopped on bikes and made a number of twists and turns on the way there, stopped at a bike shop, sipped smoothies at Cafe Amazon and somehow just felt tired of it all before reaching our swim destination. So, we just headed back to our own resort, without the ocean-swim component. But on the way we noticed a “mall” for home renos. Curiosity got to us and we went in to do a looky. The design, assortment, quality and choice of products was beyond anything we’ve seen anywhere. Clearly targeting the rich & famous (we were far beyond our pay grade in there). Deana didn’t even know that there existed toilets equipped with motion sensors that will raise the lid as you approach, turn on lights, and provide a number of other “services”. 🤪 Ha! We have been using the Thai squatty things, so we found the concept quite amusing. If you don’t know about Thai squat toilets, give it a Google!

After we returned to our hotel we reasoned it all out…. Millions of people probably swim and don’t lose their lives to a man-eating jellyfish in Thailand. Heck, it’s a big ocean afterall. We ride our bikes on multi-lane divided highways, and risk crazy feral dogs daily….really, what are the chances of making contact with a deadly jellyfish? Missed opportunity—today came and went with no ocean-wave-frolicking. Tomorrow we will abandon our jellyfish fear.

On the food front, Randy is enjoying all the nice hot & spicy green curry dishes here in Thailand. Deana is exploring her wild side too. She’s given crab omelette a go (it wasn’t really a go), and seems to have grown fond of chicken cashew stir fries and basil chicken with rice. I’m being brave and trying unidentified foods from street vendors and finding wonderful surprising tastes everywhere. We had a prawn versus shrimp discussion at dinner while enjoying some wonderfully fried prawn-shrimps (we didn’t resolve what they were actually).

Before dinner we had returned to the beach just one more time for low tide (I’m just not ready to say my final goodbye to those sunglasses). Randy did find a pair of sunglasses but they weren’t mine. Nevermind, I was reminded—I got new ones! Shiny ruby coloured ones now. And we got some nice sunset pictures.