We shopped. And we walked. A lot—about 16km on our “day off”. Shopping is a fascinating adventure in this far away land. There’s no sales tax. So, the price you see is what you pay! Randy spent 150 bahts ($6) on a shirt, Deana splurged 100 bahts ($4) on a pair of pants, and we bought a kettle. Yes, an electric kettle—to solve our morning coffee cravings for the days when our hotel doesn’t offer in-room coffee. Randy is going to lug that kettle around for the next 1,300km, so I guess it’s important enough.
Venturing into the markets on foot without bikes means we get to see other things—live squiggly wiggly snake-like things at the market, pigs heads and chickens feet (neither squiggly nor wiggly), but also a lot of things we’d love to bring home and can’t. Big vats of curry pastes that you buy by the scoop. Fresh juicy fruits chopped & sliced before our eyes, and countless other tantalizing things. The aromas are scrumpdillyicous. Little balls of tasty unknowns just waiting to be tried, and fried up oblongular shapes that turned out to be fried bananas (and oh so tasty!).
We made peace with the dogs—but apparently a few of them didn’t get the memo. As night fell we learned that the four-leggeds don’t appreciate our presence. We had a few encounters where one barks and comes out growling, then all his buddies run to join the pack-gripefest. They come up too close for comfort and you just know that they own that section of the lane way. They aren’t inclined to back down and no matter how nice we tell them they are, they want to prove us wrong.
Rest day over. Funny how we don’t feel that we’ll rested!
Great shirt Randy!!
Your food pictures bring back so many memories…and regrets that I wasn’t even willing to try most of them. Good on you!
I like your adventurous spirit.
I like to see that you are eating the loal food.
How does it taste like and did you get any stomach upset?
Very curious.
I travelled to Kolkata but I wasn’t taking any changes with the street food even though the food looked so delicious.
Have a fun time and do more of these free days and explore the real Thailand and the friendly people.
Wei Hing
We (Randy and I) just use the see-want-eat method. We have never become sick from anything here yet. 😀
How has your stomachs been on the trip so far ?..
.looks like some items that we just don’t see here at the local grocery store.
That kettle is already earning its keep. You really have to want something to drag it around in your panniers all over the country. The hotel we just checked into doesn’t have In room coffee. I’ll show them!
Addiction is a powerful thing.
Scary story about nighttime dogs. I approve of your shirt purchase, Randy. The picture of the bowl of snakes gave me the heebie-jeebies,
Those slithery things give me the heebies too!
Love Randys new shirt!!!