Seemed Like A Good Idea at the Time....

Ok, this should be the "phrase of the day" for our trip. I don't think that we are that adventerous (not as spontaneous and fun like Rich and Ana!) but we have done our fair share of "interesting" things..
So far our dining has been the most spontaneous thing we can muster. Honestly, in this hot Thai sun, eating and sleeping is the only thing we can do! We were totally boring our first couple of days here, only eating at the hotel restauraunts. I cannot tell you how good the food is here! Of course, if you have indigenous people in the kitchen, even if it is at a hotel, its gonna be GOOD. So we had no complaints, just the cost. We are on a budget for this trip and we can't spluge all of the time. Thailand is cheap. Really cheap. Like 30 cents for a big 20 ounce cold beer cheap! Our hotel dinners were running us like $40! That is too much! So after meeting a great German couple from Munich, we got directions to a great, local beach restaurant. I shoulda known that any directions that include "go over the bridge in the mangrove swamp" I should have stopped listening! But the lure of $4 shrimp dinners and 50cent beer was too much. So, like idiots, at night, we set out for our Thai dinner. Walking down the beach in pitch blackness to the restaraunt. After some scary moments with larger crabs skittering out of our way, we started to see light up ahead. It was the bridge over the swamp....Now bridge I think is a loosely used term. It was more like pieces of driftwood, lashed together with floss, seaweed, rope or anything else that would tie. I thought it was hilarious. I was hungry...here we are on the "bridge"

We move on to the restauraunt. Now, once again, i think we over used the word "restauraunt". It was more like a couple of open air shacks with some bootleg electricity. There was no bathroom, just a bunch of chairs on the sand and picnic tables.  Now, anyone that knows me, knows that I will eat ANYTHING! The only requisites: 1) Must be dead 2) Must not be slimy. Other than that, bottoms up!!! So we come it, grab some "chairs" and are immediately ushered over to their equivalent of the viewing tank at a fancy restaurant to pick our fish.  HOW AWESOME IS THAT!!!!??? After I saw the fresh catch that was about to be my dinner, I didn't even notice the fly paper hanging over our table, the staff walking around with bug zappers or the complimentary bug spray that was given to us with our drinks....
Bruce had a newly killed, deep fried red snapper and i had some banging shrimp something.  Our entire meal, with beer and drinks came to $20.  Did I mention that I love Thailand?

After our wonderful meal we decided that little beach side spot would be our "hang out". We went for lunch and dinner every day! Today, they came in with fresh prawns that were the size of small dogs!!!! Keep in mind, the prawns were about 1/2lb each!!! And a lunch of bbq prawns would run you about $6!!!! Did I mention that I LOVE Thailand?

Around this time, we also decided that we needed to do laundry. You can't be gone for 5 months and not expect to do laundry. We assumed it would be easy but who knew that no one in the Khao Lak area had a washer machine? In fact, the hotels were pretty much the only ones that had washing machines, let alone a dryer. What they did have was a multitude of family run laundry spots where you are charged either per kilo of clothing or per piece. Per piece of clothing ran us about 10 cents! Now, remember, no one in the area has a washing machine...so after we dropped our clothes off and start to wander back over the "bridge" over the mangrove swamp I start to wonder "How are they going to wash our clothes?"...All of a sudden, Bruce and I looked upstream into the mangroves...We saw little plastic buckets and stuff on one of the banks...So, our clothes got washed, old school style in a stream!  Did I mention that I LOVE Thailand!!!!
Tomorrow we are leaving my new favorite spot.  I won't forget the beautiful beaches, the kind people and the awesome diving. I'm sure there will be other places in the future, but I can truly say, Thailand will always have a place in my heart! Ko khawp khun! (Thank you!!!)