From Phetchaburi to Paradise and back

Nov 23 2014

 Last night we took the family out for dinner to celebrate Ai’s

L-R Noi, Ae, Ai, Lin, , Timm, Tricia

birthday. She is 36 years old, divorced and has a seven year old son, Hope. She is his sole support and his father has nothing to do with his son. A sad tale if there ever was one. We asked what she would like for her birthday and we suggested a family dinner. She was thrilled. We then asked what she would like for a present and she said ‘the dinner with my family’. Ai works 6-7 days a week for $10-12 a day. She works this many days because she makes so little money and is the sole support. She is a generous person often bringing us a meal she has made or bought. At dinner Ron suggested she order for the family and order what she most liked. At one point while looking at the menu she asked Ron if he would like Snakehead Soup. Gross! He said she could order it but he wouldn’t be eating any of that soup. I woke up this morning wondering if snakehead was a type of fish since this was a fish restaurant. I wrote to Nattawan who owns the house we are staying in and who is a member of this family. I asked her if snakehead was a fish or if literally there was such a soup made from snake heads. I told her I hoped she was laughing about our question. Within 10 minutes Ae and Ai came to the door laughing. Yes snakehead soup is made from snakehead fish! What a good laugh we had.

We continue to feel closer to the family here. After dinner Ae asked me if I wanted to go shopping with her and her sister Ai. I decided to go as I was truly honored to be included. Mostly they bought groceries and showed me around this store that is a combination of grocery and department store. Ae who is single, and works in BKK as a nurse bought Hope, her nephew, a ball. He apparently gets one gift anytime she takes him shopping. He is such a bright, cheerful kid. He is the only child in the family compound but has discovered a new playmate in Ron. Ron teases him, plays chase, tickles, shoots hoops (Hope is better at it) and a couple of hand games. Hope is a delight to us both. Today we were encouraged to help him practice his English. Ron said he would teach Hope English if Hope would teach Ron Thai. To be continued!

Tomorrow Ron will leave early to catch a van to BKK. He will pick up his hearing aid that is being repaired then he will catch a van back. It will be a long day as the van will probably take three hours each way, hopefully no longer. As it turned out, it only took 2 hours each way.Then Tuesday we will get up early and drive south to see friends, Bill and Kay who live about five hours south from here. It will be our first road trip and we are excited about it. We will see country we have not seen before.

Thanksgiving in Paradise

Nov 25-27

On Tuesday the 26^th we drove five hours to S Thailand to visit our friends Kay and Bill in a little town, Ban Nam Chuet. There was little traffic and we had divided highways the entire trip until we turned off to go to their house. There was haze the entire trip. Not sure if it was from the heat or pollution or what. Several times we passed some trucks that were way over loaded. This is an  example to the adage  "Just becasue you can, doesn't mean you should"

Bill and Kay’s home, which they had built, is located right on theGulf of Thailand and looks like a home that would be featured in Architectural Digest. It is simply furnished and very comfortable. In addition they have two guest houses, one bedroom each. They previously rented one of the houses for $200 a month. This is a newer structure built five years ago. At those prices it is no wonder people come to Thailand to retire We have known Kay and Bill for years but none of us can remember exactly when we met. Bill was a builder in Bend where he grew up and Kay is Thai and has owned a number of restaurants and a couple of motels in the US. I think she said her first restaurant was in Myrtle Creek OR where she had loggers lined up out the door loving her Thai cuisine. Bill and Kay met at a funeral at the Buddhist temple in Salem. Bill used to spend three months a year in Thailand to get away from the cold winters in Bend before he met Kay.

We spent most of our waking moments on the lanai listening to the waves hit the shoreline. We read, visited and just relaxed. There was a breeze most of the day and night.

We watched men fishing for brine shrimp. This involved walking
waist to chest deep parallel to the shore holding two bamboo poles that were attached to a large net that floated behind the man. The bamboo poles allowed him to keep the mouth of the net wide open in order to scoop the shrimp into the net. See photo. Brine shrimp are made into shrimp paste or dried. Both are used for flavoring Thai dishes. Our first evening we drove down the road about one kilometer and met their friends Gary and Susan for dinner. What a feast! Kay ordered for us. We had fresh seafood: fried fish, crab curry (a favorite of mine), raw oysters, oyster curry, mixed veggies, fried veggies and green papaya salad (another favorite). We ate and talked for two hours sitting outside by the waterfront.

The next morning I walked on the beach before breakfast. The sun reflecting off the water was quite
warm. There were tons of small shells on the beach, a lot of bamboo that had washed up on shore after a recent storm and a few large jellyfish. Kay made us an incredible soup of pork, rice and greens. It was delicious!  We drove down the road to see Bill’s recent purchase of a 30 foot fishing boat he is restoring. We passed a fishing village where locals live in stilt houses built over the water. We toured some of the local villages and lunched at a place that had a nursery of bromeliads, a store of local foods in gift packs and an excellent restaurant. 

Before dining we toured the gardens. The owner has some sort of fixation on toilets. All the trash cans are shaped like toilets. He had toilets available for use all over the property. He had a section called the ‘Amazing Toilet’ including ‘sky’ toilets located up a stairway on a bridge structure and an ‘underworld’ toilet located down a set of steps. Let’s just say it was weird although all of this was located is a lush garden setting with exquisite plants. 

The lunch, again ordered by Kay was incredible: fried soft shell crab, scallop curry which is outstanding, green papaya salad and I have forgotten the fourth dish. We relaxed on the lanai that afternoon before going to the pier for a light dinner. The owner escorted us to our table and saw that the tablecloth was soiled so she flipped it over. HA! Shades of Sri Lanka nine years ago only they never flipped it over. She told us she had gotten fresh shrimp off the boat that morning. Thailand has a lot of shrimp farms which is a poor environmental practice and the shrimp don’t taste good. And they have a mushy texture. We were glad to have ocean shrimp instead. First came huge boiled shrimp. I could only eat one. Then we had tom yum goon which is a spicy clear soup and this one had shrimp, fish and crab. Yum indeed and lastly we were served shrimp cakes. We couldn’t finish the meal after our big lunch so we got a take away carton.

Thanksgiving Day we had planned to leave but Kay asked us to stay and we really wanted to so we did. Ron and I walked on the beach in the morning then the four of us headed to the local fresh market which is held early in the morning. We arrived a little after 9:00 which is considered late and got ingredients for our dinner. Back at the house Bill and Kay made us scrambled eggs with onions and tomatoes and toast. After visiting some more on the lanai we headed out for more local touring. The area is lush as it is still the rainy season here. It has rained the past two nights with lots of thunder and lighting.  We saw rivers, palm oil plantations, rubber and coconut y fruit. This area also is a large producer of mangosteens, a delicious tropical fruit which we love as well a durian slso known as stinky fruit.. Unfortunately for the mangosteens we missed the season. We ate lunch in Lamae, another small town. Bill and I ordered ginger chicken which was great. Kay didn’t like her dish of veggies but Ron enjoyed his pork and noodles. We ended the day by going to a hydroponic lettuce farm. Thais have discovered lettuce and it is way popular now.

I took a nap after we got back to the house as I hadn’t gotten to sleep until after midnight the night before and had woken up at 6:30 this morning. I helped Kay with dinner prep. She prepared a feast of barracuda steaks, stir fried veggies and green curry with eggplant and chicken. We had lots of leftovers because we have been eating large meals morning, noon and night! We sat outside on the lanai looking at the night fishing boats on the ocean that use lights to attract the fish. From our perspective it looked almost like a bridge on the sea, very pretty.

Friday Nov 28

We got up early and Ron and I took another walk on the beach. After our showers we had joke, rice porridge with pork, fresh ginger and greens plus fried bread that Bill have gotten at the fresh market for us. We departed shortly afterwards as we had a long drive ahead of us. We arrived home after eating duck noodle soup at our favorite spot in Hua Hin. Linn greeted us and told me she had dinner for us. We are SO spoiled and love it!