Great finds and Loy Krathong

Nov 2

Score! On today’s exploration we covered a lot of territory. There
was a cloud cover for most of the trek which makes the heat bearable, barely. Our superb find was an espresso café that is air conditioned and has GOOD Americanos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is a great discovery for folks from the NW where coffee is an art form. We also found a good stationery store.

On the way home we stopped at the fresh market and go some salad ingredients, fresh raw shrimp on ice (hard to find ice in these parts).and fresh flowers for Pa Cha An. We came home and arranged the flowers and took them up to the big house. Tim  was here tending to her mom, Pa Cha An so we rushed back to the market and got 25 miniature roses as today is Timm and Tumm’s 25^th wedding anniversary. Back to the house to make another arrangement and up to the big house. As luck would have it, Tumm was there as well as their daughter Pair and their son Pon. We had given Pair a birthday card with some money in it for her birthday. Timm and Tumm seemed genuinely surprised and pleased with our recognition of their anniversary.

We got back to our house and it was 2:00 so we made some sandwiches and had our lunch. I boiled the shrimp after removing parts we aren’t used to seeing in the US then spent a lot of time removing the shells and cleaning them. Our dinner will be green salad with shrimp, hard boiled egg, bell pepper, broccoli, baby corns, and olives. No cooking!

Nov 5

This morning we Skyped with our friends Jim and Jane Burke who live most of the year in Italy and are now at home in Bandon OR. We try to have regular ‘visits’ with them via Skype. The four of us worked for the City of Portland at the same time back in the early 2000’s.

We have been spending some time on the computer making changes to our Mexico and Central America itinerary. We now plan to explore two cities in Mexico: Puebla and San Miguel de Allende and two in Panama: Panama City and Boquete. We have made reservations everywhere except Costa Rica and may end up at a cool hostel I found this morning on line. We will have a private room with en suite bathroom in an old colonial house across the street from a park. Sounds great. We first started to use hostels in New Zealand. Actually I first used hostels when I hitched across W Europe and N Africa in the mid 60’s.

After our chat we went downtown so Ron could get a haircut, then we had lunch at a place where we eat every year. It is an old traditional wooden guesthouse and it sits right on the river. Today the food was better than we remembered it. Yesterday we tried another place where we have eaten in the past and the food was a little better but the noise with the TV AND radio was rather unpleasant. Thais seems to tolerate loud chatter better than I do. When a store has a promotion or a sale they will put huge speakers in front of the store and blast with incredibly loud ads and music. I have to literally plug my ears for fear of hearing loss.

We continue to have frequent rain but not everyday. It helps to clear the skies and to keep the heat and humidity down. It is possible to sweat in the rain in this climate however. Ron is finishing up the painting that was necessary after cleaning the mold off the outside of the house. Today he is painting the porch railing then he has the two sets of doors to repaint; but we’ll have to buy some more paint.  He says we’ll do that when we return from Sri Lanka

Last night I made spaghetti with marinara sauce. When I was in the store in Hua Hin I had a yen for marinara. I was beside myself when I couldn’t find canned tomatoes and thought I would have to resort to commercial sauce. Being a scratch cook I have NEVER used a store bought sauce if you can believe that. Anyway I went around the aisle and found what I needed and put the sauce back on the shelf. Making the sauce came together nicely. I had to substitute cilantro and something called Thai parsley for Italian parsley. The Thai parsley looked like a giant blade of grass but it worked. The water for the pasta took one hour and 15 minutes to come to a boil. We are at sea level here so I think it has to do with the power of my two burner electric  stove top. I couldn’t believe it. Before I ate dinner I decided I would not make this meal again. BUT it was so yummy I decided I would start the water at 5:00 instead of 6:15 and it would be just fine. Just another chapter in this adventure.

We have been cooking more than usual here and for the most part I enjoy it. If it is real hot it isn’t much fun. I do have to plan well in advance to make sure I can get the ingredients or an adequate substitute. But frankly our meals out usually run $1-$3 person so we might as well go out to eat. It is just sometimes we want to stay home or we want something we can’t find in an eatery. There is a dearth of restaurants here. There is no shortage of places to eat but 90% of them are carts with a few plastic stools on the sidewalk. This morning Ron and Ae went out on her motorcycle at 7:00 and got 10 orders of khao mun gai for all of us on the property and it cost $10. This dish is boiled chicken breast in thin slices on top of white rice with sliced cucumber and a fabulous dark spicy sauce that has a hint of Worcestershire and red chili peppers. Yummy!

We just read the election results and are so very bummed.  I feel so badly for Obama. He will not be having any fun now.

Nov 6

Before lunch we headed to our new coffee discovery, Pagoda Café which serves an excellent Americano. We took our readers and enjoyed just relaxing in the AC although it wasn’t too hot at the time.  One of the staff members gave us two brochures. One featured restaurants located in the town core with a background story, a description of the dish or dishes they served and a great map showing the location. The second brochure featured businesses located in traditional wooden shop houses, again with a great map. It was just what we have been searching for. As you have read, we have spent about a week walking the downtown core and mapping our progress, identifying street names and seeing what businesses are located on each street. So we spent some of our time reading these great brochures. We decided to try out one of the restaurants located on the street where we were having coffee and man oh man, what a find! They are famous for their khao kha moo, rice with pork. The pork was flavorful and melted in your mouth, the hot sauce was addictive and the Chinese broccoli was crisp, the soup was tasty and full bodied. It was a perfect meal and we will be returning there. We can hardly wait to try more of these restaurants. Some are carts. This one was outside seating only which is much more typical here than one with indoor seating. The cost for two plus bottled water was 80 baht (30 baht =$1.US). This restaurant serves three dishes, all pork.

Today is Loy Krathong, an important day in Thailand. It is a festival held on the full moon in
November each year.  It pays homage to the goddess of waterways and rivers, Mae Khongkha. In the evening people gather at rivers, lakes and ponds to float krathongs made of slices of banana tree trunks that are completely covered in decorations made from banana leaves and flowers.

So today four of the women of the household, including me,
worked on making nine floats. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun. Ae did the floral decoration, making each float unique and gorgeous.

After dinner we met at the big house and shot off some fireworks then each
gathered a float and brought them down by our house which is right on the Phetchaburi River.

Neunge went into the water (where Noy had spent the day clearing a pathway) and set each float adrift on the river. Afterwards we came back to the big house and Ron took photos of the beautiful full moon with great clouds and of the sky lanterns that are part of the festival., These are paper lanterns that had a small kerosene burner which you light and it fills the lantern with hot air an drifts it off into the sky. They are beautiful to see but not environmentally friendly.  Ron and Hope who is seven played various games. It is such a joy to hear Hope’s delightful giggles.

Nov 7

Today we went back to enjoy an Americano at Pagoda Café. We decided for lunch to try another restaurant featured in the brochure mentioned above. It turned out that the restaurant we chose had been one we have seen two or three times and it always has a lot of customers. It turns out that they have been in business for 60 years and in the same location!! They have two noodle soups: beef or pork with wide or thin noodles. Let me tell you the pork noodle soup was to die for. The place was filled and there were others waiting for a seat the entire time we were there and we can see why. They have noodle soup down!

We came home for about an hour then took off to pay a phone bill

and headed to Cha Am for Tricia to have a therapeutic massage from a woman we met when we were there earlier in the week. Afterwards we treated ourselves to an extravagant meal at a seafood place where we have eaten twice before that is just north of Cha Am. OMG what a culinary experience. We had crab curry with rice, stir fried broccoli with garlic and fried fish with a ton of fried garlic. The helpings were huge which is not normal here but I think the menu is designed for groups of 4-6 or more. Well we didn’t want anything to go to waste so we indulged and enjoyed each bite immensely. We will return at least one more time before leaving in January.