Thailand Day 5

Written jointly by DZ and Bela

Today was a relaxing day at first - we slept in until almost 11, waking in time for the free breakfast at the hostel. It was raining. We spent some time talking about what to do in Chiang Mai and Bangkok. When we were getting ready to go, Leah got a call from Stephen, eliciting a shreik and a 20 minute delay in the start of the day (normal daily Stephen phone call procedure) Once dressed and ready to go, Leah and Bela went to sit on the beach, while David walked around and had some delicious lemongrass soup with chicken at the food market on the beach. On the way to the beach, we stopped and bought a few postcards and stamps so that if we mail any postcards, they would arrive before us. If you send us 30 baht and your address, we'll send you a postcard. Before more impending rain broke loose, Bela and Leah headed back to the hostel to finish some more trip planning with David.

Once showered and dressed, we headed to a nice dinner at an "Authentic" Thai Italian restaurant where Bela discovered an insect bite, and obsessed that she might have contracted malaria. After being reassured by David that she wouldnt' die for at least 2 weeks after returning to the US, Leah continued dinner by eating the entire bowl of Parmesan Cheese. Our "nice" dinner consisted of eating in an indoor restaurant and ordering an appetizer of garlic bread, and main dishes of gnocci, ravioli, and pizza and drinks along with the meal, and it still cost less than $10 a person.

We looked at a few massage places finally settling on one and trying unsuccessfully to negotiate a package rate for the three of us. Still, cost was 250 baht a person, which was less than $9 for a full hour body massage. David says it was even better than his first massage. Bela couldn't believe the strength of these little Thai ladies. They twist and pull and knead you like they were working out at a gym. During the massage, a shriek of laughter penetrated the calm ambiance of the room. It turns out that Bela thought she overheard David's masseuse say "what size are you? you big man".

Although Bela and Leah tried to hold off shopping until the market next weekend in Bangkok, the window shopping finally got to them, and they ended up buying some place settings.

On the way to the massage, we saw a cart with various crepe pancakes that looked delectable. after the massage, we returned to sample the goods. Bela and David got chocolate & Banana crepes, while Leah got cinnamon and sugar. Thankfully, David was along to finish Bela and Leah's as they each couldn't finish their own. David was concerned that Bela was turning down the rest of a sugary dessert - possibly a symptom of the onset of malaria.

Having been here for a few days, we are almost immune to the hawkers. In fact, when tourists walk by, we find ourselves offering Tuk-tuk, taxi rides, and cheaply made replicas of everything.

Walking down the street tonight, we saw a similar scene of scantily clad, professional Thai "girlfriends" as we'd seen for the past few nights. In fact, it's quite amusing to walk down the street seeing Westerners with their Thai girlfriends. While we first thought that we couldn't tell the difference between the scantily clad Thai women and the "girlfrinds", we soon realized that in fact, they were ALL girlfriends.

Tomorrow if it's nice, we'll spend the morning at the beach before catching an afternoon flight to Chiang Mai.