Laundry and the Night Market

December 23

Vince and I woke up at 5 and decided to walk to the beach to see the sunrise. There were 6 young Thai's there with their camera and tripod to catch the sunrise. The sea was coming in so again we could not access the beach. We watched, smelled and listened to the waves for about 45 minutes and walked to the main street for food cart noms. There was a women making little fried dough things that the Thais were lined up waiting for.........so we bought 2 bags of 10 each. Mmmm! Next to her was a Grandma selling fresh fried chicken that was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

At 11 Lisa and I walked to the main street and down one block to take our laundry to the woman's shop we had seen a couple days ago. We walked in and said hello and she pointed to our two bags and said, Come back tomorrow at 5 pm. Ok...........That was stupid easy! No name, no filling out papers, no deposit, no money.......just a practical method of self responsibility. You don't pick up your laundry...not her problem. I love it!   All the clothes were ironed and folded including the underwear which were folded into little packages within itself and we had to figure out how to unfold them.....kind of cute!
Total 270 Baht = $8.25

Stayed at the resort today and I had such a great time........I did exactly What I wanted ...When I wanted! I worked on the blog, watched a movie, went to lunch for soup at our favorite “Man On The Street !” We took a nap, went for a swim and then took the free ride from the resort to the famous Night Market. At 7:15 the market was crowded and instead of like cars where it was bumper to bumper it was butt to butt everywhere we went. Just because of the sheer numbers of people in such close proximity to each other I was on guard of my purse, camera and phone. Mind you, this was not because of the Thai people, but because of all the other foreigners.

The Night Market is geared toward the foreigners visiting Hua Hin and stalls were crammed with t-shirts, costume jewelry, hats, scarves, and tons of other merchandise aimed at tourists to bring back as gifts. The women vendors are pretty bold in their hawking of wares. I walked up to a booth with Pashmina scarfs and the woman just happened to hand me one that matched the colors I was wearing! Good marketing on her part! I didn't get it because she wanted too much and wouldn't bargain.

These are hand carved soap flowers

Tie dye and hippie stuff everywhere......I thought I was back in Eugene!

We were hungry so we stopped at a restaurant we all agreed on. The people cooking were at the edge of the walking crowd and behind them were dozens outdoor tables, several servers and all foreigners.....I will stress that this is not a market for the locals unless they live in the neighborhood and need flowers from the market or some quick take away food.

Dinner was underwhelming for all of us. We agreed it was just ok and nothing to rave about. We continued walking and found an entrance to an indoor market that we found to be much less crowded. It didn't take us long to walk through and we once again found ourselves swimming upstream. After an hour and a half all of us were ready to get back to the peace and quiet of our resort.....another good nights sleep awaits us.