Eating our way through Thailand visiting friends

January 4

Lots going on today. The extended family is having a dinner party for us tonight. Lek, Ai, and Au are here from Bangkok and Lek is the chef. He sent us a sample of his spicy green mango salad with chili cashews. YUM! Later we were summoned to the big house for a photo with seven of us in a group and Hope pressing the camera button for the timer then running over to get into the photo. It will be hard to leave next Friday for Bangkok because we love this wonderful family. Everyone has embraced us since we were first introduced to the family. Pa Cha An raised eight children. None live on the property full time now. Noi passed away last year. His divorced wife, Linn, lives here along with her adult daughter Ai and her son Hope from the first marriage. Her current husband lives here part-time and never participates in family events. Ai and this man’s child live on the property also. Timm and her husband Tumm live in town and have a place on a lake about an hour’s drive from here. Most of the other surviving family members live in Bangkok. Au and Ae are Linn’s other two daughters and they are nurses in Bangkok. Tui is a nurse practitioner and lives in Bangkok. She is single. Neung and Nit, two brothers live in or near Bangkok. Nit comes here occasionally on the weekend but pretty much stays to himself. We rarely see Neung.

I think tonight it will be Linn, Ai and Hope, Lek, Ae and Au, Timm, Tum, their adult children Pair and Pon and the two of us. We always eat outside and there are always many Thai dishes to feast on. We are grateful for this big, loving family.

I was walking back from the big house to our house on the concrete driveway. Just ahead of me I heard something fall from the banana tree and hit the ground. There was a two-foot green snake slithering away. I had a similar experience when we lived in SL. I was in the office and heard a sound outside the window. I thought a coconut had fallen from the tree. Nope, a large black snake was slithering away. There is nothing quite like living in the tropics; bugs, snakes, gorgeous birds, geckos, beetles, roaches,  and mosquitoes…oh my!

At 4:00 we went to Rubin's Boutique and Bistro to pick up a caramel-apple cake we had ordered for tonight. We showed her how to use Trip Advisor to her advantage, showed her our two reviews and gave her some suggestions on marketing. Her place is without a doubt the best there is in Phetchaburi. All she lacks is a full house every night. She seems excited about asking customers to review the restaurant.

The Thai feast was terrific. There were 19 or 20 family members and caretakers present and the food…oh my goodness it was too good to be true: two kinds of fried fish, crab curry, calamari curry, rice, tom yom soup with fresh shrimp, fried wontons, fresh juicy oranges, and watermelon. Each dish was flavorful and most had a special sauce toad to the flavor and spiciness. We were delighted. The ages ran from 2 years old to Tumm’s mother who I think is in her 80’s. We were presented with a photo gift of many family members and a beautiful mut-mee purse for me and a traditional silk sash for Ron. These are traditional Thai items and mean a lot to us. We even think they will fit into our luggage.

Afterward,  Pair, her mom Timm and her aunt Tui came down to the house. We all had tears in our eyes as we said our goodbyes, It has been a 15-year friendship and we intend to stay in touch through Pair who speaks English and who is good about staying in touch via email.

January 5

Yesterday we drove to Hua Him about an hour south of Phetchaburi. Bill and Kay live in Chumphon in the south of Thailand and drove up to meet us. Ray and Krisina live north of Bangkok and drove down so we had a mini-reunion. Ray had worked in Vancouver, WA, Bill had worked in Bend, Kay and Krisina are Thai. Kay has been a successful business owner in the US. She has owned Thai restaurants in several Oregon cities; Cottage Grove, Eugene and Portland. Krisina worked for Kay. We met through our friend Nattawan who is very connected to the Thai community in Oregon. Nattawan was the prime mover in getting Wat Buddha outside of Salem established.

We arrived at Kay and Bill’s condo in Hua Hin and visited before heading out for duck soup. Afterward, we rested in our hotel. We met again at a hotel on the beach for a seafood dinner. Dining outside is my favorite and on the ocean is the best. It was great fun seeing everyone again and our meal lasted for two and a half hours. We got to our hotel a bit after 8:00 and decided to walk around. Hotel rooms don’t hold much interest. We visited a night market which is very popular in Thailand and in any hot climate actually. This one was for locals: food stalls, cheap clothing, tee shirts and the like. It ate up some time. We came back and read until bedtime. I finished my book The Dutch House which I enjoyed.

January 6

Today we woke up at 6:00. I managed to get four hours of sleep. The bed was too hard for me. We showered and packed up. We left our things in the room and went to the elevator. We are on the fourth floor. The doors opened and there was a pretty, slim bright green snake slithering in the elevator. I backed away and let the doors close. We took the stairs and informed the receptionist. I told her this was a first for me and she said ‘Me too’.

We walked about five blocks to Starbucks for a cup of coffee and a sweet roll. On the way the traffic was heavy. There was a school on each side of the street so parents were bringing kids to school on motorcycles, in cars, and in vans. School buses don’t exist in this part of the world…mostly. It was the same in SL and it creates huge traffic jams twice a day; 8:00 and 3:00. Ron snapped a photo with his phone of one family on a motorcycle.

We were not meeting the group until 10:00 so we read email and around 9;00 we decided to get something else to eat. There was a bright welcoming looking eatery two doors down from our hotel so we popped in. We didn’t want a big breakfast so requested a scaled-down version and they quickly agreed to accommodate our requests. I had whole-wheat toast with fresh fruit and Ron had two fried eggs with toast. It was perfect.

We went back to the room and checked out of the hotel. We were meeting at Ray and Krisina’s hotel to then drive down the coast to have lunch. Kay and Krisina got in the third row of seats in the back and chatted like two sisters catching up on all the news. It was sweet. 

About 10:45 we arrived at the restaurant Kay and Krisina had picked out. This stretch of beach is gorgeous. The community has built a layered seawall to protect the beach which has badly eroded. The seawall has gentle steps down to the water. It was high tide and the water covered the bottom two steps and the waves were crashing into the upper steps. The water was a beautiful aquamarine color. After walking along the walkway for a bit we joined Kay and Krisina in this huge open-air eatery. It is common to see restaurants with a roof but completely open in this part of the world. They are many tourists in Thailand; both Thais and foreigners (farangs). They travel on buses that are much higher than a Greyhound for example and they are usually highly painted with everything from bright flowers to superheroes. They are very colorful. To accommodate such groups there are restaurants designed specifically to handle large groups. This was such a restaurant. It probably seats 200 people.

K and K had done it again; ordered us a sumptuous meal of many dishes: two kinds of large shrimp, two calamari dishes, a soup with pork, and crab dish that was sweet, and Chinese broccoli. Ray treated us to lunch when no one was paying attention. A generous gesture for sure.

We came back to Hua Hin and parted. Ron and I needed to get back to Phetchaburi and the other two couple heads out tomorrow. Krisina and Ray will be attending a dinner party hosted by the Prime Minister’s wife who is a dear friend of Krisina’s. Bill asked Ray if he had any long pants for the occasion. In this country, shorts are the standard wear given the heat here. We all laughed.