Thailand Day #7 - last day in Patong!

So after I blogged last night, Derren and I headed out again to experience the night life of Patong. We first went to a Family Mart to grab a drink for while we walked along Bang La road. Derren had a beer, and I tried one of these - it's a brand called "Sky", and it has wine coolers and mixed drinks ($1). It wasn't anything special at all...

And while we were walking to find a bar to chill at, I found my first opportunity to take a kitty picture! Look at this little kitty playing in front of one of the markets - it was so cute!

So Derren and I walked along Bang La Road, and found the bar that had the cheapest beers (only 50 baht for Chang beers...that's less than $2!). We found some seats right on the side of the road, and sat for a while and enjoyed our beers. We played a drinking game where everytime you spotted a transvestite you had to drink, or if we spotted an escort with a guy, you had to drink. Thailand - particularly Patong - has an industry where men can pay to have "girlfriends" while they are here. When Derren first told me about this, I thought he was crazy. But then, as we were sitting here (and all throughout the day in all the other parts of Patong), you see old, fat white guys (usually balding) with a very young, very Thai woman. It is SO obvious, and it's really fun to find them. So here's a picture from where we were sitting at the bar:

After enjoying our drinks until we had to pee so bad we couldn't stay any longer (you have to pay to use the bathrooms, so we just decided to go back to our hotel). When we got back we started watching a movie and enjoyed the mango sticky rice that we had bought earlier in the evening at the night market. This is SERIOUSLY so delicious - it's glutinous rice with fresh Thai mango, drizzled with coconut milk. YUM!!

Then we crashed, and enjoyed another night's rest. After sleeping in, and slowly getting ready this morning, we headed out around noon. First stop was some iced coffee (the way they make coffee here and in Malaysia is so yummy. They mix really strong coffee with condensed milk, and then pour it over ice!)

Then we headed toward the Banzaan market to do some shopping for curry paste (for Derren to take home and make LOTS of curry!) and find some lunch. I was a little disturbed by this stall in the "fresh meat" section of the market. Ew.

Oh, and another ew from the Banzaan market (although Derren thinks this stuff is cool!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9jZfbjU9fc&feature=youtu.be

And Derren found this place to get himself some lunch - for 50 baht he got some rice, fried egg, and curry:

Here's what he ended up with:

And then I found a stall next door which had a big selection of fried goods, and they actually had some vegetarian choices, so despite the fact that I don't typically crave fried food, I found some things to eat here. I took a short video of all the choices and of her re-frying up my lunch (to "reheat" it):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwRCaKV98Tc&feature=youtu.be

And here's what I ended up with. You can see that there's a vegetarian egg roll, and then the dark green things are a glutinous rice and green onion pancake thing, and the yellow wonton things are like entire quail eggs covered in a wonton wrapper and then fried. And then the dark red thing is actually a fish cake. After I picked out the three things I wanted, she decided to just throw a fish cake in there for "free". She probably thought I was crazy to get all vegetarian things so she took it upon herself to add something with meat. You can actually kind of see her doing it at the beginning of the video, and Derren saying "don't worry, I'll eat it!"

Oh, and then she drizzled a sweet and sour sauce over it all!

So while we were eating lunch, Derren and I realized that we both have each established our slogan for the trip, and I took pictures to represent our individual catch phrases.

Basically, every single day when we are walking around looking at food, or when Derren is eating his food, he is constantly asking me, "WHAT IS THIS?" You can see in this picture that he held up this spongy looking crap from his lunch and asked me, "what is this?" He seriously rarely has any idea what he is eating or what he is ordering. He just points at things and then ends up picking stuff out of his food that looks suspicious or questionable. And the best part of all of this is that he is asking ME what things are! As if I would have ANY idea whatsoever!!!!

And then for my catch phrase....Mine is pretty simple. Pretty much everytime I eat I end up saying that "this Thai food is burning my face off!!" I have no tolerance for spicy food, and even when I tell them "not spicy", it is STILL spicy! These Thai people don't get white girls like me!!! So you can see in this picture that I am constantly trying to quench the burning in my mouth!

After lunch, we did a little shopping in the mall, and then headed over to the big supermarket that we had found last night to stock up on a few things for our coming days on Phi Phi island, where food will again become expensive. I had to take this picture of Derren - he looks so manly in the supermarket with his little basket, doesn't he?

And here's what we ended up with for less than $12 - we got three fresh mangos, some instant noodle, some premaid lunches (for tomorrow), some rice cakes, dried mango, chips, green curry paste, iced coffee, and three pastries (one for me for right now!, and one for each of us for breakfast tomorrow!):

After our shopping we headed back to the hotel room, where I proceeded to do a second "load" of laundry in our little bathroom. Thanks again mom for convincing me to buy those packets of laundry detergent from Target! One packet was used for a ton of laundry! :)

Then we were just relaxing in our hotel room - Derren watching a movie while I was reading, when we both felt significant shaking. We suspected right away that it was another earthquake, so Derren ran downstairs to the hotel lobby and I searched online for evidence of a nearby earthquake. Our suspicions were immediately confirmed that there had been a 5.3 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra. Again, the people of Thailand were PANICKING!!! We looked out our hotel window and there were tuk-tuks full of people running up toward the mountain, and all of the shop owners were closing their doors! We both put some tennis shoes on and grabbed our passports, and went downstairs to talk with the hotel manager. He suggested we wait and watch the news, and he offered to drive us up the mountain with him if anything was to happen. We waited around for a little while and soon heard police driving up and down the roads announcing that there was NOT a tsunami warning associated with this earthquake. By that time, much of the city had already shut down though - look at these normally bustling streets with open markets - all shut down:

After making sure we were safe to go, we headed out back toward the night market for dinner. I of course was immediately drawn to this chinese dessert stand - (did I mention that I had already eaten two small desserts today?!), and I got the yellow looking one next to the pink one. I ended up eating it after dinner, and it was yummy - kind of like an eggy custard but gelatinous.

We then found our first dinner stop - I ate some rice with vegetables (it's not a very large portion):

And from the same stand, Derren had chicken curry with rice (together it cost 80 baht):

Derren then wanted "meat on a stick", so he got a couple of these pork balls with a sweet and sour sauce (20 baht):

And this was to go with the next part of his dinner - a spicy and sour noodle soup. Here's the stand he got it from (which was VERY busy, so you know it's good!):

And here's what it looked like. I sat there and watching him, and all the other Asian men around him, DRIPPING sweat in the heat while he ate this hot, spicy soup. I don't know how they do it!

And since I had only eaten a small helping of veggies and rice, I clearly wanted to take advantage of our last night in Patong, so I ordered another banana crepe. Here are a few pictures of her making it for me. She starts with just the crepe:

Then comes the nutella:

And then some sliced bananas:

And then she folds it all up nice:

And cuts it up and adds a milky sweet sauce on top. YUM!

Oh, and I did have one more dessert (like the fourth today!). Another bowl of Thai ice cream in a coconut for Derren and I to share.

And you might notice in this last picture that I have another bag hanging on my wrist...another helping of mango sticky rice for tonight when we get back from Bang La road! So much yummy food and dessert today - luckily most of the helpings are small, and we are able to share a lot of things - it gives us the ability to try as many things as possible!

Tonight we will head out to Bang La Road again for our last night. This time we might have more than one beer, and enjoy people watching for a while! Unfortunately we can't stay out as late because we have a shuttle picking us up at 7:15am tomorrow to take us to the other coast of Phuket, where we will catch a ferry to our next destination, Ko Phi Phi Island!

Assuming I have free internet at that Holiday Inn, I will update you tomorrow!

Ashley & Derren