Friday, October 8

Another day on the beach!

In the morning, we headed down to our hotel's huge breakfast buffet, where they had many chafing dishes filled with maybe what Thais have for breakfast (that could be a totally wrong assumption!). 

They offered plain rice, fried rice, bok choy with oyster sauce, snap peas with mushrooms, mixed vegetables, and pork and vegetarian broth. They also had pork steak with gravy, fried potatoes, spaghetti with tomato sauce (!?), sliced ham and chicken “sausages” (hotdogs), fresh fruit and yogurt, dried fruit, a whole array of raw vegetable toppings, two coffee machines, cereal, milk, juice, bread and a toaster, croissants, jam, and butter. And an omelet station.

I got pineapple, papaya, toast with jam, snap peas, ham, and chicken sausage, and a bowl of broth.

Roman ordered an omelet with cheese, which he ate with fried rice, bok choy, pineapple, toast and jam, a pastry and a couple fried potatoes.

After breakfast, we took a songthaew (a truck with a couple bench seats in the back) to Jomtien Beach, which is about a 10 minute ride from Pattaya Beach. 

We rented a couple beach chairs set up under umbrellas, and relaxed in the shade. 

We also watched fearless squirrels leap from one umbrella to the next…

And we watched one take some fruit from a (willing) foreigner and then eat it from the back of her chair…

Roman had brought his camera along, and took some photos of the beach and of me playing in the sand and wading into the water.

The beach was much cleaner than Pattaya, and I spent most of the morning swimming, or doing a crossword under the umbrella, while Roman played his guitar. 

But by mid day, storm clouds were rolling in, so we took a songthaew back to Pattaya to stash the camera and guitar. We picked up lunch at a nearby food court—Roman got stewed pork leg with rice, an egg, pickled mustard greens, and raw garlic and chilies, and I got a corn salad with shrimp, tomatoes, and long beans, and sticky rice. 

After lunch, we headed back to our hotel, where Roman taught his final pre-vacation class and then did some grading, and I sat on our balcony with a Diet Coke and my crossword puzzle book. 

In the afternoon, we went swimming in the pool, but not before we took a moment to admire our very color-coordinated outfits…

Goggles and manicure and swimsuit in shades of teal

Goggles and swimsuit and towel in shades of green

In the evening, we walked along the beach, watching the fishermen casting their lines into the sea from the shallows…

Checking out our shadows against the sand…

And admiring the lovely views…

We stopped at a street cart for bowls of soup (Roman got chicken with rice noodles; I got beef with rice noodles). The soup was served with a ton of different add-in options—sawtooth coriander, basil, bean sprouts, long beans, sliced raw bitter melon, roasted chilies, raw chilies, and crab paste. It reminded us of soups we'd had in Vietnam.

On the way home, I drank a fresh coconut and Roman picked up some doughnuts, and we wandered some little local shopping streets, checking out  some unusual cross-branding…

And then we made our way home for the evening.