Donna Day Eleven
Well, the heavens opened today. Warm, heavy rain plastered the streets of Klong Nin as the majestic sea whirled moodily in the background. We were stranded in Rasta Baby where we’d popped in for some breakfast after Joanne’s Muay Thai boxing session. She’s a rum girl is that one: come rain or shine, hangover or dodgy tummy, Joanne never misses her boxing session. She’s a lesson in true grit and I admire her immensely for this. I met Jo at Rasta Baby for breakfast and that’s when the rain and thunder came. I ordered Pad Thai again, because I love it and it never gives me heartburn and Jo ordered quesadilla. When the wind turned a bit ferocious, we were moved to a special table where only the locals sit, which was like sitting inside a tree house. And we watched the rains turn the streets into green muddy rivers and it was wonderful! *see video
Later that day, after we’d showered and rested, Jo had an idea about getting a taxi over to Long Beach just for a bit of a change. It was a great idea and as always, resulted in an adventure!
When our ‘taxi’ arrived, it was clearly a family truck with husband and wife at the front. The rest of the family were evicted, along with a bird cage and a bag of nappies, so that me and Jo could get in.
“We want to go to Long Beach.. the beach … for something to eat,” I hollered at the wife as we hurtled down the street, and, despite several attempts by the husband and wife team to suggest that we got out earlier, we insisted they take us to the beach. Whuch they did, and everything was closed. Now, this is where Thailand has absolutely surpassed expectations for me. The Thai people I have met have been so helpful and organised and generally lovely. In most places, if you insist you want to go the beach, you get dropped off at the beach and the taxi hurtles away. Not these guys. They got out of the truck and looked around for a restaurant for us. When it became obvious there were none they told us to get back in the truck so they could take us back into town.
They dropped us off at a Thai restaurant but because we didn’t want to eat there we carried on walking. This lovely couple then stopped and told us to get back in the truck and they’d take us where we wanted to go. The ‘taxi’ had already been paid for, so they can’t have been doing this to raise the price of the fare. They genuinely seemed puzzled by these two gormless white ladies who hadn’t really got a clue where they were going.
Eventually we got out where the streets were buzzing with colorful little restaurants. Both Joanne and I saw ‘Galaxy’ restaurant at the same time and said, “Yes, that the one!”
It was elevated above the street and adorned in beautiful flowers, lush green plants and colourful fairy lights. Even at the bottom of the steps, we could hear French jazz and croaking frogs competing for attention. It was perfect. And the food was perfect too. I had my first Masaman curry, which was absolutely delicious and Jo had a southern Thai hot and sour tofu curry. Once again, we drank the restaurant dry! The owner had to dash across to the liquor store to get us more wine (we’d only had a glass each!) The French jazz must have affected our sensibilities because me and Jo had a very cultural conversation about the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage and the books we’d read about writing. We then began to discuss haiku and whether we should include them in the blog. Jo said she’d like to write a haiku about pies, which we obviously christened ‘pieku’. Our laughter and general silliness must have attracted the two owners over to our table – a lovely Thai lady and her toy boy from the Netherlands (she was 51 and he was 41). They sat with us and, although they told us all about how they met and their lives in Thailand, we forget to ask their names. But they were utterly delightful company. If you ever find yourself in Long Beach on Koh Lanta, you must go to Galaxy restaurant… it’s just across the road from the 7/11xx
