It’s me, I’m the crazy lady…
First of all, I slept so bad. I woke up in immense pain from my bug bites and was scratching them in my sleep. They are red and swollen and hot to the touch. Is this what all my bug bites are going to be moving forward? I had one single mosquito bite early July that made my entire right hand swell to double the size, and my right foot has FOUR bites! I take one of Joe’s allergy pills, and apply his steroid cream, as it says it will help relieve itchiness, reduce swelling, etc…
The girls have math and English today, and we’re done by 10.30am. We get ready and Crazy Lady wants to WALK to the mall. We have something we need to mail out, and apparently only Bluport has a post office, but luckily that’s the closest mall that only takes 30 minutes to walk to. One of these days, I’ll walk the extra 15 minutes and make it all the way to Market Village, mark my words!
I froze three bottles overnight, Téa’s water bottle is plastic, so it freezes beautifully (just make sure to freeze your bottles either without a cap, or with the cap just loosely screwed on, otherwise your bottle will warp). We also had two plastic water bottles from yesterday’s restaurant dinner, so we reuse those. I fill them part way and lay them at an angle so that when I fill the ice bottle with fresh water, it goes the length of the bottle, and not just a top warm, bottom solid type water experience. I maaaaaayyyyyy be overthinking my frozen water bottles. But at least my family will stay hydrated and cooler during our walk today!
No snakes and no wallets missing during today’s walk, and the warm 30 minutes are soon over. When we get to the mall, the AC feels so refreshing, and we are ready for a snack! We don’t pick one from here though…
The girls and I find a little snack bar downstairs while Joe heads to the post office.
“Local food” ends up being a type of pumpkin, I don’t know how they cooked it, but it’s sweet and delicious. It’s almost as if the pumpkin has a skin of sorts, almost like it has been candied, but it’s not overly sweet. The soup it’s floating in reminds me of the salted coconut cream that comes with every order of mango sticky rice. I loved it, but still managed to save some for Joe when he’s done at the post office.
When Joe joins us, our first stop is the pharmacy. The pharmacist recommends antihistamines and a steroid cream, which is what we’ve already been doing, so I buy her versions so that I don’t deplete Joe’s favourites. All done at Bluport, we decide to lunch at Market Village. The tuktuk bus has lots of tourists who are heading for Bluport, so it’s full when it gets there, but empties enough for us to get seats inside. A few minutes later, we arrive at Market Village and head to the vendor food court.
Today, we dine in the prepaid cash card section, because we have wallets with us, so we can! Joe guards our table and tells me he wants “something with rice”. I head to a seafood stall and buy him something seafoody over rice. We get a buzzer for when it’s ready, and head to buy the girls something. Téa takes me outside of the prepaid area and shows me what she wants, cheese balls, chicken pop balls and French fries. I order, pay and am told to come back in 10 minutes. That gives me just enough time to browse and decide on a pan fried noodle with beef for myself. “How spicy do you want it” the lady asks, and take it from me. Never say more than mild! I said mild to medium. I was about to learn NEVER to say that again…
Once we’re all seated, the girls dig into their fried foods, and Joe and I eat our tastier dishes. Joe’s is delicious, but mild, and mine has so much more flavour than his. SO much more chili, too! So we swap back and forth, so he can have more flavour and I can put out the fire in my mouth.
While I was in line for my spicy noodles, I noticed the lady lined up at the stall to my right had a bright pink noodle soup. I had to look a bit closer, and then I had to look it up on my phone. The only bright pink soup I’ve ever seen before is borscht, which this is NOT. Yen Ta Fo is a Thai specialty, the flavour explained as sweet, sour, spicy and funky in flavour. I may have to try it some day!
After lunch, Joe took the girls up to the entertainment area, where Maylin gets to carry the play card so the girls can play together. (She might be more than a tad proud to get to carry this card.) I get some time to browse the swimwear shops for a new bathing suit. I can’t stand shopping. I really cannot stand it. I don’t like it when I have one girl in either arm pulling me in their own directions, but I also don’t like it if I’m alone and have time to try things on. Ugh, how will I ever find a replacement swimsuit? So I keep on wearing out the one I already have.
After a very stressful non-shopping shopping trip, I am ready for a snack, and the girls and I head to Swenson’s, an ice cream chain we’ve been seeing in all the malls, but not yet tried. Joe has a couple of things to pick up at the grocery store he compared to a Walmart, so the girls and I get seated and place our orders. The girls care more for cute plastic toys than actual ice cream, so they order a scoop of ice cream in a toy novelty cup each.
After ice cream, we’re all done at the mall, and head outside for our ride to pick us up. It’s so easy on the Grab app, just tell them where you are, where you want to go, and they quote you a price and tell you how many minutes away your driver is! So we hop into the car when it arrives, and within minutes, we are back at the AirBnb. It’s a smidge more than the tuktuk bus (like 20THB difference, not even $1CA), but it’s airconditioned and we don’t have to stand in the sun waiting for a tuktuk bus that will arrive eventually.
Once home, we quickly change into swimsuits and head down to the pool. We swim for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and then it’s time for a shower. Joe and Téa are heading out to buy dinner tonight, so Maylin and I change into PJs and play some games.
Joe wants to eat what the locals eat and pay what the locals pay. He goes to the makeshift restaurant at the side of the road (there are no walls, no solid ceiling, just tent poles and tarp). The menu is all in Thai, and he has no idea what he’s ordering. He (thinks he) gets one order of pork and one order of vegetables. Both come with rice. He goes to pay, asks how much, and the lady holds up 4 fingers. Joe grabs 400 Bhat out of his wallet, and she looks at him as if he has grown a second head. Each dish is 40 Bhat, the bill comes to 80 Bhat in total. That’s $3.48CA.
Once dinner is literally in the bag, he heads up the road to the Bowling Mango store for some mango sticky rice. We really do love the mango sticky rice vendor at the market, and are having trouble finding anywhere else that compares. Bowling Mango served up an entire mango, which is generous, but their rice portion was abysmal. Maybe 1/4 cup? Lots of sauce. 1/4 of sticky rice does not really stand up to an entire mango in a dish that we’ve gotten used to more of a 50/50 ratio. But the mango is ripe and delicious, and they have the cruncy grains on top of the rice, with the market vendor does not. I think it would be very hard to screw up mango sticky rice, and I know I’m just nit-picking…
The girls play video games while Joe and I blog and work. Then it’s time for Crazy Lady to put her herd to bed.. Tomorrow is another day!