Friday 3rd - Tuesday 7th May 2019 - Thailand has a new King and Queen! Hoorah!

Some observations, to begin the post.
Once upon a time, when we were are all younger, the years were designated by BC or AD.
BC stood for Before Christ and AD stood for Anno Domini (Latin for In the Year of Our Lord aka the year that Jesus was born in). We know this as the Gregorian calendar system. Simple.
And no, I am not a Christian  and do not necessarily believe that Jesus of Nazareth was anything other than a Jewish anomaly, but the date system worked for me and many others and, insofar as I know, was never questioned.
Then, in very recent times, I noticed the use of CE (Common Era) to replace AD and BCE (Before Common Era) to replace BC
The two notation systems are numerically equivalent, "2019 CE" corresponds to "2019 AD" and "400 BCE" corresponds to "400 BC".
I'm sure that isn't too difficult to understand.

OK, so, for all intents and purposes CE = AD and BCE = BC. Again, simple to understand and work with.
But no, you are now in Thailand and Thai web pages have different date designations.
Thailand mainly uses the Buddhist calendar which is 543 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar. The year 2019 CE, or AD if you're "old school" like me, is indicated as 2562 BE in Thailand.
Despite adopting ISO 8601, Thai official date is still written in D/M/YYYY formats, such as 30 January 2562 BE (2019 CE) or 30/1/2562.

Does everything have to be made even more complicated than we Westerners have already made it?!
I reckon we are quite good at complicating things, e.g an archaic system of measurement is still used by the nation that first put man on the moon and almost all of the rest of the world uses a sensible, logical, easy to use decimal/metric system, but it seems like the Thai elevate complicated, for some things, to another level, despite the critics believing that they are Buddhist and therefore prefer simplicity over complexity and the shortest way around anything.

All the above stems from me looking at maps and timeline whilst here in Thailand and seeing date numbers that made me ask "¿Qué?"

INTERESTING PRODUCTS

Coffee beans, charcoal, brightening, white and whitening 

are all words that sell, sell, sell cosmetics in Thailand

In fact, anything with white and whitening on it is guaranteed to "fly" off the shelves

This scrub, although it does not contain "white", really got my attention

Our very generous host supplied us with enough ground coffee for our two month stay, 

as well as two quite good dripolators.
The coffee from the dripolators is not as good as percolated or espresso
but is nonetheless reasonably good. 

After we have drunk our daily rounds of coffee we end up with what some very entrepreneurial person has mixed with something or other, sticks in a jar with a fancy label
and sells for 175 baht (AUD7.86). 

We do use some of it, as seen in the dish in the middle, and it is a very good scrub, but it's also good for ....

... and the Lord only knows what else

***

OUR FOOD

Tuna (with an undisclosed hint of mackerel 😉 ... actually, it tastes like a lot of mackerel) and salad 

is always a big favourite with Tiz and I. 

I do wish they sold Sirena brand though.

Pork with Chinese sausage, bean shoots, mushrooms and rice noodle stir fry ....

and a jug of G&T. A good solid and tasty meal.

Yogurt, with a hint of honey (it says so on the label) and a salad of paw paw, jack fruit, watermelon, passionfruit and baby coconut water and flesh is THE best tropical meal when you're hot.

***

THEIR FOOD FOR US

Last Friday night we went to a place called 

Khrua Mit Sai Seafood.

It's right on the beach and we often see loads of tour buses outside in its enormous car park.

If we'd had any common sense we would have realised that this was a bad sign.

I chose this place and am entirely responsible for what happened. 

 We went in and although it seats many hundreds,  my best guess would be ~500-600, 

there were only ~30-40 there.

I have included the map below of where it is and some details just in case you're ever in Cha Am and want to go to place with shit service, shit attitude, shit food, shit beer, shit soda water and no spirits.

This is the bill. 250 baht for the smallest amount of shittiest fish cooked in tomato sauce (ketchup) along with enough onions for the rest of Cha Am, 20 baht each for a small handful of rice served 20 minutes after the main meal and only after we went up to ask when it was coming, 70 baht for beer  and 20 baht for a small soda water both of which were ~35ºC.

So that, in our currency, was $17 for offensively served warm shit. 

Thankfully the next night Tiz chose and this time it was a winner! 

Lucky Seafood Restaurant is right in the fishing village and only ~300m further than the slop house from last night.

A view of the place, which faces the harbour

We sat across the way from this family and noticed they were eating crab, 

which looked and smelt delicious.

The woman on the left ate the majority of the stack and 

waddled away from the table after she had finished!

No the drinks weren't cold here either. The Thais don't always refrigerate their drinks and often just bring a bucket of ice to the table to drop in to your drink.

Sometimes it's OK but generally - Yeah, but nah! 

We were both pretty excited with what we'd chosen for dinner.

Sea bass cooked on charcoal with salt and garlic crust, with two dipping sauces

Crab with curry sauce and fried egg and rice noodles

Prawns in garlic sauce

The aftermath ....

..... and the entire battlefield 

The entire experience was so good even Tiz had a sip of beer to celebrate!

The entire night cost us 1340 baht (AUD 60) 

and we can't wait to come back for another special occasion

On the way home we came across a famous converted VW Kombi which serves up seafood on the foreshore but only on weekends. 

We'll be going there next weekend.

***

COMMUNITY

The group of expats we are friendly with have a "Monday Club" which means they meet up at one of the many bars in Cha Am and have a few drinks. The same group, on every 5th Monday, have a Magical Mystery Monday Tour, which cost 300 baht each.

As the name implies it requires one of the members, and they take it in turns, to find a secret location where they can go and do something a bit different but also have a drink and a meal.

The last one they had they went rafting but this time went to a place at the northern end of

Cha Am. It was actually a place called The Triple Tree Resort, and it was so well hidden that I originally reported it as "yet another abandoned SE Asian development", 

after having walked past it many times. Wrong!

We met at The Cha Cha Bar on Soi Bus Station, where our organiser for the day - Ian in the green shirt - would leads us to the secret venue.

All the shots above are taken on the day at the resort.

Food, drinks, service, resort and company made for a great day.

A thanks to those that organised it and invited us along.

***

RANDOM

You can buy almost anything in the streets of Cha Am.

And, as we were told by an expat that's been in Thailand for 35+ years and is a well connected "man of the world", in fact, in Thailand there isn't anything you can't get. Period.

I believe him.

I've shown this hotel before in a previous post but it's worth showing again to demonstrate how being connected can affect the view your guest have. Look at the next picture for a view from the hotel.

The yellow adorned altar is for the new King. 

It takes pride of place out the front of the hotel 365 days of the year. 

And only 50 metres down the road....

... a foreshore car park, albeit empty at this time of day, and a forest of umbrellas.

The difference between the haves and the have nots is wide here.

A "beater" which may one day classify as a "rat rod"

A good companion to my favourite water truck 😀

This very offical sign tells you what you will pay for 

a Jetski or banana boat ride per person and for how long.

It also give you phone number to call if you find it "not convenient, being Thai for the operators wanting to charge you more.

The cost of having a bit of beach fun for Thais is regulated, but unfortunately still not cheap.

Well, that's it for today folks. 

It's nearly 1:00am as I sign off and the temperature is 30ºC (but it feels like 38ºC) .

Thankfully the aircons in this place can be set to chill if desired.

I think my next post will happen reasonably soon, given our plans for the next week, but in the meantime I hope you'll enjoy this one.

  🇳🇴 Ser deg snart 🇳🇴