Sight seeing
06 May 2014 | Yacht Haven Marina
Early morning coolness.
Yesterday, we rented another car and took off for town. This time with Tracy in the back seat. She just can't handle seeing up close and personal all the cars passing us so close that you can see the blemishes in their paint. One zipped past us as we made our way south on the main road with seemingly not a care in the world. Made all of us jump when he did it.
We've made arrangements for all of us to take a Thai cooking class later this week out on a island just off Phuket. Lasts most of the day and starts with all of us going through one of the local fresh food markets downtown.
But yesterday, we played tourists heading downtown to see what we could see of the oldest sections of town. It's much like the China town of Singapore as far a architecture goes. Lots of two story buildings, some in good shape and some not. Szonic did some web searching and found the oldest herb store on the island and we found it with no problems. Lots of things of which I had no clue but a helpful clerk that took care of us. We slowly walked along the streets looking in at lots of store and checking the menus of the restaurants as it was coming up on lunch. We found one that satisfied everyones desires and had a very nice lunch.
We walked over to the post office to get stamps and found that while the main desks for taking in mail were open, the room that sells stamps was closed as everyone was out to lunch. Say what?
We climbed back in the car and took off for the cooking school as we needed to get clarification on what we were doing and the person on the phone spoke little English but a bunch of Thai. Szonic, being the chef in the group went in and got all the particulars. Most times, they pick you up at your hotel but since we are at a marina and way out of town, I'll be driving and we wanted to see where we needed to go eight o'clock in the morning. Once we had that clarified, we took off again for a different post office. When we went in, I was number 99 and they were serving 11. I had some time to kill, Matt and Szonic took off to do a bit more exploring. After waiting a while, I got up and asked a person that looked like they spoke English if this was were you get stamps. He had no clue but pointed me in the direction of a man that might. Guess what, I'd been waiting all for nothing. They don't sell stamps at the counters that are marked "One Stop Shopping". Oh no, they sell stamps in where everyone is getting their packages packed. The Thai Post Offices will pack your good for you, even supplying the boxes. He had some stamps but had to get more. They make one set of stamps for international with pretty pictures of the islands around Phuket and the stamps for in country are portraits of the King. That's it--nothing else to choose from. Not like it is in the US where you can get stamps for every occasion know to the country. We got our stamps and headed back for the Marina getting back about five thirty. Matt and Szonic took off for the pool up the hill and Tracy and I settled in and relaxed. When our swimmers returned, they promptly crashed and that was the last we saw of them for the night. You can't burn the candle at ends without it catching up with you.
Today, we are off for a local market that's only open from four o'clock to ten o'clock. Not sure about the rest of the day but I'm sure we will find something to keep ourselves busy.