(^10) Samut Songkhram – Puk Tian Beach – 78 km
Sadly, we'd to leave our luxury abode and brave the relentless heat
for the ride south. Shortly after departing, a scenic coastal road made
me turn off the highway. Ernest, being the "highwayman," didn't
appreciate this deviation but, all long-lipped, tagged along. So past
marshy areas, salt farms (making one thirsty just looking at it) and
tiny settlements, we rode until reaching the beachy regions along the
Gulf of Thailand.
Finding food was a bigger problem than I envisaged. Being vegetarian
wasn't a concept Thais understood; I needed to figure out how to
explain myself. Vegetables seemed to refer to salad, and I seldom
encountered the usual green salad I'm familiar with. My food of
choice became lightly fried crispy vegetables and noodles, which I
loved. Ernest enjoyed the wide variety of dishes, mainly meat and
seafood, accompanied by the ever-present staple of rice.
At Puk Tian Beach, a bungalow a block away from the beach was
home that night. The beach is dominated by a gigantic statue of one
of the deities in the epic poem Phra Aphai Mani, a 48,700-line poem
from 1822 that took 22 years to write. Once unpacked, we set out on
the hunt to locate food, and as anticipated, Ernest had more success
in this venture than I, and I clearly had a few things to learn.
leana
(Leana)
#1