Saturday in Pattaya, Thailand

Daeng and I got up, showered and had breakfast at an eating stand in the market about 300 meter up the street from our hotel. Although the place is small and typical Thai, the food is great. That is probably why the place is always busy.

I had fish and young bamboo in a gravy on rice. Daeng has chicken with vegetables on rice. Can't beat the price, 50 TB ($1.47 USD) for both of us .

The lady that cooks here always smiles at us. We think it is her place and the kids do all the serving and other work.

Note: here the US Dollar has decreased in valve about six percent over the last three months. That changes the price of the meal above from $1.39 to $1.47.

The reason I am telling you the prices of things is to let you know another reason why Thailand is such a great destination for vacation and retirement.

After we ate we went into the market. Daeng bought four CD's with Thai songs to bring back to America. That way she would have some Thai music to listen to at home in California

We also bought two pineapples cut up for 30 TB. That is less than a dollar.

Then we are on to manicure, pedicure and haircuts. I must admit both the manicure and haircut was short.

I'm not talking about the time it took, I'm talking about the length of the hair and nails.

After the gals got done with us we did look pretty good.

As we were walking we also saw a hair weaving operation going on, right on the sidewalk. Girls, if you want long hair, a hair weave was 300 TB. Even with the dollar worth less, that is about $9.00.

It is now almost 2:00 PM. We walked back to our room, showered and watched television until it was time to dress to meet our friend, Rick from California and his girlfriend June.

Rick and I went to a meeting with some English speaking folks at the Skaw Soi off Second Road. The girls went shopping for a while, returning to meet us about an hour later.

We had a Special Thai meal. The girls had stopped by the restaurant while we were in the meeting and picked out the huge crab they were going to share. It was live in a water tank.

The girls really got into eating the crab in a coconut sauce. I liked the sauce on the rice. Rick and I has some spring rolls, cashew nuts, vegetables and chicken with rice.

It was a great meal together.

We walked down to the road to Jomtien Beach together and said good-bye for now. They took a Baht Bus home and we walked to our hotel. We will see them again on Monday.