October 3, 2009

Up for breakfast in the hotel--by the pool...







...and then walked over to Kamala Beach.






The temps are sweltering: 96 degrees F—with 80% humidity. We are in the middle of monsoon season—not an optimal time to be visiting Thailand. Oh, joy! But…the beaches were beautiful—even on an overcast day. We walked along Kamala Bay—the water is SO NOT California water—ye don’t freeze to death walking in the water!! [I guess that should be corrected to say, "...SO NOT *Northern California* water.] VERRY pleasant walking and talking and taking pictures:

Walked over to various market places, too. Brian got some tailor-made shirts (dress-casual) from one of the MANY vendors there. Seems just about every other vendor was a tailor—on both sides of the street. They make the proliferation of Star Bucks seem sparce. The street vendors are bold but friendly. They come up and ask, “Where are you from?” Sometimes, we answer “America”; most times, we answer, “California”. The times we answer “California”, we always get a response of, “Oh—Welcome to the Hotel California!”

We have discovered that we LOVE Thai food! What the hell took us so long to try it?? Well—Brian had tried it several times before—but Grace, maybe once or twice. Sssspicyyyy! We had dinner at a small place ON the beach—so Brian could take pictures of the sunset over the ocean. As stated earlier—the day had been overcast and storms a-brewing—so not a spectacular sunset—but beautiful just the same. It was a bit gusty with wind…but that just made for interesting “atmosphere”.