It was hot and cloudy today. After having a couple days with periods of rain in the evening, the clouds make us a bit hesitant to venture too far from our villa. We finally decided to go for a walk but we did haul around umbrellas just for insurance. We walked around the neighbourhood and inspected a few new construction sites. There is a huge 4 bedroom villa going up behind Lady Naya. Since it’s built on a steep hill there is a lot of excavation and concrete pillars being erected.
Out of sheer boredom we walked to OB.OON for something cold and wet. See the pictures below. Linda had a Passion Fruit Soda and Gary had a Passion Fruit Smoothie.
We also ordered Caesar Salads because it was 11am, time for an early lunch while we were out.
Linda’s Soda was 70฿, Gary’s Smoothie 80฿, Caesar Salads each 89฿, total = 328฿ or $12.45 CAD for lunch.
After the light lunch we walked farther in search of restaurant options for tonight. The rain continued to stay away. We still hung on to the umbrellas! According to the weather radar the main rain clouds were moving from east to west just north of us across the north end of Phuket.
We found a few places to eat, one of them, The Little Bamboo is fairly close, the other one, Kallot’s Restaurant is about twice as far to walk. They both have excellent reviews. The Little Bamboo does not sell alcohol but they do sell inexpensive fruit smoothies. We walked back towards our villa.
Spirit Houses
There is a little doll house sized shrine at the entrance to our Villa complex. These little structures are very common in Thailand where Buddhism is practiced by up to 90% of the people. Thailand has the second largest Buddhist population in the world. These dollhouse size structures are known as “Spirit Houses”. They are miniature temples raised on pillars, they can be simple or heavily decorated, and made of wood, concrete or brick. Apparently these miniature temples are constructed by an expert, and placed in a location where they will never fall in the shadow of the main building. Often, the property owner will call upon a Brahman priest, or sometimes a Buddhist monk, familiar with the rituals to assist. The priest will also perform a formal ceremony to invite the guardian spirits into their dwelling.
Offerings are made daily, in the form of incense, candles, flowers, food and drink. It is possible to see food ranging from pork and rice to heaping plates of fresh fruit and water to sweets or crisps packets, always arranged neatly, often with cutlery and straws provided.
As a matter of fact while we were looking at restaurants in town, one of the ladies we encountered was lighting sticks of incense just outside her restaurant.
When we got back to the villa we hit the pool. Can you believe it was actually cool?
We read for the rest of the afternoon. It was still rain free by 5 pm so we walked to the Little Bamboo Restaurant. We had chicken with vegetables and cashew nuts, fried chicken with holy basil, mango smoothies and soda water. The cost of our meal with tip was 300฿, about $11.40 CAD. Definitely a bargain.
On the way back to the villa we stopped at the little store and bought 8 bottles of soda water, and many bags of local candied peanuts and peanut brittle for snacks. The funniest part was when the store guy said “what, no beer today?”, we laughed and Gary patted his stomach and said he was getting fat. The store owner thought that was pretty funny. In reality, we have enough beer in the fridge, partly because today we didn’t drink any. Must be the cloudy weather.
The pandemic has caused a huge hardship on the Thai economy. We are doing our best to help the local economy by eating at these street corner little hole in the wall restaurants. While the meals we have been eating are a bargain for us, they are also a lifeline for the local restaurant owners and staff.
Just across the street from our villa is this building that used to be a massage parlour. Everyone knows how good a Thai Massage is. There are plenty of places boarded up for lack of customers now. Even the more sketchy massage parlours with ladyboys offering their services are really slow. We know this by walking by a handful of these sleazier places every day. Their attendants (politest word we could think of) are sitting out front fixing their nails or makeup as we walk by. Some say hello, most don’t, at least not to us.
