More Phi Phi

Written June 22.

We’ve moved again. This time we are in the Pink Adobe. It’s a bungalow and we are back to basics – fan, cold shower, manual flush toilet.

We toured the island yesterday and looked at many rooms and this bungalow. Each room is pretty much the same – a bed, a small bathroom – some without even a sink – a fan and very very sparse in furniture. A couple we visited had a big bed and a small bed and we joked that would be Chris’ bed if we took one of those rooms. Some are slightly bigger, some are slightly smaller, all are on the ground level, some with people above you. Most were about a 5 to 7 minute walk into town. All were about the same price - 8000 to 10000 TB per month while it’s still low season.

We opted for the bungalow for a couple of reasons – all having to do with peace and quiet. It’s free standing, so there is no chance of neighbours banging on the walls. It’s away from the bars, so chances of music and other street noise is greatly reduced. It seemed like every night we spent in town was something different - one night it was a loud frat-style party in the next room (those people promptly got kicked out), but only after ruining a night’s sleep. One night a leaf blower noise randomly started at 1:00 in the morning (heard that even through my ear plugs). One night the dive shop across the street stayed open super late with people yammering outside.

So we’re at the Pink Adobe. It’s actually called Gypsy Bungalow, but I’m calling it the Pink Adobe for obvious reasons – it’s hella pink! Ryan LOHOHOHOHOVES it! Now we just need monkeys hanging from the ceiling and it will be oh so reminiscent of my Santa Fe days!

The one common problem with all of these places is complete and total lack of storage space – not a closet, not a dresser, nada, zilch. Even the expensive places grossly lack storage space. Once we’re committed to our new Pinkness, I’m going to have to settle in and be very creative about organization.

I’m fairly certain that the delightful lady who greeted us at the Pink this morning was a man – something about the facial structure, but the mannerisms and gentleness was all woman. And beautiful.

The Pink is no more than 100 meters from the local mosque and we can hear Allah Hakbar every so often.

We’ve adopted a new cat. His name is Steve. He looks a bit like Kermit so I wanted to name him Junior, but Ryan picked Steve first and it’s sticking. He looks a bit like Kermit only 300 lbs lighter – Steve is not dragging large amounts of pink flab around. Steve, like many of his island brothers is the result of his mommy and daddy being related, so he has a funny tail. In fact there are very few cats on the island that have a straight tail with all the vertebrae. Kermit also has a bit of a kink at the end of his tail, so I’m wondering if he was the result of inbreeding. Steve is probably from many generations of it as his tail is short and completely bent over on itself. I don’t want to touch it – not because I think it’s weird but because I think it must hurt. Doesn’t seem to bug Steve.

Steve likes sour cream and onion potato chips. And I think he's got a thing for chocolate because he meows a lot around chocolate. He has no interest in mango.

We had lunch at the Pad Thai place – so called because that’s all they serve. It’s a little shack near the Thai market and the woman stands in front of a single burner and makes pad thai all day. She’s got four tables under a bamboo shack adjacent to her little kitchen with the single burner and a variety of coolers where she keeps her ingredients. The little dining room has notes posted all over the walls from happy customers praising the pad thai. A note from Chris went so far as to say he’d go down on a lady boy for that pad thai. I assume Chris was a guy mostly because of the vulgarity of his note! Completely sexist, I know.

Some of the street vendor food looks a bit frightening, but the majority of it looks really delicious. We haven’t ventured much into it – other than today’s pad thai. But at the market there are lots of buffet style setups where you can dine cafeteria style. I wouldn’t mind trying it – I’d bet it’s super tasty (and probably super Thai spicy).

I think of Nicole often as we’re walking the streets. We’ll see something particularly health department offensive and I’ll have to mention that Nicole would just be completely besides herself here. You’ll see fish left out for hours or mollusks baking in the sun. And you just have to wonder how more people don’t get sick.

One thing we have been buying a lot from street vendors is fruit – mangos mostly and some pineapple. Both are a real treat and it’s a treat you don’t have to work for – they both come completely peeled and ready to eat.

We’ve found a pasta joint that has really good pasta and really good pizza. As many of you may already know, pizza is about the last thing that I would choose to have for dinner unless it’s super late at night and I’ve got to shove something down my throat before bed and all the Una Masses have closed. I eat it but it's not something I seek out. Here the pizza is REAL ITALIAN pizza – very thin crust with excellent quality tomato sauce and cheese – it is truly a slice of heaven. We’ve also enjoyed a fettuccini with pesto sauce where the fettuccini tastes homemade. It’s nice to have variation from Thai food every so often. I did hit the proverbial wall on Thai food last week and craved a salad and anything that didn’t have chili in it.