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Day 107 – Weinachten

Christmas Eve away is always different, and even perhaps a little sad. At times like this, we miss family and we miss the familiar. It's the downside of being away.

This will happen every once in a while.

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Day 106 – Catch

Playing "Monkey in the middle" with our Vietnamese–German–French friends ( who work, where else, in Netherlands): Bernard, Amelie, and Julien.

Mae Rampheung Beach, Tapong, Thailand

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Day 105 – Wat

We road-tripped back country Rayong province today.

Our ride is a sweet little 50cc (could be an 85cc for all I know... small!) scooter with a sidecar. We can put put at about 50kmh with it. So we toured the back country roads around Tapong/Rayong for a bit. We were in search of one of three "agri-tourism centres" in our neighbourhood, but they were closed.

We found this Wat instead. You cannot imagine how hard it was to *not* title this post "Wat's Up Doc?"

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Day 105 – Solstice

Sunsets never get old. This is Mae Ramphung Beach, eight kilometres of warm clean sand. Tide's out, Sun's going down. Shortest day of the year.

Happy Solstice.

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Day 104 – Piers

Seaside warehouses and homes on the waterfront of Ban Phe.

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Day 103 –  Night Market

This is where locals buy food, a typical street stall set up along Sukhumvit Road in Tapong. This is where we often eat.

There is a natural inclination to want to avoid these kinds of places for food. On the surface, our western standards of cleanliness seem foreign here; eggs, cooked, even raw meat seems to lay out all day long. We don't eat from all of these stalls, butthe ones we choose – where they fry up pad or kao thai right in front of you – has been solid for us.

And delicious. Cheap too.

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Food

This is how we food in Thailand.

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Day 102 – Epic Sunset

Our first Epic Sunset (tm) of the trip. Looking south form our balcony towards the Gulf of Thailand.

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Day 101 – Fisherfolk

No matter where you go near the ocean, there will be fisherfolk. This is Ban Phe, Rayong Province, Thailand.

This is also death by seafood.

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Day 101 – One Third

We really ought to have done this on Day 100. Oh well, we're still one third through our trip, what we call Le Grand Voyage. In honour, Elliotte collected 101 shells from Mae Ramphung Beach.

There's a math lesson in here somewhere...

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Day 100 – Pad Thai

This is it... what we've been waiting for 99 days for. Our first pad thai. It's why I find it very very hard to eat in a Thai restaurant back home, and pay 12-15 CAD for the dish.

Here, it's 30 baht. Just over a buck.

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Day 99 – Sunshine

And it's back to the Sunshine; somewhere between Tapong and Ban Phe,  Rayong Province, Thailand. As per our MO, it's lightly touristed by westerners, quiet, and very very Thai.

Life's beachie once again... it's been about two months since the warm weather left us in Greece.

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Day 98 – Seafood

Our last day in Istanbul, so we decided on a final seaside luncheon before our flight to Thailand. We could literally choose the fish we wanted fried up. I chose sea bass.

Kumkapi Market.

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Day 97 – Lineup

In the line to meet Orhan Pamuk, with my own copy of Museum of Innocence to have signed.

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Day 96 – Doner

You call that a doner?  Nah, this... THIS is a doner. Welcome to the national snack food of Turkiye

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Day 95 – Native Son

A poster for Orhan Pamuk and a book signing on Saturday. This is Istiklal Caddesi, the main pedestrian thoroughfare leading from Taksim Square towards Galata.

I first read Pamuk's memoir Istanbul a year after visiting the city for the first time. I hope to meet him at the signing. He is the greatest Turkish novelist to have published, and he was arrested and tried for Insulting Turkishness.

Yes, that was a crime here

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Day 94 – Kilim

Shopping for carpets or kilims are a frustrating experience, and more than once I almost gave up on it. Yeh, we know every trick in the book. It just exhausts you though.

We found (we think) the last honest (we hope) carpet (snakeoil) merchant (pusher) in the Grand Bazaar. 800 Turkish Lira, or about $400 CAD, and we're happy.

We think.

The second one is the one we bought (the first was the fallback option if our first choice didn't bargain down. Starting price, 1200 TL