We slept in and got up late, then packed our things and made our way to the Laughing Gecko down near the next beach. They had a bungalow available for us so we stashed our stuff, changed into our swim suits, and headed down to the beach with our books and some snacks.

We went to the beach near our guest house first. It appeared to be the locals’ beach, and we were the only non-Thais sitting down in the shade of the trees. Just after we settled with our bikes and things, a Thai woman walks right up to us with a digital camera held out. It took me a minute to figure out that she was there to take pictures of US. But it took her a long time, she was standing there for what seemed like several minutes, positioning and repositioning the camera right at us. We continued doing what we were doing, which was applying sunscreen. I looked at her and said, “We look pretty darn funny, eh?” and she only smiled and nodded, probably not knowing what we were saying. Who knows. Finally she took her picture and walked away. I was wondering if they disliked having tourists invade their beach or something, but we didn’t want to be down at the busy beach.

We spent the morning reading our diving course book in the shade and swimming. When we were hungry for lunch, we packed up our stuff and found food, then went to the main tourist beach at Ao Nang and did the same thing there, but without the weird picture incident.

We are successful in this tourist town finding great Thai food! This is Pad Thai.

Red Curry (looks yellow, but don’t believe the color).

And the usual condiments for fixing up your dish, including more than one way to make it even hotter than it already is.

It was a nice, relaxing day. We came back to the Laughing Gecko for dinner. The food was incredibly good and there we spent the entire evening talking with a friendly and interesting German couple.