There's a night market here three days a week with food, clothes, toys, soap sculptures and more. If you ever wondered: what is the dinosaur-shaped chicken nugget equivalent in SEA? We have your answer: shrimp and crab on a stick which we're pretty sure there's no differentiation of shrimp vs crab here, it's all imitation factory shaped something. 

Funny enough, we met the man and his kids in the foreground the next day! He's German, just like almost everyone else who's visiting here. So many Germans and Scandinavians! Businesses have signs promoting that they speak German. Restaurants have German translations on their menus. There must be some good Khao Lak advertising going on over there. FYI for clarification - Khao Lak is the overall 19 mile stretch of beach and we're in town of Bang Niang in Khao Lak. 

Apparently we're the old heads here because we're up and looking for breakfast at 830am and no one opens until 10... Ever had hot noodle soup for breakfast in 90degree heat? It was delicious but not exactly what we were aiming for. We met an Englishman named Ben over our hot soup breakfast who's on a similar journey as ourselves. The night before, Ryan was trying to access Netflix and it wouldn't work because Netlfix was open to many other countries. We were talking about cancelling it but in the morning, literally 8 hours later,Netflix  opened services up to all, woohoo! Turns out Ben did the exact same thing that night and but actually cancelled his membership! So funny. We love this noodle shop, it's the cheapest deal in town, so good and the lady is so sweet. 

Our hostel owner is Kok, and he's a P.I.M.P. Ok, not really, but he's a smart businessman for sure. He's from Bangkok but moved here for his wife and now owns our hostel, a painting/roofing supply company, a motorbike rental company, a night club and is building a yoga retreat. He came to the US in his early 20's and worked in a national park in Nevada. He must have learned how the white man spends his money and is putting that knowledge to good use here. The other night he was waiting for us to go out to dinner and drove us to a neighboring town with their night market, which happens to be right beside his nightclub Build Factory where he treated us to drinks. It's a slick modern club for sure who's bathroom sinks have a little too much water pressure which I and my clothes learned first hand. He's made arrangements for us all over the place and it's been really helpful. 

Are you for scuba?? Getting scuba certified was one of my goals for this trip and Bang Niang is known for diving so no time like the present! Ryan's scuba certified from his years stationed in Okinawa, Japan but since that was 11 years ago, he's taking the course again with me. We just got out of 4 hours of video instruction and I have a headache but I'm pumped! Pool training on Monday with four dives Tuesday and Wednesday and we'll be set "for scuba" forever. Unda da sea! 

More Little Mermaid references to follow.