Visit to SriRacha at the home of our friends Michael and Elizabeth

For a fun weekend, Devin, David and I headed to SriRacha after school on Friday 18th January.  We have friends that live there that work at my school, Michael and Elizabeth.  We stayed the night at their house and saw the sights of SriRacha.  It's a small, mostly Thai town of about 100,000 or so.  What it lacks in "over the top tourism" it makes up for with old world charm.  (Sorry, I've just always wanted to write a sentence like that.)  It's not much of a tourist town, which means there aren't many farang around.  That's a nice thing, really.  Their house is beautifully decorated (Elizabeth teachers Art at our school) and has a great view of the ocean and the local clam beds.  Not quite the same as a view of white sand beaches from the patio, but the view was far prettier than I expected.

We had a nice dinner at a local restaurant.  The sweet red curry that Devin likes was really good, if a bit spicy.  After David went to bed Elizabeth and I played a Thai version of dominoes with triangular pieces.  This is where I'd like to say that my immense skills playing dominoes induced awe in Elizabeth.  Instead, I was the one left awe-struck at her skill.  She left me in the dust.  But it was fun.  We hit the sack.  With what we had planned Saturday, we'd need all the rest we could get.  Well, not really, but again, it sounds good.

Saturday we caught a baht bus to "downtown" SriRacha and walked the pier.  Some cool sights along the way included local fisherman coming in with some catch and a shark pen with a guy inside fixing the net.  There's also a temple on the island/pier.  All pretty cool.  After that we caught a tuktuk (yes, I actually fit in the back of it...wish I'd have gotten a picture) to a local market and wandered around a bit.  It was great being the only farang group in the whole building.  I got to practice my Thai in order to get us to the right place.  Kind of fun, really.  We found a lunch spot and had an amazing lunch.  We fed four adults and David for just over $10, and we were absolutely stuffed.  You gotta love good, inexpensive Thai food.  Then it was off to the park for David to play a bit.  SriRacha has a really nice park area for kids.  Back to the house to cool down a bit and off to Pattaya and back home.  Good people and good times.

Here are some pictures.  As usual, click on the image to see a larger version.