What Is That? - Day 9

What Is That? - Day 9

Our second weekend in Thailand had begun, and we had a plan sorted. A chill in the morning and afternoon before hitting the much hyped Phuket Town Night Market early evening. We felt good on the Saturday morning, no aches and pains from the Muay Thai session of the night before which to me proves that we need to stick to just 1 big session a day. The idea of doing MMA in the morning and Muay Thai in the evening seemed a good one, but realistically, it just isn't possible. 4 and a half hours of extreme training, in this heat just isn't going to react well with my body. So from now on I think I'm going to stick to just Muay Thai; maybe thinking of hitting a few MMA classes when we get back to England, and maybe with 1 or 2 more while we're in Thailand.

After a lovely afternoon of burn avoidance, or sun tanning as it was formally known we went back to the room and got ready to head off to the night market. Fortunately, the market isn't located too far away from our apartment, not walkable, but to be honest, nothing really is. However, it only took around 10-15 minutes to get to the outskirts of Phuket Town and the beginning of the market.

The market itself was an interesting place. Think Camden, but much more confined and about 3 times as large and you'll begin to get an appreciation for what it was like. Rows upon rows of stalls offering a huge range of goods, from knock-off sunglasses, perfume and handbags to cocktails, to 6ft scale replicas of the Terminator and one of those scary looking things from the film Alien. You could literally buy anything, including, much to our dislike, dogs. These poor, cute puppies locked up in small cages for Thai people to gawp at and potentially buy, before ultimately letting them roam the streets looking for food. They had some of the cutest dogs I had ever seen, there were a few Pugs, a few Maltese and various other fluffy monsters which I'd have loved to have purchased and brought home with us!

Another interesting part of the Animal section of the market, was the, what appeared to be, heavily sedated ferret's which you could pay 100thb to have you photo taken with. Not something that really interested me personally, but the Thai children seemed to be enjoying it. Also, if you're in the market for an Albino Hedgehog, then Phuket Town night  market is the place to go!

After scouring the stalls we began to work up an appetite and so headed to the heavily talked-up food section. Here we saw even more interesting Thai delicacies, that made our cuisine on our Bangkok Airways flight look Michelin star. Whole fried/grilled Octopus and Squid, fried frog with rice, chicken feet, and whole fish with the head still in-tact. In fear of sounding like Karl Pilkington, a lot of the food actually looked, and smelt fantastic. The sheer mix of smells was a real attack on the senses, and built my appetite further. All I'd eaten at the market by this point was a 'chicken sausage' which was basically a small hot dog, which set me back a massive 12thb and the oreo from the top of my oreo milkshake. 

Eventually we found somewhere that looked good to eat. This was more of a restaurant than a market stall, with tables and table service. I went with my standard favourite Thai dish, Pad Thai chicken, and Nicola had fried rice with Chicken. Our guest for the evening, Jenevieve, was slightly less adventurous, and just had a can of coke, no food, apparently the smells made her queezy, a real adventurer! The whole meal set us back 120thb, and it was absolutely delicious. It was the best Pad Thai I'd had thus far on holiday, probably because I got a big pot of ground peanuts, my favourite bit of the meal, so I could chuck on as much as I liked. 

Once our food was knocked back we decided it was time to set off back to the hotel. After Nicola forcefully negotiated a price for the Tuk Tuk ride home, settling on a price of 300thb, we were on our way. To finish the night off, we decided to pop to a bar only 100m or so from our hotel, which happened to have a live acoustic singer on. A few drinks, some freshly cooked salted peanuts and a good sing-a-long later we'd had a very pleasant evening, and decided we'd do something very similar next Saturday. I could get into this living in Thailand business, just a shame it's back to the rigors of training tomorrow!

Our new pet snake!

Buy your tortoises here!

The market, it's not raining, just a dirty lens

Nicola looking nervous in the back of a tuk-tuk

Fried Octopus anyone?

If not, a whole chicken?

Nicola, Dan and our adventurous friend Jen

Fancy a hedgehog?

or an Albino one?

Bunnies

Tasty looking whole fish

Another house pet, Freddo

Lucky for him he's not for sale here!