Life's a Beach: Part 2

Completely beat and burned -- but happy.  That's how I felt after a full day on Hua Hin beach.  Part 1 covered our arrival to Hua Hin and the following day.  Now it's on to a little beach night life.  

Before it hit nighttime, we enjoyed a nice dinner at this little outside restaurant on a cliff of the beach.  You looked out at the ocean while you ate.  The three of us all got fruit smoothies, which were absolutely amazing. 

Just before sitting down, we passed a woman with an amazingly cute little puppy.  It must have only been 6 weeks old.  It was just so small.  I don't even know what kind of dog, but I couldn't resist taking a video.  

The night was highly entertaining.  There are bars, cafes, massage parlors and restaurants one right after the other.  They go on endlessly.  They all had 3 or more Thai people (usually women) outside smiling and saying "Welcome" as you walk by.  The humor we found in this was the fact that we hadn't even entered their establishment, so "Welcome" was really not the right word.  But that is what every single one of them -- one for one -- would say as we walked by.  We just smiled and nodded.

Amanda told us there was a foot spa around where little fish eat the dead skin off your feet.  I had been hearing about this for weeks so we were determined to find the spot.  And of course we did. 

These are the little buggers.  The lighting in this particular picture makes it look like something out of the movie Aliens. 

Tyler Capp and I decided to give it a go.  Amanda had done it before in Cambodia.  You stick both feet in and they swarm you, nibbling away like you were dinner.  At first, its an intense tickling sensation.  You look down and there are fish sucking away at your feet.  It takes some getting use to.  We did it for 15 minutes.  

This video pretty clearly demonstrates what we were going through the first few minutes -- haha!

Again, highly entertaining.  But that's just the tip of the iceberg.  Tyler had been talking about me and Amanda eating our first bug.  He had done it before so he was insisting we do it that night.  And lo, we happened to stumble upon a delectable fried bug cart.  They had crickets, water locusts and a few different others.  

Yummy.  Bug photos courtesy of Tyler Capp. 

As you can see, some of them were HUGE, so we left it at crickets for our first go.  It was a momentous occasion so we of course had to capture it frame by frame.  The three of us have seen this video over and over again and laugh every time.  The contrast between our faces is priceless. 

At the end there I say "Aloy mak mak" which means "Very good taste."  

The taste wasn't actually that bad.  Amanda's reaction is more towards the fact that she has just ingested a once-living, creepy, crawly insect.  An hour or so later, while playing pool in a bar, we had the opportunity to eat another small bug.  It was some form of larvae.  And it wasn't half bad , though I don't think I'll be making them a regular snack.

We polished the night off with more pool -- a lot more actually.  I was totally on that night.  I must have played 10 or 15 games.  When the waters flowin', don't bring the beavers.  That's what I say. 

We ate a nice breakfast near the water the following morning.  It was another pretty day so we couldn't resist taking more photos.  I'll leave you with a few of them...

Thanks for reading!  See ya next week!