During the night, there was a torrential downpour and a tremendous thunderstorm that seemed to pass right over the resort. Hence, the power went out again. We don’t know exactly how long it was out but it must’ve been for a while. When the power goes out, the air-con stops… by the time we were uncomfortable enough to wake up, it was hot and stuffy in the bungalow. The up-side was, the power was already back on and we only to had to reset the air-conditioner and wait for the blessed relief.

Eron was still feeling pretty “wounded” today and spent most of the morning and early afternoon in the bungalow’s “cocoon of cool-comfort”. That and the judicious application of cool, moist towels made her feel much better. The rest of the afternoon was spent on the veranda; cool drinks and cigars – the other part of the cure.

By the evening, we were ready to venture forth. We hailed a tuk-tuk and went into Ban Saladan for dinner. First, we picked up a few things at the supermarket… like Aloe Vera gel. Then we headed down to the waterfront. We found a likely restaurant built out over the water on a small pier (as most of the harbour-side restaurants are). This one had quite a few local Thais as patrons so we figured it was worth a try. The food, while reasonably tasty, was again lacking overall in flavour-complexity. In addition, the portions were quite small for the tourist-prices they were charging. So, we left and headed towards the street-market to check out the street-food scene.

I headed straight for the Chicken Donair cart. It was major deja-vu-moment for me; the smells, sights, radiating heat, even the young Muslim woman running the stand… for a few seconds, it felt like I was back at the night-market in Stonetown on Zanzibar. Meanwhile, Eron headed for the Banana-Nutella “Crepe” cart. My chicken donair was delicious. It was packed with veggies and a huge load of chicken, all slathered in some kind of creamy-hot sauce… all for 100 Baht (about $3 USD). Eron said her 40 Baht ($1.30 USD) crepe was a tasty-treat; it was satisfyingly sweet without being cloying. After that little display of gluttony, we definitely needed a tuk-tuk to get us home.

And we certainly found one. It was THE Boom-Box, Disco-Bling-Bling tuk-tuk-machine…

We got the Boom-Box Bling-Machine tuk-tuk.

Check out the amplifier and the speaker array.

It was so much machine, it needed an “auxilliary-driver”…

Driver-in-training?

The photos don’t actually do this machine justice as it featured rows of flashing LED lights along both sides of the canopy, in various nooks and crannies, and underneath… all changing colours sequentially. And yes, those two round red objects in the photo are indeed sub-woofers. They are built into a plexiglas enclosure.

The Boom-Box Disco-Bling-Bling tuk-tuk.

It must’ve been the night for custom tuk-tuks because we rounded the corner from the resorts restaurant to our bungalow and found… Satan’s tuk-tuk… it had a matching flame-motif on both sides, the interior, and the roof.

“El Diablo”