We had set sail, and then anchored off the coast of Koh Mak last evening.  Just the memory of watching the sun, and the sunrise, from the deck of a sailboat will be enough to get me back on a sailing vacation sooner rather than later.

Since it was our last night on the boat, some members of our group slept on deck, and slowly and quietly more slipped up on deck to watching the sunrise when it came.

One last time to be fishing at dawn over the side.

Once we were all up and moving, we headed ashore to have breakfast at the restaurant in Makathanee Resort.  Once again, it was open air, with access via a pier off the beach in front of the restaurant.  It also had a very nice coffee machine, and plenty of western options on the breakfast bar – including flower shaped mini-waffles, and real American bacon!  Crispy American-style bacon was a rarity to be indulged whenever it was found.

After finishing breakfast we saw Dmitri returning with some groceries, and he pointed us in the direction of the little market he had visited.  It was a fun little diversion, only walking a short distance down the road to get there.

So we slip off our shoes, and pad onto the concrete slab of the market, barefoot.  Because seriously, ew!  Why would you wear your shoes in a shop with food.  That’s gross!  Your bare feet are so much more hygienic.  I mean, you’ve worn those shoes in a public restroom!  Oh, wait… they kinda have a point there… 

This market was similar to several we went in, and like many things, just takes some getting used to.  It’s not just the usual foreign country issue of not being able to read the packaging of many items, it’s also that I couldn’t identify an intimidating amount of the produce, or the rest of the items for that matter.  The things I could identify were in limited selection and quantity, and all of this was set up in what could have been someone’s shed or garage back home… if said shed/garage was missing a wall.  Metal industrial shelves lined the walls, mismatched metal bins lined up made aisles.  Produce was neatly arranged in plastic baskets on minimalist wooden tables, and the refrigerated items stacked nicely in mismatched glass front coolers along the wall. The ‘check out’ was staffed by the lone employee who meandered over the a beaten up folding table when we came in, and then tallied up our purchases with her basic calculator, simply showing us calculator to communicate the total.

You may think this was because we were on the little island of Koh Mak, but this is actually better stocked and arranged than the market we visited on the larger island of Koh Chang. Markets and 7-11s found in and around Bangkok much more closely resembled our western options, and I’m sure that was true in an area like Phuket which caters to so many more tourists, but I think I enjoyed this better.  If I wanted to go to a U.S. stamp-of-approval grocery store, I could have stayed home.

Picking up our purchases, which I admit, contained more junk food than they should, and some sodas, we headed back down the lane to the family we had left at the breakfast buffet.

*Gasp*  Oh Look!  A vacation home!  Oh, honey, I have an idea… (Seriously, the man has the patience of a saint.)

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For this trip, we sailed on Meridian, an airbnb rental, with our captain, Dmitri.  <<<CLICK HERE>>> to go to the listing for the Meridian.