Phuket Town and Pad Krapow

After breakfast we called our driver from yesterday only to find he was already taken for the day. This meant another trudge over the hill to the independent taxi stand. Fortunately we found a short cut along the beach which Charlie was most displeased about. She doesn't seem to like the beach much which doesn't look positive for our 5 days in Phi Phi. We aren't to worried though as she has a way of overcoming these kinds of issues pretty quickly. The taxi negotiations were tough and I explained to Tina that the Thai are very proud and busting out laughing when they tell you the price is a bit of a loss of face for them and not the best negotiating tactic. We got a return trip to Phuket Town for 900 Baht which really shows that not laughing at them probably doesn't work any better! Oh well the driver was nice with good English so we were happy enough. He took us to a local restaurant food court and we had an amazing feast srtarting with a bowl of traditional noodle soup and a bowl of Tom Yam noodle soup. I had the Tom Yam and it was deliciously spicy with Hokkien style noodles, prawns and red pork. Normally these aren't my favourite noodles but this meal was wonderful and I quickly polished it off. Tina's meal was similar with a different broth that looked equally tasty. Charlie had noodles with pork and no soup. We also ordered 10 chicken satays that we all loved. The sauce was much sweeter that I am used to and not so peanutty. Next was a serve of something I know as a Malaysian meal Loh Bak which a fried rice paper stuffed with pork, similar to a spring roll. I was still hungry so after a closer look at the menu I found Pad Krapow! Of course I ordered it immediately. It was superb! The basil was definitely Bai Krapow and it also had chopped snake beans which added some extra crunch. It came with a chilli vinegar just to add some extra heat, and of course a lovely fried egg which once again I begrudgingly shared with Charlie. I washed this down (and cooled myself down) with a watermelon smoothie. I enjoyed this immensely, it was so refreshing. I have charged Tina with learning how to make these at home. They are not dairy based so I feel like they are a pretty healthy option. After all that I couldn't resist the black and clear jelly with shaved ice, kidney beans and red cordial. Obviously this has a proper name but I don't know it. Once again it was perfect, with a little help from Tina and Charlie this was soon gone. I had read about the pink paper napkins which are dyed pink as this the the cheapest colour to dye recycled paper and it looks pretty which is very important to the Thai, cheap and pretty. All up the bill was 300 Baht ($10) and included two cokes also. incredibly cheap if you ignore the $30 taxi fare there!