Since Safeway isn’t down the street, and we are in a somewhat remote area, we’ve got three options for eating;

1. We can eat out! But as we all know, that gets old after awhile–even when it’s only $2 a plate. 🙂

2. We can have a local woman go to the open market for us in the early morning and buy our food. But then I wondered if we could do it ourselves and save a few dollars from paying someone to do it for us. This brings me to Option 3…

3. We could do it ourselves (thinking we’d save some money).

Why not try, right? The four of us packed ourselves into a longtail boat and headed to the mainland.

Krabi’s open market is the largest in Southern Thailand. There are a couple routes to get there. We decided it would be fun if they kids experienced a public bus ride. After the longtail, we started the LONG bus ride! We had no idea how many stops the driver would make, and that 20 minute distance would end up being a hour long! 🙂

But once we made it to the market, it was an awesome experience for the us and the kids. Instead of going to a grocery store, where every thing is in one place, they experienced finding the fruit section,

the curry section, the chicken section,

the insect and seafood (the kids got a kick out of how the Thai people tie the crabs legs together so they can’t crawl away.),

and when Brian asked them where to find the milk…well, let’s just say we never found that section since Thai people don’t do dairy.

Pascaline found the pastry section and wanted me to get her a treat. I don’t know if I was a bad mom in the moment, but I told her that if she asked the lady how much the treat was, asked if she could have it for less, and then found a price to agree on, she could have the treat. Oooh, Pascaline did NOT like me. She said she didn’t want any thing and walked off. But a few minutes later she said she’d like to try. I was so proud of her because the simple act of getting the woman’s attention was hard for Pascaline. She had to speak up and not be shy. Then Pascaline had to repeat herself a couple times until the lady understood what she was trying to ask. The price seemed fair to Pascaline so she found the exact Thai Baht and made her first purchase. Fireworks didn’t go off, and she didn’t tell me I was an awesome mom for making her do all that, but these are the life experiences I feel convicted to teach the kids.

In the end, we decided to take a Tuk-Tuk back to the pier instead of the public bus. Tuk-Tuk’s are named that because they make a sound that goes “tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk” as they putter around town.

But beware, the drivers tend to live life a little on the wild side. Anyone who has ever been in a Tuk-Tuk has some near-death experience to share. No seatbelts, no doors, all open air. Am I right, fellow Tuk-Tuk riders? 🙂

The kids got a good feel for how completely terrifying and exciting a Tuk-Tuk ride can be.

They were totally relieved to be back to the pier! Brian and I can’t help but laugh when we look at these images of the kids! They don’t hide a single feeling, do they?

Conclusion…

By the time you add up the cost of all four of us traveling to the open market, it’s almost the same price to hire a local woman to do it for us. It takes a local woman 1 hour or less to do all our shopping, and it took us over three hours to find our way to the milk that we never found. And last but not least, when you buy eggs here they put the eggs in a plastic bag.

Did you hear me? A PLASTIC BAG!!

Somehow, Ms. Dame-the sweet woman who buys our groceries, is able to bring all our groceries to us, by bus, then by longtail boat, without breaking a SINGLE egg. Is this possible! Am I missing something? Okay, let’s be real! I break eggs when they are in a cardboard carton as I roll my grocery cart to my car! Are Thai eggs more durable? They must be, right!

I got my eggs at the open market, and when we got home I found that Thai eggs are not more durable.

We also learned the hard way that our chicken wouldn’t keep for more than a day. Ms. Dame taught us this when she came to make our dinner. The monkeys got into our rice, cereal, and ate all our bananas. The eggs…well, you can see what happened to the eggs. The bok choy is one of the only things that made it to the point of consumption.

Yep, you guessed it. Ms. Dame now does ALL our grocery shopping. And we are more thankful for her than EVER!

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