Sea of Love Real Coffee, Tonsai, Thailand

Most mornings and evenings we eat at the Sea of Love Real Coffee house. Its only a few dozen metres down the dirt road from where our cabana is, so its pretty convenient. They serve the same food as every other restaurant around here, and you only stand a 50/50 chance of getting what you order, but at least they laugh about it with you, and actually tried in the first place.

Ozzie and his wife KoKai take care of the place, as well as Ozzie's Batik school next door. And Faa is the cheerful girl, maybe just a teen-ager, who comes over from the restaurant to take over food orders. They are trying to teach us a bit of Thai, mostly words for fruit.

Speaking of fruit, we got some that looked like LongGan at the Krabi market, but they have multiple lobes and seeds inside, and are a bit more sour than LongGan. Apparently they are called LongKong.

Anyhow, I think Ramadan just started, we were sitting around reading, and drinking Mango Lassi when Ozzie and KoKai asked us over to eat dinner with them. Its their main meal because they fast from sun up to sun down. It was great, some fish curries (a bit spicy for Julie), and a kind of rice that was tossed with fried coconut and spices and maybe some kind of fish flavour? Hard to tell.

I'm at the bar right now, drinking a Chiang (Elephant) beer, and listening to our music, they let Julie put her iShuffle into the sound system, and Julie is being given a tour of Ozzie's batik making now, I think. Anyhow, they are laughing about something.

There aren't any schools over hear, so the kids apparently have to go over to the nearest town (a 15 minute boat ride away) to stay with relatives when they are older. It's hard, nobody speaks more than really rudimentary English, so communication is mostly smiles, and spare words, and numbers. When I asked Ozzie, he told me about the schools, but a few days ago his brother showed up with all his nephews, and sister and law, and then left with his four month old baby to take him to his mother. Maybe its too hard to keep their baby here, and still work? Its a resort for us, but its not clear what its like for the people who work here.

I feel like I live in a glass bubble here, I've never been anywhere that so few people spoke English, even Japan and rural Mexico have a few people around who may not be fluent but who you can ask questions of.