Hairdressers and Cha Am Night Market

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Geo: 12.8, 99.9667

After breakfast and having a long swim, Mum and I headed down to the hairdressers to get a 'hair detox' which would put moisture back in our hair that was taken out by the chlorine (but I thought every pool was a salt pool so don't ask me). I lay down on the massage-table to get my hair washed and stuff put through it and the lady while very nice wasn't at all gentle; I was then taken to the 'cutting area' of the room I guess you could call it and my hair was wrapped in glad-wrap then a moving hair-dryer was made to circle around my head. Half-an-hour later I was taken by another girl, who was wearing a face-mask to protect herself from ‘germs' which I was a bit offended by, and my hair was rinsed (?) again. The same lady combed my hair while using a hair-dryer to dry and straighten my hair; it was tediously boring because my hair is so thick and long which meant it took three times the time it took mums. With nothing else to do I picked a magazine up from the counter in front of me titled ‘Spicy' in English so I knew I'd be right to read it but, confusingly, I was wrong. The entire magazine was in Thai except the headings which were all and only in English; apart from that the only other things that were in English were American celebrities' names and movie names and ratings. The majority of Thai's speak little or no English so I don't understand who they were marketing the magazine to.

There was a mirror behind me hanging on the wall so, using the reflection from the big mirror in front of me, I could see the back of my hair and I couldn't believe how long it was! After she had finished I was asked if I wanted a few curls in my hair, my back was hurting from the dodgy chair so I said no, but mum was keen so we got the curls in my hair. It turned out that a ‘few curls' actually meant ‘full head of curls' and a larger fee. At the same time mum got a ‘few' curls as well and when we went to pay we were charged 500B more! With no option we paid and went back to the hotel very angry.

Feeling very dressed up, we went outside to take photos with deteriorating concrete animals like we have always done, then quickly ran up to the room to change and go out to the market with Pa and Nana. We were all incredibly impressed with Pa when he happily told Mr Long to pick us up at 8:30, three hours later; but we changed it to 8pm instead. After sitting in the hairdressers chair for two and a half hours I was very sore. Nana's main reason for coming was to walk with mum and me because I find all the bargains but it was very hard with four of us so we stayed in our obvious groups. The market, for some reason, had been extended with huge banners around which were all in Thai; in the new section which went for at least 1km but only with one walkway, were foods and games-mostly hit the balloon with darts. At 6:23, 7 minutes before we were due to meet, we came across Nana and Pa while we were buying my pancakes then followed them into the park to eat. Combined we had pancakes, corn-cobs, kebabs, fried banana, fried chicken, orange juice and something else which I'm not sure of. The park, like the rest of the market was full of beggars, seedy looking people and stay dogs, one of which Pa became good friends with and shared most of his chicken with.

After dinner, with an hour left to shop mum and I were on a mission to cover the rest of the market and buy lots, which we did. It was surprising how many children were walking around alone and how many women were in high heels, which really isn't appropriate for dark rocky damp tracks. I was looking at shorts and went straight to size 42, worried that they wouldn't fit only to be shown size 32(?) which were the second smallest and were loose, I was ecstatic until we went to the next shorts stall and was told to look for L- I swear it's impossible! Many stores had children as young as five helping out by using knives and barbeques and they were all putting 100% in, as cute as it was it's quite scary- It's bad enough me worrying about walking into a barbeque when shopping!

Once we were heading to the awaiting van we passed an animal store and I stopped to take photos of the rabbits sitting on bird cages (as I think I mentioned last week) and we saw the squirrel things that were at the Chatachuk Market in Bangkok, so we spent ages taking photos because they're so hard to describe. In the cage there seemed to be fiveish small, bald ones and one larger (only by 25%!)(MISSING) with hair whom I presume is the mother as she was lying on her side with the smaller ones laying into her stomach. But unless they are born as eggs I don't see how the mother can give birth to them and the kids can't be too old if their still receiving milk.

Back at the hotel mum showed me her side, just under her bra, and there was a line of bites which were also on her stomach and legs and were apparently very itchy. Mum thought it might have been a flea bite. We went for a swim to see if the cold water would help but had no success. She went and asked Nana if she had any cream to use and was given Calamine lotion that they covered her bites in and she went to bed itching still.

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Comments

[Lyn]

Your hair looked lovely - we shoul have taken a photo from the back of the curls