Monday, July 25, 2011

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

Every morning, I have breakfast at a local shop right next to the Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS). The guys know me by now, and all I have to do is wave and they prepare my two 2-egg omelets, two chapatis, and Chai Tea. Chapatis are a tortilla-like flat bread, but more filling. Recently, I have been supplementing this with a mango from my village trip, but I am running out fast.
View from breakfast
Once I have my breakfast, I eat feet from the sand, and watch the boats moving across the small bay. I try to make conversation with those around me, though mostly we just ask how each other are repeatedly. Once I am done, I pay $1.28 and try to avoid hitting my head on the short patio door.

For lunch, I get soup beneath the big tree, but have to make sure I get over there by about 12:30, or else they start running out of hard boiled eggs. The soup guy, who has a "Princess" hat from Sea World, chops up a potato, adds a couple small bread balls, a few skewers of beef liver, the hard boiled egg, small crunchy things, some chopped tomato and onion, and finally the chicken broth. I add a scoop of chili sauce, and enjoy. With my second bowl, I get a chapati, bringing the total to $1.47.
Lunch
For dinner, I snake my way from IMS to Luukmans, my favorite restaurant. Through a combination of taste, filling, selection, and cost, I believe this is the best restaurant I have ever enjoyed. Favorites include beans in coconut sauce, pumpkin soup, fried onion curry, spinach in coconut sauce, vegetable curry, and peas in coconut sauce. Some of these items run out faster than others, so I have to pick and choose. Each dish is so delicious in flavor and so different. I will be bringing the spinach recipe back as it is my favorite.

Sometimes, I hold back at Luukmans, and enjoy a hamburger from a nearby street vendor. Regardless, the total is never more than $2.56. Any change I have left gets spent on a watermelon slice for my walk home.

Throughout the day, I purchase one or two bottles of water ($0.60 cents per 1.5 litre bottle), but do not shy away from drinking the tap water. This brings my total comfortably under $7 per day for food, though I often drink a few beers at sunset while slapping at mosquitos.

Luukmans
Somethings Interesting:
-If I go to sea, I skip the described breakfast and lunch, and choose instead to get 10 chapatis and a few hard boiled eggs. This combination costs $2.60 and keeps me full until dinner, where I normally return to Luukmans.

-The mangos I got in the village, absolutely priceless, though I only paid a quarter. Each one tastes like a Jamba Juice, but better. They taste how a Jamba Juice is supposed to taste. So incredibly juice and tasty and sweet and good.

-I took my first batch of Cipro over the weekend. After a few days and some uncomfortable snorkel sessions, it was time. It was a rogue pineapple I had with dinner last week, and totally worth it.

1 comment:

  1. i know you hate when people try to give you advice, but here goes anyway.... all travel information indicates that you should definitely not drink the tap water. maybe you should avoid it from here on out, since you've already needed to take a cipro, especially since food and water seems so ridiculously cheap.

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