12 nights in Trang

Trang in Southern Thailand, it’s not your typical travel destination and the lure of the nearby island beaches are too much to resist for most who often only stay a night, explore the streets near the train station and head out the next day… But with time on our hands and adventure in our hearts we managed to happily fill a twelve night stay and still didn’t see and do everything on our list.

Here’s how we managed to fill our time:

We walked every inch of the city and have worn out three free tourist maps. This was a great way to see Trang, meet local people and get a bit of exercise too. Plus, we happen to know the person who made the map so took great pleasure in testing out his work which by all accounts was excellent (although Paul did enjoy finding a couple of mistakes!).

Our Favourite Soi (a small street off a big street)

We filled our faces with amazing street food, sometimes at the night market, other times just from people at the side of the road and we’ve eaten our own weight in Khanom Krok and other vegan delights including these oyster mushroom tempura fried in the biggest wok we’ve ever seen!

Mushroom tempura street food being prepared in the night market

We caught up with some of our Thai friends when they were in town. This was a real treat as not only are they really good company, but they also took us on a little tour of the city and surrounding parks. we saw a lovely waterfall and got a taste of the natural beauty of Trang province. They fed us some out of this world food that our extremely limited communication abilities would never have managed to order.

Delicious local mushroom dish

Tofu, broccoli & more mushrooms in garlic sauce…

We made good use of the local sports facilities – Trang has two (yes two!) Olympic sized 50m swimming pools and we became regulars during our short stay as it was only 30THB (60p) to swim. We also saw the local football team Trang FC play Krabi FC (very quiet crowd) as well as watching some indoor football (loud, fast, blaring techno music, screaming teenage fans).

A local football derby always attracts a sell out crowd!?

We clocked up hours of browsing in shops for healthy vegan food. Trang has an abundance of shopping opportunities including shopping malls, old markets, little shops, big supermarkets as well as a really good health food shop. We witnessed a number of political demos which were all related to the Bangkok shutdown ongoing situation which has reached the media worldwide.

Caryl on the hunt for fruit & veg…

Political demo = very noisy but a very friendly atmosphere

We celebrated Chinese New Year with the locals which involved a lot of eating, much posing in front of the lovely decorations and a magic show amongst other entertainment.

Paul with friends…

We have learned to slow down a bit and are getting used to life on the road which involves spending every waking minute together. We have rekindled our love of Backgammon and Paul has rekindled his love of winning every game.

Enjoying Trang on Chinese New Year

Our next destination (the beach) is going to be quite a different experience but as we say a fond farewell to Trang, we know that we’ll definitely be back soon.