The red fruit was no longer a mystery...

Thursday, March 03, 2011
Ko Phayam, Ranong, Thailand
We woke up at 7:30am which meant we had only had around three hours sleep. We sleepily packed up our stuff as there was no way we would be able to sleep anymore as our bungalow was like a sauna. James was no where in sight so we went to 'Blue Sky Resort' for breakfast. I was still feeling a bit sick and had stomach cramps, so I assumed it was food poisoning off the Pad Thai as my body expelled every last bit of it last night. I ordered a fruit salad to see if I could manage to eat anything, but I was served a cheese salad instead. The waiter was totally confused so I had to explain again that I wanted fruit, like watermelon and pineapple. So that is exactly what I got, a plate of watermelon and pineapple! I managed to eat a bit but then had to run to the toilet, so it looked like I wouldn't be eating anything for the rest of the day. I will never be able to eat a Pad Thai again in my life. We saw James' girlfriend and explained we were leaving so she clearly had to go and drag him out of bed, as he looked a little worse for wear when he appeared at the desk. We didn't realise at first but there were numerous people sleeping around the place, staggering out of every corner as they woke up. 
 
As soon as we arrived at our new bungalow I felt so much happier . It had a huge mattress and an en-suite, open-air bathroom with a flush toilet, quite a luxury on such an island! Andrew, embarrassingly, managed to beep the horn on the moped all the way down the dirt track to the bungalow, but it was actually my backpack that was pressing against it. We just sat and chilled for most of the day on an axe bed on our huge veranda, so that I was in close proximity to a toilet! I started feeling a bit better so we headed into the village to eat at our favourite place. Andrew finally sampled a 'Multi Kulti' sandwich whilst I tried my hand at fruit salad, again. However, this time it didn't want to hang around in my stomach! The Dutch couple from 'Sabai Sabai' joined us, but we had to leave as I was generally struggling. I had to just drink water for the rest of the day. 
 
Once we were back at 'Tang Tong' we got talking to the couple who had recommended the bungalows to us, Toby and Julie, whilst sitting in one of the bamboo beach huts watching the sunset. Toby commented on how he had come to realise why cashew nuts were quite expensive to buy. We knew the island had cashew plantations, but we hadn't really seen anything yet. Toby explained all, as it were, and we discovered that the red fruit we kept seeing everywhere was from the cashew tree and that each fruit had a single cashew nut growing on it. The fruit needed to be picked or collected off the ground before the nut was removed from each individual fruit. Finally, the nut had to be dried out before being removed from the hard outer shell. All in all a fair bit of work is involved in the farming process!
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