2003 - Koh Sa Mui, Thailand
27 July 2003 - 01 August 2003

Tesco Lotus
While on the main road headed from Bophut towards Chaweng during one of our excursions, Paul noticed a lot of locals (and a few tourists like ourselves) stopping off in front of parking lot (picture below) leading to a huge building with a rather large, bright sign with the words "Tesco Lotus" imprinted on it. Being the curious tourists that we were, we just had to stop by to see what the fuss was all about.

Unbeknownst to us, Tesco Lotus turned out to be the largest department store on the island. (No jokes.) Among countless other amenities including a bank, sticky-picture photo shop, pharmacy, internet cafe, coffee shop, camera store and more, this air-conditioned superstore had its own food court (the area was one of the cleanest we'd come across and the food there was both good and inexpensive). Paul purchased a bowl of seafood and beef noodle soup (pictured below) for only a few US cents.

After a quick bite to eat, we decided to walk around the store to see what else it offered and came across a large crowd of locals buzzing around one of the fruit stands in the department store's grocery section. Upon closer inspection, Paul noticed that the source of the crowd's focus were little, round, crimson, egg-shaped fruit with soft, green spikes sprouting from their bodies (picture below). The popular, little egg-shaped fruit were on sale for 5 Baht, and at that price, Paul was soon jumping in the midsts of the scrambling locals, trying to pick out as many decent-looking fruit he could lay his hands on.

The ruby-red mystery fruit shrouded in green-tipped hairs turned out to be none other than Rambutan (or "Ngo" in Thai). This fruit is one of the most attractive Thai fruits and also one of the most delicious when eaten at the peak of ripeness between May and September when it is most plentiful (and cheap) while in season. To eat, one simply needs to peel back the Rambutan's red skin to reveal its sweet and juicy inner fruit, which is pale-white in colour and surrounds a large seed. Thai rambutans are noted for their sweetness and considerable quantities are exported both fresh and canned; the main growing areas are Chanthaburi and southern provinces such as Surat Thani (the province in which Koh Sa Mui is a part of).

After our discovery of Tesco Lotus, we returned to visit the super store quite often for the remainder of our stay on Koh Sa Mui. During one of our excursions to the store one night, we encountered a sudden rainfall, which forced us to run for cover. We found shelter under the doorway of a local 7-11 store and took pictures of our poor Honda scooter rental (pictured below with its seat covered by our yellow, plastic poncho).

The rain passed after a few minutes, but we returned to the exact, same 7-11 store the next morning to re-inact our experiences (now dry instead of rain-drenched) from the night before. It seemed like the medium-sized brown dog that we found lying outside of the 7-11 that rainy night was still lying there the very next day and had not moved from its spot from when we left it the night before.

To view a bigger version of the pictures below, simply click on the thumbnail.








| Back | Back To Map |