1/21 Riverside River boat dinner

Riverside is one of the more popular restaurants and bars here in Chiang Mai. Right on the River Ping (thus the name – creative!), it is a 3 story open air mecca of good (and surprisingly inexpensive) food, drink and music.  Plus the river boats! For an additional 110b each (or about $3US) you can take a 75 minute river boat ride while eating dinner.  That’s on our agenda tonight!

We grab a Tuk Tuk and arrive a bit earlier than the 7pm requirement – so we have the boat all to ourselves for a while. 

The menu is huge – and we finally settle on Northern Thai food:  A selection of Chiang Mai appetizers (really good with tons of interesting sausages), fried mushroom strips with kafir lime leaves (eh, they grow on you, but not our favorite), Gang Hung Lae (Burmese curry with pork- Excellent!!) and Gang Kae (a Northern Thai curry with assorted vegetables and pork – ok – but more soup like than curry-like). 

 

While we wait to sail, a group of Chinese comes out on the dock with these great little bamboo leaf floating candle holders. They all light their candles and float them into the river after a prayer.  It is the Chinese New Year after all.  I try to capture it on the camera – but that’s not happening.  Oh well – the memory will have to suffice.

The food arrives, we sail off and enjoy a lovely cool evening on the river.  We float by tons and tons of open air restaurants and clubs all up and down the river.  And they are all packed!  It’s a beautiful night – so why not? 

   

We arrive safely back at the dock and head into the bar to listen to the band.  Holy cow – it is PACKED!  There isn’t any room to stand let alone sit. We manage to carve out a little space by the front door, then after a while we head upstairs where we at least fine 2 bar stools. We can still hear the music, so that’s nice. Strange though, downstairs is virtually all Thai and upstairs is virtually all Farang. We hang out for a bit – but the one down side here is that the beer and wine are not quite as inexpensive as the food – so we head back home to have a night cap on our own little balcony from our own stock pile!