We’re just hanging out. Law and Order marathons in the heat of the day. Outings to Warorot to refill our vegetable and fruit supplies. Downton Abbey and O.J. in the mornings. Experimenting with boiled jackfruit seeds – dried and salted – they taste a little like red skin potatoes and are reputed to have all sorts of medicinal purposes (sounds like the Royal bee jelly in Vietnam – it will cure anything and everything!).
Dinner one night at Bamboo (the restaurant, not the bar) where the girls are so sweet, they greet us like we are long lost customers even though we’ve never been here before! Chicken wings to start, Pad Thai and Fried fish with garlic to share. Excellent!
Roadside for a nightcap (different singer there on Saturday night) and then home.
Dinner Sunday night at O’Malley’s where Ed relives his #2 best burger in the world (which may have risen to #1 since Kangaroo Café in Hanoi didn’t live up to its previous high standard) and I have the roasted pork sandwich which was excellent.
Night cap at the Bamboo bar with Ganh and Patrick, of course.
Monday was Makha Bucha day, a national holiday in honor of the Buddha’s teachings. No alcohol is allowed to be served today, so we stay in the whole day, reading, blogging, watching TV and feasting on pan sautéed chicken and salad for dinner.
Tuesday we revisit Pho Anh for their fabulous, authentic Vietnamese cooking. We start with those awesome spring rolls again, then finish up with yellow noodle soup for Ed and shredded pork and rice for me.
So good – and they are so lovely there – thanking us for coming back before we left (the owner remembered we were leaving). Such kindness and friendliness makes it incredibly hard to leave here.
Wednesday we are cooking in again – this time Dory fish (who knows? We got it at the grocery store). But first we go to Tawan’s for happy 
hour again. Ed gets his 2 for 1 beer and I want the big wine for 69 baht. But that doesn’t start until 6 and it is only 5:30. What the heck, it’s only 99 baht regularly, so I just tell them I’ll have a big glass now anyway. Well, the girl serving us is so cute, she comes back with this huge glass of wine and says “can you drink this fast? I am supposed to leave 3 fingers and I gave you a big glass. Can you drink it so no one will see?” Yes, I can! How sweet.
We wait until 6, I get another glass of wine and we share the cheese plate again. A storm rolls in, but just the wind and lower temps, fortunately no rain, so we walk home in lovely breezy, cool conditions.
Thursday finds us vegging out during the day, then Back to O’Malley’s at night. This time for a Reuben for Ed and Pad Thai for me. Both good – Pad Thai oddly seasoned and a pinkish-red color, but very good tasting. And of the course the carafe of wine isn’t hard to take either!
We end our evening at the Bamboo where Ganh is in an odd mood, staring out at the dwindling Night Market crowds. We give her the red skin peanuts we bought for her (long story, she likes this type of peanut). We enjoy Patrick for a while, then head back to the condo.
Friday, in celebration of my birthday, I walk down to Warorot for a last day of shopping. I pick up some birthday presents for myself and Stephanie (not telling what – since Steph’s BD is in 2 weeks), and a new watch band (original Swiss watch brand – it said so on the tag) for $4.50 US (I swear….installed….and it says it is genuine leather! 
). More fruit (last jack fruit, I’m so sad…) and then, as a little birthday treat, these yummy looking turnovers – 1 coconut, 1 pineapple.
They turn out not to be as yummy as they look. Sort of no taste at all, but they cost 17 cents each, so, how could I resist?
Evening comes and we head for Dash Teak House, hands down our favorite restaurant here. Dash greets us himself (as always) and seats us at a great table in the corner of the garden. We have a birds’ eye view of the restaurant, house and all the comings and goings!
Dinner is fantastic. We share fresh spring rolls, then crispy fried whole fish with garlic and pork belly with roti (again – too good to pass up!). Ed has a locally brewed craft beer from Chiang Mai brewery (where are the pretzels??) and we enjoy the evening.
Dash has asked about dessert (hoping he isn’t spoiling any surprise – no – he’s not!) and we dig into a wonderful brownie with vanilla ice cream (lighting makes the ice cream look like mint – it’s not).
Wonderful! We’re all set and ask for the check. As we are settling up, here comes a bunch of servers, with a mango cheesecake, along with the band singing happy birthday. What? Oh well, the whole restaurant sings, they clap, I blush, and we end up with our second dessert. It was also wonderful! As we are leaving Mom comes up to wish me a happy birthday, we chat, and hug. Then Dash comes up and tells us that Mom obviously missed the memo! Yeah, she did. but it was a wonderful memo to miss…so no worries. An excellent birthday evening for me.
We stroll back to the moat road, fully sated and sugared out, grab a tuk tuk and crash back at Twin Peaks for the rest of the evening.
Saturday finds us back in the condo all day. Dinner is stir fried chicken with noodles. There is enough for an army – so we’ll have a very nice lunch on one of our last days here.
Sunday we actually go out for lunch. We’ve shunned Butter is Better Bakery every time we’ve been here, just because it is so, well, Western. But today, we need lunch and the sandwiches are supposed to be beyond compare. We end up outside, but that is fine, since it is cool today with a great breeze. Ed gets the Reuben, and I opt for the pulled pork BBQ sandwich (hey, if I’m going Western, I’m going Western – or Southern as the case may be).
It’s expensive (really, for Chiang Mai standards, it’s pricey), but it is really really good. The BBQ is totally southern. How do they do it? Don’t know, but it works. And the Reuben is fantastic. Meat, Sauerkraut, dressing….all totally authentic and great. The corned beef is made in-house and is perfect. We’re full!
Afterward, Ed goes home, while I indulge in my last Pedicure/Manicure here. I’ll so miss this. $12 for a mani/pedi. sigh….
Sunday night we make our way back to the River Market. Yeah. Shunned 2 years ago, visited twice this time. It’s great! Location fabulous. Food equally as fabulous. Tonight we revisit the Son-in-law eggs and stuffed chicken wing for apps, but decide to share the Pork Knuckle. Good call! We’re stuffed from the appetizers, and the Pork Knuckle is huge. And awesome. Great sauce (a Burmese curry), perfectly cooked. Wonderful!
After the feast, we walk across the iron bridge road to the Bus Bar. We’ve looked at this place for years, but never made it here. It is a great location, right on the river, now with a “DJ” bus, where music is piped in, and a stage where a band is setting up. We hang out and have a two big Chang beers (wine only by the bottle). Except for the inattentive staff, it’s a great place to hang out for an evening.
Done with our shared beers, we head back home, stopping at a bottle shop to pick up a nice bottle of Australian white for me – only $10US - not bad considering.
Monday – our last day – I’m already tearing up! We have lunch at the Pad Thai place across from the Shangri-La. The prices have gone up in 2 years – oh no! It’s now 40 baht for pad thai, not 35. What ever will we do? LOL. We ask for beer – the owner says Chang? We say yes. Off he goes on his scooter – he has to buy the beer! No way! Yes way! So, we have Pad Thai for virtually nothing – and beer for double that – but still, less than $5 for lunch with beer! Can’t beat it.
Off to Roadside for our last dinner. We are trying to conserve our Baht, because we don’t have much left. We know we have to get more tomorrow to pay for the electricity here (an unexpected expense) but we want to try to make do tonight with what we have left. Fortunately, we know what we want at Roadside, and we can afford it.
We order the fried chicken Ed had last time that was so good, and even though I want that too, we decide to order the pork omelet and share both dishes. Good decision! The chicken is even better than the first time we had it. So crispy and good. And the omelet? Like nothing we have ever had before. It is almost deep fried – actually, I think it is deep fried, and so wonderful – light, crispy, fried, crunchy, tasty. Defies description!
Excellent! We bid farewell to Minoau and her staff and make our way down to Bamboo, where Patrick is singing and Jes Ca (Ganh) is hostessing. She immediately makes me take my hair out of the pony tail (it was SO hot at Roadside) and we dance and sing to Patrick’s tunes. We hang out for about an hour, then sadly (here is where I want to cry) take our leave, promising to be Facebook friends and wishing each other the best of luck. Can we live here? No, probably not. But these are the types of friendships that make us want to try.
Back at the condo, we hang out, “friending” Jes Ca, finishing the blog, and preparing for tomorrow when we will pack and fly for hours and days, really, to get back home after a wonderful trip exploring and experiencing Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand.
