After our lovely Mekong River excursion, we return to the hotel to while away the afternoon, then get ready for dinner. We are, as always intrigued with translations and naming of items in SE Asia. On this leg of the trip, it is the bathroom items we find the most amusing.
We guess that there is also “local soap” available here? And the toilet paper just keeps us laughing every time we walk in and see it perched on the shelf.
Somehow “sticky soft” isn’t exactly what you’d think of when describing the best attributes of a toilet tissue. But, there you have it in living color!
After our humorous bathroom ablutions, we wander out along the river in search of a place to watch the sunset. It is still early, so we don’t want to just hang out in the little park area across from the hotel – as a few others are already doing – so we continue down the walk and decide to stop at the Bakery cafe which has a lovely patio area overlooking the river. We’d noticed this place on our walk today, and it has a really good food menu (not just bakery items, which they also have on display in a glass case by the steps) which we thought might work for dinner one night. Tonight though is only drinks and we sip our beer and wine as we watch the sun drop over the mountains and reflect on the Mekong.
Later that evening, we walk to the other side of town – out of the “historic” area to a Barbeque restaurant I had read about. The walk takes us past the Bamboo bridge (more on this later) and on into the pitch darkness along the banks of the Nam Kahn river and the back side of Mount Phousi. We thought the Pak Ou caves were dark, but this is just as pitch black, and just a little nerve wracking as we picked our way along the sidewalk, trying to avoid stumbling over the rough cobblestone pavement and walkers passing us in the other direction. Add to that headlights blinding us occasionally, well, it was an adventure to be sure.
We successfully navigated the obstacles to our destination: The Brotherhouse BBQ restaurant.
This place gets rave reviews for its traditional BBQ and its very affordable price. A standard BBQ dinner, which is easily shared is only 40,000 Kip (or about $4.80 USD). How can that be? We don’t know, but it definitely was the price!
We walked up the stairs and into an enchanting little multi-level patio surrounded by a log fence and filled with trees and foliage. Charming!
The BBQ is a DIY meal (as the menu says “For BBQ enjoy cooking by yourself”) that comes with a plate of mixed meat, or a combo of meat and seafood. Plus a huge organic seasonal vegetables, noodles, enoki mushrooms, tofu and eggs. For less than $5. We actually splurged and ordered the meat and seafood mixture, which pushed our price up to $5.40, spendthrifts that we are! That extra .60 cents was so worth it for the squid and shrimp that came along with the chicken, pork and duck. The waiters were great, showing us how to use the little hibachi style BBQ grill, making sure to rub the lard all over it so the food wouldn’t stick. They also showed us how to pour the water in the depression around the grill and boil our vegetables and noodles in it, while creating a broth with the meat drippings that flowed down the side of the grill and into the water. So much fun.
We sat happily grilling away, enjoying the atmosphere and watching other diners for hints and tips on what to do, and how to eat everything. Excellent evening.
On the way back along the pitch black sidewalk path, we stopped to take some pictures of the Bamboo bridge, all lit up across the river.
Then headed back to the hotel to spend the rest of the evening in cool comfort on our balcony over looking the river.
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