We spent the morning traveling on foot, by train and by boat to the Royal Palace to see the King’s digs. It was a pretty dramatic palace, and I especially liked the color schemes that made up the decorations of the buildings and temples. Kuniko and I sweated through an especially hot day with tons of people, and after an hour or two of palace-viewing it was off to find shelter in a tiny restaurant off the beaten path for beer and noodles. After the late morning snack we took a glance at a giant (!) reclining Buddha, and then we had to buy some beers to break our money enough to catch a boat back to our neck of the woods. All this heat finally got to us, and we ended up buying some swimsuits at the local clothes shop and spending the rest of the day in the hotel pool on the roof, surrounded by skyscrapers filled with people working hard. The swimming pool was a big highlight for us, and it felt strange to splash around in the pool at the end of December.
For dinner we went to a touristy destination called “Cabbages & Condoms”, which was decorated with enough condoms to keep Tiger Woods protected for a long weekend. The food turned out to be plenty spicy, and the fried shrimp with coconut curry was the best dish of the lot. Dessert was also really good – I had sticky rice and mango and Kuniko had fried bananas with ice cream and honey. Once again, back to the hotel with full stomachs.
