Food 'n shopping

It's not all “What shall we do today?” and default to sitting around the apartment block pool and having sundowners on the balcony. Oh no! CavTours also specialise in dining experiences and urban adventure. Take the evening we arrived back from Kanchanaburi after a harrowing navigation across Bangkok and its motorways and roundabouts. “Let’s go for an Indian!” declares the Tour Guide. Next stop, the top floor of the 26 storey Rembrandt Hotel with live Indian music (“Cats wailing!” said Mike, many times) and panoramic view of nighttime Bangkok skyscrapers. Not to gush, but the food was the best I’ve had in decades; each dish having a distinct flavour and texture making the old home Indian take away dishes all taste the same in comparison. Even the complementary chocolates at the end were mini-Magnums on sticks presented on a steaming bowl of dry ice! The downside was the loss of a few thousand Baht. In contrast, daughter Louise arrived last night and declared the need for some authentic Thai food. We found a street vendor off the main Sukhumvit strip who sold us some food and Singha beer for 100 Baht each (less than £2). The thing is, (I had a red pork and fried rice with egg dish) it was still tasty and there’s just as much to be said sitting on the roadside watching the frenetic night life go by (including one baby elephant!) as sitting in the air conditioned restaurant in the sky.

The next day, in the same sublime/ridiculous/sublime vein, Mike invited us to his works Christmas lunch for his two trusty coworkers (here we are, look!). We took the Skytrain to the Chao Phraya River where we were met by the hotel’s water taxi, a sort of “pagodaboat”, which took us about half a click up the river to the hotel. If I tell you that this hotel is plushplushplush it will give you an idea of how sublime this particular dining experience was. If it doesn’t, have a look at http://www.mandarinoriental.com/bangkok/?s_kwcid=bangkok%20oriental2435446285. The food was the sort of delicate nouveau cuisine you might expect. The service was excellent and not at all “snooty”. And our table had a lovely view of the Chao Phraya River. Interesting to note that the more expensive bottles of wine in the wine list went for around 50,000 Baht upwards (that’s around £1,000) (*cough*). I fear it's back to the street vendors for a couple of days after this.

The girls went home to wrap presents and do other “Christmas stuff” afterwards. I decided to mooch about in some of the labyrinthine markets to see if I could get some cheap computer games. I managed to find my way to the interior of the 4th floor of the Mahboonkrong (MBK) shopping centre through a bewildering number of stalls selling approximately 1 billion mobile phones until I found a small stall selling what seemed to be computer game disks in wallets. Two Thai kids, having successfully clocked me as “a very, very old person” asked me if I was buying a game for someone. “No, it’s for me”, I said. “Waaaarrggghhhh!” said the girl (or something like that!). I looked suitably affronted: “Do you think I am too old then?” I asked belligerently. “No, never too old for games” she said hastily, but, just to make sure, added, “What games do you like?”. I explained I had just finished Mass Effect and before that I attained level 76 as a Tempest of Set priestess on the on-line Age of Conan (unnecessarily, I know, but I felt I had to defend myself). “You must be a very good gamer”, she said placatingly (still referring to my advanced years, I supposed). However, at that point I lost all credibility when I admitted that I didn’t know how to use the “crack” for the two very cheap games she managed to sell me. She stuck some (English) instructions in my bag and I scuttled away considering my revenge.