If you can't find a restaurant what do you do? Our Story

Okay, so to continue with the adventures as of late I'll finish writing about our last day in Bangkok. Our last day was relatively relaxing and laid back compared to the first few. We spent the early part of the morning at an internet cafe writing emails before heading down to the pier to catch the river taxi. This morning, we took to taxis - one down river and one across the river. We ended at Wat Arun. This temple is famous in part because it is the temple featured on the back of the 10 baht coin (it is also right across the river from the Grand Palace and Wat Phrat Keaw). This was my favorite temple in Bangkok. It's location right next to the river and the peaceful nature of the temple combined were amazing. Standing on the corner of the center chedi looking out across the Chao Phraya river at the Grand Palace was incredible. The simplicity of the temple was complemented by the magnificence and significance of its location. I enjoyed every minute of my time there. After the temple, we walked around the neighborhood surrounding the temple and purchased Peter a yellow shirt. As I've written before, this is the King's 60th year on the throne and there has been a jubilee celebration all year and many Thai's can be seen wearing their yellow shirts. This year also marks the King's 80th birthday which will usher in another wave of yellow shirts sporting the logo/icon celebrating the King's birthday. I can't wait until December 5 (the King's birthday) to be a part of that celebration. Afterwards we had lunch and headed home for a quick nap and then that's when the fun started. We had decided to go to Cabbages and Condoms, a restaurant in Bangkok that supports a non-profit that works in many different communities across Thailand. We made a 5:00 reservation and set out from the guest house at about 4:00 thinking we had plenty of time to get there. Our journey would include a trip on the river taxi and sky train followed by (what we thought would be) a short walk. The river taxi took longer than expected and we made it to sky train closet to the restaurant at about 5:15. No problem we thought, we'll only be a few minutes late. Without thinking too much about which direction to go (and because of the absence of street signs) we took off to the right. After walking for about 10 minutes, we realized that we were going the wrong way. We should have gone left. So, we turned around and walked back from where we came crossing the street and walking 10 minutes in the opposite direction only to again realize that we were going the wrong way. This time, after taking the time to look for street signs we decided that we turned around a bit early and would head back the other way (the way we initially went) but walk further this time, which we did. Now, after doing this and walking for yet another 30 minutes, we come to the most embarrassing realization that we are on the wrong road - not surprising given that we had already gone both directions and hadn't found the restaurant. It was a very "I can't believe we just spent an hour doing that" moment and we vowed to kick ourselves for that. So, we headed back to where we began. On our walk back we were rewarded with a great view of the sunset over Bangkok as we walked along a very large park in the center of town. After once again reaching our starting point we turned up the road hoping that this was the direction that we were supposed to head. But yet again we were disappointed and turned around once again. At this point with no other directions to go, we confidently (yet now at a bit slower pace after having walked for quite a long time) walked towards the restaurant which we found a few minutes later. We sat down to enjoy our meal at about 7:30 or 3 1/2 hours after we left our guesthouse. We took a taxi home.

The following day we met several folks from the English Camp early in the morning and began thus began our adventures at English Camp. There is much to tell about English Camp and all will eventually be told, but I'm tired and will sign off now. I am going to skip ahead though and post the happens after English Camp before I get to talking about the camp.

Without end,

RM