From freezing windburn to scorching sunburn. Low 30s here this morning.

Because we got to bed so late, we didn’t get up until 1030. We had a western style breakfast (omelette and vegetables) at a restaurant, the Klong Lampoo Cocktail Bar (catchy, eh) about a block and a half up the street from the hotel (slowly working our way up to the exotic).

I had to double back to the hotel while breakfast was being prepared as I forgot the daypack (left it on the bed while a tech had to reset our safe combination as Joanne had somehow jammed it – not a good start!).  We then walked up to the canal and located one of Paden’s and Christine’s favourite restaurants, Saneh, which sits at the canal’s edge adjacent to a bridge.

Authentic local cuisine here, but didn’t try it until later in the afternoon. I had Green Curry noodles with chicken and Joanne had ‘Pat’ Thai with shrimp. That is how it was listed on the menu vice ‘Pad’ Thai. We split 1 large beer since the waiter never brought us the 2 we ordered. Instead we got 1 large with 2 small glasses. Our full dinner with beer cost us 179 Thai Baht, the equivalent of $7.00 Cdn.

After breakfast we made our way to a large Wat (Tai for Temple), Chana Songkram Ratchaworamahaviharn (OK – All together now!)

Sucker Alert! The guy at the Wat, who handed out the wraps to women to cover up bare shoulders and legs, talked to us about doing a private longboat tour. He warned us about shady Tuk-Tuk drivers and to use only ones with yellow signs. He just happened to have a friend outside the gates and took us to him to show us the sign. We saw it for what it was (REALLY, WE DID!!!) but, we ended up in the Tuk-Tuk heading to a friend of the driver at the canal who could give us a deal on a longboat cruise. The rate for the Tuk-Tuk was reasonable, 10 baht ($0.40) but we only went around the corner after being told it would be an hour walk. Oh well, we had planned on doing a cruise eventually, so why not? During the cruise, a small boat pulled alongside and somehow I ended up buying a beer, not only for myself, but also one for our tour boat operator. Here are a few pictures along the boat cruise.

And, the pièce de résistance, we had to pay a disembarkation fee as we were dropped off at a private dock. I’m beginning to think it was a mistake giving them our name and hotel – just joking. Total cost? I’ve forgotten. Not really but you don’t want to know.

This makes me want to say always know the exchange rate before you withdraw money from the ATM. Let’s say we should now have enough cash to last the month. Since the longboat captain dropped is off no where near where we started we had to make our way back to the hotel. We walked as we wanted to see some of the sights. That we did. We saw a woman getting her dentures ground down by the dentist on the street corner. More to come tomorrow. My iPad is having keyboard issues right now.