Hi Gram,
I slept well last night and woke with energy with my alarm this morning. Nattiya still needed a little more sleep, so I left her in bed while I took my morning walk. The weather was a little warmer even though I got an earlier start, which led to a pleasant experience. I even did a few flights of stairs to help get my heart pumping a little. Back at the hotel, I finished up my podcast and had breakfast, which was again a delight to have served just outside our room. We spent most of the morning just each catching up on things and recharging our batteries.

Around noon or one, hunger was tapping us politely on the shoulder (or stomach I suppose) so we headed out to wander around and find a lunch spot. A few blocks away, we chose a random riverside restaurant and headed in for a table with a view. The decor was nice, the view was stunning, the staff was attentive. The food was awful. I had a few bites which were rancid and greasy, thought “ok, this is where I get the food poisoning,” and pictured the bathroom at the hotel to start planning the time I’ll spend there. I left the rest of my food while Nattiya took a few more bites of hers. We each both had shakes – mine a green tea shake and hers a banana shake – that were delicious, but the food was nasty.

Adding insult to injury, when they brought the bill they had added some extra drinks that we hadn’t ordered. I had them remove these extras, then tried paying the adjusted bill. They tried bringing the wrong change when I paid the bill, about half as much as was due to me, so I pointed out their discrepancy. After a few minutes of expressing confusion, suddenly unable to cross the language barrier that had been no problem until now, they punched the calculator again and came up with the number that I had. It was definitely a tourist trap and left me in a bad mood for a couple hours.

Luckily, my mood didn’t last. We walked around a little more, then booked a sunset cruise set to leave at 4:30. We got there at 4:15 then waited in true laid-back local fashion until we boarded just before 5. I didn’t know what to expect on this cruise, so it far exceeded all of my expectations. We were seated at a table for two that had been SPECIALLY reserved just for us (despite having booked the tickets only an hour ago) towards the front of the boat near the captain, then they brought goblets with some soft of red fruit punch to toast our departure.

While the pilot masterfully backed the boat out and started us down the river, a few musicians gathered at the front to fill the air with melody. As the waitstaff (whom I didn’t know were on this cruise) brought us each a tray of snacks and finger food (which I didn’t think was part of the ticket price), a costumed warrior danced his way to the front of the boat. He moved and lunged as he told his story through interpretive dance, then posed for photos once he was done.

We spent the next hour with some combination of music, dance, photo opportunities, and scenery gently gliding by as the sun slowly dipped behind the mountains then painted the sky in technicolor.

With the sky darkening, a set of three girls marveled us with their interpretive gyrations and moves as the band played on. Everyone took turns getting photos with them and one of the warrior dancers, then the captain once again showed his skill and docked the boat expertly within inches of where we had departed from, slipping this long clumsy-looking boat between smaller boats on either side. We thanked our hosts for the memorable evening, then meandered back to the room, another successful day of memory-building behind us.