Last Days in Bangkok

Tuesday March 5, Bangkok

A correction. The elephant food basket in the last post contained papaya, bananas and sugar cane, not bamboo. We marveled that the sugar cane was acceptable – bamboo would not have been.

Last days in SE Asia. We rose late on the 3rd, drove to the airport where we were the only passengers in the entire place (!) and thus passed to the gate quickly. We arrived in Bangkok in time for a few hours rest before our final event, a dinner cruise.

Our dinner cruiser. Just big enough for our party. The food was unremarkable, the beer flowed, and someone found a Creedence Clearwater tape that we blasted out for everyone on the river to enjoy.

Out on the river there were bigger ones.

The next morning, the 4th, we decided to celebrate the fine weather in Bangkok (96 degrees) by staying in.

The view out our window was educational. I think you can see five swimming pools here, and there’s one more out of camera. When you go down to the 4th floor and look out it’s obvious that the green part of the city is all above street level. Roof gardens in posh condominiums and so on.

Last night we decided to visit the rooftop bar (26th floor) for a light dinner and the sunset.

 

Naan bread with cheese – Indian pizza, I guess. Very good (8/10). The winner was tempura shrimp and veggies (10/10). For $10 we got 4 jumbo shrimp in the mix. That drink was my mocktail of passion fruit juice, lime and ginger ale (10/10). Alice had a pina colada again (9/10). It was enough for us.

The sunset view from the bar. Not bad. And a good place to end the trip, except for a bird list and some conclusions for those still reading, when we get home.

Elephants Bears and Nymphs, Oh My!

Saturday March 2, Laos Countryside

Many different things seen today. We started with a visit to a country village where the local blacksmith showed us his wares. For some reason Alice thought a bamboo buffalo bell would make a nice wind chime, so we bought one. The blacksmith had an impressive collection of knives but the thought of running one through customs dismayed us.

That was in the Lao village. On the other side of the schoolyard was a Hmong village and we stopped to look in a typical home.

A cow was sequestered in a very small stall with an impressive salad in the window box for her to nibble on.

All important possessions were inside a one-room house about 20×20.

This was the bed all the children slept in.

Poor is not the word for most people in Laos, particularly in the country. They earn enough to eat but not much more and have no reserves in case of illness or injury. A motorbike is a major major investment.

Next stop – elephants – an elephant protection organization with baskets of food for $3.

Look! Heffalumps!

The food basket held those small sweet bananas, as well as sugar cane and bamboo. The elephants cheerfully accepted it all.

And up the road it was Save the Bears. These were Asian Black Bears, smaller than ours and arboreal by preference.

Lastly before lunch it was the Kuang Si Waterfall Park. We started at the bottom and climbed past small falls and emerald pools to get to the Big Kahuna.

At the time we thought the small stuff was about it.

But in the next set of pools swimming was taking place. This particular nymph might have been doing a portfolio – she made a quarter turn, held it, turned again with a different pose, etc. If there was a professional photographer he was hidden by everyone else firing away with their camera or cell phone.

Approaching the top.

This the widest spread of the falls; they actually go higher but are hidden by the trees. I don’t know how well the photo does, but these falls were beautiful.

We then walked back down the hill by another route and eventually came to a really well-situated restaurant (Carpe Diem if you’re ever there) with the river continuing right next to them.

 

The food was pretty good. Pumpkin soup (9/10) with red hot chile peppers optional.
Tilapia filet with lemon sauce (9/10). The banana leaf concealed steamed rice.
Not pictured: shrimp ravioli with lemongrass sauce and Parmesan (9/10). Why no photo? Although the dish looked fine in real life, the photo made it look like the dog’s breakfast. Never had that happen before.
Also not pictured: chocolate mousse with coconut at the bottom (8/10) in a really tiny shot glass. Actually it was more like chocolate sauce than mousse, so a one point deduction.

And that was our half-day trip. We rested up at out hotel and then went out for dinner.

 

And now we come to the part where Gordon Ramsay has a coronary and drops dead at our feet. All through our stay in Laos the food service has been, um, not ready for prime time (except for earlier this afternoon). Our first night in the hotel we ordered a mango smoothie and a mai tai. 20 minutes later no drinks. It’s not as if there was a crowd but somehow the drinks just didn’t get made. Finally they came, beating the dinner order by a couple of minutes.

At breakfast next morning it took forever to get someone to take our order. Coffee not offered even then.

So here we are at the Three Nagi which our guide had recommended to the point of pre-ordering the main dishes and dessert. We sat down and immediately (30 seconds) Alice and I got our main dish. It took 10 minutes to get someone to take a drink order. Unfortunately the special fish dish was virtually tasteless (5/10) and so was the sauce. I didn’t know you could do that. Alice saved her fish with a donation of coconut soup from one of our neighbors. Dessert was mango and mango sauce over sticky rice, with coconut ice cream (7/10). Really not sure what rice adds to the dish.

Consistently everyone is nice and polite but sometimes things take a long time to happen (or they jump the gun) – not familiar with the concept of restaurant management. Oh well, small stuff really.

We passed on the option to visit the night market and took a tuk-tuk back to the hotel.

A Very Busy Day

Friday March 1, Luang Prabang

Up at a reasonable hour this morning, decent breakfast except for the faux croissants, and into our tuk-tuks to ride to the morning market.

Our tuk-tuks were luxurious 4-seaters.

The morning market has everything from food to interior decor. We’ll just lay a bunch of images on you and defy you to find (1) rats and (2) frogs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we went to the National Museum (the former Royal Palace). No photos allowed inside, but no loss. There was a small solid gold buddha and a lot of memorabilia. The Royal Garage featured an Edsel sedan in which only the King and Queen were allowed to ride.

The Buddha temple.

Dragon on the steps of the temple.

Last sightseeing was at the Wat Xieng Thong monastery. Very interesting.

Inside this wooden and gold leaf building was a giant boat.

We think it carried the cremated remains of the King, ceremonially.

The walls were covered with glass mosaics – more later.

Fellow tripper David and friend.

The ceremonial hall where the King took his oath of office.

The Big Gong.

Two longboats; really long. I could not stand all the way back to get the whole boats.

 

A glass mosaic of a tree – symbolism unknown. Alice just wanted the birds in the picture.

Closeup of one of he glass mosaics. I believe the glass (very highly polished) was supplied by Japan but the cutting and assembly was done by Laotians.

The monks’ residence.

Had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the Mekong. They served everything all at once. Nothing unusual except we got curry for only the second time. It was too hot for me, but Alice gave it 9/10.

Our boat waited below.

We settled in for a 1 1/2 hour ride to the Oak Ou caves.

Water buffalo (farm animals) relaxing in the Mekong.

As we approached the caves some serious limestone appeared.

Luckily there were fewer stairs than at our previous cave.

Inside the cave are thousands of Buddhas because one is allowed to bring one and leave it there. Most of them are a couple of inches high.

Mo’ Buddhas.

Alice decided to grab the Comfy Chair and remain onboard.

Everyone took this shot.

Back home after the boat trip and off to a private home for dinner and a Baci ceremony. This ceremony celebrates a special event – in our case, it was a birthday of one of the group. This is the Baci pyramid of marigolds and cotton yarn with snacks underneath. The ‘master’ of the house gave us some chants wishing all of us happiness, long life and financial success.

The family and neighbors then circulated and tied the yarn to our wrists to lock down the good wishes.

The littlest girl had the finest costume.

She also passed out snacks, mostly sweets. There was a toast made with Bombay Gin in one bottle and in the unmarked bottle was some rocket fuel. I had to taste it to be one of the guys. My tongue nearly fell off.

This is the 100 year-old book of chants that the master had to master to become a master. Termites have had a go at it so he copied it to a new book.

I can’t say that the food on this trip has been entirely to my taste. This meal was like most – some things were OK (for me) and some to be avoided.

Starting from bottom left: fried fish, sweet&sour&curried chicken, noodles, pork and garlic, steamed mushroom in banana leaf, and in the middle, chicken soup. Rice was in those little baskets at each place. Soup was good, the rest OK.

And that was another very busy day.

 

Floating Market and Crocs

Thursday Feb 29, Siem Reap

The big deal today was to visit the Floating Markets before flying off to Laos. The boat dock was quite a ways from the lake and we threaded our way past hundreds of fishing boats and some tourist boats to get there.

All the boats have an inboard engine, probably a car engine, and a shallow prop attached to a movable structure for steering.

The houses are on stilts because the lake will rise about 20 feet in the rainy season. It’s hard to imagine, and seeing all these houses makes one think it’s a village on another planet.

Wondering how many of these boats actually work.

Out on Inle Lake but not too far are the floating markets. The one we stopped at had half a dozen small crocodiles in a tank at one end. One of us bought a croc leather belt. Otherwise this was more a floating “gifte shoppe” than a market. There were others that dealt in fish that better met the ‘market’ tag.

 

We stopped for lunch on the way to the airport. First course was vegetable spring rolls (8/10) that seem to be the first course everywhere, and a banana flower salad (6/10).
Second course: chicken and vegetable soup (8/10) with optional chile peppers.

 

Main course: chicken with onions (7/10), rice and veggies.
Thank goodness for the fruit plate (10/10). The heat is keeping our appetite for ‘normal’ food down and for fruits and drinks up.

The airport today was much smaller than our others so we cleared immigration (what? We’re leaving) reasonably quickly. Our new lodgings in Luang Prabang are in a historical hotel building but the a/c works. I had the best ever mango smoothie (10/10) and shared stir-fried noodles and pork with Alice (9/10). Left the camera in the room of course.

Koh Ker

Wednesday Feb 28, Koh Ker

Our third and last birding day. It was combined with another temple, Koh Ker. We left the hotel at 5:30 and started birding in a dry forest by 7:00. We got about 25 species, some of which were photographed.

Purple Sunbird

Ashy Bulbul

99% of the temples are abandoned but occasionally..

Somebody is still using them.

 

Asian Emerald Cuckoo, back and front.

White-rumped Shama

While birding we found a ruined Hindu temple.

Since our Buddhist spirit animals are elephants……..

Then we hit the road to Koh Ker.

A most unusual shape – a stepped pyramid 115 feet high. Built somewere in the 900’s. We walked around it but at 96 degrees in the shade did not climb the stairs.

It was now about 1:00 and too hot even for the birds. We headed back to town and stopped on the way at our last temple, Beng Mealea. Although some restoration has begun, this temple is basically a ruin.

A corner.

A gate.

The only way to see inside was on a walkway. That’s me and our guide, Brak.

Back at the hotel for a shower and a Pina Colada and then off to the circus. It was an hour of gymnastics set loosely to a theme. The flavor is in the action and all I can show is a still.

The performers come from a school that takes orphans and gives them an arts education in addition to normal school in hopes that they can earn a living. They have toured abroad and even came to California some time ago.

A full day.

Does the Dawn Come Up Like Thunder?

Tuesday Feb 27, Angkor Wat

Well, I think we were all disappointed, getting up at 4:30 a.m. so that we could have a good place to stand or sit and wait for dawn at Angkor Wat and have the dawn come in on slippers. After trying several different ways, I came up with this. It’s a nice angle, and the reflection in the moat is nice, but that’s about it.

Basically, low cloud cover didn’t allow for any texture in the light. It just turned orange and we left for breakfast. Now if you’re wanting thunder for breakfast, you’re out of luck there too. Tang labeled as orange juice, fake croissants, and cold bacon. Fruits and veggies OK, omelet station OK, and so on. But we have to rate this breakfast at the bottom of the trip list.

We took a lot of pictures today, but will post only a representative few.

After the sun came up we got better shots of Angkor Wat’s profile.

Inside were several large statues. This Buddha was matched by a Vishnu not far away. Both religions were popular at different times.

This gallery, hundreds of feet long, told some of the stories of the Ramayana, mostly war on this wall.

A detail. I think the king’s chariot is roughriding over the enemies.

Many many reliefs of apsara dancers.

In one corner we have the long staircase up to the king’s quarters.

And in the other corner, public access. A surprising number of us climbed those stairs in the 90+ heat. They reported a very nice view.

Trip guide John hoping none of us would fall or otherwise zone out.

Another giant Buddha.

I contemplate one of the cisterns in the palace. It wasn’t for drinking water, but more to help channel rain out of the palace.

We bid farewell to Angkor Wat. Overall impression – we expected more. It doesn’t have the Big Faces of Stone, for instance. It’s just big. OTOH, if we were allowed to stay for moonrise it might have been spectacular, with the setting sun behind us and a nearly full moon rising. Sadly they close down before sunset.

 

We went to an excellent place for lunch. I was totally wasted from the heat and had no appetite, so my lunch was a pineapple shake (just ice and pineapple blended) and a mocha frappé. Perfect. (10/10)
Alice had a seafood curry (7/10). Barely enough curry to taste but otherwise fine.

Now on to Ta Prohm, home of the giant tree roots. Somewhere in here they shot scenes for Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. We watched the movie a month ago and it’s all a blur. (The movie is terrible – can’t see watching it again.)

John was very good about getting everyone to pose with whatever significant artifact was present.

Still trying to figure out this arch. It’s a nagi but so much else is going on.

So many trees growing right out of the rock.

In this picture, something weird is going to happen in about 2 seconds. Think of it as a ‘write your own story’ exercise.

Something very strange here. With all the restoration going on, it seems someone is making a joke with a new stone.

Now on to Angkor Thom, currently under major reconstruction and as a result, hard to get a pretty picture. But this was the place for Giant Heads. Originally there were 54 towers with a giant head on all four sides. Now they are down to 37 because of collapsing towers.

Great relief carving. I like this one – a dead soldier is about to become a crocodile’s dinner.

The south gate to Angkor Thom is unusual.

The last event of the day was a gondola ride in the moat surrounding Angkor Thom. Drinks and snacks and somebody else rowing/poling the boat.

Every boat had a Garuda (giant mythical bird) as a masthead.

Relating after a really strenuous day. I don’t know how many thousand steps we took, but it laid us low. The boat ride was great.

The Cat Strangler of Siem Reap

Monday Feb 26, Saigon to Siem Reap

First off, a brief glance at the breakfast buffet at our hotel in Saigon. Take it as read that everything was available, from bacon to baked goods, salads, soups, stir-frys, etc.

A macaroon mountain.

Chocolate covered donuts, or vanilla. What must the locals think of us?

13 different toppings/sauces on the salad bar.

Crépes or pancakes, still warm (see in the back more coming) with chocolate, honey or maple syrups.

The pièce de résistance (that’s French for ‘piece of resistance’) was Croissant Bread Pudding. This has to be the ne plus ultra (that’s Latin for “Oh God!”) of reclaimed food. No stale bread for this chef. It looks as if the French are making a comeback.

On to the hinterlands of Cambodia. After our flight to Siem Reap we stopped to buy admission tickets to Angkor Wat, took a few hours rest and went to dinner and a show.

A roneat ek (a xylophone). Almost always played in octaves. The sound is pleasant, if monotonous. We ate in a large dining room, probably 100 people, with a stage at one end. The performances went on during dinner.

 

Chicken salad with banana flower (8/10). Second time for chicken cooked properly.
Pumpkin soup (9/10). It got better when our guide made me add salt and pepper.

The big deal here is apsara dancers. The Angkor Wat complex has 1900 statues of apsara dancers wearing, I am told, less clothing than this. Their dance was meant as a tribute to the gods. The movements are slow and highly stylized, featuring very flexible wrists and fingers and an excellent sense of balance.

Mixed platter of bbq chicken and sweet and sour pork (7/10). Well done but just home cookin’.

A younger folk dance group did a coconut dance. It was kind of like castanets in slow motion, but there was obvious energy. Very Enjoyable.

A demon and a goddess. At last, a plot! The goddess of waters triumphs over the thunder demon, illustrating the victory of beneficial rain over the dry and stormy season.

All the dances had musical accompaniment. The orchestra was a drum, the roneat ek, and the sralai pin peat, which translates to “cat strangler”. Or oboe, I forget. It’s an extremely harsh four-reed instrument and on a good day it is most annoying. The guy playing it tonight (the middle guy) made it sound like the cat was trying to mate with a red hot poker. The sound broke time and again. You could feel the pain.

Oh well, the dancing was great and the food pretty good. Dessert was a fruit plate (8/10).

Wake up call at 4:30 a.m. to go see sunrise at Angkor Wat.

 

 

Hot Weather for Birds

Sunday Feb 25, Saigon

Today was the 3rd day of the Horrors of War series with a visit to the Cu Chi tunnels, a crab walk through a section 60cm high, and bring your bug spray. The afternoon would be at leisure, so we decided to go birding instead. All through this trip we have been trying to see how Vietnam is today instead of reliving old times.

Unfortunately Alice was feeling a bit wasted so I went alone and let her luxuriate in our hotel. My guide looked as if he was fresh out of high school but of course he had passed beyond university some time ago. His name was Quy, pronounced “Oui!”.

We left the hotel at 5:20 a.m. and arrived by ferry on a major island in the Mekong Delta. Our first stop was just by the road, it seemed. Two hours later we had 28 species, some of which I sort of photographed.

The super-exciting Brown Shrike.

Just as if we were in Huntington Central Park, except for the heat. Our friends the Scaly-breasted Munias.

Yellow-bellied Prinia. Very widely distributed but not yet, as far as we know, in Huntington Beach. Attractive song.

Next, on to the Can Gio Biosphere Reserve, home of an immense mangrove forest. These are White-eyes, either Swinhoe’s or Indian, and those brave enough are welcome to ponder the recent reshuffling of the White-eye families.

Female Ornate Sunbird (the male has a large purple throat).

For me, the hit of the day, an Asian Green Bee-eater.

The beach. Tide was out at least half a mile. The beach itself was about 30 meters of solid shells from tiny to an inch across. Then it was mud with crab holes, then mud with bigger crab holes. It was about 95 degrees by then but the sea breeze made it almost fun. Not many shorebirds within our reach and half of them were Malibu Lagoon birds.

Common Kingfisher at the salt and fish ponds we were passing.

My guide Quy. I did not fall into any of the ponds, but it was close.

And what may be the prize of the day, a kingfisher from a long ways away that Quy could not identify. He talked on the phone as we returned and said it may be a new species for Vietnam. I sent him this and he’ll get back to me. The odds are it is just an immature native, but we’ll see. I’m guessing we saw about 45 species today, list to follow.

For dinner I forgot my camera. Also my wallet, but tonight one drink was on the house. The restaurant was Hoa Tuc (Opium Flower) because the buildings used to house certain facilities where people smoked certain things back in the French days.

• Crispy featherback fish cakes (9/10). Surprisingly tasty!
• Chicken salad with banana blossom and crushed peanut (9/10). Finally someone figured out how to cook chicken!
• Grilled shrimp and pork paste on fine rice vermicelli (6/10). Not much taste except for the basil that had a strong anise touch. The ‘paste’ was shrimp and pork food-processed and then formed into a sausage. Alice disagrees (9/10).
• Grilled seabass filet with lemongrass pickled shallot (10/10). Exceptional. Looked like the bottom of an old boot but tasted great. That they made it for 24 people on a busy night was remarkable. Served with watercress salad and fried rice.
• Seasonal fruit platter (6/10). Only one fruit – a star apple. OK I guess.

Tomorrow photos of the breakfast buffet which is the best yet.

The Mekong

Feb 23rd is missing for two reasons. It was a travel day through massive crowds at the airport, and I developed a severe case of Fountain Nose. Sniffle sniffle sneeze honk. I had to pass on the Vespa Tour which sounded like fun but not the way I was feeling. Alice stayed with me. Those who went said it was great. While they were out Alice got some meds and today I am much better.

The old Post Office is an imposing building. It still runs as a P.O.

But the foreign call booths are no longer needed. Our guide said his mother would come down here and wait forever for an operator to route a foreign call. Her name would be called with a booth number and miraculously her party would be on the phone.

We also visited the Museum of War Remnants, formerly the Museum of American War Crimes, name changed to encourage Americans to visit. Inside it’s all about American aggression and war crimes and the heroic resistance to them. I did not learn anything I didn’t already know.

But on to today. We drove to the Mekong Delta about 1 3/4 hours. Traffic again was horrendous.

Motorbikes seemed to have it faster, but more danger I’m guessing. This was a family of 3. Our guide said when his kids were small, all four in the family rode at once, and he has seen five.

We got on a tourist boat. Hard seats. We all got coconut water/milk.

For once the skies were beautiful. Our first major stop was for tea. We were served black tea with honey and kumquat juice. Very nice. Then the girls tried to sell us honey, royal jelly, bee pollen, ginger and dried bananas. I wonder how much of it the USDA would allow.

We had a stop for fruit. Clockwise from the upper right: longan (peel it with your fingernails), pineapple, pomelo, dragon fruit (red variety), watermelon, rambutan (twist it like a chicken neck and it pops open).

We were serenaded by a lovely girl, some kind of guitar, and an un-named string instrument. Incomprehensible.

Me not comprehending.

Then it was off for a sampan ride and wouldn’t you know, traffic jam at the debarkation point. The whole country is in a traffic jam.

Finally it was time for lunch. This is an elephant-ear fish deep fried with chopped nuts on the side. The girl put on gloves and ripped the flesh away and wrapped it in rice noodle paper. We had four kinds of sauce for this and what came next (7/10).

After spring rolls (10/10) the giant prawns appeared again, this time arranged in a coconut shell. Again, not much taste except for the sauces 6/10).

The last item was soup. No photo. (9/10)

Our boat returned for us and we spent 2 1/2 hours riding back to Saigon. I have to say, the heat, distances and traffic are less than helpful. Eating a large meal at 96 degrees is a tough job.

We decided to have a light dinner with bar food on the 20th floor bar. An olive variety had one kind and they were warm. The smoked duck sliders were open faced on a baguette slice. The crispy pork belly was a hit (9/10). The non-stop crappy music got to me – and it was obviously American. If you knew three chords you would have been overqualified to play it.

The view from the roof was cool.

Tourists

Thursday Feb 22, Hoi An

Today we really did the tourist ‘activities’, starting with making our own lanterns.

Well, we didn’t make everything. This guy is assembling the tops and bottoms.

This lady is using thread to position the bamboo staves that make the lamp shape.

 

We were given the task of attaching the fabric to the staves after the staff had applied glue to them. This glue was amazing – it held the fabric firmly but allowed a bit of movement as you tried to stretch it to make it smooth.

I’m guessing that almost half the fabric was trimmed off. Our guide took pictures of us with the finished product but I didn’t. Dumb. The lanterns fold up into cylinders for packing.

Our next activity was a visit to an organic farm. This is the Ancient Gardner on the left with our guide for today.

They loaned us those conical hats that laborers wear. Great sun hats.

Strictly organic. They use liquids made from garlic, ginger, vinegar and rice wine to spray for insects and fungus. Compost is made from cow dung, unused plants and so on. Water comes from a well. This farm was about 2 hectares in size and was broken into 400 square meter lots by the owner for others to use, as well as a much larger portion for the owners.

Next up a basket boat ride. The BBs turned out to be the Vietnamese version of a very old form we call a coracle. I’d always wondered how you propel a coracle in one direction. It takes a particular stroke that manages to combine a left and right movement.

As we assembled one oarsman demonstrated a fishnet throw. No luck this time.

A bit embarrassing to find your energetic oarsman is somebody’s granny.

It was a peaceful 20 minute ride, and then we got back into our vans for the last stop.

It was lunchtime and we were going to participate in cooking the first two courses. Here we are chopping vegetables for the salad.

After that we took thick slices of eggplant, slit them 80% through and filled the slot with a pork and spice mixture. Then we dipped them in a sticky goop and coated them with breadcrumbs ready for frying.

The ‘salad’ was cooked in the wok with shrimp thrown in at the last moment.

Then it was served on rice/sesame crackers. Actually pretty good (8/10).

Then it was time for the stuffed eggplant.

The cook turned the flame up to 11 (very difficult at home) and added a couple of quarts of vegetable oil. Soon he was frying the eggplant. He could tell when they were done by the color. They also turned out to be tasty, although I could not tell you what they tasted of. Deep frying makes everything better but sometimes it doesn’t matter what you’re frying. (8/10)

 

Two other courses were very disappointing. The grilled fish in banana leaf, coated with turmeric we think, was hard and dry (2/10). The greens were boiled morning glory (not the flower we know) and were fine as greens (6/10).
The stir-fried chicken with garlic was dry again (4/10). Darn. The veggies with it were fine if you like lots of garlic.

It was fun to ‘work’ in the kitchen. Such a shame about those dry dishes.

Back in our hotel for the next few hours.

And down to the restaurant for Happy Hour. Two for one so we had one Pina Colada and one Virgin Pina Colada.

 

I had a big bowl of pumpkin soup. Good but not great (7/10).
Alice had Vietnamese noodles with seafood and the calamari was the best yet (7/10).

 

Side of fries – excellent (9/10).
Opera cake – also very good (9/10). We had to dig for it. There was a bakery display counter outside the restaurant and no mention of any cakes on the menu. After some effort, we learned we could order some. Strange.

Our guide, Simon Legree, has set a wakeup call for 5:15 a.m. so it’s an early bed tonight.