Looks like today and yesterday are all about taking it easy.  We had a fairly busy few days at the start as we wanted to get a lot done in the few days that Thomas was exploring with us, so we think we have earned ourselves a break 🙂

Yesterday we walked through a bit of the old city and down to the Warorot Market alongside the Ping River.   We have been to this market a few times (I have blogged about it previously here) but it is always worth a wander through.  It does qualify as shopping so I am not at all drawn in by the row after row of Buddha candles and waving cat figurines, but there there is a lot of things at the market that are interesting just to look at.

This is a market where the locals shop, so in addition to clothes and household goods like pots and pans, one can find raw meat, salted fish, and of course the oh-so-important occasional bucket of frogs or turtles.

The thing that really stands out is some of the street food we have had here.  Over the years we have had ice-cream sandwiches, coconut pancakes, mango and sticky rice, a variety of fruits and countless other tasty items.  Today it is the mango and sticky rice, and the pancakes that we opt for – a nice mid afternoon snack!

Mrs. Columbus is getting quite good at cooking Thai food back home, so now when we visit markets like this she is always on the lookout for ingredients that are hard for us to find.  Our friend Ian had picked us up a few packets of curry the other day at the Rimping Market (like a Fred Meyer back home, but with a lot of imported foods as well for the expats) that were all vacuum packed, and today we were able to find the base for Khao Soi as well as dried mung beans which are used for a garnish on mango and sticky rice.  We should almost be able to open a street cart back home now if we could just find a scooter with a grill attached to the side….

Back to see Tee and Ian for dinner at Ginny Cafe where Tee continues to spoil us with good food and treats!  The other day we asked her in passing about a fruit called Noi Na (Thai Custard Apple – they looks sort of like green hand-grenades) that was mentioned to us by Frank and Oy (our Thai teacher back home), and today when we show up she has a few of them that she picked up at the market for us to try 🙂  I keep warning Tee that if she keeps spoiling us this way that I may just move in permanently!

In the interest of being able to provide feedback on the full extent of their menu I have decided to try the cheeseburger for dinner tonight.  Lots of people come by here for their burgers and they are well reviewed so I think it is only right that I form my own opinion. Mrs. Columbus feels like this is a violation of her rule of only having Thai food in Thailand, but I counter that it is being made from scratch by Thai people, so it qualifies as Thai in my book.  Her rules do seem to have some sort of flexibility as I see that she is not all that quick to turn down the chance for a banana split for dessert – her rationale being that the bananas are from Thailand…..

Today we are spending some time getting our plans sorted out for the last part of our vacation.  Over the last few days we have been all over the map trying to decide what to do.  We have talked about a few days in Malaysia, going back to Laos, going up to Pai in Thailand, and almost an endless list of other possible destinations.

After mulling it over for a while we finally pulled the trigger on our original plan to go to Malaysia.  The actual agenda itself is still a bit up in the air as is our normal M.O. but we have booked the plane tickets from here to Penang, and the return from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok so at least we have a framework and will fill in the blanks as we go.

For the rest of the day I see some pool time in my future, and quite likely a massage, and then probably someone will have to twist my arm to go down and visit Ian for a Beer Lao and some dinner 🙂