A day in Bangkok

Despite our silence over the past 3 weeks or so, we still have more to report!  I (Lisl) am now back in the U.S. and will post a few entries about the last leg of our trip together and the week I spent in Japan.

Let me start with our day in Bangkok.

  

After our time in Indonesia, we stopped in Bangkok for a day before heading to Myanmar. We had a rather formidable eating itinerary for such a short time, but it was a roaring success. A couple of highlights included:

 

Lunch

Rachel and I dined on sticky rice, roast chicken with two different chili dipping sauces (the redder one was sweeter, the darker one was hotter), green papaya salad with peanuts and shrimp, and a Laotian dish called Laap. Laap is finely chopped pork seasoned with chilies and fresh mint. It had a similar effect on as us, though not as extreme, as that of gado gado: while the hotness from the chilies had an accumulative effect in our mouths and throats, we  couldn’t stop eating it.

The Giant Lizard (this is not food-related)

In the afternoon we went to Lumpini Park and saw a GIANT LIZARD, swimming in the lake. By giant I mean at least a meter long and standing at least a foot high. We first saw Mr. Lizard lumbering slowly towards the lake, but then lost sight of him. Later, when we were walking along the other side of the lake we saw Mr. Lizard swimming towards us. When he reached the shore, he climbed out, stretched his lizard neck to take a good look around, and then waddled into a large hole in the bank. I have no photo because my camera battery died, so I found this photo on the internet. I googled "giant lizards in Thailand"  and actually found a brief article about them invading Lumpini Park. Apparently these lizards are called Water Monitors. Here's the link to the article: Giant Lizards

Eat Me

For dinner we enjoyed Eat Me, an art gallery and restaurant that has creative and innovative dishes inspired by an array of international flavors. Highlights included the heirloom tomato salad with olive oil ice cream, mint, basil and parmesan and delicious homemade ice cream. We tried three ice cream flavors: English Breakfast Tea, Chesnut & Rosemary and Spicy Chili and Dark Chocolate.  Our first bite of the chili chocolate ice cream delighted us with an intense chocolate flavor, but we were puzzled to not taste any chili. About 1.5 seconds later, the chili hit, right in the back of our throats.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the aforementioned dishes at Eat Me. Obviously I didn't do so well on taking pictures in Bangkok. Since this post has been heavy on text and lacking in pictures, I'll  throw in another picture just for kicks.

Fruits and vegetables at a smoothie stand we enjoyed

More to come on Myanmar and Japan!