Monday, October 2, Day 6 

Last night, we bundled up in our beach towels on our one-hour ride in the minivan from the harbor back to the hotel. Neil had to laugh when we climbed into the van on the harbor pier, the AC was so high that the entire windshield was fogged over. Do they think the only setting is MAX?? I dug in my bag for the warm clothes they had recommended we bring. Little did we know those weren’t for the boat ride but the transportation ride. 

After morning tea and finishing our bananas, we were ready for another trip to the local Banzaan market. Our mornings are usually spent working on correspondence, writing, and photo processing. Morning tea with fruit, an early lunch and then dinner out have been enough. Today for lunch we ventured to the Dang Restaurant that Neil has been wanting to try. I think just for the name, ha. It’s not far from Wink Wink Massage, but he didn’t try that place, as curious as we were about the actual services offered. I got Pad Thai again and, yep, boring flavor. Reinforces our theory about tourist restaurants. It convinced me to only get it at our little locals-loved backstreet corner SAW Thai restaurant near the hotel. But I did discover that one of the smoothies at Dang was chocolate. It’s not a shake with milk but rather with ice. Neil says they should more accurately call it a slushy. Even so, that Dang slushy was still very tasty!

Exploring in the Banzaan local market, Neil found a fruit that looked like a cherimoya: one of his favorites on Maui. It is not quite the same flavor but we enjoyed it for something different. Back at the hotel, I took a dip in the pool during the heat of the day.

I found a little shop right next to our corner Thai restaurant for a manicure/pedicure at local’s prices. Nice to have a little pampering. Later in the day, we found that there was a rooftop pool and bar in addition to a gym on top of the other building. We went up to check out the view.

For our evening entertainment, we found a public stage in the Jung Ceylon shopping mall that appears to have performances nightly. We had just missed one of the dancing performances the other night, arriving in time to see dancers in beautiful traditional clothing forming up for a group photo. We thought we would get seats early tonight. It turns out they change the show nightly and tonight was Fire Dancing. At first we thought “we see that on Maui,” but stayed to watch. Glad we did as it was different from the Polynesian version because they used some “fireworks/sparklers” in their performance!

Tuesday, October 3, Day 7 

I spent the morning writing about our Sunday canoe excursion while it was still fresh in my mind. 

Today was my last set of dental procedures: crowns and then teeth extractions.  I had lamb curry for lunch because it will be the last time I can chew food for a few days. The crowns went on very easily without any shots! I came back in the evening for the oral surgery. This was the first time I had to wait over an hour for my appointment (every other time they took me in immediately). I was in and out of the chair in 45 minutes! I had to bite on gauze in my mouth for two hours to reduce the bleeding and they gave me an ice pack for the swelling. Neil has been so sweet and supportive. He walks me to and from the appointments (only a block from our hotel) and makes sure to listen to all the instructions for my care.

Wednesday, October 4, Day 8 

I had a good night. I used diluted clove oil on gauze pads to reduce the pain and for the antiseptic effect, and the bleeding has stopped. I used the ice pack a few times and I didn’t need any pain pills. I am going to stay quiet for a few days. It’s a rainy day so it’s easier to stay in. (86 F with 94% humidity)  I am finally having time to work on our journal entries for Cambodia. Neil went foraging for us this morning. He had looked at the weather and said it wasn’t supposed to rain until 2 pm. I encouraged him to take the umbrella anyway which was a good thing as it poured soon after he left. He brought back delicious bananas and beautiful yellow Marigold Buddha flowers for me.

I plan to stick with soups and smoothies for a few days (fruit juice blended with ice is the definition of a smoothie here.) For lunch, we both had a dahl and for dinner Neil got our new favorite lamb dish, Roghan Josh, while I got a mere cream of chicken soup! It did have a lovely flavor.

We then headed to Jung Ceylon Shopping Center to watch the show. But there were no chairs out in front of the stage? I was finally able to find an information booth and found out that the performances had just been for one week for the celebration of Golden Week. Seems we had just caught the tail end.

Thursday, October 5, Day 9 

Another quiet morning. I had a good night, no pain and I continue to use clove oil which helps. A little bit of a headache from the antibiotics and I use white willow bark periodically for the headache.

I am getting a lot of writing done in the mornings. After lunch we took a walk to the beach and sat for a while and watched the parasails. They have a fascinating system. I included a video of a launch and a landing below. (You might need to go to the website to see it.)

Before dinner, we went to the rooftop to watch the sunset. Such beautiful color in the sky.

Neil has been fascinated by motorbike mobile restaurant carts that have live hot coals and woks with boiling oil actively cooking and grilling even while they motor down the street to their next location. He bought hot satay chicken from them a number of times. 

Friday, October 6, Day 10 

Yeah, I am feeling better and eating more solid food. I had Pad Thai for lunch and we tried the Iranian restaurant for dinner. Neil enjoyed a delectable leg of lamb and I had beef and eggplant in red bean stew. I found a smoothie place where I could get a chocolate banana smoothie with milk and honey. Yum. It’s still raining and I didn’t feel like going farther afield. 

Neil remembered he wanted to take a look at Thai TV since he forgot to check Cambodian TV. He surfed through many channels. At one point he ran across Raiders of the Lost Ark dubbed in Thai. And also found a sports channel showing Thai boxing. Every couple days there’s a large truck cruising the street with fighters standing in the back making noise a loudspeaker (in English) announcing Thai boxing nights at the local arena (located across from Banzaan market.) Neil kinda wanted to go until we figured out it was $75 a ticket. I told him to go ahead (without me) but he decided against it. He thought it was funny to find it on TV after all the street promotion.

Saturday, October 7, Day 11 

We woke to sunshine so we decided to walk to the beach and enjoy the sand and surf. The afternoon clouded over and we worked on our Cambodian log which will make creating web posts (like this one!) so much faster and timely when we get back to Maui.

We ate dinner at the street vendors outside of the Banzaan market. It becomes a lively, colorful, multi-sensory street fair after dark. Neil was particularly amused by a 9-year old bartender at a stall where he made alcoholic drinks and smoothies. He got a huge smile when Neil asked to take a photo.