A lazy Sunday consisting mostly of eating...

Gahhhhh!!!! That's so frustrating! I just spent forever writing quite a witty blog post complete with pictures.  Then I accidentally deleted the whole thing because this dumb site is all in Thai! Oh, well.  I'll start over.  Here goes....

 Ahem....I apologize for leaving last night's post only partially complete.  I'm sure that you have all been eagerly awaiting the menu from last night's feast.  Well, wait no longer!  Olivia and I were invited to dinner by Bernice, Danai, and Rachael (the loverly, helpful people from Track of the Tiger).  We could hardly reject such charming company, and so humbly accepted.  Now, I'm sure most of you know that I feel very strongly about food, and thus like to give suggestions at restaurants about the most tasteful appetizer, entree, dessert, etc.  However, in Thailand, where I can not even read the menu, I am completely at the mercy of others.  Thankfully, Danai (he's from here) stepped up to the plate.  And what a wonderful job he did! We had spicy pork salad, spicy soup, spicy papaya salad, fried fish, fried chicken, Eastern sausage (I dunno what that means...) grilled pork and sticky rice.  In Thailand it is customary to eat meals with sticky rice (although some dishes...like curry...require regular steamed rice).  It comes in these cute baskets or bags, and your roll up a lump of rice and dip it into the numerous, SUPER SPICY SAUCES (note the alliteration) that accompany the dishes.  It's used very much like bread is used in Western countries to sop up tasty remnants.  And when I say SUPER SPICY SAUCES in all caps I am not over-exaggerating!  Hahaha! Olivia's face looked very much like that of a fat, middle-aged woman that has been sitting outside tanning on the beaches of the Caribbean for several hours too long.  She was bright red, sweat was not just beading up on her brow, but streaming down her face in rivulets (some of that could be attributed to the Thai heat.  We all know about Olivia's sweat issues. Ha!). And of course, her nose was runny.  The Thai people thought it was all very funny.  Sadly, I didn't chronicle either the food, or Olivia's reaction to it with photographs.  I know.  I apologize! Never fear though! I made up for it with images of today's food! Yippee! So for breakfast we got tasty pastries at a local bakery (I'm pretty sure its a chain....Fai Bakery), and refreshing iced coffee. For lunch Olivia had pad thai, and had quoi tea on moo (spelled phonetically).  At least I think I did.  I tried my hand at ordering in Thai.  The cute lady running the "restaurant" looked at me kinda funny, smiled, and pointed to a table for me to sit down.  She brought me a bowl of something.  I'm still not sure what it was, but it was tasty!  Not to be discouraged by my failed attempt at ordering i tried to tell the friendly lady how delicious her cooking was and how full it made me.  I don't think she understood.  Actually, I'm certain she didnt....but she appreciated the effort.  That's for sure.  Oh.  Okay, so I'm not sure if Olivia mentioned in her previous posts the fact that we don't have a flushable toilet here (as a matter of fact I haven't been able to find one anywhere).  But even if she did mention it, I bet she didn't provide a picture! So I will. On this post.  Actually, I'm sure you've already seen it since the pictures come up first.  But now let me explain.  The small hose directly above the toilet is used to squirt down...umm...I'm sure you get the idea.  The larger one on the wall serves as our shower.  Oh! HAHAHAHA! Funny story.  So here in Chiang Mai you can not drink tap water.  So there are all of these water stations on the side of the road.  People put in a few baht into the machine, and in exchange, their jugs are filled with drinkable water. I told Olivia to just put a few baht in.  What does she do, she puts in 10 baht (the equivalent of 0.32 USD).  Our water jug was full in a matter of seconds, but water just kept gushing out! It was overflowing out into the street! We were both very embarrassed...but I blame Olivia.