If you take a long boat from Watermark Apartments in Bangkok and travel on the Chao Phraya river to Saphin / Taskin Bridge and then hop on the Bangkok rail and take the National Stadium line changing trains at Siam heading towards Bearing get off at Thong Lo and walk to Soi 36 and make a left and then on the right side you'll find the Vientiane Kitchen.

Andy and his Thai wife and daughter met us for dinner there. It was great to kick back and have a local order everything and just eat and drink. We sampled all kinds of local faves, too many for me to remember their names, but all tasty and in typical Thai fashion, tasting nothing like we were used to or expected. Everytime I looked at a food and thought it was going to taste one way it ultimately tasted completely different. All past experience is out the window here as my taste buds adjust to the new flavors.

Throughout dinner there was an outstanding band that played many great local songs and classics. A topper for me was when they ripped into Oyo Como Va. I can handle Santana anytime and anyplace and their version, with exotic Thai instruments were the perfect spice to a great evening. But it was just the warm-up.

The band then broke down into a nice groove where they then invited people to come up and do some local dancing. Nina was first in the queue. The dance invovled two of the band members holding long bamboo sticks and tapping them together and you had to dance through them without getting your feet caught. Of course you were assisted by the beautiful female dancers and singers. Nina was fearless and did great. Hopping over and through the clicking bamboo sticks.

After a few other people gave the dance a whirl I could not resist and gave it a go. The next part of this blog is sponsored by Tiger beer with ice. (Yes, beer with ice as its hot here. What's really crazy is I had more ice in one day in Thailand then I had in all of Europe). With the help of the lovely assistants and the bands groove I managed not to make a fool of myself and put on a nice performance. Of course, on the video, which I'll post later, you can hear Amy screaming, "no, you need to do blah, blah, blah." It was great fun!

We capped of a great night with an uneventful taxi ride home which was a relief given our experience with Mr. Damrong. Again, I can't emphasize how great its been to connect with locals during our journey to take us to places we never would've found on our own.

AG