Dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe

On our way back to the hotel, we passed a Hard Rock Cafe, which surprised us. We decided to have dinner there. We weren't really hungry, but Meri pointed out that if we sat in the room we would fall asleep and stay off schedule.

The hotel said it was too close to be worthwhile for a taxi, (you can see the building from the fourth floor) so they called an auto (the three wheeled thing called a tuk-tuk in Thailand). Meri and I were surprised we hadn't noticed it before. LiJun said she saw it, but didn't know it was interesting to us.

We went, we ate, we went to the shop, and when we came out, it was raining. The building is a shopping center, so we went in and looked around. Upper middle class malls are truly the same the world over, except that there were traditional clothing and gorgeous sari fabric for sale as well. Meri checked out the Esprit store, and she and LiJun discussed fashionny things.

When we left, we got into an auto that had just dropped people off. The driver didn't know our hotel, but Meri had a card, and the attendants looked at it and discussed it with him. So off we went in the rain. We had to give directions, and everything looked different in the dark and the rain. We kept saying what looked familiar, until nothing looked familiar. (LiJun is especially good at this.). We tried a few turns, and then luckily came to a young lady walking with an umbrella down the middle of the street, chatting on her cell phone. She knew English (unlike the driver), and cheerfully told us to go to the end of the block and tuen left. Indeed, there it was! I paid the driver 50 rupees, the same as the driver going there, but he complained. The doorman holding the umbrella for me told me that he wanted extra for wandering around. Since the whole amount was about $2, I gave it to him.