Over the Pass

Today we left Leadville right after breakfast, heading west towards Montrose. We both were feeling fine after our altitude-induced light-headedness of the day before. It was a gorgeous drive through so much mountain scenery. The first part of the drive was through the valley of the Arkansas River, which has its headwaters just outside Leadville.

Arkansas River

Mountain along the way

At the top of Monarch Pass which marks the Continental Divide, we stopped and took a tram car ride to the top. It was very cold, windy, and slightly rainy, so the view wasn't the greatest. But it was wonderful to be able to see so much in all directions. The first photo below shows a trail on the right side; it leads to the main Continental Divide hiking trail. Notice there is still snow below where we were standing.

Another view from the top

There were only two towns along the way that amounted to much and we stopped at a park in Gunnison for our lunch. There were children playing on the playground equipment, including a climbing wall.

I managed to get this shot of the wonderful clouds as we were driving through more rolling countryside than high mountains.

We got to our hotel in Montrose in the early afternoon. We sorted our packing, did a load of laundry, and watched the 1956 movie of Around the World in 80 Days, to celebrate the finishing of the audio book. Both were very enjoyable. 

We had dinner at a mediocre Indian restaurant and then came back to our room to finish up our daily tasks. Tomorrow we are off to Black Canyon National Park and Ouray. 

Leadville

I loved "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" back in the day, so when I looked at possible routes west, I wanted to stop in Leadville, Colorado. Our drive on I-70 through Denver was uneventful. Coming through the mountains was beautiful, with scenic views all along the way. We arrived in Leadville about noon and decided to have our lunch in a park before finding our hotel. Lucy found one on the map on her phone, but it turned out to be a bare track going into the wilderness. We turned around and found the Ice Palace Park that had picnic tables. In 1896 they built an enormous palace out of ice with a rink, ballroom, and much more. Read more here if you are interested, it's a fascinating tale.

Our hotel, the Delaware, right in the middle of town, was built in 1886 by two brothers from Delaware. It is quite historic, which means no elevator and steep stairs! But it is a wonderful old place. There are artifacts everywhere. The lobby is crammed with furniture, clocks, hunting trophies, and almost anything else you can imagine.

Our charming room

Antique furniture in the hallway

Once we got settled in our room, we headed out to see the town. The main business district is only about four blocks long, and we decided to go down one side and back the other. The shops were as expected; lots of outdoor equipment, souvenir shops, and antique/thrift stores. The view below is looking to the west right from the main street, down an alley to the mountains.

There are a lot of interesting historic buildings, two of which are shown below.

This mural was on the side of one of the buildings.

We walked down a side street to see a historic Jewish synagogue that is now a museum. There were a lot of Jewish merchants here in the late 1800s. On our way back, we rested on a bench with a young woman who was here working in a pizza restaurant. We had a nice conversation about a wide range of things.

As we were heading back to the hotel, I suddenly began to feel faint and sat down on a big step. We knew, but hadn't fully realized, that this town is above 10,000 feet elevation. Lucy wanted to go get an oxygen canister (many people use them here) and some water, but just then a local woman stopped and insisted we get in her car so she could take us back to our hotel. We accepted her offer and were very grateful. After we had water in the lobby, Lucy went off to get the oxygen. Both things made a big difference, and after a short time, we were ready to go and have our dinner. We both were feeling some effect of the altitude, but the oxygen was miraculous! It helped us get up the two long, steep flights once we got back to the hotel, too. This turned out to be a bit more of an adventure than we expected, but it's all good and we are fine.

Kansas is Wide!

Today we spent the whole day in Kansas except for the last ten miles heading to our motel in Burlington, Colorado. We decided early on to see a few sights along the way, and we certainly did.

Our first stop was the Flint Hills Tall Grass Prairie, an overlook a few miles off I-70. The vista across the valley was beautiful.

Our next stop was Abilene, the childhood home of Dwight Eisenhower. We watched the movie first, along with a large number of youngish to middle-aged people, almost all men. I talked to one of them and he said they were military people from 89 countries going through a leadership training program at Fort Leavenworth. The two I spoke with were from the Philippines and Cambodia. Very interesting! After the movie about Ike's life, we had a guided tour of the home. The entire campus was beautifully kept, with four main buildings -- the home, visitor center, museum, and library. There was also a small chapel where Ike and Mamie are buried. The home was small and typical for the late 19th century. His parents raised six sons there. 

After touring the house, we took advantage of a picnic area to have our lunch (no photo; it was the same as yesterday). We did a quick tour of the museum. We were fortunate; the museum had been closed for renovations and today was the first day it was reopened. We didn't tour the library.

And then we hit the road again. The thermometer on the car kept climbing and settled at 100° for most of the afternoon. We were very grateful for air-conditioning! 

Our next stop was further off the highway in the town of Lucas. We had read about an eccentric man who built a house of limestone and surrounded it with sculptures he made out of cement. It was very weird and worth seeing. The house looked like a log cabin as you can see below, but the "logs" were actually limestone. They were similar to the fence posts we saw lining the roads in that area. He called his place the Garden of Eden and many of the sculptures were Biblical. The main entrance showed Adam and Eve. 

The grounds had numerous structures and more odd sculptures all over. The oddest thing was the mausoleum, which the young woman working unlocked for us and a couple who were also visiting. Our hero's coffin had a glass top and his decomposed/mummified body was visible. Pictures not allowed, thank goodness! His wife was buried below him, in cement, of course.

Our last stop was going to be Castle Rock, a supposedly wonderful outcropping in the middle of flat land. However, when we discovered it was 15 miles south of the highway and mostly dirt road, we decided we'd had enough sight-seeing for one day. We got to our motel about 5:30, unpacked, and went to dinner. It was a good decision, as there were only a few people there when we arrived and a crowd waiting when we left. The Dish Room had excellent food; we both had dinner salads.

We've gained an hour each day so far, but we'll be in Colorado for a while now. We are coming along well with Around the World in 80 Days; we only have about an hour to go -- the group has arrived in Liverpool and Fogg has been arrested. (You must know the story...)

Westward Ho!

Last year when I learned my great-niece was getting married in Oregon in August, I thought it would be great to drive out, see some sights along the way, and visit friends in the Northwest. My sister Lucy, grandmother to the bride, agreed to travel with me for the trip out. So we are underway!

Sunday afternoon I drove to her home in Indianapolis, about a three-hour drive, and spent the night. Monday morning we hit the road at about 7:30, heading west on I-70 toward Kansas City. Our sister Becky kindly came outside and took a shot of us as we prepared to leave.

Our drive was uneventful. Near the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers we saw many fields still flooded from the heavy spring and early summer rains. We drove through one fairly heavy storm, but it was over quickly and the sky turned blue. When we weren't talking, we listened to an audio recording of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days. We had seen the movie, but neither of us had actually read the book. We are enjoying it!

We stopped for lunch at a rest stop along the highway. I had packed a cooler and a bag of lunch items. We had our chicken/cheese/lettuce wraps, sweet potato chips, V-8, and cherries for dessert. It was hot, but we found a shaded picnic table and it was very pleasant.

We had a reservation at a Hyatt Place near Kansas City, Kansas. We arrived, put our luggage on a cart and went inside. When I tried to check in, they said, oh, you're at the other Hyatt Place, not this one. It must happen a lot, as they gave me a printed copy of directions to the correct one, which turned out to be only about a mile and a half away. We settled in and were looking forward to a swim. Lucy went down to check and their pool was under maintenance and not available. She asked if we could go back to the other Hyatt and use theirs instead. Oh, no, they have different owners. But after her sob story of how badly we needed to swim (after all, we are seniors and have physical therapy needs that only water can provide), they called the other hotel and it was agreed. When we arrived back at the first hotel, the kind man who had helped us load up seemed surprised to see us again. When we said we were the senior swimmers, he laughed and said, of course! We had a wonderful swim and headed out for dinner directly from there.

Evidently Joe's Kansas City Barbecue is world-famous and we wanted to try it. As we were standing staring at the menu board, a kind gentleman said "Get the Z-Man." Brisket, smoked provolone cheese, and onion rings on a kaiser roll. We got a side each and shared: barbecued beans and Kansas Caviar, a great veggie mixture. It was all delicious and filling and I can recommend it if you are ever in this area. 

Tomorrow we head on to eastern Colorado.

Danube Waltz Cruise

Dan and I have long wanted to take a European river cruise, and in June we finally did it. We traveled with the Viking cruise company from Budapest to Passau, Germany. We took the offered pre-cruise days in Budapest and post-cruise in Prague. We had a wonderful time and can highly recommend Viking. Everything was extremely well organized.

Unfortunately, two days before our departure on June 13, I had a sudden onset of muscular back pain. I was able to get some muscle relaxants, which helped, but it was about ten days until I was able to walk without pain (even using my walking sticks). I enjoyed it anyway!

We arrived at the Budapest airport about 5:30 PM after leaving Chicago at 10:45 the night before. Yes, it was a long trip! A Viking representative met us and took us to our hotel, the Hilton Budapest City. It was attached to a very large, modern shopping mall, and we wandered in there to find something to eat, then happily fell into bed.

One of the things I had read about Budapest mentioned the many thermal baths. I had gone online and gotten a ticket for the Szechenyi Baths, which were not far from our hotel. Dan was not interested, but went with me by taxi to check it out. He wandered around and walked back to the hotel. My ticket included access to a small private changing room where I could leave my things. They gave me a wrist bracelet that was waterproof and acted as a key to the room. (Small means just large enough to stand or sit on the bench and change.) I thoroughly enjoyed several hours exploring and soaking in the various pools. There were two large outdoor pools, one cool for swimming laps and one warm to enjoy. In the large building, there were 15 pools of varying temperatures and I tried them all. After making the rounds, I had a sandwich for lunch and went back to try them all again. The warm water felt great on my back. When I was finished, I took a taxi back to the hotel.

Brochure photo of the outside baths and entrance building

On Sunday, we were taken from the hotel to the ship by bus along with others who had come in early. The ship was much different than the larger ocean cruise ships we have been on. There were 188 passengers. The food was excellent. All three meals were served in the dining room, with optional buffets in the upstairs lounge area. We usually had lunch upstairs, breakfast and dinner in the main dining room. It was open seating, but we ended up eating with some of the same people multiple times. It was interesting to get to know some of the other passengers -- American, British, Australian, Canadian were the majority, with a few from India and Jamaica.

Monday morning we had a bus and walking tour of some of the main sights of Budapest (actually Buda and Pest, on opposite sides of the river). I didn't take many photos, as I was very dependent on my walking sticks. In the afternoon I had the great pleasure of meeting up with a former co-worker and friend who has been living in Vác, about 20 minutes away from the city, for the past 15 years or so. Lea and I sat together on a bench in the shade outside the ship and talked nonstop for a couple of hours. What a treat!

The ship sailed after dinner that evening, heading toward Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. The scenery along the river was beautiful and we enjoyed watching our progress through a large lock. Our tour of Bratislava was in the afternoon, again a combination bus-walking tour. As we drove into the small Carpathian mountains above the city we had a good view of the famous castle, called "The Table," because it looks like an upside-down table.

Our next stop was Vienna. Again we had a walking tour in the central part of the city. I enjoyed a rest stop at a coffee shop recommended by our guide. 

Interior of St Peter's Church

That evening, I signed up for a Mozart and Strauss concert back in the city. There were quite a few from our ship in attendance, plus many more. It was a fairly small venue in an old building. The "orchestra" consisted of a violin, viola, cello, bass, flute and piano. They were all excellent musicians. There were also two singers, a soprano and a baritone, and two dancers, male and female. The singers and dancers did several numbers each throughout the evening. I ended up in a seat in the front row center, and almost felt kicked by the dancers! There were no photos allowed, but I got one of the stage before they started. You can see how small it was. The violinist was the leader of the group and stood at the front to the left. She was outstanding.

The following day we were in Krems, Austria. This small town is the home of Gottweig Abbey, which we toured. It sits on a hilltop above the town and is a beautiful location. There was much to see in the very large monastery.

View from Abbey of valley and town below

During the afternoon we sailed through the scenic Wachau Valley, which was beautiful.

The next day we stopped at Linz, Austria. We saw the home where Mozart stayed as he composed Symphony No. 36, "Linz", and other places in the small city. The Brucknerhaus, a concert hall, was very close to our ship.

Brucknerhaus

Our last stop was the town of Passau, Germany. This was a much smaller city than the earlier ones, so we saw much of the main downtown area.

Typical city street in Passau

Part of our tour included tickets to the daily organ concert in the giant Baroque St. Stephen's Cathedral. The church was filled. The main organ (there were five altogether) was in the rear, and we were facing forward. The cathedral was very ornate and the music was very good. After that we headed back down the hill to the bus to go back to the ship. That evening a young woman gave us a presentation on the history of the Danube River, which was fascinating.

Looking back and up to the organ

The next morning we had to say goodbye to the ship and board our bus to Prague. The drive was very scenic, through hills and fields of southern Germany and into the Czech Republic. Our hotel, the Corinthia, was some distance from downtown, but there was frequent shuttle service. That first afternoon we wandered into Vyšehrad, a 10th-century fort that has a large park. We only made it into the edge of the park, but it was a lovely walk. We stopped at a food stand to have some drinks and met some others from our ship -- English people who were having fish and chips for lunch! Our hotel had a swimming pool on the 26th floor, and I was happy to visit it twice during our stay.

Our "Panoramic Prague" tour ended up being about four hours of walking. The bus took us to the downtown area and we walked through a park along the river, across the famous Charles Bridge, and into the heart of the city, the large square. We saw the famous Astronomical Clock, which has mechanical figures moving each time it strikes the hour. The area in front of the clock was totally jammed with people; there must have been thousands of tourists that day.

After a rest back at the hotel in the afternoon, we headed out for the Folklore Dinner. Two busloads of Viking passengers arrived at the small village just outside the city, where we had a traditional Czech meal and were entertained by musicians and dancers. The trio consisted of a violin, hammered dulcimer, and string bass. They were excellent and played lots of Czech folk tunes as well as some classical numbers. Two dancers performed multiple times and the mistress of ceremonies sang as well. At one point a number of audience members were persuaded to join the dancing. The meal was good; although there was a lot of food, it wasn't too much.

Czech musicians

On our last day, Dan and I took the hotel shuttle bus back to the downtown area. It let us off right at the main square. We again crossed the Charles Bridge, hoping to find the Kafka Museum. I was on a mission from a friend to find some Kafka memorabilia. We had not been able to visit a place where he lived in the castle complex the day before, so we thought the museum shop might do as a substitute. We did indeed find what we were looking for! It was a very hot day, and after trying a local delicacy, the Trdelnik, I headed back to the hotel.

Trdelnik dough cooking

Our flights home were from Prague to Munich to O'Hare. We put our bags outside our room at 10:00 AM and went down to meet our transportation. Five of us were leaving at the same time, so it was a small van. Again, we were so impressed with the Viking organization. There were at least five or six groups at our hotel from various cruises, some post-cruise like us, others getting ready to start. Everything worked like clockwork and we felt well taken care of.

I'll leave you with a view of one of the buildings on the main square in the center of Prague.

My Books of 2018

I read 98 books in 2018, just a few more than usual, almost two per week. I can't stand not having a book going -- as soon as I finish one, I have to have the next one waiting. This year I had many books that I put on hold at my local library. Recommendations came from my daughter, my friend Pat and other friends, and random articles on-line.

Several of my favorite authors had new books in their series this year and none disappointed:  Alexander McCall Smith's A Time of Love and Tartan (44 Scotland Street), The Quiet Side of Passion (Isabel Dalhousie), The Colors of All the Cattle (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency), and The Good Pilot Peter Woodhouse (stand-alone), were all enjoyed. How can this man continue to produce so many wonderful readable books? Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs has moved into World War II in To Die But Once. Lucinda Riley's Star Sister series book The Pearl Sister went with CeCe to Australia. This series is fascinating, the stories of seven sisters adopted by a wealthy man. When he dies, they each get clues to trace their backgrounds. Each book is part historical novel about the daughter's ancestors, part modern story of her connecting with her past.

I read very little nonfiction, but two books enriched my year: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot was a wonderful story about the woman whose cancer cells have been used in much medical research and A River in Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa was a first-person narrative of a half-Korean, half-Japanese man who escaped from North Korea after many harrowing years.

Somehow I ended up reading several books set on ships, including Elizabeth Blackwell's On a Cold Dark Sea, about three Titanic survivors who reconnect after 20 years; The Last Cruise by Kate Christenson, a cook, a musician and a farmer's wife on a doomed cruise to Hawaii; Ruta Sepetys's Salt to the Sea, survivors near the end of WWII; The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware, a murder mystery set on a small cruise ship; and The Glass Ocean by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White, set on the Lusitania.

My friend Stephen Alter had two new books this year, both very enjoyable. In the Jungles of the Night is about Jim Corbett, vignettes of three different times in his life rather than a standard biography. The Dalliance of Leopards is the second in a mystery series set in Mussoorie whose hero is spymaster Colonel Afridi.

I particularly enjoy historical novels. Some of the ones I most enjoyed this year:

•Thalassa Ali: A Singular Hostage, A Beggar at the Gate, and Companions of Paradise (1838 young Englishwoman in northwest India and Kabul becomes involved with native man)
•Lauren Belfer:  And After the Fire (Bach manuscript in Berlin, Weimar, and modern New York)
•Rhys Bowen: In Farleigh Field and The Tuscan Child (WWII in England and Italy)
•Camille DeMaio: The Way of Beauty (German and Italian immigrants around Penn Station in the early 20th century)
•Jamie Ford: Love and Other Consolation Prizes (1909 Seattle World's Fair, Chinese boy auctioned off)
•Charles Frazier: Varina (story of the Confederate First Lady)
•Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb: Last Christmas in Paris (WWI letters from a woman to her brother's friend)
•Sally Gunning: The Widow's War (1761 widow fights to control her life and property)
•Ariel Lawhorn: I Was Anastasia (telling the story backwards and forwards)
•Susan Ella MacNeal: Mr. Churchill's Secretary and Princess Elizabeth's Spy (young American woman gets involved in espionage in WWI London)
•Sujata Massey: Widows of Malabar Hill (Parsi woman lawyer in 1921 Bombay gets involved in purdah wives and murder)
•Susan Meissner: As Bright as Heven (family lives in funeral home, goes through 1918 flu epidemic)
•Madeline Miller: Circe (amazing tale of the goddess in her own words)
•Bradford Morrow: The Prague Sonata (possible Beethoven manuscript separated and lost through WWII)
•Paul Gill: The Secret Wife (Tatiana, supposedly murdered with her family [Tsar Nicholas], survived)
•Deanna Raybourn: A Curious Beginning and A Perilous Undertaking (intrepid Victorian woman becomes an explorer and solves mysteries)
•Aimee K. Runyan: Daughters of the Night Sky (Russian women pilots in WWII)
•Natasha Solomons: Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English (Jewish immigrant attempts to become the perfect English gentleman)
•Mark Sullivan: Beneath a Scarlet Sky (amazing story of Italian boy/man in WWII)
•Amor Towles: A Gentleman in Moscow (Russian aristocrat sentenced to life in a hotel after the revolution)

And some modern novels I can recommend:

•Lisa Genova: Every Note Played (concert pianist dying of ALS, ex-wife takes over care) and Inside the O'Briens (Boston cop gets Huntington's Disease, family fallout)
•Jonas Jonasson: The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (hilarious tale of a man who was involved in many 20th-century happenings)
•Julie Kibler: Calling Me Home (wonderful story of elderly white woman and her black hairdresser traveling to Cincinnati for a funeral)
•Mary Robinette Kowal: The Calculating Stars (alternate history where a woman wants to become an astronaut in the 1950s)
•Jojo Moyes: Still Me (Louisa moves to NYC, wonderful follow-up to Me Before You)
•Kathleen Rooney: Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk (writer walks NYC on New Year's Eve 1984, remembering her remarkable life)
•Marcella Serano: Ten Women (ten Chilean women describe their lives)
•Michael Zadoorian: The Leisure Seeker (she has cancer, he has Alzheimer's, and they head west in their camper for a last adventure, to the horror of their children)

If you like to read and want more recommendations, check out my daughter's blog at http://www.anjviola.com. She reads much more than I do and posts her list at the first of every month.

Christmas in Las Vegas

2018 has been an unusual year for us, including the fact that we spent our Christmas in Las Vegas. Our daughter and her husband had plans to go there for some time and they urged us to join them when our other travel plans didn't work out. We had a wonderful time, even if it was quite exhausting.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon. Anjali had arranged a downtown Las Vegas food tour for us, which helped us get through the early evening hours when we would have liked to sleep!

The food was good, although most of it not especially inspiring. The tour began at the Container Park, a really cool collection of shops and restaurants all made out of shipping containers. Outside the entrance was a giant sculpted praying mantis. At about 5:00 the show began -- fire shot out of the antennae with loud booms. The kids around loved it! 

I had heard about the Fremont Street Experience and thought it was something I'd like to see. It was interesting, but there was too much extremely loud music for me to ever go back! One of our stops was at a casino whose owner was a collector. On display was the largest gold nugget ever found. It was found in Australia; he paid about a million dollars for it and it is now valued at something like 22 million.

Another artifact was a huge piece of the Berlin wall. It is installed (under plexiglass) in a men's restroom behind three urinals.

We stayed at the Bellagio, a lovely Italian-themed hotel on the Strip. It is famous for its dancing fountains and a large Conservatory. For the holidays, the Conservatory had a fabulous display. The first photo shows the centerpiece and the second a corner area with playful polar bears.

Our room faced away from the Strip toward the mountains, which gave a lovely sunset view.

The lobby ceiling was covered with Chihuly glass flowers. (This is an unusual picture, because most of the time there were crowds of people everywhere.)

On Christmas Eve afternoon, Dan went with Anjali and Domingos on a helicopter tour into the Grand Canyon. I had done it some years ago with one of my sisters, so didn't participate this time. While they were away, I had lunch at the Patisserie -- a sandwich and key lime tart. Delicious!

Of course, we had lots of wonderful food. On Christmas day we had an early dinner at FIX, an in-house restaurant near the theater where we saw the Cirque du Soleil "O" show. They had a prix fixe pre-theater special.

Roasted tomato soup with incredible grilled cheese

Salmon entree with root vegetables

Surf 'n' Turf with horseradish potato cube

Doughnuts stuffed with banana, peanut butter and chocolate dipping sauces

On our final morning with Anjali and Domingos, we had breakfast at one of the in-house restaurants. The oatmeal was quite amazing! (and quite too much for me!)

Eating and Touring in Georgetown

Monday evening we went a short distance down the street to Mr. Shewarma. Dan had checked out several places earlier and thought this was a good one. They had street-side seating, as did most places, but we sat inside near the back where there was a fan and it was cooler. We had banana-strawberry milkshakes, which were absolutely delicious. They were more pink than orange, as they appear in the photo.

We ordered a shwarma set which included two plates. One had chicken pieces on top of a thin bread like chapati with french fries. It was definitely not photogenic. The chicken was good, though. The other plate had cole slaw, another veggie salad, hummus, and I think baba ganoush. I'm sorry I didn't get the picture until we had already dug in!

Walking along the street in the early evening we see dozens of food carts, everything from burgers (Old Wafford style and crispy chicken) to a variety of things I don't recognize. Noodles are popular all over Asia, of course.

This cart had quite a variety -- and yes, those are octopus tentacles on the far left.

Tuesday morning we decided to get on the free bus that circles the inner part of the city that is a UNESCO heritage sight. We had seen a good bit of it last year on the Hop-on Hop-off bus as well as Monday on our long ride back from Penang Hill. At one of the stops there were a couple of ricksha drivers waiting for customers. Notice that unlike India, these drivers sit behind the passengers. This driver was relaxing in the passenger seat while waiting.

At the jetty bus stop we again had to get out and get into another bus to continue the route. I noticed this sign yesterday and caught a quick shot today. Yes, it is a good idea:  "Do Not Chase After Moving Bus."

Tuesday evening we went a bit further down the street, near the entrance to Little India, to a biriani restaurant. It was cool and comfortable and not at all crowded (3 other customers). Dan had the mutton and I had the veggie biriani. We both ordered garlic naan and lassis as well. My veg biriani came on a thali with some dal and several vegetables as well as some raita.

The garlic naan was on a thali as well, with a sweet yogurt concoction, coriander chutney, and a red chutney. The naan was a bit thinner than we are used to, but that was a good thing. I've never seen such large chunks of garlic on naan! 

Dan's mutton biriani came in a clay pot, also with some side dishes -- dal and raita. And a hard-boiled egg.

Dan's Thai visa arrived in the afternoon and we are heading to Batu Ferringhi, the beach area, on Wednesday around noon.