Darby & Joan, dentists and more fun!

Walking home from Chiang Mai involves passing what has been a building project since we came here, back in November. Recently the sign-age (real word?) went up and it is a restaurant called "Darby and Joan"! What else could we do but give it a go, at the first possible chance.

Like most places here the buildings and decorations are not quite finished but the staff were brilliant, even though they were expecting a huge party of local Police (who no doubt needed a freeby) We chose a house cocktail called "Darby and Joan" which looked more like a cleaning product, but tasted fine! This picture is a water feature in the gardens. You can sit outside or else in various glass fronted garden rooms around a court-yard garden.

We chose the crispy duck, not the usual Chinese style but even more crispy! We had a very good meal and the setting around the gardens gives the impression of quiet seclusion, not bad, so near to the road and the entrance to the busy Gymkhana Club. Joan had the misfortune to break a tooth the other day. As it was one that was splatted by one of our ponies some years ago, it's amazing it's lasted so long really. We were amused to discover that the common Thai words for a dentist is a transliteration of "Tooth Doctor" which when written in phonetics for the English to pronounce is: Mor Fun, or More Phang!
As we were due an afternoon of Thai speaking practice I sent an hour or so trying to learn: Chai, row bai tan-dta bhairt! That is, "Yes, we went to the dentist!" The only problem was no one asked me what we'd done today.......

The Dentist was great, but he needed her to have an X-ray;apparently, the ones Joan has carried around for the last 15 years to fend off over zealous immigration officers who discover the metalwork in her mouth, were not good enough! This involved getting a Tuk-Tuk driver thoroughly lost whilst we found the X-Ray shop. I call it this, but basically it's a counter where you can queue up and get any kind of electronic diagnostics process done while you wait. A full jaw X-ray took 5 mins and cost 300 Bhart (£6.00). If you wanted you could have a CT scan, barium enema  tumour identification tests; the list was endless. The Tuk-Tuk waited outside and took us home in half the time.
The dentist started work on the broken tooth the following day. The only difference between a British dental surgery and this one is that here in Chiang Mai, it looks more like a barber's shop! There is a row of chairs with people being drilled, polished or otherwise tortured all in unison. The dentist, however, is a Professor of dental surgery at the local university; he runs this practice to keep his hand in, as it were!
Below are some pictures of us at our local coffee shop/wine bar. We often call in on a day off, as it's by the river. The advantage over sitting on the South Bank of the Thames is that it is rarely below 28 degrees at the "Antique House", however, you rarely get eaten alive by mozzies in the bar outside the National Theatre!

I hope this doesn't give the impression that we spend all our time here sitting under umbrellas, nice as that might be; but we do try to get "Off Site" now and again when it's as busy here as it has been since Christmas. This Saturday we said hello/goodbye to 14 house loads of guests.  The beds are barely cooled off before the next lot are in. Our cleaning staff have been working flat out to keep up. It was a strange sight, however,  seeing Joan on her hands and knees, giving a demo of "How to clean a toilet bowel" to a few of the less thorough staff was a bit of a laugh! The kitchen staff have had their share of extra work too; as we have been inundated with a batch of militant celiacs this month! 
One great thing for me, recently, is that the aquarium in the Office has fallen to me to maintain. It's ages since I had one and I have gradually coaxed everyone to stop feeding them every five minutes and, Hey-Presto!, the poor fish have stopped dying. We have added some living plants and a few more fish and it looks great. In fact, yesterday, the couple who donated the tank saw it and liked it so much they have given me another tank!