We Arrived Back From Nick And Maureen's,

to get ourselves ready for today's celebration, it was Maureen's birthday yesterday and Diana's tomorrow, so a small double celebration today, Slim Jim came along as well so there were just the 5 of us,

so in the afternoon off we went, this is the first time I have seen one of these in the back of a baht bus, a television screen with advertisements for real estate,

we were over taken by one of the many mobile animal sellers,

surprisingly few cars and coaches on the road from Pattaya,

even the Pattaya Floating Market did not appear to be busy,

past the Ambassador Hotel,

we finally arrived at Prechai seafood restaurant,

as you walk through the restaurant there are pools with some of the food on offer in them, like these small crabs,

next door their bigger cousins,

prawns a plenty,

I had to take a picture of Diana's favorite, lobster,

some small snails, rather like winkles we eat in the UK,

large mussels, these are about 9 inches long,

we then continued the walk through the surprising empty restaurant,

I was hoping to snap a few nice pictures of the sunset, but there was nothing but low cloud,

normally there would be lots of rocks at low water, but the restaurant has brought in sand to make a beach,

first course, some steamed shrimps,

and mussels, we also had some morning glory, a type of vegetable and seafood fried rice,

followed by some tom yam goong, a spicy seafood soup,

under the soup tray is a small lighted candle to keep the soup hot,

next course some crab claws but with the shell removed, I think we all liked the crab, especially as we did not have the fiddly work of removing the shell,

Slim Jim brought along wine and champagne,

it looked increasingly like it would rain, so we moved into the covered area and was welcomed by the local cat,

next course baby clams in a sauce that tasted like aniseed, rock lobsters in garlic with another helping of morning glory, I should say we also had some prawn doughnuts, but they were so delicious we ate them before I could pick up the camera!

to round the meal off some grilled fish,

the Tiger beer lady called by as we were having a few after meal drinks,

and helped with serving the drinks,

by now it was late in the evening,

but the wine kept flowing! the restaurant was so quiet, this Monday even when we left it was less than half full,

on my way to the bathroom I spotted these,

a parrot,

two rabbits,

and a pair of flamingos,

then back in the baht bus, just as a guide the meal came to just on 500 baht a head, Slim Jim brought the wine but the beers were supplied by the restaurant,

then present time!

Diana could not wait till tomorrow!

a beautiful necklace and earring set from Nick and Maureen,

and a watch from Slim Jim,

tomorrow when it is Diana's offical birthday I will treat her to a meal of her choice, plus this coming Christmas a bumper visit to the local gold shop! then a few more drinks and we were all off to bed.