Home Thoughts From Abroad

Travelling in Asia has some surreal moments. Like driving down the highway from Baguio City to Clark Field and encountering a “floating restaurant.” As we were miles from the ocean at that point, we stopped to investigate. Here was this restaurant on the edge of the highway, miles from anywhere that was built on a marsh. Taking advantage of what anyone else would have deemed a liability, the owner had constructed a series of platforms and private gazebos connected by bamboo bridges, and made that the site of a restaurant.

But not content with that incongruity, the owner stretched the point by populating the place with the oddest sculptures, like the monkees pictured above and huge concrete fish in various poses. There were pools of goldfish to feed and a narrow concrete bridge over which the daring were invited to walk to win their lunch, or get thoroughly soaked trying.

We settled on paying for a feast of fried chicken, grilled tilapia, chow mein and shanghai fried rice, washed down with mango and papaya smoothies for a very reasonable price. We paid a little more for Steve to seranade Pam along with a troop of wandering minstrels singing Elvis and Ritchie Valens. Just another surprising and delightful chance stop along the route of our Asian journey together.