February 2nd. Remembering the German Bakery

Today started with our first walk on Klong Nin beach. There two young boys collecting shiners, probably to use as bait, as we saw them on the walk back on a longtail boat. Low tide exposed some very beautiful rock/coral formations. Budget breakfast in our room, muesli and milk and then off to town on the bike. We had hoped our rental spot had located a bigger helmet for me but no such luck. Onwards to Saladan for the German bakery. Never give up! We ended up almost at the pier before we realized we must have passed the bakery. Man! Turned around and headed back, sure enough, there it was in all it's glory the tables and chairs full with customers. A young girl sitting by herself, Emily, graciously let us join her at her table. We bellied up to the glass cases displaying all the baked creations, licking our lips and salivating with the anticipation of how divinely the cake was going to please our taste buds! Two cappuccinos complimented the apple cake quite nicely. With the cake devoured we focused our attention to the girl typing away on her computer. She was from Florida but works as a financial account manager in Beijing, where she also had studied Mandarin for five years. I am always amazed by the people we meet. I love their adventurous ambitions!
With our treasure, two very fresh croissants, safely stashed away in the compartment under the seat of our bike we headed back. Later, in the mid afternoon we took our treasure to a nearby cafe, Monkey Bizness, and savoured our second order of cappuccinos for the day. Usually it is only one coffee in the morning but today being such a special day, having conquered our quest of locating the infamous German Bakery, we felt we could justify a second sitting of sampling some roasted beans. A Thai coffee and a Laos coffee, actually two quite distinct flavours. In the Monkey Bizness Marie was reading a glossy tourists guide booklet and in it was the Neanderthal cartoon you see below.
Searching for a place for a bite for dinner brought us into a place called the Roundhouse. There was a lady sitting by the bar so I asked her if she was eating there; I usually ask people in the restaurants if they are enjoying the food and where they're from to get a feel for whether or not we should try the menu. She replied that they are from Belgium and she with her husband, literally, just purchased the hotel and restaurant, the finalization just today. She was having "buyers remorse", wondering if they had made the right decision. We decided to stay and yes the food was delicious. More of the same but different, yellow coconut curry with noodles and chicken and a chicken curry with rice. Free wifi to work on the blog, a big Chang beer for the author and a beautiful sunset to keep our photographer entranced made for a perfect evening.
The lights you see on the horizon are from all the boats fishing at night. The ones searching for squid have green lights. Mark said it was the same when they first started vacationing here ten years ago.
The web site for the Roundhouse has some very nice photos of the area. http://www.lantaroundhouse.com/