Where we’re going

Last modified on 2007-12-28 19:14:02 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

To celebrate our 25th anniversary, Tom and I am embarking on a long vacation to Southeast Asia. We’ve been to Thailand three times now, but this will be our first visit to Laos and Vietnam.

I know it’s rather grand, but the trip is sort of epic, so I’m calling it our Voyage of the Descending Dragon. ‘Descending Dragon’ is what the Vienamese name for Halang Bay means. (Seeing the limestone formations of Halang Bay is going to be an amazing thing, I’m sure.)

• 1 & 2 We’ll fly from San Francisco to Seoul, then to Bangkok. A quick nap at the airport hotel and then to our first real destination, Chiang Mai, in Northern Thailand.
• 3 We’ll travel overland to Chiang Khong, at the Thai-Lao border, where we’ll spend the night.
• 4 We’ll take the ferry across the Mekong River to Houayxai in Laos, where we’ll begin a two-day river journey down the Mekong stopping overnight in the riverside village of Pakbeng, then to Luang Prabang.
• 5 A flight from Luang Prabang to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
• 6 A flight from Vientiane, to Hanoi, in Vietnam.
• 7 A drive out to the cost on the Gulf on Tonkin, for an overnight trip on a boat around Halang Bay.
• 8 We’ll return for more time in Hanoi. Then a flight from Hanoi, via Bangkok, to the island of Phuket, for the resort part of our vacation
• 9 A flight back to Bangkok
• 10 A day’s boat trip to the ancient city of Ayutthaya, then back to Bangkok
• 11 Back to home, via Seoul and Nagoya

We’ll be travelling a total of 18,877 miles to get to our various destinations. (16,457 miles will be in the air on the trans-Pacific part of our journey.) Total scheduled time in the air = 41 hrs 43 minutes.

 

Sources:

The map is from Lonely Planet’s Road Atlas for the area

Some mileage calculations from Google Maps, WebFlyer’s MileMarker, and the InfoPlease Distance Calculator.

And away we go….

Last modified on 2007-12-28 19:11:22 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

 

Having been driven by our friend and neighbor Penny, who is house-sitting for us and looking after the creatures, we boarded BART for the airport this morning and started our adventure.

About looking at these posts…I’ll be writing as we go along. Being not at all sure how often I’ll be able to hook my computer up to the Internet, posting may be infrequent. Never fear though… updates will be coming. If you’d like to see past posts, there are two ways to do so:

1. Click on "Pages" at the top of any page or look for "Pages" in the column to the right, and click on "Descending Dragon". (Doing it this way will display the posts in chronological order, oldest to most recent.) Or
2. Click on "Categories on the top of any page or look for "Categories" in the column to the right and click on "Descending Dragon." (Display order this way will be reverse, most recent first.)

Wish us luck. Remember if you’d like to contact us, write to any address at chaosweb.net. (Or use my first name before the at sign.)

Day 1 – The flight here

Last modified on 2007-12-30 11:49:30 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

BART (our local train) is a great way to get to the airport.

This trip is an excellent excuse to finally get rid of my ancient frequent flyer miles on United. We’re flying business on Asiana, Thai, and United. Within Asia, we’ll be on AirAsia and Lao Airlines.
	Here we are in the airport lounge. I’m already getting to the blogging part of our trip.

	Obligatory shot of the plane we flew across the Pacific. 12.5 hour flight…sheesh!
And the joys of airplane food…

	One of the pleasures of travel is sampling the local ways of eating. Here in Korea’s Incheon airport… hmmm
Arriving in Bangkok at 1 in the morning after 27 hours of travel so far, we opted to stay in the Novotel airport hotel rather than hanging out in the terminal. Surprisingly, within 30 minutes of touching down, we had collected our bags, gotten money at an ATM, cleared customs, and were in our really nice hotel room. Hanging on the precipice of complete exhaustion, we fell into the most comfortable hotel bed ever. … Never seen a bathroom with a picture window before.
And here’s a picture of the 1-year old Suvarnabhumi Airport. It’s H U G E, but fairly efficient.

Chiang Mai – arrival & Sunday Walking Market

Last modified on 2008-01-01 15:29:52 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

It is the oddest feeling: coming to a place halfway around the world from one’s home and feeling at home. It’s a great feeling and that’s how it was for us coming off the plane and back into Chiang Mai. Our third visit to this great northern Thai city, it makes it so much easier to fight our way through jet lag, and makes for a pleasant start to our journey, to see a familiar, yet deliciously strange place once again.

We’re staying at a place called the River View Lodge, which has admittedly modest accomodations modestly priced. Yet it’s one of those places well-loved and often recommended by its visitors. Over the past day, I’ve heard four other people, staying among it’s 3 dozen rooms, proudly telling the owner that they had sent friends here. So let me just say: if you’re coming to Chiang Mai, this is the place you want to stay.

Also speaking of pleasant past associations, we went looking for our old travel agent here, Vanida Tour, only to find their old storefront occupied by someone else. We wanted to make arrangements for the three-day trip from here to Luang Prabang in Laos. Trying other agencies in the area, we just didn’t get anywhere. About to give up, we spied that old Vanida sign across the street…they had moved. Needless to say, good old Mr. Surin Sittinoi set things right for us.

That taken care of, we ventured out into the Sunday Walking Market for the evening. Chiang Mai, once on the old China-Burma trade route, is well-known for its Night Bazaar, an orgy of consumption covering blocks and blocks of the city every evening. The Sunday Walking Market is relatively new and has a much more festive atmosphere.

Ta Phae Gate in the old city wall is the start of the market, decorated very festively for the holidays and King Bhumipol’s 80th birthday.
It extends along Th Ratchadamnoen for its full length. Stalls upon stalls sell just about everything under the sun.
Temples along its length are open for the evening, people thronging for chances to make merit …
and to feast from the food stalls found there.We had a feast of Pad Thai, Som Tum (papaya salad), grilled chili honey chicken, cha yen (Thai iced tea), and coconut/pandan leaf puff pancakes. Each dish was 20 baht or less. That’s $0.60!
By the way, we’ve promised to ourselves that we’re going to be fearless eaters this trip, without regard to humble location or unusual ingredients. So far so good.
We were quite happy to find that two of our favorite temples the whole of Thailand were open for the evening. More on them when we return during the day, but here’s a few pictures.The Buddha at Wat Phra Singh is reputedly one of the most beautiful around and it’s very old.
Wat Chedi Luang has an ancient studa which looks fantastic lit up at night.
The four faces at one time each contained buddha images, including the famous Emerald Buddha (more on that later as well). This is one of the others.

All in all, a very pleasant evening.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

Last modified on 2007-12-31 13:14:09 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Here’s Tom ringing it in the New Year at Wat Prahtat Doi Suthep Rajvoravihara yesterday. Apropos of resolutions wherefore, we saw this in a Buddhist book at the temple: PEACE IS FREEDOM

Chiang Mai – Doi Suthep, the Zoo, Meals & New Year’s Eve

Last modified on 2008-01-01 15:30:23 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

New Year’s Eve Day: first thing this morning, we headed up to Wat Phra Doi Suthep. Set in a stunning location on top of a small mountain outside of Chiang Mai, this has been one of my very favorite places in the world since we first came here years ago. Legend has it that relics of a revered monk (probably some bits bone) back in the 14th century miraculously replicated themselves. The king of Lanna at the time put them on top of a white elephant which then marked the spot where a new temple should be built on top the mountain by circling two times and lying down.

	To get to the temple (wat), you first have to climb the 306 steps of the Naga staircase.It being New Year’s Eve, a national holiday, throngs of people were there, turning what is usually a very serene spot into a festive one.
There are very many ways and places to pray at a Buddhist temple. Something familiar above. Another is to the right, by ringing the bells. And then, as in the picture below, you can circumnavigate the central stupa clockwise while meditating on the teachings of the Buddha. You can also receive blessings from a monk.

The central stupa is brilliant, surrounded by four gilded umbrellas. If the monk’s relics do indeed exist, deep within this stupa is where they would be.

(I’ll post a lot more pictures of this place in the gallery when we get home.)

We had been curious for a long time about the Chiang Mai Zoo, so that’s where we headed as we descended back down to the city.
Let’s just say, not every experience one has while travelling is wonderful. To the right you can see our the overwhelming aspect of our visit. Unbelievably, you can drive through the zoo, which hundreds of people did because of the holiday, creating a massive smog-infested traffic jam.
Admittedly we didn’t help matters by climbing onto one of the trams that course their way through the park like roller coaster cars. We did however see one or two animals.

Matters improved immensely with lunch, which we had at a restaurant promoting the northern specialy of khao soy. It basically a very special noodle soup, with an intensely-flavored Burmese broth as its base, to which are added noodles – flat rice noodles, round ones, or egg noodles – crispy noodles on top, and a small bit of meat or vegetables. The diner adds fish sauce, more chili paste, pickles, sugar, shallots and more coconut milk to taste. For dessert we enjoyed dead-ripe mangos with sticky rice and coconut milk, also a northern specialty. It was all incredibly delicious!
	For dinner, we headed back outdoors, this time to the Anusarn Night Market. We went to a seafood restaurant where we had stir-fried crab with curry sauce, garlic & pepper shrimp and stir-fried Chinese morning glory, ong choy.
And for dessert….tah dah: McDonalds! Expatriate McD’s still serve the old fried pies, but with unusual flavors. Dale had the corn last night. They also had taro root, pineapple and chocolate banana.

And finally, New Year’s Eve. At that point in the day, I just didn’t feel like working the camera much, so sorry, no pictures of an incredibly spectacular show. I had no idea the Julian calendar New Year was such a celebration here in Thailand. Any excuse for a party I guess. The fireworks were absolutely nuts, exploding near and far from the ground from literally everywhere in the city. It didn’t have the regimented choreography we’re used to back home, but for sheer exuberance, the Thais have it in spades.

Starting much earlier and much, much more beautiful were the kham loi, which are large barrel-shaped paper lanterns with fire in the open base, which makes them into glowing balloons. Thousands of these were launched, filling the evening sky, floating gracefully in the currents of air, forming myriad new constellations. The picture below doesn’t begin to do them justice, but at least you get a small idea:

New Year’s Day – the Old City, a Massage, Warorat and Food

Last modified on 2008-01-02 00:36:41 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Today we headed back to the old Chiang Mai within the city walls to re-visit some favorite temples.

First we went back to Wat Chedi Luang which we had been to accidentally just a couple of days ago.

The city of Chiang Mai dates back some 700 years. Wat Chedi Luang is about 600 years old. The first of many fascinating things about this place are the old city pillar enclosed in this building and one of the two diptocarpus trees here which are about 300 years old. There is a legend that as long as the tree here lives, Chiang Mai will continue to exist.
	There are two fairly creepy spots that are dedicated to famous monks who had died. Relics (i.e., their bones, teeth, and dried bits of organs) are preserved in tiny glass stupas, and there are unnvervingly lifelike wax replicas of the fellows as well.

 

The main event here, is the Chedi itself, which at one time housed the Emerald Buddha in its eastern portico. Its original height is unknown, but we do know that at one time it was completely covered in gold.

 

On the way out, we chatted with Udon, a young monk originally from Laos. He’s been a monk for eight years, having found the life well-suited to him. We talked about monk relics, what to do with a buddha image that has outlived its usefulness, monks roles in the political life of a country, and the difference between Theravada Buddhism, the kind practiced here, and Mahayana, practiced in northern Asia.

 

Jet-lagged or simply addle-pated, I mis-identified Wat Phan Tao the other night. Practically right next door to Chedi Luang, it has a stupendous teak wiharn with a beautiful buddha statue.

 

Next we walked down to Wat Phra Singh, home to the most revered buddha image around, the Lion, or Phra Singh, Buddha. Being New Year’s Day, there was a huge crowd attending festivities. I don’t know for sure, but like the Chinese tradition of cleaning house both literally and metaphorically at the Lunar New Year, Thais treat this time of year in a similar way.

 

For some completely unusual, we went for a Thai foot massage at the Women’s Prison. Part of the rehabilitation for return to civilian life, the prison has a place for Thai massage. Lest you think this was calming, nurturing massage, trust me, it hurts!

For lunch we had some delicious Khao Soy (Chiang Mai noodles) at a very local restaurant nearby.

For complete fun and entertainment, we went to Waworat Market, which is very much where Thai people buy stuff. It was a madhouse and we loved it.

And to close the day, we went to the mountainside restaurant, Thalad Prawarat, where we had phenomenally spicy pomelo salad, papaya salad, crab baked with glass noodles and a fantastic star-anised and pork-infused sauce. The music was a country-western quartet, doing standards like "My Way", and "Love Me Tender"…they even had a banjo player!

 

Sorry if this seemed so thrown together today – I actually shot more that 400 photos today and really haven’t had time to sort through them all. Please come back to look at the photo galleries later. I wanted to be sure to be able to post before we leave Chiang Mai in the morning. I doubt I’ll be able to post again for three days.

Chiang Khong

Last modified on 2008-01-03 01:17:41 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Left Chiang Mai on a 5-hour mini-van ride through the northeast country of Thailand. The ride was fascinating of course, seeing the agricultural activity, the changing variety of produce at the roadside stands as we moved from one region to another, the landscape transforming from the granitic intrusions of Chiang Mai to the limestone karsts that we’ll be seeing so much of in Vietnam and further south in Phuket.

The city of Chiang Khong, founded hundreds of years ago, misleads by its one-road town appearance. Apparently it’s a major trading port between Thailand and China.

Tom and I are great big babies, so we’ve never really done anything that qualifies as ”roughing it”. Now we have. We’re staying at a guesthouse on the river, the kind that costs between $5 & $20 per night. We stayed in a bamboo thatch-roof hut with bamboo mats for walls, a loud snorer next door, no heat, beds that felt like they were made of concrete, in the 50s last night, bathrooms outside down a bit, and…you know what? it was the best night’s sleep we’ve had so far. (The guesthouse operation is quite pleasant and efficient and comradery of fellow travellers in the situation was a nice surprise.)

 We walked a bit around town, which has a few impressive temples, including one with a chedi dating back over a thousand years. (I’ll get pictures up when I’m able to again.)

The Mekong River, our path to Luang Prabang, extends mightily from the window to my right. It was beautiful this morning as the mists cleared, the air filled with the sounds of hundreds of roosters crowing.

Speaking of chickens, the eggs are fabulous. We see the hens everywhere. Yolks are as deep in color as the ones we get from our girls.

The Journey from Chiang Khong, Thailand to Luang Prabang, Laos

Last modified on 2008-01-05 07:16:20 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

We made our way from the Thai side of the Mekong to Lao via a small ferry boat, quick and easy.
The slow boat to Luang Prabang is notorious for being overcrowded and very uncomfortable. It’s not an unfair notion. After they squeezed more people onto this boat than could even sit down, a mutiny of sorts erupted and they relented and brought in a second boat.
Not ones to shrink from an opportunity, we jumped ship to relatively more luxurious accommodations where they had installed some minivan seats on deck.
And here’s what the boat looks like on the water.
The boat was full of all types of people, from young backpackers on 6-month adventures, to ordinary people like us, to very well-off folks. Of particular note is this fellow, who apparently is a kind of witch doctor who’s been around here for years.

Our trip, which lasted two days, 6 hourson the Mekong river the first day, 7.5 the second was of course to see the scenery and life on the river. Here are few pictures:
(I was surprised to see vegetables to grow in such sandy soil.)
We spent the night in the hill-tribe village of Pakbeng. Once again no hot water. Actually, the electricity (which seemed to come from wood-burning generators) shut off at 10pm, never to come on again during our stay. The “shower” consisted of pouring ice cold water from the tap in the sink over my head using a small bowl.
Coming off the boat onto a sandy shore was a mad scene. Men were grabbing bags off the boat and heading up the hill. Where, no one could tell, since we didn’t have any reservations anywhere, none of us. We finally worked it out and wound up at this guest house.
Our first Lao meal was delicious: water buffalo lab (a Lao salad), kai pane (Mekong River weed), and good Lao beer. Afterwards we took a walk to the river’s shore where we had the unusual treat of a dark sky and brilliant stars.
Here’s a lovely yound lady from whom Tom bought oranges in the morning:
I wanted you to see what the “gangplank” looked like for our boat:

The scenery on the Mekong was magnificent:

Arriving in beautiful Luang Prabang, we had something of a fiasco when the hotel had no record of a reservation for us and no space. Keeping our heads, we agreed to come out to their out-of-town property, the Villa Santi Resort with hopes that everything would be straightened out in the morning.

Heading straight to dinner, we had another delicious feast: deep-fried Lao sausage with a 7-chili sauce, fish lab, a Lao curry (more Burmese than Thai in flavor), and ground fish with eggplant. Being the only people in the restaurant, someone hustled to get the advertised Lao classical dance & music. It was very sweet.
Not having realized how terribly cold we had gotten after two days, we had hot showers, the first proper ones really in a week. Tom was moaning in a pleasurable way when someone outisde thought some had an accident. Security came running to check on us! That straightened, we fell into a deep sleep for 10 hours.

Luang Prabang – Day 1

Last modified on 2008-01-28 21:10:36 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Well-rested, we awoke, going out into the misty morning and saw what a lovely place the Santi Resort actually is. The breakfast buffet was good and I enjoyed my morning bowl of noodles, and Tom enjoyed watching me assemble each piece so carefully. During our morning walk, we even saw a working water buffalo on the farm directly in back of the resort.

 

If you’ll recall, there was a huge mixup with our reservation. I suspect now it was a matter of someone somewhere not opening their email. It’s all worked out fine. We came back into town where they gave us a nice room. After some uncertainty where we’d have a room for the last night of our stay, luckily for us, we were given the best suite at the hotel. So moral here: you catch more flies (so to speak) with honey than vinegar. Incidentally, walking around, we saw that there are many lovely-looking guesthouses through the city. The best place to stay in my opinion, is the area north of the Villa Santi, where’s truly quiet and peaceful.

 

	Luang Prabang, a former capital of the Lao Kingdom is now a Unesco-designated World Heritage site, which means that there are some developmental restrictions in exchange for international assistance in restoration. It’s bordered on the east by the Nam Khong river and on the west by the Mekong. This is the Nam Khong.
Here’s the obligatory chicken shot for the day.
I think it’s said that Luang Prabang has as many temples as Bangkok. As a result there are monks everywhere.

 

Laos, like much of Southeast Asia, is well known for its textiles. This young woman was kind enough to let me watch her at work. The loom is completely manual, the feet being used to separate the lengthwise-running threads, while the hands shuttle the colored pattern threads horizontally. To the right, her finished handiwork.

 

Here’s a newsflash for all you tourists: contrary to the guidebooks, there is now an ATM in Luang Prabang. It’s only on the Mastercard/Cirrus network, so no Visa/Plus ATM cards. It’s easy to find on the main drag. Withdrawals are limited to less than $100, but you can do it several times up to your bank limit.

This city is by far the easiest to visit we’ve seen yet in SE Asia. It’s well-contained and clean. You’re encouraged by the aging French colonial atmosphere to take things at a leisurely pace. A word to the wise: if you spend much time on the main drag, you’ll be put off the throngs of non-Lao people milling about among the cafes, souvenir shops and tour agencies. They all have their use, but beware the food along the strip is not very good, the Lao food tamed down for more timid palates and the much-touted French pastries not much to shout about at all. Our visit is fairly limited so we can’t go and do any of the many interesing trips in the area, like to the Buddha caves, Pak Ou, or to the waterfalls, but we’ve already decided Luang Prabang will be a major stop on our next itinerary to this part of the world.

We spent the afternoon just wandering around, trying to get our bearings. The first temple we stopped in was Wat Mai Suwanaphunaham, dating from 1797.
	It has lovely gilded bas relief on the front wall.

Here’s a hill tribeswoman at work and her wares
	The night market has none of the aggressive selling of, say Chiang Mai. It’s quite pretty as well.
The evening ended with dinner with our new friends from the river journey, Kiima and Lee. Most recently from D.C., they are on the most amazing around-the-world trip which seems to be lasting the better part of a year. Check out their blog here. Coincidentally, it’s been fun running into folks from the boat trip. Since it was so strenuous, we all feel friendly, greeting one another on the street. One of the cool things about traveling, for sure.

Intermezzo

Last modified on 2008-01-08 00:15:14 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Sorry, no new post today. We were traveling from Luang Prabang to Vientiane. More ASAP.

Luang Prabang – Morning Alms

Last modified on 2008-01-08 19:51:33 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

 

As you might know, part of Buddhist monastic life is the vow of poverty. Worldly possessions, or connections to things,  are a basic cause of all suffering, so the belief goes. This extends to food, so every morning, monks all over the the region set out early with their begging bowls like the ones below which we saw at a temple in Chiang Mai.

Their receive offerings from lay people, for whom the compact offers them the chance to "make merit", for themselves, their family and ancestors.

Because the temples in Luang Prabang are in such close proximity to one another, the morning alms is quite a spectacle to behold. Lay people begin to gather around 6 in the morning with their offerings of flowers, sticky rice, fruit and other food. The monks all come out around 6.30 am. As it happened, one of the routes was on the streets surrounding our hotel.

Their are signs posted all over town how to observe the proceedings respectfully, but I had my doubts. I had even read somewhere that the Lao government had threatened the monks with sending out imposters if they didn’t so that the tourists would have something to photograph. Thankfully, that turned out to be just a rumor, as I found in a conversation with some monks later in the day. They assured me all are welcome to observe the morning alms and, if so moved, to participate.

	Regulars waiting for the monks to arrive.
	Regulars giving alms…
	….newcomers as well.
	Young monks in this society get educations that would have haven unavailable to them otherwise.
	The color of a monk’s robes is an indication of how long they have followed a monastic life: young ones have bright saffron-colored robes. This one, on the right, with his bright yellow sash, is very recent vintage. As a monk serves longer and grows to teach others, his robes darken in color. It’s said as a leaf ages on a tree, it becomes darker, before it finally parts the tree, to drift away.
	This might be an everyday occurrence, but it was one of those things a traveler remembers forever.

Luang Prabang, continued and concluded

Last modified on 2008-01-08 17:05:29 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

 

After watching the morning alms, we set about some more wandering about Luang Prabang. Wandering it was: I’ve rarely seen a town so well-suited to simply walking about, getting to the "important" sights in such a casual way.

In case you’re wondering, this is where we wound up staying, which is where we intended on staying in the first place, the Villa Santi, whose original building used to be a residence of the Queen of Laos.

 

 

	The normal breakfast for many people in SE Asia is a bowl of noodles. I love ‘em too. Starting with a good broth, you add rice noodles (either flat or round) and fixings to your own taste: cilantro, watercress, chili, fish sauce, protein, pickles. The broth is apparently what separates one vendor from another.

 

	Here’s the very nice young monk I spoke with after the morning alms to assuage my concerns.
	We met him at Wat Xieng Mouane, a restive small wat with a lovely fresco on the front wall of the sim, from the late 19th century.
	Following the communist takeover and the American war, a great deal of the cultural arts supporting the temples was being lost. UNESCO and the government of New Zealand are supporting this wat as an arts school to preserve these skills. Here are some new buddha statues in the process of being made.

A great deal of Luang Prabang actually isn’t all that old. The city was sacked by invaders in the late 18th century. One of the few temples that went largely untouched was Wat Xieng Thong, saved only because the leader of the invaders was a monk there in his youth. The original sim was built in 1560. The swooping roofs are exemplary of the local style of architecture.

The interior has wonderful repetitive decorations that I found very stylish.
The back of wall of the sim, has a great glass mosaic tree of life.
Here’s an example of the style of glass mosaic on the side of one of the libraries. If this is done the same way as in the throne room of the Palace Museum (no photos allowed there), the colored glass would have come from Japan.

 

	Across the way on the temple grounds is this amazing royal funerary carriage house.

 

Well, it’s about time for lunch isn’t it? No more perfect place perched above the Mekong river.

	We had another wonderful Lao lab salad, this time with pork and the lao version of papaya salad, both fiery hot.
	Perfect accompaniments were sticky rice (which you eat with your fingers, rolling it up into a ball and dipping it into your sauce) and rich Lao iced coffee.

Re-energized we climbed the 228 steps to the top of Phousi hill, the high point visible from anywhere in Luang Prabang and the surrounding rivers.

 

There’s a chedi at the top, but the real attraction is the vantage point for seeing the sun set over the Mekong River.

 

For dinner, we had a fine meal a chichi restaurant, 3 Nagas, which was reviewed favorably in, of all places, the New York Times. My pictures didn’t come out, but the meal was fairly unusual so here’s the dishes we had:

Sin Doot – sun-dried water buffalo meat with lemongrass & sesame seeds
Jaew Bong – sun-dried chili & water buffalo skin paste
Krai Kouam – stuffed fried eggs
Karanab Pa – grilled river fish stuffed with Lao herbs & pork wrapped in a banana leaf
Black Sticky Rice
And a stew made from fermented fish

Finally, after such a long day, we got an hour-long foot massage (for $3).

All in all, it was the perfect sort of introductory visit to a charming place. There’s plenty we would like to do and explore when we go back again.

Vientiane – Arrival

Last modified on 2008-01-09 14:58:52 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

We arrived in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, none too impressed. It just seemed, well, not very interesting. As usual, first impressions are the most incorrect. It’s not a bustling metropolis. It’s not a hedonistic party town. It’s not a repository of a people’s culture or visually stunning. But it is extremely pleasant to be in, relaxed, interesting and has really good food.

Our hotel, the Inter City Hotel, right on the banks of the Mekong, is a wonderfully eccentric place. Apparently cobbled together from two buildings, we wound up in the best room again, this time Suite 888 (a very lucky number for Asians), right on the fifth floor. It’s big with an eclectic collection of furniture and a first for us, windows that look out on both sunrise and sunset. Across the Mekong, is Thailand.

The beach scene is very cool, with riverside restaurants running all along it.And yes, the tables are made of tires turned inside out.
	One of our activities here was a spa treatment at this place, the Champa. (Champa is the Lao word for frangipane, also known as plumeria.) Admittedly, we paid top dollar, but we wanted someplace clean and legitimate, if you catch my meaning. I’ve never had a spa treatment, so I can’t compare, but this one was a 30 minute herbal sauna, a 60 minute body scrub, and a 60 minute Lao massage with oil. All was good, but the masseurs made some forays into unwelcome territory, but that was dealt with quickly (we were on side-by-side tables after all!). I wonder if it was only the expectation of an expectation on their part. In the end, I still prefer a traditional foot massage.

Laos, as a former French colony, is supposed to have good bakeries. The first one we stopped into lived up to that reputation easily.

I usually don’t like to get restaurant recommendations from the hotel, mostly because the suggestions tend to skew toward the less interesting and touristy. So when the receptionist told us about a restaurant with Lao, Italian, Halal, and lots of other things, plus the possibility of a buffet, I put it way at the back of my mind. Walking by, the menu actually seemed good, so we had dinner there. It was so good we went back on our last night. It’s called Khop Chai Due, which means “thank you very much”. Over two visits we had:

• • Buffalo Lap (that Lao salad I’m so very fond of)
  • Pork Lap
  • Mekong Snake-head fish, deep fried
  • Fresh-water squid, grilled, served with a spicy sour fish sauce
  • Sticky rice cooked in bamboo with coconut milk and pumpkin

It was all great food. Our visit was off to a good start.

Vientiane – some sights

Last modified on 2008-01-10 15:54:20 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

We took off in a tuk-tuk the next day. These colorful modified motorcycles carry passengers all over Asia. A modern descendent of the samlor, the human-powered bicycle carriages.

PATUXAI

Our first stop was Patuxai. Unlike the Arc de Triomphe, which it mildly resembles, Patuxai has four archways. I love the story of how it came to be. In the early 1960s, the US-donated cement for a new airport. Instead, Laos took the cement and built this Victory Gate, sometimes called a “vertical runway”.

	The climb up to the isn’t bad and the views are impressive.

Talat Sao, the Bus Station, and Talat Khao Din

One of our favorite things to do in a new city is to visit where people shop. Talat Sao was a good place to start. There were a few food stalls in front. The major part of the market is textiles, including the brilliantly-colored silk threads used for weaving.
Walking just a bit, we found ourselves in the middle of the bus terminal. Charming.
Now for the major action, the fresh food market: Talat Khao Din. Everything can be found here. Tom got a bit queasy in the meat department.

To get to That Darn, we walked past the US Embassy and, as seems to happen everywhere we go, while other countries’ embassies are generally approachable, occasionally even inviting, our embassy has high walls, barbed wire everywhere, machine-gun-toting guards and gives the overall impression of a nation scared of the world, seeing danger at every corner, uninterested in actually interacting with the world, confident that the American Way is the only way and that the all non-Americans wish they had just one iota of what we have. I was mildly hassled while taking a picture of That Darn because the tiny bits walls I accidentally photographed could aid terrorists engineer the downfall of the entire nation. Imagine that.

Getting off my soapbox now, I’ll tell you that That Darn was completely covered with gold in the dim distant past. One legend has it that a sleeping dragon lies beneath.

Next stop was Wat Si Saket, a fascinating temple with 1000′s of Buddha images.

A Food Break

Quite unusual for us, we went to yet another restaurant twice during our stay here. This one started out as a garage-front operation selling baguette sandwiches, now it’s in its own small building on the riverbank beach. P.V.O. starts with warm toasted baguettes, with shatteringly crisp crusts, fills them with Lao pate and other sliced meats, adds cilantro, green onions, carrots and so on and finishes it off with a spicy-hot dressing. One of the best sandwiches we’ve ever had. (Better than Subway, even…imagine.) I also tried the xiumai baguette, with Chinese meatballs. Also delicious.

Also, again because of the French colonial influence, we tried a French restaurant for dinner, Le Cave des Chateaux, where we had a pleasant, refined meal of grilled river prawns, flambeed with cognac, and roast roe-deer.

Wat Si Muang

SE Asian cities typically were officially founded with the establishment of a city pillar, a phallic-shaped stone thrust into the ground, saying “we are here”. Wat Si Muang, the location of Vientiane’s city pillar has a particularly gruesome story attached to it, because the founding required a human sacrifice. Whether pushed or jumped in by choice, a pregnant young woman went into the hole before the pillar, to be crushed when it plummeted down. (The city pillar is the gold stone wearing a skirt in front of the gaudy lightwheel. Nowadays, it’s the most popular temple to come and pray for good luck or favors. We were lucky to see an Asian Openbill Stork on the grounds while we were there.

Pha That Luang

The Golden Stupa, Pha That Luang, was lost to the world like the temples at Angkor Wat until it was rediscovered by French explorers. The shiny stupa was thought to have contained actual bone fragments, or relics, of Lord Buddha. It was reconstructed by the French in the 19th century who, humorously accidentally rebuilt facing the wrong direction (Buddhist temples usually face east). Nowadays, it’s the national symbol of Laos, appearing on all of the currency. Undeniably impressive, I can’t say it’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. There’s a Buddhist story accompanying the details of the architecture which I won’t subject you to here except to say: One nice story involves a recurring symbol of Buddhism, the lotus blossom. The seed grows in the mud, reaching upwards, until it finally blossoms. So it goes with man’s struggle, until he or she reaches nirvana.

Buddha Park

Venturing on a bone-jarring, teeth-chattering tuktuk ride 45 minutes outside of town, we were stopped by the army for an unknown reason. Actually they were pulling over anyone not on four wheels. Eventually released, we reached one of the most bizarre things we’ve ever seen, a monument to one man’s invented religion, melding Buddhism together with Hinduism, and centering on himself. How it all works I couldn’t begin to tell you, but it was loads of fun. It starts with a giant pumpkin which you enter through a monster’s mouth and ascend to the pumpkin’s top.

Tom’s up on top of the pumpkin now, to give you some sense of scale.	And Dale is staying next to the armpit of the reclining Buddha.
This fellow seems to have made Marge Simpson faint and now doesn’t know what to do with her.	A surprisingly decent sculpture.

Adieu, Laos

Not really sure what to expect in deciding to visit Laos, we’re glad we did. One final note: during the American War on Southeast Asia, the US dropped 500 pounds of bombs for every man, woman and child in Laos. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again.

Delayed!

Last modified on 2008-01-10 15:48:49 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

We’re losing just 3.5 hours, but I feel somehow feel we narrowly missed a major problem today. We had reconfirmed our Lao/Vietnam Airlines flight the other day, only to find when we came to the airport that it had been canceled. Considering the Vientiane airport has only a handful of flights every day, I’m slightly surprised that they even have a second flight to Hanoi today. That piece of paper in Tom’s left hand, barely more substantial than toilet paper, is our new ticket.

 

The airport is small, hot, steamy and uncomfortable, so we were glad to find a restaurant with AC and a $6 Lao food buffet!

The dessert table is always interesting:

Pommelo is a fruit you can often find back home, especially this time of year. Around here you usually sprinkle it with chili powder or put it it in a spicy salad.	Dragon fruit is white-fleshed with small black seeds. It makes a great fruit shake. The outside of fruit is kind of weird: dragon-like red with green pointy things.
There are a lot of unfamiliar, jelly-ish things that you put in a bowl with sugar syrup and/or coconut milk.	The black stuff is very popular at street cars. Believe it or not, it actually tastes how you’d imagine black might taste.

At least it’s a way to pass the time, right?

Dragonfruit

Last modified on 2008-01-11 14:54:18 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

For years, I held on to a seed packet from Thailand with a strange picture on it. Finally on this trip, the pieces fell together. It’s dragonfruit, with mild white crunchy flesh with abundant small edible dark seeds. Like the oyster, it must have taken a brave soul to eat the first one. (It’s the pinkish-scarlet one in the center with the green thorny shoots coming off it.)

Did you know?

Last modified on 2008-01-11 15:02:31 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Did you know that you can click on a picture in a post and it will open up full-sized?

Hanoi – arrival

Last modified on 2008-01-28 20:59:18 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Well, after trying to keep ourselves occupied in the Vientiane airport, we finally departed early, thanks to some important person on the plane who was met at or our arrival by flashing lights and uniformed saluters. The ride into Hanoi was deceptive: apart from the constant honking, the view on the freeway was pretty modern, evidence of Vietnam’s bustling economy. After being brought the wrong hotel (Quom Hoa, instead Quoc Hoa), we were really glad to find our room was quiet, with a working window and someplace we could sleep far from the street din outside.

Walking into the Hanoi night was exactly why we travel: the world is so different, the smells so strange, everything is challenge to understand and enjoy. It really felt like a movie, kind of like the opening scene of Blade Runner, but without the rain. Our first challenge was learning to cross the street. With the sea of beeping motor scooters, with occasional car or truck, it takes some courage to just walk into the middle of it, knowing they’ll see you if you see them.

Of course we had pho, the Vietnamese noodle soup, for our first meal. A friend tells me that we generally get southern pho in San Francisco. This was certainly different, with a delicious broth scented with ginger and star anise.

Hanoi – A Look Around

Last modified on 2008-01-11 15:19:39 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Waking up in the morning, we found a huge city in front of us. Luckily, our visit is confined to a fairly compact area, around Hoan Kiem Lake. Setting bravely out with no map or agenda, we promptly headed in an unintended direction.

Things always seem to work out just fine and they did for us when we suddenly found ourselves at the Opera House, which is a copy of the opera house in Paris. Also luckily for us, the Vietnam Symphony has concerts this weekend so picked up a couple for our last night, an all-Lalo program with a violinist.

A vestige of Hanoi’s very grand French colonial past is the Metropole Hotel, in a league with Raffles in Singapore or the Peninsula in Hong Kong. We couldn’t possibly afford to stay there, but we can eat there. Their Vietnamese Street Food Lunch Buffet was a fantastic way to sample all the different kinds of food we saw as we walked around.
	Having indulged ourselves, we imposed on a brave soul to pedal both of us around the lake to our next destination via a bicycle cab. It’s actually a really pleasant way to go when it’s one passenger per vehicle.

Water puppetry is an old and quite unique art form in Vietnam. It’s appeared once that I can recall in Berkeley, so it was great to be able to see it here. There’s a pool with a screen partway back from behind which pretty wooden puppets emerge. They play, plant rice, make baby peacocks, and dance to the accompaniment of a Vietnamese orchestra on a dais above the water. It was a lot of fun:

There’s a Vietnamese grilled fish dish called cha ca. We went to the granddaddy of the cha ca restaurants, Cha Ca La Vong. If you’ve ever watched a food program on Hanoi, you’ll have seen it. It’s a simple place, two floors, wooden tables, fluorescent lights. There’s no menu, because there’s only that one dish to have! A charcoal brazier topped by a pan with fish sizzling in oil is given to you, along with wonderful rice vermicelli, greens that somehow turn the noodles green combined with the oil from the pan, peanuts and fish sauce with chili. The fragrance is delicious and unlike anything I’d ever had. For some reason the next-oldest generation took a motherly interest in me and showed me how to properly eat it.

Two of the missions we’d planned on beforehand have come to naught: we couldn’t find a portrait painter for our dogs, Zack and Milton (not enough time, artistic demands), and I couldn’t find a tailor I was comfortable enough with to have suits made. In fact, we’re a little surprised it’s not as easy to shop here as we heard. There’s plenty to look at, but not a whole lot we actually want to cart home with us. I guess that’s one of the prices we pay for having Cost Plus.

Halong Bay

Last modified on 2008-01-13 16:52:20 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

We’ve just come back from a destination we had been looking forward to since first starting to plan this vacation. Halong Bay is a magnificent thing. With more than 3000 islands jutting mysteriously from this piece of the Gulf of Tonkin, it’s simply breathtaking. Limestone karsts, the remnants of eons-dead sea creatures form the craggy, wild rocks.

We boarded the Phoenix for an overnight sail on the bay. Complete with dining room and the “floating garden” sundeck it was a nice boat to be on. There were about 18 people on the boat, including a lovely Irish/German couple we had good conversations with. She’s a financial journalist for the Dublin Times, he an architect who, coincidentally, is originally from a place near Salzburg, so we had the chance to talk about the area where I’d spent a great deal of time.
Halong in Vietnamese means “descending dragon” (sound familiar?). The legend goes that dragon plunged into the sea leaving it’s back visible (the karsts). In 1994 it was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
	Shortly after boarding the boat, after introductions all around, our two excellent guides, Khao and Jieng led us through the Hang Dau Go, or Cave of Miracles. A huge affair, with 3 successively larger caverns, it was a surprise to see and certainly beautiful.
Then we went kayaking from about a mile. Considering Tom and I had never done this before, it was excellent that we didn’t capsize. (We did, however, have some issues with differentiating left and right.)

After dinner, we have a lovely sit on the upper deck to watch the brilliant night sky. One of our guides joined us to chat. He’s studying English at university and is really bright and very knowledge about the US. It was interesting to hear what I’ve often read about the Vietnamese attitude toward Americans and that miserable war: that it’s in the past and he really didn’t care about it. (Talking to fellow travelers it seems that’s not always the case in the south and Saigon where there’s a feeling of betrayal by the American abandonment.)

 

In the morning we woke to a considerably more mysterious, misty Halong Bay. I get the feeling this place has a wondrous variety of moods.

We cruised around the bay in the morning and saw a floating fishing village. The people live in these floating houses. Not only do they go out onto the bay to fish, but they also have little pens where they farm squid, crabs, and butterfly fish. Tom was amazed to hear something he thought only happened in cartoons: occasionally fishermen will set off dynamite in the water to “collect” the fish. Hardly seems fair.

Once again, another excursion, well enjoyed.

After all, it is a small world

Last modified on 2008-01-14 01:25:49 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

I’m probably the last person in the world to realize this, but the Internet is everywhere. I’ve not been able to post only once: from a boat floating on Halong Bay. Considering how good cell phone reception was out there, even that might have been possible. I didn’t post from Pakbeng, the hill tribe town in Laos, because I didn’t have time to follow a small dusty sign pointing up a dusty road on a dusty hill to the one internet cafe there. Otherwise, it’s been remarkably easy to find internet cafes to plug my little computer into so I could post here. Our last two hotels have even had free in-room access.

Returning to and leaving Hanoi

Last modified on 2008-01-14 14:54:14 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Returning to Hanoi after our trip to Halong Bay, we were both slightly amazed that all of sudden the city seemed less overwhelming, more manageable and easier to deal with. It’s still unavoidable getting a bit lost in the maze of streets in the Old Quarter, but it’s not at all disconcerting now.

The fish in a clay pot that we had for dinner last bowled Tom over. The grilled duck “Hanoi” style was very good and the meat was much gamier than we’re used to owing to the fact it’s wild meat. The papaya and beef salad was pretty good, tame compared to the som tum in Thailand. We went to a place called the 69 Bar-Restaurant, another one of the Lonely Planet guidebook’s picks. (It’s very strange: just about every tourist wherever we go is clutching one of those guidebooks to their chest, worriedly checking to make sure they get everything on the list. Not us…I scanned the pages before we left and we look at them on my tiny computer when we need to.)

The city was in a very festive mood last night. Lots of shops closed up early, young people were thronging the clubs and there was a big extravaganza by Hoan Kiem Lake starting the countdown to Hanoi’s 1000th anniversary in 2 years. (Everything is also gearing up for Tet, the Vietnamese New Year in a few weeks.)

We thought it might happen and it did: the weather turned cold and wet today. So we started the day right by finding a pho place on the street and settling into a steaming bowl of noodles and broth. It’s really a great way to start the day and sticks with you. I’ve noticed that the chilis here in the north are very different than southern ones: the southern ones slap you in the face and fade quickly, while Hanoi’s start off slowly and linger for a while.
		The Old Quarter is organized by the guild streets. There’s a funeral monument street, tin street, toy street, shoe street and so on. Today we ran across musical instrument where we found 4-string banjos and violins in addition to all the traditional instruments.
We spent the morning wandering around Hoan Kiem Lake, the heart of Hanoi. Here’s the turtle pagoda…there’s a creation myth about Hanoi involving an Arthurian sword, the King and a turtle.
		And here’s the bridge leading to the Temple of Jade.
Then some time wandering the streets just soaking it all up.

Tonight, we went to see the Vietnam National Symphony perform in the formerly grand Opera House. It was interesting to see another house based on the Opera in Paris (we’d seen one in Rio de Janeiro as well). A Lalo/Rimsky-Korsakov program, I can’t say that the orchestra pretended to be anything other than what it is. The feeling came back, however, of the time I spent in the Hong Kong Philharmonic, where music was lived in such a vacuum. Also the brass section sounded a lot like the traffic horns just outside.

Before that for our last dinner in Hanoi at we had bun cha, another participatory dish with sizzling beef, a cold broth made of fish sauce, lime juice and chili, rice noodles and a wonderful assortment of herby greens, many unfamiliar.

So we leave Vietnam. Incredibly glad to have been here, pleased to be leaving now. I wish I could have gotten more of a sense how well the Communist government does by its people, but beyond the oppressive Soviet-era architecture and the Orwellian speaker announcements, people seemed to be the same as anywhere: more good than bad, pleasant to talk with, interesting to watch.

Phuket

Last modified on 2008-01-15 15:55:54 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Whew! What a long day. Rising at 5.30am to catch our flights down to Phuket, Hanoi was just about freezing, raining and pretty miserable. Just the right time to get out of Dodge and to start the vacation part of our vacation.

We’ve had some experience with Phuket and were very curious to see how the recovery post-tsunami is coming along. It’s very startling to see the amount of new construction, often side-by-side with old familiar buildings. The state of tourism is still far below what it used to be. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. If you don’t already know, Phuket has something of a seedy reputation, particularly with the hostess bars along Bangla Road. That was already somewhat subdued when we first visited, but now it’s beginning to remind me of the transformations of Manhattan or Las Vegas. People, apparently, are still staying away in droves except, very oddly, for Russian tourists who seem to speak the predominant language around town these days.

We’re staying at an honest-to-goodness resort, which means we very well may just sit on our butts by their pools or private beach for the entire 4-day stay. It’s a nice place, but I was confused about the message they’re trying to convey when we opened the minibar to find strawberry-flavored condoms, breath mints and cockroach spray.

Sun and Fun

Last modified on 2008-01-16 16:27:23 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

As we went to bed last night, we were startled to hear a band playing in the lobby nearby at a deafening volume. Of course I called to complain and was told the band would be playing until 1 in the morning! Tom went down to complain some more and was offered three more rooms, all as deafening as ours. Not only would it bother our rest, it would spoil the week for us as we had been so looking forward to hearing the waves from our room, far from the bustle and din of Hanoi and of Patong. Like so many things it all worked out and we moved to a much better room today with a better view and more quiet. It even has a number lucky for us, 1111, very close to our home address.

Regardless of the previous evening’s mishap, this was the view waiting for us the next morning:

 

After breakfast we took advantage of one of the two pools and took care not to get sunburnt.
		Venturing down the hill into town for a little of mid-day exploring…
		Now, I’m sure you’ve heard of the intellectual piracy in places like SE Asia. It’s here, for sure. There are a couple of new twists this year though. Along with Hollywood movies, American TV shows are almost as popular at streets stalls. Then I had never seen this: pirated newspapers!

 

		As always, we picked up a 125cc motor scooter to zoom around on. It’s dangerous with these drivers, but pretty fun. The bike’s an automatic and very strangely, my feet still have muscle memory from my long-gone motorcycle days and search for the shift pedal.

When the tsunami hit, we were immediately concerned about the people we’d met on previous traips. At the top of our list was Kenya, whose restaurant is barely a few feet about the beach level. With no way to contact him or others, it had to wait until our trip this year. Imagine, then, our delight to see our old pal, effervescent and flaboyment as ever at his restaurant, the Sea Hag.
He claimed to have remembered us, which, if nothing else, was flattering, and we had a good chat. Of course the reason we met him in the first place was because of his food, which is wonderful. Especially in a place like Phuket, where I suspect most tourists come to be at the beach and not to be in Thailand, the country’s food suffers at many places. Maybe it’s because it has to be toned down so much for meeker palates. What people don’t appreciate is that Thai food is about balance and when you diminish one aspect (spiciness), you diminish the whole. Anyway, our first dish was like coming home, prawns wrapped in noodles which seemed to float around the shrimp, seemingly unattached. Honestly, this is the best execution of this dish I’ve ever had.

A little rain must fall

Last modified on 2008-01-17 11:43:32 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

A few minutes before I fired off this shot, we were on our little scooter in the middle of deluge with thunder and lightening. Really and truly, it was fun. We haven’t had rain yet in Thailand on any of our visits and it was great to see the sky opening up over the bay.

Today’s a good day for it too, because I managed to catch a cold in Hanoi and it seems to be finding its stride today. This is the best part of the trip for such a thing to happen since we are lounging around most of the time anyway. Knock on wood, we’ve both been as healthy as hogs on this trip. One strategy came from our doctor: Pepto Bismol twice a day. It might coat things making it more difficult for the nasties to plant a flag.

Tonight’s activities are thrilling: room service and a movie. Oh well, a little down time is a good thing, right? We’ve been maintaining a fairly strenuous pace for the 21 days we’ve been gone so far.

More in Phuket

Last modified on 2008-01-19 15:51:30 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

A day’s rest yesterday helped speed recovery from my little cold, so we were back on our feet, running hither and yon.

Our hotel, the Amari Coral Beach Resort is on its own private spit of land with a private beach. A lovely place, I thought I’d share some views. Here’s Tom at our room, #1111.
The two	pools.
	One of the three restaurants, all open air. There’s Thai, a highly-regarded Italian and an “International”. This is the third, where the breakfast service is held.
The first night, we had a so-so dinner in the Thai restaurant and I wondered why. Well, it seems that’s the crowd that’s catered to, as I realized at breakfast the next day. It’s a humungous buffet with hardly any Thai food. I saw a lot of plates being carried out loaded with pork and beans! One fellow had a plate loaded with nothing but an inch-thick stack of bacon, covered in turn by 10 slices of toast. Yum. Ah, tourists.
These are the open-air massage pavilions. We didn’t avail ourselves here in Phuket, but they are lovely.
	The hotel has a private jetty, for sunning, drinking, and swimming. Very nice.
The landscaping is quite nice. Here’s some unusual red-bark palm.	And one of my favorite tropical plants, the fan-tail palm.

 

I’d been planning on getting new concert clothes tailored on this trip. In Phuket there are three things one tires of quickly: offers of tuktuk transport, offers of oily Thai massage and cheap tailors (well four, if you count all the junk food).  I was lucky to find an excellent tailor here. Bespoke clothes are an affordable luxury in SE Asia!

Our most unusual vacation activity ever was a visit to the dentist’s office for some teeth whitening.

Tom saw a newspaper story about the profile of typical tourist to Phuket. They come for two weeks, sit in the same beach chair in Patong day after day, and drink. Sounds like a great vacation, doesn’t it?

No wonder Phuket is my least favorite food part of our trip, because that situation naturally leads to this:

 

Even so, Phuket is beautiful, with long stretches of white sand beaches. We had a great morning sunning, about 5 minutes short of being burnt to a crisp in the sub-tropical sun. The Andaman Sea is famous for extraordinary snorkeling and diving. Because of the lost day, we didn’t take a trip out to deep water, but still were able to do some pleasant snorkeling right next to the beach to see really pretty coral and fish.

In December we didn’t truly celebrate our anniversary, waiting for one of our favorite restaurants here, the fabulously romantic Baan Rim Pa, perched on a cliff overlooking the water and out to the city. It was worth the wait. In stark contrast to the beach scene, the food is here is authentically Thai, but very refined. There’s even a good jazz trio (which turns into a quintet when the piano player triples on organ pedals and trumpet while still playing the piano with his left hand.

We started with a green eggplant salad, topped with crabmeat and dried shrimp.
A whole fried fish with chili jam.
	Soft shell crab with chili.
Pineapple fried rice.
	And classic mango and sticky rice.
And the carved fruit centerpiece that we didn’t eat, but admired.

 

Afterwards we visited Phuket’s gay “ghetto”, the Paradise Complex. Old-school bars here are fairly small, with storefronts maybe 15-20 feet wide. Imagine strings of them lining both sides of the street, each blaring their own special music, touts out front to tempt passers by. We sat with our diet sodas and watched the spectacle. There was a go-go boy bar which, inexplicably, had a gaggle of drag queens in wedding dresses out front to lure you in. There were all the straight people on the way into the Paradise Hotel…the elderly women seemed to take particular delight in interacting with the ladyboys. Of course there were the decrepit old men out for a fling, bless their hearts. And there was another fashion parade of guys in couture drag scurrying from their dressing rooms down the street to their home bar. Altogether, very entertaining.

One Night in Bangkok

Last modified on 2008-01-20 01:25:31 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

After endless delays at the Phuket Airport (they have only 9 gates…how hard can it be??), we arrived in Bangkok tonight. There’s a little hotel in Silom we’ve always stayed at, the Swiss Lodge, and we’re here again. They were extremely kind and upgraded us to a suite since it’s our anniversary and we’ve been here before. There’s one odd thing to report: there’s a copy of L. Ron Hubbard’s “The Way to Happiness” in the drawer instead of the standard Bible and Book of Buddha. The location is extremely convenient because it’s right below the Sky Train, Bangkok’s above-ground subway. The Sky Train and the river ferries are by far the best ways to get around (if you’re going somewhere they are) because they get you away from some of the Bangkok smog. Also, Lumphini Park, a large green space is just down the street.

In addition, Patpong, referred to in that Abba-ish song, One Night in Bangkok, is just a skip away. If you didn’t know, Patpong is where that extraordinary physical feat of expelling ping pong balls from one’s body originated.

More important was dinner, so we headed to Soi 4, off Covent Road for the gay ghetto here. A vast improvement over Phuket’s, it’s a lot of fun. There’s the Telephone Bar where, like the stage version of Cabaret, you can dial direct from table to table. There’s Balcony Bar with white leather couches out on the street, tres chic. Our meal was at an Egyptian-themed restaurant, the Sphinx. Pretty good food too.

Chatuchak Market

Last modified on 2008-01-20 15:38:19 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Even though Thailand as a whole is cooler than our previous visits, Bangkok is still hot and the “feels like” temperature can be much higher what with all the concrete. For example, tomorrow’s forecast is 97F, but will feel like 107F. So the smart tourist will plan outdoor adventures for the morning, leaving river trips or air-conditioned shopping for the afternoon.

If you’ve followed our travels, you’ll know we like ‘sightseeing’ at markets. The granddaddy of them all in Thailand is the Chatuchak Weekend Market. Only held on the weekends (because just two days a week leaves everyone utterly exhausted), it covers an impossibly large piece of land with mazes of narrow corridors under tin roofs with shops selling just about anything you can imagine. That’s where we headed this morning, making it our main activity of the day.

We got their using Bangkok’s subway-in-the-sky.
There are dozens of these entryways, separated by many more alley entrances, giving you some idea of how large the place is.
Chatuchak is very popular with tourists, who are still outnumbered by the Thais who actually do their household shopping here.
We always head first to the garden building, which is like visiting a botanical garden, but more concentrated. I collected some seeds for our summer garden, including tiny pea-sized eggplants which I never see back home.
Once past there, you can buy just about anything…

 

Of course, with all that shopping, hunger isn’t far behind and there is no want on that count either.

 

On previous visits, we could still see the infamous endangered species trade in the animal section. Thankfully, that’s gone or, at least, well-hidden now. Pretty standard pet store stuff. I particularly liked the selection of bantam (miniature) poultry.

 

After five hours of walking, shopping and looking in that heat, exhaustion set in.
So we finished our day at one of the huge, blissfully air-conditioned shopping malls. We lunched at the top-floor food court for more great khao soy (curried noodles) and a dessert made of green sago (tapioca) in coconut milk with salty young coconut meat and corn. Yum!

The Former Times

Last modified on 2008-01-21 16:10:18 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Today started with an early departure from Bangkok, boarding a bus to go north to the ancient capital, Ayutthaya.

First up, though, was a visit to a summer palace, Bang Pa-In, a fascinating mishmash of Asian and European architecture.

We started in mist, caused by the time of year and by the fires used to clear rice fields.
To start the style parade, there’s this lovely Thai pavilion used to celebrate the King’s birthday.
This mansion in French colonial style was finished in the mid-1990s for Queen Sirikit.
There’s this Seussical lookout tower, Withun Thatsana, with lovely views of the palace grounds.
Modelled on something at Versailles, one can buy ice cream cones here these days.
The jewel of the building collection is the King’s Chinese place, Wehat Chamrun Palace. It’s worth pointing out that, like many of the Thai palaces, not a single nail was used here in construction. Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures inside because the camera flashes were degrading all the gold decorations, it’s an opulent place, complete with a very imperial reception room.

 

Bangkok, or Krung Thep – City of Angels, is the fourth capital of Thailand. The first was further north in Sukhothai. The second, which we visited today, was Ayuthaya, powerful seat of the Siam kingdom for four centuries. Ayuthaya was the formidable sparring partner with the unsuccessful European colonists, seat of power when the Thai kingdom extended into Burma, Laos and Cambodia. It fell in the mid-18th century to the invading Burmese army during the famous War of the Elephants. After that, the kingdom fled to Thonburi and eventually Ratanakosin Island in Bangkok.

Today it’s a Unesco World Heritage site (yes, the third we’ve visited during this trip) because of remarkable quality of its Khmer-style (Cambodian) runis. Many of the ruins look remarkably like the ones we saw in Angkor Wat a couple of years ago. Our tour guide made repeated reference to “the former times”, a charmingly French turn of phrase to describe the old empire.

Our visit included Wat Phra Mahathat with its Khmer prangs and the famous bodhi tree-engulfed Buddha head. We also visited a royal palace ruins next to Wat Phana Choeng which now houses an enormous 60-foot tall Buddha image.

Here’s some of the things we saw:

 

To finish the day, we went on a 2-1/2 hour cruise down the Chao Phraya River back to Bangkok.
The Chao Phraya is very alive, with people living on its banks…
…and travelling to and fro along its length and breadth.
Two of the magnificent sights when we got back into Bangkok were Wat Arun, or Temple of the Dawn, decorated with thousands upon thousands of shards of broken pottery…
…and Wat Phra Kaew, home of the Emeerald Buddha, the holiest image in the kingdom, and the Grand Palace.

Afterwards we spent a pleasant hour antiquing by the river, admiring Thailand’s beautiful decorative arts.

The Emerald Buddha and Us

Last modified on 2008-01-23 05:59:36 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

 

Within hours of  first setting foot in Thailand six years ago, we were standing before the Emerald Buddha in Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok. It’s somewhat fitting that we wound up there again on the last day of our trip today.

We have, over time, followed in the footsteps of this peculiar little object. It was discovered in a hidden place in the fifteenth century in Chiang Rai, today near where the corners of Thailand, Laos and Burma meet today. (We had visited Chiang Rai a couple of years ago.) Then it went to Chiang Mai, where it was installed at Wat Chedi Luang, which we’ve visited many times and where our visit started a month ago. When the king of Chiang Mai left no heir in 16th century, it travelled to Luang Prabang in Laos and then to Vientiane when the capital moved again. (Also places we’ve been on this trip.) Finally in the 18th century, when Rama I captured Laos for Thailand, the Emerald Buddha was brought to Thonburi, the former capital across the river next to Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn. Later that century, it was enthroned in its present location.

 

	Throughout time, it has been an important Buddha image for Thailand, these days it is the most important one. Oddly small (it’s barely 2 meters tall), it’s actually made of a single piece of jade. Closely associated with the monarchy, it is revered as much as King Bhumipol himself. Perched way off the ground in Wat Phra Kaew, it has three outfits, one for the cool (or dry), rainy and hot seasons. The king changes the outfits himself in the thrice-yearly ceremonies.
	I have never seen a good, really clear photograph of it, probably because no cameras are allowed inside the temple itself. This is the best I could manage

 

The entire temple complex surrounding our little friend is spectacular, befitting its status as the country’s Vatican, as it were.
A characteristic of temples in SE Asia is the use of murals to tell stories to the people. The tales typically are on one of two subjects. One is the life of Lord Buddha and the jataka, or previous lives, he had. The other is the stories from the Ramakien, which for those of you who know Hindu mythology, is remarkably like the Ramayana.
These gilded garuda, mythical winged creatures, guard the temple of the Emerald Buddha.
Another common decorate figure is the Apsara, or Kinnaree, a lion-bird-woman creature. They are often represented in Thai and Khmer temple dances.
There is an incredible scale model of the main temple at Angkor Wat, which, at one time, was part of Thailand.
Almost no surface is without decoration of some sort. The bulk of it is brilliant glassic mosaics.
The cumulative effect is quite stunning.

 

Outside of the temple grounds proper, there is the Grand Palace itself. No longer in use as a Royal Residence, it is that fascinating blend of European and Thai architecture we saw at Bang Pa In palace.

Thailand, of course, is still in a period of mourning for HRH Princess Galyani, who died of abdomincal cancer at the new year. (I don’t know how everyone can dress in black in the heat.) As we came into the Grand Palace, a crowd of people was waiting for something to happen. What, we weren’t sure.
Tom, who wasn’t dressed respectfully enough for the Grand Palace, had been sent out to the street to buy some pants to cover his offending kneecaps. He stopped by the tent in the picture above to pull them on, when the royal entourage came driving by on its way to one of the mourning events. Tom got to see the King and Queen of Thailand!

 

Wilting in the heat, we left the palace and walked through the amulet market where, besides the allegedly ancient amulets, you can find street corner denture makers. We got on the wrong river ferry and wound in Thonburi, which is was great because we settled into a riverside cafe for some cold drinks. We had to get back to the hotel to pack, but we squeezed out a few more minutes of activities by going to a 200-year old mansion for dinner and then for a last foot massage. What more could we ask for? Then it was off to Suvvanabhumi Airport for the long trip home.

Looking over our vacation pictures, it hardly seems possible we’ve seen so much, been so many places and ate so well this month. All in all, not a bad way at all to spend four weeks.

Practicalities

Agoda.com – Asian Hotel Reservations

Last modified on 2007-12-18 18:28:40 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Making reservations at smaller or boutique hotels in Southeast Asia can be very frustrating. Part of the reason is that a lot of these properties don’t belong to an international conglomerate and don’t exist on the the big travel booking systems.

While planning our next trip I found an excellent resource at Agoda.com. They’re based in Bangkok and have access to a huge variety of properties. Agoda had access to all the hotel I was interested in. When my first two choices were unavailable, they made the effort to email me alternatives, which included my third choice! Their prices are extremely good and they have a rewards program that looks good, although I haven’t had a chance to use it yet.

Besides the SE Asia hotels I was looking for, I noticed that their system is completely international, covering Asia, the US, Europe, S. America and many other places. I understand they’ve been acquired by Priceline, which would be a good thing giving them more reach.

a g o d a . c o m