Two Beers and a Pretzel

On the 11th, I took a ferry, bus, and overnight ferry to Koh Pangnan island on the Gulf side of Thailand.  Steven had recommended “Bottle Beach” on the North side of the Island, and he was right.  This is exactly what the doctor ordered.

It also helps that I met a group of British girls that proved that yes, 18-20 English girls are nearly the most inebriated and annoying thing on Earth, but by 24, they’ve gone through a metamorphosis into actual women who occasionally exercise moderation.  They’re cute too…

I’m staying at Smile Bungalows.  I have a nice place with a queen sized bed, fan, and private bath for 350 bhat/night ($11).  Not on the beach, but I have a view, and it’s a 100 meter walk.   They have a great restaurant/bar, ridiculously friendly staff, and there are only about 100 people staying on this little bay, so everyone is relaxed and happy.

The only way there is by boat, or 4 wheel drive over a mountain.  Even the food resupply arrives by boat.

There are a few downsides…

With the shallow, coral-deficient bay, snorkeling is not so good.  The sunrise and sunset are both blocked by opposing mountains, and if you want anything not available at the 3 small bungalow resorts, you have a 2 hour journey ahead of you.  Power is usually off during the day, and internet connectivity is a joke (yay!).  The biggest actual problem appears to be the resident brown cobra who eats the rodents and scares the crap out of the girls.

…but I can live with it.  This place is so chilled out that you never want to leave…

On the Andaman Sea side (West) of Thailand, there’s an island that is renowned for its’ beaches and diving.  Koh Phi Phi was not exactly the paradise I expected…  Beautiful, yes – just kinda weird…

Phuket was OK, but not great.  The flight was a hair over an hour, but the town was a dump.  Literally roaches scurrying under your feet.  Perhaps if I had stayed in Patong beach instead of the mis-recommendation of Phuket Town, I may have liked it more.  Similarly, the Same Same guesthouse was decent in Chiang Mai, but a few other guys in my cooking class were staying across the street at the “Jennie” guesthouse for half the price with a significantly cooler vibe.

Anyway…  for some reason the whole town of Phuket pretty much closes at 10 PM.  I fell asleep in the guesthouse that afternoon and awoke very hungry up around 11 PM.  I walked around Phuket Town looking for food for nearly an hour before finding the “Bohemian” bar – which still had an open kitchen.  The owners were watching the Australia versus Sri Lanka Cricket match in the deserted bar.  I ordered a Pad Thai and joined them for a Tiger Beer.  An older Thai lady brought the food a few minutes later.  After I finished the Pad Thai, she offered to play pool on the free pool table.

The next morning, I booked a ferry to Koh Phi Phi island.  This is one of the places that was constantly in the news in December 2004 because it was completely devastated by the Tsunami.  Most of the lodging is built on a large, but not very tall  sandbar between two rocky islands.  Everyone’s first impression is “OK, I can totally see how a big wave could wipe this place off the map”.

I hung out in long beach with Leann, Suzy, and Steven – a group I met on the ferry ride over.  Budget accommodation is not common on Koh Phi Phi.  The single person 500 bhat rooms were a roach infested mess, so Leann and I split a 1300 bat room at the P.P. Paradise Resort.  Nice, clean, A/C, and private bathroom.  Not bad for 650 bhat per person (roughly $22) – but solo travelers will be staying in total dives for nearly the same price.

That night in town, we cruised around – trying to find a cheap bar.  The water taxi ride to town is 100 bhat per person ($3).  At most bars, drinks were 150 bhat ($4.50).  Even a bar named Cheap Charlies was expensive for Thailand.  There was a popular place simply called Reggae Bar that had a Muay Thai ring in the middle of the building, and offered free drinks to anyone who got in to fight and entertain the crowd.

The next day we all booked an all-day longboat tour to the nicer beaches and snorkeling spots in the area.  Longboats are literally just a long wooden boat with a 4 cylinder motor mounted high on a swiveling joint, attached to a 15 ft drive shaft with a large prop at the end.  The “sea gypsy” clan of boat drivers can spin the motor and drive shaft around to almost make the boat go backwards.  They do not inspire confidence, and most look ready to sink.

A similar rickety boat took about 15 of us around the islands for 7 hours.  We saw the famous Maya Bay where the movie “The Beach” was filmed, along with a number of stunning coves, caves, and some stunning beaches, and great snorkeling.

At the end of the day we were all so tired that we met at the resort for dinner and talked over a few beers before going to bed early.

The last 3 days have cost me about $350 (not including the $70 flight from Bangkok to Phuket)…  So the resort areas of Thailand are not as cheap as you think, but still cheaper than Florida…  and the scenery really blows away the generic luxury condo towers in Florida…

Oddly, for such a slice of paradise, the Thai’s and Sea Gypsy’s who work here are pretty bitter toward tourists – and it’s currently the low season.  Couple that attitude with the relatively high prices, and I couldn’t wait to leave.  On Steve’s recommendation, I left Phi Phi and headed for Bottle Beach on Koh Phangan island in the Gulf of Thailand.

Chatuchak Market is the largest market in Thailand, and arguably, one of the largest in the world.  At roughly 1/2 a square mile with over 5000 shops, it’s so big and popular that many city maps have a special section just for this market. There are entire sections of clothing, home decor, Buddhist trinkets, plants, pets, crafts, etc…

The main streets through the market are wide.

Some shops had some pretty funny merchandise:

I started by making a b-line for the tropical fish and pet area.  I imagine about 8 acres of aquarium shops.

For all my aquarium hobby friends, you think you’d be in fish-heaven, but it’s not exactly as good as you imagine.  There are hundreds of stores of varying quality.  Some of the best ones are the planted tank specialists, reef shops, guppy stores, fancy goldfish shops, and the arrowana only stores.  There were very few cichlids and catfish.  You had everything from nice display shops to people selling hundreds of pre-bagged fish.

The most popular and expensive fish were Red Arrowanna from breeding farms in Singapore, and Flowerhorns (which were happily advertized as hybrid, crossed, or manmade – it was a selling point)

Substrate and rocks were about 20 Bhat per kilogram (25 cents a pound)

The reef shops were the same quality as the top end shops back home – with only the expensive equipment.  Not really any cheaper either..

Sadly, there were an abundance of fish that cannot survive in captivity, and many of the fish-only saltwater stores had obviously sick or caught with cyanide looking animals.  Here was a full tank of obviously starving Moorish Idols…

On the way out, I ran across a place selling chickens.  To draw a crowd, they had a ring setup for cock-fighting.

After that, I had had enough of the sights and smells of the market and headed back to the guesthouse to rest up for my apperance at the Indian Consulate to get my visa.

Yesterday I started a tour of the countryside on a dual-sport (on road / off road) motorbike.  It was really just a glorified moped, but it did have off road tires and a beefy suspension.  My guide, Ped, took me on the busy streets of Chiang Mai where I became one of the thousands of mopeds weaving thru traffic.  Then we went about 40 kilometers on paved roads, and another 60 on dirt tracks.

The dirt quickly became very slippery mud with a brief monsoon.  I laid the bike over a few times when the wheels got caught in a rut going the opposite direction of my momentum.  A few cuts and scrapes, and I’m no worse for the wear.  The only scary one was a rut that sent me down a very steep 10 meter mud slide.  I jumped off before the bike rolled over me.  The mirrors came off the bike, but I was fine.

I did regain my composure enough to cross a tree over a river…

Then we made it to a village near the border with Myanmar/Burma (or whatever they want to call it now).  This wasn’t the long neck women, but tht’s OK with me, because they kinda freak me out anyway.

We stayed with Suchat, his wife Kaecher, their daughters Fai (14), Pachi (8), and Tidee (2).  Ped and Kaecher cooked dinner while I took a nap and the girls played with Ped’s camera.

Here’s Pachi, Tidee, Kaecher, Suchat, Ped, and me.  Fai was the photographer.

An interesting thing about Fai…  she’s 14, recently divorced, and has a new 31 year old boyfriend (her parents are 32).

Regardless of things hill tribe people do differently, they were a very welcoming and exceedingly happy family.  And the food was something else… Sweet and sour chicken, some kind of chicken curry (red, but not red curry or panang), a variety of cantaloupe, fresh banana (they live on a banana farm), small steamed crabs that Pachi caught that afternoon in the creek, hand thrashed rice, spicy mushrooms and bamboo.  Wow, it was good!!  We ate together sitting on the floor of the 1 year old addition to their bamboo hut.

The next day (this morning) we left early, but not before I bought some handmade souvenirs from Kaecher and Pachi.  Asking why, I showed them pictures of my twin nieces. Which led to the bunny becoming friends with Pachi…

Then off to the countryside again…

Where I rode an Elephant thru the jungle…

And then went mud-water rafting on a pile of sticks…  (ok, a real bamboo raft)

After getting back into town, I booked an early flight back to Bangkok tomorrow so I can go to the massive weekend market, then get my visa for India on Monday before heading to the islands in the south for a week…

I’ve been in Chiang Mai for 2 days now, and I really like this town.  The “Same Same Guesthouse” is really laid back, clean, cheap, and the staff is super friendly (like insisting you try the food they just cooked for free).  No AC, but large rooms with ceiling fans for $7/night – and free wifi.

The first night I walked around the old town, across the stone wall, and to the open street market.  Along the way I stopped for some street food and had spicy fish soup – sharing a table with a local.  The guy must have gotten a kick out of me turning red and crying as I ate the delicious, but extra spicy concoction, so unbeknownst to me, he paid for my meal.  As you can imagine, people in Chiang Mai are really friendly and laid back.

Later, at the night bazaar, among all the fake sunglasses, fake North Face backpacks, fake jemstones, real artwork, funny t-shirts, and shoe kiosks along the street, I found a place making large, fresh fruit juice smoothies for over $1…

I went with a yummy Pineapple / Strawberry.

Yesterday was a good chance for me to catchup on all kinds of things – especially with a fast and free internet connection.

Today I just completed my 1 day Thai cooking class in Chiang Mai.  It was actually only about 5 hours since we only had 4 students and the peak season class size is 18.

We started with a tour of a local food market where chef/owner Permpoon Nabnian taught us about the different fruits, veggies, eggs, and rice, how to chek if their ripe or good, and compared alternate ingredients.

Making coconut cream

Kafir Lime:

Plain and sticky rice:

After driving to his house in the countryside about 13km outside of Chiang Mai, the chef started by showing us how to prepare Spicy Papaya Salad, Spring Rolls with Plum Sauce, and Sweet Sticky Rice with Mango.

One important lesson he gave us was that when tasting someone else’s cooking, you taste, close your eyes, savor for a few seconds, swallow, give a slight smile, and say “unbelievable”.  Never say “mmmm”, “good”, “yummy”, “yuck”, or “eeeeww”…  Just say “un-be-liev-able” in a slow and meaningless way…

Then we each got to chose 4 out of 12 possible which the chef giudes us as we prepare them ourselves.  I elected to learn how to make spicy Tom Yam soup with Prawns (delicious):

Chicken Pad Thai, Panang Tofu, and Sweet and Sour Chicken.

I still can’t decide if it was more fun to eat the food, or to make it.  I think I’m going to take a nap after eating all of that at once…

The Sweet and Sour Chicken was really great, and a blast (literally) to make.  The Pad Thai Chicken and Panang Tofu were both wonderful, but after having similar meals for most of the last few days, some of the food with different flavors and textures topped my list.  My favorites were the Spicy Tom Yam Soup with Prawns, Papaya Salad with Sticky Rice, and Sweet Sticky Rice with Mango.

The best part is that we get to keep a copy of the cook book and get a certificate saying that we did not singe our eyebrows too terribly.

Tomorrow I start a 2 day motorbike tour of the countryside.  I should get to do the popular things like riding elephants, bamboo river rafting, seeing the Long Neck ladies in the Karen tribe, campfires, and waterfalls – also riding about 200 kilometers on a 250cc dual-sport bike.