Around The World 2011 Day 17: Chiang Mai, Thailand to Luang Prabang, Laos

After sixteen days in Thailand, sixteen days during which I never felt like there was not more to see, it is time to leave.  Today we fly to Laos.  And just wait until the pronunciation police hit that country.  My oh my.

In the meantime, today we have breakfast at the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi and that means one and only one thing.

Chocolate and banana jam.  Chocolate And Banana Jam.  And look, they set it right next to peanut butter.  I am going to have a field day here, my friends.

Let us be honest.  The fresh honey comb at the J.W. Marriott Phuket was presented more attractively.  Still, you have to give props to nay hotel breakfast buffet that features dripping directly from the honey comb. 

I realized I should go ahead and share a full view of the buffet.  This would be the South side.

This would be the center, where eggs, waffles, and pancakes are made fresh to order.

This would be the North side.

This would be my breakfast.  But wait...

There you have a piece of waffle with peanut butter and chocolate and banana jam.  Foodies... let me tell you.  Take six bananas and crush them.  Then add a dark-not-too-sweet chocolate syrup to them, a thick syrup that stays soft at room temperature.  Once you experiment long enough to have the perfect balance of banana and chocolate in that jam, and you eat that jam on a waffle (perhaps with some peanut butter), you will have in fact tasted the only true proof on Earth of a higher power.

It might be easier to fly to Chiang Mai, Thailand.  But if you do want to test your own banana & chocolate jam creations in Los Angeles, I would be happy to be the taste tester.

On our way to the airport, one last hotel site inspection.  And, this is kind of funny, I cannot name the hotel.  At this point I had checked out mentally as far as hotels went.  I could not look at another hotel room without thinking unfunny sarcastic thoughts inside my head.  So... no hotel name.  Sue me.

When you pass a room number that coincides with the current year, you take that picture.

Hallway or decade?

They sold these in the gift shop.  We plan to put these on bottle of Mexican Coke.

A new bus today.  I suspect the lawyers at Disney would send a letter if only they knew that a bus company in Thailand was stealing their intellectual property.  After boarding the bus, on our way to the airport, there was a funny moment when our guide Noy presented Dori with a repaired sandal.  I noted that I had great admiration for Dori because her joy comes from rescuing an old shoe, not buying a new one.  And I joked that a man often has to pretend to appreciate a woman's new shoes, even when he lacks the ability to appreciate said shoes.

That is when Kelli jumped in and said that she had just bought new shoes that could prove me wrong.  And she did!

Custom brocade Converse All Stars!  Chuck Taylor himself would approve.  And Kelli had proven me wrong.  I did appreciate a woman's new pair of shoes.

You want more prove that Thailand have everything?  On the way to the airport we saw this driving range.  Which leads to the question, "Who can golf when it is 90℉ and 95% humidity?

Chiang Mai International Airport.  Upside down.

A new airline!  Man, we are flying all sorts of airlines for the first time this trip.  By the way, note that this is Loa Airlines.  I will very briefly say this, the name of the country is Lao, and when it became a French colony they spelled it Laos, because in French the S is silent and therefore the French were saying the name correctly, which in English I think you get closest to with Lau.  Then along come the British and Americans who see the French spelling and they say it, Lause.  And, in classic South East Asian style, the people are very accommodating and when they are face to face with an English speaker, they pronounce the S for us so that we do not feel like we said something wrong.

The Southeast Asians are like that woman whose name is Patrice, and she meets a woman who calls her Patricia, and instead of correcting her she lets this woman call her by the wrong name for years, and then, one day, when she calls the mispronouncer on the phone, she says, "Hi, it's Patricia."

Candid, Chiang Mai Airport Security, Thailand.  July 2011.

How brazen is the Burger King owner, placing an ad directly in front of Dairy Queen that his burgers are a mere 3o seconds away.  Is there a Dairy Queen ad in front of Burger King?  (I did not look, but I hope there is one.)

You have to admire spiritual tolerance when you see it.

Michael picked up the best snak of the trip, Seaweed flavored Pringles.  They were great, by the way.  Salty and sweet.

I thought that my Schweppes Lime Soda in Thai looked cool.  Everything looks cool in Thai.  Really.

Jaqueline Onasis never died.  She faked her death, got plastic surgery to look Asian, and moved to Norther Thailand to escape the paparazzi.

Today's plane has a propeller.  Love it.

Good bye, Thailand.

Hello, Laos.  (Silent S.)

Luang Prabang Airport, Laos.  You know that I never posture on the Waste.  When I have a failing, I put it out there.  And here is one.  Luang Prabang is a city that I had never heard of before landing in it.  Seriously.  Total ignorance.  I knew of Laos, and had a good idea where Laos was located.  But Luang Prabang?  I had no clue.  And that threw me, because I had the hardest time all day remember the name of the city I was in.  Yikes!  I needed a t-shirt that read Dumb American in this city.

There sits our ride.  It was a very smooth ride, and even smoother landing.  Even in the rain.

The Lao Airlines magazine had two pages of cartoons in which good Asian people travel around Loas behaving perfectly while two horrible White people travel around Laos violating every custom possible.  It is the funniest comic I have seen since Foreskin Man.

Our hotel's sign, La Residence Phou Vao.  There will be a story in two days about this picture.  I have seen the future.  And mark my words; in a foreign country, always take a picture of the hotel sign when you check into a new hotel.

That is what I call an inviting bedroom.

Soon it was time for the night market, followed by dinne.  Shopping and dinner.  At least I like half of those activities.

Luang Prabang's night market.  Compared to Chiang Mai, which was too crowded and claustrophobic, this market was a pleasure.  And by pleasure, I mean it was tolerable whereas the other was not.

Street meat for Nate!  In this case, you choose your ingredients and then the dude stir fry's it in front of you.  Since fire kills everything, this might be the most hygenic street food I have seen in some time.

The Luang Prabang night market stretching further than the eye can see.

Luang Prabang Street Merchant and Daughter Candid.  July 2011.

Comfort is sexy.

A lighted temple.

After fighting our way through one end of the night market to the other, buying low quality items and losing a high quality item, we escaped from the night market and headed to dinner.

Tonight we dine on traditional Lao fare.  A menu of the set meal was provided; prepare for details.

Tom Hom Prak I Leud; beef leave soup with beef fillet.  (Hey, I reprint the menu even is some words make no sense.)

Chicken skewers (off menu).  Oua Si Kry; steamed pork stuffed lemongrass shoot.

Kai Phen; Luan Prabang River Weeds.  (Tasted great.  Even better than seaweed; even better than seaweed Pringles.)

Laaps Gnoa; minced cooked beef and local herbs in a salad.

Mok Paa; fish and kaffir leave steamed in a banana leave papillotte.

Khao Niao; steamed sticky rice.

Opened up, Mok Paa looks a lot like gefilte fish.  To some, gefilte fish is a Jewish delicacy.  I cannot eat it, and did not.

Table shot; left to right:  Tom, Cynthia, Kelli, Esther, Matther, Greta, Nicole, Dori, Michael, My Empty Chair.  (Barbie is in the ladies room, picking flowers.)

Salad Mac Maille; fresh fruit salad with sechouane pepper syrup and lemongrass.

And after that meal, we went back to the hotel and crashed.  Crashed hard.  Almost as hard an the internet in Laos crashes.  Yes, connectivity is sparse.  You have very slow internet for a few minutes, then nothing, then it comes back. Thusly, the Waste is a few days behind.  The management apologizes for this and hopes to have things up to date soon.

Until tomorrow.

Around The World 2011 Day 16: Chiang Mai, Thailand

Today is our only full day in Chiang Mai.  Honestly, we are moving a little quick for me.  I can barely remember where I am.  Three to four day stops per city suit me better.  Alas, when you are on a fam trip these decisions are not your own.  Get ready for another jam-packed day.

Seriously.  That is a hotel lobby.  Breakfast is served in the restaurant in the back half.  It is, in two words, completely mad.

You know what breakfasts are like.  But you did not know, as I did not know until I was on the way out, that they have a magical looking substance here called chocolate and banana jam.  I repeat Chocolate And Banana Jam.  I have never heard of such a thing, but basically that substance is going to be in the back of my mind until I try it tomorrow morning.

Panorama of the square behind the restaurant.  This is the view for breakfast.  Completely mad.

The next two photographs were taken by yours truly, but I cannot truly take credit for them.  Michael had said to me the first day, "Did you see the anatomically correct statues in the lobby?"  As an interior designer, he notices detail.

This morning I took a look, and sure enough, as you walk away from the lobby desk, the statues on either side include the following details.

This would be a she.

This would be a he.

You Do Not See That Every Day.  (YDNSTED.)  (There is no chance that YDNSTED takes off.)

On the way out of the Dhara Dhevi, I finally get a picture of the sign that you can read.  Hooray!

There were small parades of kids and adults on the streets today, because today is Khao Phansa.  They refer to this as Buddhist Lent, but I think that is again the Thai way of trying to accommodate and relate.  For example, Buddhist Lent is marked by the arrival of the rainy season and marks a time of study and meditation.  Sound like Christian Lent to you?  No fasting, no giving up particular habits or pleasures.

In fact, the Thai tradition of Khao Phansa involves the Buddhist monks not leaving their temples and monasteries for three lunar months.  It is no coincidence that this is the period when they need to keep the monks from walking through the freshly planted rice paddies.  Lent indeed.

Time for the highlight of the day.

Elephant time.

Barbie and Esther emerge from the ladies room.  Yes, I am the type of person who, when seeing that the bridge I am on overlooks the restrooms and knowing that my wife is in there, will wait with the camera at the ready to get a picture as she emerges.  I cannot explain it, but this is how it must be.

That, my friends, is an elephant.

The camp sells bananas to feed the elephants, and everywhere there are signs warning you to give them bunches at once or the elephants will get impatient.  When you read a sign that warns against a 9,000 lb / 4,160 kg animal getting impatient, you do what it says.

Inside the elephant camp were hill tribe people selling some of their wares.  There was a terribly cute little girl and, as you can see, everyone in our group took a picture of her.  Except me.  I took a picture of everyone taking her picture.

So...  the elephant camp...  First of all, I get that for a lot of people it is a terrific experience.  And I liked a lot of things about it.  You can tell there is a but coming.  But Barbie and I saw hundreds of African elephants roaming free in African wildlife reserves.  To see their Asian cousins tamed and trained, with guys riding their necks making them do tricks... not my cup of tea.  I am sorry.  I cannot not dislike it.

I get it.  I do.  Elephants are like dogs.  Animals that love us, and that we can train.  When you see a dog do tricks, you do not think, "Poor little dog."  You see that dog's tail wagging as it jumps through a hoop and gets a treat from its master, and everyone's happy.  I do not know why I have a mental block that places elephants above dogs, that makes me think, Do not squeeze that elephant's ear when it does the trick wrong!  Let it roam free!  On top of that, I bet there is little natural habitat for Asian elephants.  These elephants are lucky to be alive, really.

The oldest male elephant shows how he can lift a log.  Elephants are Southeast Asia's bulldozers and cranes.

This female paints the same painting over and over, for 600 bhat.

Again, I have to get my head straight and enjoy this.  I still cannot help but wish that this was more like Africa, where herds of wild elephants roam free on a reserve and ignore the little people in the open air trucks whizzing around them taking picture.

Alas, that reserve does not exist yet.  Which means that Barbara and I are about to ride an elephant's back through the jungle.

We got the last car of the elephant train.  Michael and Dori ride the elephant in front of us.  Michael had this great idea where we gave them one of our cameras and they gave us one of theirs.  This way, Barbie's camera has their shots of us and Dori's camera has our shots of them.  Alas, the Waste is going up before I get a chance to look at the pictures on Barbie's camera, meaning that you must again be satisfied with the pictures taken by the official Colossal Waste photographer, yours truly.

When you look down at your feet and see an elephant neck... this is not something you see every day.

I was going to run a video here where I talked about the bad traffic during Elephant Carmageddon, but it was not funny enough.  Not even close.

Unlike you cars that need to stop for gasoline, elephants just grab something with their trunk when they are hungry.

I see that elephant with a mahout on his head and North Americans on the seat tied to his back and I ask myself, well, how did I get here?

We were told that the elephants like walking through the river.  It is cool for them.

Some elephants kept their trunks in the water, but Michael and Dori's like to keep hers just above the water line.  She uses it like a snorkel.

Our ride is THERE.

Okay.  We have completed the magical elephant riding that I actually had a hard time not disliking because I cannot not think that this is something that I should not be doing portion of our day.  As with everything that we do while traveling, this was a good thing for Barbie to see so that she can describe it to a client and gauge if it is for them or not.


Now, off to a Four Seasons for lunch and a site inspection. 

I nearly got it.

This is not a bad view to see from a hotel lobby.  This property was designed to accomodate both hotel guests and permanent residents.  The idea that one might retire and spend one's time in Northern Thailand, relaxing in a luxurious home being waited on by Four Season's calibre staff is, how you say, beyond imagination.

Barbie poses with a decorative umbrella in the lobby.

We saw many rooms and suites, but these posts would average 80 pictures instead of 60 were I to share hotel room pics.

But this is worthy to share.  This is the Thai cooking school at the Four Seasons Chiang Mai.

He liked Barbie and did not bite down.

On the other hand...

While entering the bar and restaurant that sits adjacent to the pool and spa, they placed this decorative frame around a teardrop shaped hole.

Okay.  I did not show you the normal room that was amazing.  I did not show you the beautiful two bedroom suite.  I did not eve show you the Amazing three bedroom suite wich had been recently occupied by Oscar winner Denzel Washington.

But this you get to see.  And know that this sculpture sits on a living room table of a three building five bedroom villa that would cost a paltry $5 million were you to buy it.

We have done the site inspection, looking at everything the Four Seasons Chiang Mai has to offer, and have thus earned ourselves a lunch.

Another group meal shot.  Perhaps this habit of taking a picture of the group eating makes it look like we are always eating.  We are not, I swear.  However, it is obvious that the times we are most often together and not in motion happen during meals.  There.  And, to keep up the yearbook naming names thingy; Left to Right: Matthew, Dori, Greta, Nicole, Michael, Kelli, Cynthia, My EMpty Chair, Barbie, Tom.  (Esther must have briefly left the table.)

The grounds of the Four Seasons Chiang Mai.  Esther commented that the costs of groundskeeping must be astronomical.  No doubt she is correct.

No menu for this meal, but I think I know my way around it.

Chicken wrapped in banana leaves, baked to juicy perfection.

Spring rolls with a honey based sauce.

The first few courses on my plate.

A shrimp salad of sorts.

A very, very special Thai iced tea.  You ask, "Why the double very?"

The ice cubes are frozen tea.

I will award a special prize to the person who first leaves a comment correctly naming the country, city and hotel where I was last served iced tea with iced tea ice cubes inside.

Beef broth vegetable soup.

Fried fish.

Curry chicken.

Wok-friend vegetables.

Dessert; Ice cream, mango slices, and fried banana spring roll.

Fried banana spring roll deserves a closer look.  Anytime you cook a a banana, you win me over.

I do not know exactly where I took this, but for a photograph from a moving bus, I am extremely fond of it.  It captures the different aspects of Thailand.  The spider webs of powerlines you see everywhere, a statue either from or honoring the country's history, the beautiful landscape that cover every inch of this place, all under the clouds that rain down on this place and make it the lushest land I have ever seen.

At last!  I got a picture of the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi Chiang Mai sign!

There was no planned dinner, which meant that Barbie and I skipped dinner, got some work done and then climbed into bed.  In bed, we fired up Slingbox on the MacBook Air and watched, of course, The Bachelorette.  This is of particular interest because an episode of this very season of The Bachelorette was shot at none other than the very resort in which we are staying.  You got that right.  We are staying in the far-away Thai resort where they shot The Bachelorette.  Now that is exciting.

For the record, I fell asleep less than halfway through the episode, but I still get a little giddy every time I see the TV remote on the computer screen and the listing of all the programs we have on the DVR in our Los Angeles bedroom.

Until tomorrow.