urban retreat

phranakorn norn-len โรงแรมพระนคร-นอนเล่น

what happens when a former thai beauty pageant queen joins the green and grassroots movement? she opens phranakorn norn-len (aka p.n.), the "urban retreat," the trendy, rustic, eclectic, artsy, and quirky boutique guesthouse. written up in travel guides, international travel mags and even timetm magazine, this place is the trendiest of it's breed.

my fave features:
- "she's crafty, and she's just my type." p.n. is all about the creative use of old things. every floor hall houses a mural of a different theme, their gift shop is stocked with traditional and indie handcrafts, and their room decorations are bright uses of the traditional thai-country fabrics.- organic rooftop garden. they grow herbs and veggies up top with a loungy sitting area.- organic vegetarian (sort of) breakfast. inventive, simple, sensible portion size. last time i had breakfast, p.n. served mushroom & cheese egg wraps, mango & sticky rice, and green papaya salad. - really friendly service. you can tell the employees like working here.

things i feel "ehh..." about:
- hard to find. virtually no taxi drivers know how to get there. you'd best print out the map from their website.
- rooms are pretty small. like two-queen-beds-slid-next-to-each-other small.- no tvs. i like watching tv. sue me.
- it's pretty expensive. at 2400B a night, you could stay at a really ritzy hotel. but, if you're about the experience and the slower pace, this is your place.

phranakorn norn-len hotel
2400B+/night
46 thewet soi 1, phranakorn district. 02-6288188-90
webby: http://www.phranakorn-nornlen.com/

fireflies and loveliness

amphawa floating market

after my trip to the damnoen saduak floating market, i was content to never visit a floating market again. the 2 hour travel, contrived "traditional way-of-life," overpricing, and hordes of tourists were a turn-off, to say the least.thank god for redemption; after visiting amphawa floating market, my faith in floating markets has been restored. so, hurry up and get your butt over to amphawa before it gets dirty and stops being quaint and charming. the market open weekends, friday to sunday.

do stuff:
amphawa is known for its fireflies, which can be admired year-round, but in greatest abundance in hot season (apr-may). take an evening longtail boat tour down the river for 60B/person and watch the riverbanks flicker like christmas trees. most tours include other sites along the river, like fishing spots, temples, and sugar palm-making homes. plenty of companies along the market have tours that are all pretty much the same. take your pick.
you, too, can shop! the amphawa is much more of a DIY community than many other tourist spots, so we were able to find many more handmade and creative wares. the handmade glow-in-the-dark firefly cell phone charms at 39B each were my favorite souvenirs there. you know you want one.

just for a moment, suppose anthropologie and thailand had a lovechild. taramart is that lovechild. the first floor boutique sells hip, yet rustic, brightly printed tops and thai fishing pants and lady-bags while the eclectic, country-meets-chic second floor tea room has bright, inventive tea blends at 85B a pot. 081-696-4797
eats:
staying true to thai form, a great trip must have great eats. and as small as it is, there is so much great food at amphawa. in my opinion, these are the requisite "best eats"
*ice creams and sorbets at kumpan (กำปั่น) restaurant are homemade and delightfully thai. we tried (from l-r) star-gooseberry sorbet, apricot-guava sorbet, and coconut un-chun ice cream (our fave) for 35B a cup. *grilled river prawns. oh no, you shall not call these shrimp, for shrimp are not the length of your hand. these are prawns. and they are delicious. buy a plateful for 30B, then promptly buy another.*khao griap (ข้าวเกรียบ). a foot in diameter and impossibly delicate, lightly sweetened, grilled rice crepes. sorry, i forgot to take a picture, but it's worth buying a 20B bag of 3 crepes here, since everyone else's version tends to be a thicker, deep-fried, or savory version.

*amphawa also has a ton of beautifully-presented and delicious traditional thai snacks and desserts that are too numerous to list or even recommend. just eat your way around.
fat = happy, right?accomodations:
thanicha resort
amphawa is known for their "homestays" which means anything from crashing on some family's floor to a bed & breakfast. thanicha boutique resort is a charming thai-style teak bed & breakfast within walking distance from the market, modest and simple rooms and friendly service. it's like staying at a friend's house. you know, your hip, retro-traditional thai friend with 10 or so extra rooms. it was lovely.webby: www.thanicha.com/indexe.htm
03-472-5511

getting there:
amphawa floating market is in samut songkhram, and a mere 13km from damnoen saduak.
ac vans from victory monument, mo chit, and the southern bus terminal for 70-100B (depending on where they drop you off) that leave hourly (or more frequently, if busy).
also buses from the southern bus terminal.

what time is it?

Wine O'Clock

Well, if it's between 11-2 at "Wine O'Clock" Italian restaurant on Suk 49-- it is time to get a delicious and awesome pasta dish for 99 baht!
lunch menu features:
Four kinds of pasta
Four categories of sauce to choose from (red, cream, garlic/wine, and Thai curry) with about 8 variations of each sauce
Then, you can add a salad (3 choices) for only 49 baht!

The restaurant is situated on an adorable soi, and has an nice "alfresco" patio for cooler days. Inside, the walls are decorated in cork (which somehow comes across as classy) and the seating ranges from black leather couches for lounging to cozy corner tables. The ambiance is comfortable and the staff is attentive.

Every meal starts with freshly warmed french bread, oil and vinegar. Mineral water is 30 baht/bottle and the house wine starts at 250 baht/glass. (The white was delicious)

I ordered a mixed salad- lovely meslun leaves, tomatoes, onion with a light vinaigrette (they also ground fresh pepper! Hooray for traditionally served Italian food.)- followed by spaghetti with sausage in a saffron sauce. It was amazing. Served with fresh parm. Michelle had linguini with melanzane (eggplant and tomato) sauce, also a nice flavor.

I loved this restaurant so much the before we were done eating I started making plans to eat here again... later this week!

Check it out: Wine O'Clock 55/1 Sukhumvit Soi 49, 02-662-7895.

update: (michelle 5.11.09) true to her word, lexie and i did come back and i was so impressed with the saffron sausage that i ordered it again. unfortunately, it was served to me as "thai sausage" with a generous portion of chiles and no cream sauce. so, i pointed out to the server that this wasn't what i ordered. he then proceeded to tell me that i was wrong and that this was really the saffron sausage pasta and even brought over the menu - which i then pointed out was supposed to be a cream sauce and was different than the dish we ordered just one week ago. annoyed, he took the dish back and then came back with the same dish, except this time with cream in the dish and he said as he gave it to me, "it's the same, just with whipping cream." honestly, i'm not a stickler for superb service, but i don't appreciate service where they try to prove the customer wrong when they themselves have made a mistake and without considering the possibility of a mistake. and then, once the mistake has been acknowledged, my dish was altered and not corrected, and served back to me without apology. the altered dish, honestly, was tasty, but i was just so turned off by the way they handled it. is it too much to ask to get what you order and not made to feel like an ass?
i was so for you, wine o'clock, why'd you have to go and ruin it?

stop and smell the roses

pak khlong night flower market

you want flowers? you go here.
buy arm-fulls of orchids, roses, daisies, ferns, carnations, jasmine, marigolds and lotuses for scandalously cheap prices. flowers are sold wholesale mainly for flower vendors, meaning most things are sold in bulk quantiites. a bunch of 100 roses runs about 50-100B, depending on size and color and condition.it's worth going in the middle of the night simply for the fragrance emitted by the millions of fresh flowers - because really, when do you need like 100 orchid stems? you can buy flowers in smaller quantities at slightly greater cost as well, especially the ones that are rarer.

pak khlong night flower market
~250m northeast of the memorial bridge (saphan phut) on the chao phraya river; intersection of thanon chakphet and ban mo.
open all day, flowers best bought at night when freshly delivered.

god bless the military

JUSMAG

it isn't the gourmet delicacies and rare ethnic fare that make their residence in my brain's craving cortex, it's the common, the mundane, and the frequent conveniences i miss: the bagels, the sandwiches, the cereal. and because i refuse to spend $10 on a box of cereal, it's a forlorn memory of the familiar here.

i wouldn't have found the jusmag if a friend hadn't told me about it. why? because it's the joint u.s. military advisory group. the little hidden secret is the little diner-esque restaurant inside the complex. 60B usda hamburgers, deli sandwiches, 300B usda steak, bbq pork sandwiches that are nothing more than pork with kc masterpiece sauce...don't expect special, just expect dime-a-dozen american.the heavy, easily-missed steel door on the street requires your us govt-issued id to pass security. and once you're in the jusmag complex, the restaurant in the back is quiet, fluorescently lit, and pastel vinyl furnishings, the basic crowd is primarily jusmag personnel, vets, and other americans running errands at the jusmag, lending a small-town dive environment. even the wait staff, though thai, are quite un-thai in their indifferent, distracted airs. they might as well have blue hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and huge butts.

off to the side, there are american snacks available, meaning you can pick up pop tarts, mounds bars, cream soda, combos and dr. pepper as readily as you can in the states.

also, they have a us postal service office, barber shop, and athletic courts on campus, but no staff was available to tell me if it's available for all us citizens to use or military/govt personnel only. comment if you know.

jusmagthai
south sathorn rd., across from the suan lum night bazaar.
restaurant: mon-sat 6:30a-3p; bar opens 3p
webby: http://www.jusmagthai.com/jusmagthai.html

chiang mai, v. 2.0

chiang mai

i'm sure this will only be #2 of many chiang mai visits. such a manageable-sized city. so many natural attractions. so much culture.
biggest tip: rent a motorcycle for ~250B/24 hours and go wherever you like. on to the attractions!

going up doi suthep-pui... the doi suthep-pui national park is the closest national park to chiang mai city and sits just north-west of the city. easy to get to, you can take a red pick-up (song taew) from anywhere in the city. aside from the huay kaew and montathan waterfalls (in my last chiang mai post), head up a little further for this legend:
king na naone of the lanna kingdom in the 14th century got a hold of a buddhist relic (buddha's shoulder bone?) and stuck it on the back of a white elephant and released it into the jungle, proclaiming, "may this elephant stop suddenly when it reaches a suitable place to house this relic." it ran up the mountain and at some point stopped to rest and trumpeted three times. so the king built wat phalad on that site. it sits over a stream that runs down the mountain. quite peaceful and scenic with no tourists whatsoever. no anybody really. shrines overlooking the mountain stream. the elephant went further up the mountain, reached a point where it stopped, turned around 3 times, trumpeted another 3 times and then died. so the king built wat phratat doi suthep on that site, which is a major tourist attraction. i'm a horrible person to review wats since there are just sooooo many in thailand and they just are the same after a while. what's different about this wat doi suthep? it's big, it's well-kept, it overlooks the mountain, and has a heart-rate raising staircase up to the wat. besides that, it's kind of like every other wat in thailand.lots of vendors at the base of the wat. here's a vendor with her daughter adorned in traditional hill-tribe dress selling northern thai sausages. 100B entrance fee for non-thais.

further up doi suthep and unrelated to the white elephant legend, phuping palace is one of the royal vacation houses that the royal family still uses. while the buildings are closed to the public, the extensive landscaped grounds are available to stroll. if you like botanical gardens, you'll enjoy phuping palace. 50B entrance for non-thais, 20B thai.

as the fifth highest peak in thailand, doi pui is still further up the mountain and offers a 3km (roughly 1-2hr loop) hike up to the summit from the campsite. it is quite a hike, the second half being more difficult terrain than the first. don't expect a spectacular view at the top, it's mostly blocked by jungle. see? but, if you like hiking, it is a very good and unpopulated hike and it's free. here's part of the trail:
khantoke...
khantoke is a northern thai tradition of serving a meal on a raised tray (called "toke") to honored guests. in the 50s, a businessman invented modern khantoke to entertain special vips, introducing the now widely available popular dinner show. sit on the floor, enjoy unlimited northern thai food, and watch some great thai dancing and traditions. there are several venues ranging in price all over the city. i visited two, the original khantoke dinner called the old chiang mai cultural center and khum khantoke. overall, i'd say that khum khantoke is a better experience but i had a lot of fun at both and wholeheartedly recommend both.
just cause you want to know, here are pros/cons of each.
old chiang mai cultural center: well-established, better dancers (you can tell they pick their dancers by their skill over their attractiveness/size), separate hill tribe show performed by actual members of each of those tribes, 370B/person (including food, pick-up and drop-off at your hotel).
webby: http://www.oldchiangmai.com/index_en.php khum khantoke: it's more of a "show," meaning that it's more about the photo-taking and the production. better food, prettier venue, more photo ops (for tips), really fun. cons are that it's a bit pricier at XXX, further out of the way.
webby: http://www.khumkhantoke.net/

gardens...
i'm getting tired of writing so these reviews will have to be in haiku form.
tweechol botanic garden:
sculpted shrubbery
nature manipulated
hey, it's a hotel!webby: http://www.tweecholbotanicgarden.com/map.php
ratchaphruek garden:
celebrate the king
international landscape
a fading world's fair
free admission, open 10a-6p except mondays, located next to the night safari.

mae sa valley...
home to various orchid farms, elephant farms, monkey centers, and hill tribe cultural centers, there's a lot to do the mae sa valley (25 km north of chiang mai).
mae sa waterfall - you like to semi-vigorously hike? 10 tiers of waterfalls and a heart-stimulating 1+km hike.
eats (honorable mentions)...
the salsa mexican restaurant - inventive tasty mexican food (and jamaican, too). even more than the food, i have to promote their mexican coffee. liqueur-y, creamy, subtly orangey, spiced, delicious mexican coffee. it warrants suffering through consuming caffeine late at night. located on huay kaew, just NE of the central mall.

libernard cafe - a plus coffee. homey bungalow ambience. hippie-foodie-friendly banana whole-wheat pancakes. being there, you just want to hug somebody. hidden off the main street at 41 moon muang.the amazing sandwich - you want to feel like you're in america? go get a no-frills, no-nonsense sandwich you'd make if you weren't too lazy to buy all the imported ingredients. webby: http://www.amazingsandwich.com/

until next time, chiang mai...

siem reap

siem reap, cambodia

now cambodia's top travel and tourist destination, surpassing phnom penh, siem reap means "the siamese were defeated." siem reap is smaller than expected with most of its recreation activities being angkor wat or one of the myriad ngo's.

angkor wat archaelogical park
enough angkor wat pictures, already! everybody does angkor wat at sunset, pb at sunset or maybe pre rup and how can you forget ta phrom with the giant trees growing out of the temple. depending on your adventurousness and temple-interest, you could spend up to 3 full days exploring. i got templed out and made small jaunts out to frolic in the ruins. it's grand and inspiring nonetheless. i particularly liked that so many of the facades were pleasantly smiling figures; it lends a playfulness to the wear of time.

artisans d'angkor
ngo dedicated to artistic conservation and education. head over to their lacquerware complex or their silk farm to take a tour of their facilities, watch art being made and taught and buy some pricey, high-quality souveneirs.
webby: www.artisansdangkor.com

fcc - the fcc complex hosts a few small galleries most interesting being the red gallery, featuring contemporary cambodian artists and the mcdermott gallery, showcasing john mcdermott's iconic and ethereal photography of angkor wat.located at pokambor ave. webby: www.fcccambodia.com/angkor

eats: butterflies garden restaurant boasts a meal amongst a tropical butterfly garden. i think i saw like 3 butterflies. decent cambodian and western menu.
webby: www.butterfliesofangkor.com

streetside "plai tuek-doh koh" or "milk fruit" tastes like a larger, softer, very sweet and refreshing persimmon. very nice.
fcc - also at this hotel complex, resides chic and cosmopolitan haute cuisine in the open air. happy hour ($1 draft beers, 50% off all other drinks). fresh, verdant salads. moroccan beef sandwich was superb topped with pickled carrots and goat cheese, sided by potato straws. webby: http://www.fcccambodia.com/angkor/angelina's - loose beef baguette burger. it doesn't say it's "loose beef," but i like that phrase and that's what it is. angelic, pillowy baguettes made by ecole hotel's culinary school; i bought a half-dozen loaves to bring back to thailand. located in the old market area.
the strong of heart and stomach can try the street cambodian baguettes - fatty braised pork belly, green papaya salad (more relish-like), au jus, chili sauce, cucumber. i prefer the vietnamese incarnation, but this one's a dollar full stomach.

accomodations: pavillion d'orient
in addition to the many charms of pavillion d'orient they have all the comforts you need (read: want): saltwater pool, spa, unlimited wi-fi, above and beyond service, personal driver, nightly cambodian bedtime story (and movie guide). it's the small surprises that endear. i promise that you will adore this place.webby: http://www.pavillon-orient-hotel.com/

here are my top 10 handy dandy travel tips to siem reap:
1. bring plenty of $1USD bills. i found it easier to get around on US cash than changing to cambodian riel or using thai baht (the exch isn't as good for baht). things are so cheap that you could get by solely on $1s and $5s.
2. drink the surprisingly good and local angkor beer and abc stout (8%alc!)
3. be a generous tipper. most hotel workers (or other vocations at that level) earn about $50-60/mo even at luxury resorts, keeping them in working poverty. a couple extra dollars is trivial for you and makes a huge difference for those who are serving you.
4. enjoy the cambodians. don't overlook these resilient, kind and gentle people. try to hear some of their stories; i'm amazed over and again.
5. eat bread. being a former french protectorate, delicious baguettes and croissants abound. i gasped when i first tasted such a flaky, light, buttery croissant my first morning.
6. do your research - not all ngos are beneficial to cambodians. check into them before donating.
7. take it easy. unlike other tourist destinations, siem reap is pretty small and doesn't have much other than angkor wat and some smaller attractions. stop running around and enjoy your company.
8. buy a krama or scarf. they're cheap, they're versatile, they're currently hip in the west, and you can find them virtually anywhere.
9. keep your smile on. nobody likes a sourpuss. and don't be an ass to the kids and vendors selling souveneirs.
10. get your visa online at e-visa. so much easier and quicker than applying for a visa on arrival. http://www.mfaic.gov.kh/e-visa/vindex.aspx