Cooking where no one cooks – Part 2

In part 1, I talked about why everyone in Chiang Mai should cook, even though eating out may be cheap, convenient and delicious.

Now let’s get down to the practical stuff.

This post is specifically directed toward people living in Chiang Mai, but many of these tips may be useful for others.

 

You can make a kitchen anywhere

I worked for the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, in Tucson, for several years, two of which involved regular cooking demonstrations. My job often required basically carting around an entire kitchen. This isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds. I had a variety of supplies available to me, but most of the time, my mobile kitchen consisted of an electric frying pan (with extension cord) and a large plastic tub filled with various other kitchen essentials (knife, cutting board, spatula, large spoon, bowls, etc.). And depending on what I was making, I sometimes had a wheeled cooler as well. I became adept at setting this up quickly just about anywhere, including on a folding table at a farmers’ market. And if I didn’t have electricity available, a propane camping stove worked great outdoors.

What I’m trying to say is that if your place doesn’t have a kitchen, it’s very easy and pretty inexpensive to set one up. Hopefully your apartment has at least a kitchen sink, small counter space, and a refrigerator. If not, I know this can all be done on a table. (If you don’t believe me, see the previous paragraph.) And if you don’t have a refrigerator, stock up on the things that don’t require refrigeration, and then just buy what you need for the day.

 

Our setup

Here is what we started out with when we moved into our apartment:

 

• small countertop
• kitchen sink
• decent sized refrigerator
• electric kettle
• 2 glasses
• 1 spoon
• 1 cabinet above the sink/counter

 

 

 

 

We immediately bought:

• electric wok (came with a lid)
• rice cooker (cheapest, smallest one we could find–only has an on/off switch–we can make about 4 servings of rice at a time)
• surge protector/extension cord (our kitchen area has no convenient plugs)
• 1 small sharp knife
• 1 wooden spoontula (thanks, Brian, for the name)
• 1 small cutting board
• 2 glass bowls (deep and large enough to double as plates)
• 1 spoon (because we already had 1)
• 2 forks
• 3-pack storage containers (which can also double as bowls for cold food and for serving fruit)
• 1 sponge
• 1 small bottle of dish soap

All of this came out to about 1500 baht (about $45 USD). We bought all of this at Central Department Store inside Central Kad Suan Kaew Mall. If you shop around, I’m sure it’s possible to find these things for less at local markets or smaller stores, but we were on foot that day and enjoyed the convenience of this option. Ours are also pretty decent quality and have held up well so far over a month of continuous use.

 

We later bought:

• 2 mugs (for hot beverages for ladling soup)
• 1 larger knife (not completely necessary but nice for mincing garlic, cutting carrots, etc.)

We purchased these items for approximately 100 baht total at Tops.

 

Food

Kitchen staples:

• brown rice
• dry noodles
• lentils
• textured vegetable protein
• dried mushrooms
• quick cooking oats
• muesli
• onions
• garlic
• spices (coriander, cumin, black pepper, salt)
• soy sauce
• cooking oil (we use soybean)
• sesame oil
• mushroom sauce

(if you’re not a vegetarian, fish sauce and oyster sauce are often used locally instead of soy sauce and mushroom sauce)

 

Other foods we like to keep around:

• all sorts of fruits, whatever looks good and is a good price
• variety of vegetables for cooking and for salads (again whatever looks good and is a good price)
• bird’s eye chilies (if you like spicy food)
• limes
• green onions (aka: scallions or spring onions)
• cilantro (or other herbs that look good)
• yogurt
• eggs
• bread
• peanut butter (no oil added)
• jam (only fruit, sugar, and pectin if possible)

To give you an idea, we spend about 500 baht ($15 USD) every 2-3 days and get about 6 meals (between the 2 of us) and several snacks from that. Those trips are mostly for fruits and vegetables and sometimes the occasional staple that ran out. We’ve made a huge effort not to let anything spoil, so we buy only what we think we can use within a couple of days, and it’s really paid off. We find throwing food away quite painful, especially since it’s not really practical for us to compost at the moment. There are some chickens nearby that we’ve considered throwing scraps to, but we’re not sure how their owners would feel about it.

In the next post, I’ll give you some more practical tips for cooking with electric appliances, as well as some of my go to recipes.

Cooking where no one cooks – Part 1

Where are we now?

We’ve now been in Chiang Mai, Thailand for just over a month this time around. It’s a haven for digital nomad expats–apparently, there are 40,000 expats living in Chiang Mai, and walking around town, I believe it. Living expenses are very low, internet is fast and widely available, and there’s lots of fun stuff going on all the time.

Yes, we cook

For those who may be unfamiliar, food in Thailand (especially street food) is cheap, convenient and delicious. So understandably, people we talk to are constantly amazed that we actually cook here (though, admittedly, most of the people we talk to are expats). They’re even more amazed that we cook daily, usually at least 2 meals every day. When you talk to expats who live here about getting a place with a kitchen, most will say “don’t bother.” But I say otherwise. If you’re planning to stay for any length of time, get a kitchen–even a little counter space and a sink is sufficient, as you really don’t need more than that, and electric appliances are very affordable. (More detail on that in the next post)

Here are my reasons.

1.  It’s also inexpensive to buy and cook food at home

Even the Western-style grocery stores by us (Rimping and Tops) are cheap if you’re careful about what you buy. Interestingly, both Tops and Rimping are inside shopping malls, one very modern, and the other…well, let’s just say its heyday has passed. You can find basically any food item you could want from the Western world, but much of that category tends to be pretty expensive, so we’ve tried to stick mostly to what the locals might buy there.

But even better–there are tons of local markets all around. These markets can either be pop-up style like farmers’ markets back home, or they can be more established in an open-air, warehouse sort of building. The latter type might require a bit more courage, and ideally, an orientation from a local. You can find everything from a huge variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, to recently butchered meats, freshly made curry paste, coconut milk squeezed while you wait, flowers and candles for visiting temples, and much more. They’re great places to find just about anything you’d want, inexpensively.

Admittedly, we haven’t taken advantage of local markets as much as we’d like to, but we’re going to start. This morning we tried one that’s more of the farmers’ market kind, at Baan Kang Wat, and maybe it’s just getting started, but it was rather small. We did find some delicious jam and a woman who sells hummus, but sadly she ran out by the time we got there. Frank did get a delicious grilled cheese sandwich, and we shared some nice local kombucha. But just remember, don’t shake your kombucha. I turned it upside down a couple times just to try to mix it and managed to explode it somewhat. Oh well!

 

2.  You can control what goes into it

Since it seems like all the other expats eat out for every meal, I’ve heard complaints that restaurants use MSG, too much oil, and often that vegan/vegetarian food is not actually vegan/vegetarian. The reason for that last complaint is one that I’ve personally experienced. Many Thai cooks don’t realize that fish sauce and oyster sauce aren’t vegetarian by many people’s standards. They just think of the meat itself and not the sauces. Interestingly, though, sometimes if you order your meal vegetarian, they do often ask if you want egg. Coming from the US as a vegetarian, it’s interesting that here they would be more careful about eggs than about fish sauce or oyster sauce.

3.  You’re probably tired of eating out for every meal

As much as we love restaurants, after 4 months of travel through Vietnam, Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore, eating almost every single meal out, we were really getting tired of it. We absolutely love waking up, making some oatmeal, cutting up a bunch of fruit, making some tea, and relaxedly eating at home. This takes us maybe 5 minutes even when we’re not rushing. In the past, breakfast involved getting up and dressed, going out and often having to settle for something we didn’t actually want. If we were lucky we could find some kind of yogurt/fruit/muesli bowl, but that wasn’t always an option. Traditional Asian breakfasts are rarely vegetarian, and the “Western” alternative was often expensive and included some kind of unknown sausage, oily eggs and a couple pieces of white toast.

4.  It’s fun to use ingredients that you don’t have at home

Bird’s eye chilies, galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime zest, kaffir lime leaves, Thai ginseng, passion fruit, star fruit, soursop, dragonfruit, many varieties of bananas, longan, rambutan, mangosteen, etc., etc. The list goes on and on. You may be lucky enough to have an Asian market at home, but odds are, these ingredients will never be as fresh or as cheap as they are here. And do we really want to support the importing of foods from all the way across the globe? So use them now while they’re local.

5.  You can practice new skills

How many of us have a souvenir cookbook from a cooking class that’s just been sitting on a shelf? Use it! Another side benefit is that getting used to cooking in a tiny space will make anything back home seem luxurious.

In part 2, we’ll get down to the practical stuff.

 

Some more photos from Baan Kang Wat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos from a market we visited in Bangkok in June

Georgetown/Penang

In some senses, Penang was a bit similar to Singapore: there’s a great diversity in the local population and culture (a mix of Chinese, Malay, and Indian), and it’s a small island connected to peninsular Malaysia by bridges. It’s not a sovereign city-state, though, and is of course a part of Malaysia; it’s also not an economic powerhouse, but that doesn’t mean it’s without its own charm and history, naturally. We stayed mainly in George Town: the capital of the state of Penang, a quite old city founded by the British East India Company, and also in part a UNESCO World Heritage site.

We should note, our very first impression of the city was the Chinese festival occurring in almost every street and alley around us, which included things like incense logs eight or nine feet tall, ad hoc streetside temples, LOUD Chinese opera, piles of burning paper oblations, and Chinese pop singers (also LOUD) in glam-rock outfits. While that did, to the chagrin of our poor ears, color our first few nights, George Town itself was actually generally quiet and laid back, really.

The other thing that colored our experience: the haze

Colored everything a faint, smoky grey, that is. Also, this particular aspect of the environment was more to the chagrin of our respiratory systems, namely: an extending of colds that we already had, scratchy throats and coughing, and a persistent feeling for Frank that someone had given him a nice black eye, thanks to sinus pressure. It was a bit like being inside that moment when you’re by a campfire and the smoke keeps blowing in your face, but perpetually.

Thanks Obama! Actually, no, internet memes aside, it’s really more, “Thanks, Indonesia! You jerk of a country.” Granted, the wholesale burning of rainforest to clear it for vile palm oil plantations isn’t directly sponsored by the government, but it’s not exactly prevented either, and the complaints of neighboring, coughing and hacking countries are pretty much shrugged off. So, moral of the story: don’t buy or use or eat products with palm oil in them! Not only does it lead to massive destruction of important and rare ecosystems, it affects millions of people in the region negatively, to say little of the health of the people consuming it. It’s the devil’s oil!

*the Chinese cultural practice of burning gigantic piles of paper oblations in the middle of the already-prevailing palm oil funereal pall certainly didn’t help anything either. Thanks, Chinese locals!

The weird, omnipresent polarity in businesses

That is, every single storefront was either one or the other of two contrasting things: very successful, trendy and hip, or closed, falling apart, and abandoned. We never really did figure out what the deal with that dichotomy was, or why neighboring businesses could be so wildly different so consistently. In any case, here are a few places that did stand out for us amidst all the other end of the spectrum squalor:

• the nameless restaurant next to the big mosque that was only open from 10pm to 4am, and served tasty Indian-influenced Malay food…thanks for that one dinner when we got really hungry at midnight!
• Wheeler’s Coffee (we know you secretly own it, Jason!) for its rose-flavored latte and The Safe Room (though we never did try the liquid-nitrogen cooled popcorn) and the Moustache Houze for breakfasts and hanging out and using the WiFi – long and short of it, many of the cafes wouldn’t have seemed the slightest bit out of place in Tucson or Portland.
• Campbell House, for being a hotel waaaaay out of our price range and yet with an affordable and delicious restaurant where we could class it up
• Purrfect Cat Cafe for being the first cat cafe we’ve been to, though it’s interesting to note that while the Bengal cats they had were a great idea in being hypoallergenic, they’re way more playful than even slightly cuddly.
• Sushi Kitchen for having delicious vegan Japanese food. We actually went to both their Georgetown location and their super-outside-the-tourist-area location with our Grass Van friends (more on that later).

*honorable mention: the tacky jewelry stores with the lackadaisical security guards toting very sawed-off shotguns, because that’s not someone you want to cross, you know?

The Malaysian street food

Really, there’s two main sorts that we went to repeatedly. One was a particular fried noodle guy who looked like he’d been selling the same noodles for about 60 years. He had three types: flat and wide, medium and round, and tiny and round, all with the same savory flavor, sometimes with chili sauce, sometimes with fried onions. And: super incredibly affordable. It wasn’t enough for a meal unto itself, but it made for a fantastic snack. One of the nice things we’ve noticed with street food in Malaysia (and in Singapore) is that most things are ordered by size and have a corresponding price. You basically order by telling them how much your want to spend.

In a similar sense, we snacked for many days in a row at a stand that consisted of two continuously boiling pots of water and a smorgasbord of skewered bits of veggies, meats, mushrooms, sausages, and dumplings for curbside cooking. Then there was the large selection of sauces (spicy, salty, sweet and tangy, etc.) to spoon on top. So, basically, hot pot where you spend cents at a time on each color-coded-for-price skewer – it’s good stuff, and we’ve even pondered doing it for a party at home.

Penang’s Jewish Remnants

Although the places we’ve traveled so far aren’t exactly Jewish heritage hot spots, upon some research, we figured out that Malaysia once had a notable Jewish community, with Penang at its center. At one point, Penang had one of the only Jewish communities in Malaysia. Although there’s some evidence that Jews existed in Malaysia all the way back to the 9th century, it’s thought that Penang’s Jews arrived mostly from India in the 19th century. Some also came from Baghdad. When the Japanese invaded during WWII, many were evacuated to Singapore but some were imprisoned by the Japanese during that time. After the war, the majority immigrated to Australia, Singapore, Israel and the US. Only about 20 Jewish families remained in Penang by 1963, and Mordechai David Mordechai, the last Jew in Penang, died in 2011. Here are some other articles of interest: a visitor’s blog post, a news article about the last Jew, Jewish Times Asia article, article about remnants, and an American woman’s reflections.

After a bit of a trek outside of the tourist area, we managed to find the Jewish cemetery. It’s in a pretty out of the way spot, but it made us wonder what it must have looked like while the Jewish community was thriving in Penang. The cemetery is in decently good condition and is still open for burials.

When we first arrived, we were awkwardly followed around by a young Indian boy who didn’t seem to speak English. Eventually, a man whom we assumed to be his grandfather walked up to speak with us. He showed us a few notable graves, and we asked him a couple questions; it turned out that he had known  He said that he known Mordechai David Mordechai (the person mentioned above), but we wondered if maybe they had been good friends, both from the way he talked about him and because he had been recruited to take care of the cemetery after Mordechai’s death. In a less personal sense, it was interesting to see a Hindu family conscientiously taking care of a Jewish cemetery, both in it being a tangential reflection of our relationship and religious cooperation in general.

Synagogue Building

Articles that we read referred to a synagogue in Georgetown, but it actually took a bit of research to figure out exactly where it once was. Nowadays, it’s mostly forgotten and has been converted into a photography studio, but the new owner purchased the building knowing the history and supposedly has worked to maintain the historical integrity of it. Knowing that, it’s somewhat strange to note that there’s no plaque or anything of the sort to denote its history. Unfortunately, the studio was closed the day we visited, so we didn’t get the opportunity to speak to the owner or see the inside. A circle near the roof had been painted over, so we wondered if maybe it was once a star of David or another Jewish symbol.

Somewhere Over the World

As we walked back to our hostel after a long day, we happened to see a van covered in fake grass parked on the street and remarked at how interesting that was. We saw who we assumed to be the owner, but he looked busy with a project, so we kept walking. Upon further discussion, we decided to turn around and introduce ourselves, and we were glad we did! We met Tobi, Carolin and their son Max from Germany. Tobi and Carolin have been traveling the world together for something like 4 years, and Max was born along the way in Australia. They’re now on their way back to Germany in their grass-covered van. We’ll be very interested to hear how their journey goes!

We wound up spending quite a bit of time with them, which included an evening of walking around town and dinner at Sushi Kitchen, and then the next day, they drove us in the grass van way outside the tourist area to find Cloud Dreaming Vegan Cake House. Sadly, it was closed the day we went, but Sushi Kitchen’s second location was right next door, so we had another delicious dinner there. We eventually did find baked goods, but instead from street vendors, including funny-colored sticky rice and funny pink turtle bread. We already had plans to head to the Cameron Highlands, so unfortunately, we didn’t get to spend more time with our new friends. Someday, somewhere over the world, we’ll meet again!

Chiang Mai Highlights (So Far)

Ahhh, Chiang Mai, Thailand’s northern gem, aka one of our favorite places to have visited so far. Barring, you know, something exploding or the city flooding or the Burmese repeating one of their historical invasions of the region.

Speaking of history – see what I did there? – Chiang Mai was founded all the way back in 1296 as the capital of the Lanna Kingdom, which was an influential Buddhist kingdom in SE Asia for several centuries. Eventually it was subsumed into successive Thai kingdoms, but there are still markers of that ancient past visible even just walking around.

For one, the center of Chiang Mai is a pretty obvious big square ringed by a moat. This is the original city boundary (and the first actual moat I’ve ever seen – I very much get how daunting that would be to a medieval military, now), though modern Chiang Mai spreads a good way beyond it. There are only a few fragments of the city wall and gates left, but even in their crumbling state, there’s enough to help imagine the city as it might once have been.

Nowadays, Chiang Mai’s old city is full to the brim of vegetarian restaurants, guesthouses, cafes, shops and more temples than you can shake a stick at – seriously, it makes it sometimes pretty confusing to get directions: “No, you have to go to the next temple over.”

East side of the square: stick to that side.

It’s been the best side of the square we’ve seen so far. We stayed in a great little hotel, for example, Lantern House, that was right around the corner from a tiny restaurant, Hideout, where we had some mindblowing food. Followed by a house-made fudge brownie drizzled with orange-cardamom syrup, but seriously the sandwiches were delicious, too.

We went out with some folks from Lantern House (the usual international mix – this time it was English, American, German, and Canadian) to a cabaret show, which had some pretty great acts, including spot-on renditions of Rihanna and Tina Turner. As to the transgender/ladyboy/cross-dressing aspect, a few people from our group seemed extremely uncomfortable, which startled us – upon reflection, although we were impressed by this show, we realized our main reaction was to feel homesick for the burlesque and LGBT stuff we enjoy at home.

In any case, we ended the night at a nice little courtyard that had a different bar for every genre of music that one might dance to; our group picked Roots Rock Reggae and their killer live band. Man, reggae is just the best for a bar.

Center of the square: museums and temples.

Lots of temples. Lots and lots of them. All over the place. Yep. I’d love to wax on about how beautiful they are, and it’s nice to see such a concentration of quiet spirituality, but aside from one silver-plated building we saw south of the city, there isn’t a lot of variety in Buddhist temple design. They’re nice, though.

The museums we’ve checked out have been of varying quality. On the lower end of the scale is the Chiang Mai Historical Centre; it was a bit like a rundown, lackadaisical, smaller version of the amazing Museum of Siam in Bangkok. Bonnie’s favorite was the Lanna Folklife Museum – she thought it had a really nice variety of artifacts and great explanations of everything from the shape of traditional Lanna water-serving jugs to temple architecture to medieval mural painting techniques, traditional textile weaving, embroidery, and wood carving. My favorite by a nose was the Chiang Mai Arts and Cultural Center, purely on one count: it had miniatures to display the different ways people have lived in the region in centuries past. I love miniatures so hard.

South of the square: well, we did it again.

That is, we accidentally ended up staying in the middle of a Thai neighborhood where no one spoke any English, and it was prohibitively far from where we actually wanted to hang out. The Airbnb ad and reviews said it was a 10 minute walk to the old city, but it was more like at least 20, and that’s just to the edge of the old city–probably another 20 minutes to where you want to be. It did lead to the usual learning about local living just by observing as we walked around, though, and some funny experiences.

For example, I got a haircut for a little over a dollar, and it came with free mini-bananas, and about as much joking as we could all create with nominal language overlap. Also, we had more fun times with the pan-Asian cultural practice of the locals never saying “No” – ie, cab drivers saying they knew exactly where we were going. And then going the opposite direction. Then going the opposite direction again while spinning around a tourist map and looking perplexedly at our phone map. They may or may not have known how to read a map. It led to some pretty funny discussion between us about asking them next time to take us to “Funky Town” or “Paradise City” and see if they claim to know where those places are.

Anyway, while exploring the south side of the city, we did manage to have some interesting food. Namely, there was one vegetarian buffet – a very local sort of place. It took some doing to figure out how to get our food and where to wash our own dishes – that was simply one of the worst meals I’ve ever attempted to have. Seriously, I felt physical distress while trying to eat it – each new thing I sampled was almost painfully worse than the last; I think I know what it would feel like to be poisoned, now. Even the different drinks we got were so inexplicably smoky in flavor that we couldn’t take more than a couple sips.

On the other hand, Khun Churn, while a little out of the way, was one of the best buffets we’ve been to – it is all you can eat fresh vegetarian food with a beautiful salad bar, fresh fruit and coffee, and both cold and warm varieties of delicious breakfast and lunch options spread over two floors. Moreover, they had plenty of drinks that actually tasted good, like roselle, bael, and lemongrass. One of the very kind servers used “I’m sorry” when he probably meant “excuse me,” so we kept thinking we were doing something wrong each time he stopped by our table to see if we needed anything, which was often. According to the American ex-pat who gave us a little orientation when we first arrived, we just needed to remember that’s it’s all you can eat but only for 3 hours. He said he’d petitioned for them to extend it to 4 hours and to hang some hammocks outside so people could take a nap in the middle and then start again. Although his tone was extremely dry, we’re pretty sure he was joking…nice idea though!

One afternoon, as we started our trek back to our apartment, we decided to get takeout for dinner and luckily stumbled upon some delicious Indian food, Taj Mahal. While we waited for our food, we had a nice conversation with a British guy here on holiday and a very opinionated older ex-pat. When Bonnie asked where he was from, he said something like “I lived in Hawaii once.” She decided not to press further. We wonder if some of the older ex-pats are here trying to forget their past lives or something. Ooo! Maybe he used to be a gangster.

Also south of the square but this time very south of the square, we found a nice clinic that caters to English speakers. Although we had some confusion finding it initially (mostly because the name is so generic and Google was confused), we received great service. This was the second of our 3 rabies vaccination shots, which each cost about $25. In the US, we figured out that it would have cost over $800 for each of us, so we’d decided against it. We’re starting to think we should have gotten all of our vaccinations here in Thailand. Apparently, India still has quite a problem with rabies, so we decided to go ahead with the pre-exposure vaccination before going.

West side of the square: is…fine, I guess? The good stuff is far away?

Well, wait, let’s see. There’s Mixology, which was recommended to us by Jody – thanks Jody! – which had a unique burger with sticky rice instead of buns and a spicy ground pork patty, and a colorful tower of grilled veggies with pesto marinade for Bonnie. Then there were some lackluster attempts at breakfast and some interesting Chinese style buns…but then we tried Amrita Garden, a tiny restaurant run by an adorable Japanese family, which had tasty vegan food. But then we were really hungry again inside of half an hour.

There was also our favorite temple so far, Wat Suan Dok – it’s big and beautiful and has pristine white secondary mini-temple sort of things and a meditation retreat that we signed up for (the main reason we decided to stay in this part of the city). And, we ran into a sweet Spanish girl that we’d originally met in central Vietnam – small world! Sadly, she doesn’t use Facebook–maybe we’ll meet again someday anyway!

The trick with that temple is that it’s well outside of the old city square – and so is Ninah…Ninnyhamin…Nannahymar….that other neighborhood that’s west of the old city, that has a lot of expats and university students and feels like California. Nimmanhamein. We’re going to go back tomorrow, but let’s see, today we had:

• Loose leaf vanilla rooibos tea, a dark chocolate passion fruit shake, house-cured duck prosciutto crostini, and a huge open-face roasted pear, mushroom, and garlic-creamy spread sandwich at Rustic and Blue–delicious!
• A haircut for Bonnie; there are a lot of salons in that area. It turned out well enough, especially considering the lack of English. A picture of Anne Hathaway on the phone was helpful.
• An utterly gorgeous glass of butterfly pea tea, traditional Thai flower tea, spicy tofu and mushrooms, and a richly creamy Massaman curry at Anchan

Oh, also, the weather is pretty fantastic.

It’s much cooler up in the mountains than in the rest of Thailand’s tropical savannah, and so while we’ve been doing a ton of walking, it really hasn’t been as onerous as in other places. That said, it does rain a lot – almost every day – but rarely more than a light misting, and so it’s an easy fix to pause for a coffee and wait it out, or just toss a rain jacket in a backpack.

Koh Tao: the Goldilocks of islands

Or as a guidebook put it, “the busy vibe of Samui mixed with the laid-back nature of Pha-Ngan.” Granted, we haven’t been to those other islands yet, but we’re willing to hazard that their description is pretty spot-on. Well, I should back up – it’s a little island, but there’s three main areas to consider, which would have been nice to know before we arrived here.

We arrived here after a train ride from Hua Hin to Chumphon, night there, bus to the pier and a ferry to the island. Not exactly easy to get to but way worth it. We also somehow happened to share our little bus with an obnoxious British guy and his sister who couldn’t put off their bickering until later, but looking back, it’s only funny. At 5:30am, it wasn’t so much.

The Main Pier Area

Is chaotic, full of waddling tourists and backpackers and touts, and is best initially gotten through by just beelining from the ferry to the nearest open street you can find while ignoring anyone trying to interact with you, we discovered. That said, I suppose, Bonnie later helped out a trio of very lost-looking Portuguese girls to the great annoyance of a looming taxi tout, but they’d lingered past the initial ferry rush.

Anyway, Mae Haad – the area right around the biggest pier – is a simple loop of two main streets with a few alleys between them, lined all the way up and down with hostels, restaurants, shops (clothing, diving, etc.) and a few massage parlors and pharmacies. We stayed at Captain Nemo guesthouse after a recommendation on the SE Asia backpackers’ group on Facebook, and it was perfect in a few senses – it’s a couple minutes’ walk from the pier, the owners (Philippe from France and his wife San from Thailand) are gregarious, generous, and helpful, and it had the most comfortable bed and shower we’ve found in Thailand. It isn’t, however, close to any of the beaches or going-out area at all, really.

That said, with a bit of a walk (and the advice and directions of Philippe) is a nice, hidden little cove which, while rocky, has funky grey sea cucumbers right by the shore, and the abundance of restaurants makes for good, easy eating. We also tried our first Thai massages here, which are…not relaxing, per se. You get kind of intimate with the gal working on you, and she stretches and contorts you until you definitely feel more flexible after, if not so much at ease.

Sairee Beach

Is north of Mae Haad pier, about a kilometer or two along a windy, up-and-down, pretty rough road. A.k.a., don’t try to walk it like we did, probably, unless you want to take your life in your hands by hoping careening, inexperienced Westerners on rented motorbikes and pedal-to-the-floor pickup trucks don’t run you over. We didn’t even really consider walking back to our guesthouse after the sun went down, and just shelled it out for the exorbitant, back-of-the-pickup truck taxi.

Sairee is, in any case, where all the young backpackers go to party it up at the bars and find cheap hostels. We explored it during an intermittent rainstorm, sometimes ducking into bars for fruit shakes, sometimes kicking back on the beach to watch the lightning in the clouds. Fizz Beachlounge was best for this, with beanbag chairs, soft colorful lighting, and Frank’s favorite kind of bar music, chill, throbbing and ambient (it reminded him of the music at the NYC Sex Museum’s bar, incidentally).

On the opposite end of the spectrum from “quiet and relaxing” was Queens Cabaret‘s nightly show. Its adjectives would be more like, gaudy (in both terrible and awesome ways), EARSPLITTINGLY LOUD, both professional and amateurish depending on the individual, and both gorgeous and wincing in terms of plastic surgery and transitioned gender. We got our fill of ladyboys for a while, at any rate.

Chalok Beach

The walk to the southern end of the island is a much nicer and less dangerous seeming road, but we were still quite happy to get a taxi for the second time we went that was provided by our dive school (more on that later). This is our favorite part of the island – it’s quiet, not so crowded, the beach is absolutely gorgeous and surrounded by tall, shady tropical trees and beautiful cliffside houses, and there’s a nice little string of markets, street food and restaurants.

In being more jungle-y, it should be noted, the nights are louder in a different way than the busier parts of the island – here, there are bizarre animal noises. At least, that’s what we assume the Offended And Querulous Donkey Kazoo and Insect Having A Temper Tantrum And Screaming With Its Whole Body are, anyway.

We still have a couple days here yet, but we’ve already been to Yin Yang twice – it’s a Thai restaurant with a fantastic outdoor patio (they have plants everywhere and put mellow incense under your table) and incredibly fresh food. I finally got to try some laab there, a Laotion minced meat dish, which is nice as we’re not planning on going to northeast Thailand where we’d probably find more of it. There’s also I Love Salad, which has the best vegan food we’ve had in Thailand so far, including a unique grilled beet burger.

As Frank’s mom would say, Happy Turkey! And the hikes to work off all that food.

We had an early Thanksgiving dinner at Frank’s mom’s – it was just our little family, nice and quiet and with way too much food. Bonnie and Wyatt had one of the most productive conversations about politics she’d ever had, and we also set up the Christmas tree in record time, which – between that and the food – led to a funny tableau:

Wyatt had the great suggestion of getting some holiday season exercise in Sabino Canyon. We took Bonnie to the dam and checked out the water flow, which was nostalgic for the brothers – there’s just something special about a riparian area. We also got a little bit lost, aka, had an adventure.

 

 

Day-of Thanksgiving was at Bonnie’s parents’ house in Phoenix. They had most of the usual crowd, including Uncle Michael and Aunt Carol all the way from Arcata, California, and lots of old friends, but a few of the usuals were missing this year. It was still a nice crowd of about 15 people, and it was baby Ronen’s first Thanksgiving! Bonnie made a delicious new recipe, a vegan shepherd’s pie. Although it didn’t taste much like a shepherd’s pie, it was delicious in its own right and was quite the crowd pleaser!

The hike to work off those calories was at North Mountain, a hike on one of those mountains that pop up like islands out of the ocean of city that is the Phoenix metro area. You can take an asphalt walkway all the way to the top, like Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, but there’s also a nicely challenging rocky route part of the way up from an alternate parking lot at the base. At the top of this mountain, though, there’s a power station of some sort instead of ecological science stations.