… and other stories from the bush

We have been having a blast on the trip, and part of the fun has been taking a few days to attempt to get a feel for the local culture before hurrying off to the next location.  This has been somewhat challenging, as we are not locals, and we are staying in hotels with other tourists.

Australia is different, as we were almost guaranteed we would be getting some local culture, cuisine, and even company.  Hrm.. well, really we were the company, as we were staying with The Melbourne Hunters.

Janine and I were having a lot of fun together, but we missed being able to share our experience friends and family.  From the moment we pulled in to River View Farms (yeah, we made that up, but lots of the houses out there have names, and theirs needed one.. so there is that), things were different.  Joel, Peri, Lyndsay, Jess, Remy, and the chickens were all great hosts.

After a few minutes of settling in, Joel and Perry asked:  Are you ready to go see the Roos?  Heck yeah.  And thanks to their house being right next to a state park, we saw them hopping along less than five minutes later.  In fact, after a little while we even saw a mob – of kangaroos of course.  It’s like a compound of Kennedys.

There were plenty of other interesting animals to be found as well.  Lots of them are birds – and an amazing variety of those were visible right from the Hunters’ back deck.  There were cockatoos of various colorings – all huge.  And Parrots.  And black and white Magpies that make computer generated sounds.. or at least that is what Janine and I decided.  And then, there are the Kookaburra.. which we never saw, but we heard every morning and evening.  Oddly enough, Australian law says their song is still copyrighted (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/men-at-works-down-under-ripped-off-kookaburra/story-e6freuy9-1225739827841).

Enough of the animals, let’s talk culture:  We headed downtown to check out the city.  First stop:  Queen Victoria Market.  Janine and I are very familiar with farmers markets.  Not long ago our home town market was voted the best in the entire USA.  But honestly, it does not hold a candle to the QE Market.  There is a fish market, all kinds of food, specialty shops, clothing, and just about anything else you could want.  It is somewhere between a flea market, a mall, and a food court.  And it is huge.. something like four football fields in size.  That’s Australian for market, mate.

We have the advantage of great tour guides.  But not everyone visiting Melbourne will have that advantage.. or would they?  Melbourne has a free trolley that runs through the entire city – and it serves as a guided tour.  Want to spend more time at a location?  No problem.  Hop off.  You can catch the next one in just a few minutes.

Another Australian specialty is wine.  So we had to have a tiny bit whilst we were there.  Let’s see, there was the neighborhood party where one of the guests was a local winemaker.  He educated us on the finer points of the Stelvin cap.  Then there was the lovely afternoon we spent wine tasting.  And of course wine tasting is never complete without the ever popular wine buying.  There were a few choice bottles of wine when we visited Rock Pool.  The food was pretty great too.  But the wine highlight was probably the lovely bottle of Penfold’s Grange that Joel pulled out for a gourmet dinner at the Hunter Household.  That wine was nearly as good as the company.

Which brings me to the moral of the story:  If you are going to Australia, make time to visit Melbourne.  And if you go to Melbourne do your best to get an invite to visit with the Hunters.  They really make you feel at home.

Thai people apparently think foreigners are incapable of pronouncing many of their names.  As a result, those who interact in the tourism industry often choose alternate names.  Occasionally they are their actual nicknames – shortened version versions of their given names.  Examples might be Ka, Ko, or Ya.

Without a short nickname, they resort to easily pronounceable and familiar English words.  And for some reason, they are almost exclusively foods.  For example, Beer, Toast, Apple.  Can’t make this stuff up.

Then there was one of our waiters in Chiang Mai.  He was very pleasant and knowledgeable.  He was also small enough to make me look like a giant.  His name?  Big.

Our third stop on our honeymoon is a hotel in the village of Tanggayuda, near a tourist/artist community known as Ubud:  the Komaneka at Tanggayuda.  Chiang Mai is a big city.  Kata Noi (on Phuket) was the beach, and now we were clearly in the jungle.

This was made clear a few ways.  One was obvious.  The view just off our plunge pool is a lush jungle with distant rice terraces.  Another was the sounds.  In most ways, the Tanggayuda was much quieter than the prior hotels, as the designers were smart to put in ultra-quiet air conditioning units.  But the hotel was alive with the sounds of the jungle, particularly at night.  Both Janine and I enjoy falling asleep to the sound of waves crashing on the beach.  But it turns out we actual prefer the sounds of the jungle creatures.

There are some negative side effects though.  We are really worried about what our baby is learning.  We understand he now hears us and begins learning things.  We are concerned about his preschool days.  Picture the classroom.. “the horse goes?”  baby Smith says “Naaaaay”  “and the pig goes” “oink” says baby Jones.  “And the frog says..” baby Dillman responds: “Quack”  Blasphemy!  He may as well have run with scissors.

But those are the noises of the jungle here.  Quack goes the frog (the local ducks also say quack).  Both the house lizard and the geckos compete with the birds.  Clearly they know who is who though, as our quacking frogs in our bathroom frog bog only responded to their particular quacks (as opposed to the quacks of the frogs we did not get to see).

We will leave you with some photos of the beautiful facilities.  But we will have to leave the quacking, chirping, peeping, and hoot of the jungle to your imagination.  That is, of course, until you make the time to visit and experience it yourself.

(and woman too)

Martin Yan is a Davis resident, so this post title seemed appropriate.  If you don’t know who he is, the title won’t make sense anyways.  Google it 🙂

While visiting Chiang Mai we did a few of the touristy things you would expect, visiting the Night Bazzar, touring the city and temples, and Thai massage (owie).  We also decided to take a Thai Cooking Class together.

The class started with a short walk to one of Chiang Mai’s bustling markets.  There our hostess Apple was filling us in on all of the ins and outs of picking the right bits and pieces to make a good Thai dish.  It was like drinking from a fire hose, but great information.  She gave us a few minutes to walk around the market after the lesson was complete.  And thankfully, we did not have to try to buy anything on our own.  That would have kept us there all night.

Market in Chiang Mai

Upon our return we broke into groups according to the dishes we had chosen to make.  We were all given a large cleaver and a block of wood (aka: cut board).  The teacher then walked us through the misen plas for our first dish – in my case Pad Thai.  After a little slicing and dicing it was time to put the coals to it (so to speak).

It took our teacher about three and a half minutes to cook the meal.  She poured it on a plate and said.. “and then you eat it” – and proceeded to do so.  So we all started to cook.  And it went quite well.

In about two and a half minutes (I used tofu, so no waiting for the chicken to cook) I had Pad Thai.  And it was good.  And it was easy.  Almost too easy.

Moments later Janine appeared with a dish of food.  Hers was good too.  We inhaled both dishes and began to wonder… were we paying way too much for Thai Food?

We each made another dish, this time a soup.  A bit harder, but nothing that would qualify as difficult.  And yet again, it was really quite good.  And personalized to our preference of spice types and level.  I vacuumed mine up.  Janine was starting to hit the wall.  Our boy was taking up precious stomach space.  Oh well, more for me!

But as the evening progressed, so did the complexity if the dishes.  While I have 100% confidence I could pull off Pad Thai unaided, the confidence level starts to fall with each dish.  Another factor was the quantity of food.  In addition to “snacks” and drinks, we cooked and ate four courses.  By the end we had both eaten so much we could not see straight, let alone cook.

So we took our cookbooks and walked off into the night (Night Bazaar actually) to try to walk off the impending food coma.  The experience was pretty satisfying, and we both felt like we learned something.  We might even try something like that again.

And so we did.  At our third stop of the trip, we were staying at the Komeneka at Tanggayuda – which is the home of the Komeneka cooking school.  So we signed up to cook again… this time Balinese cuisine.  The experience was not much like learning to cook Thai cuisine, but it was similar in that it was a lot of fun.

We won’t bore you with the details, but we will include a few differences.  We were up at 0-dark-30 in order to make it to the market by 7am.  Despite it being an “off day” the market was multiple times larger than the one in Chiang Mai.  And this time our personal guide, one of the staff cooks, helped us buy a few of the items we would actually be cooking with (although no one had quail eggs 🙂 ).

It turns out we were the only two people in the Balinese cooking class.  And it was being led by the Head Chef.  That meant a lot of personal attention.  And this time we got smart.

We told Putu straight out that there was no way we could finish all that food after having their delicious breakfast (a true story), and insisted that we set a third plate for him.  It worked out pretty well.  We rolled out of there full, but no food was wasted.  This turned out to be particularly critical, as we both decided that the desert course – Balinese Crepes – was the big hit.

Would we take another cooking class?  It turns out we would.  We took one just a few days later in Jimbaran.  While it was not as much fun as the prior classes, we again learned a few things, and we had a nice meal.  And this time it was free.

It remains to be seen whether or not we will be able to apply any of our new-found cooking skills.  But our eating skills were really coming in to their own.  By the end of the first two weeks we were shoveling down food like nobody’s business.  Even the monkeys would have been impressed.

Primates are plentiful in the tropical areas we are visiting.  I think they may even outnumber the tourist traps… although not by much.  So it should come as no surprise that the monkeys have integrated into the tourist business.  But what is surprising is that the humans are not taking advantage of the monkeys… rather it is the other way around.

Our first experience was on a visit to Monkey Beach in the Phuket area of Thailand.  The beach belongs to the monkeys, and they make that clear.  The humans bring them snacks.  The humans clean their beach.  And in return the humans get to take pictures with friendly monkeys.  We honestly did not expect to enjoy the experience all that much, but it turned out to be one of the highlights of our visit to Phuket.

So when we heard of the Monkey Forest Temple in Ubud, we made a point of dropping by.  Where the beach was a fairly small area for monkeys to gather and interact (read: take advantage of) with humans, the temple area was huge, comprising of multiple temples, bridges, streams, and paths.  And the monkeys were everywhere.  The humans brought bananas and other treats, but we learned from the beach, that their favorite treats were drinks – so we went armed with bottles of water.  Again, the monkeys got the better end of the deal, grimacing for the camera, and getting drinks and treats along the way.  Clearly they were prospering thanks to the care of the tourists and related industry.

Our favorite monkey story is probably from the beach.  One ugly human (ugly being a reference to both her personality and her looks) was trying to get one over on the monkeys.  She wanted to pull their tails and tease them with food and water.  The monkeys would have none of that.  They ganged up on her, and while one distracted her, the other pulled down her bathing suit.  She got the point and behaved more appropriately after that.

Those monkeys really gave her the business.

Where you will thank us for flying you.

I am sitting on an Air Asia flight with Janine, bound for Bali (IATA: DPS).  And I am reminded why flying is sometimes annoying.  You see, the woman behind me has horrible body odor.  She looks fine, but her stink is keeping me awake.  Elsewhere on the plane is a screaming child.  And finally, there is someone with an incessant cough.  Yep, we’ve hit the trifecta.

There ought to be a better way.  We don’t stink (or at least we don’t think so), we aren’t sick, and we refrain from screaming.  Airlines that serve preferences aren’t unheard of.  For example, there is an airline that runs smoking only flights to Europe.  And they do pretty well.  So let me introduce Pleasant Airlines.

Here at Pleasant Airlines there are two classes of service:  Pleasant and Economy.  As you board our aircraft, an array of sensors in the jetway will indicate your class of service.  Stinky today?  You will be in Economy.  Running a fever?  Economy.  Screaming child… well you get the idea.

On board the aircraft, the Flight Attendants will have an additional task.  “Excuse me sir, I have arranged a seat for you in economy, your cough is against Pleasant Class policy.”  I figure about a third of any given aircraft would be Economy Class.  A couple layers of thick linen draped between the two classes keep the noise down in Pleasant Class.  And some small modifications to the air circulation system minimize contamination.

Advance seat selection is available only for frequent flyers who consistently fly in the Pleasant Class.  Decisions of the flight crew are final.  Your mileage may vary.

What do you think?  I figure it will be a hit with frequent flyers everywhere.  Even those who get cast off to Economy [when they deserve it] would probably appreciate the process.  I know I would.  Investors sign up now!  If we build it, they will fly.

Thailand has a number of modes of transportation, many of which you are familiar with, and others which are truly unique.  I will briefly cover air transportation.  Thai Airlines is excellent.  They still provide a meal — even on relatively short flights.  There are also a number of other legitimate (read: safe) airlines out in this neck of the woods (like Air Asia, which we fly on our leg to Bali), including some of the best (like Singapore Airways.. which we will not be flying at all on this trip 🙁 ).

Ground transportation is where it gets a bit interesting.  As we drove through Chiang Mai, we saw two modes of transportation that were unfamiliar.  The first is the “red truck”.  These are fairly ubiquitous around city centers, and provide cheap shared transportation.  It works thusly:

Like a cab in NYC there are a few defining features of the Red Truck.  It is, of course, mostly red.  Or at least the cab will be.  And it will have started life as a pickup truck.  Then a cap is added – a tall one.  And two benches for seating – like an older military transport.  Much like that NYC cab, the first step is to flag one down – one going in the right direction that is.  It is more critical out here, as they will not take you if they are pointed the wrong way [and have passengers on board already].  Always flag a red truck with your palm down [so as not to offend the driver].  He will then pull over, and you have to communicate your destination, and hopefully negotiate a price.  Then hop in the back, and you are off.

Slightly more expensive, and seemingly ever present, the Tuk Tuk is a more personal way to be chauffeured around town.  Though clearly a descendant of the rickshaw, it is also genetically related to the motorcycle and automobile.  Most of the moving parts on a Tuk Tuk are from motorcycles.  And they are all mechanically different, through physically similar.  Shifters, clutches, brakes, and gauge locations differ wildly, though the throttle is always on the right hand, and the steering is always with a yoke as opposed to a wheel.

The Tuk Tuk is – as far as we can tell – named for its noise.  Part of the official Tuk Tuk modifications apparently include setting up the engine so that it will no longer idle properly, requiring the driver to constantly blip the throttle to keep it from dying .  And at full song (and full speed) it seems to misfire a good bit.  Hence, no matter the speed, it constantly makes a tuk tuk noise, kinda like a Harley, but a bit less throaty.

Some Tuk Tuks are really decked out nicely.  We have attached a few pictures from one of the more interesting ones we rode in.

Water transportation is interesting in Thailand as well.  The long boat is both the name of a vessel type, as well an apt description.  It is in fact, a long slender boat with a shallow draft.  They are all powered by lightly modified Chevy small block engines.  The water pump remains, but the rest of the cooling system is replaced with a couple of hoses that run down to the ocean water.  Beyond the flywheel is a gearing system that I have not seen before, run by a double chain drive.  The sound was oddly familiar to us: tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk.  I guess the name was already taken.

Here are a few longboat pics to gander at.  Note the “green” longboat with the solar cell on the roof.

…and then you visit one.

You might remember the last post had us planning to set out the check out another hotel across the beach.  But despite a gut call to check out the other location, we needed some other information.  Do they have rooms?  Hotels.com said yes (agoda said no, odd?).  How do we get there?  Get on road, walk until it ends.. we can handle that.  What is the backup plan?  Stick around at the Impiana.  It was not what we had in mind.  But a tent won’t cut it either.  And the game plan?  Head over to The Shore and check out a room.  If it is great, book it, then cancel at Impiana.

And so we set off.  It took a good 1/2 hour to walk there, and we checked out the tiny town of Kata Noi at the same time.  A couple of restaurants, a handful of shops, a taxi stand, and not much more.

Upon arrival we were greeted by security guards who did not want to let us go in to see a room.  After some convincing, the language barrier was surpassed, and we followed signs to the lobby.  There we met Austin.  We were pretty sure he understood what we were asking, but he was sure he was not ready to help then.  He asked us to wait 40 minutes or so.  And so we headed down to the outdoor lounge.. and.. well.. lounged.

After some time they sent down an electric cart for us.  We went up to the lobby and found Austin still busy.  But a new gal, Sylvia was available.  After describing the situation, she handed us off to Ya (a common name here in Thailand), and he took us to the room.

I think it was about 10 seconds after we walked in that I said “This will work”.  Janine and I were all smiles.  The view was great.  And no dodgy maintenance issues.  Sold.

So back to the office we went.  Upon arrival we were told we could not have a room for the dates we needed (really?!).  We protested, and ultimately decided to book on Hotels.com — if they say there is room (exactly one left), then there must be.  Great.  Booked.  Now what.

They had no information on the booking.  But Sylvia wanted to help out.  So she worked out a two day rack rate temporary stay, and with a “Welcome Ashore”.. we were all set.  She called a taxi for us to get our bags.

While we were waiting, a call came through from her reservations desk.  They did have a room.  In fact, they were giving us the exact one they showed us (yay).  “Welcome Ashore” [again].  We never could get the information from Sylvia as to where the room that did not exist came from, or why it was not there a few minutes before.  But we would rather have the room than understand why it was unavailable before.

And with that we set off to check out of the first hotel and retrieve our bags.  This was the part I was least looking forward to.  Janine volunteered to play emissary on this mission.  We figured the pregnancy woman mojo would help out.

And perhaps it did, as the Impiana folks were nice as pie.  Yeah. they tried to give us a free upgrade.  But really, we just wanted out.  And they got that.  It remains to be seen if we will get a refund or have to protest the charge.  But the manager Janine spoke to understood why we were leaving, and was very professional in offering to make sure the refund goes through.

See.. happy ending.  Speaking of which, here are a few photos of The Short at Katathani, where we actually stayed in Phuket.

No doubt you remember what a great hotel we chose for Chiang Mai.  You might also remember my concern/hope that the next hotel would be up to the same high standards.. or at least someplace nice.

Our flight to Phuket was pleasant.  Thai Air runs a very nice operation, efficiently got everyone on board with no waiting around in the jetway.  This may have partially been because our plane (an Airbus A300-600 — a twin engine, twin aisle plane similar to a Boeing 767) was only about half full.  An uneventful two hours later has us in Phuket.

On arrival we ran into an interesting conundrum.. there was no “official” taxi service.  Odd.  And there were a half dozen or so purveyors of car and mini-bus services.  After a few minutes of research, we found that the prices varied only by about 50 Baht (about $1.65).  So we took one of two that offered the lowest rates, and followed their instructions to get to the car.

Once out the door, there was another taxi purveyor.. the official one.  My heart sunk thinking I was ripped off.  But that the front of a long line for taxis were the rates.. exactly what we paid.  And we had no line.  A few seconds later we got to the section where the car services depart from, and we were off in our decked out Camry.

50 minutes later the driver pulled into a nondescript looking hotel entryway, waved to the bellman, and said “Impiana.. you are here”.  I looked around.  This was not what I had seen in the pictures.  Despite it clearly being a nice hotel, we just were not close enough to the water for it to be our place.  Further inspection found the name of the hotel, and we insisted that he call our place to get directions (since he was resistant to taking them from us).

A few minutes later we arrived at the Impiana Private Villas.  There was only one small sign to direct you to the right place, which I decided was fine for a 12 room hotel.  First impressions were pretty nice.  Perched on a cliff overlooking the Adaman Sea, the views were breathtaking.  And we expected they would be just as nice in our room, which included an infinity pool and a completely unobstructed view.

And now, a brief interlude:  Janine and I figure that our Honeymoon is a once in a lifetime experience.  And while we might normally book a nice hotels, we decided we wanted to try to book some unique and special venues for the trip.  If we failed, no harm no fowl — it is impossible to know what you are getting, even with the TripAdvisor reviews.

We were directed into the lobby area which was very nice, although not as picturesque as the one at 137 Pillars House.  We filled out some paperwork and were given welcome towels and drinks.  Meanwhile, our bags were sent to our room.  It was all down hill from there.  In more way then one.

Our room was several flights of stairs down the cliff.  As we walked the indoor/outdoor hallways to get to the room, we started noticing some maintenance issues.  Water damage was apparent in a few places, and parts of the ceiling were removed for unknown reasons.  Whatever, as long as the room was nice, that would be fine.

Upon entering the door to the room, there was a mixture of odors — some of which I did not recognize.  Janine immediately knew what was up.  “This place smells like mold.”  Urg.. that’s not good.  As they are showing us around the room, Janine continued to look apprehensive.  And that made me nervous.

After we looked around, the issues were obvious.  There was water damage all over the place.  And the salt air had been doing a lot of damage (and maintenance was not being kept up).  The thing that concerned us was the mold.  We just did not want to take any chances with baby.

But the view was awesome, so we decided to ask if there was another room available, perhaps without mold.  The front desk staff was extremely helpful, although there were some problems getting our point across due to language differences.  And before long we were off to another room.

Along the way, we saw more of the same type of issues.  We arrived at the new room, and it did not have the same odors.  But it also did not have the air conditioning running.  Again they showed us around.  And again we took a moment to see if we were ready to settle in.  But we were left with more concerns.

The ceiling fan was covered in a combination of rust and dust.  And there were active ant trails in several places.  Insects are the norm out here, but active ant trails just shouldn’t be around — at least not in quantity. And then I noticed that there was a huge stream of water running from a crack in the neighbor’s pool.  Gallons per minute, just streaming overboard.

Ants!!

Rusty, Dusty Fan

Streaming Leak

Oh, and the view was not nearly as good from this villa.  But we could see across the beach to The Shore at Katathani.  We decided against booking it due to costs. But right now that was looking like the wrong decision.

So we decided to go for a nice walk to the other side of the beach…

Thai food in Thailand is a lot of what you would think, and some of what you would not.

Thai Breakfast

At many restaurants, the most difficult thing is ordering.  And not because we do not know what we want — or even what a dish is.  Rather it is because the description is too vague.  Consider the following:

<< bunch of text in Thai characters >> — Stir-fried Noodles: Delicious stir fried noodles with Thai seasonings.

Really?  Which one of twenty some odd Thai dishes is that supposed to represent?  Now imagine it if that description was related to a curry dish.  The possibilities are limitless.

Then there is the inevitable negotiation as to the actual dish.  Eager to please, the waiter will often ask what we want the dish to be rather than telling us what it is.  All this to determine that we are talking about Pad Thai.

So if anyone has any influence over here in Thailand, please try to convince the local restaurants that many tourists do in fact know many Thai dishes, and to produce proper menus with that in mind.

The food is delicious, we just want to know what it is called — by Thais.