bad haiku at 4:30 am.

4:30, jetlag.
and i have to go to work.
today will be rough. 

from the golden triangle to chiang mai to koh samui.

posting has been tricky for the past few days. . .

first off, i really haven’t had much of a free moment. secondly, it’s been a little wacky with slow internet speeds. ok, so maybe i was frustrated with the new flickr uploader which took 3x the time to upload my photographs — and dropped quite a few of them. so i stopped messing with the computer. oh, yeah. that and my harddrive is out of space, so posting more pics is truly impossible now.

here’s the rundown of what’s been going down since my last posting:

1) we learned how to drive elephants like mahouts

2) we crossed the friendship bridge from thailand into sop ruak in burma

3) we learned that the making offerings burmese blessings at the temple is a little different from making offerings at thai temples

4) we went to a hilltribe camp in burma, home to both karen and akha tribespeople, and it was not unlike going to a touristy native american reservation, so really quite depressing

5) we realized that for all of the commerce over the friendship bridge, sop ruak has better goods and really should be much richer

6) we had an amazing first christmas eve dinner at the elephant camp. more on this later when i can post pics

7) we drove (ok, so we rode) the 4 hour roadtrip from the golden triangle to chiang mai, with a pit stop at the modern white temple — modernist, buddhist art with craziness like pics of the wtc going down and the matrix painted on the walls of the main temple

8)in chiang mai, we explored the 4 main wats — doi suthep in the mountains, and the 3 in the old town

9) we had a blast browsing all of the thai crafts in the sankampang road area of chiang mai

10) we had one of our best meals in thailand at a restaurant across the street from the celadon factory on sankampang road — wish i knew the name of the restaurant (i have it written in thai)

11) we capped off the day with a dinner in the kalare night bazaar

12) from chiang mai, on to koh samui where we are now. i’ll have to post about the hilariousness that was our first hotel — talk about a disaster first encounter with the kind of beach tourists you really want to avoid (but it was only for one night)

so that’s the past few days in a nutshell. i keep meaning to write a post on the food, which i’ll need to do once i have all my pics up and running on flicker.

hilltribe children, local market, monk’s blessings, opium history and snake whiskey!

the title pretty much sums up our second day in the golden triangle.darin, our guide, took us by private boat up the ruak river so that we could see where it meets the mekong river. if we’re facing south, burma is behind us to the north with laos to our east, thailand to our west.cruising up the ruak river

it’s a little bizarre seeing the three countries converge. the golden triangle was named for the opium, or “black gold,” that was produced and trafficked from thailand and burma to the rest of the world. opium production and sale was legal in thailand until the 50’s when it was outlawed. copious amounts are still produced in thailand today — the bulk of the world’s opium comes from afghanistan and burma.today, the golden triangle is still a place of beauty, but it’s also a place where thais flock to go to the casino. the casino is called the win-win club, and it’s located right across the ruak river. not far from the statue of the buddha of the golden triangle is a parking lot and immigration control for thai citizens that want to gamble away their hard-earned money in burma. casinos are illegal in thailand, but there are rumors that the owners of the win-win club are actually thai.

buddha of the golden triangle

the win-win clubthe casino should probably be called the “lose-lose club.”

we got off the boat and took a local song thaew. a song thaew is very much like a jitney. if you’re neither thai nor filipino, that probably won’t mean much to you. it’s basically an open air van with benches inside that are normally crammed with people. the song thaew drove us all the way up to the top of a hill to the golden triangle overlook.

inside a song thaew

golden triangle overlook

there were young hill tribe girls singing. for about 100 baht, the girls will sing a song to the tune of “20 baht each girl for photo” in english, french, spanish, chinese, thai, japanese. the money helps pay for their education.

hill tribe girls

we hopped in a tuk tuk and went off to the local market. this is probably the cleanest wet market i’ve ever been to. fish and meat were being sold and sliced on site. of course there were flies here and there (to be expected), but i was amazed at how fresh the meat, fish and produce looked.

fresh produce

a huge fish sitting in a tub caught our eye. darin told us it was giant mekong catfish and that its meat is full of omega-3 fatty acids, so it’s oilier. she also told us that it’s fattier and not unlike pork. porky-tasting fish? and the camp chef will cook it for us? sold! we bought a kilo. more on the meal later.

giant mekong catfish

brian ended up buying some barbecued pope’s nose as a snack — all of the barbecue looked really good. there were skewers with impaled chicken gizzards, kidneys, and hearts, as well as the meat. i contemplated buying the roasted chicken legs. claws still intact!

pope’s nose barbecue!

chicken legs

frog legs, anyone?

from the market, we got back into the tuk tuk to the temple. there were young kids playing traditional thai music for school money. inside the temple, we did a proper buddhist blessing with the lighting of the candle, incense sticks, and the offering of the flowers. a monk also blessed us and gave us a string to tie around our wrists. right for men, left for women.

funny observation: as the monk was saying his prayer for us, a fly was buzzing around his foot. the monk slapped at his foot to swat the fly as he said the prayer.

after the temple, it was time to go back to the camp for lunch.the chef took our fish and prepared it three ways:

1) soup with lemongrass and chili base

2) boiled, served with a side of chili sauce

3) sautéed with fish sauce and green peppercorns

the sautée with the green peppercorns was my favorite. the fish tasted more meaty. the skin of the fish was thicker, and slightly chewy, but not as rubbery as shark skin. i ended up eating more than brian.

after lunch, it was time for a trip to the hall of opium. the museum was built in honor of the queen mother who was dedicated to reforesting of poppy fields in the region. her goal was to educate about the history and the impact of opium production in thailand, as well as educate and find new employment for poppy farmers.we learned a lot of information, not just about the history of opium in thailand and china, but some fun tidbits about the u.s./cia involvement funding the drug trade globally. fun factoid: benjamin franklin was addicted to opium.

after all of the education, it was time for drinks!

brian decided to sample the local tipple: snake whiskey! the local people make whiskey from rice. i’m guessing that the chinese belief in the strength of animals being transferred to people if their consumed/drank is at work here — the hill tribe people are descendents of chinese settlers who migrated from china into burma, thailand, laos, and vietnam. so they make the liquor, throw in a cobra either biting its tail or another smaller snake, some herbs (probably ginseng).

brian tried it first. i decided to join him for the second shot. it’s not awful. the bitter aftertaste is most likely from the herbs, not the snake.emboldened by his two snake whiskey shots, brian decided to try another version of the whiskey. this one had an even bigger snake inside. it was too much snake for one man.

so ended our second day in the golden triangle. more pics posted on flickr.

the golden triangle: roughing it.

we’ve left the crowds, the chaos and the pollution of bangkok for the serene beauty of the golden triangle.

chiang rai is an hour long flight to the north of bangkok. our camp is about an hour and a half away in the golden triangle — an hour and twenty by car then we got on a beautiful teak longtail boat that took us up the ruak river to our campsite. burma is literally a sneeze away!

we arrived at the landing for the bar and restaurant where we were greeted with fresh coconut water and presented with our itinerary for the four days that we’re here.

after lunch, the camp guide took us on a tour of the campgrounds. the camp is in a bamboo forest — fifteen tents are nestled into the hillside; many of them have pretty views of the river. since we’re not really in deep jungle, we don’t have to worry about poisonous snakes or wild cats, bears, dogs, wolves, etc.

our tent is tent 15: the elephant tent. we’re actually right next to the elephant camp. our patio looks down into the elephants’ pool and the trails.

as you can tell from the pics, life is rough. i’m not sure how we’re going to survive. . .

bangkok: wat wat wat

in our time in bangkok, we’ve been to four wats: wat phra kaeo, wat pho, wat arun, and wat ratchapradit. interestingly, most of the temples in bangkok were built around the late 1700s, 1800s. ancient style, not so ancient ages.

wat pho: bangkok’s temple of the reclining buddha.

reclining buddha

the buddha statue is about 15 meters across from head to feet. like most of the statues, it’s bronze, covered in black lacquer and then covered with a layer of gold.

it’s also home to the famous massage school — the art of thai massage was first taught at wat pho. we’re not talking about a patpong, rub-and-tug kind of massage, but the pressure point, stretching thai massage. near the temple that houses the reclining buddha is a gallery of paintings used to teach students the technique, along with herbal remedies to alleviate pains and aches.

wat pho is still a place to learn and become certified in thai massage. the program is either one month or one year. i can’t remember.

wat arun: temple of the dawn.

this is a crazy temple. the architectural style is khmer, but the details on the temple are created from thousands upon thousands of fragments of broken porcelain. much of the porcelain was donated by bangkok families during the building of the temple.

wat arun, as seen from the ferry boat

the other interesting thing about the temple is the steep climb to the top level. people literally haul themselves up the steps to get to the top two levels.

the last wat that we saw was wat ratchapradit. built by rama iv, known mostly by western audiences because of the musical the king and i. incidentally, the musical and the book that inspired it are banned here in thailand.

rama iv was pretty cool. he had 18 wives and 82 kids. he was also the first king of thailand to invite foreign (western) teachers and missionaries into thailand. his children were western educated — his son, king chulangkorn (rama v), would be the first to adopt more western dress, as well as the first true diplomat king of thailand.

back to ratchapradit.

given that this was built by a king, the crown of the king is prominently featured in the wat’s details. it’s hard to see because of the shadow, but you can see it here at the entry way and in one of the marble carvings.

there’s a statue to rama iv housed in a building that features the four faces of buddha on the roof. in thailand, royalty is revered, and this place is certainly no exception — offerings are left at the base of his statue.

at the back of ratchapradit is a chinese pagoda. it’s a guardtower in the royal garden.

at this point, we’re watted out. we’ve got to save ourselves for chiang mai. . .

bangkok: wat phra kaeo

wat phra kaeo is pretty cool. it’s the temple, or wat, located next to the grand palace. it’s also known as the temple of the emerald buddha. everything is gleaming, shiny gold and bursting with color.

i’m a little bummed that we didn’t hire a guide to explain all of the details of the temple, but we made up for it by sneaking into other people’s hired tours. . .

first steps into wat phra kaeo

temple skyline

there are demons everywhere, but these are the good ones that protect the temple.

protector demons

close-up of demon’s face

gigantic protector demon at a gate

oddly, there’s a model of angkor wat on one of the temple terraces. . .

in the halls that wrap around the temple grounds, there are painted panels of the ramayana, or ramakien as it’s called in thailand. the story comes to life in 182 (i think. again, we were eavesdropping) panels.

after all of this exploring, we finally make it to the emerald buddha. we removed our shoes and placed them on the racks and made our way inside:

detail of a pillar outside of the temple of the emerald buddha

underside of the temple roof

finally, the emerald buddha

more pics of wat phra kaeo and bangkok posted on flickr.

en route: updated with pics

brian and i are in narita airport in tokyo waiting for our flight to bangkok.

the 14 hour flight from nyc to tokyo wasn’t bad — the upgrade to biz class came through. thank god! eileen and i flew to paris on american airlines in economy and it was probably the tightest seat space i’d ever seen.

we grabbed a snack at a small cafeteria — some omelette with fried rice topped with a brown gravy and some baked rice balls. all in all, not too bad, even if the omelette looked kind of barfy. i’ll post pics later and you can see what i mean.

the leg from tokyo to bangkok is about 7 hours. i’m totally sleeping in tomorrow.

update:

blech!

rice balls!

outta here.

finally!  we are jetting off on saturday for thailand where we will spend our christmas and new year being bums. albeit, bums who’ll eat really, really well — street food is plentiful and cheap. and i’ll probably end up with burning diarrhea.

i’ll be posting from the road, so expect pics, and meaningless anecdotes.

real deal southern italian.

today was a lazy day. in between episodes of “the office uk” and “rich bride, poor bride,” i managed to read the meat chapter of beard on food. i think it inspired me to get up and cook.

there’s a bag of fregula sarda that’s been in my pantry for a couple of months. tonight would be the night that i’d cook it up.

i decided that tonight i was going to make southern italian. not the “douse everything in red sauce and shellac it with melted cheese” kind of italian, but real deal simple, southern italian food. i found a recipe for clams and fregula sarda online. brian and i went to citarella. we picked up 2 dozen clams, some fresh italian parsley, mint, zucchini and scallions.

when we got home, i cleaned the clams and began to prep the herbs and vegetables and started to boil the stock for the fregula. the clams were cooked with some garlic, onion, prosciutto with a bit of saffron, wine, stock and tomato sauce. as soon as the fregula was cooked, i tossed it in with the clams — the whole thing looked kind of like a soupy risotto. have a look:

clams with fregola

for our vegetables, i kept it pretty simple. i sauteed scallions in olive oil, softening them. i threw in some sliced zucchini and some salt for flavor. a quick sprinkle of mint and it was done:

zucchini and scallions with mint

all in all, a pretty good dinner.

gobble, gobble.

happy turkey day.

i’ll be chomping on turkey, but i’ll be dreaming of this:

i’m waiting for the day when we can eat something other than the almighty turkey. i mean, if today is the day dedicated to caloric overload, i’d like to overload on the calories i think are worth consuming. if thanksgiving were at my house, the menu would probably look something like this:

appetizer: oysters. oysters. oysters. speaking of which, we had some pretty awesome oysters last night — the oysters sat on a bed of truffled mashed potatoes and were topped with a thin slice of beef carpaccio. in truth, we really couldn’t taste the oyster, but it was still pretty awesome.

first course: some kind of light salad with fresh greens. maybe a roasted squash salad with some goat cheese? or a beautiful lobster bisque. the lobster bisque at thalassa is remarkable. so are their scallops.

main course: turkey. but only if it were something like a peking turkey. i would love a nice roasted leg of lamb with lots of garlic and rosemary. some tzatziki on the side. if we’ve got to go with birds, how about a nice roasted guinea hen or a fat, juicy capon? of course, lechon is always a possibility, but i’d have to change my first two courses.

vegetables: i can complain about thanksgiving dinner all i want, but at the end of the day, are the sides really that bad? green bean casserole is pretty good. so are mashed potatoes when they’re done right. and corn pudding!

dessert: pumpkin pie is pretty good, too. maybe we could keep that on the menu, but i’d rather have fruit.