ubignut » food

A New Years Eve Full Moon Beach Party – Thailand Tour Day 9

ubignut — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:03:02 +0000

It’s New Years Eve & I’m starting the morning off with much relaxation! I slept until 8:15am; Mike and I had 9am appointments at the spa we have been eating at in Lamai so couldn’t sleep in too much. We also still had the rental car so needed to take advantage of it as much as possible since it was 1) a long ride over to that side of the island in the pickup taxi’s, and 2) waaay too much of a fare for a regular taxi. We arrived at The Spa and each had a 1 ½ hour back, neck, and shoulder massage. Then we also did a treatment I’ve heard quite a few times from people called coning. It’s where they put a stick of bamboo in your ear and light the top of it with a match. As the stick starts to burn down, the bamboo tube creates a suction from the ear and extracts any excess “guck” you may have stored deep down your ear canal. At the end, they unroll the leftover portion of the tube and show you the extracted part so you know whether or not anything came out (and probably a good sign that you need to clean your ears better!). They did each side separately. I barely had anything there which was nice to know! But also, in addition to it extracting excess guck, the procedure is also known to help clear any sinuses, headaches, etc. I’m pretty much a big believer in alternative medicines, and I will admit that I felt so much better than the night before as far as any sickness I may have been catching. So something definitely worked!We still had a bit of time before we had to return the car so decided to have one last meal at The Spa. This time we pigged out on dishes of fresh, tropical fruit. A big variety boat of pineapple, mango, papaya, banana’s and more! A good healthy start to our day so far! After returning the rental car, we decided to start packing some things up early, gearing ourselves for a very late night on Kho Phanang for the Full Moon beach party, thinking if we happen to get back very late in the AM, at least we’re ready to go – especially since I had to catch a plane at noon. At the hotel, they were offering boat rides leaving at 9:30pm, and coming back at 5:30am. We really didn’t want to be in the madness for that long, so decided we would see what other options were available. But I think we waited a little bit too long. We piddle paddled around for a few hours after packing some things up, catching up on Internet, booking transportation and hotels for our post new years travels, answering emails, and going back and forth with our friend Spiegs who happened to be in the ER at the time with a concussion! (crazy guy!)… with the time difference being 12-15 hrs from all of our friends back home, it’s hard to be online when everyone else is, so catching up on things was nice, especially since I had bills to pay and my Cambodia arrangements to figure out.

But all that talking and catching up now limited us in opportunity hours to get to and from the Full Moon party. From talking to a few guys that were staying at our same place, I found out there was a 2nd boat option that just came about. “Speedhawk” was offering speedboat tours on the hour, and coming back starting at 3AM. This was much better than the one the hotel was offering. And luck have it too, it was starting to rain, so we figured, let’s go later after the rain has stopped, have dinner in Kho Phanang, then catch the early boat back to Kho Samui. Well, seems like everyone else wanted to catch an earlier boat too because by the time we went to book the boat ride, only time available was the 11pm boat. Crap – now plan B. Since the ride was only 20 min long, at least we’d get to the party before the countdown – so we were still good. Everything was arranged, and our ride was to pick us up between 10-10:30pm.

We figured we’d head to our favorite hangout place, Cactus, for dinner, but when we got there, it was a fixed menu for like 950baht (approx $30), and the menu wasn’t really that appealing. So we headed over to this place we had seen so many times on our walks to dinner, and one we had laughed at each time we passed it – Mr. Poo’s BBQ! Each time we went by it was packed with locals, so we figured it had to be good; we just kept laughing at the name! We didn’t know what to expect, but we were game to try. It turned out to be like a Korean BBQ place, where they have a hotpot in the middle, and all the raw meat and veggies is put on top to cook it. Some of the meat wasn’t too appealing unfortunately (bugs crawling), so we chose what looked good and less buggy. Mr. Poo was great; helping us with the noodles, picking out what he thought we’d like, and showing us how to cook the meat. All-in-all, the meal was pretty good! And totally cheap – like under $3 for all you could eat (the bugs would have probably cost us extra).

With the rain coming down pretty fast earlier, and the wind blowing pretty hard, I was a little freaked out knowing the year before there was the Tsunami just on the other side of Thailand. We timed things perfectly though, the rain had just stopped, the air was steady, and we finished dinner early enough to freshen ourselves up quickly before our ride to the boat came. It was 10pm and waiting with with us were a few young Aussie boys, all pumped up, ready to party on the island with their shoeless feet & full bottle of Jaeger Meister! We waited, and waited, and waited – each time the guy at the reception desk saying “Ride be here in 5 min”… well, we waited til 10:45pm and had to figure out, do we wait more and risk the boat leaving or catch a taxi over? The Aussie’s flagged down a cab who said he knew where Speedhawk boat was at, so we jumped in… we didn’t want to risk missing the 11pm boat and then be stuck not being at the party for the countdown. I’ve learned in Thailand, expect the unexpected and don’t think that anyone knows where the heck they are going! The driver took us to Seabreeze, Seatran, everything else sea related except Seahawk! So about 20-30 min of going back and forth on the same 1-mile street and not finding where we needed to go, we finally came to the landing dock – totally hidden from the street. The boat was just about to leave. They could fit 4 people on, and there was 5 of us… the Aussie’s were great, telling us to go, so Mike and I wished them happy New Year and jumped in the water to get to the boat. We were soaked knees down but we were on our way!

So let’s shorten the story a little more… the ride over was fast and bumpy, the island was packed with people, and we had about maybe 5min to get from the landing doc to where the party scene was at the beach. We hauled butt – people everywhere! Drinks being sold in sand buckets, people painting themselves, and partying from every nook and cranny of the street. We made it to the edge of the beach, or should I say, the beginning rim of the party madness. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…. Happy New Year! OMG! We had just made it! Fireworks went off, people were all over, music from every angle we turned. We pushed our way through the crowd and just started walking to where the music sounded best. We danced at various places for about 2 hours, thinking we’d make the 3am boat back. But we were having such a good time so… why not stay another hour! Our clothes and shoes trashed from all the people and the beach water/sand, we would maybe never experience this again so why not enjoy the most of it – and the music was really really good! I hadn’t danced in quite awhile so it was nice to just let loose. Making our way back to catch the 4am boat to Samui, people were passed out along the beach, along the streets. Complaints of wallets being stolen, food vendors lined up, people ditching mopeds – it was a madhouse and no one wanted to stop partying. At the boat, we did what we could to get on – we pushed our way through all the complaining people, literally jumped full body in the water and made our way onto the boat. I didn’t care who i cut in front of, that boat was not leaving without me. D renched from the water, shoes trashed from the beach & pee & everything else I walked in, we were back on Kho Samui by 4:30, and in bed by 5am….

Happy New Year!

To the left, to the left! – Thailand Tour Day 8

ubignut — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 23:33:53 +0000

No agenda at all today, except we knew we wanted to be active after 2 days of being bummy. We thought we might want to do a safari tour where we get to visit various tourist attractions around the island but since our sea adventure tour was kind of a bust, we were a little hesitant. Then we decided, let’s rent a car and go see the places ourselves! We hoped to find a jeep 4×4 so we could go to more of the mountain areas. But nothing was available except for a little mazda, so we took it. Driving in Thailand was a little different. One, they don’t pay attention to anything, and 2) you drive on the left. Key thing to remember – STAY TO THE LEFT! We were going by Lamai on our way to our adventure & figured we’d stop and have brunch at our spa place again since it was so yummy the first time. This time I had spaghetti and that was really good. On our way out we decided to book massages since we had the car all day and even into the next morning and we could come back if we wanted to. We made appointments for back, neck & shoulder massages as well as coning (an ear treatment helpful in removing all the crap in your ears). I felt like a cold was coming on and Mike was feeling a little poopie also – we hoped we weren’t getting sick, especially with NYE coming up!

On with our journey in our little car, we made our way to the wonderful rock formations on Kho Samui – Hin Ta & Hin Yai, better known as the grandfather and grandmother. What’s so significant? The grandfather is a rock shaped like a big pecker, the grandmother is a rock shaped like a big va-ja-jay. Funny how the Thai people are so proud of these formations! Back in the car and headed our way further south to see some waterfalls. We trekked up the mountain and there we found this amazing waterfall. People were swimming towards the top but it was a little crowded and they were being annoying – it would have been more enjoyable if they weren’t there. Mike took some time to sit in the water’s path while I admired the scenery away from the irritating boys. It was very beautiful.

We only had a few more sights to see. The last one was a drive further into the mountain to a lookout point where you oversee the island and out into the ocean – except that the clouds were getting a little overcast so you couldn’t really see the water. It was still beautiful, and we shared some home made spring rolls as our treat. Making our way back home we went through a town that had a big fish market action going. We stopped to check it out and there were some amazing looking fish, shellfish and other interesting things. I saw shrimp, mussles, blue crabs, all kinds of fish like baracudas and silver dollar fish, even eels that were still moving. And I saw chickens and rats! Lots of flies around, and the smell was a little overwhelming. People were packed along the side of the road, all coming by to do some shopping. We took a few pictures, walked up and down and then headed on our way.

I was still feeling very sick, sneezing like crazy, and Mike wasn’t feeling any better. We got home and took about a 2 hour nap, thinking it would help us both. Instead we woke up, feeling dazed and confused from wanting more sleep, but forced ourselves to at least get up and get some dinner, then call it an early night. I wanted that pizza again – so off to Baia we went and this time I got the spicy salami and cheese (basically, pepperoni & cheese). I also had about 4 cups of hot tea, hoping it would make me feel better. Negative – well, it did a little bit, but I was very achy and tired and congested. I had taken some Benadryl and that was helping a little, but I just wanted to sleep it all off. So we skipped the after drinks and even dessert and dragged our butts back to the room where I passed out as soon as I hit the pillow.

Oh, and eaarlier in the day I realized I lost my cell phone – probably misplaced in one of the bathrooms I visited that morning. Talk about an even more buzzkill. Hope some Thai person is happy with my phone!

When in Thailand, do as the Thai’s do – Thailand Tour Day 7

ubignut — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 23:18:08 +0000

Spent the morning sleeping in, I think I got up around 10am. Not really any plans for today so decided since the weather was good we’d head to Lamai, another part of Kho Samui where the 2nd best beaches are, and not as crowded vendor wise as Chaweng. Because the cab ride to Chaweng was so expensive there and back (about $10 each way), we asked about other options and was told about a pickup truck that drives by every 5 min picking up passengers and it was only about $1.25 a ride. I remember seeing these guys on the main streets (and being honked at by them along with all the cabbies and motorbikes), and I’d seen people in the back all crammed inside, but didn’t realize they gave rides – I just figured they were like any other Thai trucks packed with lots of people off to work, etc. So we waited by our hotel and the first one that passed us was too packed. The second one wasn’t picking anyone up. The third one was the charm and we hopped on. There was nowhere to sit so we literally hung off the back steps of the truck driving down the street. It was fun & exciting, the wind blowing through our hair, sun at our faces and the excitement of trying not to fall off if the truck hit a bump in the road!Once in Lamai, we didn’t waste time walking the streets looking for anything. We went straight towards the beach through a resort tried to find a place to lay around. It was pretty packed, but we found a few lounge chairs and thought about what we wanted to do for lunch. I didn’t really eat much since my tummy was STILL feelin’ a little uneasy. I can’t complain because so far I have eaten pretty dang good. The fruits here are delicious and so fresh, and they are easily accessible too by the beach vendors wanting to sell the sunbathers something cool & refreshing. And all the restaurants I’ve sampled have all been very good, a little better than I expected actually.

Since I was a little red on my back from the sea adventure, I took it easy on laying out and just worked on bronzing more a little and kicking back with my book for a few hours. The Kite Runner so far is really great and I’m really enjoying getting back into reading that I hope I can keep it up when I get back home. The sun started to go behind the trees so we thought we’d make our way up north on the beach. The bungalows along the beach are so cute, but I peeked inside to one that had an open door and literally the place was laid out just like ours! I figured they would be a lot better since they looked newer. And also, some didn’t even have windows! I wonder how much they were paying for them, if anything they are mostly paying just for the location itself. We passed by a cute little place that looked inviting to have a snack at before we headed back to our side of the island for dinner. Come to find out, this was the place we actually had been wanting to come start our day at in Lamai! Our driver wasn’t sure where we wanted to be dropped off at so we just picked any place and figured we’d make our way, and lucky enough we found it accidently.

The place was call Spa Samui and it boasted on being really healthy and tranquil. I had the brown rice and onion and a bowl of fresh veggies in broth, Mike had a great veggie salad. After all the eating we’d done over the days, we were both feeling the urge to eat healthy and get some veggies in us. They made an excellent lime juice with honey that I am definitely going to make at home when I get back. Wow, was it good! The place was a spa and also a retreat in which people came for “cleansing” programs, either 3 days, 7 days or even weeks – such as fasting, body detox and enimas. Hmmm… not sure about the daily enimas but hey, if I was gonna get one done, I’d do it here where I could at least enjoy the view!

We said goodbye to Lamai, hoping to maybe come back and enjoy the spa place again. Back at the hotel, I dropped off all my dirty laundry at the front desk. For 40baht a kilo (little over a buck) they wash, dry and iron all your clothes. Seems a lot of people do this while traveling which makes me wish I had packed just a teeny bit less. Although, I did pack light for having almost 10 days worth of clothes. We had just ate so we weren’t too hungry and decided lets just head to a place for some drinks. We had passed this place called Gecko on our beach walks home and they always had great music playing so we thought we’d go there. Not to mention they were having a huge New Years Eve party too so thought we’d check it out incase we wanted to go there for our Eve party celebration. We listened to some music, had a few watered down drinks and people were coming and going – the crowd seemed mostly of groups traveling together. Out of the blue, these two English guys (Sean and Woody) come and join us, buy us drinks and strike up conversation. They had just met that night and were going different places along the beaches to hang out. Woody had a motorbike and asked if I had ridden one while in Thailand yet. I replied no, and of course he kept insisting on taking me for a quick ride to truly experience Thailand. Well, I agreed, and we all said we’d head over to Chaweng to party a little more over there – Mike and Sean would ride in a cab, and I would go on the motorbike with Woody. Long story short… Mike ditched Sean because he was annoying and decided to head back to the hotel. The motorbike got a flat tire on the way over to Chaweng and so we ditched it and begged a local schoolboy to give us a ride on his bike – 3 of us on a moped… crazy! Finally get to our destination and went to a few places… 1) a girlie bar where the thai girls danced near the red light area (I had to experience thailand right?) and 2) a beach bar where there was good music. Not up to hanging out much longer, we walked along the beach to find a less crazy place, had a few drinks at some bar, then I said goodnight.

A full week in Thailand so far and I’m starting to feel local… And homesick too…

Just say “NO” to being stung by a jellyfish – Thailand Tour Day 6

ubignut — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:39:58 +0000

Yippee! Sea adventure day is finally here! We were being picked up at 7:30am so we hurried up out of our beds, wolfed down our free breakfast, and waited for our ride to show. In comes a military style jeep ready to take us over to the boat. Odd that we were the only ones getting the ride, but we also figured we had others to pick up too. The brochure said we would have a Sea Safari adventure by speed boat – with a light breakfast, snorkeling, canoeing to explore the ancient limestone cave, board a luxury boat to have a delicious buffet lunch, then depart by speed boat again to the National marine park for a spectacular climb through a dense rain forest up to the island’s view point, then back to the main island to meet the baby elephants and do an ATV adventure (or elephant trekking but we chose the ATV). All sounds fun and good huh? Well, that’s the beauty of Marketing for ya, and kinda gives us Marketing folks a bad name.

I can’t say it was all that bad – just a little over embellished on some things. We boarded the boat. But the boat was not a speed boat as promised in the brochure. Apparently the speed boat wasn’t working that day (shocker!), and a few others we were with were complaining as well. The guide said we could talk to the hotel where we booked the tour and ask for some money back (which we did later on and got back about $3 each). So instead of a 30-45min trip to the sighseeing and snorkeling area by speed boat, it took us double that time on a big party boat. I went to the top deck and took advantage of the extra time by sunbathing. Once at the location, we were split into groups – my group did the canoeing first and then the snorkeling second. The canoeing was crazy and Mike and I were out of sync a lot, making our canoe end up in circles or too much to the right or too much to the left. I think it was just the fact that our strengths were different, but either way, it was fun. Right when we started I had seen a jellyfish over by the boat area so I worried about how many more would be out there – hope we weren’t going to tip over! We started out along the rocks and then in between them, getting some great photo opportunities in. We paddled around some and then went in a little early and chose to start the snorkeling part. But while we were waiting for our gear, we overheard a few people say they got stung by the jellyfish and also that because the waters were so merky you couldn’t see anything below! What a bust! So as nervous as I was, I went in anyhow, but they were right, you couldn’t see jack in the water. I figured I wasn’t going to stay there sucking down sea water and possibly get stung by a jellyfish, so I went up into the boat while Mike stayed out. Kids were having a good time, jumping off the side of the boat into the water and when Mike came up he did so too. I got some great shots of him jumping out. Then I did it too (keeping my eye out for those crazy jellyfish!), and yes, it was fun! But I think I popped something in my ear as I hit the water cuz my ear has been a little hollow sounding since then. The pictures we took jumping off the side of the boat were fun.

Once everyone got back on board we ate a traditional thai lunch while making our way over to the national park. We boarded a small little pontoon like boat and motored our way to the island. We climbed through the trees and stuff, but definitely not as vast of a trek through a rainforest like the brochure said – another bust! We made it to the view point at the top, took pictures of the lagoon in the middle and made our way back down again. On the way back to the main island on the boat, we sat again up at the top of the deck and sunbathed more, I think I even slept for about an hour. We all piled into the jeeps again and started making our way to the final part of the trip – the elephant feeding and ATV ride. But seems like the tour guides had another agenda in mind which was to take us about 2-3 miles past the final destination area and stop at a souvenir store for about 15min. Nice eh? Finally we headed over to the last part of the trip. The ATV ride was not what we expected either. It was more like a track that you got to ride around twice before you had to get off and let another person go. I didn’t even get 2 rides around because my ATV broke down before I made it around the first time! I fed 2 baby elephants, they were so cute! Both kept trying to take the last of my bananas. It saddened me to see they were chained up and so I had to get outta there before I started to cry.

For dinner I was craving pizza and I read about this place called Baia which served Italiano food, but mostly they bragged about the pizza being so good. So I wanted to check it out. No more Thai food for awhile, I wanted to get back to eating regular foods. I think so far, Baia is just about my favorite place we’ve eaten at – oh my goodness the pizza was sooo good! And it really hit my craving for just what I wanted. I had a funghi pizza (mushroom & cheese) and added onions to it. I ate everything but 1 slice, I couldn’t believe I put all that away! I guess all that adventure in the water made me really hungry. Since it was kinda early still, we decided to go have an after dinner drink at a place we’d seen on our walk in the Village called Starfish & Co. They had a really cool Persian style to their decor with people sitting on pillows to eat, and the music was a little techno-ish. In addition to drinks we got a banana flambe with coconut ice cream – yummy! We didn’t quite feel like going back and call it an evening yet so headed further down the Village some more and stopped at this English pub called The Frog & Gecko. We chatted with the bar owner for a bit who was from Chicago and listened to a guy called Chris sing for an hour or so. I had a few shots called a Quick F**K… which quickly went to my head and not too soon after that, I went home and passed out on the bed.

Rain, rain, go away… – Thailand Tour Day 4

ubignut — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:55:53 +0000

Woke up to three things this morning – 1) rain with a little bit of lightening, 2) a slight hangover, and 3) a gecko on the ceiling and gecko pooh on my bed. Luckily it was at the top corner of the bed where I was not touching.

We thought we’d try a different area of the island today – Chaweng – which is more populated and supposed to have the best white sandy beaches on Kho Samui. Oh, and also – it has a Starbucks! We got dropped off towards the end of the town so we could walk up. There was a lot of the same things we saw in our area of Bo Phut … silk tailors wanting to make you an Armani suit, restaurants, pubs, pharmacies, street vendors, etc. We stopped at a bookstore and I bought “The Kite Runner” since I had read through all my gossip magazines and needed something to occupy my mind. I had my MP3 player which I filled with music before I left but I had yet to listen to it on the trip since I just wanted to enjoy the local sounds, etc. As we kept walking, of course I had to stop at Starbucks too (ha!), and I picked up a few other personal items I needed like shampoo and conditioner, sunscreen and more bug repellant to be prepared for my jungle trip. Thinking that since last night everything was off the main road and by the beach, we made our way through one of the resorts and found out again, all the happening stuff is where the water is. The beach was packed with people, even with the overcast weather. We stoppd and had lunch, and I was still feelin’ a little sick – mainly just my tummy not really feelin’ good, but nothing to do with a food virus or anything. I think it is just all the heavy foods we’ve been eating the past few days that I’m not really used to. We walked around some more and decided to head back to our room since the weather wasn’t being very cooperative.

Today seemed to be more of a loafing kind of day – after coming back from Chaweng we decided we wanted seafood for dinner. We had passed by a place the night before called Shades, and the fish/shellfish selection looked amazing! Tiger shrimp the size of my hand and large lobster tails. On our way out to dinner, we stopped at the front desk area and booked a sea safari tour we had read about which took us out to the Ang Thong national Marine Park. We were looking forward to getting some snorkeling and site seeing in, and end it off with an ATV ride – we booked it for 2 days later to make sure the rain wouldn’t ruin our adventure. We headed down and shared a lobster dish, tiger prawns and garlic bread. We literally needed to be rolled out of there – our bellies were sooo full! Walking back to our place on the beach again, we couldn’t help but stop at Cactus again. Only this time, they didn’t have the music going like before, it was a soccer game. No biggee – we got the same bottle as the night before and thought we could have the bananas again as our dessert. Unfortunately the kitchen closes at 10pm and we had arrived there around 10:15, so no fried banana dessert for us! After some drinks and back at the “resort”, I decided to get a massage since it was still a bit early in the night, and I hadn’t stuck to my daily massage promise at all!

The massage was ok. I asked them to go harder (“more strong”), but she was still a little too light, and the english/thai translation wasn’t working this time. But as I lie there, I realized I suck at giving massages. I could probably be the Monica Geller of massages, so maybe I’ll take a class or two on massages when I get back to LA. Heading back to the room, I found the gem of a toilet by the pool area! It was sooo much nicer than our room. I couldn’t believe I was getting so excited over a nice looking toilet! But now I knew where to get some privacy since our room wasn’t so private. The thought of a nice, clean, private bathroom in the morning put a smile on my face that I fell asleep to. ha!

All I want for xmas is to lay on a beach in a bikini, and maybe a little fried banana too! – Thailand Tour Day 3

ubignut — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 18:50:50 +0000

It’s Christmas morning and I woke up wee early – 4:15 AM! We had to be at the airport by 5:30AM to check in and catch our flight at 6:30AM that was taking us over to Kho Samui, one of the beautiful island beaches of Thailand. All went good and we landed by 8AM, picked up bags (while listening to crazy xmas music sung by Thai people) and hopped on the shuttle to take us to our “Resort”. There are several popular areas to stay at on Kho Samui – Chaweng, Lamai, and the newly up & coming Bo Phut area. Our resort is in the area of Bo Phut, a place habitated just a few years back by the local island fisherman, that is until folks started realizing it could be commercialized more. Now it’s starting to prosper as a touristy part of the island too. Our “resort” is right on the beach – nice right? Well I’ve noticed that in Thailand, just because the place has “Resort” in the name, it doesn’t technically mean that’s what it is! We got our key and was taken to our room which was pretty basic. The grounds were beatiful, but the bungalow type rooms looked as though they hadn’t been updated in years! But maybe this was standard? I think so!

First off, the room had such a musty odor, like it hadn’t been used in a decade. But then we noticed there was pooh all over the floors… did they clean the room before they decided to rent it out? And what kind of visitors were we going to have with us? For the price, the room was expected as far as amenities etc. Mike and I paid a total of $36 a day to rent this room. We had 2 twin beds, a TV, a sink, a toilet and a separate shower stall. The bathroom wall that shares the bedroom wall is open at the top, so literally we can hear all that’s going on when you’re doing your “thing”. And speaking of that, most places in Thailand have bad plumbing so you’re asked to not flush any toilet paper down the toilet. Provided next to the toilets are waste bags to put your paper into and then throw it in the basket next to you. But overall, despite some of the non-standard immenities you’d find in a “resort”, our room has AC so we were livin’ in luxury! We decided to not worry about the room at the moment and just get our bathing suits on and head to the beach… afterall, that’s what we were there for! Beach was primary, room secondary.

The beach area was really nice, despite the rocky sand at our feet. Other beaches on the island have smoother, white sand but this one was noted to be the rockiest of sand. Either way, the view, the water and the sun was amazingly beautiful. Not many people were enjoying the water and sun so it was pretty quiet, except for the beach vendors there trying to get you to buy fruits, grilled corn on the cob, ice cream or jewelry and silk scarfs. Just from a few days of walking around Bangkok I had already started to get brown so I tried to even some of the lines out and read my gossip magazines. Hunger pains started setting in for both of us and we roamed around the main street looking for something to eat. I was a little disappointed that as much as the area boasted about what to eat, that we couldn’t really find anything! Nothing around but local pharmacies and tourist agencies or places to tailor you a suit. Up the road just a bit we found a cute little place and enjoyed some thai food and pineapple shakes, then decided to go back to the resort and haggle about the room. We wanted a newer room, not a manure room! After showing a few options we moved to a better one – less of a musty smell and no animal pooh (which i guessed to be Gecko pooh). Both of us were a little tired from getting up early for the flight so we opt’d to take a nap and catch up on rest (such a rough life eh?).

Up from the nap, only logical thing to do was… head back to the beach! This time we went to the place next door since their beach lounge chairs were much nicer. We started looking at all the maps we collected and dove into the travel books to see where would be a good place to have our xmas dinner. After seeing the main street earlier and what it had to offer, i wasn’t quite convinced we had picked a good, populated area to stay in. The authors were raving about all the variety of foods to choose from – but where was it? How could this beautiful, touristy island be so limited in choices? So after my 2nd shower of the day, off to dinner we went to see what the “Fisherman’s Village” was all about. Maybe I was missing something. And boy was I right! From the main street, about a half mile walk, a left turn and a left turn again, we found the gem of a street with bars, restaurants, shops, etc. Had we walked up the beach, it would have been a no brainer to see what the rave was. Everything is a lot more visible off the main streets it seems. We walked a bit down this restaurant row to see what we wanted to eat, then settled on a place called “Billabong” since Mike was craving a turkey style dinner and they seemed to be the ones that were serving it. Food was good – they played a U2 benefit concert from Scottland so that kept us entertained, as well as a fireworks show in the background. I had a big burger for my xmas meal, and wasn’t feelin’ too good afterwards. I’m thinking it was the coconut in my drink, but I hurled like there was no tomorrow….

We walked around a little more to see all that this Fisherman’s Village had to offer. The books were right! And I was spotting a few places they recommended for eating and entertaining so we noted those as places to come back and try. On our way out, we chose to walk along the beach back to our hotel instead of on the main street with all the exhaust & taxi’s and motorbikes beeping at you for a ride. It was such a nice evening and totally picture perfect. There were quite a few restaurants behind many of the resorts with people eating their dinner on the sand. And a cool little treat was seeing a few “moon floaties”. These are large paper like lanterns and at the opening is a round piece that is lit and set on fire. As the fire continues to burn, the lanterns start to fill up and within a minute or two, you can release them and they float up into the sky lit. They are usually very popular on moon party days, and at times you can see hundreds of them in the sky at a time. As they float up, you’re supposed to make a wish and hope that it will come true. I’m vowing to get one on New years Eve! As we continued walked, we heard some good tunes being played a little further up and decided to go check it out. I was feeling much better than earlier and so figured it was ok to sit down for a bit and enjoy the music. The place was called Cactus and it was very laid back, relaxing. The music was a soft techno/trance kinda sound and was totally putting us in the mood to just chill. We ordered a bottle of wine and talked a lot, and chatted with a few others there too. We had to top off our xmas meal with dessert and chose to have fried bananas and pineapple – oh my goodness, they were sooo good! I have to say that there definitely is no shortage of good food in Thailand, whether it’s street food or restaurant food, it’s all been good so far! Bellies full and slightly buzzing, we headed back to our fabulous “resort” and off to bed. I’m really glad we found that area – definitely the disappointment feeling is gone!

Merry Christmas everybody!

Damn that’s one spicy green bean! – Thailand Tour Day 2

ubignut — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 18:40:17 +0000

Today was a little more laid back than yesterday. I woke up a little late after my fabulous massage last night and a deep, well-deserved sleep. Mike had more travel details to sort out for his trip back to LA in mid-Jan. so I went and did some stuff online and checked into a place to stay in Cambodia. We met up after everything was taken care of and went to have a veggie thai lunch. It was a cute little place off the Kho San Road area where we had to take off our shoes before we entered, and sat on the floor on cushions at our table. I had the Pad Thai ONLY because I hadn’t had any REAL Pad Thai since being in the country. My meal cost me about $3, and that included dessert! Afterwards we walked the streets a little more on our way over to the river area to check on taking a river cruise. We thought it would be neat to go up and down the river to see the other areas. We ended up taking a speed boat up and back, which also served as a water taxi for the Thai people and stopped at about 15 docks along the way up and back. It was pretty squished in the boat, standing room only really, so we hung out by the railing so we could see everything. The houses were pretty run down, mainly shacks along the riverbanks, their floors resting on beams that slightly raised them above the river water. Clothes hang drying on lines outside and sheets of tin or metal were being used as a roof. As poor as they lived, oddly enough quite a few had satellite dishes, some like DirectTV and others had dishes that were bigger than their entire house. Talk about priorities!

We spent about an hour going up and down the river, taking lots of great pictures of the temples along the way, but also of the dwellings of the Thai people. While heading back to the hotel to change for our upcoming evening, I couldn’t help but be more open-eyed about how the street people lived. Their lifestyle so very basic, or maybe just limited. Here you have a culture of people who appear to be very uneducated and living in poverty, yet they are buisness people, making a living and taking care of their family by selling goods or food services. Are they really that uneducated then? No… they are street smart and they know how to get by because it’s been something probably passed down generation to generation. Could they do more and make more with an education? Of course! But maybe they don’t have that opportunity.

The craziest sites are the motorbikes riding along the streets at all speeds – carrying up to 4 maybe 5 people at the most! You see a baby on the handlebars, dad & mother on the seats but also another child in between them – all the while they are carrying groceries too and weaving in and out of the traffic, avoiding taxi’s and pedestrians that get in the way. Mike said he’s seen it even crazier, with a guy riding his motorbike and 3 live pigs on the back!

I was really looking forward to the evening ahead of us; we were going to see a Muay Thai match! We arrived at the stadium and got VIP front row seats (I think all the tourists got those seats to make them feel special!). The evening was set to have 9 fights, with #7 being the “Main Event”. We headed out to the street to get some food while we waited for the first few matches to get going. I got a rice and beef with green beans dish and sat down with Mike to eat. Casually we’re just talking and eating and commenting about all the people that were attending the fight. It wasn’t any one particular fight they were there to see, it was just a basic thing for the men to do – like going to horseraces. I took 2 bites of my food and just about ran out of there with my mouth on fire! Whoa… What the heck? All I ordered was beef and green beans! Well, looking a bit further, that wasn’t a whole green bean I had eaten, but instead a WHOLE green chile pepper! Oddly enough, as hot as it was and after I got over the initial shock of what I ate, waited 10 min for my mouth to get feeling again and dreading it sitting in my stomach, I have to say it was pretty good. But not good enough to do it again

The fight was awesome. The first two seemed to be really young boys, around age 13/14 maybe. As they continued on, the boys seemed to look older. The best fights ended up being #5 & #6. The crowd really was getting into it with their betting and shouting of what they felt the fighter needed to do to win. At the beginning of each fight, both fighters do a traditional dance which also helps serve a little as a warm up. Then the fight begins. Both #5 & #6 ended up being unexpected knock out fights (I took a lot of video on this!) The kicks were good, the blows were hard and the crowd was amp’d up! The main event was a disappointment unfortunately, especially since the two fights before were so exciting! After the fight, we called it a night…. We had to get up SUPER early in the AM on Xmas day to head over to the Kho Samui beaches where we were planning to stay until Jan 1^st.

One Night in Bangkok – Thailand Tour Day 1

ubignut — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 08:18:26 +0000

Sawatdii-kah!

I’m here in Thailand experiencing my 1st full day in Bangkok. The flight yesterday from LAX was great and actually went really quickly for being a 10.5hr flight! I had the window seat and was lucky enough to not have anyone sit next to me on the way over to Tokyo. The airplane food was great too – dinner was beef with black bean sauce & white rice and vegetables, along with a shrimp cocktail, salad and fruit. I pretty much slept most of the way and somewhat watched Evan Almighty as I read and highlighted in my Thailand tour book for a few hours. Later in the flight they gave us ice cream sandwiches (yum!) and then about an hour before landing we had breakfast – a sausage and egg mcmuffin like thing & fruit. Once I was in Tokyo, I had about an hour and a half to spare so just kinda checked what the airport had to offer; lots of duty free shops! The flight from Tokyo to Bangkok was another 6.5hrs so I slept half the way, then watched a movie and ate dinner again; this time chicken & rice with salad, fruit and a lemon cake like dessert. I have to say, the airplane food was better than I expected!

Once in Bangkok and through customs, I started to look for my ride to the hotel since my friend Mike had arranged the hotel stay and on the website it said they offered hotel/airport transfers (he even confirmed with the hotel). But what I didn’t know was that when he checked in, they said no, they didn’t offer it. So I’m walking out of customs and not seeing my name and kinda started thinkin’ “uh-oh”… As i started to call the hotel, mike comes up behind me & boy was I pretty glad to see him! We went to go get a cab to take us to the hotel, and one of the things my book had told me was to make sure the cab driver puts the meter on from the airport. Well we get in the cab and as we take off we tell him “meter” and he keeps driving while giving us this poor excuse of why he can’t do a meter and basically wanted to charge a flat fee. Mike’s haggling with him and the guys not buying it and basically was about ready to pull over to the side of the freeway and just drop us off! So finally we settled on a price everyone was happy with.

Got to the hotel, and…. well…. definitely not the 4 seasons – ha! I know we’re trying to be a little cheap so we can do more stuff, but this is pretty cheap – about $12 a day for each of us I think. The bed is very very comfortable at least! Honestly though, since we’re not in the room all that much, I don’t really mind it. It’s safe and all, but just very basic – kinda like a dorm room or a Motel 6. There’s no elevator and we’re on the 4th floor. The shower and bathroom are all together – meaning that the shower head is on the wall and you have to pretty much remove the shower head and use it as if you were sponge bathing yourself. But as I said, it’s not all that bad, it’s just very different than what you’re custom to in the US. Good news is that it’s very close to the area in which we wanted to be in for all the temples and everything to view.

So my first full day was very busy! We woke up at around 8am and wanted to get an early start to beat all the heat. We got out and hit a smoothie stand – WOW, sooo yummy!! Fresh fruit and very refreshing. Also had some freshly squeezed orange juice and it was really good. It’s on stands around everywhere. Then we walked over to the 2 temples (known as a Wat) we wanted to see. The city is pretty busy, lots of traffic. And everyone is trying to get you to ride in their tuk-tuk which you have to kinda be careful cuz they can end up taking you to like fabric and jewelry stores instead to get you to buy there. The temples were absolutely beautiful – so much detail and so very spirited. You have to obey the customs of the country of course so women have to cover their shoulders and have long pants, no open toed shoes. You also have to remove your shoes before going in and you can’t point your feet towards the Buddha. So I made sure I remembered everything as to not come off as disrespectful. We walked to all our destinations, stopping at a local market to get some fresh foods. I got a bag full of exotic type fruit – some I didn’t know what they were but they were sooo good! And then there was a handful of lychee fruit in there too – it all really hit the spot. Then I had my very first “street food” meal – rice with chicken and beef and green beans. It was really good, really cheap, and ooooh weeee – really spicy! haha…. I took some pictures of people in the market and the different things to see while we walked. The people are so amazing, reminds me a lot of Mexico. Most of the people are just so happy and helpful, smiling all the time. Some you have to be careful of because since it is a touristy town you have to just think they are trying to sell you something (most are) instead of being helpful. There’s a lot of American and European people backpacking, many young people. It’s almost like a lot of hippy people!

The rest of the day consisted of us making travel plans for the remainder of the trip. I got $$ on my cell phone too so can now make and receive calls & text msgs. I’ve pretty much been eating all my meals off the street since it’s convenient and cheap – about $0.75 to $2 for soups or rice and meat dishes. In the evening we headed over to a different part of the city which was nice to see – it was the more upscale side! We went to this night bazaar and they so some really cool and cheap stuff! It was very hard to not buy things considering I didn’t want to lug it all around. I definitely wouldn’t mind coming back here and bringing an extra suitcase just for shopping! haha. I probably did pack a little too much, but at the same time, I’d rather be safe than sorry. Just in my first day alone too, I took 3 showers and changed 3 times just because it is so hot and humid here – more so humid than anything. The better area we went to is called Lumphini and they had this really cool hotel there – The Banyan Tree. It was just so absolutely gorgeous inside, and the views from the rooftop bar were incredible. The decor in the many restaurants was stunning! I wanted a glass of wine so bad, but since this past weekend was elections weekend, they stopped serving alcohol to the whole city. So I settled on a virgin pina colada. After about an hour or so we headed back to the ghetto side of town (ha!) and topped the night with an hour thai massage. I was in heaven, and it probably was the best dang $7 I spent all day I crashed immediately afterwards (around 1am) – it was a long and very very full first day!! (poor mikey, I think he was dead tired too! ha). Check out all the pics from Bangkok. Notable touristy and historical things & places I saw today:

Khaosan Road
The Gate of Kings
The Grand Palace incl. Emerald Buddha, Upper Terrace, etc.
Farmers Markets
Reclining Buddha
Ministry of Defense
Night Bizarre

A night of fright and blues

ubignut — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:12:17 +0000

The older I get, the harder it is to find a really good haunted house. Like most scary movies that are out these days, I either am not amused, not scared, or just laugh hysterically at how lame it is (although gotta give them an A for effort… maybe!). Last Halloween I ventured out of the westside, past the 405 and into Pasadena to this old bank building claiming to be “haunted”… ooooh, spoooky! Well the joke ended up being on me because I literally got the living crap scared out of me so bad that I was in tears and shaking so bad! This was partly due to the barely lit haunted path itself that they made us go through, but it was the very very end that got me when I thought I was out free and as I’m walking back to the main street, this guy came running down the open alley wearing a “Jason’s” mask, sliding inches from me on his hockey shin protectors and dragging a shovel across the concrete so that sparks were flying. HOLY CRAP BATMAN! Is that not enough to freakin’ make you freak the heck out??

So, I figured it was so good last year, let’s see what they can do THIS year! I tried to round the troops up for a group scaring and then organize dinner at this fabulous restaurant next door, Red White & Bluezz. In the end, it turned out to be just two of us actually going into the haunted house and everyone met afterwards for food and drinks. The haunted house was just the same as it was last year with the pitch black darkness and the 50-ft crawl space, except 1) it was longer, 2) there were more “twists” and “turns” in the path so that they could scare you more, 3) I screamed more during the walk through, mainly due to the small freaky kids that popped out in front of me!, and 4) this time I was able to laugh at others that pee’d their pants from the guy at the end!

Ten minutes of scare worked up my appetite and I was ready to meet the gang over at Red, White & Bluezz. It’s a great little jazz/blues place I came across a few years back during an annual food event called “A taste of Pasadena”. So whenever I’m in Pasadena I try to go there because the food, the music, the staff and the ambiance is just great! As always, the food was really good and very filling. We all ordered different things and shared our plates around the table, so it was nice to get a little variety and sample many things (I usually stick to the dishes I know I like best!). And the wine was really a great compliment to all we sampled… plus it helped me forget about the little freaks that made me scream at every corner! ha!

Taco Bell Looks to Sell Mexican to … Mexicans

ubignut — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 06:51:18 +0000

Chain’s Plan to Expand Into Country Doesn’t Sit Well With Some Analysts
Published by AdAge.com: October 22, 2007

CHICAGO (Adage.com) — If you were to name an area in the world that needed more tacos, Mexico probably wouldn’t be it — unless you’re Taco Bell. The Yum Brands chain has made a run for the border, with a location in Monterrey, Mexico. More are planned for the country in the future, although the locations have yet to be identified.

“We’re not trying to be authentic Mexican food,” said Rob Poetsch, director-public relations at Taco Bell. “So we’re not competing with taquerias. We’re a quick-service restaurant, and value and convenience are our core pillars.”

>> ok, what is wrong with this picture? If any fast service mexican food place needs to be in Mexico, why not make it Del Taco?? At least their fake meat tastes better!