Chiang Mai check-in

Tuyet and I are at Golden Fern, where Chewy and I stayed last year. We just finished a day long cooking course with Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. This time we went to the owner's house outside of town (last year Chewy, Frenchy, Amanda and I cooked at The Wok, the restaurant in town), which was beautiful. I did course 5, including a red curry with duck and mango with sticky rice (2 of my favorite dishes). This time I took pictures of everything I made, so I will post the goods later. Tuyet and I are both incredibly full - this is a great value for the money.

We took the overnight train from Bangkok last night, arriving about an hour and a half late. We played a lot of cards to keep ourselves occupied, and I enjoyed a 150 baht set dinner, and met some other traveller's on the train. This time I got a lower berth, which was much more spacious than the upper berth, and gave me early morning access to the window so I could watch the sun rise (last year Chewy and I both had upper berths with lower berth partners that wanted to sleep in).

Our last day in Bangkok was spent packing up, walking around town in the incredible heat and humidity (and dodging into AC malls whenever we could to cool off), eating at mall food courts (which have such better variety than american malls) - I enjoyed some banana wrapped in sticky rice, steamed veggie dumplings and a fried block of green goodness, eating street food, and a sports massage (to work out the incredible soreness that had set in from the tournament). We also tried to go to Chinatown but EVERY taxi wanted to charge us 200 baht, which seemed ridiculous. I will try to get a glimpse of it in one of our next transitions through BKK.

Over the weekend, I also played in the Bangkok Hat tournament. I was on team White (aka Whitefinger and Tighty Whities), captained by Dan, originally from North Carolina, former Ring of Fire player (been to Nationals 18 times), who's been living in Bangkok since October. Despite the stellar leadership, we ended up in last place on Saturday after a round robin. We had quite a few beginner's on the team and luck didn't go our way (losing in the hardcap in our first game 9-10). However, in Sunday's game we won 3 games in a row to find ourself in the finals! We lost Rob, another Seattlite that I had met (friend of Tucker's), who had to catch his flight home to go to work on Monday. Everyone was beat from the long games and intense heat, so we walked away with second place prizes (a medal and golf towel). Pictures

Tournament players included many from Vietnam (who I had played with at one practice while with Tuyet in HCMC), ex-pats living in BKK, Singapore, HK, local players, and other on short holiday or extended leave (like myself). It was easy to meet people as everyone's story was interesting. I even met a Softie living in Singapore, encouraging me to return to the company in Singapore (Jeff also tried to convince me it's possible to play ultimate in that kind of humidity - I have a hard time believing him - I think I would have to take up a new activity - as if any sport came with constant AC).

The tournament was one of the best organized hat tourneys I've been to. The field food was amazing (watermelon, bananas, red pears, juicy pineapple, thai food, bbq) and even more appreciated was the tent with Thai massages. The party also came catered and in a nice venue, with a great show put on by local talent, Ahn and Eddie (Angie and Tuyet got pictures of this).

That's about it for now - I am in the habit of working backwards and will have to describe the night in Hanoi and everything else beforehand later. I'm off to future travel planning now.

ps For those who can't wait, Angie has already posted pictures and Tuyet has some info about Hanoi and Da Nang.