Christmas Comes Early

Posted on 16 December 2010 by christao408

Friday evening, finished with work, I flew from Houston to Kansas City with a quick Southwest Airlines stop in Dallas. In other words, twenty minutes on the ground as one load of passengers deplaned and another load promptly took their place. At about 10:00 pm I was met at the KC airport by my father, who had decided to drive 9 hours from Indiana to see me.

We arrived at my sister and brother-in-law’s house well after the nieces had gone to bed, but did everything we could to keep the noise to a minimum, lest they wake up and have their surprise spoiled. I wrapped their Christmas presents and placed them – “From Santa” – under the tree before going to bed.

About 7:00 Saturday morning I came upstairs from the basement guest room to find the two girls, going on ages 5 and 8, glued to the cartoons. “Good morning,” I said. They turned around and for a moment you could see the wheels turning as they tried to process the disconnect between what they were seeing and what they knew to be true: that their uncle was thousands of miles away in Thailand.

The youngest niece actually turned back to the TV before doing a double-take that would have been at home in a slapstick comedy. “How did you get here?!” she asked.

I made my case that Santa had brought me along with the presents. To prove my point, I used as evidence the photo of me and Santa that had been taken the night before as part of a Southwest Airlines / Microsoft promotion at Houston Hobby Airport. For any number of reasons, they were skeptical of this evidence. “He looks like family,” the older niece said.

Here is a four-minute video of the present opening, if you would care to watch it. I imagine relatives will be more interested than most of you will be, but it has a few cute comments made with the sheer innocence that only children can.

If you elected not to watch the video, here were their presents:

Ava received the larger hedgehog (which she has named “Judy”), a beachball sized stuffed animal that took up half my suitcase and made it inexplicably light for the baggage handlers. This one matches a smaller hedgehog we gave her on a previous visit, of which she was convinced she already had the larger one of the pair.

Emily received a Hello Kitty watch – her first watch ever as she is now finally able to tell time – and a stuffed tiger that was a Christmas gift from one of my colleagues, but which will have a more loving home in Kansas City than in Bangkok.

We had lunch with my grandparents and uncle and then after running several errands we met another family friend for dinner at Lidia’s Italian restaurant in downtown. Andy and Sugi were unfortunately not able to drive down from Omaha to join us as they were experiencing blizzard conditions.

That evening, Emily practiced reading (she has become very proficient and devours chapter books) with “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” while Ava (in her “To Wong Foo with Love, Julie Newmar” outfit) practiced her alphabet, shouting triumphantly, “Look! I drew an ‘h’!”

After putting the girls to bed and saying my goodbyes, I reloaded my bags, filling the void left by the hedgehog with cans of chipotles and tomatillos. By midnight I was in bed for a few hours’ sleep before an early trip to the airport at 4:00 am.

Delta BKK-IAH and MCI-BKK

Posted on 15 December 2010 by christao408

The past week’s business trip to the United States was brutal. Some helpful wag calculated that of the total trip time, 29.4% of it was spent in transit to/from the US. The formula, for those of you looking for it, was (60 hrs / (60+(6*24))). I’ll share a little bit about the trip over the next few posts, starting with some information about the flights themselves.

Above, a reflection of a Delta 747 at Tokyo’s Narita Airport.

My trip was on Delta Airlines, which offered the cheapest economy class prices by far for the dates I needed to travel. While my company’s policy is business class on flights over 8 hours, I did not qualify for this as technically my agreement with the company is that they will not pay to fly me to the US for meetings at all, since I chose to relocate outside the country. That’s okay – I appreciate simply having a job!

I worked very hard to avoid being routed on one of the planes shown above because the economy class experience on them is very out-of-date. (This holds true for United Airlines’ 747, too.) Instead, I routed myself through Seattle so I would be able to fly on the more up-to-date A330, which features power ports in the front half of economy class and individual seat-back screens and on-demand audio and video throughout the cabin.

My experience on Delta was mixed. The hard product itself – seats, food, entertainment, etc. – was fine although not amazing. For the Bangkok to Tokyo and Tokyo to Seattle segments I was able to get an aisle seat in the front half of the economy cabin, so had about an extra inch of leg room and access to the power ports so I could work on my computer without draining the battery. Additionally, I had an empty seat next to me on both flights. The seats are actually pretty comfortable and the adjustable headrest does a decent job of cradling your head if you try to doze.

Breakfast out of Bangkok – omelet, potatoes, and sausage with fruit and yogurt.

Pre-landing snack – chicken and cheese croissant – before arriving in Tokyo.

On the flight out of Bangkok (6 hours), I traveled with one of the three guests from Kansas City who had been in town the previous two weeks. Since he slept most of the flight, it was okay that we were a few rows apart. While in Tokyo we had a few hours transit time so we ate some ramen at an okay snack shop. The Narita Airport has nice facilities but the food selection within the secure area of the terminal is only okay. There are better restaurants in the public area of the main terminal.

Out of Tokyo for the eight-hour flight to Seattle, I purchased the above box from the noodle shop to supplement the meal served on the flight. What was inside?

P1080164

This lovely katsu (fried pork cutlet) sandwich! Oddly enough, the bread doesn’t get greasy or soggy at all, even though it sits in the box for a few hours. It was really, really satisfying to eat mid-flight.

This was the meal served out of Tokyo, beef and (reconstituted) mashed potatoes with a shrimp appetizer and mixed green salad. The best thing about the meal was the coconut sponge cake. Portion size is fine and the quality was decent.

Mid-flight they served a slice of banana bread as a snack. Pre-arrival to Seattle (which was early morning) there was a breakfast sandwich which was quite greasy.

Arriving in Seattle for immigration and customs worked very nicely. Ours was the first flight of the day, arriving shortly after 7:30 am. There was no line at immigration and within about twenty-five minutes of landing I had my bags, was through customs, and had dropped the bags on the through-checked belt to continue to Houston.

With about three hours between flights, I had time for a friend to meet me for breakfast at a nearby restaurant, which was a nice opportunity for a brief catch-up. While there, she gave me a gift she had been holding for me for many months: a pair of banneton, wicker bread proofing baskets that I had talked to her about at some point in the past. This was a funny and much-appreciated gift I will have to blog about soon.

After a busy week in Houston, I flew Southwest Airlines up to Kansas City. In order to construct the least-expensive ticket I could, I routed myself on an “open jaw” ticket on Delta, flying from Bangkok to Houston and then returning from Kansas City to Bangkok. A $100 ticket on Southwest connected the open part of the jaw, resulting in about $350 savings for my employer. This also gave me the opportunity to fly out of Houston Hobby Airport, the smaller airport on the south side of downtown that is nearly monopolized by Southwest.

As part of a promotion with Microsoft Windows, Southwest was offering free pictures of Santa (that came with a brief demonstration of some new photo editing feature from Microsoft). These came with a coupon for $20 off your next Southwest flight (before the end of March). Of course, who could resist getting their picture taken with Santa?

In fact, this picture provided useful evidence the next day when I explained to my nieces how I had managed to make it to Kansas City from Thailand. More on that tomorrow.

After just 30 hours in Kansas City and an overnight inch of snow, I headed for my return trip to Bangkok. The 6:00 am flight out of KC to Salt Lake City was delayed for more than a half-hour thanks to a string of mishaps by Delta. First there was the fact that the potable water in the water trucks was frozen – no coffee or tea and no water for washing hands in the lavatory. (Thankfully they had sanitizing hand gel.) It had been below freezing all of Saturday so why they didn’t leave the heaters on overnight is a mystery to me.

On top of it, the tow bar froze to the aircraft so it took them several minutes of dousing with antifreeze to get it unstuck. You would think Delta has never conducted winter operations out of Kansas City!

The long and short of it is that I missed my connecting flight from Salt Lake City to Seattle. Thankfully I was rebooked on a later flight (and upgraded to first class) that got me into Seattle in time for my connection to Tokyo. However, my layover was no longer long enough to meet with my aunt and uncle for breakfast in Seattle, something I had intentionally scheduled.

Above, the A330 for my flight at a drizzly Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The flight from Seattle to Tokyo was ten hours long, delayed for more than a half-hour because of electrical problems at the check-in podium. In fact, the Seattle operations were a disorganized mess. On the flight itself, I was able to get a bulkhead aisle seat, ensuring that nobody would recline into my personal space, which made the flight reasonable comfortable. I slept for about five hours, waking every so often then dozing off again.

The service was spotty with a crew that was generally unfriendly. One flight attendant, Jamie, had a sour lemon expression the entire flight. During the flight she handed me things (food, water, etc.) a dozen times and each time I made the effort to give her a cheery “thank you”. You see, I think it is my responsibility as a customer to initiate the friendly service I would like to receive. Not once did she say ‘thank you” or acknowledge me in any way, verbal or nonverbal. Terrible, unfriendly service.

Now another flight attendant, Ann, was the complete opposite. She was cheerful and friendly, patting me on the shoulder when I declined a mid-flight treat of an ice cream sandwich (“They taste mighty good in the middle of the flight!” she advised) and laughing with other passengers throughout the service. I am going to write a letter to Delta and offer praise for Ann and a note of concern about Jamie. If even half of Delta flight attendants were as friendly as Ann, I would probably fly them regularly.

The final segment, Tokyo to Bangkok, was delayed by more than an hour. I had time in Tokyo to use the public showers ($10 for thirty minutes) which makes for a nice mid-trip refresh, and also had a chance to get a bite to eat. Comparing the two adjacent concourses, United’s operation out of Tokyo is much more organized and professional than Delta’s, using better signage to explain the boarding process and has a generally more updated look to the gate areas.

I landed at Suvarnabhumi Airport at 12:10 Tuesday morning. Here’s a tip to help you deal with immigration lines: there are two immigration areas at the Bangkok airport and there are monitors outside each showing what the lines at the other area look like. It is worth the walk of about 150 meters to go to the other immigration area if the queues are shorter. I ended up clearing immigration and customs in less than forty minutes, which for late night at Suvarnabhumi is quite good.

Tawn picked me up and I was home and in bed by 2:30, exhausted and glad to be back. More in the next few days about the Kansas City portion of the trip.

Jet Lag

Posted on 8 December 2010 by christao408

Day three in Houston. Meetings all day long in a florescent lit, gray carpeted industrial park building. Jet lag has been manageable, thanks to Tylenol PM and an avoidance of caffeine in the afternoons and high doses of it in the morning. Have been to bed by 10:00 each night, woken up about 3:00 and forced myself to turn over and get a few more hours of sleep.

Having to use lots of eye drops to counteract the red, tired eyes. Am enjoying seeing my colleagues and meeting new ones, thankful that my company sees the value in flying me over here. Very taxing, though.

BBC Book List

Posted on 8 December 2010 by christao408

This is making the rounds on facebook but I thought I would share it here. I enjoy reading and while I don’t have nearly as much time to read as I once did, it remains a favorite pastime and one for which I am indebted to my parents. They made reading a regular activity from my earliest days and all through my childhood we went as a family to the public library every other Friday evening after dinner.

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES.
Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety
Italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read an excerpt.

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (all)
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Bible
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
His Dark Materials/The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
Bleak House – Charles Dickens
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
Emma – Jane Austen
Persuasion – Jane Austen
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
Animal Farm – George Orwell
The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
Dune – Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
On The Road – Jack Kerouac
Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
Dracula – Bram Stoker
The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
Germinal – Emile Zola
Vanity Fair – William Make
Possession – AS Byatt
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
Charlotte’s Web – EB White
The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
Watership Down – Richard Adams
A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
Hamlet – William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

So, what about you? What have you read? What would you like to read? What would you like to go back and read again? There are many I would like to go back and read and others I would love to read again.

Wi-Fi at 35,000 Feet

Posted on 6 December 2010 by christao408

I’ve been flying for 22 hours, first from Bangkok to Tokyo and then after a two-hour layover in Tokyo, onwards to Seattle. On both flights I had an aisle seat in economy with an empty seat next to me. Having that extra empty seat was nice as it gave me the shoulder and arm room to be comfortable. All in all, Delta’s economy class product on its A330 (formerly a Northwest Airlines plane) is pretty good.

Seattle proved to be an enormously convenient first point-of-entry into the US. As the only international flight at the time, clearing immigration and customs was a piece of cake and I was curbside thirty minutes after we pulled into the gate.

With a three-hour layover in Seattle, a friend of mine from SF International Asian American Film Festival days met me for breakfast at a restaurant across the street from the terminal. Nice to catch up with her and she had a little gift for me, which I’ll write about later.

On the way to my gate, I ran into a colleague who is flying in from Canada, on the way to Houston for the same meeting I’m attending. We’ve never actually met in person before, but he recognized my picture. I guess I’m well-publicized!

Right now I’m enjoying free wi-fi aboard the Alaska Airlines from to Houston, courtesy of Honda. Please go buy a Honda so they can afford to give out more free wi-fi. Ha ha…

Warning – If You Are My Niece, Don’t Read This

Posted on 5 December 2010 by christao408

In eleven hours, at 5:40 Monday morning, I depart Bangkok for a six-day business trip to Houston. This is my first business trip in five years, but I am no stranger to them. For the four years prior to moving to Bangkok, I traveled more than 100,000 miles a year on business. When I moved here, though, my employer laid out the condition that while they would be flexible with allowing me to work (very, very) remotely, they would not be paying for me to fly back to the US for meetings.

Since then, my manager and team members have regularly scheduled meetings around my visits back to the US, resulting in trips that frequently mix business and leisure. This time, though, the company is paying for the trip. A year and a half ago we were acquired by another large company. While the integration has gone smoothly, we have a new Vice President for our division, several new regional personnel, and have not met as an entire team in two years. When I first heard there would be a meeting, I checked prices and made the pitch. Thankfully, I have known the new VP for most of my ten years with the company and he ran the price to the top of the flag pole to get approval.

Now, the downside is that I’m not being flown business class. Asking them to spend five times the airfare of any other employee is enough. But I’m glad to have this opportunity to reconnect with colleagues, meet new ones, and be present at what promises to be an important meeting as we move into a new chapter of our company’s history.

Plus, it will give me a chance to play Santa Claus. You see, the meeting is only Tuesday through Friday, but tickets without a Saturday night stay-over were $500 more expensive than if I stayed until Sunday. To save the company money, I routed my travel from Houston to Kansas City on Friday evening, so will get two nights and a day with my family.

You see, last year we gave my youngest niece, Ava, a small plush hedgehog, something a friend of ours gave us. She loved it and noticed that on the tag, there was a picture of two hedgehogs, one smaller than the other. Interestingly, she assumed that she had received the large hedgehog and promptly announced that she wanted the baby hedgehog, too.

Little does she realize that she actually has the baby hedgehog. Pictured above is the bigger hedgehog, also a gift from the same friend.

The question was, how to pack it? Thankfully, US carriers (yes, I’m stuck on Delta – bleh!) allow international passengers two checked bags, so I’m bringing a second bag for most of my clothes and using this larger primarily for the hedgehog. The end result:

Oh, and Ava and her sister Emily don’t know that I’m coming for a visit. Hopefully everyone there has kept it a secret and they’ll be very surprised on Saturday morning when they wake up.

So for the next few days I may be out of orbit on Xanga. My apologies in advance. I actually have some more food porn from Phuket to share with you.

Return to La Gaetana Phuket

Posted on 4 December 2010 by christao408

When we were in Phuket a year ago October, our friends Stuart and Piyawat took us to an amazing Italian restaurant called La Gaetana. What sets it apart from other restaurants is that the owner, Polermo native Gianni, takes such tremendous pride in his business and pleasure in serving his guests.

When Piyawat made the reservations, I don’t know if he mentioned that dinner was for friends who were visiting again, but Gianni greeted me so warmly that I felt like a neighbor who had been away for a year and returned.

Instead of essentially re-writing the entry from the first visit, I’ll just cut and paste key portions of it here along with some new pictures.

“… The venue was this hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant called La Gaetana. And let me tell you, it was without question the best dining experience I have had in Thailand.

That may sound like hyperbole, but Polermo native Gianni and his Thai wife Chonchita run the most charming of restaurants with the most attentive service I’ve ever received in the Land of Smiles. The restaurant, located in a warmly decorated 80-year old building, seats just 32 so reservations are a must.

The food is great, atmosphere is cute, etc. but what really makes the experience worthwhile is the passion with which Gianni and his staff, many of whom have worked there for years, attend to your needs. His tableside bottle-opening and decanting is a show in and of itself, and illustrates just how much care is given to each detail of the dining experience.

Here’s a video that shows it all.

…

This is exactly what I could imagine myself doing in the future. Running my own small restaurant in some idyllic town, spending my days making my guests happy and ensuring they enjoy excellent food, wine and service.”

And now, pictures from dinner the other night:

Gianni opens a bottle of champagne, chilling the glasses with ice, as Matt looks on.

Antipasto platter with meats, vegetables, and cheese.

Assorted crostini – small toasts with chopped tomatoes or fresh cheese and pesto on top.

Grilled portobella mushrooms with gorgonzola cheese.

Lamb ribs, beautifully cooked, with a side of homemade gnocchi in tomato and eggplant sauce.

For dessert, apple tarte tatin with vanilla ice cream.

After we left the restaurant, I noticed that the Chinese temple across the street was showing an outdoor movie, with a screen set up in the parking lot and the film being projected from a portable 35mm projector in a tent at the back of the lot. This is the way it was done in the old days – and to some extent, still is – in the countryside.

A view from the inside of the temple compound looking towards the screen. Rather a sparse crowd this evening.

Trip to the Andaman Opera Suite Phuket

Posted on 2 December 2010 by christao408

Three nights away from Krungthep was just what we (and our guests!) needed. We stayed at the Andaman Opera Suite located on Mai Khao Beach on the far north end of Phuket island. A year ago October we stayed at this three-unit condo which we knew as the Black Pearl. It turns out that each of the units, which are owned by a trio of couples, has a different name. The Black Pearl is one of the downstairs units and the Andaman Opera Suite is the the upstairs unit.

Since the Black Pearl was unavailable, its owners suggested we call the agent that handles the Andaman Opera Suite. It turned out to be a great move and was plenty of room for five adults, although the master bedroom suite (in which the three guests stayed) has only a sheer curtain between the bedroom and the shower portion of the bathroom, so this required a little coordination.

Here are photos from the website. I figured they are so much nicer than anything I could shoot, so why duplicate efforts?

The kitchen turned out to be rather well-stocked, enough to prepare a couple of meals at home.

Mixed grill – dry brined pork chops and a variety of German sausages.

Brownies! I cheated and used a mix. Seemed silly to buy cocoa powder just for one batch.

For our third evening, we stopped at the local market and picked up some fresh seafood, herbs, and vegetables to make a nice dinner.

Before and after: a snapper-like fish stuffed with lemongrass, dill, and galangal root, with kaffir lime leaves and a butter-soy-lime sauce. Wrapped in foil and baked 25 minutes.

Chicken biryani from one of the vendors at the market. Tasty!

Tawn’s own contribution: tom yum goong soup, a spicy chili-tamarand shrimp soup with coconut milk and herbs. Tawn held back on the chili to spare the guests.

Before we chow down for dinner on our final night: me, Tawn, Jack, Craig, and Matt.

HIV Positive

Posted on 1 December 2010 by christao408

December 1st is World AIDS Day. A few days ago a friend shared with me a video by singer Annie Lennox in which she talks about her SING campaign raising awareness for women and children suffering from HIV/AIDS. In the video, Ms. Lennox appears in a t-shirt that boldly proclaims “HIV Positive” on the front.

Now, the fact of the matter is that she is not HIV positive. Her point, though, is that the disease continues to be stigmatize those who are infected. This stigma is unwarranted and negatively impacts both the quality of life and the access to treatment for people with HIV.

The video and t-shirt got me to thinking. Why is it that when I considered whether I would wear one of these shirts, I had a momentary hesitation? I comfortably wear t-shirts that proclaim all sorts of other things, but what reactions might I experience if I wore this shirt? That hesitation highlighted for me that the stigma remains very real and something we must all continue to work to erase.

May the need for a World AIDS Day soon be no more.

Bicycle Riding in Phra Pradaeng

Posted on 30 November 2010 by christao408

Since our guests are adventurous, outdoorsy sorts, I arranged for a half-day bicycle tour of the “Bangkok Jungle” through Spiceroads. Located just across the river from the Khlong Toei district (which includes the part of Sukhumvit Road that I live in), this jungle is just that – an isolated and undeveloped section of the larger metropolitan area. Joining us were a pair of expats, one American and the other British, who I know.

The reason that Phra Pradaeng, the green patch nearly encircled by the Chao Phraya River, has avoided development is that it is actually part of Samut Prakan province instead of Bangkok. Zoning laws were enacted to limit development in this section of the province. The area is often referred to as the “lungs of Bangkok” and includes a large public park.

Our starting point for the tour was a restaurant near the Thong Lo BTS Skytrain station. We rode through a little bit of city traffic, although mostly on back sois (alleys), and then through the slum area of Khlong Toei down near the port. Finally, we boarded a long-tail boat and left the city behind.

On the other side of the river, any sign of the hustle and bustle of the nation’s capital quickly melted away as we rode along small roads and elevated concrete paths through banana, coconut, and lychee plantations. Except for the occasional view of a skyscraper peeking over the horizon, you could easily forget where you were.

We had time for several breaks, seeing some of the local sites (which are limited), feeding the fish in the park, and trying a Thai snack of sticky rice and starchy bananas steamed in banana leaf.

Back at the pier as we waited for our boat, some local children swam in the edge of the river, showing off for us by performing ever more daring stunts. Here, a double flip into murky waters.

Back near our starting point, I peeked in the front gate of a complex that is usually closed. I don’t know what it is, but it looks almost like a shinto temple. Very beautiful.