Role Playing in Hua Hin

Posted on 6 August 2010 by christao408

By profession, I am a trainer. I have a wide range of background experience but people development (and managing people development) is where my heart and skill lies. When Tawn’s boss found this out, I was invited to join part of their team for a weekend training session in Hua Hin. Their industry is Public Relations, their training was about creating client value, and they needed someone to play the role of a prospective client for some of the training exercises.

Glowing lanterns (in a vaguely northern Thai style) in the early evening.

Hua Hin is a popular beach resort about a three-hour drive southwest of Krungthep (Bangkok). It is the home of His Majesty the King’s beach palace and so is a much cleaner and more desirable place than, say, Pattaya. In the past few years Hua Hin has also become much too popular and is now overgrown with high end hotels and fancy resorts. In other words, it has gone upscale and lost the inexpensiveness and carefree charm that made it a fun getaway spot for locals. Still, it retains its good weather, nice ambience, lovely beach, and tasty seafood. So who was I to refuse an all expenses paid two night trip to a beach resort there?

Beach, pool area, and the restored 90-year old teak house, right.

I’ll write more about the food in the coming days, but let me share some pictures of the resort. The resort, called Baan Talay Dao (“Home of the Sea and Stars”) centers around an authentic 90-year old teak wood house in which the training was held. It is a smaller resort, family owned and operated, and has probably been in operation for years and years. With the sprucing up of the rest of Hua Hin, it looks like they made a lot of effort sometime in the past few years to freshen up the resort’s facade and it now has a “boutique” look and feel.

Private villas – note the grotto with the Virgin Mary in it, which you don’t see all that often here in Thailand!

The property includes a combination of town-house style two-story buildings along with individual villas closer to the beach. The buildings are well-maintained and the landscaping is very lush. Inside the rooms, though, you can see the age of the facility. Not because things aren’t well maintained – they are – but simply because of the amenities offered and the roughness of the construction. I’ve seen this a lot in these boutique resorts in Thailand and that is why the price is $50-150 less a night than, say, the Intercontinental, the Sheraton, or the Marriott.

The townhouse section of the resort faces a reflecting fish pond and some beautiful trees.

There is a full-service restaurant downstairs from the teak house and you can either sit in the shade underneath or out in the open air overlooking the beach. Their breakfast buffet is pretty impressive for a small resort and the dinner I ate the first night – a curried seafood dish called hor mok talay – was one of the best things I’ve eaten this month.

Hua Hin is on the western side of the Gulf of Thailand hidden against a ridge of mountains on the narrow isthmus that is shared between Thailand and Myanmar. The benefit of this ridge of mountains is that the frightening storm clouds that blow over them tend not to drop their rain on Hua Hin, instead continuing up the Gulf and gathering more force before dropping their rain closer to Krungthep. This made for some very pleasant (and pleasantly breezy) late afternoons and early evenings as I enjoyed the relatively cool temperatures and watched the clouds, excpecting them to let fat drops of rain fall on me in response. Thankfully, this didn’t happen.

The path to the beach.

The two days of training were pleasant. I had met most of Tawn’s colleagues on several occassions before (he wasn’t at the training, though) and so it was a pleasure to spend more time with them. Not only did I learn a lot about the PR industry, which was fascinating, but I discovered that as a group they are the biggest foodies (sea-foodies, to be precise) I’ve met in Thailand, which is why I’ll write about the food in a later entry.

Food in BKK: Rex Hotel

Posted on 6 July 2010 by christao408

Yesterday I promised a retro meal and this is just the place for it: the Rex Hotel, an establishment that dates from the 1960s, one of a large number of hotels that offered fixed rates for foreign GIs who were on rest and relaxation breaks during the Vietnam War. The Rex Hotel is still in business, still owned by the original family, in fact. It has undergone some remodels but has never lost that 1960s charm. Its coffee shop, the Rexa Coffee Hall, is still famous for its khao tom, boiled rice.

Located on Sukhumvit Road between Sukhumvit Soi 32 and 34, the Rex Hotel is just a short walk from the Thong Lo BTS Skytrain station.

Despite fresh coats of paint, the Rexa Coffee Hall screams 1960s with its delightfully unselfconscious menu design, booth upholstery, and table dividers.

We ate at an off hour and there was only one other group dining. The Rex Hotel focuses mostly on package tour groups these days and with tourism way down, I’m sure there is a low occupancy level. Notice the staff, wearing the classic red jackets and bow ties.

The Rexa Coffee Hall has a wide menu of both Thai and Western items – eight types of sandwiches, for example – all of which are decent without being flashy and all of which are inexpensive. They are most famous for their boiled rice, khao tom, a Thai breakfast favorite. The rice porridge is served with a variety of side dishes. You can mix and match to get whatever flavors you want to contrast with the backdrop of bland rice.

One must-try is jab chai, which literally means “leftovers”. A mixture of whatever is left over, the Rexa’s version includes bitter greens stewed with tofu, pork belly, and chicken feet. Not very pretty but it is very tasty.

Pad tua ngoc – Bean sprouts stir-fried with pork and tofu. Clean flavors and very refreshing.

Kai jiaow – omelet with fried pork Omelets here are fried in plenty of oil but they always seem to come out without being oily. I guess they keep the pan really hot.

Finally, my choice, some gun chien tod – Fried sweet Chinese sausage

The Rexa is going to get some return visits from me. With a menu so inexpensive and varied and a location so close to my home, it would be a good break for when I need to get out of the house for lunch.

I’m on my way to the United States today so there may be a few days without an entry. Stay tuned, though. Next stop, Omaha.

Nongmon Market in Chonburi

Posted on 5 July 2010 by christao408

In yesterday’s post about eating seafood, I mentioned that after eating we went for a stroll through the adjacent market. Nongmon Market is in Chonburi province, a coastal province southeast of Bangkok. Like all markets, there is a lot to see, plenty of pictures to take, and not a few things to try eating … if you are brave enough!

A view down one section of the market, which stretches over several blocks. It is a busy place and if you aren’t careful you could easily get run down by a motorbike.

It is all about the fresh seafood. Here are some very large prawns, ready to be grilled.

There are many kinds of fish available. I watched for a minute as this skilled fishmonger quickly cut the tails and fins off the fish, moving as rapidly as a machine.

There were bushels full of hoy dong – marinated/pickled clams that are a popular dish.

Lots of vendors sell hor mok – a fish mousse steamed in a banana leaf or mussel shell. Tawn made this for me using salmon shortly after he moved to San Francisco in late 2000. It was tasty, but I have to say that he struggled to find a banana leaf to use.

Visiting the market is fun for the entire family – especially when you can get four members of the family squeezed onto a motorbike. See the second child in there?

A sweet treat called khanom jaak – The leaf is”bai jak”, a type of palm frond. A mixture of shredded coconut, palm sugar, and coconut milk is folded inside the leaf then it is grilled until it becomes a sticky, toffee-like mass. Tasty stuff. Watch out for the staples.

Dried shrimp – Thais use these in dishes like nam prik (chili dipping sauce) and som tam (green papaya salad) to add a salty and fishy flavor.

A fruit vendor slicing up fruit to go. The orange fruit above the pineapple is called gratawn – a summer fruit with a bitter, tangy exterior layer of flesh. Closer to the seed it is very sweet with a cottony flesh. The bananas in the lower right are known as gluay nam waa, which has a sticky flesh similar to a plantain. There are many different varieties of banana here.

Finally a dessert called khanom chan – “layer dessert” – a jello-like dessert, very auspicious for promotions and other things where you go up a level. The green flavor is pandan leaf and blue flavor is an-chan, a type of flower also known as clitoria ternatea.

I hope you enjoyed the stroll through the market. Tomorrow, a retro 60s meal back in Bangkok.

Dining in Chonburi: Seafood Extravaganza

Posted on 4 July 2010 by christao408

The family of one of Tawn’s university friends owns a famous seafood restaurant in Chonburi province, about a 90-minute drive southeast of Bangkok. In all the years he has known her, Tawn has never been down to visit the restaurant. A few weeks ago we decided to finally accept the friend’s offer and drove to the restaurant. It was, to say the least, a seafood extravaganza.

The unassuming restaurant is in a busy market area near the Gulf of Thailand. An open-air shop house, the restaurant looks like it has been there for ages, which it has. It is clean but not fancy. The counter between the kitchen and the dining area is lined with bottles of their homemade chili sauce, a Warhol-esque decorating statement. Large photos of the dishes on the menu line the walls.

The first thing to be placed on the granite tables are a trio of sauces: the homemade chili on the left, a sweet “plum” sauce in the back, and a fish sauce with chilies. The small green chilies in the fish sauces are called prik kii nuu in Thai – literally, “mouse shit chilies”.

The restaurant’s specialty is a kind of seafood sausage, if you will. It comes in two types: Hoy jaew is the round one, and is made of crab meat; Hae gun is the flat one and is made of shrimp. Both are wrapped in tofu skins and steamed then deep fried.

Another batch almost ready to come out of the deep-fryer.

And interior shot of the hoy jaw – basically a crab cake. Large chunks of fresh crab meat.

Another menu item the restaurant is famous for is the bpuu jaa – crab shells stuffed with a mixture of crab meat and pork, then fried. The flavor is especially good at this restaurant because they mix the meat with coconut milk.

Goong ob wuun sen – baked vermicelli with prawns with a sauce made from oyster sauce, cilantro, and ginger. The secret ingredient is pork fat, which lines the clay pot to prevent ingredients from sticking while the dish is baked. As it is served, the dish is stirred and the melted pork fat is distributed over the noodles, which absorbs it. Yummy!

Tom yum talae – Traditionally “tom yum” soup with fresh seafood. Moderately spicy with a tamarind flavored broth.

Khao pad bpuu – Stir fried rice with crab meat. The owner spoiled us by making it stir fried crab meat with a little bit of rice in it. Tasty!

Plaa muk kai tod gratiam – Young squid that are filled with squid roe, fried in a sweet sauce and topped with fried garlic.

Plaa tod – Cotton fish filleted and fried…

and topped with yam mamuang – a sauce of green mango, carrots, cilantro, chilies, and dried shrimp mixed with fish sauce and lime juice. Perfect with the fish and not as spicy as you might expect.

The star of the show, a basket of steamed crab!

The mother of Tawn’s friend as an expert at cracking and peeling crab. She sat there at the table and opened a half-dozen crabs for us, making the choice bits easily accessible. Normally, crab is something I won’t bother with if I have to peel the shells and pick out the meat myself because it seems more work than it is worth. But with an expert peeling them – well, I’m all in!

Sauce of death! Chilies (loads of the “mouse shit” variety) blended with lime juice, fish sauce, and not much else. This is super spicy. And really good with the crab meat.

The strange interior membrane of the crab, which I was encouraged to try. Very astringent, briny flavor and not something I’ll have again.

For the most part, the food wasn’t very spicy but was really tasty. The sauce for the crab, though, is just spicy. There’s no two ways about it. This required a lot of water with lots of ice to cool down the mouth!

Growing up in the US, I didn’t eat a lot of seafood while I was growing up. I only came to appreciate it once I started having really fresh seafood prepared in simple ways that emphasize the freshness and flavor of the meat. Needless to say, this restaurant reinforced all the great things about seafood.

For dessert, some khanom niaow – basically, a Thai-style mochi (pounded sticky rice) served with a palm sugar sauce and fried cooked rice.

After lunch we strolled around the local market. I’ll share those photos tomorrow.

How Elephants Drink and Dance

Posted on 26 June 2010 by christao408

Two bits of video I want to share with you from the Samphran Elephant Grounds: an elephant using her trunk to drink from the tap, and another elephant dancing in her pen to the Mission: Impossible theme.

Random Pics and the Puzzle Answer

Posted on 23 June 2010 by christao408

Here are some random pictures I took while showing the Clevelands around. These didn’t fit into the storyline so I saved them for a separate entry. I hope you enjoy them.

And on the off chance that any of you attempted the crossword puzzle I posted yesterday, here are the answers:

Top Secret Assignment – Final Day

Posted on 21 June 2010 by christao408

Agents E and C concluded their four days of top secret assignments on Father’s Day. We went out to a nice brunch at another hotel to celebrate and while waiting for Uncle Tawn to show up from yoga class, they completed their last assignment, a “final report” to headquarters.

To verify their identity, though, they had to complete the following puzzle to prove that they are the actual secret agents to complete the mission. After all, there were a lot of double agents out there and more than enough subterfuge to fill a bathtub.

The only hint you should need is that they stayed at the Windsor Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. The rest you might be able to figure out on your own. I’ll print the answers tomorrow.

After brunch I drove to the secret agents and their father back to our condo where they started running some loads of laundry in preparation for their trip to China the next day. Meanwhile there was time for a few hours of playing around in the pool. I’ve concluded that young people will pretty much enjoy any vacation so long as there is a pool to play in. Which begs the question, why bother to travel halfway around the world?

While the agents were showering and changing into fresh clothes after their swim, I baked a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies. Thankfully, there were a few people willing to taste test them. Meanwhile, Tawn took Donna to the Jim Thompson outlet for some silk souvenir shopping.

As the afternoon progressed, we broke out a deck of Uno, playing with modified rules that made the game much more competitive. Whenever someone plays a “zero” card, for example, all players pass their hand in the direction of play. So you end up having to change your strategy again and again while playing.

As dinnertime approached, Agents E and C were pulled into service, helping prepare salad and grate cheese for pizzas.

Then they learned how to press out their own pizza dough from a batch of dough that I started the day before. Each of them created their favorite type of pizza – ham and pineapple for Agent E and olive and pineapple for Agent C.

It turns out that the top secret agents also have some cooking skills. Agent C, left, had tried to arrange her toppings in the shape of a cat’s face, although I think it is hard to tell the eyes and the whiskers apart.

We enjoyed a nice home-cooked dinner to conclude their visit, complete with some more oatmeal cookies and vanilla ice cream for dessert.

The next morning, bright and early, I picked the Clevelands up from their hotel and drove them out to the airport. After checking them in we snapped this final picture. As we were checking in, Donna told me that Agents E and C didn’t want to leave Thailand. But I’m sure they will have a great time with their schoolmates on a three-week excursion in China.

Top Secret Assignment Day 4

Posted on 21 June 2010 by christao408

Agents E and C continued with their last major assignment, a reconnaissance mission to scope out the markets and wildlife of central Thailand. Their destination: the Samphran Elephant Grounds and Amphawa Floating Market.

We drove about an hour west of Bangkok to Nakhon Pathom province, home of the Samphran Elephant Ground and Zoo, a popular sightseeing stop both for foreign visitors as well as Thais. I guess we could invite the animal rights experts to debate the merits of this type of attraction, in which elephants and other animals are on display and put through their paces in shows. The upside is that it gives people a chance to interact with and, hopefully, appreciate these creatures and why it is important that their habitats be preserved.

Agents E and C didn’t have any particular assignments at this first stop, other than to feed the elephants. It is easy to be awed by how strong and how smart these animals are. They are also very playful. One of the adults liked dancing in her pen to the rhythm of the music playing from the magic show in the nearby stadium. She was doing this on her own, with no guidance from her mahout, or trainer.

Agent C got on well with one of the baby elephants…

…but I think she got a little “carried away” by the baby’s mother!

A unintentionally psychedelic photo when I had the wrong setting on the camera and twisted it while taking the picture.

One of the babies (nine months old, in fact) hoped to borrow my camera.

Even Tawn got into the act, getting a big hug from one of the elephants.

In the elephant show, we learned about the history of elephants in Thai culture, including their use in logging, an occupation that is pretty much extinct, leading to the problem of too many elephants and too little designated land where they can roam wild.

We also learned about elephants’ role as weapons of war, featuring a silly little skit complete with low-tech pyrotechnics to simulate the Thais’ victory over the Burmese. Actually, at that point in history it would have been the Siamese’s victory.

The park also featured crocodile pools and a show with two “croc whisperers” who perform all sorts of feats with the large and lazy reptiles. No doubt the water is kept at a temperature that fosters a sedate mood, lessening the chance that one of the handlers loses a hand…

…or a head!

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from Agent E and C’s visit is that it is the small things that really provide young people with the most fun. A half-hour spent paddling around the lush landscaping in an aged paddle boat provided an adventure for them and a respite for the adults. The swan looks like it has had some plastic surgery, maybe a beak job.

After the elephant grounds, we hopped into the car and drove through a small rain storm on our way to the floating market in Amphawa, Samut Songkhram province. Along the way we stopped at a roadside cafe that I used to frequent in the days when I volunteered as an English teacher in this province, so as to enjoy several types of fried rice.

Because there were a lot of other events going on this weekend (including World Cup) the market was busy but not overcrowded as sometimes happens. As the sun was setting, we rented a long-tail boat and took a tour along the canals and river for a chance to see what country like along the water looks like.

Along the way, we were able to find many trees and bushes along the banks that were full of the fireflies for which this area is famous.

Back at the market, everything was bustling as people ate dinner and snacked on local specialties, including grilled prawns and squid that are among the freshest you’ll ever eat.

The bulk of day 4’s assignment was to try new fruits, foods, and desserts, of which the market has plenty. We went from vendor to vendor, looking at the many different items for sale, trying to guess what they were, and sampling many of them. Above, Agents E and C, along with their father, try some fresh young coconuts.

Uncle Tawn picked up several types of fruit for them to try. By the end of the evening, the agents had fulfilled their assignment and had tasted (although not always enjoyed) many new edible items.

We headed back to Bangkok that evening with full stomachs, heavy eyelids, and many new memories.

Top Secret Assignment Day 3

Posted on 19 June 2010 by christao408

Agents C and E, the 8- and 10-year old children of my visiting childhood friend Brad and his wife Donna, continued their top secret assignments, learning more about Thailand while gathering intelligence for Agent X back at headquarters.

While Agent C was concerned that the integrity of the operation had been compromised when pictures of it appeared on my blog, they decided to continue with Day 3’s assignment: to do reconnaissance of the transportation infrastructure. This involved taking at least five different types of transportation and then drawing pictures of each type and describing them in a “report.”

The assignment started with another code breaking exercise to discover the destination of the trip: Mahachai in Samut Sakhon province. Last month, my friend Bill and I took a day trip by “the train to nowhere,” a two-part line disconnected from the rest of the State Railways that runs to Samut Sakhon and then on to Samut Songkhram provinces. Link here. I decided that this would be a fun opportunity for Agent C and E to see what life was like outside of Bangkok.

Our first mode of transportation was walking – one common to many people in Thailand – but thankfully we only had a short distance to cover before we could switch to an air conditioned mode of transportation: the Skytrain. Part of the code-breaking had included unscrambling the names of key stations on the Skytrain line as we connected in Siam and then continued across the river to Wongwian Yai.

From there we took a taxi – transportation mode #3 – a short distance to the Wongwian Yai railway station. While waiting for the train, we were able to look at some of the different foods available from the vendors, to get an idea of what Thais eat for breakfast. We snacked on something not too exotic – grilled toast with a little condensed milk on it.

We bought our tickets then boarded the train – mode #4 – which ended up being pretty full. The ride was an hour long and along the way, the two secret agents and I walked the length of the train to see what we could learn about the people who ride it.

One thing we learned is that crossing from car to car is pretty scary, especially when the train is moving! Thankfully, there are rails to hold onto and you’d be hard pressed to actually fall onto the tracks. But it as still thrilling. We were able to go to the engineer’s cab at the back end of the train and see the controls they use to drive it.

Along the way, we met some interesting people. There were lots of vendors moving their wares to market, families traveling with children, and older folks getting from place to place. They seemed fascinated with Agents E and C, and had lots of questions about them. One man, seeing my camera, wanted to pose with Agent C for a picture. It was a little strange being the center of attention when you’re on a covert mission, but Agent C handled it with grace, flashing a big smile at everyone.

When we arrived in Mahachai an hour later we returned to the walking mode and visited a local market and the city pillar shrine, where preparations were underway for a large festival, before heading to the Ta Rua (“Boat Pier”) restaurant on the edge of the river. While Agents E and C aren’t big seafood people, they bravely tried several new things while we sat on a shaded outdoor dining terrace and enjoyed the cooling breezes.

Two hours later we were back at the train station, grabbing our seats for the ride back to Bangkok.

Before trying our fifth mode of transportation, we needed a little pick-me-up, so Agents E and C (and their father) tried some coconut ice cream served the way street vendors have been selling it for years: in a sweet bread bun.

For the final mode of transportation the five of us crammed into the back of a tuk-tuk, the noisy little three-wheeled vehicles named after the sound their motors makes as they run. We drove around a large traffic circle and five minutes later were deposited next to the Skytrain station for our trip back to the hotel.

After all that transportation, Agents E and C were ready for something new: Thai foot massages! What a relaxing way to end their assignment.

The Clevelands Arrive

Posted on 18 June 2010 by christao408

My childhood friend Brad and his wife Donna arrived Wednesday with their two children, E and C.

We’ve been running around the city and surrounding area, seeing as many sights as we can while keeping in mind that jet lag can be especially disorienting for children. The first evening we were out at dinner and E and C both fell asleep at the table. It was all we could do to wake them up so we could take them back to the hotel.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I prepared a series of activities for E and C designed around a top secret agent/spy theme. When they checked in at the hotel, the clerk gave them a folder with their names on it with “Top Secret” stamped on it. They opened it to discover a mission overview and their Day 1 assignment.

Agents E and C:
You have been selected for an elite mission.This mission is strictly top secret, although you can use your parental units to support your mission objectives, if needed.
Your goal is to gather intelligence about the language, culture, transportation, and markets in the Kingdom of Thailand and send it to the headquarters of the United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, or USNGIA for short.

It turns out that the USNGIA is real but I went ahead and used them since their cool looking logo is readily available on Google. Agents E and C were assigned Thai cover names: Pi Chai (Big Brother) and Nong Saao (Little Sister), respectively.

Agents Pi Chai and Nong Saao had an initial assignment that involved looking at a map, located their hotel, and answering a few questions about the surrounding area: Where is the nearest park? What is the name of the street their hotel is on? Etc.

Their assignment for day 1 was to learn a few words of Thai, which Agent Nong Saao had already done as part of a school report she did on Thailand last year. “Yes”, “No”, “Hello”, and “Thank You” were enough to prepare them for their visit… er, secret mission.

Day 2 dawned after a good night’s sleep with nobody waking up too early. The top secret agents had another envelope and another assignment waiting for them:

Your assignment is to gather intelligence about the culture of Thailand and to report it back to headquarters.Complete the following information and include it in your report.
Your destination Thursday is the most important cultural and religious site in Thailand.It is a complex of buildings on the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok. It served as the official residence of the Kings of Thailand from the 18th century onwards.It is also where the Temple of the Emerald Buddha is housed, the most holy Buddha statue in Thailand.

There was a word-scramble (er… “code to break”) that listed the name of the destination: The Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

P1030700

As part of the assignment, they used pictures to identify some of the mythical creatures represented on the grounds of the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. By asking questions of their guide and listening carefully, they would learn what all these creatures were and what they represent.

The creatures include the ones holding this golden chedi, or stupa, above, as well as the towering giants like the one below, that protect the entrances to the temple.

Another two mythical creatures they needed to learn about were the garuda – the bird-man holding snakes in the center of the above photo, and the multi-headed snake called a naga, which line the edges of the roofs of temples and palatial buildings.

We saw these mythical creatures represented again and again, such as in these temple murals.

P1030715

We also saw an artist attending to the fine details of the temple, keeping the paint fresh and bright.

The Clevelands posting with a royal guard at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

Does the cloud in this picture look like a chicken? Tail on the left, head on the right, with two claws on the bottom. I think it does and even though I didn’t tag the photo as a chicken, when I uploaded it to Xanga, the Google ad at the top of the screen was for a company that will help you grow your own chickens in the backyard. It’s a sign, I tell you!

We saw the changing of the guards, who must be very hot in those outfits!

As the secret agents and their parents started to wilt under the strong sun and high heat, we wrapped up our Day 2 assignment, headed out for some lunch at a nearby air conditioned restaurant, and then took the boat back down the river to the hotel for some swimming… and to await Day 3’s assignment!

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

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