We are time travellers, it's not that Laos was backward, rather that now we are in Thailand, the year is 2556, which would make me 600! This is because Thailand lives according to the Buddhist calendar.
Apologies for the picture but, when we got to the hotel, we were peckish and they do produce an outstanding English afternoon tea, hence, the photographic evidence!
We are staying at The Chedi, one of the GHM chain which we've enjoyed very much in the past in Oman, Vietnam and Malaysia. It's very high interior design, angular and very comfortable. It sits on the River Ping and is a L shape around the renovation of the old British consulate. It's very open plan, beautifully lit, great staff and fantastic food, which is why we'd thought to finish the excursion in style! We thought we might be knackered, quite the opposite, we are looking for things to do!
This involves elephants and tigers, extreme sports, like jungle zip slides, cookery courses as this is culinary capital of Thailand, temples for days, the old city, which is a 2km square fortress built around walls and a moat (think Chester to get the idea) and river cruises, night markets, massages by ex female convicts on a programme to assimilate into public life, a happy ending for them.. Only thing is, with the New Year last weekend you get a bank holiday and everything is full if you try to book it on the day. In the end, we accept that R&R is what we are here for and chill out by the pool, read books, gym, and take the occasional trip out to see the sights, one of which, the most famous temple, Wat Phrathat Doi Suthrep Rajvoravihara ( the taxi driver was glazing over by the time I'd finished my pronounciation) is 3000 feet above the city and very spectacular. It even had a Buddhist monk knome garden! Every public building, site, bus etc is adorned by a photo of the King. Yul Brunner, he isn't! A lot of the pictures are quite old and he appears cross eyed with huge glasses that don't really suit him, in fact, he looks a little like Sid Little which is a tad disarming! Cruel, but fair!
We've taken time out from this busy schedule to come up with our "Hi Fidelity" type top 5's, which will be published once we are back in Blighty, which appears to be a perky 5C for our arrival.
One of the things we did was a Thai cookery school, 23 hardy souls split into three groups, 3 Melbournians and 2 Munchens(?) making up our group. We visited a great market to identify and buy all of our ingredients, before assembling 4 dishes that we'd each chosen to cook. We made a good crew and all enjoyed one another's company, as well as the dishes being easy to cook. You'll see some of the dishes in the photo section. However, this all started at 10.00 and we'd only just had breakfast! The key ingredient turned out to be "mouse s*** chilli", I kid you not, look at the weird and wonderful photo section for visual evidence! Most dishes involved a choice of the number of chillies you used, 1 for bland, 2 for medium, 3 for Thai and 10 for a form of Viagra effect, perhaps, but not if kissing was part of the foreplay!
Our final day! The pack was easy, just throw everything in! What to do to mark the occasion? A road trip. When talking to Brita, the manager of the hotel in Luang Prabang, she eulogised over a place called Chiang Dao. She said she'd had her best ever meal there and being slaves to our stomachs, it was duly noted. We took a car, having made sure we could eat there, a drive 90 minutes north. Along the way forest gave way to jungle and we arrived at Nest 1, a western door restaurant, versus it's near neighbour, Nest 2, for Thai cuisine. We were early and were recommended a walk to a monastry that involved 510 steps to find serenity! It was fabulous as well as encouraging an appetite. One of the things I've enjoyed on this trip have been butterflies, every colour and in large numbers. here at the monastry there is one species the size a bat and one, particularly playful one, allowed me within two inches of it!
Back to the village, delightful staff, in a great, open location served wonderful food. The restaurant is at the centre of 14 huts which people stay at for hiking, cycling, you name it. It sits beneath huge mountains with huge trees and bamboos forming an elaborate canopy 30 metres above our head. As it was a unique experience on this trip it proved a very poignant way to round things off. From there it was 2 hours back to Chiang Mai airport to catch an early flight down to Bangkok, where BA010 will take 13 hours to repatriate us with winter. We have a 4 hour wait for the BA flight which we will use to put together our best of....