BKK endings

I’ve finally been reunited with my photos.

Last coupla days in Bangkok

Before

After

Bye bye bougainvillea

Almost cried when I left the B.Natural stand for the last time. I miss you, salted caramel

Farewell dinner

Sprouts

View from the balcony

Farewell by the River

Today my office colleagues bid me farewell with lunch at my favourite river restaurant, Kin Lom Chom Saphan (which translates to Eat Breeze View Bridge…Keep reading and you will see why).

Flaminia keeps it real

Ting Ting, Flaminia, Me and Ju

Modelling for photos before the food arrives

Don't you wish you'd thought of that?!

Then the food arrived...

...and we never looked back

Delicious fish

Half the team

The other half (and the brilliant Hannah in the bottom right corner)

Bringing down the house with a speech

Two thirds of my programme team, Anya and Sarah

Eat Breeze View Bridge

How do you feel today? (if you’re feeling happy then clap your hands)

Last night, instead of having a restful, peaceful sleep my brain decided to do a very thorough evaluation of project I’m working on, in interpretive dream sequences. This could have been helpful for the report I’m writing at the moment, but it was nonsense and I’ve forgotten most of it. So today, how do I feel?

Dear couch, please allow me to melt into you. I'm so, so very sleepy.

Just in time, the royal family is coming to the rescue! It’s Coronation Day today, and while we’re not taking the day off like the rest of the country, we have been granted early release! 3pm = home time!

My plans for the afternoon, which I’ve decided to take off (i.e. not work from home or a cafe), include:

• Sushi
• Haircut
• Manicure
• Run

I wonder how many of these I will actually achieve! The anticipation is overwhelming! Tune into the non-stop action-packed world of Where Is Sarah? tomorrow to find out…

Birthday Songkran

OK, it’s time I shared a secret with you…

Last week….

It was my BIRTHDAY!

Was that the biggest surprise ever?! I mean, anyone reading this blog would have been thinking “well, it’s business as usual over at Where is Sarah?” But the TRUTH is that I am just so mature now that I don’t even mention my birthday numerous times in every blog post for the month of April. I’m way cooler than that.

Soooo, it was birthday on Wednesday the 15th of April. I felt great about this birthday because Wednesday seems to be my special “Birthday Day”. Do you have one of those? The day of the week that your birthday seems to fall on most frequently? Lara’s is Sunday. I TOTALLY agree with that. It seems like her birthday is always on Sunday. We tried to do the maths on this but if you give it a try you’ll probably discover, as we did, that it gets boring fast. This “Birthday Day” could actually be one of those false associations you have in your head, like Monday=Red. Three=Blue. We’ve all got those associations, don’t lie. Anyway, my most birthday-y day is Wednesday.

Wednesday was also the day I had to go back to work after a few days off and the day everyone was going back to work after protester/state of emergency madness…but guess what? I wasn’t feeling fabbo in the morning so I decided to work from home. And work I did! Promise!

But don’t worry, I didn’t just work on my birthday. Lara was still in town until midday so we had a quick lunch before she headed to the airport, and after work I went out to meet my former Aceh-housemate Mike, who was coincidentally passing through Bangkok on the way to Laos!

Because it was my birthday I decided to take a motorbike across town. I don’t use the motorbike to go across town very often because they are actually more expensive than taxis for longer trips, and the statistical probability of death or serious injury goes off the charts the minute you hop on the back. But I LOOOOOOVE riding the motorbikes, it’s kind of like lollies, you know you can’t do it too often because it’s bad for you. But on my birthday I can eat all the lollies I like!

Mike was staying in Samsen Rd, nearby the backpacker mecca, Khao San Rd. Khao San Rd is also the heart of Songkran festivities…which I failed to take into account when I decided to take the motorbike. I got well Songkraned. This is me arriving at Mike’s guest house:

Songranization

Mike gloated that he was clever enough to have taken a taxi from the city earlier. Thinks he’s so smart. We headed out to get some dinner but wait…what was that Mike?

Mike gets Songkraned

Suck it smart boy!

So just a quick bit of background: At Songkran the streets turn into massive battle grounds and the weapons are water pistols, buckets of ice water, hoses…and chalk paste. Kind souls walk up to you, smear it on your face and wish you “Happy New Year!’ Thanks guys!

The girl on the right side of this photo is being wished a happy new year!

Songkran at Khao San Rd

Yes, you’re right. It’s the best holiday in the history of the world.

When it was time to go home I battled through the throngs to find another motorbike for the trip home. It was pretty messy. This is me when I got home:

Happy Birthday Songkran Sarah

MJ visits Thailand – the last few stragglers

I’ve still got many photos I could happily post from MJ’s visit, but I realise that it might be overkill. So here are some of my favourites that I haven’t posted yet. Mostly taken from a day of siteseeing around Bangkok.

Boating along Chao Phraya River, Bangkok

Chao Phrayo River near pier 1, Bangkok

In a temple somewhere in Thailand

Rubbing the Buddha's belly for prosperity

Grand Palace, Bangkok

Grand Palace, Bangkok

Grand Palace, Bangkok

Grand Palace, Bangkok

Lotus flowers at the Grand Palace, Bangkok

Grand Palace, Bangkok

Guard at the Grand Palace, Bangkok

Shoe apartheid at the Grand Palace, Bangkok

Street performance at Chatuchak Market, Bangkok

One is iced coffee and one is coke...but which one? Mos Burger, Bangkok

MJ taking a very serious and shocking phonecall in Chiang Mai

Wat Po, Bangkok

Wat Po, Bangkok

Wat Po, Bangkok

Wat Po, Bangkok

Wat Po, Bangok

Best pizza in Chiang Mai – Gianni de Burchio Italian Restaurant

For my final post on our trip to Chiang Mai, I am going to share with you that delightful city’s greatest delight.

Gianni de Burchio Italian restaurant.

Gianni de Burchio Italian restuarant Chaing Mai

Yes, yes, temples, markets, Thai food. All part of Chiang Mai’s endless charm. But Gianni de Burchio…well.

MJ and I stumbled across this place on our first afternoon in Chiang Mai and pizza sounded pretty tasty. Oh how I underestimated Gainni de Burchio! The pizza was sensational! Maybe some of the best pizza I’ve…ever…eaten. I know, I’m as shocked writing that as you are reading it.

There are a surprising number of pizza shops in Chiang Mai, and I believe I saw two that claimed to have the best pizza in town. I wonder if it could have been better than Gianni de Burchio? I can’t tell you because when we felt like eating pizza again…we went straight back to Gianni de Burchio.

Our second lunch was quite a bit lengthier and involved much more alcohol (and very strong coffee). In the interest of full disclosure, Gianni, who runs the restaurant with his wife, plied us with booze while feeding us things like homemade ricotta and lasagne that, you guessed it, was some of the best lasagne I’ve ever eaten. No offense to the people in my life who make delicious lasagne (you know who you are), but this was….almost as good as yours!

Tanita House Chiang Mai

While in Chiang Mai, MJ and I stayed at the AMAZING Tanita House.

Gallery at Tanita House

Tanita House, view from our doorway

Tanita House, entree to the villa

Tanita House, la villa

Tanita House gardens

Tanita House gardens

Tanita House

Tanita House gardens

MJ visits Thailand – Borsarng Umbrella Festival

MJ and I have good traveller’s luck. I’m basing this on two key pieces of evidence:

1. Nothing really terrible has ever gone wrong when we’ve travelled together (unless you count the blizzard in Western Turkey that had us stranded in an old hotel without electricity, heat, water, food and money)
2. We arrived in Chiang Mai just in time for the famous annual Borsarng Umbrella festival! It only happens one weekend a year, so the timing actually was pretty great.

Read more about the Borsarng Umbrella festival* and TURN GREEN WITH ENVY!

No really, it was a really  nice way to spend one of our precious few days in Chaing Mai.

“What happens at an Umbrella Festival?” I hear you ask. Well, it’s pretty simple actually. You look at umbrellas, take photos in special umbrella displays with stools for perfect photo poses, eat (it is Thailand after all), shop at the market (it is Thailand after all), and watch the parade of umbrella girls on bikes. Oh, you also watch performances of kids doing traditional Thai dances…with umbrellas!

This is what it looked like.

Umbrellas

One especially pretty umbrella

Umbrella girls on bikes

Sarah standing by an umbrella-filled wagon

* The website includes a rather interesting history of the umbrella (the name of which comes from the Latin word Umbra or Shade.)

MJ’s trip to Thailand – Chiang Mai

During MJ’s stay we decided to take a long weekend in Chiang Mai.

We spent four days wandering, eating, reading and sleeping (I slept A LOT), which seems to be what Chaing Mai is all about. We both loooooved Chiang Mai and were visions of peace and tranquility after a relaxing weekend there. I was especially grateful for the cleaner air in Chiang Mai.

I’ll write separate posts about the highlights of Chiang Mai, but first — some random photos from our wandering.

Emerald Buddha Temple, Chiang Mai

Another temple in Chiang Mai - really should have taken note of which one was which...

Old man and an umbrella - these captions are shameful

Mae Nam Ping River - Chiang Mai

Monks airing their laundry - Wat Ketkaram

Wat Ketkaram - Chiang Mai

Wat Ketkaram - Chiang Mai

MJ at Wat Ketkaram - Chaing Mai

3…2…1…Blastoff!

The best taxi driver ever just drove me home. As soon as I got in the cab he asked me where I was from. When I told him Australia, he responded with boxing kangaroo! We laughed about this for a bit and then he said kangaroos in Australia are like dogs in Thailand! I don’t know why but I found this extremely witty and started laughing heartily, and the driver joined in. So we were driving along laughing about not all that much, in a slightly manic way, and occasionally the driver would add something like in Thailand dogs run in front of the car, in Australia it’s kangaroos! (it’s funny because it’s true).

When the giggles died down we chatted a bit more and he taught me a couple of new words. Then we got to traffic lights. In Bangkok the traffic lights count down, so you know how much longer you have to wait for the red light to turn green, or how much time you have to get through the intersection before the green light goes red again. As the red counted down, the driver started counting down in English, and I joined in, counting in Thai. As you can imagine, the giggling became uncontrollable and as we got nearer to the green light.…4…3…2…1…BLASTOFF! (imagine us both making rocket noises here)

Apparently some things are universal.

The best taxi driver in Bangkok’s name is Mr Arun Pruksapong and he hires out his seven seat cab for day trips (2500 baht per day if I recall correctly). He can be contacted on 086-6333-885.