After 6 pretty intense days of eating and sweating, our final Thai destination was relaxing on the undiscovered island of Phuket.  We headed straight to our resort (our only choice we were relaxed about as it came through a recommendation = we had someone else to blame if things went awry) to discover our piece of paradise for the next 4 days…before making the interesting decision to leave and discover some of the beaches.

A sweaty walk along Kata beach later, we stopped for a snack at some markets before looking up to see a cool looking rooftop bar named “Cloud 9”. So after 6 days of walking past side by side marijuana stores we rolled on into this high joint and feeling like complete dopes, decided weed just go to the bar on the street instead.

The lovely barmen could see the soberness on our faces and pulled out some plastic chairs for us before he’d even opened the “doors”. Having been surprised at not having too sexy a belly so far (for context: https://europez2a.com/2023/04/10/some-sausage-and-a-little-prik/), James was coy in his approach to the complimentary nuts…until Lea, fresh from ordering street prawns, jumped straight in and ate a solitary nut, thus prompting James to immediately demolish the whole bowl (forgetting the porcelain time over the last 2 trips to South-East Asia) to then see Lea producing the hand sanitiser. But, to be fair, we’d have had to give the hand sanitiser to everyone else who’d had their hand in the same bowl to make a difference.

Breakfast at our hotel was entertaining as we witnessed rich people not being satisfied with being rich, in paradise, with people cooking for them.  One tantrum about demands to see every available room to see which had a slightly better view of paradise and another with a guest intruding in the kitchen to tell a professional chef in a country with just about the best food in the world literally how to suck or at least cook eggs was enough to make us realise we prefer dodgy street bars where we can enjoy the guilty pleasures of things like plastic straws rather than shiny bars with plastic people.

A handful more outings from our beach followed. A food tour of old Phuket town where the highlights were Lea constantly being called Leo, and James biting into a dessert at the behest of the guide and then squirting juice in some poor lady’s face; 10 minutes in Bangla Rd, Patong; a tuk tuk back to Kata past family friendly hotels with My Humps blaring were enough to convince us to spend the rest of our time in our plunge pool drinking smuggled in gin from 7/11 and finally getting to see a sunset over the Indian ocean…

We splurged all of $20 to enjoy a once in lifetime floating breakfast in the pool (twice), triggering the conundrum of wondering how to wait 30 minutes after eating when said eating occurs while swimming? Almost as much of a conundrum as buying beers from a 15 year old on a beach and wondering whether leaving a tip would be considered hush money.

As our amazing time in Thailand came to an end, day 9 saw a brain snap from James as a runny nose led to a handful of tissues being dropped into the toilet (of all places right??) and we got to prove the signs in every toilet in Asia right as our poor 5 star loo filled and overflowed over our bathroom with dual shower heads, claw bath and now poo and wee soaked towels. A different take on the full moon party everyone in Patong was heading to, not the Easter chocolate stains we were expecting, and proof that I should have followed Lea’s advice to call the 24 hour service team rather than (out of guilt) try to fix it myself armed merely with a free toothbrush and the bum cleaning hose thing in the dunny. If I was a media magnate I would have paid for a plunger for every room after such an experience…the one from the coffee bar sure wasn’t any help. “Taking the plunge” would have been a great name for this blog…had I not already used it in 2005 (https://ipa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/archive/57-3-takingtheplunge.pdf).

What an amazing and beautiful country, lovely and generous people, and delicious food. We can’t, and probably won’t, wait to go back.

After 3 days in Thailand’s largest city, we flew to the second largest, but substantially more laid back, Chiang Mai. Purpose of visit: food. Three food tours booked in over 3 days.

Night 1 almost broke me. A 3 hour food and walking tour condensed into about an hour and a half. We saw the world famous (to anyone who followed the late Anthony Bourdain) lady with a cowboy hat cooking the most incredible pork you’ll ever have, cut through town in a tuk tuk, loaded up at a local night market and sat at a locals only bar on the river Ping to finish off. After walking home, crying, we finished the night with a free bottle of bubbles in our pool on our balcony looking over the old town.

The second tour was a little more adventurous, travelling far and wide in an open taxi to taste the best Khao Soi in town, James ate congealed chicken blood (Lea’s face indicated her decision not to) and we even visited a restaurant that focussed on water buffalo dishes. “Would you like some minced buffalo salad?” I’d laab one! We learned more than the other tours, particularly about the traditional and non-traditional Thai cooking techniques. Non-traditional appears to refer to techniques introduced any time after the Normans conquered England.

After consuming more pork in one day than the previous 39 years, Lea tuk herself off to get a massage. 2 hours. $25. Bargain! Oh…and the masseuses were all ex-cons. But I’ll leave that there. I’m sure they all served their Thaime. Meanwhile, James was left alone drinking beer by the litre in a dive bar nearby, to be safe due to lack of comms, and was faced with the dilemma of leaving either the iPad an open drink to keep claim over the seat. Would it look creepier holding a large bottle of beer lining up for a Thai toilet or an iPad and claiming you’re just after a quick wee. I chose the iPad, and ran the risk of leaving the open drink container at the bar, thinking that being already above average size around here and having 2 food tours in me, it was unlikely that a) I would be a target and b) the run of the mill rufies wouldn’t pack much of a punch…completely forgetting that they routinely tranquilise elephants in these parts…

Our final food adventure was a market tour and cooking class out in the country with the amazing Aoy (pron: Oi!). After a less than auspicious start where we got to see some Western tourists (not naming continents) at their best bartering a lady down from 17 Baht to 16 (in a local market) with the biggest sense of glee, for a grand saving to them of 4.3 cents…Or 2.7 Euro cents for them…but Aoy saved the day! She brought sexy back. Referring to the spice level in food as how sexy you are and fluidity of bowel motions as sexy belly she not only enthralled us, but thoroughly confused the meaning of sexy to us…or we’re much more sexy over here than we’d thought…

On our final night in Chiang Mai, I put on my complimentarily hotel washed shorts (putting the HOT into Hotel washed, they shrank about 2 sizes), shed a small tear, then we hit the town to do our own food tour. The highlight being char-grilled prawns and stir fried morning glory (stop it), where the sight of us brought in another Westerner (from unnamed continent) to try the prawns. After sending them back 3 times because the CHAR grilled prawns had black tails, the undeterred shellfish entrepreneur, simply flexed his mussels and took to the prawns with scissors, waited a few minutes then dropped them back on his table.

After some more delicious street treats, we fortunately stumbled first on a cool live music bar and then a karaoke bar, then less fortunately, on the red light district, which was less dappled red light and more every colour of the rainbow (thankfully stopping at violet) up in neon lights. We did the perfunctory lap (no dance) of the area, were tempted to hide out in the Hard Rock cafe (at least there we’d be confident if we ordered a burger we wouldn’t end up with a Thai sausage) and quickly headed back to the karaoke bar where we were greeted with free tequila shots…and I’m pretty sure that was the end of our time in Chiang Mai. Cue montage.

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Well if they say one night in Bangkok makes a hard man humbled, we probably should have thought harder before booking 3 nights, as your unnamed author has rarely been described as hard…(Author: “might delete that.” Editor: “yeah, nah, leave it in.” Author: “…That’s what she said” *hand slapping own face emoji*)

On arrival in Bangkok, our initial impressions of our hotel were mixed – mixed between the feelings of an impending mugging and the more likely outcome of James breaking an ankle on/or in the steps/places where there weren’t holes of the construction site outside the entrance. Our room was literally on stilts over the Chao Praya, with windows facing along the river where we could watch colourful long boats and “resting” catfish float by amongst mountains of polystyrene, beer bottles and crocs (the shoes). There were 5 rooms and 2 communal balcony areas both in the open air looking over the river. We loved it!! In the end it was really an amazing pad, a great Thai….pad. Let that sit in your noodle.

On our first night we explored a vast amount of the town, joined together at the hip (Siamese style) in the back of a tuk tuk, we truly felt a connection. Maybe it was the mutual embarrassment of matching-food-stained-clothes, Lea from a disastrous goulash spillage on the plane and James from an <insert choice of food spillages 12 hours into the holiday>. As if trying to escape, my sweat-soaked shirt clung in vain to the pleather upholstery of tuk tuk number 23. A number James romantically suggested was easy to remember due to a cricketer sharing the same number, whose untimely end was sadly met in this town not too long ago…smooth. Probably a bit of a wrong ‘un of a suggestion, but would MJ, Le Bron, Dermie or Anthony Rocca have worked as well? Lea’s follow up suggestion of it being the year 2023 didn’t cut it it as it’s 2566 or something in the Thai calendar…The tuk tuk ride was a breeze, one of the last modes of public transport where you can fart without fear, as any evidence is soon removed. A perfect Buddhist design, this fart, too, shall soon pass as shall the times between farts (although it’s worth remembering that this is only day 1, after than you need to be more worried of what passes AFTER the fart…it’s not always happier, non-farty times).

We spent most of our time around China town (where we were staying), covered 10k plus of markets looking for sunnies to replace Lea’s that were left at home on the bed had broken en route; had a 4 hour walking tour of the city where our amazingly lovely guide almost fainted in the heat, from which she thankfully recovered to take us to Wat Arun and provide us with history, not only of the country, but the full story of Buddha. Which turned out to be enlightening. (NB: the pre-trip, massive weight gain plan was backfiring as it turns out all the Buddha statues here are of skinny/pre/just post enlightenment/pre-gorging Buddha!!! But no worries, we also learned that everyone’s skinny…when we die.)

A ferry ride along the river took us to the Grand Palace, for which (due to many factors, the last of which being our own ignorance) we could only find entry via a temple, but in the end we weren’t allowed in as it turned out that it’s me who wears short shorts and Lea was not allowed in with a shawl. But after seeing so many temples already, it gets a bit…so wat??

On the last day, James managed to have a stand up shower!!** A liberating experience for me, not being the cleaner, as the result looked like the scene from Psycho if you replaced Janet Lee with Frosty the Snowman. The decision to finally open the timber doors that allowed boat tours, fisherman and unsuspecting riverside breakfasters a viewing can only be put down to Bangkok-brain.

Despite the songs and movies, we actually stayed quite sober in Bangkok, it was Our Weekend Without Wine (OWWW), if you don’t count 3 mimosas at 6am Friday the weekend. So tough was it, we even got served crackers at our hotel when ordering a second, yes SECOND G&T in an RSA move Bangkok style. I feel like the world and Zach Galifinakis have been lying to us the whole time.

After all that, the key take away from our first Thai location, despite expecting a sensory overload and hectic city, was just how amazingly lovely all Thai people are. Whether it’s the predominance of Buddhism (less eye for an eye and more just be nice to start with mantra) allowing everyone to get along in harmonic balance despite religion, race or class, or that it’s just too hot to argue, I don’t know. But you’ll even get a friendly nod as they’re trying to run you over on “pedestrian crossings”, they’ll give an offering to multiple gods for you when you order something they know you shouldn’t and don’t giggle when they hear a local cover band playing a Natalie Imbruglia song. Not even the pervasive reminders to not stand on toilets or flush toilet paper can bring them down. Jokes aside (NB: some of these were intended as jokes), it takes a special people to make you feel so safe and relaxed in a city of 12 million people.

**Context: Our bathroom, precariously perched over the river, had a giant tub, no screens or shower curtains, a shower head at knee height and a chandelier on top that even Lea couldn’t fit under.

In case you didn’t read the intro, here’s a link:

https://europez2a.com/thailand-b2p/