Five flavours: Day 17-18 Chiang Mai to Singapore to Perth

Soundtrack: “Cars”, Gary Numan

My flight out of Chiang Mai wasn’t until the late afternoon, and I managed to sleep fine, no waking in a panic thinking I might have overslept, no lying for hours not getting to sleep. I even slept long enough that my sweaty clothes from the night before had time to dry. I repacked everything, in spite of Sunday evening’s shopping spree, everything fit comfortable with minimal effort. The suitcase expansions weren’t required.

I had time to kill between breakfast and checkout, so headed out for another massage. Again I got a solid working over, it’s one thing to have a light person walk on my back, but totally another to have the pull my arms back while planting both feet into my back in a sitting position. Maybe it’s punishment for all the time I spend slouching in chairs.

A final check that I’ve got all I’ll need for an overnight in Singapore packed as carry on, as hopefully my main case will be going straight through, and it was time to check out of the hotel. With five hours until expected departure, I asked the hotel to store my bags and went to find lunch. Along the way I finally got a pic of the tailor shop with the creepy heads, every other time I’d gone past there was someone out front trying to sell me a suit. Even if I didn’t have a case full of custom clothes from Viet Nam’s finest, any time spent around the creepy heads would give me nightmares I’m sure.

I headed back to Aroon Rai, a place I visited on the 7 Nation Noodle tour, a simple tables and plastic chairs in a shed joint that proudly proclaims they’ve been there since 1957, and they are “ONLY ONE HERE IN THE WORLD”. I couldn’t pass up attitude like that — I’d hoped to eat here yesterday when I was in the area but they don’t open Sundays. Their khao soi is unpretentiously full of flavour, lots of turmeric and spice, with delicious pickles and crunchy noodles. And so cheap. I know it’s going to hurt when I head home and find that $5 AUD won’t get me a bowl of needles and a drink, it’ll barely get me just the drink.

One of the things that makes Chiang Mai such a great place to visit is that it takes no more than 30 minutes to get from the hotel to the airport, even taking into account traffic and the weird one-way street thing they have going around here. The Thais seem to love one way streets, Bangkok is also full of them, I guess between these and the massive barriers they put in the middle od dual carriageways, I guess it keeps folks from driving on the wrong side of the road.

Chiang Mai airport is pretty small, there are a couple of places where its possible to sit and eat, and I chose the one that wasn’t very busy at all. I think it’s because almost none of the tables have handy powerpoints, I’m sure if they sorted that they’d get lots of customers sipping on the same coffee for hours while they recharged everything. I didn’t mind, I had a powerbank that did the work while I ate some okay prawn dumplings. There isn’t a huge selection of duty free either, but they do have the smallest bookshop I’ve ever seen in an airport.

I was where I should be at boarding time, but it was around then I noticed our plane just arriving. Air transport tip #28, if the plane still has people on it and is only parking at boarding time, you’re not boarding on time. Which at least is better than when your plane shows up many hours after your boarding time. Despite the late departure, the pilots made up some time or took a shortcut so we ended up in Singapore pretty much on time. I wonder if pilots get told off by air traffic control for tardiness.

The arrivals gate was possibly the shortest walk I’ve ever had at Changi to get to immigration, just one travelator and I was there. Arrivals are all electronic now too, just scan the passport, don’t smile at the camera, and I was through.

Singapore. I don’t know what it says about their current economy but my rideshare was an Audi A4. I guess either rich folks are struggling and need to take on an extra job, or driving for Grab pays enough to buy an Audi. I’d like to say that I paid a lot of attention to the inside of the car, but other than it was comfortable and I appeared to have my own airconditioning settings, i didn’t notice much, chatting with the driver about places to eat. It’s Singapore afterall.

While I managed my entire last trip without falling over, and was less than 24 hours away from ending this trip without a fall, I managed to misjudge a step near my hotel and down I went, landing on palms and knees. Fortunately the ground was smooth tiles, so no blood was spilt, but it was still something I could have done without. Maybe the theme for the next trip should be “no falls”.

Hotel checked in, time for a late dinner of chilli pan mee. The price hasn’t changed, though they’ve stopped doing cold cans of drink. The food is still wonderful, the chewy noodles, hit of chilli, crunchy fried onion, all the egg and meat and soupy goodness. I’d like to say I sat and savoured it, but I was hungry and had places to be.

I’d decided to hit Singapore on a Monday night as both the Auld Alliance and Swan Song would be open, according to their websites. The Auld Alliance was closer to my hotel, walking distance, but I took a rideshare to maximise whisky savouring time. After sorting out Grab trying to take me to their old location, I got the driver to somewhere pretty close to the current spot. I stepped up to the door, ready for some quality whisky time.

They were closed.

I knew I should have messaged to let them know that I was coming and they should stay open all night just for me. At least Swan Song bar was not too far away, and would take about the same amount of time to walk there as get a ride, so off I started strolling.

They were closed.

There was nothing else for me but to start walking back to my hotel (Singapore doesn’t have any drag shows on Monday nights that I’m aware of). Past a bunch of Bollywood type bars that all seemed to be rocking, or at least letting thumping tunes fill the street. I do wonder what goes on in those bars, as they seem to have lots of bright lights and loud music until quite late, but would feel weird wandering in as a random white guy.

So sadly dear reader there’s no final tale of late night drinking on this trip, No pics and descriptions of dreamy independent bottlings of fine single malt whisky, no amusing anecdotes of happily staggering back to the hotel before an early morning alarm.

I’ll just have to make up for it next trip here.

Day 18 Singapore to Perth

Woke up with the alarm, a little tired, achy (probably from the faceplant) but after a shower was ready to pack up my final things and hit the road. Across from the hotel is a sugarcane juice vending machine, and that was the first stop. It was also fun to watch the machine drop the cane into the press, squeeze for all its worth, and then the magic door opens and a cup of pure joy is waiting for me.

Next to the juice machine was a new contraption, a pancake robot making vending machine. Given a few folks questioned me for not trying out the pizza vending machine at Helsinki airport, I felt bound to satiate the curiosity of the world and spend the $4 for a robot made pancake. After going through the choices, did I want 1 egg or 2 (1), spring onions or not (yes), special or sweet chilli sauce (special), the machine proceeded to drizzle batter on a heated spinning wheel. A scraper spread it out. Then a claw grabbed an egg and fed it into another part of the machine. Out dripped egg white and yolk onto the cooking pancake, then it sprinkled the spring onion. Then it flipped the pancake and drizzled the sauce on it. The pancake was dragged to the side, and a couple of savoury wavers placed on top, then the machine folded it all up and put it in a little bag. As I watched, several locals also came over for a look — I probably could have made my money back and more just spending an hour there getting the machine to make pancakes and charging for the viewing. The pancake itself was okay, the wafers a little stale, the special sauce not hugely punchy, but definite points for the gimmick.

I then went the total opposite, from robotic food to old school kaya toast at Heap Song Leong coffee shop, where the only electrical item is the refrigerator. I was here in April, on the way back from Spain, and after not having the eggs with my order wanted to make sure that I got the whole experience. The bread is toasted over coals, the same stove heats the water for coffee and the poached eggs, and the whole cooking area doesn’t take up much more room than the pancake machine. The result was delicious, sweet kaya, a wedge of butter, crunchy toast dipped into the salty mix of runny egg, soy sauce, and pepper. Add to this a cup of butter coffee (again, not something I’d have all the time, but it works here) and just about all my favourite food groups were covered.

My car to the airport was a bit of a downgrade, only a Mercedes this time. Had another great chat about food, and the driver recommended a place in Jewel at the airport for good Ipoh style food and coffee. He even offered to drop me there rather than the departures terminal, but with two breakfasts already digesting I passed on the offer.

As I hadn’t had a single whisky for the entire trip, which might actually be a first (not counting the small tasting sample I had on the way out of Perth) I headed to duty free and picked up a bottle, my trip surrogate. I had a bit of time wandering the various shops, grabbed a matcha iced latte, and then it was time to head for the gate.

Flight was fine, though mostly full, so I had a couple of coughing English folks next to me, the mostly harmless but still quite irritating sort who had that vibe of folks who kind of want to have white people food wherever they go. I’m not sure what they made of my in-flight nasi lemak, with its pungent ikan bilis and sambal aroma.

Too soon, but just long enough, and the wheels were touching Noongar boodjar. I was home, and ready to start planning the next trip.