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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…
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Five flavours: Day 16 Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “Hit me with your best shot”, Pat Benatar Last full day in Chiang Mai, last full day anywhere on this trip, so it’s go hard and then go home. Woke up with plenty of time to do the same hotel breakfast, then get a rideshare to The Arrow Rest. Even the traffic was running early, so I wandered a couple of minutes up the road to a little cafe and bakery. I was hoping for a little pastry or something, but they only had cake. I went for a slice of a double layer mango cheese cake, and a cup of a coffee crime. I’ll be honest, it took…
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Five flavours: Day 15 Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “Jet Airliner”, Paul Pena/Steve Miller Band Today was about mixing things up, getting out of the Ancient town and into the rest of the city. The historical parts of Chiang Mai are interesting, but also with a focus on tourists. It finally dawned on me that for Chiang Mai at least, if I wanted to get out and see and taste what the locals eat, I wasn’t going to find it in places full of foreigners. Also, Chiang Mai has one of L and my favourite places, The Arrow Rest, an archery cafe, and I’d booked some time there. After a hotel breakfast of noodles and egg, I took…
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Five flavours: Day 14 Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “It’s Raining Men”, The Pointer Sisters One of the inconvenient things about going to the tropics during the rainy season is that, well, it will almost certainly rain. Totally inconvenient, who would have known that would happen. So, believe it or not, today it rained. In Thai food heat levels, it rained a little bit. It wasn’t tropical monsoonal downpour heavy, mostly just a drizzle or slightly above — I don’t know how to describe it in meteorological terms, it was less than the rain in a hard boiled detective novel, but more than a fine mist rolling over the moors. I managed to book the hotel breakfast, and…
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Five flavours: Day 13 Bangkok to Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “Young and Beautiful”, Lana del Rey It probably says something about the last few days that I slept almost okay the night before a flight. I woke up once or twice too often, and certainly didn’t feel refreshed and bouncing by the time the alarm went off, but I’ve definitely had worst nights this (and other) trips. It wasn’t the most organised and elegant packing job, but everything fit okay. It’s just over an hour to fly from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, so while I packed essentials into hand luggage, I wasn’t too fussed about making sure I had a book to read and stuff like that. There’s also…
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Five flavours: Day 11 Bangkok
Soundtrack: “Reptile” The Church Thanks to my disciplined routine of only having two beers and getting to bed before 2am, I was at least able to be upright with a can of coffee in my hand before 8am. I spent a bunch of time scouring all the shiny influencer travel blogs, the ones totally unlike this one as for one they have shiny photos and links to make commissions from random businesses, and for two clicking anywhere on them has a better than even chance of being unable to actually read anything due to pop-ups and redirects to booking sites. Sometimes it’s a case of finding out the information in…
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Five flavours: Day 11 Bangkok
Soundtrack: “Pink Pony Club”, Chappell Roan “Bangkok, oriental setting, and the city don’t know that the city is getting … I’d let you watch, I would invite you but the queens we use would not excite you.” So go the lyrics by Tim Rice and Bjorn Ulvaeous, and in the context of the Chess musical fair enough. But I can tell you that Bangkok queens should excite you. Just don’t get too excited. I woke up after too few hours sleep, too little water, and possibly one too many drinks the night before. Bangkok is a noisy city, and my generic hotel room’s airconditioner is possibly overpowered for the space:…
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Five flavours: Day 10 Hoi An to Bangkok
Soundtrack: “England 2 Colombia 0”, Kirsty MacColl Our last breakfast in Hoi An was mi quang, wonderful rice noodles, pork, quail eggs, and shrimp, in a salty broth full of flavour. I did a better job of making the ca phe sua da, being more patient in my water pouring. The hotel dining room television has generally been off during out stay, but today the Mexico vs England men’s world cup football game was on, so as I ate I watched the second half. The Vietnamese commentator was getting very excited when goals were scored or came close to being scored. I haven’t been paying the hugest amount of attention…
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7NNT25 Day 16: Chiang Mai > Bangkok > Ho Chi Minh City
Soundtrack: “Khe Sanh”, Cold Chisel Having left day 15 on a cliff hanger, I can reveal that I was able to get up in time to head out and get my laundry just after 9am, so I won’t have to buy any new clothes anytime soon. While I’m travelling with a few treasured items, my green The Clouds t-shirt that I got at a gig the night before I last came to Thailand, which has travelled a bunch since, was recognised by a friend of the band in Fort William, and was also photographed in the main court of the Rijksmuseum (two of us have now done this, so it’s…
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7NNT25: Day 15 – Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “Yellow”, Coldplay (sigh) Khao soi day. I dragged my slightly tired carcass out of bed, quick stop for some hotel noodle and egg breakfast, and then headed out to a laundry I’d spotted on my wanderings that offered 50 THB/kilo. I handed over my trusty orange laundry bag (it’s been with me since at least 2009) and was told it would be ready after 6pm (note that I put in this detail about the time because I occasionally think I can do clever writer things, like foreshadowing future events, so you’ll just have to read along until I get to 6pm — FYI I’m under no pretensions that this…
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7NNT25: Day 14 – Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “Umbrella”, Rhianna Sunday in Chiang Mai. Managed to wake in time for breakfast, it wasn’t the best sleep as congestion and coughing was a pain. Hotel breakfast nothing much to speak of, no types of cheese, congee, rice, noodles, sausage, and eggs basically. I skipped the rice and the congee, as I wasn’t sure how long they’d been sitting there, instead opting for the noodles, sausage and eggs. Noodle 7.0: Unnamed Thin Stir-fried Noodles (Royal Lanna Hotel breakfast) They were okay. Possibly an egg-noodle, with some green leaves in the mix. When you’re a tired and hungry traveller and want something to soak up egg yolks that isn’t white…
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7NNT25: Day 13 – Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “Born This Way”, Lady Gaga / “Relax”, Frankie Goes to Hollywood The battle of the aircon continues. On one hand, Chiang Mai is starting its hot season, so daily temps are high 30s, mostly dry during the day but getting a bit more humid in the evening, so turning it off isn’t an option. But I’m yet to find the right setting that doesn’t require a bit of tweaking, but I’ll keep trying (of course, part of it is that now I’m here and unpacked I’m too lazy to as reception to change rooms, which might not make a huge difference as far as I can tell it’s just…
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7NNT25: Day 12 – Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “Nikita”, Elton John I’ll probably keep throwing occasional remembrances from Uzbekistan into these entries as they pop up in my thoughts and as I start to process the similarities and differences to other places. One that I completely missed mentioning is that Elton John’s “Nikita” possibly plays constantly on a loop in the background of Uzbekistan Airways flights. I first heard it when we boarded the flight from Urgench, and thought it neat: the story of someone going through a soviet checkpoint and deciding they love the guard (pretty sure Nikita is generally a male name, but the film clip had a female playing the part, as Sir Elton…
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Thailand days 2-5: Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai is the largest city in Thailand’s north, and while still quite large feels a lot less busy than Bangkok. Like many cities, it’s pretty quiet on Tuesday nights, so when L and I checked out the 6ixcret drag show, for the first half of the show we were the only audience before another couple wandered in. All credit to the performers, they turned it on as if it was a full house, and all credit to us, we tried to make as much noise as we could (some strong mojitos helped). For all the pop and disco, drag is punk, polish is fine but attitude is everything, and…
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Thailand Day 1: one night in Bangkok
I get my kicks around the waistline sunshine. Especially when laughing a lot and being thoroughly entertained by the amazing and fabulous queens at Pangina’s House of Heals. The queens they use definitely excite, and we were treated to a fabulous show by Meanie Minaj, Zandy Cyanide, Gimhuay, Zebee, and the sublime Angele Anang. If in Bangkok just go, be amazed and entertained, and tip lots. In this world where foljs get hung up on hate, places like House of Heals are wanted, needed, and welcomed. How good was the show? L and I stayed out until after midnight, not leaving until the last queen finished. 10 fabulous glittering stars…
