Trip #6

Flights – Two in nine days

Kilometres flown – 15,104km...from Melbourne to Bangkok and back

Total Kilometres flown in 2011 –58,744km

Hotels – Hansar Hotel (Bangkok), Tara Cantra (Cham-am), Zign Hotel (Pattaya)
Total number of hotels in 2011 – 18

New stamps in my passport – Two, one when I arrived and one when I left

New countries – None, but I've been to Thailand four times now 

The photos weren't that great from the Thailand trip, but I have arranged a few into a Picasa gallery and you can use this link to see the selection...https://picasaweb.google.com/wordsillustrated/Thailand2011LowResImages?authkey=Gv1sRgCNLg0KnK1_ClTg&feat=directlink

It looks like I will have two domestic trips next, one in Melbourne and the other in Sydney, and then I am off to Europe in the middle of May.

Water works

APRIL in Thailand means two things – disturbingly hot days and lots of water.

The extreme heat and humidity comes with the end of the wet season, and the water is part of the annual Songkran which is the nation-wide event that celebrates the beginning of another year in Thailand.

For a handful of days every April – the days of a celebration vary from one town to the next, but always fall on April 13 to 15 in Bangkok – the locals spend hours throwing water on each other using buckets, bottles and water pistols.

Coloured powder is mixed with water to flick at passing cars, and to wipe across the faces of friends, and it isn’t long before everyone is soaked to the skin and branded with the mark of the Songkran celebration.

There is a formal aspect to the celebration, with families uniting for a feast and filing off to the local temple or pagoda to pray and pay their respects to their ancestors, but it’s the public water fights that seem to be the most fun.

Families with a gaggle of children pile in to the back of a truck or ute and creep along the congested streets flinging water while those on the side of the road, set up outside the family home or shop, use hoses to drench those travelling by vehicle.

Everyone dresses in shirts made from bright floral patterns, there are parades with ornate floats covered in fellow flowers and gold paint, concerts are held on stages set up in the centre of each village, and rows of food stalls sell regional cuisine to those partying hard.

Royal digs

SCHONBRUNN Palace a few subway stations from downtown Vienna, Bao Dai’s holiday home in the Vietnamese highlands near Dalat, the comical Disney-esque structure a short hike from the Portuguese hamlet of Sintra.

I’ve seen a few summer palaces in my time, and now I can add another extravagant compound to that list after visiting the Thai royal family’s historic place on the beach between Hua Hin and Cham-am a couple of hour’s drive south from Bangkok.

Mardekatayawan Palace was built by His Majesty King Vajiravudh – or Rama VI, as his mates knew him – in 1923 as a place to escape the hustle and bustle of the Siamese capital for a little rest and relaxation.

The Thai royals have since found new digs in Hua Hin and the grand estate, which is made up of a series of elevated pavilions connected by covered walkways, is open to tourists with domestic holiday makers flocking to explore the impressive complex.

Rama VI designed the complex to make the most of the beachside location, with the rooms left open so the internal living spaces could be cooled by the sea breezes.

I visited on a brutally hot April day – the fourth month of the year is considered to be the hottest in Thailand, with temperatures hovering around 40C and humidity sitting just below 100 per cent – and it was impressive how much cooler the King’s suite actually was.

When I stood in the doorways of his quarters I was immediately cooled by the gentle wind wafting through the structure, and when I ventured behind a wall the perspiration immediately began to roll.

Rama VI’s pavilion consisted of a bathroom with an enormous tub the King could have done laps in, a dressing room where his royal robes were laid out at the start of every day, a bedroom with a canopy bed right in the centre of the space, and a study featuring a desk placed under another canopy in front of a bay window.

Mardekatayawan Palace, which is known as “the palace of love and hope”, is made up of three main pavilions with the central one allocated to the King and the structures on each side built for senior members of the royal family and trusted staffers.

The long open corridors connected each of these accommodations, with small landings providing extra places to relax, and steps touched the ground in a number of locations to let staff ascend and the royals climb down to the gardens and sand.

Visiting on such a steamy day made me think about the King’s sister and how she coped with returning to Hua Hin after residing in the United Kingdom for 20 years where she went to school and sought help for some health issues.

The complex, which is said to be the longest golden teak palace in the world, has been completely restored and now the number of people allowed to climb the stairs to the royal rooms is controlled to take the pressure off the ancient structure.

Hua Hin, which is just 200km from Bangkok on the north-eastern side of the Gulf of Siam, is still a favourite with the royal family who have a residence up the road from Mardekatayawan where they retreat to recover from battling the politicians and military in the capital.

It’s also a favourite with Thai holiday makers who make the journey to the seaside when they can string a few vacation days together to swim in the salt, eat huge plates of seafood accompanied by locally-brewed beer, and browse the stalls of the various day and night markets.

It’s also becoming an emerging destination for internationally travellers who are discovering the collection of delightful resorts that dot the coastline.

The sweetest drop

ASIA must be the best place for non-drinkers to holiday.

Sure, there are lots of intoxicating options when it comes to quenching one's thirst, but the alternatives are endless and delicious when it comes to ordering a drink without an alcoholic kick.

The fruit is magnificent in this part of the world – the pineapple is unbelievably sweet, every piece of watermelon explodes with abundant pink flavour, and the mango tastes exactly like its colour suggests – which means the fruit juice is just divine.

I order a watermelon juice with every meal with a splash of "syrup" just adding to the sweetness, and a tall glass of mango juice tastes more like a dessert than a beverage.

I've also come across some other delicious drinks including a combination of pineapple and ginger that was served before lunch yesterday and a sweet lemongrass beverage that I savoured before my cooking class with Tam earlier in the week.

We had lunch yesterday at a trendy new hotel in Hua Hin called Let's Sea – an unfortunate name for a sophisticated property that has villas built around a pool designed to look like a Thai canal – and dessert featured the most delectable scoop of sorbet I've ever sampled.

It was young coconut sorbet and was just yum.

Fortunately one member of my group doesn't eat sweets, so I took one for the team and ate her scoop as well, only because we didn't want to seem ungrateful to our hosts.

 Let's Sea, Hua Hin

Cooking up a storm

TODAY I learnt the difference between hairy basil and holy basil.

Come to think of it, before today I didn't even realise basil came in so many varieties.

But after a very informative morning in the garden and kitchen with an elegant Thai lady called Tam I have not only discovered there are different types of basil but that each will improve the health of different internal organs.

For a few hours today my little group of travel writers got to learn more about Thai food by attending the Amita Thai Cooking Class at Tam's family compound beside one of Bangkok's winding canals.

A traditional longboat took us to the school and we started the ride at wharf in downtown Bangkok and then crossed the wide and busy Chao Phraya River before navigating a maze of big and small canals to reach Tam's place.

The land once belonged to the cook's great, great grand parents and has been divided up over the generations so each of the children got a plot to build a house on.

Now her cousins, siblings, nieces and nephews live in the buildings that surround Tam's house and outdoor kitchen -- a gaggle of relatives also work at the cooking school -- and there's a temple across the canal on land that her family donated to a band of monks a few years ago.

The monastery provided a harmonious soundtrack, with the monk's soothing chanting drifting across the water and calmly serenading us as we secured our aprons.

The experience starts with a stroll through the garden, where Tam snips herbs and flowers so students can sample the different fragrances, with instruction on how to use the different ingredients in traditional Thai dishes.

Then it's in to the kitchen, which is only big enough to accommodate 10 aspiring chefs at a time each working at their own station with a little stove and work bench, where Tam and her team run through the dishes to be prepared.

The boss stands at the stove, spilling ingredients into the pan, and then her assistants give each student a sample to get a better idea of the flavours being used.

Then a tray of ingredients, each finely sliced and in its own little dish ready for cooking, are placed at each station and we start to prepare our own lunchtime feast.

Less than an hour later we have three yummy dishes to be consumed -- phat Thai, stir-fried chicken with cashews, and chicken in coconut soup which proved to be a taste sensation with every mouthful providing an explosion of delightful flavours.

I surprised myself, not only being able to prepare three exotic dishes that I would never have attempted on my own, but that fact that I liked the fragrant meals that usually don't appeal to my taste buds.

For a moment I even entertained the idea of cooking this feast for my family, until I realised I would have to locate the mysterious ingredients in Melbourne, chop all the ingredients myself, and then do the cooking without a friendly Thai lady telling me telling me when to stir and simmer.

We finished our feast with lots of local fruit, and even with a full tummy I managed to eat my way through a big plate of mango, pineapple and watermelon.

Bangkok is an interesting destination, not always an easy place to play tourist, but starting my visit with a morning at Tam's cooking school was a delightful way to kick off a stay in Thailand.

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Location:Soi Mahatlek Luang 2,Lumphini,Thailand

Captain Snooze

I THINK I might have found the world's most comfortable bed.

I'm spending three nights at the brand new Hansar Hotel in Bangkok and the few hours I get to spend snoozing are fast becoming the highlight of the trip.

The mattress is blissful, it's a king which means I can sleep across the bed without my tootsies ever finding an edge, and I seem to sink indulgently into the foam so it feels like I'm sleeping on a perfect pile of cotton wool.

The oversized pillows are mysteriously magical, they feel limp when I handle them to make the best sleeping arrangement but as soon as I rest my head them seem to be firm and supportive.

And the sheets, oh, the sheets.

The thread count is so high that the covers almost have that dense and furry feeling of sleeping in silk.

I had dinner with the hotel's owner tonight, an urbane 20-something by the name of Nithikorn Chayavichitsilp, and he told me he spent many hours getting the bedding combination just right.

He personally slept on 13 different mattresses to get the comfort level correct and then had the Hansar's beds custom made.

Nithikorn also wanted silk sheets, but the laundry bill to maintain that bedding would have been outrageous, so he had his manufacturer experiment with the thread count to get the extravagant texture.

The young entrepreneur studied business at the University of Technology in Sydney but wasn't planning to work in hotels until his uncle secured a patch of land in central Bangkok, just around the corner form the Four Seasons and a block from the main shopping district, and asked him to help out.

The result is a luxurious five-star hotel that does everything right.

I was lucky enough to have a suite at the front of the building and when I opened the door it found a vast foyer with slate floors and a glass wall that looked onto an outdoor light well with a beautiful flowering wall garden.

There was a big mirror on the opposite side of the foyer and, when I was reclining in my blissful bed, I could look through my suite and see a reflection of the flowers.

I'm always so impressed when I stay in a hotel like the Hansar, impressed there are architects and interior decorators out there pushing the boundaries of design and creating accommodations that provide surprises and discoveries from arrival until check out.

By the way, for anyone planning a holiday in the Thai sunshine, there's another Hansar in Koh Samui which also looks just divine.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Soi Mahatlek Luang 2,Lumphini,Thailand

Trip #5

SO, here are the stats for my jaunt into the Outback which was my fifth trip of the year.

Flights – Two in six days

Kilometres flown –1282km...from Melbourne to Adelaide and back

Total Kilometres flown in 2011 – 43,640km

Hotels – Standpipe Golf Motor Inn (Port Augusta), Marree Hotel (Marree), Wilpena Pound Resort (Wilpena Pound)
Total number of hotels in 2011 – 15

New stamps in my passport –My passport didn't even make the trip

New countries – Not a one, but lots of new South Australian settlements

I'm off again this weekend, for eight days in Thailand -- with stops on Bangkok, Hua Hin and Pattaya -- and I will start blogging about my Siam adventures as soon as I am inspired.

I will also post my Outback SA gallery when I get back to Australia and have time to sort my photos.

Another day in the office

I THOUGHT I would post a picture to show where work has taken me today.

I'm in the Flinders Ranges, doing a big lap of Wilpena Pound, and this was one of the stops we made during our drive this morning.

Wilpena Pound is a natural ampitheatre formed by a ring of rocky peaks that's 400km from Adelaide, and it's the most northern point in the Flinders Ranges you can get to on the sealed roads.

Visitors can walk into the homestead that once sheltered a pioneering family that was trying to farm the land inside the Pound, or navigate the dirt roads through the properties that surround the Flinders ranges National Park to enjoy views like this.

Not a bad place to spend a day in the office.

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Hot and cold

I ONLY brought one memory card for my camera on this trip, and it was almost full of images from my last big adventure when I arrived in South Australia on the weekend.

Not very professional, I know, and I have spent the past couple of days deleting images from my time in the UK two months ago to make room for pictures from up here in Outback SA.

It occurred to me today, when I was deleting some photos from my visit to Scotland, that I couldn't have had two more different travel experiences in this first third of 2011.

In January I was exploring Scotland, rugged up against the sub-zero temperatures in my bright red coat, and now, just weeks later, I'm hiding under a sun hat while exploring Australia's burnt red heart.

Here's a couple of photos so you can see what I mean...the top three were taken in the Sottish region of Ayrshire towards the end of the north's frigid winter, and the bottom images were snapped today near the Flinders Ranges settlement of Beltana at the end of a scorching summer.

Beltana is, by the way, an interesting little spot.

It was established in 1870, with the development of the Overland Telegraph, and boomed when copper ore was discovered at Sliding Rock 20km from town.

Reverend John Flynn, who went on the establish the Royal Flying Doctor Service, was stationed at Beltana for a while and it was during his stay he realised there was a need for some medical service to help the people of the Outback.

Beltana boomed for a few years but the decline started when coal mining started in nearby Leigh Creek in 1941, and the final nails in the town's coffin came in the 50s when the original Ghan and main road were both moved further west.

Today the once-great settlement is basically a ghost town, with just a couple of the buildings still occupied by stoic residents, and signs placed around town paint a picture of what the hamlet once looked like.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad