Vertigo

Eating and enjoying food at any time of the day or the night is very much part of Thai culture. Bangkok has an outrageous number of places where you can buy food. And I don’t call them restaurants on purpose. You can get food from street carts, garages-come-food halls and of course there are restaurants too.

On Saturday night I had the chance to enjoy dinner at one of the finest restaurants in town. Appropriately named Vertigo, the restaurant is at the roof top of the Banyan Tree hotel, that makes it a floor 61. I took some photos but my camera is crap at night so better put somebodyelse’s photo.

We weren’t too sure on how the food was going to turn out as some of the reviews we had seen online weren’t great, but the setting is so impressive that we had to try.
As well as an extensive a-la-carte menu with plenty of complicatedly named dishes they offer several degustation menus. Went for one of this and had some caviar, crab bisque, wild salmon, Kobe beef, and a few other things. Small dishes but delicious. Out of these delicacies what I enjoyed the most was the mashed potato that came with the salmon. Weird, I know, but I hadn’t had potatoes since I arrived and nearly had forgotten how much I like them. That’s not to say that the rest of the food wasn’t delicious. We enjoyed our dinner very much, it wasn’t at all as the reviews we had seen. May me we just got lucky :-)

And this is what some would call “proper” thai places, certainly you can get some amazing food providing you are not too fuzzy about they hygiene of your surroundings..

fusion food

Tom Yun Kung pizza, and please don’t forget the lime

Monsoon take 2

Friday we had another great storm, I still find them fascinating

Managed to get some photos from the beginning until hell broke loose, all unfolded in 25 minutes. Anybody fancy to come and visit?

Monsoon

For the last two months and the coming three we are on rainy season, the monsoon. We get rain just about everyday for about 2/3 hours. When it rains it means business, no silly annoying drizzle like in the UK. Today was no exception and we had rain, but this afternoon’s storm was something out of this world.

Somebody mentioned World of the Worlds, I agree. A big grey/black stain of clouds started to get close and low. From the 27th floor it felt you could touch them. In twenty minutes we went from normal day light to near complete dark, even the Thais were amazed and brought their cameras out. I couldn’t be any different, this is what I was seeing from my desk:

About half an hour after the photo was taken I couldn’t even see the golf course. Amazing to watch.

hey geek, we have a mall for you!

This city have tons of shopping malls, within 10 minutes from my apartment I know 8. Massive building with hundreds of shops inside, you can find anything from Versace to Zara or even buy a Masseratti. But clothes shops are clothes shops, I don´t get all that excited about them.

Pantip plaza is a different kind of mall. Many say it is a geek´s paradise, I wouldn´t push it that far, but certainly it is quite cool to walk around its shops and being able to buy all sorts of IT equipment. Come here to shop for that new mother board that you know you need, hard drives, cases, laptops, printers… even the stickers “intel inside” that would make you home made PC look just like any other out of the shop (although you probably wouldn’t like that) You can get software too, in fact Pantip plaza is like one massive “Top Manta”. It is one of the most renowned places to get counterfeit software, games and movies. You can get the latest blockbuster for 100 B, if you can’t make it to the cinema you can pick up the movie from here and watch it at home. Just that easy.

marketing a la thai

Sign seen outside a restaurant, would you eat there?

image copyright mir

Not for the faint of heart

and that refers to be on the road in Thailand.

This weekend I headed down south for a bit of R&R by the beach. To get there my choices where fairly limited: 4 hours by train or 2.5 in a mini-van.  Decided for the mini-van not knowing that I was signing in for an adventure sport.

Most people in this country walk slow and aimlessly, meandering pointlessly. However, give them a car and their kamikaze side comes up.

There are no rules on the road. Overtaking takes place on the right, left and even using the hard shoulder. A 2 lane road can easily cope with 3 cars abreast, this afternoon I had the pleasure to be in the 4th car in such a road. The technique to pass another car seems to be quite easy: you get very close, very very close to the point that you can see the mileage dial on the other car, you get close on the right, then you move to the left and very soon the other driver realises that the harassment means that he should move out of the way.Easy.

Lines on the road are carefully followed. Cars use them as guidance, they drive in such a way that half of the car is to the right and the other to the left. If somebody comes in front, oh well, we might move…

Can’t possibly describe with words how it really feels to have so many near misses in 2 hours that you loose count. On behalf of the daredevil Thai drivers I must say they have amazing skill and after the first half hour i stopped clinching my teeth and I actually got to enjoy the drive. Guess it didn’t hurt that I fell sleep ;)

Folded like a japanese ham sandwich

Have you ever seen a japanese ham sandwich? I haven’t and I really want to see one.

I have survived now a few of the hot yoga classes, and with one of the asanas we get told to fold ourselves like a japanese ham sandwich with no gaps in between. What does that mean?! well I didn’t really understand much the first time, and to be honest still not that sure now as I am still clueless as how such a sandwich might look like. Apparently it looks something like this lady: http://www.bikramyogabozeman.org/Pages/Bikram.html

I would recommend Bikram to anybody that fancies a bit of a stretch and doesn’t mind to be drenched. Actually that’s part of the secret to survive it, if you wipe your sweat you end heating up and having a harder time. Yeap, after 90 mins in the heated room I come out like a sexy sexy little thing dripping and stinky. Sure you all want photos now :p But hey, I can bend like a japanese ham sandwich, can you?

Plastified country

Whilst the world over is trying to get ride of plastic bags, in Thailand they do their best to put as many bags in your life as possible.

Any shop you go to you can be certain that you will leave with a bag (or many) If you go and buy yourself a cold drink to take away you get a bag, so you don’t touch the glass and warm up the drink. Go and get ice cream: bag, get take away (even from the street stalls): bag, go to the supermarket get 1 food item & 1 non food item: 2 bags. And if the food is frozen please add another bag to the equation. The most extreme case that I have experienced is been given a bag (and refused to take it) for a box of matches!

Almost forgot, they do have signs at the supermarket tills to remind you to be ecofriendly and say no to plastic. However, if you try to tell them not to give you bags they look at you in a weird way and still give you as many bags as they please.

Just about the only place you can leave without a bag is the massage shop…

Making friends

Not easy when you are in a new place, but serendipity has brought me a friend in BKK. Mir is becoming my partner in crime and we are having some great times together!

She is a cool gal, graphic designer and also part-time consultant in something to do with candles, still don’t quite understand what that is all about…

Here is us on Saturday

Friends, friends… want more, need more. So with the hope of meeting new people -and also improve my fitness- I have joined the latests fad in town: hot yoga. Went for my first class on Sunday, it was good but nearly killed me! 90 mins no stop of yoga in a room heated up at 37C (Pa los de la logse: un calor q te cagas) Survived and actully feels good once you get to breathe again. Will try again tomorrow and see how it goes… if you don’t see any more posts you will know why :-)