October 11-12
With my karma carefully dusted off by the monk’s good wishes, I was good for at least a few days’ worth of delinquency.
Joanna was out shopping and taking a Lanna massage with Kimberly. Larry and I set out for a couple of Euro-style bars near the temples on Phrapokklao Road.
Actually, when you’re in the Old City here, everything is near a temple. Their gold filigree work in the gables is inset with glass or shiny ceramic color panels. It’s almost scary to see how graceful and eye-filling these things are.
We started at a new place called Annie’s, which has a damned good IPA called King Mule on draft. Sharp and dry, lightly fragrant. The other drafts were whites, one of which was called rose because it was flavored with strawberries.
The owner, an ex-pat Londoner, gave us a sample of that. It wasn’t bad—for a white beer with fruit, that is. Plain white beer runs a little too sweet for my taste. The strawberries made this one taste almost like punch. As I say, not bad, but not quite for me.
We also split a half-liter bottle of Young’s London Ale before we headed a few yards up the street to Archer’s.
This is an old hangout, also run by a Brit. He is a fan of the Premier Soccer League team West Ham United. The wifi password at Archer’s is “gohammers.”
The only other person I know who roots for West Ham is Wayne, the former art director at Mechanical Engineering magazine.
We stopped in for a half pint of Little Creatures, an American pale ale developed and brewed in Australia. The benchmark American pale is probably Sierra Nevada.
These fellows from Oz have come up with something in the same league.
We caught up with Joanna and Kimberly late in the afternoon and went to dinner at a place across the soi called Cooking Love, a small restaurant that also runs a Thai cooking school.
We had an array of food, including two plates with what amounted to pork cracklings—crispy fried pork fat. One had a green chile paste and the other with red. There was also a sweet pork curry.
I also sampled some of Joanna’s morning glories. There was one craft beer, Red Truck IPA, which we had first tried a few days earlier in Bangkok.
They make you take your shoes off to go in, like a temple. We were sitting in front of a fan, but even so, the place was so hot I couldn’t wait to escape.
The next morning we were up by six a.m. and so took a morning walk, to get some exercise before the heat of the day. We crossed Ratchavithi Road and strolled up the soi to Mountain Coffee, an open-air coffee bar in a family’s backyard.
They weren’t open for business till seven, so we continued up the lane to visit a couple of temples. Wat Lam Chang (which may translate as Temple of the Elephant Stupa) is the first you come to from that direction and is the smaller of the two.
The colors of the gables are astonishing. It has cats in the yard and is distinguished by a very realistic, near life-size effigy of an elephant.
Across the street from Lam Chang is Wat Chiang Man, the oldest temple in the city, almost as old as the Chiang Mai itself. This is where the actual elephant stupa seems to be.
Ladies sit on the temple steps and sell caged pigeons, so you can earn merit by letting them loose. The monks don’t stop them, but do post signs warning people not to buy the birds because it will encourage people to cage more of them.
Mountain Coffee was open when we got back, so we stopped for a couple of Americanos. Well, I drank the coffee, and Joanna had a cup of hot water, which is her preference.
A flower tree was dropping its petals on the stone pavement near our table. The whole area was dressed in a gentle pink rain. It made Joanna think of Prince.
We took breakfast near the Tha Phae Gate at Top Coffee. Joanna had the congee, a thick rice porridge with egg, sausage, and ginger. I had rice soup, just to see how it differed from Top Coffee’s congee, which I had eaten the day before.
It was more watery and had chunks of chicken. It was mild, but tasty enough for first thing in the morning.
Joanna and Kimberly took off to the masseuse and the markets again. Kimberly saw so much stuff, much of it suitable for her business project back home, that she had to buy an extra suitcase to get everything home.
Larry and I went back to Annie’s for a King Mule. The man had to change the keg.
I am snake-bitten whenever a bar taps a new keg. The bartender couldn’t get pressure in the line, so he could only draw one. Larry gave that one to me and took a wheat for himself.
We walked down the road and around the corner in search of a khao soi shop. Khao soi is a northern Thai specialty, a soup made with curry and (I believe) coconut milk. I had the chicken version.
Larry, meanwhile, didn’t even try the soup, but ordered a couple of salads.
I sampled one, which looked like minced pork, but was in fact jackfruit. It was more savory than you’d expect of fruit because it was green.
It is probably an acquired taste. That small mouthful didn’t make me want more, but it could be one of those things that, if you try it a few times, you get to crave it.
It has been hellaciously hot here during the day. Temperatures fall enough at night that I have to turn off the air conditioner. I may have sweated off a couple of pounds getting from Annie’s to the khao soi bar.
So when Larry asked where we should go next, I had an answer ready: Any place air conditioned.
We took a tuk-tuk to a neighborhood frequented by foreigners outside the Old City. Larry told the driver to pull up at the first large hotel.
Talk about a welcome relief. This was one.
We sat over beers—draft Chang for me and bottled Heineken for Larry—rambled on about this and that.
We were supposed to meet Joanna at the Boonthavon around 5:30. So Larry and I left our refuge around five.
We went up to a tuk-tuk right outside the hotel and the driver wanted 120 baht to take us the mile or so to the Boonthavon.
We had come from farther away than that and the charge was 70 or 80.
Now, I know that 120 baht is less than $4, and by New York standards, that’s a free ride for two people. But the guy had seen us coming out of the hotel and took us for a couple of farang on expense accounts.
We both hate to indulge the smug. So we walked to the corner and hired a guy who asked for 65. We gave him 80 or something like that.
Dinner this time was at Lert Ros, which specializes in Northeastern Thai food. The specialty is red tilapia coated in salt and grilled with a filling of lemongrass.
The first one wasn’t as good as we remembered, but we still managed to polish it off.
The second one we ordered was far better.
There was also green papaya salad. The hottest dish I remember having eaten was a version of this salad served by a street vendor near the Victory Monument during my first visit to Bangkok at the end of 2011.
This one wasn’t nearly as hot, but was still sharp enough to get my attention.
That was it for me and the day.
Wishing plenty of merit for all, and may your new kegs work the first time every time.
Harry
Oct. 13
May God bless your and Joanna's travels, Harry. Reading these is always a hoot, especially before breakfast! Sounds like incredibly tasty & healthy food. Pink rain, purple rain, Prince, one of my all-time faves.
Safe journeys!
JackT
Oct. 13
Harry, have you ever eaten a durian? I’d read about them years ago—the smell is vile but the taste divine. BBC World News just did a piece on them—an expensive Southeast Asian delicacy. Has Joanna?
Beatrice
Oct. 13
I won't go near any food that smells like broken plumbing.
I told as much to a street hawker once in Singapore.
Harry
Oct. 13
Harry: Ever read hard boiled novel: Bangkok 8 ( or 9?)
Art
Oct. 13
The title sounds familiar, Art, but I haven't read the book.
The boat ride on the canal put me in mind of the Bangkok made famous by action movies.
They often include a meeting of gangsters in a stilt house and a boat chase.
Harry
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