The Cade Parade

In light of one of my favorite friends possibly coming to visit us in November, AND because I am in Myanmar and I am unable to access Flickr to post pictures, here are some helpful websites and phone apps I’ve found to assist in the copious amount of planning that goes into traveling long term. 

For flights: 

Skyscanner.net

This lets you find cheap flights on airlines you’ve never heard of and also allows you to find the cheapest flight to “everywhere” which is pretty awesome. 

Hipmunk.com

This site is pretty useful for major airlines and multi-leg trips. Sorts possible itineraries by price and “agony” so plans with lots of layovers or bad times are pushed to the bottom.

Discount Airlines

Discount airlines may have a terrible website and airport experience (coughJetStarcough) but they sure are cheap. And they get get you there. 

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So, I’m not sure if I have written/shown a proportional amount of content on the blog to reflect how much time we spend thinking and tracking down food in these cities. 

It’s a lot.

And the food in Bangkok has been, by far, our favorite. Not only is it readily available everywhere (that was the case in India too), there is lots more variety (not everything has turmeric), and normally the food is more trustworthy. Jason and I didn’t get seriously ill once from food in Thailand. 

So here is a collection of some awesome food we had. Also the number of pictures of food I took increased drastically after I got a new Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens that is way sharper and generally better than my clunky Tamron zoom lens. 

We happened upon these the first time in a tiny alley behind our first apartment. We stopped to get iced coffee (the coffee situation in Thailand was also greatly improved over that of India) and the barista was also making these things in a mould. We shyly asked what they were and she said with the cutest accent, “corn pop” (hers had corn in the middle instead of chives) and gave us two to try. 

MMMmmMMMMM so good!

I guess the Thai name is Khanom Krog but in any case, this confection of rice flour, coconut cream, and sugar is just divine. Crispy on the outside and warm and gooey on the inside with a little tang of corn or chives. Just delicious. 

We were pretty hooked after she gave us the first two so we asked for two more by pointing and holding up 2 fingers with the intent of paying. She agreed and started filling two whole boxes with these treats. Oh well, apparently the serving size is an entire box. We eventually explained we just wanted two more single ones and then we all had a laugh and she gave us two more for free! 

Another time, we went to the night market by the nearest train station which had loads of food stalls. We actually had a hard time finding something recognizable and unsketchy looking, but eventually settled on the very safe pad see you and pad thai. 

Always an excellent choice. Even though Jason looks…intense.

That same night we (I?) were jonesing for something sweet after dinner. With no corn pops in sight we had to improvise. We spotted an ice cream cart attached to a motorcycle but as we threaded our way through the food stalls, it zoomed away! No! 

Luckily, this guy had set up his cart right there and he was making banana crepes.

This guy was amazing. He made the flour from scratch right in front of us, then kneaded it and tossed it in the air to thin it out. Then bright orange “butter” (????) was applied to the grill and all over the crepe and a banana was expertly sliced and laid on the crepe with sweet icing. After the perfect amount of time, it was precisely folded, dripped with more icing, dusted with powdered sugar, and laid perfectly onto the paper carton. Oh, you can’t even imagine how wonderful it tasted, the gooey bananas and crispy crepe, all mixing with the icing. Way better than ice cream.

Finally, on one of our last nights, we met up with the inspiring Kyle and Bessie who were visiting Bangkok on their way home to Chicago after spending a year in public outreach in Myanmar. They generously invited us to spend the day with them as they met up with other friends, visited Chatuchak market (over 9000 stalls!), an art gallery, a big mall, and the famous “duck guy” who apparently had the best duck in Bangkok (all after spending all of the previous night on an overnight bus! What stamina!). The duck guy was out that night, but there were plenty of other food stalls and so everyone ordered. I was the difficult one and decided to get another pad thai at the stall highly recommended on the corner. Not only did our group think highly of it, the locals did too, as there was a line of about 15 people. I (think I) explained what I wanted and they said they would bring it to me when it was done. 

All the ingredients from the popular stall were laid out on this cart. And then the same guy cooked all night at this wok, taking all his ingredients from the cart. Everyone else was done with their food by the time mine came, but it was probably the best pad thai I’ve had, so I’ll say it was worth the wait!

Near the end of our time in Bangkok, we decided to check out the Sky Bar. It’s famous and is on the 63 floor and they filmed Hangover 2 there, so really, how could we not? 

We planned our visit for sunset so we could watch the sun slowly disappear behind a spectacular wall of big-Asian-city haze. 

At first the actual Sky Bar was closed so we were shepherded out to a terrace on the other side of the building. At the repeated insistence of every staff member, we each ordered a cocktail for about $15. They were pretty good (mine had “molecular cucumber balls”, whatever that is) but $15 is ridiculous in the US, much less Bangkok, where you can buy 15 awesome dinners (with a small chance of food poisoning) for the same price. 

Unlike the drink prices and staff attitudes, the views were, of course, thrilling, and the sun looked great shining off the buildings and I definitely wanted to take some pictures. But the way the seating was arranged on the terrace blocked any clear views of the scenery by the guard rails.

Thanks to my newfound confidence, I decided that this was really ridiculous and decided that standing on the (very wide so there was no chance of me falling off. And also it wasn’t like there was a straight drop-off to the ground, there was another balcony like 5 feet down) concrete bench was the only way to get an awesome photo (it was) and that even if I got in trouble, what worse thing would happen than they would tell me to get down?

So I respectfully took off my shoes and stood on the bench to take pictures. About 5 seconds later, I was brusquely told to get down: it is not safe, is not allowed. ”Ok, ok, sorry, sorry”, I fake-sheepishly replied. But I got the shot:

Another one from the other side of the building. Taken through the window. No interesting story.

Eventually we were let in to the actual Sky Bar. It was quite nice at the top, contemplating the hectic, beautiful, foreign city transform from day to night.

A series of 3 photos I thought were interesting in the flat, dull light of dusk. 

We stayed up for awhile and watched the lights come on over the city. The bar got very crowded quickly, so we didn’t linger too long. 

If you’re in Bangkok and are interested in getting a great view, it’s definitely worth a visit. But just be ready to spend lots of money on expensive drinks and for it to be very crowded. 

Umm, hello, this is a BRILLANT idea. Every other country I’ve ever been to, you are way behind. If you put your drink in a drink sized bag, you can keep your other fingers free to carry other things AND the ice condensation doesn’t drip all over you (super handy on the train, especially in Bangkok when you’re not allowed to have drinks. Oh well).

Also, when we were at Au Bon Pain in Bangkok (I know, boring, but we were at the hospital and there were limited choices) I ordered 2 coffees—one to take back to Jason— and they put them in a DIVIDED plastic bag. Like one of those cardboard drink holders you get at fast food restaurants but way better because it had handles! 

Way to go Thailand. You are way ahead in cutting edge drink carrying technology.

Okay and in case you missed it, this is only part ONE of bag drinks. There is another amazing bag drink concept coming.

Can you stand the suspense?!

Well, right now we’re in Joma Cafe (Chocolate croissant and lemon mint smoothie highly recommended) in Hanoi, Vietnam taking a much needed computer/veg break from hectic traveling and touring. Since I’ve last updated we’ve accidentally overstayed a visa, gotten ripped off at the border, had maggots in our soup, fallen out of a kayak, found a restaurant serving deer feces, taken a 24 hour bus ride, and both gotten the same cold. But, you know, it’s been exciting. We’ve also seen amazing temples, explored ancient stone ruins, hiked over deserted hills surrounded by mountains, met wonderful people and eaten super tasty food (Sans feces. And maggots. As far as we know.).

So I’ll be working on wrapping up some pictures from Bangkok and then working through Laos and Vietnam. 

This weekend we’re heading to Halong Bay for a cruise which is pretty appealing. There should be a lot of relaxing and tons of spectacular photos from that. Then on to Cambodia and Angkor Wat, then to Myanmar where who knows what we’ll find. 

ONWARD, HO!

We had a pretty nice view of the sunset in our Bangkok apartment. Here’s a couple.

Well, I don’t know how much there is to say about this. We went fishing and obviously we are the best fishers in the world*. We were accompanied by Mickey, an awesome Bangkok native whom we met at Startup Workaway. Mickey is the best and patiently explained to me what a bunch of street food was (sausages made of fish, chicken, beef, pork, you can tell by the color; papaya salad stall recognizable by the big wooden bowl; shredded yellow stuff made of egg yolk; etc), shuttled us around and was a generally all around fun guy. And his lovely mother rented us one of her apartments for the month. Such a wonderful experience.

ANYWAY, fishing. We caught some big fish.

*Where fishers means we went to Bungsamran fishing park, hired a guide who did everything from making the bait from crumbs and weird green liquid, threading the hook, loading the bait, casting the line, and telling us when we had a bite. We did reel the fish in ourselves (mostly), which took quite a bit of effort but when us three who have fished maybe 5 times between us can reel in 2 fish each of enormous size in 3 hours, it’s got to be pretty easy. 

In Bangkok we finally got comfortable enough to have a night on the town so we had tapas at a proper restaurant (should have stuck to Thai food) and went to a well known tourist show called Calypso Cabaret.

We arrived pretty early so we spent a while wandering the streets. 

We were near Nana station which is a pretty heavy tourist spot (and is also known for it’s *ahem* lady acquaintances) so there were street stalls selling all sorts of stuff (including off brand viagra and sex toys (even though it’s supposedly illegal)…yikes) all over. There was a fully stocked, psychedelic party bus pumping loud American hip hop music (which admittedly we enjoyed). 

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You know how in the States when you go to an ethnic restaurant and you wonder if whatever you just ordered actually exists in the country?

Well mango with sticky rice gloriously exists in Thailand and it is probably one of the best things on the planet (or at least the city…). Actually, all of the amazing fruit here is one of the best things on the planet.

Take a minute to daydream about how awesome mango sticky rice is…..

Now that that’s over, back to the story at hand. Eventually we wandered to the hotel where the show is played and sit around in the dimly lit, black marble with gold accents lobby, which was most certainly not updated since the late 80’s, and wait with throngs of other not-Thai people. We reveled in being able to eavesdrop on others’ conversations and understand them (Although one positive effect of the language barrier is that there’s plenty of advertising in these countries but we can’t read/understand any of them so it’s like there isn’t any!).

Finally we were admitted into the theater and found ourselves in an intimate, dimly lit room, with wall-to-wall red carpet, and rows of tables in semicircles. We found our seat, ordered our complimentary drinks. (Jason got generic beer but I opted for orange soda as  I had only just gotten over nursing perhaps the worst hangover I’ve ever had from drinking Thai pineapple wine (tasty!) while playing winning an epic game of Canasta (yep, we’re party animals)) and waited for the show to start. 

And start it DID. (click through to continue)

(After the break, you know, are people being a little less clothed. Not naked. Just sayin’.)

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