roadwarrier

That is the one!!! Went through a box earlier, found my certificate - so that will get hung up in the kitchen and found my old Lonely Planet with notes that we made including the cost of a visit to the local hospital for my sister.

Looking forward to some more photos.
Safe travels.

Tifosi

A long overdue update for my time in Chiang Mai. I’d heard great things about the city from friends who had visited but I was still a bit skeptical. My only previous experience with Thailand was spending a week in Bangkok a few years ago and it wasn’t quite my favourite. The food was excellent, but I found it to be a bit dull and difficult to get around, with little to differentiate it from any other big Asian city. Well, aside from the unfortunately-all-too-regular sight of a 70 year old westerner out on a ‘date’ with what you hope is a young Thai woman but you suspect is more of an older Thai girl.

The first thing I noticed after I arrived was the complete lack of pedestrian signals when crossing major streets. If you need to get across an intersection, you just take a guess when it’s safe, weave your way through the traffic, and hope for the best. I got used to this pretty quick and then realized that the most dangerous part of Chiang Mai traffic isn’t getting hit by a car, but that it made me want another motorbike after seeing all the small-displacement bikes ripping around. The same thing happened during a trip to Malaysia last year. Despite the low prices, South East Asia is becoming an expensive place to travel for me. Luckily Ubers cost about $2-3 CDN for a ride so there wasn’t much point in walking anywhere.

The city had a great vibe, with live music on every corner, food vendors along the street, and more third wave coffee shops than I could count. The fruit alone was amazing and worth the flight. Every time I’m in SE Asia I’m astounded by the taste of mangos and pineapples and the like. What we get in North America can’t compare.

One of MANY mango sticky rices consumed at the markets:



The various markets were also excellent. Not only were they filled with a variety of quality food vendors, but the Sunday Walking Street had some legitimately cool artwork and crafts, far beyond the tourist-oriented crap I expected. I ended up buying a painting from a local artist (though lugging it to Japan and then Canada wasn’t fun). The food options weren’t quite as good as the Saturday Walking Street though. For anyone visiting Chiang Mai, I’d highly recommend timing your visit to stay over a weekend to check out both of those markets. And if you do visit, you can try out some of the grilled scorpions (though I have the feeling these were more for tourists to take pictures of than for actual consumption).



I spent a few hours at Wat Chedi Luang in the Old City. Truth be told, there’s a limit to the number of temples or churches I can visit in any city; they all blend together after a while, so I usually limit it to one per place. It was still very worth the time though. We receive such a euro-centric education in the west that it’s takes more personal effort to appreciate sights like this since you have to start learning about it from scratch.





Just a slight difference in cultures from Florence and Barcelona...



I had also booked a day at Elephant Nature Park, an elephant rescue park about 1.5 hours outside of Chiang Mai. Until I started my trip research I didn’t realize how awful the conditions are for the elephants you see around Thailand being offered up to tourists for rides. Sure enough, the elephants we saw had visible injuries from their time in the tourist or logging trades. You could see their ears shredded from the hooks the mahouts use when leading them around for tourist rides, feet damaged from stepping on landmines left by the Japanese during WWII during logging work, and elephants blinded by slingshots as punishment when they didn’t work hard enough or disobey commands. It was all a little tough to take. Gladly, the elephants at the park seemed to be enjoying their time even though it’s not quite the same as being back in the wild.







The park also has rescue dogs and cats, which led to me finding this one who bears more than a slight resemblance to a certain historical figure. I call him Kitler.



It was at the park that the craziest moment of the trip occured. Well, second craziest if you include Kitler. I ended up running into someone from my city in Canada, which is insane when you think about the odds of being not just in Thailand at the same time, but at the same park on the same day. It feels like such a small world sometimes.

I also took a cooking class in Chiang Mai though ‘A Lot of Thai.’ Like Florence, it was a fantastic experience and likely the highlight of my visit.

I made a very good pad thai:



And what I can say was, without hyperbole, the best green curry I’ve had:



Now I just need to try recreating those at home...

The quintessential northern Thai dish is khao soi, and Khao Soi Khun Yai is the most famous place for khao soi and it did not disappoint. The dish is absolutely excellent and it’s the one thing I’ve been regularly craving since I left.



A very good khai kata from Coconut Shell:



The stewed pork leg on rice from the infamous ‘Cowboy Hat Lady’ at the North Gate Market:



I really enjoyed my time in Chiang Mai. From my limited time there, it seems that the expats and locals have a harmonious relationship. Nimman is clearly all set up for expats but there were plenty of well-to-do locals who were gladly spending 200 baht on a coffee, so there seems to be a local demand for these types of businesses as well. I can see why this city is so popular with expats and the digital nomad types.

Upon arriving at the airport, there was a slight change from the norm with a security scan to get into the airport, including an x-ray of your luggage.

Then it was off to check-in. The first flight was CNX-BKK, which I naively thought was domestic. While trying to check in at the domestic counter I was redirected to international since my final destination was Tokyo. Note that monks and priests can use the priority check in line



After the international check-in counter, I was sent through passport control in CNX, so despite still having to take a domestic flight I was technically no longer in Thailand. It’s a very odd way of doing things. As part of the process I was given a 'CIQ' sticker to wear, which would apparently identify me as someone who wasn’t allowed into the Thailand areas of the airport.

I headed off to the Thai lounge in the international side. It’s a fairly underwhelming lounge, with an average food spread and decor that looks as dated as many TG products. I didn’t try the “hot meal on request” since I’d just had breakfast and was saving some appetite for the plane.











Then it was off to board the TG 777-200 taking me to BKK. Boarding was very quick, which I then realized was because it was only the passengers who were ‘international’ on this side, with the domestic passengers coming from the other side of the terminal and meeting at the jet bridge.



The seats were in a 2x2x2 configuration, with no direct aisle access for the two window seats. The picture is of the middle seats rather than my right side bulkhead since I didn’t want to take a picture of my seatmate.



The seats themselves are angle-flat, which is fine for a daytime flight and especially this short hop. It’s not a very comfortable seat though. Even pushed up all the way, the headrest was at my shoulders and I couldn’t seem to adjust the lumbar support enough. Maybe it’s designed strictly for Thai-sized people.

Started off with some juice and a warm towel that shed all over me, which seems to be the norm on this trip. You can see the remnants all over my leg.



After takeoff they announced that to celebrate Valentine’s Day every passenger would be given a Krispy Kreme donut. What better way to celebrate love than adult onset diabetes

We were offered a choice of “chicken or macaroni” with no real explanation of what either was. I went with the chicken.



Thinking about it, I’ve decided that it’s the purple that makes TG look dated. Maybe it’s time for a brand refresh. Every TG cabin and lounge had the same issue and it’s not even a function of age. From looking at pictures of TG’s A350, it somehow looks like it’s from 1997 despite being a new plane.

Service onboard was perfectly decent, with it being understandably rushed due to the need to go through a full meal service on such short flight.

Upon deplaning, CIQ passengers were sent off towards the international terminal area. I started off the in TG lounge near Concourse D. It was decent enough.







Then, while searching for the Royal Orchid Spa, I came across the SQ Silverkris lounge. It was significantly better than TG for food and decor.







I finally found the Royal Orchid Spa and headed in.



J passengers are given a choice of a 30 minute foot or back and shoulder massage. 60 minute full body or oil massages are offered for F passengers.

I’m still not convinced that I like Thai massages, but the price alone makes me go for one far too often when in SE Asia. At this moment I was literally sore all over from going for a daily massage whilst in Chiang Mai, but that didn’t stop me. I’m pretty sure Thai massage was originally invented as a torture and interrogation tactic during the Burmese-Siamese war, and is now just used to part farangs from their money while they think they’re receiving some sort of beneficial experience. The suckers. So I went ahead with the 30 minute back and shoulder massage.

After 30 minutes of abuse, I headed off to the gate to board TG’s 747-400.



I last flew in a TG 747 in 2011 and I remember thinking then about how dated it was. I somehow doubt time has improved the product. I will say though, there’s still some novelty in heading upstairs to find your seat.



The J cabin has large storage bins along the fuselage. The aisle seats are SOL, I guess.



With the 2x2 configuration, I desperately hoped there would be no one beside me. Then, right at the end of boarding, someone took the next seat. Luckily in row 16 it didn’t really matter since there’s literally two meters of leg room.



Once again, the towel shed all over me. Not sure if every airline is cheaping out or if I just have terrible luck.









I went with the Thai option.





And we were given a special dessert for Valentine’s Day.



The food was good, but not great. I’d say it’s on par with a mid-range Thai restaurant at home, but can’t even come close to the Thai food I’d been enjoying for the past week.

On the plus side, the service was warmer than I’ve ever had on TG before and the seat itself was more comfortable than the 777-200 from this morning. We touched down in HND in the late-evening, late enough that I was very eager to get out of the airport, on to the train, and into my Airbnb to get some sleep. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite go according to plan.

When I arrived there was already an extremely lengthy passport control queue. It took over 30 minutes to get to the front, at which point they looked over my passport and pulled me into the back offices. I’ve crossed a lot of borders and this has never happened before. Well, aside from a false positive on a drug swab when returning to Canada once.

The border agent was very friendly. His first question was why I was in Istanbul. Obviously I answered ‘for transit.’ This satisfied him, though he then had questions about my nonsensical itinerary, getting from Canada to Japan via Zürich, Istanbul, and Thailand. Once I explained that it was a long vacation he seemed to be okay with it all and sent me on my way.

What’s interesting is that I have no Turkish stamp in my current passport and none of the documentation that I presented listed Istanbul, so this all came up behind the scenes.

Anyway, no harm done, aside from the hour lost in the airport. Let’s just hope I’m not on some Japanese watch list somewhere.

Here’s a tip: do not go to Japan via Istanbul.

Tifosi

After the whole airport ordeal, I finally arrived at my Airbnb near Shibuya at around 1:00 AM, much later than I planned. Luckily there was a Lawson right beside the apartment (not that there isn’t a convenience store within 50 metres of every building in Tokyo) so I was able to pick up some gyoza as a late snack. I’m always blown away by how good some of the food is in Japanese convenience stores. The gyoza were seriously as good as any I’ve had in restaurants, though maybe the late hour had something to do with that. I’m pretty sure all foods taste better after midnight, or at least there’s some sort of inverse relationship that occurs after a certain hour where the lower the quality, the better the taste.

I often stay in Shibuya for the convenience and amenities, but this was the first time I felt like it was a mistake. Maybe it was the number of tourists around. I always get bummed out hearing English when I’m in Japan. It’s weird, somewhere like Thailand it’s reassuring, like I enjoy that there are other Americans, Canadians, Brits, Aussies, whatever, around me but when I’m in Japan I enjoy feeling foreign and like a complete outsider. When I hear English it feels like it disrupts the Japanese experience.

Luckily, the Japanese always find a way to remind you that you’re definitely not in the west. Just another slight cultural shift from the first parts of this trip:





This was my sixth trip to Tokyo so there wasn’t really any pressing desire to do anything more than eating and shopping and taking in the wonderfully charming quirkiness of it all. I thought about going to a concert to add some sort of less vapid activity, but I couldn’t figure out how to buy tickets. Apparently you can buy them through the machines at Lawson’s or 7-Eleven, but I tried at 3-4 stores and couldn’t figure it out, so I gave up and instead spent more time eating.

I’ve never been as big a fan of ramen as everyone else on Earth seems to be. The one exception is Afuri, which I always try to get to when I’m in Tokyo.



Another regular stop is Uogashi Nihon-Ichi for sushi, which I find hard to beat when it comes to cost vs. quality.



I thought I’d try some higher end (or more like mid-range) sushi and settled on Rosan Sushi in Isetan Shinjuku. It was disappointing. The oo-toro in the middle was excellent, as were a few other pieces, but others were a little rubbery and off-putting.



The Japanese do French food as good if not better than the French, so along with a medically inadvisable number of pastries every day, I headed to Breizh Cafe above Takashimaya Shinjuku for a galette complète:



The rooftop of Takashimaya gives some great views of Shinjuku and beyond.







I had some excellent yakitori at KushiWakaMaru:



There was also whale meat for sale in the grocery store. I did not buy it.



I kept the overall trip theme going by taking another cooking class in Tokyo. This one, while providing a very informative and fun few hours, was far less useful for home-cooking in the future. The first ingredients in the first recipe were ‘sashimi grade salmon’ and ‘sashimi grade tuna’, neither of which are things I can exactly buy at my neighbourhood grocery store. It was still a great day though, and I found out what fresh wasabi looks like.



One thing that I always forget and surprises me every time is the fact that you can smoke indoors in izakayas and bars in Japan. Very odd given how neat and considerate the Japanese are in nearly every way except in being totally okay with giving everyone around them cancer. That may be the one way in which they’re not better than us. Well, that and the blurred genitals in their porn. So I’ve heard. Ahem.

Streets of Shinjuku



Nakameguro remains one of my favourite neighbourhoods in Tokyo



I also spent an afternoon in Kagurazaka, which is a neighbourhood I hadn’t visited before. It’s very charming, filled with interesting shops, cafes, and restaurants. I also didn’t see another foreigner, which added to the charm after spending so much time in Shibuya.

The Japanese custom of wearing surgical masks in public when they’re ill should be adapted everywhere in the world. It’s so much more considerate to others. Unfortunately, it has an unintended consequence for me. There are a lot of attractive women in Tokyo, and a lot of them are wearing these masks. During every trip to Tokyo I eventually start associating the two and I begin to develop a short-term fetish for women in surgical masks. Or at least I hope it’s short term. Let’s just hope no one ever sees my Google search history…

For the flight back I was flying AC out of NRT. I would’ve preferred to take the NH flight out of HND but, unfortunately, there was no availability. I had aimed to get to NRT two hours before the flight. Being the savvy and seasoned traveler I am, I was confident in my planning and organizing. Except I ended up buying the wrong ticket on the Narita Express which took 20 minutes to sort out, forcing me to take the next train 30 minutes later. That pretty much shattered the self-image I had of being a savvy and seasoned traveler.

I eventually made my way to the terminal, albeit in a bit of a rush. After a very quick and friendly check in I was through the ‘Gold Track’ security line in no time at all. There was no priority immigration line though, so that process took a little while.



The train fiasco meant that I ended up making a very short visit to the NH lounge, which is unfortunate because it’s a lounge that I’ve always enjoyed.









Though I usually try to be at the gate when boarding begins, this time I arrived as they were at the height of general boarding. As terribly elitist as it sounds, I don’t think there’s anything more satisfying than walking past a queue of >100 people and going straight to the front.

AC's 787-9:



The J cabin is the typical AC reverse herringbone with direct aisle access for every passenger.





IFE screen was a great size but the actual programming options were quite poor.



Having all of the seat and lighting controls on a touchscreen was quite nice.











Menu:





I decided to go with the Japanese dinner, which was astoundingly mediocre.









Breakfast, however, was quite good.



The seat itself wasn’t particularly comfortable as a bed, Because of the way the footwell is designed, you can’t really turn to the side at all. I also found it excruciating hot when trying to sleep. I turned the IFE screen off when going to sleep, which is a necessity given the size and brightness, but it kept turning itself back on. I think this happens whenever announcements are made. So between the heat and the light glaring in my eyes, it was hard to get any real rest. In hindsight, I should’ve turned the brightness of the screen down all the way to keep it under control when it turned back on.

While I appreciate the privacy of the pod-style seats that AC uses, it all felt very cramped, like they tried to shove in as many seats as they could. Obviously airlines need to maximize the number of seats to maximize revenue, but the premium cabins in other airlines don’t usually feel so claustrophobic. I’m having trouble describing it, but in some ineffable way, the cabin just felt very ‘cheap’.

Service was friendly as a whole, though you never got the sense that improving your experience was their focus. Rather, the focus was on getting their job done, as in getting things like the meal service over with as quick as they could.

I will give AC some points for handing out a hot towel that didn’t shed everywhere though.

Back over home soil:



YVR is a great airport and, after being away from home for so long, I recognize what an excellent way it is to welcome visitors to Canada. It’s bright, clean, and filled with art that is such a great representation of the nature the area is known for and the Aboriginal roots of the country. Even all of the airport staff I encountered were cheerful and friendly. I then had a long stay in AC’s domestic lounge, which is a bit embarrassing. So many parts of that lounge are dirty and falling apart. It’s in some desperate need of renovation.

After that, a short hop home to YEG and a night in my own bed. Oh, how I missed being inside her.

Overall thoughts:

• LX is a very underrated airline. The hard product, soft product, and transit experience in ZRH was nearly flawless. And that’s not even including the Whisky Club.
  
• TK is a great airline in so many ways (IST lounge, in-flight catering) but IST is such a dumpster fire of an airport and the 2x3x2 layout in their widebodies is awful. I wonder what things will be like when the new airport opens up.
  
• TG is fine, but in that geographic area, SQ (and SIN) is such a better choice in every way. If only SQ opened up J seats to *A partners…
  
• AC was very disappointing. It’s perfectly fine when you compare it to UA or the like, but it’s very third-rate when you compare to an average Asian or better European airline. On the TYO-YVR route, NH is substantially better (at least in the 787-9 that they usually use on this route, not sure how the 787-8 currently used stacks up).
  
• As beautiful and iconic as Florence is, I can’t even fathom how awful it must be at the height of tourist season. The crowds in the low season were still substantial enough.
  
• I can see why Chiang Mai is so popular with expats. It’s got my rethinking my retirement plans. I’ve also been compulsively reading and learning about Thai food ever since I got back home.
  
• Tokyo is always a good idea.

Thanks for reading.

offerendum

Florence in high season must indeed be terrible. Was very happy to visit in February. Liked the Emergency Road picture

sempervivum

Loved your report, especially the Tokyo segment. Florence and Thailand are at the top of my travel goals and your trip has some great ideas

darthlemsip

Thank you, really enjoyed reading that. Off to Japan for the first time ever in just over two weeks (I may even return to TR writing for it), so this just makes me more excited