137 Pillars House

Sitting big, future altering exams is like being sucked dry by a vampire.  By the time you put your pen down and push your chair away from your desk, you barely have the energy to drag your depleted body home, turn on the t.v. and veg out for a month. 

To sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream

My parents dragged me to the airport and a few hours of comfortable (ha!) economy class travel later we arrived at Suvarnabhumi International Airport (Bangkok). Suvarnabhumi International Airport has the longest name and the longest terminals of any airport in the world.  We covered 12.4km to get to our connecting flight. By the time we arrived in Chiang Mai I was almost in liquid form.

In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans

137 Pillars House was the perfect hotel to get back into a solid form.  Surrounding an old colonial teak house, this small hotel (30 rooms) was beautifully and thoughtfully landscaped. The rooms were large and cozy.  I finally had the chance to veg out: which I did by the pool (with its green curtain of vegetation) and in the room with my dad listening to music during an afternoon rain.

Outdoor showers: sensuous experience or chance to get wet with bugs. Discuss.

After a hard day of doing nothing, you wake up as hungry as a horse.  Hotel breakfasts are usually not worth getting up before noon for.  In this case, the breakfast was worth getting up at 6:00am to devour the entire menu in one sitting.  For breakfast you have a choice of Asian, Western or healthy.  Not really understanding why you would choose granola over Eggs Benedict or Pad Thai for breakfast, I never chose anything from the healthy menu.

Breakfast in Teak

In addition the staff was amazing.  Thanks to Greg's (the concierge) advice  I spent a great afternoon shopping at some very trendy young thai fashion designers' in Bangkok.

Paris in the Spring

I've been ignoring this blog for a long time.  I wish I had a good reason for doing so, but I don't.  Since my last post I have stayed at some great hotels and eaten at some fantastic restaurants.  I wish that I had blogged about those places.  

I was going to restart my blog with a review of an Ethiopian restaurant in town but I've discovered that don't like Ethiopian food. Instead I'll blog about my parent's recent trip to Paris.  

My parents reguarly travel without me, abandoning me alone in the house.  So when they told me that they were going to Paris without me, this was not surprising.  They did make a big deal of insisting and showing me "evidence" that this was the first trip that they have taken without me.  They also went on and on about there being a cast of thousands staying with me or calling me on an hourly basis (spying on me, really) while they were away.  This was of course entirely beside the point.  So now I have to write about how much fun they had in Paris while I sat at home eating cold soup out of a can and dodgy luncheon meat. 

They are tastier in Paris

They stayed at the Keppler Hotel  on 10 rue Kepler (the loss or addition of the "p" is very confusing).  They said that it was wonderful hotel "furnished beautifully with an impressive eye to detail, spotless, quiet and staffed with friendly, knowledgable people".  

Paris and good food go together like abandonment and tears.  So anyways here is a list of all the places they ate at: 

• Le Chateaubriand : "Young chef, we had the tasting menu with the wine pairing, ate these fantastic fried shrimp marinated in passion fruit and the dessert included a raw egg yolk encased in caramelised sugar.  The wines were unusual and perfect."
• L'Office : "I had a wild mushroom consume and beef with polenta.  Excellent!"
• La Marine: "Fun brasserie next to canal St. Martin.  Great scallops and oysters."

They also hung out at the following bars:

• Frenchie Wine Bar : "Small, extensive selection of French wine, amazing nibbles, great staff."
• Curio Parlour Cocktail Club : "Imaginative, well crafted cocktails."
• Experimental Cocktail Club : "Speak-easy style bar, cool cocktails for cool hip people like me and my friends." (meh!) 

I'm sure that they a lot of fun but I am equally sure that they would have had more fun with me.  In any case they came back with three cans of cassoulet from Le Comptoir de la Gastronomie.