I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

Why is it that we always want the opposite of what we have? In winter we dream of basking on white sand beaches while in summer we want to escape the heat and head for cooler climates... I'm taking some time out from blogging to spend a warm summery Christmas with family in Australia (as I dream of Munich's Christmas markets, mulled wine by a fireplace in Switzerland somewhere, walks in the snow...), before returning to Dubai for a warm winter's New Year's Eve, where, as bizarre as it sounds, we could experience a snow-white winter wonderland at Ski Dubai (pictured) if we wanted. But that's a whole other blog and for now family beckons. I'll blog again in early 2008. Happy New Year!

Travel inspirations and travel trends: movies, museums and sports move us

Exotically located movies and major sporting events get us moving, according to the Association of British Travel Agents which has announced its predictions as to where we'll be inspired to travel in 2008. The organization claims the Cartagena-set 'Love in the Time of Cholera' "promises to put Colombia back on the map of must see destinations", while 'Australia', starring Nicole Kidman, will see everyone heading down under; the British Museum's Terracotta Warriors' exhibition will whet our appetites for China, and the long-awaited summer Olympics will have us packing our bags; the world's first Formula One night race will lead us all to Singapore while Valencia's new Formula One street course will get us going to Spain. They add that early bookings for Turkey, Egypt, Portugal, the US, and France, indicate these countries will all be hot destinations for 2008. "Travelling is always an inspiring way of spending our free time," says ABTA head Justin Fleming. But are movies, museum exhibitions and sporting events alone enough to inspire us to move? And if travel in itself is inspiring, what does it inspire us to do?

Today's image? A typical summer's day in Tiananem Square, something to look forward to at next year's Summer Olympics.

Slow travel: train-dreaming

"Journeys are the mid-wives of thought", writes Alain de Botton in my favorite book, Art of Travel. But of all the modes of transport that are most conducive to "internal conversation", to thinking and to dreaming, the best, he believes, is the train. He writes "On a journey across flat country, I think with a rare lack of inhibition about the death of my father, about an essay I am writing on Stendahl and about a mistrust that has arisen between two friends. Every time my mind goes blank, having hit on a difficult idea, the flow of consciousness is assisted by the possibility of looking out the window, locking on to an object and following it for a few seconds, until a new coil of thought is ready to form and can unravel without pressure. At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves - that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves." I also appreciate road trips for those reasons, but on road trips you have to worry about who or what else is on the road, about petrol, signs and navigation, whereas on a train someone else is at the wheel and your mind is more free to wander. While the car gives the body freedom to move across a country, the train allows the mind to travel anywhere.

If you want to travel slowly by train and are looking for inspiration, check out The Man in Seat 61, which is not only the best resource for train travel on the web, with links to railway all over the world, train schedules and ticket-sellers, it's also incredibly inspiring with descriptions and photos from train journeys, from the Venice Simplon Orient Express to the Swiss Glacier Express.

Another Room With a View

They don't have to be ocean views to be alluring. The view between those floor-to-ceiling (French?) doors, whether swung wide open or ever-so-slightly ajar (the latter is even more enticing, don't you think?) could be of a bucolic country scene, majestic snow-covered mountains, or an arid red-dirt desert for that matter. What's most important is the fact that your room has doors, a window, or, better yet, a balcony, patio or veranda. It's the ability to step out that's important. To step out into the world (another world - 'other' world - a world that's not yours) and take in surroundings that would otherwise not surround you. Not least on an ordinary day, when you open your window - to your front lawn, your neighbor's lawn, your own back yard, your neighbour's back yard, or simply to nothing at all. But they surround you on this day, your holiday. And they - those spectacular vistas - make you feel special. And you say to yourself, you, I, we, we deserve this. We deserve a holiday. We deserve to travel. And we deserve a room with a view. Don't we? Don't we all?

A Room with a View

There's something about a room with a view, isn't there? Being able to step out onto a balcony, patio or veranda, however tiny or grand, and gaze out at a bustling street scene, a pretty piazza, a shimmering ocean, sparkling bay, or a still glassy lake. Watery views are my most coveted. I'll select one hotel over another simply for its sea vistas. I've visited Positano a couple of times and while the much-written-about hotel is Le Sirenuse, both times I've chosen Covo dei Saraceni because it's just that much closer to the water. It's beside the beach, next to the port, and when you walk out onto your balcony you look right onto the sea and the action on the sand. Plus there are magical views back up to the pastel-painted town that sprawls across the mountain. The closer I am to the water, the happier I am. I want to wake up to sunrises over the sea, hear boats bobbing on the water, feel the warmth of the sun on my feet as I drink a cup of tea in the morning, have to close the curtains a little to shut out the searing light from the sun during siesta, watch that big ball of fire sink into the sea, enjoy balmy evening breezes on my cheeks, and be able to count the stars before I go to bed. The first time we visited Venice, we stayed at a pension with two tiny balconies that looked onto a canal. In the early evening my husband and I would each take one and with a glass of wine would watch the gondoliers go by, singing and waving up to us, and we'd wave across to each other. A few summers later we were hunting for an apartment to rent in Venice and my main criteria was two identical balconies with canal views. I found an elegant little antique-filled studio in an old palazzo and I was pleased to find my balconies. We continued our evening ritual there and it was equally as wonderful as it was the first time. When we were younger and we backpacked around Mexico and Europe, we would stay at budget places in old towns and the prerequisite was always a window or balcony that overlooked the main street or square so we could wake up to the sounds of locals chatting on their way to work in the morning and in the evenings we could sit with a glass of wine in hand watching the action down below. Which in small towns in Mexico, Spain, Portugal, and Italy was always the evening passeo or passagiatta on the piazza, the slow social walk around the square, and in bigger cities like Barcelona, Madrid and Rome, invariably involved drinking. I have stayed in so many hotel rooms in cities now that I finally realize that a room at the front that opens onto a street will inevitably mean a sleepless night, but if I'm by the sea it's unquestionably a room with a view for me.

10 Places You Must Go in 2008: places I have been

These are the 10 places I think you should experience in 2008, based on places I have been myself, and here are some quick reasons why. I'll give you my own wish list of 'it' destinations for 2008, places I have never been but hope to visit, in the new year.
1. SYRIA: colossal history confronts you at every corner, the world's best archaeological sites, crusader castles, sublime Umayyad Mosque, bustling medieval souqs, the Mid East's tastiest food, beautiful Damascene houses, artisans at work, Euphrates River, Dead Cities, Palmyra, Bosra, and the friendliest people in the world.
2. BUENOS AIRES: because it is as buzzy as they say it is, atmospheric barrios, architectural mishmash of architecture, lively markets and parks, fabulous bars and restaurants, great meat and wine, all-night nightlife, traditional peñas, Feria de Mataderos, gritty backstreets.
3. MOROCCO: do a road trip for moonlike landscapes, sublime desert scenery, abandoned mountain palaces, Berber desert citadels set amid date palm oases, then stay with Maryam in Marrakesh.
4. WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Broome for Australia's best beach and sunsets, Monkey Mia for WA's most tranquil beach and best indigenous walk, spectacular Kimberley & Pilbara regions, Margaret River's wild coast and wonderful wineries.
5. ANTWERP & BRUSSELS: because Antwerp is Europe's most underrated, easygoing city and Brussels isn't boring at all, superb dining scenes, laidback bars, pubs and atmospheric brown cafes, multicultural neighborhoods, lively jazz scenes, excellent museums, cutting-edge fashion, and those fantastic mussels!
6. THAILAND: road trip it off the beaten track, through lush green landscapes of limestone mountains and impenetrable jungle, eat tasty food in small town markets, meet the world's sweetest people, and well, okay, squeeze in a spa treatment at beach resort if you must.
7. ISTANBUL: after the umissable historical sights, the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofia, Grand Bazaar, Topkaki Palace, and whirling dervishes, explore modern Istanbul, its lively backstreets, vibrant restaurants, bars and cafes, and get on the water for a cruise up the Bosphorus.
8. BALTIC CITIES: TALLINN: beautiful walled old city with perfectly preserved pastel-colored medieval architecture, kitsch experience of trying medieval food, sublime contemporary cuisine; RIGA: elegant art nouveau architecture, great walks, pretty parks and squares, lively pubs; and VILNIUS: laidback vibe, beautiful baroque churches, hearty food, and wild nightlife.
9. DUBAI: for reasons most travel writers won't tell you: Emirati and Bedouin culture and heritage, the courtyard wind-tower architecture in the Persian Bastakiya neighbourhood, gritty backstreets, Deira 'Creek' views from Bur Dubai, hospitable people, superb restaurants, and a lively contemporary art scene.
10. OMAN: majestic forts that make you feel like a kid again set in lush date palm oases, the Musandam peninsula, the Arabian Norway, the pretty waterfront at Muscat with its stunning harbour, and laidback Muttrah souq.

Or the smartest exercise in exacting (free) travel research ever?

So now I'm wondering if the New York Times was really so naive... perhaps they intended from the outset that their 2008 travel destination list should be as provocative as it has been? Could they really be that smart? Because in those 450+ comments (and rising) they have some high quality research there, stuff that airlines, tour companies and tourist organizations pay top dollars for. They now know - because they certainly didn't before - what kind of travel their readers actually do, which places they really want to go to, and what inspires them to travel. If I was the NYT travel editor and ad sales guys I'd be studying those reader comments, identifying the trends, and determining what destinations are really going to be hot in 2008. And I'd be making sure my editorial and advertising calendars included content on those places and topics, not the silly ones their journalist dreamed up while reviewing the year's luxury assignments over a bottle of bubbly. (It seems Jaunted must have been sharing the bottle because they unquestionably agree with the much-criticized list telling us to grab our pen and pad and - wait for it - not to miss San Diego's Hard Rock Hotel!) I only had to spend ten minutes reading the readers comments to detect some common themes - the rise in popularity of the road trip, slow travel, experiential travel, meaningful travel, authentic travel, volunteerism in travel, responsible travel, and the desire to live like a local - and identify some desirable destinations - Dubai, China, Chile, Sarajevo, Mostar, the Baltic countries, Iceland, Alaska, Quebec, anywhere in Africa it seems, Madagascar, Columbia, Peru, India, and Goa in particular were all mentioned often. Many of those are on my list too.

The most outrageous travel essay in recent history, according to budget travel guru

"The most outrageous travel essay in recent history" is what budget travel guru Arthur Frommer called the New York Times' '53 Places to go in 2008' in a superb analysis of the list. I'd only seen the online version, so if it really took up the amount of space he claims, it must be one of the worst wastages of column inches ever. I wonder if they'll publish an apology. I can't recall the last time travel journalism caused such controversy. I love Arthur Frommer's blog; he makes some brilliant points. But so do the NYT readers. Check out their comments: "shallowest piece of travel writing I've ever read, but thanks for cluing me in on exactly the places to AVOID in 2008. Luxury hotels indeed - what about seeing the actual country as its residents do?"; "This list is a thoughtless mish-mash... but to be fair, this is just for 2008. I suppose traveler(s) could take in Detroit this year and put off seeing Petra (one of the most spectacular and mysterious sites in Jordan) and Paris (the one in France, not the one in Texas) until 2009."; "I would go anywhere that this doesn't list... this list is meaningless."; "Money, money, money... the recent article compiled by DENNY LEE on 53 destinations for EXTREMELY RICH travelers to go to in 2008 is sick!"; and from a New Yorker: "This is disgusting. Does the entire world need to become an extension of our capitalist excess? "Seeing" the world maybe, but you're certainly not going to "experience" other cultures from a luxury gated tourist community."; and - my favorite - "Since when have must see destinations become synonymous with luxury? In my experience the quickest way to isolate yourself from a cultural experience is to check into an exlusive resort. What about all the places where you evaluate the success of your trip by the accumulation of dirt and dust on your rental car?" I can relate to that. We wiped a lot of dust off our hire car at the end of a road trip through Morocco, pictured, and even more red pindan dust after our 17,500 km drive through Western Australia last year, two extraordinary destinations that also went unmentioned.

Why travel wish lists matter, or, why a lack of imagination is a dangerous thing

So why should we care so much if publications like the New York Times get their 'hot new destinations' lists so wrong? Because our leisure time is important to us. For those of you who don't travel for a living, those one or two trips a year should be special. They should be memorable. They should be life-changing. You don't need to be swayed into visiting places where the streets are more crowded with tourists than locals. What's most disappointing about the NYT list is that many of its choices have been based on whether the place has a new golf course or luxury hotel. Now, I love a luxe hotel as much as the next person, but unless that hotel is extraordinary, one new hotel doesn't make a place a great destination. So, shouldn't this logic tell us something about NYT readers? You'd think so, until you read the 450 readers comments. These are the precise things readers object to about the NYT's choices, which reveal more about the publication and its writers than they do about global travel trends and travellers' aspirations. And this is why travel wish lists matter. Because these lists are about inspiring us to travel. And our travel dreams shouldn't be driven by a publication's advertisers or business imperatives, or, perhaps, quite simply, one writer's lack of instinct and imagination.

What's wrong with the New York Times '53 places to go in 2008' list

So what's wrong with the New York Times list?
* LAOS, over Cambodia and Vietnam, because they are "so 2007", and yet Vietnam is included further down the list (?). Does the NYT not realise most travellers visit all three together, and all three are only going to get hotter;
* LISBON: NYT tells us it's "emerging" as a cultural destination. Where have these people been? My husband and I wrote a book on Lisbon a few years ago and it is appealing but for a whole lot more reasons I'll share on my 2008 wish list;
* TUNISIA: the NYT's argument is the same as they one we gave in Lonely Planet's Blue List book last year;
* MAURITIUS, but Mauritius is "so 2005" to use NYT reasoning:
* DEATH VALLEY: who hasn't been here? My alternative: two hot destinations with easily as much dramatic appeal, Western Australia's Kimberly and Pilbara regions, for breathtaking gorges with tranquil natural swimming holes, ancient indigenous rock art, beautiful wildlife, dazzling native Australian wildlflowers, and for the movie buffs, Baz Luhrmann just completed filming his new epic 'Australia' here with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman;
* BUENOS AIRES: NYT tells us "the Argentine capital is becoming South America's next party capital". It has only been South America's party capital for the last ten years! I love the city (wrote a book on BA too) but in 2008, we'll be heading to MONTEVIDEO.
* KUWAIT CITY: p-lease! Even Kuwaitis acknowledge it's the most boring city in the world. The Gulf's next hot destination? ABU DHABI: new eco-resorts, fab new film festival, a Formula One coming to town, and a new museum precinct on Saadiyaat Island with a Guggenheim (set to be the largest), Louvre, and sleek museums designed by the world's greatest architects.
* MAZATLAN, ST LUCIA, ANGUILLA, TUSCANY, MALAGA... give me a break. These are all destinations that have become saturated with tourists.
* MUNICH, LIBYA, IRAN, QUITO, ALEXANDRIA, RIMINI, ESSAOUIRA... now NYT gets it right. Although these are places we'd prefer remain a secret.

There are so many amazing destinations the NYT has missed that you must to go to in 2008. I'm going to start making you a list now. The image here is of one of those magical must-do destinations that tops my list.

The season of listmaking: the New York Times '53 places to go in 2008'

It's that time of year when we all go crazy creating lists: gifts we plan to give, goodies we're going to buy to eat, the Christmas Day menu, New Year's Eve resolutions we're going to make, and places we're going to go in 2008. It seems just like yesterday that we shared some of our own wanderlustful wish lists, and now the New York Times has published its '53 places to go in 2008'. The idea of these 'what's hot next' travel lists is for the travel writer or team of editors to predict the places we are all going to go in the year ahead. The writers should base this on a combination of their own travel experience i.e. they know which destinations have reached tourist saturation point, and which hidden gems are still waiting to be discovered and deserving of some attention; their knowledge of the industry and what's in store for the year ahead; their understanding of global travel trends; and their gut instinct. In this case, the New York Times gets it so very wrong. Not only is their list just plain bizarre, but even its readers are, at best, confused, and at worst, incensed at the choices and reasoning. Go take a look and tell me what you think.

This image, by the way, is a pic of a destination they do get right: Alexandria, Egypt. We were there a couple of years ago and took this from our hotel balcony. Anyone know which hotel it is?

The travelling mind-set: mundane journeys and the banality of travel, part 2

There are people out there who enjoy the banalities of travel other than myself. Anne at Prêt à Voyager writes about the joy she gets out of the mundane wherever she goes. She recently discovered a wonderful book called Mundane Journeys which exalts the little things that people pass everyday in their neighbourhoods that they ordinarily fail to notice. Sub-titled 'A field guide to colour', Kate Pocrass, the author of this gorgeous illustrated guide, hones in on the nuances of colour in her everyday environment. Xander, over at Primitive Culture, does that too in his series of blogs on colour: check out Bangkok Colors: Blue-Green. I find it refreshing that so many people find the everyday inspiring. We rented an apartment for a month in a city last year and this is a little nondescript business we passed every day as we walked to the downtown area. It's nothing special, right? But I love the use of colour. Can you guess where it is?

The travelling mind-set: mundane journeys and the banality of travel, part 1

Do you take pleasure in the prosaic aspects of everyday life? Do you get just as much of a kick out of the commonplace and the ordinariness of your surroundings as you do the exotic and atmospheric? Alain de Botton writes in The Art of Travel about the travelling mind-set and its main characteristic: receptivity. He says what really defines us as travellers is our receptiveness, how we approach new places: "We carry with us no rigid ideas about what is or is not interesting. We irritate locals because we stand in traffic islands and narrow streets and admire what they take to be unremarkable small details. We risk getting run over because we are intrigued by the roof of a government building or an inscription on a wall. We find a supermarket or a hairdresser's shop unusually fascinating. We dwell at length on the layout of a menu or the clothes of the presenters on the evening news. We are alive to the layers of history beneath the present and take notes and photographs." Is that you? That's me all over. This, for instance, is a pic I took in Brussels of some abandoned furniture and trash with this amazing mural as a backdrop. I love it and all that it tells me. I remember my husband and I spending ages taking our snaps and the locals looking at us curiously as they passed by. Why is that?

Tackling the tediousness of travel

For those of you who don't like hanging around airports, who don't take some weird pleasure in the tediousness of travel, and who can't simply enjoy those moments of travel anticipation over a glass of bubbly in an airport lounge - we know who are you: you just want to get there - Daily Candy has some advice. Check out Bored Until Boarding for tips on how to occupy your time, from meditating and downloading podcasts to listen to in the taxi on the way to the airport, to tackling to-do lists and playing travel scrabble to escape terminal boredom. And what about: deleting messages on your cell phone (or even calling friends?); deleting emails in your in-box (or just sending a few?); writing a to-do list for when you arrive (mine always begins with: buy a local SIM card); doing some duty-free shopping (something for the hotel fridge?); reading about your destination if you're travelling for pleasure (or even for work); or simply talking to your travelling companion (or - crazy as it sounds - the person you're sitting next to!) Any other ideas?

Travelling Inspirations: air travel blogs

If waiting for your luggage to come off the carousel excites you - you can't wait to get outside the terminal and see what's out there, right? - or one of your favorite film scenes is the one in Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express where the couple fool around with the model airplane in bed, then you're probably an air travel junkie like me. There are some inspirational blogs out there about air travel, airports, airlines, and the aviation industry: Airline Confidential by Richard Havers and Christopher Tiffney, authors of the book of the same name, is an engaging read about the fun of flying, the glamour of air travel, "the crazy wacky world of airlines", and people behaving badly and bizarrely; Another Passport Stamp is a blog about a London-based, American flight attendant's travels, layovers and quests for yet another passport stamp, sprinkled with some delicious eavesdropping and gossip; while Yu Hu Stewardess is the cheeky blog of a 'fly girl' who claims her stories are true but the details have been changed because "nobody wants to get fired or sued" - she hasn't written in a while so let's hope she wasn't fired, but there's some scintillating stuff in her archives! The Wings Stayed On is a commercial pilot's behind-the-scenes blog with some revealing 'day in the life' descriptions while Flight Blogger, sub-titled "if you fly fast enough, the sun never sets", covers the nuts and bolts of the aviation industry - literally - as he takes a look at where production is at on new aircraft (this one's only for the obsessives perhaps). The Airline Blog covers news and rumors in the industry; Thirty Thousand Feet is a blog about all things aviation with a portal with links to more blogs and sites about airlines, airports, and airplanes; while Aircrew Buzz is an aviation news blog with commentary on current events and issues. On a more practical note, In Flight HQ has a tech bent, offering up "tools, tips and techniques for being productive at 30,000 feet"; while One Bag blogs about "the art and science of travelling light", something as a travel writer I find impossible to master with a bag full of technology, books, press kits, and research materials to cart around.

Up up and away: junior jetsetters and the formation of air travel fascination

"Up up and away, with TAA, the friendly, friendly waaaaaay". That was the jingle for long gone Australian airline TAA. My precocious little sister Felicia, aged three, upon seeing the airline logo on the side of the plane, once sang the song at the top of her lungs from the top of the stairs as we boarded a TAA flight in Sydney. We were flying alone and the name cards the air ‘hostess’ had pinned to our chests identified us as junior jetsetters. While the adult passengers and airline staff around us giggled at my cute sister's capricious song, I, taking my jetsetter status a little too seriously for an eleven year old, was terribly embarrassed at the time. Now that moment is one of my fondest childhood travelling memories. My love of air travel, airlines, airplanes and airports was also cemented on that trip.

Although I love everything and anything to do with flying, as I declared in yesterday's blog, I’m not a fan of take-off or landing. I agree with Alain de Botton in The Art of Travel that "few seconds in life are more releasing than those in which a plane ascends to the sky" and I appreciate the "psychological pleasure" of flying he writes so eloquently about, but I think I equally enjoy hanging out at airports and the sense of anticipation that builds as we wait for a flight. I like to read while I wait to board, and naturally I love reading anything to do with airports, airplanes and airlines. A few favorites: Airports: A Century of Architecture, Hugh Pearman's historical and pictorial celebration of the "most exciting places on earth"; Marc Auge’s wonderfully intelligent meditation on airports (and shopping malls, motorways, etc) in Non Places: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Supermodernity; and Alastair Gordon’s compelling Naked Airport: a Cultural History of the World’s Most Revolutionary Structure.

The sleek airport interior architecture pictured is Bangkok’s new Suvarnabhumi International Airport. I wonder what the young couple pictured are reading.

A Celebration of Air Travel and the Democratization of Travel

I actually enjoy air travel, especially long haul. I'm not a fan of take off and landing, but when I'm up there I still love looking out the window at the incredible cloud formations. Especially at sunset or sunrise. I like to savor that first glass of wine and salty crackers, to discuss the menu with my husband and decide what to eat, and when I'm flying Emirates, I enjoy flicking through their impressive entertainment program and deciding on the films, tv programs and radio shows we're going to kick back to. Which is why I relate to travel writer Pico Iyer who celebrates air travel in 'The Golden Age of Travel' over on Jetlagged: Navigating the Unfriendly Skies, the New York Times' new travel blog. Iyer argues that air travel has never been as comfortable, easy or as affordable as it is now. My husband and I get on and off planes like most commuters do buses and trains - you don't want to know how many flights we took last year - so, aside from the increasingly bad airline food we've experienced of late, I have to agree with Iyer. Criticizing those who complain about airport security and lost luggage, Iyer wonders whether it isn't "the democracy of travel that many of us are objecting to these days when we speak of more crowded planes and long lines at the airport". And I think he has a point. I like the fact that in the UAE, for instance, most of the passengers using the excellent low-cost airline Air Arabia are labourers, construction workers and truck drivers travelling between Dubai and their homes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, and so on. Their check-in luggage includes, alongside gifts for their families (boxes of dates, toys for the kids), rolled-up foam mattresses, blankets, and enormous containers of clean water - the necessities most of us take for granted. The cheap flights mean that rather than flying home once every year or two, these guys can now fly home more frequently. And take back with them goods their families might otherwise miss out on. We rarely see any white well-off travellers on these Air Arabia's flights, and that's a shame. Or is it?

Tourism and 'hospitality': the little extras

How is this for an appetizing image? This delectable little morsel of spicy deep fried chicken, served with sweet Thai chilli sauce, was delivered to the door of our room (more like an apartment) at the sublime Aleenta by three of the resort's restaurant chefs. In full chef's kit, they brandished big trays of tiny shot glasses holding these tasty teasers. And with enormous smiles they handed me a couple of the aromatic tidbits with some crisp white napkins and silver cutlery. "A taster of our food in restaurant tonight," one chef smiled. What a an idea! Not only was this another display of that terrific hospitality the Thais are so famous for, but it whetted our appetite and give us a hint of what was to come that night. It also came at a perfect time - sunset - and made me immediately want to crack open a bottle of white.

The Welcome Drink

What's so special about the welcome drink? What does it really mean? I recently wrote about welcome drinks on Grantourismo: "Immediately after your arrival at a hotel in Thailand – after you’ve been greeted with a “sawadee-kaa” from all the hotel staff accompanied by the traditional ‘wai’ gesture (hands shaped as if ready for prayer) – you’re ushered to a comfy seat and offered an icy cold face towel, usually scented with aromatic lemongrass, along with a welcome drink. While the icy face towels are particularly welcomed in Thailand’s sultry heat, it’s the welcome drinks we really enjoyed. We love the variety, from the Four Season Koh Samui’s frothy pink cocktail of guava, mango juice and sparkling ginger ale, to the Muang Kulaypan’s whole coconut filled with fresh sweet coconut juice (pictured)..." So what is it really about welcome drinks that we love? Apart from how refreshing they might be? Do we really place that much importance on them? Would we really care if we weren't offered one? And what do they mean? They're a gesture of hospitality, it goes without saying. And hotels are in the business of 'tourism and hospitality' so it's a gesture we should expect. Then why are we so delighted to be handed a glass of water and damp face cloth? Is it because someone has shown us that they care? Some cultures place more emphasis on these gestures of goodwill than others. We've lived in the Middle East for ten years and everything that's said about Arab hospitality is true. You can't enter a carpet shop in Dubai, Cairo, Damascus, or Marrakesh without being offered tea. Water is brought automatically without asking. It goes without saying you can expect the same in most shops and businesses, in banks even, and, naturally, in people's (even stranger's) homes. Is it that in 'the West' we appreciate the hotel welcome drink so much more because these gestures of hospitality are missing from our everyday life?

Liquid Travels: coffee, tea or chai?

While I love lingering over some exotic local liquor at a rickety table on a sunny square somewhere, and taking 'home' those liquid travel memories to recollect later (note: they can especially come in handy on a wintery day in a dreary office when you're feeling a little down - so store them up!), I equally enjoy trying tea and coffee in other countries. Tea, generally being called chai or chay everywhere in the world except where I come from, is a favourite. While coffee can be terribly disappointing - especially when the 'premium' coffee on offer is Nescafe, as it is many simple coffee shops in South American and Middle Eastern countries - tea, at its worst, is at least interesting. This tea we tried at a small market in a tiny village near Phrao in Thailand's north was subtle in its sweetness and strength, and while it wasn't unique or unusual, it was, to me, just right - it was pretty close to being the perfect glass of tea. That's a flavour that I won't easily forget. And with that memory comes (like a series of email attachments) images of the table we sat at, the people we were with, the woman who served the tea who was lovely (albeit tired - she'd been up all night serving tea to late workers and early risers), the market stalls and their produce, the surrounding countryside (rice paddies), and the weather on that day (fortunately the rain held off until we were nearly 'home'. But the wonderful thing about liquid (and culinary) memories is the additional rememberance of 'taste'. Don't you think?

Travelling inspirations: liquid travels

Mojitos in Havana, Caiparinhas in Rio, Pisco in Chile, Arak in Beirut, Lychee Martinis in Thailand... I find memories of exotic cocktails and local liquors, generally sipped in equally exotic locations - an atmospheric fort in old Havana, a beachside cafe on Copacabana Beach, sunset over a dramatic Atacama desert landscape, a nightclub on New Years Eve in Jounieh, and a bar overlooking Burma (in that order) - to be almost as inspiring as foreign food experiences. Admittedly the liquid memories are more hazy. For obvious reasons. Are there 'booze blogs' out there that might inspire me to travel as much as those mouthwatering food blogs I wrote about, I wonder? We recently drank shots of sweet, strong Thai whiskey with a Shaman's father in a hill tribe village in Thailand (the Shaman was at work in the fields), and the warmth that dashed through my body, and the smile that darted to my lips, after a sip of the potent brew is something I won't forget easily. Do I long to return to the Shaman's hut to share some more shots? Probably not. But it's the opportunity to have similar kinds of heady experiences that inspires me to travel. What about you?

Nostalgic Journeys: part 1, the Travelling Lunchbox

There's something about a lunch box that's so endearing. As a child, I loved my lunch box and eagerly looked forward to discovering its contents each day - the greater the variety of edible goodies (a sandwich, fruit, a piece of cake, a 'Popper' - that's packaged juice Down Under) the more I relished 'little lunch' and 'big lunch'. Unlike my playmates who delighted in the days to come when our mothers got too busy to prepare our lunches and we could spend our cents at the tuck shop (a 'canteen' in Australia) on meat pies, sausage rolls, cream buns, chocolate eclairs, and Sunny Boys (I'll let you look that one up), I missed the lunch box days. As an adult I've enjoyed prepping for long journeys on the road, whether it was stashing away a bottle of Pisco and local snacks from the market for long South American bus rides as a backpacker, or more recently on road trips with my husband, making a thermos of tea in the morning and stocking up on muesli bars for the car. One of the things I most enjoyed about skiing (before my husband took up snowboarding and I dedicated myself to imbibing mulled wine by fireplaces in grand old European hotels) was prepping little bags of chocolates, nuts and dried fruit that we'd nibble on while savoring spectacular mountain vistas. And while I'm increasingly disappointed by airline food, I must admit I enjoy opening the little containers and checking everything out. So I was delighted to receive not one but two lunch boxes on our recent trek in Thailand, the first of which I showed you yesterday, and the second pictured today. While it seemed odd eating the contents of this one, cross-legged on the bamboo floor of a hut in a hill tribe village, with its white bread ham sandwich (with the crusts cut off!), chicken drumstick, fruit, and chocolate cake, for a few moments there it transported me back to my childhood and suburban Australia in the 70s. Who ever could have thought a lunch box could take me travelling?

Travelling Inspirations: food blogs, part 2

If yesterday's post didn't have you packing your bags, here are some more mouth- watering food blogs that inspire me to travel to the destinations these globe-trotting gourmets are blogging about: Traveller’s Lunchbox is the delicious work of an American living in Scotland (and married to a Spaniard) who blogs about her global dining experiences; this is another one of those scrumptious blogs with appetizing imagery, along with a fantastic list of food blogs around the world. Read her posts on Morocco, including my favorite cities, Essaouira and Marrakesh, and see if they don’t have you researching flights straight after. On Have Fork Will Travel, a fabulously fanatic foodie blogs about eating well and eating out (primarily) in the UK. After dipping into this blog I feel as if I’ve spent a week in London dining at all the best restaurants – without having spent a pound! A few things I love about this blog: its author believes mashed potato to be the best food in the world and has a ‘Mash Hall of Fame’; its sub-title is “one cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well” (how true, only I'd add 'travel well' too); and this blogger will hop on a plane and fly to New York for one night for a meal. I also love Desert Candy, a Middle East-driven cooking blog by an American who writes from Damascus, New York and Baltimore, and generously shares her scrummy recipes; and the delectable Italian-focused Lucullian, by a Swede living in a village in Tuscany. Do food blogs inspire you to travel too? I'd love to hear about your favorites! Pictured is a Thai lunchbox provided by our guide on a recent four day trek in Thailand - opening the little rattan boxes was a delight and the the contents were as delicious as you can imagine!

Travelling Inspirations: food blogs, part 1

Food blogs inspire me to travel. Especially those by globetrotting foodies blogging about their eating experiences around the world, and expats who blog about their culinary discoveries in their adopted cities. As I’ve been blogging about our Thailand travels, it’s apt that I share some of my favourite Asian-focused blogs: Bangkok-born San Franciscan Pim blogs on Chez Pim about her global culinary adventures, reviewing everything from Asian street food to European Michelin star restaurants; she has scrumptious guides to eating in San Francisco, London, New York, Paris, and Spain, and her Bangkok guide includes blogs on my favorite Thai snacks, pork crackling and Kanom Krok. Singaporean ‘Chubby Hubby’ blogs equally deliciously about his gourmet globetrotting experiences with his wife, with mouth-watering photography; his recent blogs on Bhutan will have you adding that destination to your list. Asian-based blogs with food photography to make me hungry include the scrummy-looking Real Thai by Bangkok-based Austin Bush who blogs about his best eating experiences in Bangkok and other places; the appetizing Eating Asia by a Malaysian-based food writer-photographer team, which includes especially luscious photography; the ravenous-making Rambling Spoon by Karen Coates, an Asia-based correspondent for Gourmet magazine, who is ‘traveling the world by mouth’ (Karen also has a long list of food blogs I’m going to have to check out!); and Hanoi-based blog Sticky Rice about yummy eating experiences in Vietnam. Take a read and see if they don't make you want to buy a plane ticket somewhere. (This pic is mine, of our typically scrumptious, congee-like breakfasts while in Thailand.)

Travelling Inspirations: food

Food inspires me to travel. No doubt about it. Does it do that for you? Whether I’m flicking through a food and travel magazine, drooling over my husband’s food photography, or just taking a look at my own food snaps from our travels, mouthwatering images just make me want to go! Take this pic of Mieng Kham, a deliciously tangy Thai appetiser made with betel leaves, dried shrimps, limes, peanuts, palm sugar, coconut, and birds-eye chillies (hope I’ve got that right!). It’s not something you’ll typically see at your neighbourhood Thai restaurant in Dubai, London, Sydney, San Francisco, or wherever, as Betel leaves can be hard to find. Therefore it’s always the first dish we’ll order our first meal in Bangkok. It’s the dish we most reminisce about. It's the one we most look forward to. And it's the dish that inspires me to find an excuse to return to Thailand.

The Joys of Travel: Food Markets, part 3 (the food - the good stuff!)

As I've been raving about the pleasures of food markets and our recent rovings around Thailand's markets, I thought I should actually show you some of the fabulous food offerings from Thanin Market (also known as Siriwattana Market) in Chiang Mai, our favourite. The best time to go is for breakfast when it's at its buzziest.

Try: Chiang Mai's famous spicy pork sausage and crunchy pork crackling with sticky rice, a popular local breakfast. (The pork crackling pictured here is famous all over Thailand).

Don't miss: Kanom Krok - deliciously sweet, little coconut puddings, topped with spring onions or corn.

Take away: delicious deep fried snacks - banana, sweet potato and pumpkin are on offer most days but there are daily specials such as fried banana blossom with sesame, oil and chili! Yum! or 'Aroi' (delicious)! as they say in Thailand.

The Joys of Travel: Food Markets, part 2 (a case for hiring guides)

We generally don't like guides - mainly, it's their bad jokes, the tedious history lessons, the time-keeping mentality, and a certain arrogance, plus we've had a few bad experiences (one of which involved our first visit to one of the world's great wonders, Petra, being ruined by the guide). However, we visited several food markets in Thailand with guides and they were all excellent - knowledgeable, enthusiastic, charming, and had excellent relationships with the stallholders. Once we made it clear to the guides that we'd been to food markets in Thailand many times before, we knew our food, and were familiar with Thai food, it took the whole experience to another level. We got to ask lots of questions, to find out what all those icky unidentifiable things actually were, to learn their Thai names, how they're cooked and eaten, and so on. And by doing so, we learnt an extraordinary amount about the Thai people, their cuisine, and their culinary habits. And we tried lots of food! Admittedly, we weren't as brave as Bourdain. We didn't need to try deep friend crickets or whitchetty grub-like worms, but we tasted a lot of food, a lot more than we'd try if we were by ourselves. We're hooked. From now on, we're going to hire a guide-translator to visit every food market in each new place we visit. And maybe some of the markets we're familiar with too. Who knows what we might discover? And who we might meet. We probably wouldn't have met this friendly fishmonger and had a lesson on Thai fish-scaling if we had have been on our own!

The Joys of Travel: Food Markets, part 1

Food markets are one of the ultimate joys of travel, aren't they? Whenever we visit a new place one of the first things we do is visit a local fresh food market. They're a microcosm of the society. Markets give you a sensoral introduction to the culture, an insight into its everyday life, a taste of the 'personality' of the place, and some local flavour - quite literally. For us one of the real pleasures is the food itself. And while we like being able to identify the familiar (Oh, they have that here?!), we love nothing more than discovering some unusual ingredient or exotic fruit - and Thailand has plenty of those. And in Thailand, there's the added delight - or horror depending on how you look at it - of seeing slimy creatures swimming around in big bowls of water, ugly frogs that give the cane toad a run for its money, big dishes of deep fried insects, and other icky unidentifiable things bouncing about in plastic bags. The more markets assault your senses the better. Colours so bold they bowl you over, sounds so raucous you're covering your ears, aromas so heady you have to hold your nose... bring it on!

Traffic Hazards in Thailand #4

Another food-related traffic hazard in Thailand, this time in Bangkok. But to be honest, as we were walking rather than driving, this young woman pushing her fresh fruit juice stall along a Sukhumvit Soi didn't present a problem to us. She was more of an obstacle to the passing traffic. But then they're used to it in Thailand anyway. This is part of daily life there. And isn't it fabulous? Imagine it happening in your home city of (insert city). Would it cause a riot? If not, then your city is the kind of city I want to visit. I'll dedicate this tasty little image (well, I saw what she was selling!) to our American friends who are celebrating Thanksgiving, in particular, Anne, over at Prêt à Voyager, who has posted about her own experience of road hazards in Vietnam, ironically titled Happy Travels, and has included a a wonderful birds-eye-view of rickshaw, motorcycle and bicycle madness - well, it's not so ironic, actually, as it's also a 'Happy Thanksgiving' post. Who else is celebrating Thanksgiving? And do you have any 'Thanksgiving and Travel' experiences to share?

Traffic Hazards in Thailand #3

Talk about a moveable feast! We were stuck behind traffic in the old town of Phuket this time and the 'sidecar' of the motorcycle in front of us was loaded with all the bits and pieces this couple needed to set up their food stall at the local Night Market: boxes full of fresh groceries, stacks of plastic stools, fold-up tables, and coolers ('eskies' to the Aussie readers; 'cooler bins' to the Kiwis; but what does everyone call them everywhere else?) full of the tasty food they'd probably been preparing all day to sell that night. They weren't really that much of a traffic hazard. This is just an excuse for me to write about these wonderful Thai people who work so hard to make a decent living sell delicious fresh food each night. Thailand's markets and their tasty eats are one of our favorite things about travelling in this country. Now, isn't food itself motivation enough to travel? I think that deserves a blog of its own.

The disappointments of travel: Burger King at the Night Market

Our first night in Chiang Mai we thought we’d hit the Night Market then grab some dinner from the local vendors who have stalls in the markets in the surrounding streets. While the Night Markets get a bit samey after a while, all pedaling the same cheap t-shirts, fake DVDs and Thai handicrafts, the wonderful thing about the food stalls in Thai markets is that there are always a couple of stands with something interesting that you won’t find in other parts of the country. One of the first things we noticed as we started our Night Market window-shopping, however, was a sign: ‘Burger King now at Night Market’. And then we noticed another. And another. The illuminated street signs for Burger King were everywhere. Could there be anything more depressing? Maybe those travelers suffering from Bangkok Belly might disagree, but we didn’t come to Chiang Mai to eat at Burger King. The same way that we didn’t come to Thailand to sip Guinness at Mary O’Shea’s. Why do some travelers feel that they can’t visit another country without the ‘comforts of home’? Would you rather refuel at Burger King or buy a tasty Thai snack from this woman?

Local colour: painted buses and other vehicles

I love this spray-painted bus with its lurid colors. We're parked behind it in the belly of a car ferry on our way from Koh Samui to Phuket, a day's drive made longer by rain. As we sit in our little hire car waiting for the ferry to dock, extended Thai families start piling into their Hilux's, young guys start revving their motorbikes, and I study the map, figuring out the route we need to follow, the directions we need to take. We watch a couple of young backpackers struggling with their hefty loads, searching for a route between the vehicles to their bus at the front of the boat. They give up and retreat back upstairs, and on their way past they look at us in our car and smile. A tad envious I detect. Well, what a way to be travelling in the rain, poor things. It's moments like these that I'm glad that travel writing is our job, that we can afford to hire a car to travel through these countries, and that it doesn't really matter if it rains - we're not here to lie on a beach, this is work, after all. I wonder if anyone has written about Thailand's zany painted buses and trucks. What is it that makes them so amusingly attractive to my foreigner's eyes? Certainly their exoticism. Their kitsch appeal. But would I notice them in Australia? No, I'd probably think the paint job hideous. In Dubai, the Pakistani and Afghani guys also paint their trucks in vivid colours and hang kooky accessories to their rear vision mirrors. I've heard that in Pakistan there is a festival of painted trucks, the Painted Truck Caravan from Karachi to Kabul. I wonder if travellers actually plan a trip to Pakistan around the event. Could painted trucks inspire travel?

Traffic Hazards in Thailand #2

This family driving along a highway in the south of Thailand was one of the more troublesome of the traffic hazards that we confronted. While Dad was obviously driving at a responsible speed, it was the other vehicles on the road that concerned us. We've driven all over the world and we've come to the conclusion that the Thai drivers are quite possibly the worst. They're not the most aggressive nor fastest by any means (the Middle East wins those prizes), however, they must be the most oblivious. What is it about travelling that compels us to contemplate driving skills, habits and etiquette in a depth that we might not at 'home'? Is it that because we're always moving we more acutely notice the mechanisms of movement and the means of getting around, because quite simply, that's what we're doing, just travelling around. And what else are we to do during all those hours on the road staring out windows?

Traffic Hazards in Thailand #1

As we drive around Thailand we're struck by the number of traffic hazards we confront on the roads every minute of every day. They range from the downright scary to the surprisingly cute. But no matter how horrified we are when we suddenly come face to face with a herd of animals sauntering across the highway (ox in this case), or as we overtake a motorcycle carrying a family of six (a tiny child precariously perched up front, another small kid on behind soundly sleeping as he somehow clings on to his older sibling, the parents in between), we never seem to get as mad as we might at 'home', where road rage prevails. It's something about the exoticism of the hazards that amuses us more than alarms us. Our willingness to be surprised. Our openness to the unusual. But it's also because we're in a far more tolerant mood when we're travelling than we are on our tedious daily commutes to work where tempers can so easily flare. (Especially, for us, in the gridlock that is Dubai.) Don't you think? My husband, who is the driver in our partnership (I navigate) will probably disagree. But there have been so many traffic hazards to entertain us on the roads in Thailand that I thought I'd start this series.

Touristic experiences #2: staged tourism and the charm of cute children

What is it about cute smiling kids in traditional costumes in foreign countries that we find so disarmingly charming? Flick through the back pages of a travel magazine to the ads for tours to South America and Thailand hill tribe treks and there'll be a couple of rosy-cheeked little kids in colourful clothes leading some llamas or sitting on the steps of a church smiling sweetly. In this case the children in my picture are posing at a lookout in front of vistas of the Golden Triangle, the point where Laos, Myanamar (Burma) and Thailand meet. We would never use a guide if travelling for pleasure but when we're working and reviewing a resort we try to get a taste of the activities available to guests to best assess the experience on offer. At the Four Seasons Tented Camp at the Golden Triangle, there's a range of activities, from mahout training and elephant treks to excursions to the Opium museum, Burma, and the Golden Triangle. The latter involves a ride on a longtail boat to the very centre of the meeting of the waters of the Mekong and one of its tributaries so you can see the three countries around you, rides on a songthaew (the open-air truck typically used as a taxi in Thailand) and tuk-tuk (a motorised Thai rickshaw), a stroll around a market to see the squirming creatures and crunchy insects that are the local delicacies, a visit to a temple to learn how to make a wish and be blessed by a monk, and this trip to the lookout. While we came to the conclusion that the excursion was a wonderful compact introduction to Thailand for first-timers to the country, we were uncomfortable (once again! - see the previous post by my partner Terry) with the song and dance show. Okay, so the kids didn't dance. But they did sing, they recited something to the effect of "You can take our picture for 20 baht" in half a dozen languages, they posed in front of the Golden Triangle, their hands first in the traditional Thai wai gesture and then fingers formed in rabbit ears, and they smiled very sweetly. (We noted, however, that their most sincere and spontaneous smiles came at the end when we handed over the money.) This form of staged tourism is cheesy and awkward at the best of times - don't you think? - but it's quietly discomforting when it involves little kids who should be in school. While we adored our eager young guide, we were embarrassed and uncomfortable with being placed in a position where we felt required to take photos of the children, yet we didn't not want to take the snaps and insult both our guide and the kids. So we took our pics - Terry using the opportunity to get some insightful close-ups of the children, me politely following our guide's suggestions - and we very generously tipped the kids. We told ourselves the money was paying for their education and putting food on their family's table but still we felt our uneasy. If there's one thing that I don't find cool about travel, it's tourism. And the more staged it is - it doesn't matter how cute the kids are - the more it makes me want to stay at home.

Touristic experiences #1: Thailand's 'longnecks'

There’s been so much written about and so many photos taken of the ‘longneck’ tribes from Burma (Myanmar) who reside in northern Thailand that it’s almost redundant to talk about them in terms of a Thai travel experience. Do you visit them or not? My partner Terry and I have been discussing the issue. This blog is by Terry:

By visiting the ‘longnecks’, the displaced Burmese women who wear brass coils around their elongated necks, are we perpetuating a method of lifelong discomfort (at the least) for these women that’s the equivalent of the lotus shoes that kept Chinese women’s bound feet tiny and ‘feminine’ (albeit deformed)? Or are we supporting a displaced tribe that relies on the income generated by tourists to survive? While the Lonely Planet Thailand guide we perused in a hotel gave the visit a positive spin, Rough Guide took the opposite tack. Given that Lara and I spend our lives telling people where to go (so to speak!), we decided we’d better visit to form our own opinions...

The signs proclaiming "longneck this way" as we approached the co-operative tribal village on the outskirts of Chiang Rai reinforced my already apprehensive outlook. Surely people visiting the women could at least learn the name of the tribe, the Padaung, a sub-group of the Karen tribe, and those putting up the signs would have enough respect to do the same. To me it was very much “roll up, roll up, see the mustachioed woman!” It placed the women at the ‘freak show’ end of the range of touristic experiences.

The entry fee was steep for Thailand and we wondered how much money the ‘longnecks’ were getting out of this. A disinterested little Thai girl served as our guide, taking us first to meet a beautiful old woman from the Akha tribe. She wasn’t a ‘longneck’, but was the kind of grandma whose face lights up when she smiles, revealing a life well lead and an old age well earned. I took her portrait and hoped that it captured in ones and zeros some of the spirit she possessed. Next, we were led to a simple building where a group of tribespeople played traditional music. While the elaborate headdresses were in place, enthusiasm was conspicuously absent. Some t-shirt-clad members of the troupe clearly wanted to be anywhere else but standing in front of a couple of travellers looking for a ‘cultural experience’. The embarrassment of the situation was evident on both sides. Before the song had finished several had their headdresses off and were wandering away.

After passing the obligatory stands of handicrafts our guide happily pronounced ‘longneck!’ with a flourish. As soon as I saw the intriguing face of the first Padaung woman sitting on the verandah of her wooden hut weaving textiles on a primitive loom, I knew I couldn’t shoot any photos to sell (I left the task of shooting pics for this blog to Lara who chatted to the woman about weaving). I’d seen this very woman on countless postcards and her image had been exploited enough. From a purely aesthetic point of view, she was photogenic, but I felt no compulsion to photograph her. I like to shoot portraits when I feel that someone has an interesting face and sense a confidence in themselves and who they are that can shine through in a photo. Here I felt that I'd just be shooting her for her physical oddity rather than her beauty of spirit, which, I must say, she certainly possessed. We asked her about her weaving and moved on. We met a couple of other ‘longnecks’, both of whom I'd also seen on postcards, but while several tourists snapped away, I just wanted to leave. On the way back to the car we crossed paths with two cute ‘longneck’ children with a couple of rings around their necks. I thought of what lay in store for them in the future – drinking through a straw, working a loom, and being happy-snapped by gawking tourists as they live their life in what is essentially a cruel neck brace.

I often make jokes about my professional digital SLR camera being the ‘soul stealer’, as it’s so big, especially with a flash attached, that it makes people apprehensive when I shoot their portrait. And in some customs the creation of an image or likeness of a person is seen as stealing their soul. I always ask before shooting a portrait, but with the ‘longnecks’ the price of admission gives you carte blanche to snap away. To me, there’s never been a more soul-stealing experience than this. Every snapshot someone takes of the Padaung women is directly contributing to the creation of another generation of young women who have to uphold this tradition. There’s no doubt about it. The complexities of cultural identity aside, the commodification and marketing of the experience is just as abhorrent as the practice itself. Many other cruel decorative practices, such as the Chinese lotus shoes, have been phased out. So should this. The fact that another generation of women will suffer the same indignity aided by my financial contribution makes me uncomfortable. Do you think you’d feel the same way?

Assessing hotels: flip flops, yoga mats and other thoughtful extras

When we're inspecting a hotel as part of our research for a new guidebook, we're often whisked around the property at a rapid pace by the sales, marketing, PR or media execs, or even the GM at hotels that care. We're given a tour of the entire place - guided to breakfast rooms, restaurants, cafés, bars, pools, fitness centers, spas, kids clubs, and often business meeting and function rooms (despite our protests that our audience isn't interested in these, nor are we, and we have no intention of writing about them), and we're shown half a dozen different rooms. Fortunately I research and write with my partner Terry so we take turns at role-playing. One will ask questions, show interest and make small talk, while the other scribbles notes furiously, snaps memory pics, and - while the first is carefully keeping the hotel staffer out of sight - scrutinizes how clean the bathroom really is, prods the mattress for firmness, closely notes how worn the carpets are, and so on. No matter how thorough the tour is, it can never compare to actually experiencing a hotel. It's only then that you find out how warm the welcome truly is, how friendly, efficient and professional the staff are, whether the food tastes any good, how comfortable the mattress really is, whether the room is quiet or noisy at night, etc. And only by staying at a hotel for a couple of days do you really appreciate the attention to detail and thoughtful little touches. I will risk making us sound like snobs to say that this is where five stars such as the Four Seasons really excel, and boutique hotels and budget digs often fall down. Take the Four Seasons Thailand resorts. While you can expect to find big fluffy towels, soft bathrobes and slippers, beautiful toiletries, and handmade soaps, and practical amenities like umbrellas, flashlights, hair-dryers, and shoulder bags for the pool, where they really surprise is in their unique extras matched to the resort. At Koh Samui, you'll find complimentary his and her flip flops, a yoga mat in the cupboard and an i-pod docking station. At the Golden Triangle Tented Camp there's a denim mahout's outfit for your elephant riding; complete your mahout training and you'll be given one to take home. At the end of your cooking course at Chiang Mai, you'll be presented with a gift of chopsticks, rattan place mats, a chef's apron, and certificate. It's these little touches that make a room comfortable, a stay seamless, and a hotel experience memorable. We'll never forget a stay at a simple family-owned budget hotel in Turkey where soon after setting down our backpacks in our room the owner brought us a big bowl of plump juicy strawberries, and he drove us to the bus station the next day. It may not have been the Four Seasons, but those thoughtful gestures were just as unforgettable.