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.