What's the second best beach in the world?

I was just reading where Ao Nang has been voted by Expedia as the second best beach in the world.

Ao who? Ao what? Ao where???

I don't think I've ever heard of this place, jing jing. 

So I rushed to the map and had a look. Sure enough, there it is, nestled right in along near Krabi down south near Phuket.

So I know where I'm going for my next beach holiday.

See you there?


Link: www.expedia.com.au

You'll go nuts for this ...

Khun Noi dishes up another dollop of ice cream.

In Chiang Rai recently, everybody was raving -- voluntarily, unpaid, with no sign of a gun at their head -- about the coconut ice-cream shop.

So I headed out on the road from town to the popular hot springs along the Kok River. It's hard to spot ... just a small shop on the corner with shiny steel milk barrels out the front. All the signs are in Thai and Chinese (Khun Noi's husband, slaving away there over freezing ice-cream, is Chinese).

Khun Noi serves from a small makeshift wooden-faced cart in the store, and they make only one flavour – coconut. One flavour, that's it, take it or leave it, jing jing.

You then add your choice of nuts, jelly, lollies, raisins, etc to customize it. Served in a cup or cone for just 15 baht. And obviously plenty of people choose to take it because they get through 200kg of ice-cream every day.

It tastes sooooooooo good. I finished one cup, and promptly ordered and ate a second. If you develop an addiction, you can order by the barrel as they also wholesale to hotels throughout Lanna area.   

If you can't find the shop, give them a call on 053-600-753. But be prepared to speak Thai or Chinese.

Don's pain-steaking work ...

The menu at Don's ... great, um, side dishes!

I love stumbling across a great story of human spirit, and here's one that'll melt your heart ...

Don was a rocket scientist. No, really, with NASA and everything, working on all their main space programs including the Gemini missions, Apollo program, etc.

Then he moved to central Thailand and set up a factory doing something unique with steel and some of the innovative technology he'd pioneered over the years in NASA. But come the big Asian meltdown in 1997 (the 'Tom Yum Goong Crisis' as it's called locally), his business crashed and burned on re-entry.

So Don moved to Phuket. And amazingly took many of his factory workers with him. And retrained them. To cook farang food. And serve. And he soon built up a successful steak house. Jing jing!

Don's Cafe, near Nai Harn Beach, also dishes up ribs, pizza, burgers and spaghetti. Then he set up a factory processing and wholesaling meat, sausages and pastries. Then he set up restaurants in Bangkok, Kunming (China), and Chiang Rai, situated on a fish pond just out of town.

Don's Cafe, on Golden Pond, Chiang Rai.

I tried the 200g ribeye recently. Wow! Tender.190 baht. That's less than 7 bucks. Wow! Cheap.

They say you don't have to be a rocket scientist to succeed in the food business. But clearly it helps ...

Chinese Laundry ...

It's a 2-in-1 service ... laundry and dry cleaning!  Doi Mae Salong, Chiang Rai.

Where the streets are paved with gold ...

Chiang Rai to me is a fairly unremarkable city. In all ways but three ...

1/ The Clock Tower
2/ The Bridge over the River Kok
3/ The White Temple (Wat Rong Khun)

And what links all of the above is one man, successful local artist Chalermchai Kositpipat. (Imagine playing Scrabble and landing that name on a triple word score!). He must surely be Chiang Rai's favourite son. He has essentially donated these elaborate -- Oh, Buddha, elaborate doesn't come close to describing his over-ornate works -- to his home city.

They make Versace's gaudy designs look like the work of a Zen minimalist, jing jing.

The Clock Tower is like a golden flame in the middle of the main street, Thanalai. The bridge's golden staffs look like the lampposts caught fire. And the temple's quirky whiteness throughout looks like they just had three foot of powder snow dump on Chiang Rai last night.

To the point one might possibly suspect white powder of sorts was involved in the conception of these amazing designs.


They must be seen to be believed. Especially the Clock Tower when it stages its nightly light-and-sound show at 7, 8 and 9pm.

Pink elephants on the Kok River

"The skipper of the boat only has one arm. And one eye," says Roger, an American I'd met in Chiang Rai through a mutual friend. "Oh, and he's running late because he's been up at the Lahu village smoking opium all night."

Is it too late to back out??? Unfortunately I've already committed to a day trip on Roger's long-tail boat buzzing up the 130km Kok River from Chiang Rai city past Thaton on the Burma border. There's no going back now ...

The Kok River (no sniggering please) is flowing pretty strongly as we load essential supplies (life jackets, Doritos and a bottle of Penfold's Bin 2 shiraz) onto 'The Royal Princess'. The pointy-as-a-pencil vessel is so named because the Royal daughter did in fact cruise on this very boat many years ago. Roger shows me photos. Since then it was allowed to fall into disrepair and was rotting away in a garage until Roger espied it, bought it, and restored it.

It is now resplendent in the colours of the Thai flag, and back to original condition. All with the exception of the original seat and cushion which now serves as an altar in the skipper Sadek's house and is resolutely not for sale.

Throw cushions serve to pad the basic wooden benches as the 2.5 litre Toyota 16-valve donk drives us throatily upstream.

The countryside, primary jungle and teak forest for the most part, is the kind of wild countryside preferred by Hollywood directors looking for a Vietnam War movie location. After an hour we are heading for what look like half-submerged grey rocks. Lookout Sadek! On closer inspection they're half-submerged elephants.(I wonder if Sadek is seeing them as grey or pink ones?)

Many tourists to Chiang Rai come to this elephant camp at the Karen tribal village of Ruammit. Here they used to work the elephants in logging the forests. Now the elephants contentedly splash around in the water, lugging tourists -- whose weight they hardly feel -- along on their backs.

The second part of most tourists' day-trip is usually to the waterfalls and hot springs, which appear soon on our left, where you can enjoy some natural hydrotherapy, a massage, and a meal.

A meal of a different sort is being prepared just around the corner. A group of villagers have a dog spit-roasting over a fire. Jing jing! None for me thanks, I'll just, er, nibble on these Doritos.

We do however pull up at a bridge for lunch, and Sadek adeptly hops out, pulls the boat in, and secures it with a rope and several knots, all with his one good arm. The beef noodles run us 25 baht a bowl and should be Michelin-rated.

We pass the village where Sadek passed the previous night so blissfully. There are other small Akkha and Lahu villages. The water gets choppier. Some serious rapids froth with fury. Sadek picks his line (which is better than picking his nose, I guess).

Burmese-style temple on the river bank

Wow! A massive 3-pointed Burmese style temple looms out of the jungle. Bamboo, kingfishers and water buffalo aplenty mark our passage westward to the rather quaint town of Thaton.

Here, the Thaton Chalet hotel adjacent the big bridge looks more like a slice of Cambridge. And a rather eccentric Kiwi schoolteacher sells ice-creams at a cafe. Oranges and mangoes from nearby farms are presented for sale in stall after stall.

An incredible number of behemoth Buddhist figures and intricate temples and stupas dot the looming mountains. About a kilometre further there is a simple rope strung across the river. "Antalai! Antalai!" calls out border guard Det Nong from the shore. Danger! Danger!

We have reached the 3km No Man's Land which marks the border between Thailand and Burma. We're tempted to go further but are not permitted to pass. "Boom, boom, boom!" Det Nong graphically illustrates machine gun fire if we push on further. I spy a Burmese army post on the hilltop nearby.

Sagely, we go ashore, and savour the Bin 2 while marvelling that here we are at the very end of Thailand, where the Kok River has its source in the turbulent Shan States beyond.

A great day trip, with great wildlife and a few hairy moments. But all in all, pretty armless. Sorry, harmless.

Amazing Thailand amazes everybody differently

A different style of tuk tuk in Chiang Keam

Over this festive season I've had friends, children and even my mother visiting me in Thailand.

I'm not sure if they call Thailand the Land of Smiles because the Thai people smile so much or because the happy travellers here smile so much..

But one thing I've noticed is this: I was able to devise a completely different itinerary for all 3 types of visitors, take them to different attractions, show them different places ... but all with the same satisfied result.

Thailand amazes people in different ways, but rest assured, you WILL be amazed. Jing jing!

Agoda's New Year New Deals for Thailand

OK, so you've just returned from Amazing Thailand and had the time of your life. So much so, you can't wait to hop on the plane and head straight back there ...

Luckily Agoda's got some deals of a lifetime on hotels and resorts all over Thailand.

Some of these deals are so good they pay you to stay there, jing jing.

So now you have no excuse. Check out their specials (click on title above) and hop on the plane back here ...