Food, Fittings and Firebombs
Chiang Mai is renowned for being Thailand's cultural and gastronomic centre. We've also discovered the Thais come here for cheap shopping, as apparently the clothing and crafts of all descriptions are the best value in Thailand.
The food I can vouch for.
Sonia and I had the best Thai meal of our lives on Thursday, which is surprising given that we cooked it ourselves. Fortunately we were under close supervision from our tutor on G.T. Eco-Tours' cookery course. After gathering the ingredients at a local market (where Sonia was particularly careful that the dead hens didn't sneeze on her), we spent the rest of the morning at a custom-built kitchen set in an idyllic organic garden in countryside 20 minutes outside of Chiang Mai. For those with more time on their hands, longer classes are available including a residential course for anyone wanting to get away from it all or just wanting to get fat on large quantities of delicious Thai home cooking.
As with all things culinary the real hard work was in the preparation. Fortunately, apart from a bit of token carrot-cutting and seriously bothering a few spices with a pestle and mortar, we didn't have to do any of it, nor any of the (extensive - Thai cooking is bowl-intensive) washing up. Up to 8 trainee chefs can participate, but on Thursday Sonia and I were the school's only customers. For the price of a Phad Thai in London we ate far too much delicious Thai food and hopefully came away with a fighting chance of being able to replicate it back home.
The clothing I'm less sure about.
I was first drawn into the world of tailor-made business suits when I arrived in Hong Kong for a six month work secondment having torn my only suit on a broken doorhandle en-route. I found my new tailor on the Friday, and by Sunday a new suit was ready for my first day at work on the Monday.
After three friendly Thai tourists we'd bumped into all told us they were on holiday from Bangkok/Koh Samui for the cheap clothes shopping, I started to think there must be something in it. I was also impressed by the way that the tailors stayed inside their shops. In Hong Kong and Bangkok it takes more effort NOT to buy a suit than it does to buy one, such are the hard-sell tactics of the thick-skinned tailors. Once they've smelt the sterling and identified you as a potential victim they stick to you like limpets on steroids. In Chiang Mai, either the selling technique is much more sophisticated and features paid-up stooges planted at strategic locations, or there are genuinely satisfied customers on the loose prepared to recommend their tailor.
Having believed the stooges, I made my way to the tailor's shop. Aside from a short argument about paying the entire price up-front, everything seemed fine.
Then I went back for the first fitting. The jacket-prototype wasn't ready yet, and on trying the trousers it appeared that they'd accidentally mixed up my measurements with those of Bernard Manning.
At the second fitting, the failings were less blatant so my knowledge of clothing was called into play. As anyone who knows me will testify, whilst my automotive knowledge is encyclopedic, I can usually bully cameras and computers into doing what I want and can hold my own as a lawyer, when it comes to clothes and fashion I know less than sod all. But even I know that unless you're Linford Christie in lycra, you should only be able to look down and clearly see your genitals when you're naked. Slipping my hand into the pockets felt about as smooth, natural and effortless as Prince Charles. Trousers mark two went back for further alteration.
When the jacket was finally ready, I prayed that it would be OK in the same knowlingly hopeless way that one prays Microsoft Windows will correctly install a new device. Sadly, as with Microsoft, I was familiarly disappointed when one side of the suit looked like it had had a stroke, and the right sleve was over a centimetre longer than the left. It went back, and I started to think it might be quicker to take a sewing course and make the thing myself, especially as the material was finest "mink cashmere flannel, made in Huddersfield."
The final night of the Loi Krathong festival was a cross between bonfire night and the US assault on Fallujah. Sitting by the river Ping, trying to set sail to our modest Krathong, we narrowly avoided death at the hands of a number of small incendiary devices launched from above (which fortunately plopped harmlessly into the Ping). Trying to ignore the sound-track from Platoon whilst taking a couple of photos of the bridge, I lowered the camera from my eye to see a Thai teenager sitting next to me holding a rocket in his hand and trying to light it from his cigarette. After three failed attempts, with the fuse burned down to nothing, he investigated by sticking his eye about an inch away from the non-existent fuse before throwing the recalcitrant firework into the river. Then a massive explosion went off behind us, making my ears ring. We decided to escape the war zone, but wearily dodged bangers and rockets all the way back to the safety of the hotel Montri.
The food I can vouch for.
Sonia and I had the best Thai meal of our lives on Thursday, which is surprising given that we cooked it ourselves. Fortunately we were under close supervision from our tutor on G.T. Eco-Tours' cookery course. After gathering the ingredients at a local market (where Sonia was particularly careful that the dead hens didn't sneeze on her), we spent the rest of the morning at a custom-built kitchen set in an idyllic organic garden in countryside 20 minutes outside of Chiang Mai. For those with more time on their hands, longer classes are available including a residential course for anyone wanting to get away from it all or just wanting to get fat on large quantities of delicious Thai home cooking.
As with all things culinary the real hard work was in the preparation. Fortunately, apart from a bit of token carrot-cutting and seriously bothering a few spices with a pestle and mortar, we didn't have to do any of it, nor any of the (extensive - Thai cooking is bowl-intensive) washing up. Up to 8 trainee chefs can participate, but on Thursday Sonia and I were the school's only customers. For the price of a Phad Thai in London we ate far too much delicious Thai food and hopefully came away with a fighting chance of being able to replicate it back home.
The clothing I'm less sure about.
I was first drawn into the world of tailor-made business suits when I arrived in Hong Kong for a six month work secondment having torn my only suit on a broken doorhandle en-route. I found my new tailor on the Friday, and by Sunday a new suit was ready for my first day at work on the Monday.
After three friendly Thai tourists we'd bumped into all told us they were on holiday from Bangkok/Koh Samui for the cheap clothes shopping, I started to think there must be something in it. I was also impressed by the way that the tailors stayed inside their shops. In Hong Kong and Bangkok it takes more effort NOT to buy a suit than it does to buy one, such are the hard-sell tactics of the thick-skinned tailors. Once they've smelt the sterling and identified you as a potential victim they stick to you like limpets on steroids. In Chiang Mai, either the selling technique is much more sophisticated and features paid-up stooges planted at strategic locations, or there are genuinely satisfied customers on the loose prepared to recommend their tailor.
Having believed the stooges, I made my way to the tailor's shop. Aside from a short argument about paying the entire price up-front, everything seemed fine.
Then I went back for the first fitting. The jacket-prototype wasn't ready yet, and on trying the trousers it appeared that they'd accidentally mixed up my measurements with those of Bernard Manning.
At the second fitting, the failings were less blatant so my knowledge of clothing was called into play. As anyone who knows me will testify, whilst my automotive knowledge is encyclopedic, I can usually bully cameras and computers into doing what I want and can hold my own as a lawyer, when it comes to clothes and fashion I know less than sod all. But even I know that unless you're Linford Christie in lycra, you should only be able to look down and clearly see your genitals when you're naked. Slipping my hand into the pockets felt about as smooth, natural and effortless as Prince Charles. Trousers mark two went back for further alteration.
When the jacket was finally ready, I prayed that it would be OK in the same knowlingly hopeless way that one prays Microsoft Windows will correctly install a new device. Sadly, as with Microsoft, I was familiarly disappointed when one side of the suit looked like it had had a stroke, and the right sleve was over a centimetre longer than the left. It went back, and I started to think it might be quicker to take a sewing course and make the thing myself, especially as the material was finest "mink cashmere flannel, made in Huddersfield."
The final night of the Loi Krathong festival was a cross between bonfire night and the US assault on Fallujah. Sitting by the river Ping, trying to set sail to our modest Krathong, we narrowly avoided death at the hands of a number of small incendiary devices launched from above (which fortunately plopped harmlessly into the Ping). Trying to ignore the sound-track from Platoon whilst taking a couple of photos of the bridge, I lowered the camera from my eye to see a Thai teenager sitting next to me holding a rocket in his hand and trying to light it from his cigarette. After three failed attempts, with the fuse burned down to nothing, he investigated by sticking his eye about an inch away from the non-existent fuse before throwing the recalcitrant firework into the river. Then a massive explosion went off behind us, making my ears ring. We decided to escape the war zone, but wearily dodged bangers and rockets all the way back to the safety of the hotel Montri.
1 Comments:
Next time ure in bangkok and need tailored clothes, try out this shop:
Crown Tailor
located inside sukhumvit soi 8
i doubt you'll have much problems with them. They've far too experienced and have been there far too long.
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