Jace Cole (dot) com

We made some new friends at our cooking class on Monday: Jan and Kristina from Germany. After class was over, we all decided to take a boat tour of the Chao Phraya river and its many canals.

We boarded a beautiful long tail taxi boat at the Tha Sathon pier next to the Somdet Phrachao Tak Sin bridge and set sail.

About 230 years ago, during the early Rattanakosin period, Bangkok was established as the capital of what is now known as Thailand. The Chao Phraya river and its canals were the most important means of transportation and trading during that time, not unlike the canals of Venice. In fact, Bangkok was also known as the Venice of the East.

What better way to see Bangkok’s beautiful architecture, Buddhist temples and traditional way of life than along these winding waterways that have been left more untouched by modernization than the city core. The highlight was as we emerged from the canal tour back to the main river to see the sprawling Grand Palace, home of the Emerald Buddha.

Bangkok was a blast … we finished the night off last night with a little low key prep research for our trip to Hanoi, Vietnam. We are waiting in the boarding area now for our Nok Air flight to Hanoi. We plan to spend 4 days in Hanoi with an overnight trip to Halong Bay. Trip is going great, the weather has been amazing, sunny everyday with highs near 100F

Today we went back to school – Thai cooking school, that is. What a phenomenal experience! We were an intimate class of seven students from Indonesia, Australia, Germany and the US. After meeting first thing in the morning in Bangkok’s Silom neighborhood, we headed straight to the local everyday open market where we bargained for all of our fresh ingredients: chicken, prawns, ginger, tumeric, lemon grass, mint, Thai eggplant, water chestnut and of course red and green chili peppers, just to name a few! We got all the necessary ingredients to cook 4 courses for 7 people all for only 220 Baht or just under $7 … so affordable here.

We returned to the cooking school and got a quick lesson in preparing what we had bought. We then headed to the next room with our ingredients where we each had a cleaver and butcher block laid out for us and the real magic began. The fresh aromas were incredible, and as we moved on to our seven woks, we all knew this would be one of the most savory meals ever.

We made four dishes, cooking then eating each one in succession: Spicy shrimp soup, Northern chicken salad, Pad Thai, and Rubies in coconut milk. Fortunately, we heeded the advice not to eat breakfast!

Words cannot accurately describe how amazing this food was. All we can say is: you must come over and visit us so we may prepare these dishes for YOUR eating pleasure!

Khaw Hai Jarern Aharn!

Made it to Bangkok late Saturday. Very smooth flights and easy trip here. Didn’t seem as grueling as it normally would after 27+ hours of door to door travel. We got very lucky with some great seats on United, even if they were in the back of the bus.

Yesterday spent the day soaking in the Bangkok heat. It was easily over 100F here. All you’d have to do is walk a block and you were swimming in your clothes. Did a lot of exploring, went to the MBK center to begin our shopping. We found some good prospects for dining chairs but not such a good deal that its worth spending the time and effort to export it. We also went to what is one of the largest markets in the world, the Chatuchak Weekend Market. This market was absolutely huge. You could buy anything from cows to fine art. After all that walking we headed back to the Westin and enjoyed an ice cold margarita at the Westin’s swim bar up. The pool is located on the 8th floor with amazing city views. We finished the night with dinner at Cabbages & Condoms, an great Thai restaurant where a majority of the proceeds go to PDA and HIV awareness. Cabbages is a very cool spot and trendy place to eat. It’s my third time back there and I’ve never been disappointed. Rather than getting your traditional dinner mints with your bill you get two chocolate flavored condoms!

Following dinner we killed of the jet lag with infamous Thai massage… you can’t beat the Thai massage and for only $8 for an hour … you can afford one everyday!

Today we’re off to Thai cooking school … going to learn how to make a mean Pad Thai!  Also have to get the second fitting at the tailor later tonight.  Trip’s off to amazing start, we are having a great time!

I’m so ready for vacation … I haven’t had any big “for fun” international travel plans since my last visit to Phuket in December 2006. Pete & I are gearing up for a big adventure across south east Asia. We leave Friday at noon on the ever so sub-par United Airlines. We have laid out a fairly flexible itinerary and started to make ground plans. Here is what we’ve laid out, if you have any “must do’s” please hit me up!

Leg 1: Chicago to Bangkok via Tokyo – April 18, 2008

On Friday, United Airlines will fly us on flight UA881 with economy plus service on my favorite aircraft the Boeing 777-200. We’ll be leaving at 12:01 CST from ORD and will arrive Tokyo’s Narita airport about 13 hours later. After a short 3 hours in Tokyo we will depart on UA853, again on a 777-200 in economy plus and arrive about 7 hours later at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport … also commonly referred to as the “New Bangkok Airport“. We’ll arrive about 24 hours later + 12 hour local time change, at 23:10 ICT Saturday April 20.

We plan to spend Saturday – Wednesday April 23 in Bangkok. Our goals of this leg can be summed up in pretty much one word SHOPPING! Our list of items that must be exported continues to grow. From new suits to new furniture we hope to have lots of goods to DHL home. If you’re lucky, maybe there just might be something for you when we return!

Pete has never been to Bangkok so we’ll be sure to do the touristy things … floating markets, visit the amazing Buddhist temples, and of course hit up my favorite eats at Cabbages and Condoms followed by the night market and Thai style night club Bed

This will be my longest stay in Bangkok. I’m really excited about getting to see more of the city and fufilling our shopping list.

Leg 2: Bangkok to Hanoi – April 23, 2008

After spending a few days in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) back in 2006 I fell in love with the culture and people in Vietnam. I wanted to travel more of Vietnam and explore the north but didn’t have the time. This trip we’ll be setting off to Hanoi for 5 days. We’ll depart BKK (New Airport) on Nok Air’s flight DD3200 at 10:15 and arrive Hanoi less than 2 hours later at 12:05 ICT. Nok Air is a hip Thai discount airlines associated with Thai Air. They mainly fly TG’s retired 737-400 fleet … they’ve repainted the TG livery giving each plane a bird theme topped off with a beak on the nose cone, so cool! Nok means Bird in Thai and beak in Persian, which is exactly what forms the no-frils airlines logo.

We plan to take in the Vietnamese culture for a few days. This leg will be doing some adventure site seeing by taking an overnight trip to Sa Pa to experience the “real Vietnam” … a recommendation from our American Vietnamese friend Thien who we will be visiting in Phuket.

Leg 3: Hanoi to Phuket – April 27, 2008

We’ll depart Hanoi at 12:45 and arrive BKK (new airport) at 14:40 ICT … this is where it’s important to understand the difference between the new and the old airport. When I made these bookings I assumed the old airport (Don Muaeng) was closed and dead, as it should because it was a piece of shiz and ready for retirement. Apparently the Low Cost Carriers of Thailand lobbied hard to have it re-opened as a lower cost airport and closer vicinty to Bangkok. Very bad assumption on my part .. I booked our continuing leg on Nok Air and later after reading the fine print found out the Bangkok to Phuket leg was departing from Don Muaeng, a short 90 minute cab ride from the new airport. There was no way I could make the connection we booked so I had to beg Nok customer service to excuse my stupidity and waive the change fee to book a later flight. We’ll arrive at the new Bangkok airport BKK at 14:40 and depart the old Bangkok airport DMK at 19:15. All this again on Nok.

In Phuket we’ll be hanging out with my good friends and dive shop owners Miz & Thien. Pete will be doing his Open Water SCUBA certification training … I’ll be hitting up my stomping grounds of local dive sites and dive bars. And of course … every day will be getting a Thai massage! I’m really looking forward to hanging out in Phuket for a few days, seeing Miz & T and exploring the island. I can never get enough Phuket.

Leg 4: Phuket to North Ari Atoll Island, Maldives via Singapore, Colombo and Mal̩ РMay 2, 2008

This leg is absolutely going to be one of the best parts of this trip. It’s a crazy adventure to see my good friend Dennis at the White Sands Resort on North Ari Atoll island in the Maldives. Dennis runs the Eurodivers center on this five star resort. Newly annointed open water diver Pete & Jace the Divemaster will experience some of the best diving this planet has to offer. I’m so stoked and can’t wait for this leg.

The first part of the adventure starts with getting there… we start out leaving Phuket on Tiger Airways TR153 at 09:25 and arrive Singapore at 12:10 SGT. We have the whole day to kill in Singapore before we depart on Emirates on the good ole 777-300 EK349 at 00:30 on May 3 … 4 hours later we will touch down in Colombo Sri Lanka 01:30 IST. We then have another 6 hours to kill in Colombo (probably like Zombie tired at this point) before we depart on SriLankan Airlines UL101 at 07:20. This flight will take less than an hour to get us to Malé. Once in Malé we will take a hired air boat to the White Sands Resort on North Ari Atoll.

It will be the start of Whale Shark season in the Maldives … after 1000+ dives I’m crossing my fingers that we run into one of these beautiful monsters while we are diving the Maldivian reefs. This leg is truly going to be a treat and a very good way to wind down an amazing vacation.

Leg 5: North Ari Atoll to Singapore (back same way we came) – May 9, 2008

We make our way back to Singapore the same way we got to the island. Once in Singapore we have a couple of days to enjoy the Singaporian beauty and hang out with my friend Nicole who I worked with on my last project. Nicole & I did the research together in Ethiopia, Mali, and Switzerland. It will be great to see her and hopefully get a tour of the city.

Leg 6: Singapore to Home – May 11, 2008

This will be the sad leg … but hopefully with the help of my pal Erik Didriksen it may be a comfortable leg back to ORD. Erik has used two of his United Systemwide Upgrade (SWUs) Certificates to put Pete & I on the business class waitlist for our flight on United 896 on a giant 747-400 departing Singapore on Sunday, May 11 at 06:40 and arriving home at ORD at 14:20 the same day.

So that in a nutshell is our 3 week plan … I am so excited to see what the adventures will bring. Hope you all check back frequently for pics and stories from the road.