Winters are beautiful, cold and white, but without a single flower in sight.
I found myself waking up in Chiang Rai, where Thai people travel to in our cold season to experience something somewhat close to “Winter”. The “wintery” weather here isn’t so cold but cool enough for certain types of flowers—categorised as winter flowers among the Thais—to blossom.
A van picked me up from the Dusit Island Resort and headed straight down to one of the landmarks of Chiang Rai city, “Tung Garden”. This was where the vision of varying vibrant colours struck me, and that vision was real.
It was our final night of at Saiphin’s hometown in Khao Kor,and we all knew it was going to be epic.
Nearly 20 people gathered up at Saiphin’s house as we started to prepare ingredients for our cook-up session. Prawns, squid, kaffir lime leaves, coriander root, lemongrass, garlic, chili, basil, galangal and so on–I predicted a Thai seafood feast and I was right.
Saiphin announced that we would be making three dishes that evening: stir-fry prawns with curry power, stir-fry squid with chili & basil, and the famous tom yum prawn. I can say that these three are common every-day dishes found anywhere in Thailand, whether you are at a fine dining restaurant in Bangkok or at a street vendor with sticky tables by the beach.
Having arrived at Saiphin’s house in Khao Kor district in Petchabun province, Thailand, I found myself surrounded by the laughter and joyful smiles of Saiphin’s friends and family. It had been a year since she last visited her hometown, so we all were greeted by over 40 people from her local area.
Being known as the best chef in town, Saiphin took no time to wind down; she headed straight to her mother’s kitchen at the back of her house. Excited to get to learn to cook with the locals and for the locals,
I got an invitation from good family friends to join them on their ski trip in France back in April 2014.
I am a boarder. Snowboarding is hands down my most favourite sport. Back in the days when I was finishing my high school in Vancouver, I would go up to Cypress mountain every other week or so and board until the mountain closed. After leaving Canada in 2004, I never got the chance to go snowboarding, but I every single day I daydreamed of riding fresh powder.
Then the invitation came. Saiphin and Alex are my very good friends despite the almost-20-year age difference. They and their friends take their children on a road trip to France every year to ski, and that year they planned to go to La Champagny or Champagny En Vanoise.
Certain things are difficult to explain in words. The sensation you get when you are diving through fresh powder, racing down a steep mountain is one of them.
Skiing/Snowboarding is a sport to many people. To some, it is so much more. There is something about being up there in the mountains. You can take the ski lift up to the same peak every morning and you will still be in awe seeing what surrounds you.
What is the most out-of-this-world experience you have ever had?
ประสบการณ์ที่ฟินที่สุดในชีวิตของคุณ คืออะไร?
Were you expecting it to be so unforgettable?
How did you feel afterwards?
My last day in Iceland couldn’t have been any better. If you are planning to visit Iceland, I strongly suggest you prioritise this over other excursions.
My good friend Cod Starusayang said to me me “Dude, you HAVE to go diving in Silfra in Thingvellir National Park. I did it and it was just out-of-this-world–nothing like I had experienced before”. To be honest, though knowing Cod is a very well-travelled individual, I still wasn’t convinced when he told me so. Not because I hadn’t done scuba diving before and hence I would only be able to snorkel, but it was because I am from warm sunny Thailand and we have some of the World’s best diving spots visited by thousands and thousands of international travellers each year. Why would I want to go diving or snorkelling in ICELAND in the winter?
Glacier hiking is another activity one must do when visiting Iceland and I did mine on the “Sólheimajökull” glacier tongue, which is an outlet from Iceland’s 4th largest glacier, the”Mýrdalsjökull” (I later made the right guess that the Icelandic word for glacier is “jökull”).
The not-so-pleasant journey there alone, to the very south of Iceland, took almost 3 hours due to the weather condition and all we could see outside our coach window was the colour white. However, the sky cleared up as we were approaching the hiking site. As soon as we arrived, everyone suddenly perked up and dashed off the coach to see the change of view (which we could actually see) as well as to get some very fresh, clean air.
