Lipkidss Blog on RealTravel

Bangkok journal: Bangkok

Sun, 27 Aug 2006 20:36:46 GMT

A sadistic interior designer has conspired with the managment to distress the Miami Hotel esthetically to match guests' perception of what they should expect for a nightly tarrif of $27 total for three people. Pray, tour with me just the bathroom. Hanging from the exposed pipes under the basin are three mothballs. Yup. Sure enough, the bathroom is not stinky. Ironically, it lacks the ubiquitous "toilet hose" ... an apparatus that before this trip we might have regarded as an indication of fewer, rather than more stars on the hotel marquee, given their uncanny resemblance to ...

Chiang Mai journal: You MUST Check this out...A magical small healing and learning center plus home stay

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 14:16:41 GMT

This is the place we stayed, described in Kate's journal. Aside from the warmest hospitality, fabulous, authentic northern Thai home-cooking, the massage, healing treatments, training, and steam baths, are the best I've experienced at any spa. It is also a perfect site for fully catered small conferences and retreats. Their web site has the better photos and descriptions of services: http://www.homprang.com/

-Andy

Chiang Mai journal: Chiang Mai

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 14:16:41 GMT

We’re in Chiang Mai for a week. Our guided touring is over and now Andy starts his Thai massage course. We’re staying in the family compound of Homprang and Christopher, along with Christopher’s invalid brother, and Homprang’s two brothers, their wives, and their families. They’ve created quite the retreat, with steam baths, a treatment room, a sanctuary for morning yoga and plenty of upstairs downstairs accommodation, mozzie-proofed and fanned. Henry and I get to cool our heels while Andy discovers that learning Thai massage at 51 years old is an exhausting proposition. Homprang, ...

Chiang Rai journal: Chiang Rai

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 14:04:04 GMT

It is typical, unfortunately, of languid Laos that nobody thinks to mention that we would not be able to get rid of our currency, the almighty kip, once we’d crossed the border. Any more enterprising country would supply ten “last opportunities” to use kip on all manner of goods and services. It seems like we have a lot left over. It’s a bundle of notes and could have got me another bolt of fabric at that last weaving village. It might have made a much nicer tip for the boat crew. Yet … it’s only $5. The extreme difference in currency value makes the idea of travel to the west ...

Hue journal: Hue

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:08:56 GMT

As we head for Hue (pronounced like Hway in the south but like Huoy in the town itself) Andy heads further into a cold. When we arrive, our new guide tells us our driver is a traditional healer. Well, didn’t Andy come here to learn more about alternative medicine? Immediately upon arrival at the Pilgrimage Village (a little bit of paradise reminiscent of a Hawaiian spa) he gets to work – excruciatingly – on a coughing, hacking, sniffing Andy. Tinh uses a coin to scrape white Tiger Balm into Andy’s skin, on each side of his neck, down his spine and in a rib-like pattern in three ...

Vang Vieng journal: Vangvieng

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:01:57 GMT

We are not well-prepared for the ride to Vangvieng. Long, sweaty and bumpy, it’s made no less painful by a guide who lacks not only knowledge but an opinion. He toes the plain vanilla party line, his only flavor showing up with two of his favorite words: Electric City for electricity and Funny for fun, as in, “when it’s dark and slippery inside a cave, it’s very funny.

He drops us for lunch in a restaurant at the picturesque Nam Ngum Reservoir. On the wall is a calendar, featuring Miss Sticky Rice 2006. Quite by chance, I order a fish dish that is delish, though its spiciness ...

Chiang Khong journal: Chiang Khong

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:58:29 GMT

We stayed here after leaving Laos, but only long enough to mark this spot on the map as the "Golden Triangle" where Thailand, Laos, and Burma touch.

Pakbeng journal: Pakbeng

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 10:38:34 GMT

The last thing our last guide said (remember Nong?) as he drove out of sight was “the guide will pick you up at 6.30am in four days to take you to the boat.” We’ve not heard from his tour company and know nothing about our next step other than the fact that we’re taking a boat up river. At 6.20, we call the tour company and nobody answers so we begin to make arrangements to get to the dock and see what’s up. At 6.30, there’s a call from the guide saying he’s running a little late but we have plenty of time. In fact, when we get to the dock, we discover they’re waiting – just for us. It’s ...

Luang Prabang journal: Luang Prabang

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 07:10:19 GMT

The weather gods are shining on us. We’re in this most lovely of towns and have the weather that people suffer crowds and pay high prices for. The heat wave has broken, or perhaps this is an unusual summer cold snap. Either way, it enhances the scrumptious experience we’re having in this gracious and gentle locale.

Our guest house, featured in the coffee table book, Hip Hotels, is run by a mild-mannered Englishman and has a languid, slightly unkempt, homey energy about it, enhanced by full-sized bars of Imperial Leather soap and a conspicuous absence of waffle robes and ...

Vientiane journal: Vientiane

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 07:25:29 GMT

“This is the ghettoest airport I’ve ever seen!” Thus spake Henry, world-weary 13 year old, as we cruise to a stop, the only plane at Pakse Airport and a Lao Airlines plane at that. Departure was scheduled from Siem Reap at 10.40 but we were hurried onto the plane at 10.10, the last passengers to embark, and we were taxiing two minutes later. It seems they like to pick up time where they can in case they lose it somewhere else. They lost it in Pakse as we sat in the heat while the plane refueled. It’s a bit of a chewing gum and string job, this plane, with seat cushions that look ...

Siem Reap journal: Siem Reap

Wed, 24 May 2006 08:35:07 GMT

The airport is very modern, and impressive but for the odd transgression, like corroded mirrors in the bathrooms and a stopped-up sink or two. It’s the sure sign of a third world country struggling at the intersection of its own culture and the assistance of the developed world. Please kindly be informed that our boarding gate will be closed 15 minutes prior flight departure time (sic). If the passenger fails to show up within this time notification/thank you.” So gentle are the Cambodians that they don’t want to say what might happen to late comers. We’re waiting in Phnom Penh ...

Phnom Penh journal: Pnom Penh

Tue, 16 May 2006 07:06:44 GMT

Pierre Cardin is driving us to Cambodia. Well, perhaps it’s not Pierre but that’s what it says on his slouch hat. He’s the third one at the wheel since we took off by speedboat from the Chau Doc dock at 8.30am. At the Cambodian border, we’re harangued by 20 children who board and are all over the boat like a rash, with drinks, pineapple cut and in plastic bags, packaged snacks, baggage-carrying service and “massa’ (massage). We must haul our luggage up a hot, steep, slippery gravel hill and into a tiny building to be x-rayed and then returned by the same route to the boat. We engage a ...

Mekong Delta journal: Mekong Delta

Mon, 15 May 2006 20:39:28 GMT

As Saigon fades, the rivers grow lazier, criss-crossing each other and all having something to do with the Mekong – somewhere. This jigsaw puzzle of canals, rivers, tributaries, monkey bridges, islands, ferries and floating markets is delightfully disorienting and sleepy-making. All the restaurants have hammocks and the chairs face inward during the day to catch the movies and outward in the evening to watch the passers by. TV aerials shoot to the sky as evidence of the main siesta activity. In fact, we’re amazed by the worldly presentation of the cable stations in our hotels. At the Victoria ...

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) journal: Saigon

Wed, 10 May 2006 05:59:06 GMT

Saigon peddlers are aggressive. Even the doormen at the Grand Hotel are hassled to buy lottery tickets. (The sellers don’t bother the tourists with that caper at least.) It’s a flash, fast city with a lot of lures but, inevitably, it’s losing some charm. Still, details like the pavement, the construction and maintenance of which seems to belong to the shopowner, are a dangerous delight. Strolling the street requires an all-terrain mind as every step is different – tile, stone, rubble, pavers or dirt – in this fast-changing environment.

We can sum up Saigon with this event that ...

Hoi An journal: Hoi An

Wed, 03 May 2006 08:24:39 GMT

“Gawd, whaddya DO with it?” They’re standing next to us. We’re in the breakfast room of the capacious Hoi An Hotel, stirred into a broth of package tourists. (What do you expect? This is a food journal!) We’re standing in front of what we can only describe as the glutinous rice table. Intriguing triangular banana leaf packets hiding their contents, cheeky little see-through gloppy -globs encasing mini shrimp, languid sloppy folded-over rice pancakes sprinkled with “an unknown quantity,” and bold round green and cream ricy-looking pikelets hold their ground in the face of the cereal ...

Mai Chau journal: Mai Chau

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 06:09:34 GMT

(16 photos in this one so check em all out!)

It is STINKING hot even though we’re climbing high into the mountains on our way to stay as guests in a White Tai village. Something illogical (perhaps our wonderfully eccentric guide?) tells us to stop for fresh pressed sugarcane, which we do and it’s lovely, though very sweet and not particularly thirst quenching.

Our village, Pom Coong, is adjacent to Mai Chau, and is part of the area’s attempt at eco tourism. We can’t believe that most would prefer our experience – eating food cooked over an open flame and sleeping on a one-inch ...

Halong Bay journal: Halong Bay

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 09:10:46 GMT

This morning, before we take off, it’s my intention to visually capture the badminton, jogging and jazzercise by the lake, yet no sooner has my camera appeared than it is matched by a racquet pulled from a bag, and a silent request from a tiny sportswoman. Despite protestations of my being no good, I’m dragged into a back and forth with three octogenarians. Remarkably, my height combined with the length of the implement gives me a reach that is the envy of shuttlecockers throughout Hanoi.

Funerary rituals include offerings of green bananas and incense for the dead. On the road to ...

Hanoi journal: Hanoi

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 20:14:54 GMT

The Kathryn Lipkis family is met in Hanoi with a bunch of flowers so intricately wrapped with twine, cellophane and tissue, that it takes ten minutes to prep it for a vase. We’ve hit Hanoi during the week of the Communist Party’s Five Year Meeting so we have the perfect excuse not to “do the sights” as many are closed to the public, including the viewing of the plasticized Uncle Ho. Instead, the city is a sea of red and yellow as each house displays the flag.

Ah! We’d better get money. We withdraw 150,000 dong from the ATM. Big spenders! That’s 10 bucks! The sumptuous lunch that ...

Hong Kong journal: Hong Kong

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 10:03:52 GMT

KATE: Oh, Hong Kong! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways … At 6am, I stir to the sound of a lawnmower bird starting up. The background stillness, however, reigns. A couple of cats wow and a few more birds screech. But these staccato punctuations just emphasize the quiet in Lo Uk Village on Lantau Island. For sheer contrast, how can you beat Hong Kong? Our lovely friends have feral water buffalo right outside the front gate yet within an hour and one ferry ride of almost stepping in a steaming pie, we’re among the exhilarating craziness of Nathan Road’s electronics shops, ...

Ojai journal: A pre-trip chill down

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 13:20:24 GMT

This was an amazing way to unwind and destress before the real travel. Thanks Ojai Foundation folks!

Ojai journal: Fantastic retreat center fuelled by the magic of Nature

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 13:01:59 GMT