Skip to site content
The Group Travel Leader Small Market Meetings Going on Faith

Thailand: An Exotic Escape

We had deep-fried shrimp patties, spicy and sour sliced garoupa (grouper) soup, spicy seafood salad, fried chicken wrapped in herb leaves and pad Thai with shrimp. Patty barely ate as she explained the nuance of each dish. The four s’s characterize conflicting flavors built into many Thai dishes: sweet, sour, salty and spicy. We topped the evening off with fresh sliced mango and sticky rice, a favorite Thai dessert.

The next morning, we drove southwest from Bangkok to enjoy the Damnoen Saduak floating market. We passed industrial complexes for technology companies and fields carved into fish farms.

“They raise tilapia and carp,” said Patty, “also catfish and snakehead fish, and the expensive fish: grouper and sea bass.

“We eat a lot of fish, chicken and pork,” she said. “It has always been a custom here to not eat beef, but younger Thais are moving away from that.”

We boarded a long-tail speedboat and churned a couple of miles along rural, tree-lined canals, passing homes and rudimentary Buddhist shrines before tying up at the immense river market.

Above the din, vendors hawked art, silk goods, toys and clothing. We were more taken with the floating vendors who were frying coconut patties and bananas on wooden boats. Patty grabbed some of both, and we devoured them, washing everything down with ice-cold Coca-Colas served with straws in plastic bags.

Back in Bangkok, we had a superb Thai lunch in the riverfront restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Water taxis mimicking Chinese junks ferried people across the Chao Phraya River in front of us.

The following morning, Patty escorted us to the airport for our flight to Phuket. To say goodbye, we raised our hands to our chest and bowed, palms together like a prayer. Patty did the same before opening her arms to give us a hug goodbye.

Paradise on the Andaman Sea

The Novotel Kamala Bay Resort offers beautiful views of Phuket’s Kamala Bay and the Andaman Sea beyond. A seaside room with a private pool and cabana on the roof awaited us, and we were greeted immediately by executive assistant manager John Cannon, who made a point of seeing us several times during our stay.

We got an early start for our daylong speedboat trip to the Phi Phi Islands. There were about 30 of us onboard the Crystal Sea Marine watercraft powered by a trio of 225-horsepower engines. If you’ve seen images of lush green islands breeching like whales from the sea, you’ve seen these. They form one of the most intoxicating landscapes on the planet.

It was an hour at full speed to our first stop at Phi Phi Don Island for snorkeling and lunch on the beach, followed by another stop for sunbathing at Phi Phi Ley’s Maya Beach, where Leo DiCaprio’s film “The Beach” was shot.

We pulled anchor and made a drive-by of Viking Cave, a site frequented for centuries by Asian mariners who weathered storms there. The cave is uninhabited except for thousands of swifts that nest inside. Bamboo ladders climb into its upper reaches so locals can harvest them for the Chinese delicacy, bird’s nest soup.

Back at the hotel, I made a quick change to join John and other guests for a reception he hosts on Wednesday evenings. He sent me up to the roof to catch the last traces of a beautiful sunset before it disappeared. When I returned, he had a cold beer waiting for me.

“You need to come back for Songkran, Thailand’s New Year Festival in early April,” he said. “It’s a water festival and everyone celebrates with water guns and water cannons. It takes place all over the country. This lobby literally stands in water. It’s an amazing time to be in Thailand.”

Songkran represents Thais’ way of cleansing impurities from the old year and ushering in the new. That’s where the water comes in. They splash it on monks as a means of blessing them and drench each other as well.

Kim and I dined al fresco on the hotel roof that evening. The moon was full, and Kamala Bay was iridescent. On our last day in Phuket, Kim got up early to swim beneath the stars in our rooftop pool.