2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 7 - Danang

Day 7 - Heading into the Swamp

The weather in Danang portends to be a good 10-15 degrees cooler than it was in Chiang Mai, but as I would soon learn, there is an advantage when it comes to being in the nountains at 100 degrees compared to being at sea level at 85, in that it is insanely humid in Vietnam. What appears pretty clear is that while this is the "dry" season, in that there is no rain (which for any vacation is undoubtedly a good thing), there is also full humidity, and this seems like it will very much be the case in Ho Chi Minh City, which is also sitting at an average daily temperature in between the two places. Anyway, enough metereology.

As mentioned in my last entry, we did all successfully wake up in time for our 5am grab van to the airport, which is a close 10 minutes away at this time of day. Checking in was oddly a breeze without any issue, which I only mention because it shouldn't have been this way. We were flying Vietjet, an airline that is fast reaching near AirAsia levels of dominance across Southeast Asia (see: domestic flight in Thailand on an airline named Vietjet). Vietjet is a low cost carrier and is notoriously trigger happy on charging people for the excess fees. My ticket came with 20 kgs checked in baggage and I was showing up the airport with 23 kgs, likely clearly overweight. Somehow, not a peep from teh check-in person. That was the first sign that my time in Vietnam was going to be good (and yes, ignore the fact this was a domestic sector in Thailand).

The next surprise was an interesting set-up where Thailand lets you do outward immigration in outstations if you have a connecting international flight onwards through Bangkok, which is lovely, because other than the fellow passengers connecting into Vietnam, there was no actual international flight leaving Chiang Mai at this time, so we were through immigration in thirty seconds. You then also get put into a corner of the International Departures part of the terminal, and in this area, group numbers are also not a thing, so despite being group 6 (mostly because they board the plane back to front), we were able to board effectively right away.

I slept through most of the first flight, had a Dean & Deluca capuccino and sausage roll during the layover in Bangkok, and before I knew it, was boarding the flight into Vietnam. We landed early, and were through immigration in Vietnam in record time (for Vietnam). It was here where I had my second big surprise, where I had gotten my Vietnam visa application finished but didn't print it out, just had the pdf on the phone. Not only was this not an issue, after just flashing it to the immigration officer, eh didn't even look at it, and just stamped me through My hunch is while he was flipping through the pages of my passport, he saw the Vietnamese stamp show up enough times (would show four entries and exits) that he figured I'm very much a friend to Vietnam.

Oddly, the impetus for this entire trip was moreso Vietnam than Thailand. Not to say this is a good thing, because I was dumb to not realize how great Chiang Mai was, but the main intention of this trip was to see Danang and Hoi An, the two pearls of the middle of the country, the halfway point between HCMC and Ha Noi. In 2019, I went to those two places, but due to the vagaries of Vietnam's weather, the middle of the country was having their rainy season still (this was September), so I avoided the middle, visited Laos instead. There was a longing of missing out on the middle that I wanted to complete.

Anyway, with that long preamble over, within an hour from landing we were checking in to our two suites in the Courtyard Danang. On this drive itself we came to learn a few things, the most important of which is that Danang is no secondary city. It is as built up, as impressive as Hanoi, if not HCMC. It si glistening. The Courtyard is a 45-story tower where the top half are luxury apartments, it was stunning - aas was the view from our corner suite overlooking the Han river with a peek of the Pacific in the distance. Again, stunning. It would look even better when we came back to the hotel prior to dinner and the bridges and buildings on the island portion that separates the Han River from the Pacific is all alit.

Our first stop was the beach, My Khe Beach to be exact, which is the main stretch of beach within the Danang city center, and I mean this in the best way, but it reminded me so much of the Gold Coast in Australia. Actually, not even sure why I'm qualifying that - the Gold Coast is known as one of the premier beach stretches in teh world. Here you have the same apartment buildings on one side, a large promenade stretching from the road to the beachfront with art, sculptures, gardens, etc., and then beach - stretches and stretches of pristine beach, with waves that were more forceful than we expected. We stayed there for about an hour (there are some in the group more pro-beach than yours truly. 

From there, we went to one of the many seafood places on this stretch taht serve fresh seafood prepared to order (literally, in this case, catching the pomfret and flounder from the tank). We split a couple standard squid and prawn apps and then various preparations of the fish. They could use more salt, if I have to give any critique, but this place was letting the freshness speak for itself, and gave some excellent sauces as well. The pomfret we got have sashimi (which I have to imagine is prepared in advance, and not from the fish that was removed from a tank in front of our face fifteen minutes prior) and half in a normal grilled preparation that was just perfect. The grouper we got steamed with mango and lemongrass, and was excellent as well. All in all, there are a lot of places in Danang to eat, many of which have way too many five star reviews to where its clear there's some bot-farm reviews going on, but this was good enough.

The rest of our afternoon was spent on the Son Tra Peninsula, a large forested mountain on the northern edge of Danang, with the Pacific on its three water sides. There are a few different sites and attractions and trails scattered around this large landmass, though we were disappointed to learn due to recent mudslides, the raod leading to the summit viewpoints was closed. Still, we got our money's and time's worth, starting with teh first spot, the Linh Ung Pagoda (Chua Linh Ung), a large cliffside temple area with a giant buddha statue overlooking the water and Danang as one highlight, and a series of temple structures, with an interesting combination of more modest carving and decadence compared to what we saw in Chiang Mai (comparing it to all of Chiang Mai's places we saw, not just yesterday in Chiang Rai), but more greenery, more open space, more of a style akin to Japan or Korea. It was lovely, and had some great viewpoints of the Pacific and Danang. 

The last stop was the most tiring, but also maybe the most fun - the area is called Ganh Bang, which at road level is a little outcrop with a coffeeshop / beachfront bar type place serving drinks. To its side is this little path, seemingly to the sea level which is probably 400 feet or so below. The trail is not steep but somehow treacherous with this sandy rock getting ground down si the footing is far less firm than you would expect. To combat this, there are makeshift ropes tied to trees. Makeshift is probably too critical, they're tied well and sturdy. The overall hike takes 10-15 minutes if you don't stop much, which somehow we didn't. When you do reach the bottom, you get this perfect little slice of rocky beach. The water is perfect, there's weird and interesting shells all over, it's just magical and the perfect gift after dealing with that hike down. Of course, you still get the hike back up, which was paiunful (this reaffirms my position that hikes that go up first and then you come back down are 1000% better than the alternative), but on the whole this was a fantastic experience.

From there, we went back towards the hotel on mainland, going a bit South of it, through some HCMC-style taffic, to Bia Nha, a Hoi An based craft brewery that had about ten beers on tap, four IPAs and a great milk stout. The beer was good, but the setting, into one of the alleys that are so commonplace in HCMC, was perfect. The more we got to see this part of Danang, the more it just reminds me of HCMC, but if anything a more distilled HCMC with less of the sprawl of the megalopolis. 

Dinner was at Nha Bep Xua, a small, but well known, eatery on the island, a stones throw of our initial dinner choice of Bep Cuon, which is larger, Bib Gourman spot that serves upmarket street food. I'm sure it is good, but also had a 4.9 on Google with 16,000 ratings, a string of which happened in the last hour (be it when I wrote this, or when you read it), which screams rating manipulation. Again, I'm sure it's fine, but Bep Xua was similarly rated with seemingly real reviews, and was excellent. We split a few items but also got their acclaimed Xua (pork and mushroom egg pancake with you put into larger rice paper wraps). Oddly, if anything this was my least favorite dish compared to an amazing caramel prawns (reminds me of how easy dishes like caramel fish are), to a wonderful pork and woodyear mushroom spring roll. On the whole, the food was wonderful as was the location, down another bright, airy, beautiful alley-way.

Our post dinner plans were caught offguard when we had planned first to visit a bottle shop that usually has live music, but it was unexpectedly closed - it seems a true mom and pop operation (in the middle of a very residential area, something like Alice in Cheongdam in Seoul) and the "pop" decided to close up shop when he didn't have customers for a moment. Anyway, by this point the traffic isn't too bad, and the city small enough, that we were pretty quickly able to pivot to trying out the first of a few different noted cocktail spots in Danang, this one being 2Bar, which was Japanese in style (their free nibbles - a standard all over Asia - was slices of nori) crafting exacting, stellar drinks. They had only a few house specials, but otherwise served a bunch of very spirit-forward classics. All in all, 2Bar is great - also housed in a fairly residential area, and I hope they have success in teh years to come.

The second spot was Van, which is in a far more bustling late-night area, is a far larger space (though fairly sparse, as you would expect arriving at 11:30pm on a Tuesday), and had some great stuff, including two curry/pho based cocktails, which we sampled both and were blown away. On the whole, Van was an incredible experience, but then again so was 2Bar, and maybe so will Black Wolf, the main outstanding spot we'll look to visit either tomorrow or (more likely) day after. The last stop of the night, with us somehow all feeling fairly awake despite the early start, was at Saga, which is probably the best EDM/Techno club in Danang. There's a few other spots that will pop up on research, but all seemed larger and more Bangkok in style (tables, escorts, etc.). Saga was not that at all, a small but airy space with some amazing DJs, open and playing hard stuff seven days a week, and they had great balloons, a welcome reprieve after struggling with Chiang Mai. It was a wonderful way to end a great first day in the Danang area, a place that I was already excited to visit and already feel like I was understimating.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 6 - Chiang Rai

Day 6 - The Old City

Chiang Rai is a city that sits three hours north of Chiang Mai. It was the old capital of the Lanna kingdom (one of the kingdoms within old Siam), and the city's name literally means "old city", with Chiang Mai meaning "new city". I knew none of this, by the way, when the day started, but this was the history part of a wonderful day visiting three spectacular temples in Chiang Rai, the white, blue and red temples, so named for obvious reasons when you see them.

Now, the day wasn't without issue, primarily the fact that the tour was sold on Viator as taking ten hours, meaning a 7am start would roughyl equate with a 5-6pm finish, but as the guide mentioned at the start of the tour of the 12 of us in the sprinter van, it would take closer to 12-13 hours - which admittedly makes a whole deal of sense just mathematically. 6 to 7 hours of this day would be spent just driving the road to Chiang Mai and back and between the temples themselves. Then there would be the time at the temples, which you know in these larger group tours is always longer than you realistically need, and finally add in the couple of stops to visit local shops and wares. Add it all up, and we should have known the ten hour estimate was bunk, but this resulted in us knowing pretty early our 7pm dinner reservation at Chawee was kaput. By the way, I don't blame the actual tour company here, but Viator for misleading us. Anyway, luckily the tour itself was more than worth it.

As I didn't bring my laptop with me, I'm writing this a day later at our layover in Bangkok airport, and I can confidently say that we should've looked into spend a night in Chiang Rai, which seems like a lovely city even outside the temples. My parents also swear by it a bit. Anyway, just adding it to my list for next time - which similarly the ill-fated Chawee gets bumped to as well.

The first stop on the tour was probably the weakest, about thirty minutes in, the visit a "longneck" peoples village - a village of the community that migrated from Burma (chased out, in reality) and now number around 10,000 around Thailand. This village had about 200 at peak, but most have actually started to integrate into Thai society and thusly leave for the day. The ones staying behind are all pleasant, dressed well with the crazily heavy gold rings around their necks, so heavy we would learn the reason they look "long" is because they push down the shoulders (which makes far more sense than the alternative, I guess). The stuff they were selling was all fairly plain, so if anything it was more of a stop just to see these peoples. Seems voyeuristic, but you have to pay extra (~$10) for this part of the tour, and as we would learn by stop three or so, the same four or five sprinter vans and one large coach bus were all partaking on these stops.

The next stop was more of a pure rest stop at a coffee shop which was also near a natural hot spring, which looked nice but smelled awful (read: sulphur). By this point, we were roughly an hour into the trip and ready for the long stretch on the way to the first of the temples, a 90-minute car ride, the beginning of which was through the hills and mountains. The last half of which was twisting and turning through various offshoots to get aruond a massive construction project to build a proper highway.

We finally reached the white temple around 11:30, and it truly is hard to describe. Granted, the blue temple is similarly hard to describe, but the white temple complex is surreal. We would learn that this temple was built just about 30 years ago, by a famous Thai artist, who took the chance to build a temple to really show off. The main area has a series of four connected mini temples with a bridge between them and all of it (the temples, the bridge, the sides of hte pond below you) are crazily carved with angular edges, dragons, haunting imagery, and so much more. It is like you are in a gothic cathedral meets something in Star Wars meets pure white. It's incredible. Yes, it dulls the experience a few percentage points to know how new this is, but after a while you realize that's silly, we should just be taking this in for what it is, which is magical.

The rest of the White Temple complex is similarly so, with the other main attraction being a man-made cave with tons of carvings inside, of dragons, fish, buddhas, other imagery. Yeah, it;s fake, so it's no Ellora Caves, but who cares, its still stunning. As was the large gold pagoda on the side, which if it was not connected to the larger White Temple and was a standalone sight would probably be seen as might impressive on its own right - Chiang Mai's answer, I guess, to the Kinkaku-Ji. On the whole, the White Temple was so memorable, and an excellent way to start the tourism part of the day.

This was followed by a buffet lunch at the type of place you expect from this type of tour, but it was conveniently located right next door to the White Temple, and honestly the food was fairly good, but more importantly there was quite a spread. The only meat was chicken (I guess playing it safe given the amount of international tourists) but in many ways, from a really nice, sweet pad thai, to a ginger stir-fry, to a spicy, sharp mince / larb type thing, to of course their own preparation of Khao Soi, which was nowhere near as good as Euang Kai Sam, but was honestly quite good itself. On the whole, for the biggest question mark on these types of tours, the food was good.

Better was the Blue Temple, the next stop on the tour, which is essentially what happens if you take the White Temple, strip away the bridges and ponds, and squat it right in the heart of the city - and of course paint it all blue instead of white. While this description probably makes it sounds worse (and it probably is like 10% worse) it is still incredibly impressive and picturesque, featuring a bit more greenery and dynamism in the carving (the colors help) from tigers, and various other animals. Also, the inside of the main temple, with its giant large light blue buddha and frescoe and tile work aplenty everytwhere was just incredible. That they packed all this decoration and brilliance into a basically tiny city block is amazing.

The final stop was the Red Temple, and while it was also quite nice, if they follow my spirit of "save the best for last" they probably would've reversed the order of the visits. The odd part is the main attraction is not red, it is a giant 30-story tall buddha statue where you can take an elevator to walk inside the top of the head - as in you can look out the eyes for windows. What is incredible though is the inside hollowed out top of the head is as intricately carved as any of hte prior temples - and in a way much like the White Temple at the start, with angular carvings and beauty everywhere. The "red" element is a large pagoda (in the classic sense) off to a side hill which is indeed red, but honestly not all that intricately carved or interesting compared to the buddha or definitely the blue or white temples. Still, the temple complex itself is situated at a really nice clearing where you get a good view of the sprawl of hills in every direction. On the whole, the temples as a combination are incredible and easily worht the six hours of driving to get there and back (or, you know, just plan it differently so you can stay there...).

We did reach back on the early end of the guide's guesstimate, but were left with a bit of a conundrum of where to go. The last thing I hate not really having planned is meals, and while I had a few alternate options shortlisted during my research, one required reservations and the other was unexpectedly closed, so we walked 10 minutes away from the closed spot, past a series of massage spots (50/50 legitimate vs. rub and tug) towards a really nice street of a ton of bars and eateries, and absolutely the type of place I want to stroll aroudn more if/when I come again. The place we went to was called Alice, which was decent - serving not as good but still generally acceptable versions of the key dishes we'd had at a Euang Kam Sai, like Khao Soi. The best dish was a glass noodle seafood salad which to be fair was excellent, but I think they took our "make it medium spcy" to mean don't make it spicy at all. That said, probably not the worst thing given my stomach had been iffy for a couple days and we're about to spend much of the next morning flying.

That was the end of my time in Chiang Mai, as I had to play adult for a few hours and take a work call at 10:30pm local time. We have to get up at 5am tomorrow for our flight, so this already was not going to be a late night, so it was a nice alignment to have this bethe one night I had to basically give up. The rest of the group went back to Bar Not Found - I will say, there wasn't even a thought of them staying in, but even had they given that a thought, I probably reject it outright. They had their fun, my call went fine, I slept at 12, I'll take their word for it that they came back by 1, and we all got up for the flight (spoiler alert).

In the end, my time in Chiang Mai was fantastic. I got more or less four full days here (especially since we got in early from Bangkok compared to the ETA) and loved nearly every second of it. The biggest "miss" wasn't really Chiang Mai's fault, but when we had to call an audible for dinner on the last night, or dinner on the first night when Euang Kam Sai was too full, but in both cases our quickly ID'd backup was more than fine, especially the first night where the fish larb was up there. The city is lovely with its old town in the middle but still built up in many ways. The food is amazing, but that was to some degree to be expected. What was not as expected was the cocktail bars, the breweries, the clubs, the late night food, the sense of place and more than anything how amazing all the sights were. I talk in this entry about how spectacular the White, Blue and Red temples were, but to be honest, the Wat Ben Den two days back or the Twin Pagodas yesterday were nearly as good. Chiang Mai is a special place, and while I'm both annoyed that it took me this long to visit, and that I wasn't able to spend more time just wandering around the city, I'm more overjoyed knowing that I'll figure out a way to come back.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 5 - Chiang Mai

Day 5 - The Other Wat & Waterfall

Hey, would you look at that, more Wats and Waterfalls to fall in love with, more great Thai mountainous scenery, this time more hills, more cliff-faces, more farms cut into the above. Today was our turn to get out of town a bit, heading South towards the Doi Inthanon National Park, a sprawling area that includes a half dozen waterfalls, quite a few temples, including the most notable "Twin Royal Pagodas" and some small towns.

The best part of the tour, in reality, was how stress free it was - so little time spent watching tradesmen do something for thirty seconds followed by some subtle pressures to buy anything, and so much time just spent in nature and in the heights of Thailand. As we were the only people on the tour, we were able to convince the company to start a few hours late, which both allowed us to sleep in a bit, and trade lunches from the tour planend one (which is not free, hence them being OK shifting it) to us hitting back Euang Kam Sai for the second straight day. I usually don't like repeating restaurants, but the food was too good and the menu too extensive, meaning there was so much of it we hadn't yet seen. We split about six things, the best probably being a chicken thigh, lemongrass and other spice mash type thing steamed just perfectly inside banana leaf. That or today's alternative to Khao Soi, which was a soup with various pork pieces, from blood to belly to fried crackling to mince, along with a pure, tart broth. On the whole, I really can't recommend Euang Kam Sai enough.

From lunch (which we had between 11:15 - 12:00, so lunch is a bit of a incorrect name here...) we left for Doi Inthanon. The great part starts with the drive out of the city, which on the downside has too many traffic lights (which almost always run in like 90-second segments on each side), but on the plus-side, and outweighing the minus, was kilometer after kilometer of somethign of interest in the landing between the two sides of traffic, be it lovely, colorful flowers of various purples, red and yellows, or later on makeshift little temple-like buildings over a canal. The road quality and roadside beauty, in this part of Thailand is just excellent.

It takes about 75-90 minutes from central Chiang Mai to reach the entrance of Doi Inthanon park, which at its entrance is already a bit elevated, and therefore significantly lower temperature, which was sorely needed after 72 hours of 100+. The first stop is about 30 minutes into the park, with lovely views on winding roads and switchbacks, and that is the Wachitaran Waterfall, the largest waterfall in the park and one of the more accessible ones. I say accessible because while there are a good 6-10 waterfalls in the park itself, most are either too small, or quite far from the main road requiring a hike that isn't impossible, but takes too much time. If I return to Chiang Mai (or more likely at this point "when I return"), spending a longer day roaming the hiking trails of Doi Inthanon would be a must do, but for today we "settle" on the one large waterfall that isn't a far distance from the main road.

In fact, it's basically right at the road, but there's about 20-30 minutes of walking trails to see the waterfall from various vantage points. It is a stunning waterfall, not the biggest but so picturesque, such a perfect balance of size, power and placement to just fall perfectly off the cliff, with just a ton of great sightlines. There's a makeshift bridge in front of it giving kind of the classic head-on view of the waterfall. Then there's a path of stone stairs on the left side that rises about two-thirds the way up the fall for a great side view, and then a series of steps downward from the bridge that get to the bottom fo the waterfall wading pool and creek running downwards. All of it is serene.

The waterfall was a nice entry into Doi Inthanon, with the next stop being at the high point of the park, another 20-30 minutes of winding roads leading to the top. When we got there, the temperature was at 20 celsius, a good 21 degrees color than the weather back in Chiang Mai. The elevation sits around 8000 feet, and you can feel it, but the cool air felt better. The high point is interesting because it isn't actually a viewpoint, it is just the peak up a gradual slope and covered in trees - the walk to tget there and around is lovely, about a 30-40 minute walk through teh hills and forests. It's serene, beautiful but the one downside is there is no real view. There are of course other viewpoints scattered around the park, which we did go and visit, which gave us the pictures of vastness we wanted.

The next stop was probably the centerpice of a visit to Doi Inthanon, the Twin Royal Pagodas, which you can see the very tops of from a distance sitting near the edge of a mountain, but whose true beauty is fairly hidden. You park in one area and then take these little rikshaw/jeeps from the parking lot to the main area of the two temples - the ride takes five minutes, the last two of which are just splendid as you head up towards the pagodas and see flowers, beauty and sharpness everywhere.

The twin pagodas, named so with one being for the Queen, the other the King, sit up on a hill, reachable by escalators (you walk down steps, which I guess you could walk up...) are just stunning. They're fairly new, but so intricately ornate. Each on the outside have these sharp depictions of various gods, idols and tapestries carved in stone or wood on all sides of the 16-sided pagoda. Each area has two levels on the outside with this series of artwork. Those are great, but the insides so much more staggering. The queen pagoda inside is more traditional, with a large seated buddha, a giant lotus flower carved on teh roof, and frescoe artwork on each side. The king one more regal and new, with a large standing buddha in the middle and artwork on each side, with a mystical night sky like representation on teh ceiling. The pagodas are excellent, but arguably they aren't the star of the show here.

The star might be the greenery, the perfectly maintained gardens and flower at all levels - in the area where the shuttle jeep drops you off, on the slopes that you rise up on the escalator and then extending from teh pagodas. Sadly, the area near the King pagoda is being renovated (and if my understanding is correct, they are building a third pagoda), but the queen side had gardens of hydrangaes, roses adn other flowers, extending in two circles that also give you incredible views of the vast park and forest below you. It is a remarkable scene.

That was essentially our last bit of tourism in Doi Inthanon, with the only exception being a quick stop in a village at the edge of the park that had a nice coffee factory (ok, the one "salesy" aspect of the tour), but even that came with free coffee which was strong and needed. The drive back to Chiang Mai luckily didn't take too long, as we didn't have too much time between are round 6pm return, and needing to leave for dinner at 6:30 to Friend's Table - another showstopping tasting menu within Chiang Mai.

Friends Table sits about twenty minutes outside the city center, a large glass building at the base of a luxury hotel. It is truly a great spot and a great menu, 11 courses perfectly built, constructured, crafted and presented. There is one downside though, and one that was maybe more of a poor coincidence, than anything else, which is most of the dishes we had weren't really Thai. Now, most had Thai ingredients, local produce, etc., but the menu of the moment (the chef changes menus every 3-4 months or so) was if anything more Japanese in some of hte preparations. Now, it was excellent; like some of the dishes were truly stunning - from a small wagyu khao soi, to a brilliant play on a tostada, to a peking duck main that was just unreal. Friend's Table is an excellent restaurant and reasonably priced, but it was not the best representation of Chiang Mai cuisine.

The meal took an efficient two hours, and left us with some options for cocktails and night spots. The first was our last cocktail spot (or I should say my last - to be explained in tomorrow's piece) in Chiang Mai, a place called Bitter Truth, which sits right at the edge of old town, with a large glass facade, a sleek bar and some great drinks. Probably the sharpest, strongest cocktails of all of the spots (I guess that plays into the "bitter" name), if a bit small on the sizes, which I would say is more of a Chiang Mai thing, than specific to Bitter Truth. All in all, the one true standout cocktail spot in our time in Chiang Mai was probably Bar Not Found, but all were quite good.

The last spot was a bit of a random, but great, way to end the night. We had gone back towards the area where Gladwell sits, as that is one of teh two cocktail spots we found that close at 1am, the other being its sister spot (next door) Noir CMI, but sadly both were closed as their team was having a retreat - fun for them, not so much for us. Instead, we called an audible and went to a live music bar right next to it called Melodic CNX, which was packed on Friday when we came to Gladwell, and to our surprise nearly as packed today on a Sunday night. The music was loud, but good (mostly Asian language songs), the crowd was loving it, the drinks were decent and cheap and there were pool tables upstairs that we hovered around. All in all, for a place we / I put no effort into researching or finding, it was a great spot to end the night. "Sometimes, those spur of the moment places are just better"... says I, someone who meticulously plans trips to a degree they shouldn't be. Anyway, maybe just another reason to come back to Chiang Mai and just experience it all without any real fore-planning.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 4 - Chiang Mai

Day 4 - The Wat & The Waterfall

Tomorrow and Monday we've given ourselves over to the Viator Tour Gods. Not worried about this, the locations are far away, adn the tours seemingly well structured enough. Both will require earlier starts than we would like, but both tours begin with long drives. Anyway, I'll cover those days on those days. Today, however, we left it open. There was a clear plan, to head about an hour North of the city to visit the Wat Ben Dan and the Buatong ("Sticky") Waterfall, but no real settled logistics on how it would work.

In the end, that didn't prove too difficult, as the Astra Condo complex has a taxi counter where we were able to get a driver for the second half of the day, in the end coming out to about $15/person, which was a steal. To some degree, we were kind of annoyed we didn't just think of doing this for the other two tours, but anyway, we were able to get the logistics squared away early in the day (early being 10:30), and get ourselves oriented. 

The morning would be one of shopping and strolling around, visting the Jing Jai Market, which is a beautiful market complex a bit North of the main part of the city. It was packed, as the market which is open daily has quite a few more vendors on weekends, including a farmer's adn fresh food market in the back. It's hard to really describe the Jing Jai other than it may be the platonic ideal of a weekend market. The stalls and stores are overwhelming, even if they are probably a bit too clothing-forward for my taste. But there were dozens of handicraft stalls which of course I perused and then purchased at a few. The area has about 12 "buildings" (some are just open air with roofs) but then also a godo half dozen avenues and alleys with stalls on both sides. It's really overwhelming, in the best possible way.

The food market there also seemed excellent, with tons of vendors selling various types of Thai food, from a bunch selling various breakfast / egg related things (not a shock, given the time), to stands with Satay, pad thai and much more. We had all decided to go back to Euang Kam for lunch, but we couldn't leave withotu at least some satay, which was excellent (if not Northern Thai). On the whole, the Jing Jai was a perfect way to slow-start the day, adn if not for the oppressive heat, we could've stayed longer.

Lunch at Euang Kam Sai was incredible. We got there at 11:45 and got the last remaining table (honestly, they should just expand) and it is hard to describe both how vast and scrumptious every bit of their menu tasted, how tough it is to whttle down on what to get, and how good everythign we ordered was. The star was the Khao Soi, the classic Northern Thai muslim-influenced noodle soup dish, that was truly one of the single best mains I've had anywhere of late. The broth was brilliant with a perfect blend of heat, spice and sweetness from the coconut milk. It helped offset the spiciness of the other dishes, the best of which were both baked / steamed in banana leaf (just a brilliant way of preparing something), including a baked pork, egg and cream dish inside a banana leaf which becomes something of a spicy sausage. All in all, Euang Kam Sai was just brilliant, and will go quite a bit up my Non-Tasting Menu list (just have to decide whether it is "fancy" or not, though my definition there is fairly loose).

From lunch, we went back to the Astra to get our taxi and venture Northward for the main part of the day. The only sad part was the drive wasn't all that interesting. Chiang Mai is to some degree in the mountains, and so are the sights aroudn it. Maybe tomorrow and Monday's tours will get more "mountainous" in the views during the drives, but for large stretches the drive (about 70 minutes there and back, 30 minutes in between the two sites) were boring. Luckily, that is the only negative I have, and if anything, everything else about the two sites is an amazing positive.

Wat Ban Den is hard to describe, in that it is the biggest, most ornate, most staggering Wat complex I've seen. I would say other than the famed Wat Po in Bangkok, but in reality, this is better. Now, I know some of the Wats in Chiang Rai that I'll see on Monday are also super well regarded. There is a chance this declaration of mine will last all of two days. But for now, this was incredible. 

It is very much not in the mountains (like say, the Wibongsa Temple in Jeonju, Korea). It is on flat land, but it is sprawling and every part of it is insane. There are about 20 different temple buildings. Some are wood, and insanel carved wood. Some are stone, with carvings of full pictorials. There are carved and decorated animals everywhere, including many of a weird peacock/bird and elephant hybrid that I fully enjoyed. There is no large Gold temple like there was yesterday, but instead a more gigantic, but still regal, black one. I'm running out of ways to adequately describe what I witnessed, just know that I had to limit myself to not take 200 photos there itself. Even the interiors of the temples were ornate and beautiful, without ever comign across as ostentatious. On the whole, Wat Ben Dan was just an incredible experience.

As incredible, really, was the Buatong Waterfall. I've been to a lot of waterfalls. Largely, they fall into two camps - one are true giant waterfalls and the others are small waterfalls where you can swim, walk, climb them, etc. The former are your Niagara's, Iguazu's, Victoria's. Those are great. The latter are your Kuang Si in Luang Prabang, and now your Buatong, and arguably they are more fun. Buatong means "Sticky", which is a play on the fact that the limestone that the water cascades down 100 meters over a series of intervewning falls, shallow pools, etc., is "sticky" enough to be able to easily climb it. I'm no geologist, so I cannot begin to explain how this exactly works. It results though in you being able to descend about 300 feet on steps and then climb the waterfall back up.

Truly, you are walking up water flowing, at times fairly strongly, over rock. The limestone is just stable and "sticky" enough to never feel unsafe. The more steep areas they have makeshift ropes to help you, but I got the sense that was way more for people who were getting nervous than something actually required. There were a few "pools" in between the four different falls that they break up the area into, but sadly none deep enough to swim in (like the Kuang Si), but this whole exercise was beautiful, unique, idyllic, and above all become the most enjoyable hike I've ever been on (yeah, it was tiring). The Buatong Waterfall is a must do. This whole circuit is - and round trip took us five hours to do all of it, getting us back into town early enough to get a couple brews before dinner.

Today's spot was oddly named "Sucking Stones" brewing, but despite the name was quite good, including an excellent Porter. On the whole, Thai craft beer isn't up to the standard of say Vietnam (hey, would you look where I'll be in a few days!), but it is still quite good, if catering to American-heavy tastes (see the prevalence of IPAs). We didn't have too much time at Suckign Stones, as our first tasting menu meal of the time in Chiang Mai was at 7:30pm at Redbox.

It's hard to describe Redbox, as it was a collection of ranges. For one, despite this being a Saturday Night, there was only one other table in the restaurant that was full. That didn't dull the enjoyment, or quality of the food. Per Google, the place is mightily heavily reviewed, so I imagine that truly this just isn't tourist season. Anyway, the meal was awesome, a truly elevated version of Northern Thai classics in many ways - just perfect dishes really. A few too few courses for my like, though the portion sizes were hearty. On the whole, Redbox was excellent.

As was our post-dinner stop, which was supposed to be one of two cocktail spot but we ended up liking it enough, and they let us place an order at 11:45 (they close at 12, as most places do) that it didn't really make sense to seek another spot other than Bar Not Found. They had a somewhat creative speakeasy entrance where when you go up a flight of stairs you're met with four brightly colored doors, of which only one is the real door. The bright colors is an early example of the throughline of the decor inside (more vibrant colors) and the drinks, which all are given a name of a color (think blue, turquise, whale shell, papaya, sea green, etc.) which do actually describe the colors of the drinks. The cocktails themselves were inventive, colorful, strong and overall excellent. Out of the cocktail spots I've tried so far in Chiang Mai, Bar Not Found is my favorite.

The final stop of the night was back at Red CNX, which as expected was more crowded, but not overly so. It was a great crowd, and a great collectiion of DJs that traded off and on more than I've seen elsewhere (as in less "everyone gets an hour" set, more just tagging in and out). Other than the balloons not being as good as those in Vietnam, everythign else about Red CNX was excellent - teh music, the vibe, the space itself (yeah, a lot of red tint) and the crowd. A great way to end the night - if you don't count going to the Issan (Northeastern Thai) late night food restarurant for a selection of great basil stir fries to end what was just a great day in Chiang Mai.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 3 - Chiang Mai

Day 3 - The Hazy Mountains

My weird jet-lag somehow led me to getting up at 6am, despite us sleeping at 2am, and while I was able to coax maybe 30 minutes more of sleep, I didn't really get a full night in any way. That said, as I write this around 6pm, I didn't really get tired or catch up on sleep anywhere. Not the flight, not the various ubers, not even the 45 minutes we took for R&R at the AirBNB before heading out to a craft brewery. It might all come back to get me tonight say, where I could easily get sleepy early (I really hope this isn't the case...), but alas, maybe all it was that kept me going was the energy of a new place.

Not only a new place, but a new airport as well in Chiang Mai, my 172nd (yes, I track these things...). We left the Aloft around 7:45, and reached Suvarnubumhi Airport around 8:15, quickly checked out bags and went into the domestic part of the terminal, an area I never went before. Not to say I missed out - the airport is a bit more cramped in the domestic area (basically the lower floor of the head-house - the best part of the normal terminal). The lounge was adequate, but especially after our flight was delayed 30 minutes for unclear reasons, we were all a bit annoyed we left so early.

The flight was unmemorable other than the nice peanut and chicken salad wrap they gave, which was excellent, if a bit oddly timed (the flight after its delay was from 10:30 to 11:30). Before we knew it, we were descending, to which the captain told us there was a smokey haze all around Chiang Mai, so we wouldn't be able to see much on descent. Not that it mattered to me, as I had picked an aisle seat (which is odd, usually go window on the shorter flights...), but from peeking over my friends, it did indeed seem hazy and impossible to see anything. This was a shame in the sense that the claim to fame for Chiang Mai is it being in the mountains and what-not, but alas, when we were actually on the ground, in teh city and even later in the hills, it wasn't too bad. It did remind me a bit of my trip to Denver in August 2021, where the Alberta wildfires were creating a haze where you couldn't see hte mountains in teh distance.

We quickly checked into our AirBNB, which is a two-bedroom condo in a large, upscale condo building that judging by the people walking around seems to be 75% tourists/AirBNB guests, this despite some funny fliers stuck on the front door saying this is not a hotel. Anyway, we were able to check in early, whcih was nice, put the AC on as we left, and then head out into the wild new world of Chiang Mai.

The first stop was lunch at Busarin, which even on the way we got a good view of what Chiang Mai seems to be - a supersized version of the towns like Gyeongju, or Takayama, or lets even say a Luang Prabang - places that just ooze history and purity in a way that a Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh loses slightly (not to say this hurts those megatropoles). Busarin itself was fantastic, a little four-table restaurant that serves just impeccable, unassuming Northern Thai cuisine in these lovely pink porcelain plates. We split a few dishes, the standouts being fermented rice noodles topped with crispy pork and crispy salmon (two dishes), and then a roti with lamb curry, which was just fabulous. I'm very much hoping over the course of my four days here I will get to really understand Northern Thai cuisine, but Busarin was a great start, and the curry the best of those - pungent, deep, spicy, aromatic, brilliant. The dessert we got of the sticky rice with thai custard was also brilliant. A great start for what should be an amazing four days of food.

Judging by our series of temples we visited next, this should also be a great four days of tourism as well. Each of the following three days will see us go further afield into the mountains (Sunday and Monday being group tours), so we stuck relatively close to Chiang Mai today, but even "relatively close" means spending some time in the mountains. The first stop was Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, which is high in one of the mountains right outside of Chiang Mai. The drive there takes about 40 minutes, the last two thirds being up teh mountain with many, many switchbacks. On the way, you pass a few different small shriens and hiking trails (and a small waterfall - which if you take the adjacent trail leads to a bigger waterfall). At the end is the large Wat complex, where you can either climb the 300 steps to the main area, or take a funicular. We took the latter (we did walk the steps down). The setting is pristine, even if it was still 100 degrees, at least there was ample tree cover. The wat complex featured just a staggering number of buildings, from a large, wood carved canopy with an overlook of the city, to multiple shrines, tot he main temple complex in teh middle, befit with a startingly gold temple in the middle. We would come to learn this set-up of buildings is kind of the norm, but the elevation, teh way it mixed the mountainside and greenery, and the various carvings (even down to some fancy benches!) was just awesome.

The next two stops were temples in the city, and more specifically, in the bleeding heart of the city, the large square set-up inside of a man-made canal surrounding this area on all sides. It's an unmistakable square feature when you pull up Chiang Mai on Google Maps, and that middle part is just pure bliss - rows and rows of streets with shops, stalls, cafes, restaurants, with just incredible architecture - ratan, and ornate roofs adn trims, and bamboo and so much more. It works like a Hanok Village, just blown up a bit. The real star of this middle area though is the temples. 

Our first stop was Wat Phra Singh, which took the style of the one in the mountains, stripped out all the mountains parts of it, and played up the beauty. The main building was exquisitely designed with this frescoe like frieze, and the large gold structure in the middle was larger and more gold than before - thsi was almost a gold akin to the famed Kinkaku-Ji in Kyoto. The final temple was maybe the best / most interesting, but what was crazier is on the ten minute walk from one to the other, we passed like four different smaller temple complexes, all quite ornate and interesting in their own right. THere's a reasony why the more famous and larger ones are so, but these small ones offer ample picture opportunities as well, even if in minor.

The final stop was Wat Chedi Luang, which sits more or less right in the middle of the old town large square, with maybe the best main central temple, with just a stellar interior, and then more interestingly, a large old school Stupa Buddhist Temple behind it. The Stupa is giant, regal and gives off straight up Angkor Wat or Ellora Caves like vibes, despite being in the true center of this giant city (Chiang Mai is the second biggest city in Thailand). Wat Chedi Luang was a great way to end our tourism part of the day.

Right across the street from our AirBNB complex sits a little strip mall that houses the nicely named Grumpy Old Men brewing, which is a lovely little brew-pub serving up a few of its own pours. The patrons and barfolk were all Thai, but the IPA-heavy draft list made it seem it was definitely catering to American tourists. 

Dinner was a bit of an adventure, as the first place we tried to go to, Euang Kam Sai, was too full and despite their door saying they close at 9, I guess their last order is 8pm, and we arrived at 7:30 where it seemed impossible we would get a table in the intervening 30 minutes. So yeah, that was a bit disappointing, but we made the best of it, heading to another similar type of restaurant, Puang Thong, which sits on the river, open air (lots of fans, thankfully) and a long menu with pictures. This is the type of place that people come to Thailand to eat at and enjoy. We'll be back in tasting menu land tomorrow, but for tonight we split a bunch of things, the best being a super spicy fish larb (we asked for "medium" and an even better sausage dish. The ingredients, the spice, the lemongrass, galangal, etc. are just so strong and pure. Northern Thai food is just pristine.

As was Chiang Mai's cocktail scene, which is crazy impressive. There's a good dozen or so reputable craft cocktail spots all over Chiang Mai. Most close at 12 (which seems to be a bit of a soft cutoff for anything that isn't a club/dance bar) and a few at 1. So many have super high Google ratings, which at first screams a bit of malfeasance going on, but you start reading the reviews and realize that, no, just for whatever reason cocktails are an art here. There was a lot of discussion on which ones to do which day, and in the end there isn't a huge logic here. For today, we went to both the Gladwell Cocktail Bar and Demon's Murmur. 

Gladwell's is a bit more traditional in setup, with a long bar with about 8 seats and then some couches and what-not. Demon's Murmur was smaller, darker with only bar seating (about 12 seats). Both are dimly lit with spotlights for where your drinks are and behind the bar. The whole set-up, seriousness of teh presentations, the flavor profile, reminded me a lot of going to cocktail spots in Japan or Korea, and I say this in a very good way. Both places were excellent, my favorite being one called a "Thai Dessert" at Gladwell's which had some emulsified coconut sauce dollop taht you mix into the drink and create this almost coconut milk type taste which was just stunning. Second place goes to the final drink, a martini cut with a Thai rice wine, at Demon's Murmur. On the whole, excited to try more places over the next few days.

The night ended though at a familiar ending point - an EDM bar. In this case, I guess two of them, both housed just north of the big square. Red CNX is the EDM spot, which was classicly lit, cool, airy, with balloons (though sadly not as strong/nice as the ones in HCMC that I'm already now dreaming of) - it was fairly empty throughout as it seemed to be more gearing up for tomorrow night - shows in the price with tomorrow being 300 THB entry (~$9) vs today at 100 THB. Howver, in the same complex sits Locked In, which is more dubstep, DNB, style and today was featuring a guy who rapped (seemingly extemporaneously) over a backing track adn he was incredible. The vibe in both were great, adn I can absolutely foresee Red CNX being a ton of fun tomorrow when I imagine it will be more crowded. Will save my real takeaways of it until then.

The final act of the night was going about half a mile away where there is make-shift Super Late Night Market with about 10 different carts selling normal Thai fare, which is about as perfect way to end a night in terms of food. At least for once it wasn't gyro, even if the Thai food wasn't incredible and more standard fare (basil beef, pad thai) than Northern Thai classics. Still, just a great scene to end a great day that was the real first day of the trip. The vacation juices fully flowing now.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 2 - Singapore to Bangkok

Day 2 - Changi & Gaggan

Changi Airport always comes through also. We arrived into our gate at around 4:30am with the airport fairly empty - but the lounges are open 24/7 which is always great. We arrived into Changi's pristine T3 (where most of the long haul flights reside) and within ten minutes I was nestling into the sleep room of the KrisFlyer Business Class lounge. Helps taht since all flights in and out of Singapore are international, there is no security to get back airside when you arrive - it is much like arriving on a domestic flight in the US. The lounge was nearly empty, and there was one pod available in the sleeping area, so I nestled in to try to force myself to sleep to around 7am local time (again, trying my hardest to get close to Asia time zones). 

The lounge chairs in the sleep area are super comfortable, but weirdly at 5am they started playing music. Now, it was some relaxing, sleep type music, but for someone who was forcing sleep anyway, it wasn't ideal. I was able to get some decent sleep for a few hours, but promptly at 7am, I escaped that area to a far busier lounge. I got some breakfast shumai and dumplings, coffee and settled in while I waited around 45 minutes for a shower suite. It was well worth the wait though, as the lounge had these great showers suites with just lovely touches. Overall, it was a great experience in the T3 lounge, where I left aroudn 8am, with still four hours to go in my layover.

My flight to Bangkok was departing out of Terminal 2, which is easily reachable by sky train, but since I had the time, I walked msot of the lenght of the main part of T3 to visit the Butterfly Garden, always a nice delight. Most of my flights in and out of Singapore have been in T3, so I was actually excited to visit Terminal 2 and see their gardens, both the ones inside the terminal that are just beautiful, serene, stunning, and the Sunflower Garden on the roof which was lovely, but sadly didn't really have a view of apron below. Traipsing through Changi is just a lvoely experience. Sure, some airports are more architecturally stunning, but no airport is as green and as pleasant at all times.

Finally, I did reach the T2 Business Class lounge, which much like T2 overall vs T3, was a little simpler, not as fancy, but offered basically all teh same food, and the big win being it was way less full. I was able to finish off watching the really good Jail Blazers documentary on NETFLIX, and some shut eye before the flight to Bangkok.

The flight to Bangkok was on SQ's B787-10, which it uses for these short ot medium haul flights. Funnily, the seat in business class is probably better on this than their long-haul A350, but whatever, enough shitting on the seat/bed. The flight itself was great - classic SQ with a multi-course lunch despite the two hour flying time.

We got a perfectly lucky gate at Suvurnabhumi, where it opened up basically right to the immigration line, which was basically empty. Granted, all this meant is about a 15 minute wait at baggage claim, but still better than what can be really long walks through the cavernous halls of Suvurnabhumi. By 3pm I was getting into my Grab cab, and within thirty or so minutes I was at the Aloft deep in teh heart of Sukhumvit. I've never had the process from plane to hotel be so easy and pleasant - Bangkok seems emptier than usual. Granted, this is early afternoon on a weekday, and I'm sure hours from now when we struggle to get a cab to get us to Gaggan in time, it may be different.

I didn't really have much plans for Bangkok, so I traipsed around the Sukhumvit area through various glistening malls and the Bangkok Arts Center, a place I first found on my most recent trip to the city in 2024, despite going quite near it a bunch as it sits right across a lane from the Siam complexes. Now, the one closest to it seems to be a fairly new one, named Siam Design, but that connects to Siam Central and Siam Paragon, the last being maybe my favorite mega-mall on Sukhumvit. For the arts center, the sad news is one of the three floors was being redone for a new installation, but the good news is the top floor was showcasing about 30 winning art pieces from a country wide art competition and they were just lovely, mixing great modernism and vibrancy with recognizable images of Thailand underneath.

After a while and a couple iced coffees (usually not my go too, but combination of jet lag, tiredness and heat made this a no brainer), I went over to the Hair of the Dog Beer Bar off Sukhumvit, a trusted bottel shop. The Canadian owners weren't there this time like they were on the last trip, but the beer options were just as good as always. On the whole, while my limited time sightseeing in Bangkok largely consisted of me re-tracing things I've done a handful of times already, that doesn't matter since this is almost intentionally not a trip about Bangkok, and more than that the real gem of Bangkok was to come.

We weren't supposed to go to Gaggan this trip. In fact, when we were planning to go in February, we weren't - it was sold out. But after we switched to April it was available - at least three seats were. I volunteered to take the wait list spot, given I'd gone there before and the other three hadn't, but about ten days or so before the trip, the waitlist spot cleared, so here we go. This is an interseting time to visit - about a month before they unveil a new menu with a new high for them of 28 courses (the initial restaurant was 25, moved down to 22 for a few years now), and more interestingly, chef Gaggan Anand saying he would ban people from using phones to take pictures during hte meal. That hasn't happened yet, so I was interesting to see how much phone / picture usage there would be, or if he would comment on it.

In the end, Gaggan was amazing, with the one sad bit being that the chef himself wasn't there this time, making it twice I've gone without hin being there, three times with. From a food perspective, it was maybe my favorite meal there since my very first one. I may have gotten my research wrong, as it seemed they were already doing the elongated menu, though it was 25 courses, first with six each from/inspired by India, Japan and Thailand, and then seven more "communal". The pace was rapid, the chefs were charming, funny and entrrtaining and the whole experience was as good as ever.

So was #FindTheLockerRoom, which my friends enjoyed tremendously, from the weirdness of the names of the drinks, to the taste of them as well. They even got a fair kick of the "hidden-ness" of the entrance, to which I spent a good two minutes trying to remember / figure out how to open. I didn't tell them, though, of the real surprise, which si the second set of lockers up the stairs, which they just loved. Anyway, it was a traditional Bangkok day in a sense, doing all things I've done before, but with friends and some in better (Gaggan) ways. In the end though, that was the idea of the first day to ease my way into the trip before a whole lot of new things start tomorrow.

2026 Vietthai Trip: Day 1 - Flying to Bangkok

Day 1 - The Long Flight

I was supposed to be taking this trip and this flight two months ago, a fifth annual President's Day trip, and fourth annual iteration of taking the week off plus a day or so to get a long trip out of it. The trips were all memorable in many ways, from visiting Victoria Falls and Cape Town in 2023 (bringing my parents to Cape Town - still a delight), to Turkey and Cape Town in 2024, to finally Brazil in 2025, a memorable trip. This was set-up to be another one, visiting two countries I've been to a lot - Thailand and Vietnam - but seeing places that I haven't been to before - Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Danang and Hoi An. Of course, would mix in a night in Bangkok a night in Singapore (to start and finish) and a day and a half in Ho Chi Minh City as well. Pretty damn perfect.

And then it became clear that my parents were moving into their new house basically the same time as President's Day weekend, and I didn't want to miss that. So I found a way to delay the trip last minute, pushing it to April, lining it up within a stone's throw (or week's throw) of my Birthday. The shift actually ended up getting one more to our group, making it four of us, instead of three. The other three took this entire week off, seeing Bangkok properly, but I'm joining them now, but not before the first toruism aspect of the trip - taking the longest flight in the world.

Now, I've taken a very similar "longest flight in teh world" before, and started a trip taking it before - another President's Day trip, this time to visit Bangkok in 2019. Half the value of that trip, to be honest, was to take the Newark to Singapore flight there and back. Well, then coming out of Covid, Singapore Airlines decided to not only bring back the EWR-SIN flight (after stopping it during Covid), but added another non-stop to the New York market, flying from JFK to Singapore. By "great circle" dsitance - the generally used metric to evaluate longest flights, this is five miles longer than EWR to Singapore. I've taken that route four times - but only once flying to Singapore (other three were SIN-EWR), and that wasn't in business class. This was - a sneaky use of Citi points right befroe Singapore announced a pretty aggressive points devaluation...\

Anyway, all that preamble over, let's get to the trip, and that means getting to the flight. The JFK-SIN flight timing is better, leaving at 10:15pm from New York, arriving in Singapore at 5am two days later (the Newark flight leaves at 10am, lands 5pm the next day). I got the JFK around 7:30pm, and within about 15 minutes had checked my bags and gone through security, and settled into the Capital One Lounge (which SQ business class gets to use) which is a beautiful little space just made for New York - bagel and coffee bar open 24 hrs, beautiful cocktail bar, nice dining options, including small a-la-carte bowls of mac and cheese adn chicken pot pie (what I got). The best parts though was that awesome flat white, which I drank in combination with a really nice Old Fashioned. All in all, my two hours in the Capital One Lounge was a nice way to start.

Singapore's plane on this route is the same they use for the Newark one, a modified A350-900 with mostly business class, so because it has such few passengers, and Singapore's super efficient service and style, they boarded at 9:45 for a 10:15 departure, and by 10:11 we were leaving the gate. I was tucked into 14K, with a nice view of the airport on departure, and the glistening skyscrapers of Manhattan in the background. Within ten minutes, the seatbelt sign was off, we were free to move about the cabin, and I had my boarding Champagne poured.

Despite the 17h35m duration, SQ wastes no team getting to a meal, which I geuss makes sense given it was now about 11pm. What's tough that SQ has to deal with is that because there is a 12-hour gap between the two cities, they're serving dinner at NY local time, but it was basically mid-day in Singapore. Then midway through the flight, about nine hours in, they serrve a second dinner, at what is now late morning NY time, and dinenrtime in Singapore. Weirdly, but I think arguably correctly, the "main" meal service is that mid-flight one. But it is basically two dinners.

For the first, the starter was a lovely smoked trout dish which was served with a truly great dressing. Lovely start of bitter and citrus. Lots of bread options as always with SQ as well. The main I picked was from the "book the cook" option, where there is a larger pre-order list of entrees. When you are flying from Singapore, that list is about 30 items long, but from an outstation (New York, in this case) it's about eight, which are still interesting. I got a beef fillet, pommes anna and shiitake mushrooms, which was also great. One of the best beef dishes I've had on a flight, quite tender despite beef being notoriously tough and overwrought on planes. All the while in parallel having some black label.

After dinner, stayed up for as long as I could (trying to get onto Singapore time, to some degree), so I played some Zelda on an emulator, watched all of One Battle After Another, Avengers: Infinty War (man, forgot how good the MCU was...) and doing it all while we were flying over the Atlantic. I finally gave in and slept around 4am NY time (6 hrs into the flight) as the plane was more or less getting to the shores of England. It is funny that I quote the great circle distance, but the flight route on this is vastly different - basically flying to India and then further - and this was the general route even before Russian airspace was closed.

Anyway, got some shut-eye, but I will say while SQ's service, food, entertainment and general vibe is incredible, the beds on the A350-900 aren't the greatest. They're this unique thing where you basically fold the chair down like you would on say a van back row seat, and then sleep on its back. They have really comfortable cushions and blankets, but the seat itself is hard - and this means you basically can't easily shift from flat-bed to upright.

Anyway, literally first world problems there - I was able to sleep until basically the midway point and then woke up when there were 8h30m left in teh flight. Crazy long, isn't it - I've flown a bunch of 13h to 15h flights (India, South Africa, Japan, etc.), but those extra 3-4 hours are quite meaningful. The second meal I say is the more formal of the two because it is plated so - not only coursed but they literally change everything course to course (instead of just the main part of the tray). The appetizer was a lovely beet and tomato dish (even though I had to waste most of the tomato), which led to a main of a braised beef noodle, and while this wasn't a full soup (like what the name-sake dish is), it was still awesome, with such great flavor. Desert also was a lovely apple cake, and the french Bordeaux that they had was excellent as well. From there, I stayed awake until the arrival-minus four hour mark, when I gave in to sleep until the end.

In the end, near eighteen hours went by super quickly, and wonderfully. There is a certain feeling on taking the longest flight in the world, and officially so. There is no situation in the world where you can land further away from where you took off in one single flight. I'm blessed I've been able to take this particular flight now five times - it will be six at the end of the trip, and do it on my favorite airline. Singapore always comes through.

Ranking the Adult Birthdays

I wrote a column back in 2015 listing out my top ten favorite Birthdays (April 7th). At the time, I had just turned 24, had a Birthday in Italy (it was more so my Dad's 60th Birthday - he was born on April 6th). I'm not really a birthday guy, in a same way I'm not really a New Year's guy. It's not like I'm against annual celebrations and holidays - hell, I love Christmas to an almost unhealthy degree - one that sees me leave my tree up until March. Anyway, back to the point - it's been eleven years since that post, eleven more trips around the sun and eleven more birthdays. These last eleven years, the birthdays have been all over the place, all over teh wrold, all over the map. From pandemics, to South America, to so much more. Some though, were also just random days in New York and New Jersey, but often that's the way I like it, I guess.

unranked.) 2016 - can't remember

10.) 2020 - the depths of Covid

9.) 2026 - an adult, mid-week Birthday

8.) 2017 - Florida

7.) 2024 - Santiago

6.) 2021 - Shenandoah

5.) 2025 - Last at Home

4.) 2023 - Buenos Aires

3.) 2018 - Mexico City

2.) 2022 - Lima

1.) 2019 - Rome!

On the Harry Potter Show

The discourse started a long time back, say when a black man was cast as Severus Snape, or when John Lithgow was cast as Dumbledore - at a point where sadly it is super unlikely he is alive for the end of the series. It went into overdrive, however, when the HBO trailer was released. There were some fair critiques about the greyed out and dark lighting, which is more a critique on cinematography in general than just this show, but there were a lot of weird complaints and takes - the kids looking weird, the idea if we need this series at all, the seeming changes from the books or earlier films. All of it is annoying, especially given we haven't even seen a second of this show yet. HBO then didn't help by revealing it is basically impossible (more or less their specific words) to release a season of the show each year. In the end, there's a lot of noise to sift through ahead of the December 25th release.

Let's get a few things out of the way - there is some serious ret-conning of the Harry Potter movies right now. The amount of people criticizing the show as a "why is this needed, we have the movies?" is one of the craziest things I've heard. The movies are not at all unimpeachable - they were good, they were at times excellent, but there were also serious flaws with a lot of them - mostly centering around how much of the books they cut out. This is a chance to right that wrong - and I'll get to that more later. But really, the amount of love people are praising on the movies when I lived through it - they were merely good (some great).

That leads to this other weird point about people getting annoyed new Harry, Ron, Hermione and others look so different to Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson (and on and on and on). Yes they look different, but it seems many people are forgetting that the show is an adaptation of the books, not of the movies. There is no "this is what Harry looks the like" other than the illustrations in the books, which don't exactly look like Daniel Radcliffe. Yes - when we see Harry, that's who we see - and same for the others, but it's been 25 years since the first movies - we can re-see these people again.

There are a few critiques that are fair, however. Firstly, casting a black Englishman as Snape. Now, this isn't a race thing, in a sense I was always hoping they cast Idris Elba as James Bond. But as many have rightly noted, there are parts of Snape's backstory, including the bullying and names from James and others, that do play very differently if he is to be Black. We're many seasons and years away from all of that (basically the sixth book) but it will be interesting to see if there is any adjustment to the story on the part of the show.

Another is the longstanding critique of TV in general these days, that somehow releasing one season a year is just not possible. HBO head Casey Bloys said this, that it is basically impossible. Game of Thrones, which easily was as sprawling as Harry Potter, somehow did it, but now it is impossible. It can't be, especially given the fact the kids will age far beyond school age. We just witnessed this with Stranger Things, and even if I found the furor at the kids ages a bit overstated, it's not like we should just plan for that to happen like we seemingly are here.

Then there's what is more of a minor critique, and one that may end up unfounded, but it seems each season will be a book. Not a surprise. But let's remember the first three books were ~300 pages, and then each after that was anywhere from 600-900. Yes, there was no need for Order of the Phoenix to be as long as it was, but there also wasn't 600 pages of bloat. The middle books, or really all books post the first three, are brilliant because of how encompassing they are, and while I look forward to seeing the books be adapted with far more run time to play with, I do wonder how they can get eight or ten hours out of The Sorcerer's Stone while only get ten hours out of the Goblet of Fire. Maybe I'm wrong, and those seasons will be longer, but I still think it would've made sense to combine the first two books into mini half seasons.

Anyway, here's though why I'm excited, and it is precisely because we get eight to ten hours to tell these stories. I'm an unabashed Harry Potter fan (the books especially). I loved them, I devoured them, I loved them as much as always when I reread them a few years back. Why did I love them? Yes, the final quarter of each book was brilliant and taut and tense, and yes the slow reveal of Snape's true allegiance, the Horcruxes, all of it was brilliant. But you know what else was brilliant? SPEW, and the elf stories, and Harry's underground DADA classes, and school classes and so much more. Those little moments of that world of Hogwarts was incredible. Yes, we can ding JK Rowling on the names of characters and some blind spots (and God knows a lot of what she's said and done these past ten years), but that world was rich and deep, and I want to see that on screen.

The movies were fairly well made and hit all the right notes in their back halves (stretching the back quarter of a book into way more of the movie plot than needed...) but I want to see the larger elements that they skipped over. And despite the greyed out visuals and the casting of Snape, I have faith that we will. I have faith that we will get the Harry Potter adaptation in depth and meaning and poignancy that we all deserved. The books came out, or more pointedly, the books were adapted too quickly - before prestige TV took off. If we waited another decade, they may have been a TV show right off the bat, but we will get that chance now, and even despite all the noise and arguments and takes, we'll get something special. I'm sure of it.

Ranking My Sports Years, Pt. 3: #8 - #1

8.) 2024  (+17)

NFL: Eagles (+4 * 3)

NHL: Panthers (+2 * 2)

MLB: Dodgers (-3 * 2)

NBA: Celtics (-3)

UCL: Real Madrid (+5)

NCAAF/BB: Ohio State / UCONN (+1)

Tennis: Sinner / Alcaraz / Alcaraz / Sinner (+2 * 2)

Let me start with that last one, because keen observers will recognize that I'm far more pro this season of Sincaraz dominance than 2025 - partially because it gets a bit boring after a while (especially when I don't have a significant rooting interest) and partially because in 2024 it was more the end of Nole's reign, may it never come to pass again. Anyway, the Eagles blowout was fun to watch someone do that the Chiefs (even if had the Chiefs won, they probably get a +2). I talked a lot in the last one (2015) about both the NHL and MLB having win/win series where either outcome would be positive. Well, here the MLB and NBA are the opposite, but even then both came out with the worse of the two options (vs. Yankees / Mavs). Finally, what really makes the year sing is Real Madrid (as so often does) with another UCL win, the turning of Vini into the world's best player (even if FIFA screwed him over for the Ballon d'Or). Real Madrid can keep on winning damn UCLs and I'll keep loving all of them with equal furver.

7.) 2008  (+19)

NFL: Steelers (+3 * 3)

NHL: Red Wings (-2 * 2)

MLB: Phillies (+2 * 2)

NBA: Celtics (+4)

UCL: Manchester Utd (-4)

NCAAF/B: Florida / Kansas (+2)

Tennis: Djokovic / Nadal / Nadal / Federer (+4 * 2)

Tennis baby! Nadal's breakthrough at Wimbledon and humuliation of Federer in Paris is enough to give this a high grade even with Federer winning a slam at a time where I probably was at my apex of hating him. There's some weird ones here - Man U scoring a -4 because I hated Cristiano Ronaldo at the time (LOL), and the Celtics counter-balancing it with a +4 because I hated the Lakers way more and did like the Garnett/Allen/Pierce story - plus by this point the 2007 Pats lost in infamy so Boston was slapped down a bit. The Phillies were a fun story in an otherwise forgettable MLB season. The Wings weren't as bad as the alternative. The Steelers were an amazing defense and won a classic Super Bowl that was a win/win for me. And of course, college - where I have to average out being critically annoyed by the Tebow led Gators (like we all were) but loving Kansas winning that classic over Memphis. In the end, I'll take it as a positive trade there. Sneaky good year that wouldn't have jumped off the page when this exercise started.

6.) 2013  (+20)

NFL: Seahawks (+3 * 3)

NHL: Blackhawks (+4 * 2)

MLB: Red Sox (-3 * 2)

NBA: Heat (-4)

UCL: Bayern Munich (+4)

NCAAF/BB: Florida State / Louisville (+3)

Tennis: Djokovic / Nadal / Murray / Nadal (+3 * 2)

Easily my highest scoring year to not feature a '5' in it, as generally it was a super positive year with two exceptions - one notably so with the Heat stealing my guts out with Allen's shot. Granted, by this point I had come around on LeBron - see me writing my first ever "The Acceptable Loss" column about that Finals - how I felt then, and even more so now. Bayern was tons of fun, even if that is more about the SF demolition of Barca (cheating, I know). Florida State and the Jameis experience was hilariously memorable in the moment (random: watched the NCAAF final in a service apartment in Battle Creek, Michigan, where I was sharing it with a colleague who would leave the company and compete on the Amazing Race two years later...). The Blackhawks fun dominance was only amplified by them breaking the hearts of a way too overconfident Boston fanbase. And finally, the Seahawks continue a tradition of being glumly accepting of watching such defensive greatness, even if came against the wishes of me and my team. Tennis is the tie-breaker here agin, as it was the revival of revival's of Nadal (though we'll get to 2017 which was even better) coming back from the dead and beating Novak twice on his way to two more slams. Awesome stuff. Fuck the Red Sox though, for making me almost root for the Cardinals...

5.) 2021  (+22)

NFL: Rams (+3 * 3)

NHL: Lightning (+5 * 2)

MLB: Braves (+1 * 2)

NBA: Bucks (+3)

UCL: Chelsea (+3)

NCAAF/B: Georgia / Baylor (+1)

Tennis: Djokovic / Djokovic / Djokovic / Medvedev (-3 * 2)

Funny that there are years above it with more negative scores than this one, but man is this one negative rough... Granted, it easily could've been worse, had Novak completed his Nole slam. I don't know how much this matters, but I wasn't even really there to witness him finally losing, as the final occurred when I was on a trip with friends in Spain & Portugal (though one of them was a Djokovic fan, so taht was fun...). Other than that, this year was dominated by more just hapiness and relief that the peak of Covid was over, and fans were back in stadiums, even if not at max capacity for the conclusions of the NBA and NHL seasons. The Lightning get a boost there watching them win at home in front of a full house after winning in the bubble the year prior. The Bucks were quite likeable - as were teh Rams in another rare win/win (especially rare for Super Bowls). Hell, even the Braves were fairly likeable and by Game 4 I was certain the Astros didn't really deserve that title - plus they avenged the 2018 ALCS loss by beating Boston, so all was well anyway. It was a peak "good vibes" year, just ruined by that dastardly Djokovic (or more than that, Stefanos Tsitsipas, who blew a 2-0 set lead in the French final).

4.) 2010 (+24)

NFL: Packers (+1 * 3)

NHL: Blackhawks (+3 * 2)

MLB: Giants (+4 * 2)

NBA: Lakers (-4)

UCL: Inter Milan (+2)

NCAAF/B: Auburn / Duke (-1)

Tennis: Federer / Nadal / Nadal / Nadal (+5 * 2)

Let's start at the end once again, as what more is there to say about my only '+5' year in tennis? Nadal became first, and still only, player to win the French, Wimbledon and US Open in the same year, including completing Tennis with his career slam US Open win where he suddenly served 120+ all tournament (it wouldn't last, as it impacted his shoulder, so he stopped). That's 60% of the year's core right there. Some of the other highlights were still quite nice, however, from the Blackhawks breaking their drought in a super fun, highs coring final. The Giants breaking their own drought with Lincecum and Co showing out. Inter Milan was fun as a Mourinho fan who loved their win over Barcelona, and even the Packers were unthreatening mostly. Really though, none of that - even the Lakers blech-inducing Game 7 win over Boston, or Duke ripping our souls by beating Butler, could counteract Nadal reaching those damn heights. If ever one year is defined by one sport to me, it is this one.

2.) 2019  (+26)

NFL: Chiefs (+4 * 3)

NHL: Blues (+3 * 2)

MLB: Nationals (-4 * 2)

NBA: Raptors (+4)

UCL: Liverpool (+2)

NCAAF/B: LSU / Virginia (+4)

Tennis: Djokovic / Nadal / Djokovic / Nadal (+3 * 2)

Fuck the Nationals. Had the Astros just won Game 6 or 7 at home, where they led in the back half of both games, this would be my #1 year (+26 would become +44). But alas, the Nationals got to Verlander in Game 6, and then got to the bullpen in Game 7 after the Astros squandered so many chances. I tell myself that I'm in retrospect happy the Astros didn't win because had the cheating scandal broke right after they won the World Series, I do think the punishment wouldn've been more sever. But it's amazing that every other score is a +2 or better (and +3 / +3 / +4 in the multiplier sports) and that Nats win drags this down. This was an amazing year otherwise - Nadal winning a dramatic final over Medvedev and ending the year #1 again, the Raptors shocking the world against the Warriors, teh Blues comign from nowhere to beat Boston in Boston in Game 7 (karmic payback for 2011), and of course the Chiefs winning their first Super Bowl right before Covid, and maybe the best win/win of my life. The NCAA score may surprise, but that LSU team was so damn fun to watch (still insane that Burrow / Chase / Jefferson were on teh same team) and Virginia won me my first March Madness pool ever, and a cool $400 or so in my work pool. Great year, but damn those Nats.

2.) 2017  (+27)

NFL: Eagles (+5 * 3)

NHL: Penguins (-3 * 2)

MLB: Astros (+5 * 2)

NBA: Warriors (-3)

UCL: Real Madrid  (+5)

NCAAF/B: Alabama / UNC (-2)

Tennis: Federer / Nadal / Federer / Nadal (+4 * 2)

I'm a bit surprised this isn't my number one, but when I got down to it, I can't argue with why my #1 is higher. The three highs are about as high as I could ask for (I find it hilarious that my only two years with three +5's are #3 and #2). The Eagles pulling off an upset that was in the moment every bit as shocking as the Giants ten years earlier given the Foles factor. The Astros winning a gobsmack World Series, made cruelly better by me being there only because I was not allowed to travel to Cape Town, to Real Madrid in maybe their most appealing, fulfilling season under Zidane romping a good Juve team 4-1 in teh final. Even tennis has what could've been the dream year if not for Federer's comeback in Australia, but given I rightfully called that "The Acceptable Loss 3.0", and Nadal then won the French with ease, the US Open and returned to Year End #1, I can't complain. It's all the Penguins fault. I think teh world of Sidney Crosby, but the Penguins were boringly efficient, cutting down more exciting stories each of 2016 and 2017 in their back to back, this time, a truly fun Nashville team. Somehow, that drags things down. I look at this list for a year I initially tought would be my #1, and wonder how ti didn't happen, and not only that, didn't come close....

1.) 2022  (+40)

NFL: Chiefs (+4 * 3)

NHL: Avalanche (+2 * 2)

MLB: Astros (+5 * 2)

NBA: Warriors (-2)

UCL: Real Madrid (+5)

NCAAF/BB: Georgia / Kansas (+3)

Tennis: Nadal / Nadal / Djokovic / Alcaraz (+4 * 2)

Honestly, I'm as shocked as anyone that this would be my number one. I certainly probably didn't consider it at the time to be some historic year, but looking back, so much went well. I had two of "my teams" win their respective title, with the Astros winning their 2nd title after a bunch of heartbreak (and all the cheating stuff), Real Madrid win a UCL that included some incredibly thrilling moments like the crazy comeback against Man City, and cementing us even more as The Club. Kansas is my adopted CBB team and seeing Self win his second title was great again. And then what can I say about tennis - Nadal not only won his second Australian Open after so many near misses, he did it in the most dramatic fashion against Medvedev (down two sets, 3-3, 0-40), and then won the French for the 14th time. Yes, he wouldn't ever really be the same after, but we didn't know that then, did we - and I was all for Alcaraz being the next young gun (and rightly so). The Chiefs winning a super entertaining Super Bowl and cementing Mahomes as a real threat to Brady was incredibly fun as well - though I don't honestly think my score would be that much different had the Eagles won. The only real negative was the Warriors and even that is muted by them beating Boston (which would've been like a -4). Even the Georgia blowout title game (the laugher against TCU) isn't enough to dull this. Looking at it now, it screams "duh" that this is my top sports year.