Travel – Christopher’s Travels

As Seen in Chiang Mai

A Dash Through Delhi

AirIndia Flight 333 descends like a rock, nose first. towards Indira Gandhi International Airport. Like everything else in India, it’s a little extreme. But to the few passengers around me, all of them Indian, it’s just business as usual. Ten days ago, in the zen of a palm-shaded courtyard in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I pulledContinue reading “A Dash Through Delhi”

The Best Little Restaurants in Thailand

It doesn’t much matter where I am on the planet, I crave Thai food. I want Khao Soi for breakfast, Pad Kra Pao Moo for lunch, and Gaeng Penang for dinner. I want to snack on satay and spring rolls and fish cakes while I dodge motorbikes in the street. I want pork on aContinue reading “The Best Little Restaurants in Thailand”

Koh Tao: A Post-Pandemic Paradise

When I first visited Koh Tao in the summer of 2019, I was on this grand tour of South and Southeast Asia. After spending a good deal of time in northern Thailand, I bounced around neighboring countries and went as far as India and Nepal before returning to the south. I didn’t come to KohContinue reading “Koh Tao: A Post-Pandemic Paradise”

A Week in the Sandbox

To-do lists winnowed away and planning is in the bag. After a year and a half where international travel was only fantasy. Wheels up, finally. Still, there are covid restrictions in place and certain protocol to follow. I’m entering Thailand through Phuket, where I have to spend a week before I can to travel elsewhereContinue reading “A Week in the Sandbox”

Back to the Land Of Smiles

Light breaks over the horizon, amber at first and then slowly illuminating the world. The plane drops lower and I can start to make out land forms – first the coastline and then rivers and estuaries take. Soon enough, dark silhouettes. Unmistakeable. Beneath a few wispy clouds, limestone towers soar skyward from waters of PhangContinue reading “Back to the Land Of Smiles”

Travels And Tribulations

Asia, as a whole, has been closed to foreign travel since the early 2020. When Covid first jumped the Chinese border, it’s closest neighbors pulled up their drawbridges, posted sentries, and enacted some of the strictest protocol on the planet. Slowly, towards the end of 2021, those drawbridges were starting to come down. But theContinue reading “Travels And Tribulations”

The Cure for Wanderlust

It’s an affliction really. It isn’t fatal near as I can tell, but it can sometimes feel suffocatingly so. Symptoms include (but are not limited to): chronically fantasizing remote destinations, acute desires for foreign culture, insatiable cravings for ‘exotic’ food, and a general sense of malaise about one’s current location. In the afflicted, the simpleContinue reading “The Cure for Wanderlust”