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	---> MORE Destinations: _________________________________ New Perspective of Chiang Rai at Latitude 19 VISITING A BORDER TOWN: Mae Sot – then and now The Poy Sang Long Festival in Mae Hong Son The Samoeng Strawberry Festival Far Out and Cool in Fang District PICTURE PERFECT Mon Jaem Chiang Mai Reflections and a Night Safari Adventure Wat Palad: The Temple below the Temple The Bua Tong Waterfall Park The Cave and Hot Springs of the Mae On Area A DAY TRIP TO DOI INTHANON Two wheels good four wheels…er… The Sino-Thai Dragon Temple of Wat Tha Ton Doi Inthanon - Thailand’s Highest Mountain Kad Mua - an all-you-need market Chiang Dao High! Chiang Mai’s Red Cross and Winter Fair Loy Krathong at Tak A RETREAT TO... Kwan Yin Bodhisattva Hall Living with nature: Galyani Vadhana District Treasures of Myanmar A Journey to Shangri-La Pha Wing Choo – A Lover's Cliff Wiangtakan – The Past Remains Rural Life and Natural Mystery in Chaiprakarn Taking Aim at Chiang Mai's Shooting Gallery Chiang Mai - Maerim - Samoeng Route Hot Springs (and eggs) Ratchaphruek Festival 2009 The 5th Lanna - Japan Festival 2009 Make a Day of it at the New Look Night Safari Mae Sa Snake Farm Marine Lives in a Mountainous Zoo X-Centre Mae Hong Son, Pang Oong and much more along the way... Mae Kampong Village Tiger Kingdom Pai: The Hub of Joy Flower Festival Annual Bo Sang Umbrella Festival at Bo Sang Village Wiang Kum Kam: The Underground Ancient City Loy Kratong: The Town's Joyful Festival Monkey Centre Maerim, Chiang Mai Baankwai Thai Maerim Queen Sirikit Botanic Garden THE ROYAL PALACE ON DOI SUTHEP The Night Safari Ban Saonak Chae Son National Park Lamphun's Wat Chamathevi Doi Tao Lake Mae Sai Bai the Beautiful Wieng Kum Kam Mae Klang Luang Village Doi Pui - Hmong Tribal Village Nan Province Wat Suan Dok Chiang Saen: a city in myth and reality One Night in Chiang Rai and a day across the border A trip full of tour guides Two Days and a Night in the Country The Sumptuous Angkhang Gourmet Tour AWAY FROM IT ALL IN NEARBY MAE WANG Children's Day at the Westernmost Point of Thailand To Lamphun Along the Road of Histories ESCAPING TO PAI A WINTER TRIP ON THE PING RIVER To the Back of Beyond, right on your doorstep Visiting the Shrine of the Elephant-Headed God Visiting Samui Back to Nature at Opkhan National Park Lost in the Chiang Mai Zoo Three Days through the Northern Countryside DOING A NINE-TEMPLE KARMA TRIP - Right Here in Chiang Mai An Early Summer Trip to the Thi Lo Su Falls Nan: Forest, Temples and the Salt of the Earth TREKKING AND TUCKING IN: Wawee Coffee Plantation Mai Long Yee - Lovely Whatever Else You Call It Magnificent Creatures at Wat Changkham Off to See Some Mural Paintings in Lampang The Salawin and the People of Tha Tafang A Hike in the Forest A Journey back in time A Long Night of Luxury in the Chiang Dao Valley Ice-cold in Omkoy A Quick Visit to a Karen Wedding Strawberry Fields Forever A quick ride to Jaesorn National Park A Journey to Wawee A Birding Trip for Newbies Nam Bor Phi Cave A Breath of Sea Air Shopping With a Difference: Kad Luang Airport ELEPHANTS AND ORCHIDS AND THE SNACKS IN BETWEEN Monsoon Miscellany MAE RIM LAGOON AN IMPRESSIVE TRIP - to the Sukantara Resort Visiting Luang Prabang, the Pearl on the Mekong River Phrae: refreshing trip, auspicious visits Up on the Mountain (again) at Khun Wang UP THE MOUNTAIN TO THUNG LUANG SINGAPORE - City of Parks A Short Sight-Seeing Trip to the Monkey Centre GIVE PAI A TRY! You won’t regret it A BUSY DAY’S VISIT TO SANKAMPAENG A Rainy Day Outing to Phrao Monsoon Miscellany TRIPPING AND TASTING ALONG THE HANDICRAFT HIGHWAYS

The Sumptuous Angkhang Gourmet Tour

Like everyone else round here, I want to have good food in pleasant surroundings, three times a day if that's possible. The fact is that's a luxury, and more often than not I find myself noshing on twenty baht bowls of khao gaeng - curried rice - and bowls of noodles, purchased from and eaten in the company of Chiang Mai's ubiquitous street vendors.

Well, normally that's the lot of us poor hacks, but recently, the heat and air in town unbearable, I cracked. "Gotta get away," I found myself gasping. Of course, anyone in his right mind would have told himself that with Songkran coming (as it was then) I would get all the cooling I wanted. And since it would be a holiday, couldn't I expect to treat myself and beloved to a rather better class of eatery than usual?

But that was the point at which I got the thrilling invitation to join the luxurious, hi-society Angkhang Gourmet Tour. Organized by the Royal Project itself, this outing has been quite a success for the past few years, but almost entirely a success enjoyed only by hi-so types - the high society elite from Bangkok who have the deep pockets necessary for this type of junket.

This time round, though, the ninth trip of the two-year series, the group was exceptionally large, about 100 people involved. We met at 9.30 am at the parking space of Doi Kham shop on Suthep Road, something like 90% of the group flying in from Bangkok, to be joined by the special guests, journos and musicians among them.

Well, we were soon heading north on the Farng road in a convoy of 11 vans. The one I was in though had to stop briefly in Chiang Dao because one of the passengers hadn't packed a sweater. Yes. Right - a sweater! Why? Our organisers explained. Although the temperature down here on the plain was about 35^o C and climbing, up on Angkhang mountain where we were heading, the thermometer had shown below 10^o C the night before.

Time then for the first gourmet-break, this is round about noon, still well down at the Huay Luek station of the Royal Project. Some of the travellers backed away from the traditional ant's egg soup that was on offer, opting for the more familiar dishes of deep-fried chicken and pork, and somtum - you know, the papaya salad you get with grilled chicken just about on every street corner - and some others dishes too were available. The setting, by the side of a large lake, was refreshing too.

Well, a good enough break there, though to be honest the taste of most things on offer was too `neutralized' for me, the organisers anxious obviously that everyone's taste would be suited. So that at this juncture, I would have given only six out of ten for the culinary efforts, and even then that would have been generous.

At this point, the organising staff came round distributing anti-roadsickness pills - and we soon knew why. We were starting to climb mighty Angkhang mountain and that road we were on certainly knew how to wind. Believe me, this is the place to take the pill if you have a tendency to get road-sick, but you need to be warned: the pills make you a bit drowsy, so perhaps the best advice is - don't pop and drive!

If like me you can stabilise your stomach without the pill, and consequently don't drowse off, you're gonna see spectacular views of the valleys, as well as something of a more unwelcome - indeed shameful - nature. Orange orchards occupying whole mountains, acre after acre of them - commercial plantations as I learned later, well-irrigated throughout, whereas the bits of natural forest remaining looked dried out. But that's what we're allowing others to do to our environment - and isn't it likely that these monoculture activities and the over-use of water during the Songkran Festival are making their contribution to the prolonged drought we're going through, not to speak of the high temperatures?

By this time we were at our destination, and shifting our gear into our bungalows. There followed an hour and a half of free time, during which we were treated to a between-meals snack, sampling the Royal Project-grown coffee, with some aromatic banana spring rolls, served in a flower greenhouse, where the group was introduced to one another and to the most helpful and agreeable Royal Project staff.

We were beginning to learn at this point, that if any guest felt the slightest trace of hunger, the hosts felt they had let the side down. And to prove the point, the snack only just appreciated and dealt with, we found ourselves confronted with a magnificent French dinner, a four-course extravaganza created by the renowned chef Herve Frerard from Bangkok's Le Beaulieu restaurant on Sukhumvit Road.

Well, that meal was so great it didn't need a real connoisseur of European food (there was one at my table) to realise it. Some of us tag-along kids helped ourselves from heaped bowls of fried rice, feeling not quite up to tackling all this complex Western fare, but - I might as well admit it - I'm a bit of a gourmet myself, and I don't like to see good food go begging. So I dug into the dish that had been derisively-named `bloody pigeon' and certainly didn't regret it. What a great piece of creativity! As you cut into the soft meat of the pigeon fillet, a thick, red rhubarb and beetroot compote seemed to bleed out of the pigeon. A very delicious joke if you ask me!

All this in other words, plus delicious wines and rocking jazz music (featuring an impressively-exact Louise Armstrong voice clone, at one point) imported from the Amari Rincome Hotel…it made me want to stay there till well into the morning. But you know how it is when you're travelling…the miles and the good food and drink overcome you, and you have to turn in.

Early in the morning, before anyone could feel hungry of course, we rose to the pleasant aroma of local coffee, as well as easy-to-eat bowls of khau tom - rice soup. This was just right to get us through the tough morning program while the heat was still bearable.

There followed a friendly period of fraternising and chatting with the Royal Project staff and a visit to their production facilities, a good opportunity to see how they've earned their reputation for producing clean organic foods, and such other by-products as the much-appreciated and used wood vinegar. But the fact is there's not enough space here to do justice to this side of the trip. So on to the next!

At noon, we were escorted back to the clubhouse for another memorable meal, this time a fusion of Thai dishes such as soup with oily pork knuckles and locally-grown artichokes, strawberry salad, and refreshing peaches in syrup with ice. All very nice if you ask me.

As if to help us burn off some of the calories, our guides now took us to the nearby border point, where there's a military outpost with real guns, real bunkers, and real Burmese soldiers, living behind the just-over-there line of barbed-wire fences and no-man's-land. This outpost is close to a village of palong hillpeople, who seemed quite familiar with visits from Royal Project guests, and had even a traditional product center, not to mention a performance with their ladies dancing to traditional music played on guitar-like instruments (amplified by a megaphone).

Right after, we were shown around a tea plantation a few kilometers away. Walking up and down the mountainous slopes of the plantation, we all seemed to be burning fat as quickly as we topped up with boiled eggs in soybean sauce, and refillable hot Oolong tea, which was just a preview to a heavier high tea we would all be treated to a mere half hour later.

That night, we closed out our gourmet day with an Italian course by Chef Dominique Bugnand of the famous Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi Hotel, Chiang Mai, whose velvet crayfish cappuccino with star anis foam was my whole-trip favorite. I swear I finished every little bit of it, before involuntarily letting the waiter take away my bowl.

Now, you're going to say what a marvellous time this poor journo has been treated to - and of course, you'd be quite right. Outstanding, no other word for it. But just pity me too - back to the routine of hard work, hot weather and 20 baht bowls of khau gaeng again.

It's an imperfect world, wouldn't you agree? But it has its moments.

Text & Photos: Terryl