Soul Food

From time to time, I’ve been asked why we keep coming back to South East Asia and particularly Thailand. It’s a hard question to answer because there are so many reasons to return to this part of the world.

This morning I woke up, a bit jet-lagged, at about four in the morning. I fired up my Powerbook, eh, sorry, Macbook Pro, and got going on a few projects that needed some immediate care. At about eight, while Elle and Charlotte were still sound asleep, I got dressed and went out to the hotel’s jungle restaurant to give my growling stomach some breakfast.

As I was sitting there, alone but surrounded by an array of lush green plants in a beautifully designed garden, two smiling waitresses appeared. They were here to attend to my culinary cravings, which they did with ever so soft-spoken voices.

I ate a delicately prepared omelet, some fresh fruit (rambutan, pineapple, watermelon) and a coffee from freshly ground and locally grown beans. Needless to say, everything tasted great.

It was while sitting in the restaurant, not fifty feet away from the river Ping, that I realized one huge reason why I and the family keep coming back to Thailand and the rest of Asia. The food. And of course, everything that comes with it. The atmosphere, the friendly faces, the almost spiritually high level of social competence that people have here. Not just at hotels and eateries for well-to-do tourists. I’m talking just about everywhere you go and everyone you meet, smiles are in abundance.

What’s up for today? Well, once I get the girls up and about, they’ll have their breakfast and then we’ll pack our things and move to a small boutique hotel closer to town. It’s near the night market, the river and a restaurant I enjoy eating at when in Chiang Mai, the Riverside. Not as rural as where this is being written, but a little more exciting for all three of us.