small world

I just posted this over at the Daily Details section but I thought I would post a portion on the main page. This turned out to be one of our best days of travel yet and I thought it was worthy of the main page. 

This day turned out to be a pretty epic day. We had taken an overnight bus from Krabi the prior night after having expected a more luxurious train ride. We arrived at a downtown Bangkok drop off point and unloaded from the bus at roughly 5:45am. The local cabbies engulfed us like hungry seagulls. While I was rounding up our luggage, Annie appeared with a driver she had been negotiating a fare with. They settled on 300 Baht (roughly $10 US) for transport to Chef McDang’s home. We had made it a policy to ask before getting in the cab after having been burned in Malaysia. The driver spoke limited English and we needed to provide him with our destination. We reluctantly called Chef McDang for an early wake up call and he spoke to the driver for five minutes before informing us that we should ask the driver to use a meter for the trip.  Before getting in the cab, we instructed the driver about the meter and he quickly grew agitated. We were insistent on the meter and he abruptly assigned a younger driver to take us instead. The new driver spent a moment with the original driver detailing our destination and then we were on our way. I have to admit everything happened pretty fast and both of us were disoriented due to the overnight transport. 

Bangkok was much larger than I originally anticipated. The skyline was lined with giant high rise towers. At street level we saw pockets of poverty being forcibly dragged along into modern Asian society. The cab driver was very chatty and quickly developed some rapport with us. We drove for about ten minutes through Bangkok and arrived at a one way intersection. The cabbie told us down the the one way road was the condominium complex that Chef McDang resided in. It would be easier for us to walk down the one way then have the cabbie loop around and drop us off. He then told us the fee would be $302 Baht. I was busy collecting the luggage from the trunk while Annie handled the fare. Both of us were feeling a little wary about this situation and a little off our game due to lack of sleep. We crossed the busy intersection and realized this was unlikely our planned final destination. We had been taken!

With a little humility, we called Chef McDang who had confirmed our suspicions. I rounded up a second driver and the Chef went through his directions another time. The new driver took us to the outskirts of Bangkok to a large high rise condominium complex along the Nonthaburi river. The ride took twenty minutes and cost 150 Baht. Upon arrival, we were greeted by Nan. Nan is from northern Thailand from the Chang Rie region and was Chef McDang’s assistant. Nan guided us to the third floor of the building. We greeted the Chef briefly who gave us a warm welcome and then were escorted to our room. The room turned out to be roughly as large as our apartment in San Francisco with a beautiful view of the river leading to downtown on the horizon from our balcony. It was cool and comfortable and we quickly agreed we were never going to leave. We got some rest before our lunch date with Chef McDang. 

Chef McDang owned the entire third floor of the complex and had knocked down a wall to create an adjoining production kitchen that is utilized for his weekly Thai cooking show. It is by far the nicest place we have stayed at in our travels and began to give us a sense of our adventures over the next few days. After settling in, we met the Chef and were escorted to his private limo. We went to a local restaurant along the river. The walls were lined with photos of the Princess of Thailand who had eaten here a few years ago as well as many with Chef McDang. The staff was excited to see him and swiftly brought out a large procession of Thai platters. I am very particular about my food and this meal began what would be a common theme of our time with the Chef. “Shut up and eat it,” was the affectionate phrase the Chef consistently used with me. This led to me stepping way out of my culinary comfort zone and also a few midnight runs to the toilet. The meal proved to be an adventure and allowed us to spend some time with the gregarious and chatty Chef. After the meal we visited the local markets and Chef McDang was causing quite a stir amongst the locals. We were starting to get a sense of just how popular he was in Thailand. I knew he was quite popular but didn’t realize he came from royal blood and his father was one of Thailand’s most famous figures. Chef McDang didn’t fall far from the tree and had become a Thai celebrity of his own right.

For the rest of the story, please check our our Daily Details page.