Thailand – Amy Cotler

Made to order, seasoned to taste

March 8, 2016 Comments Off

Street Soup The time had come. I’d passed her two or three times and watched her ladle, steam rising from her soup. Her little stand was neat with bowls of leafy greens, cilantro and celery lined up, waiting in their bowls. Noodles, rice and wheat, thick and thin, pressed into the front of her glass […]

Black House/White Temple

January 12, 2016 Comments Off

Nothing establishes that you are in a non western culture quite like a visit to the Black House and White Temple. Probably the major tourist attractions in Chiang Rai, located at opposite ends of the city, one north and one south. The symmetry of opposition seems hard to avoid. Black to White, Earthly to Heavenly, […]

Chiang Dao

December 26, 2015 Comments Off

Getting from Chiang Mai to Chiang Dao, Thailand Visualize the inside of a bus that looks like a 50’s dinner, with lots of chrome. We grabbed the last two seats, or so we thought. Turns out that what looked like two-to-a-row seating is three-to-a-row seating, which we found out as folks piled in at each […]

Wats up in Chiang Mai

December 16, 2015 Comments Off

Walk the streets of Chiang Mai, past the vendors hawking tours, selling chatzies, and you’ll spot dozens of ancient wats. (Buddhist temples.) Curlicue dragons, stone elephants, the works. It was festival time when we arrived, and the town was jammed with tourists. So, we decided to forgo the classic wat best picks, like the Phra […]