Through the Thai Looking Glass
Here is a glimpse behind the curtain at the nuts and bolts of a Trufflepig research trips as Tyler heads out on the road to Bangkok…:
From: tyler@trufflepig.com
To: Greg and Jack
August 2nd.
Greg and Jack,
So here is the story, Thai Tourism has put together a consultation trip for lux new properties in Chiang Mai, Bangkok, and Koh Samui a la private jets and all the jazz and has invited us on the trip to see what’s a happenin in Siam. It all sounds like the Bee’s knees but the obvious issue of being stuck inside of a bubble of a government tourism branch is a bit off-putting. Last thing I want to do is to be put into a timeshare essque hell-hole for 10 jet-lagged days packed with hotel site inspections, meet and greets with people in tourism like travel agents from the Midwest named Marjorie, and catered meals from hotels; only to come home without any further understanding of Thailand, its people, and how awesome it really can be. One of the worst things to ever to happen to travel is tourism. All that being said, it seems like they are keen on getting a bit out of the box on this one, and if it turns out not to be the case, I am pretty damn good at faking a stomach bug and breaking out of walled resorts, ain’t afraid to scale a wall or two of perfectly manicured poolside foliage in order to jump into the vulgarities of a real jungle. I am also going to jam full each day with meetings along the way of old friends who live in each place from my guiding days, and hell if it all goes to shit, at least I get to fly around Thailand on a Private Jet? Thoughts? Fears? Dreams?
From: tyler@trufflepig.com
To: Greg and Jack
August 12th
Greg and Jack,
So, all is lined up and set, tickets bought, meetings made, reservations checked, and most importantly got back in touch with my old tailor in Bangkok to talk about finally making a fleet of Adidas tracksuits with embroidered Trufflepigs on the back like Jimmy Page’s outfit when Led Zeppelin finally broke in the US of A! I fly out on my Birthday which is a shame since the time zone limbo of international overseas flights steals half the day away from me never to get it back, but shit, it is just 38 so time zone limbo can keep it! Will write from transit via Hong Kong and cross fingers we can find a bit of honest Thailand in the sea of “crafted Experience.”
From: tyler@trufflepig.com
To: Greg and Jack
August 25th, Chiang Mai
Hey, you two, landed last night in the heat of summer in the tropics, and I sweat like a leaky faucet. Thankfully I think the majority of the folks I am traveling with sweat the same way so we will be a lathered mass moving through luxury properties. I am afraid it is the Travel Agent set for the 10 days as I was worried about. But that is ok, I know my way around and can avoid the black hole of talking about Sabre and online booking engines. I do find it fascinating how travel agents turn inward to the ease of resorts and each other when traveling, one would think that a group of travel experts would be always looking outward and searching for street food, small out of the way eats along the way….but alas, no, it is more what amenities the hotels have and how many free things one can jam into their already stuffed luggage to bring home and add to the collection of miniature shampoo bottles from across the Starworld hotel enterprise.
At the Four Seasons in Chiang Mai for a couple of days and I realized that not only have I aged but so has this hotel. I remember my first time here I thought it was the top of the top, but that was over 12 years ago, and the world has moved on, and the mold has set in between the panes of the windows. Also, was reading in the NYTimes on the flight over that the Chinese car company “The Great Wall Motors” is looking into buying the Jeep division at Chrysler and that sent my mind spinning again on the ever-ticking clock. When I first came to Asia, Great Wall motors was the butt of most jokes about Asian cars.
In Short, Asia is in constant flux, a tiger tail you got to hold on pretty tight to keep up with otherwise, 6 months later, all you know about a region no longer exists. Glad to be coming back in October. Us Trufflepigs got to dig!
From: tyler@trufflepig.com
To: Greg and Jack
Greg and Jack
Left the confines of the Four Seasons and am now at the once, and again, glorious 137 Pillars in Chiang Mai with General Manager Anne Arrowsmith. Both the Hotel and GM are a joy, right next to a temple and the Ping River, the footpath bridge into the old town, and across the street from my old favorite Japanese joint in town “Kitchen Hush”. Shame I won’t be able to have a bento box this time as we are flying out in the morning on a private jet to the islands, thus is the life of a trip planner. This morning on a bike, sweaty and eating Noodles at the side road “Ke’s House” and tomorrow private Jets to Koh Samui. 137 Pillars use to be the headquarters of the Borneo Trading Company and operated from Shan State Myanmar to Southern Yunnan Province. The King and Queen from “The King and I” had a son, who built this place, seriously, it is like living in the Rodgers and Hammerstein production (which, by the way, is illegal to be shown in Thailand). This morning I went to meet the famed Howie of “Howie’s Homestay” and it was a whirlwind for sure, Bill Bensley design private villa, wonderful house… Met up with a local artist old friend Orawan for coffee and talked Thai Art scene and how old we are getting.
All this name dropping and updating is to say that I am digging and finding and getting past the service structure of tourism boards and TripAdvisor, excited to call Thailand a Trufflepig destination and get to the heart of the matter.
Thailand has a strange reputation since it was one of the first “accessible” tourist routes in SE Asia starting in the late 70’s. But it needs to be shown and talked about that there are corners of this country, especially in the North, that are unknown to most and fascinating. There are perfect places to set up some remote POP up hotels like I did in the Shan state.
There was a sad note to the day as Mike had emailed me about attacks across the border in Northern Myanmar only to be updated with strife reports in the press today here. Chiang Mai is a capital, in a very particular way, of a region of Asia that is peopled with thousands of tribes, language forms, religions, all facial structures. Shan, Hmong, Lisuu, Karin, Lanna, Thai, all come to Chiang Mai as a meeting point. It, in a lot of ways, does not belong to Thailand, but instead runs its own structure as the capital of the hill tribes, like Damascus of old, or Miami for Latin America’s. So when news hits of strife across the border, it is not too far from the pulse of this city. It is a place I could easily live with my family.
From: tyler@trufflepig.com
To: Greg and Jack
August 30th.
Boss Hogs,
Back from Koh Samui and up in Bangkok as of this morning and am currently sitting by the pool at the mandarin looking directly at the old East Asiatic Trading company building. It is a flashback in time for sure, and a classy world inside the gates of the Mandarin Oriental (I am trying to get everyone to call it the “Mand-O” but no luck of it catching on yet). Koh Samui was interesting and will get into that in a later email. Bangkok seems to have changed since the last time I was here and has become a true gem of an international city. The food scene is booming, and the town is alive with construction and growth. Thankfully, they have opened up some space for us in the schedule so I can get away from the lens of the Tourism Department. They are great folks and I have become friends with the head of the North American office, but they are caught up in the racket that is travel consortias, brand names, and mass tourism for the sake of numbers. I keep thinking of the old Irish saying; “When all around you are losing their heads, and you aren’t losing yours, you obviously don’t understand the situation.” Perhaps I am an idealist, a snob, a purist, perhaps I am just wrong about the whole thing, but it seems like what I find interesting about travel and seeing the variety of the world is an oddity in the industry of travel.
I don’t think I am wrong though, and I keep finding myself with the Thai Tourism folks being asked my opinion on things, because I think, perhaps, with some luck, we could be coming up to a pretty interesting golden age of travel where the industry and business of the whole thing lines up with the inherent philosophical value of the activity of Travel. We leave our homes for a number of reasons, each different I suppose, but the effect is the same, we learn; we learn that we are all the same, that we all love to laugh, and smile, and relax, and enjoy, and eat and drink. And we learn that we are all different, that there are new and interesting things that we have never thought of, and all we have to do is hitch a ride to an airport and fly somewhere far away, get off the plane and talk to people.
I hope I don’t sound grumpy in these emails, I am not, I just have high hopes for all the folks who work in travel to not miss out on how truly amazing and potentially life changing our jobs can be for people if we can all do it right. And am horribly disappointed when I see that potential wasted on the rat race for commissions and kickbacks. And then I remember, I write this sitting at the pool at the Mandarin, looking across to the old East Asiatic Trading Company.
From: tyler@trufflepig.com
To: Greg and Jack
Greg and Jack,
On the plane heading back home. Ate some noodle soup for breakfast on the street and hitched a ride in a private transfer to the airport, foot massage waiting on my flight served with some hot tea. I freakin love Asia, and this job! It feels like we are on the right track in the way we are approaching things. Keep on diggin.
