Baansuwanburi to Maladee

So we ate at We-La-Dee for our second and final night at Baansuwanburi. We had a reservation -- good thing, because the place was packed -- and after some table shuffling, we were seated inside, instead of the outdoor table we'd reserved with reservations, because we really wanted to be inside. Since we'd ordered way too much food the night before, we tried to get it right. I ordered a salad with shrimp, Marc ordered stuffed squid in a curry, and we ordered what they called fried shrimp spring rolls, but which looked more like wonton.

That large bear in the parking lot is their thing, apparently;
there were lots of them everywhere. The place is otherwise
very elegant and understated.

 

This shrimp salad turned out to be too small for my entree,
but it was SO DELICIOUS. Super spicy, and simple but
perfectly balanced everything. Shallots and garlic,
tomatoes and shrimp, cilantro, lime juice, and fish sauce, just a bit.
I hope Marc can reproduce it for me.

The squid were stuffed with pork (an idea that always seems
so weird to me -- hey, shove one meat inside another meat -- 
but he said it was good. The curry was really delicious, too.

We walked home in the dark, and there were two very bright stars aligned vertically, in a violet colored sky that faded to deep, dark blue. It was beautiful. Even though we have been crashing after dinner, it's very weird, as if we don't have jet lag this trip. We make it through the day (well, I take little naps), then we go to bed and sleep until our usual wake-up time the next morning. Weird, but nice.

There are so many reasons we loved the sweet little hotel, Baansuwanburi: the beautiful grounds, the careful attention to every detail without any of it feeling fussy or precious, the actual true hospitality of thinking of what guests might really want, the fact that they didn't do a whole dog-and-pony show when we checked in (with elaborate taking of passports, welcome drinks, chitchat, oh we do not like that), and the breakfasts. The mama cooks them, and this morning's breakfast was a gigantic feast.

Not shown: watermelon and papaya, and rice crackers. 
The bowl holds a yummy curry with potatoes and chicken;
on the plate is a fabulous omelette, perfect peas and mushrooms, and 
truly delicious steamed rice. The small bowl holds pickled cucumbers.
Also capuccino and orange juice.

The young woman who works at the desk was just so warm and kind, and somehow maintained just the right balance of talking with us and not being intrusive. As we sat in the lobby waiting for our taxi, we were both feeling so sad to leave the hotel. It was so perfect for our first two nights, comfortable and quiet and a kind of space that let us gently ease out of the long travel and into our vacation.

Before that gigantic breakfast feast -- relaxed and not jetlagged.

The Maladee could not be more different than Baansuwanburi! Where it was intimate and personal and small, the Maladee is a standard hotel, impersonal and fully appointed, with a fancy pool (complete with a bar) and the dog-and-pony welcome process. In fact, we not only got one welcome drink, we got THREE.

Welcome, and please wait here in the restaurant while we
do our big long process with your passports.

The pool -- their deal here is that the sun lounges are in the pool.
Which is interesting, except that you have to stand in the cold
water to get in and out of the lounge, and if your Kindle and
iPhone are on the small table next to you, there's always the risk
that it could fall right in the water.

The third welcome drink, which was heavily flavored with 
jasmine and actually very good! They like to put a rose petal
in the glass. Not shown is the second welcome drink, which
was basically just a simple syrup poured over ice.

For dinner, we decided to do something we never do: we ate a different country's food. We were trying to decide between Lebanese and Indian, and the reviews of the Indian restaurant, Rajdarbar, sounded so good that we decided to try it. Ever since we went to India, and got the worst Indian food we've ever had, we've been kind of burned out on it. But OH MY GOD it was so, so good. So good. I got the best chana masala I've ever had, and Marc got tandoori shrimp and butter chicken, and we got garlic naan. The shrimp were charred and smoky but not at all dried out, and the butter chicken was just so good. We had to get a second order of naan, but that didn't surprise naan-loving me. The manager was the sweetest guy, who seemed so happy that we enjoyed the food so much. I loved watching a Bollywood movie on the big screen TV, and we were annoyed by a table of five uncharacteristically very loud French people, whose noisy conversation made it hard for us to hear each other. The whole walk home we just kept talking about how fantastic the food was.

Food so good it'll make you want to slap your mama.

The last time we were in Chiang Mai, we had such a hard time finding good food, and we were so bored we even went to the ZOO. This time we're finding nothing but great food, and there are things to see everywhere we walk. Like, for example, this crazy place, which was apparently a charity organization:

Make Donations coffin. :) That's not why we know it's a charitable
organization; the largest building in the complex said it.
As is true, I guess, for charitable organizations everywhere,
there seems to be an awful lot of money invested in the buildings.

It was a bit like Disney Land. This is the smaller building 
in the complex.

And then we passed this, which caught my eye because it looked like one of the faces was holding a cell phone.

See? Sword in the front, cell phone facing the viewer. :)