How now, brown khao?

Khao soi gai

When cruising Trader Joe's for a good trail mix to take with you on the plane ride to Thailand, you might want to avoid the bags that include chocolate chips. I learn this the hard way while stumbling along the midday streets of Ayutthaya on my way to the train station. I reach into the bag for a quick energy boost and draw out a gooey mess, with nuts and raisins.

Still, that shouldn't affect the taste or the edibility, and I paid perfectly good money for this trail mix ...

So I arrive at Ayutthaya Station under the blistering sun for a five-hour layover -- between my 11 a.m. guest house checkout and the 4 p.m. departure to Chiang Mai -- sweaty, disheveled and with chocolate smeared all over my face. This is why I travel alone.

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Outside my room, Riverside Guest House

After a 13-hour sleeper car ride to the far north of Thailand, I arrive in the cooler and much more farang-friendly city of Chiang Mai. An easy half-mile hike west puts me at my next guest house, on the Mae Ping River at the the edge of downtown.

At check-in I explain to the manager why I am in Chiang Mai and what I'm looking for. She nods understandingly and directs me to a place not three doors down. In minutes I am tucking into my first bowl of authentic khao soi, a curried noodle stew and the signature dish of northern Thailand, actually in Thailand. For breakfast! (And, later, lunch and dinner.)

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I am a hedonistic pig

In this part of Chiang Mai you can't fall in any direction without landing on a massage table. So I indulge: I go for the pedicure and 1-hour oil massage at a reputable-looking joint. Heck, at just under twenty bucks, including tip (and watermelon!), wouldn't you?

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It's Saturday night and I am determined to visit Lam Duan, one of the top-reviewed khao soi vendors in town. I've already had one disappointment today: I hiked into central Chiang Mai at noon to visit another five-star place on the grounds of a Buddhist wat, only to learn from a monk that they serve only on Sunday. Rats! But Lam Duan is, I think, a mile and a half up the road. So I take a chance and flag down a tuk-tuk driver. You know how I feel about tuk-tuk drivers.

"You know Wat Fa Ham?" I ask. "I go near there, to Lam Duan."

"How much you pay me?" he asks. We haggle. Fifty baht.

"Lam Duan," I repeat. "Lam Duan," he replies. We set off.

We go and go and go, much farther than I pictured from the map. Finally we arrive at Wat Fa Ham. I look around. "Where's Lam Duan?"

"Ohhh," says this evil dog, "Lam Duan closed!" And he's not lying: as all the locals know, Lam Duan turns out to be a lunch place.

I throw him his lousy 50 baht (around a buck-sixty) and stalk back in the direction we came. It takes me an hour to reach my guest house, and by then the khao soi place next door is closed. But on the walk back I toy with the possibility that God put me on this earth to kill tuk-tuk drivers.

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Yes, yes, I know I'm supposed to be researching living in Chiang Mai, not carrying on like some khao soi-smeared, massage-oil-smelling tourist. That starts today when I move over to the other side of town, to a place adjacent to Chiang Mai University.