Chili Fest 2026

Over the years, I've really come to appreciate spice. I didn't used to be able to eat spicy food at all, but after more than a decade living in Southeast Asia, my tolerance for capsaicin has gone up a ton. Now, I'm not able to bite down on a Caroline Reaper or anything like that, but I've definitely come to appreciate a comfortable level of chili in my food.

This weekend was the 4th annual Chili Fest, a festival of everything spicy held in the beautiful garden of the 5-star Kimpton Maa-Lai Hotel in downtown Bangkok. I arrived at 2pm right as the festival was just starting to kick off. All proceeds from ticket sales went to the Bangkok Community Help Foundation, a local volunteer non-profit making it not just a fun thing to do on a Saturday afternoon, but also a good way to support the community.

Of course, when you have a festival based completely around a flavor, the main feature is going to be food, and what better place to indulge in spicy dishes than in Thailand!

Some of the city's best and most famous chefs and restaurants, including several Michelin award-winners, had set up booths selling their spiciest (and less spicy for those with sensitive palates) dishes.

You can't beat the classics, and I decided to start with a bowl of spicy pad Thai from Padthai Khun Chu. Pad Thai isn't an especially spicy dish traditionally, but this one was cooked with fiery chilies served alongside crispy dried shrimp, fresh lime, and lots of herbs, and was served with even more intensely hot dried chili on the side.

I'm always a fan of fusion food, so I couldn't pass up a plate of kaprao (spicy basil stir fry) minced pork empanadas served with acevichada (a traditional Peruvian sauce made with lime, chili, and herbs) and huancaina (a flavorful cheese sauce made with aji peppers).

Of course, I couldn't leave Chili Fest empty handed! I spent some time perusing through the shops and stalls selling all sorts of hot sauces and other chili-based stuff. I ended up buying a jar of "The Bee Sting" hot honey and a bar of "Devil's Chili" chocolate made from Chiang Mai cacao, dried oranges, and ghost pepper. Both delicious!

As a matter of fact, Siamaya Chocolate has its factory and store up in Chiang Mai, and I hope that I can pay them a visit next time I'm up north.

There was going to be a hot chili eating contest and live music in the evening (and even free tattoos generously provided by a local tattoo studio), but I had already eaten my fill of spicy food, and the weather was starting to get hot as well. I had a ton of fun at Chili Fest, but it would have been more fun if I hadn't had to go by myself. Next year, I'll try to get my ticket earlier so I can drag my wife or a few friends along with me.

Ayutthaya by Rail

I hadn't been to Ayutthaya, the ancient Siamese capital, in several years, so I was excited when our friend Kat invited Pinky and me to join her and a friend from work on a day trip last week. Neither one of them had ever been to Ayutthaya before, so Pinky and I acted as their guides to take them around the city.

Ayutthaya is about an hour from Bangkok, and we took the 20-baht commuter train from the new Krungthep Aphiwat Central Terminal, which has replaced the 100-plus year-old Hua Lamphong station as the city's main rail hub.

Even though it was early, it was a hot day, but the breeze through the open windows of the third-class carriage made it feel comfortable.

It was less comfortable as we arrived in Ayutthaya and made our way to the historical park, an area infamous for its dusty fields and lack of shade. To make matters worse, we are very nearly into the hottest part of the year here in Southeast Asia, and by 9:00 it was already over 90 degrees F.

Ayutthaya was once the capital of the Ayutthaya Kingdom and one of the most powerful cities in Southeast Asia. Founded in 1351 by King Ramathibodi I, the city grew into a wealthy international trading hub where merchants from China, Japan, India, Persia, and various European nations came to trade.

Read more: Ayutaya Nihonjin-machi (アユタヤ日本人町) - The Japanese Village, Ayutthaya

In 1767, the city was destroyed during the Burmese-Siamese War when the Burmese army sacked and burned the capital, bringing the kingdom to an end.

After the fall, Siam’s capital eventually moved south first to Thonburi and eventually to Bangkok, and Ayutthaya was left in ruins. Today, the remains form the Ayutthaya Historical Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Thailand’s most important historical destinations.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of Ayutthaya-era ruins to be found all across the area, but the most important and best-preserved ruins that make up the Ayutthaya Historical Park are located on an island formed by a bend in the Chaophraya River that was once the kingdom's capital.

We ended up visiting Wat Mahathat and Wat Ratchaburana, two of the largest and most impressive ruins. After that, we all agreed that it was getting too hot, so we had lunch at a nearby restaurant and finished up at a trendy cafe for a much-deserved iced coffee before heading back to Bangkok by bus in mid-afternoon.

It was a fun day, but the heat and activity really wore me out. This summer feels hotter than usual and I can tell that everyone is really looking forward to Songkran for a chance to let loose, have fun, and cool down.

Time Zone to Time Zone: The Rolex GMT-Master II Exhibition

I very much doubt that I'll ever be able to afford a $2000 wristwatch, but when I saw the opportunity to book a ticket to a free exhibition about the Rolex GMT-Master II at Siam Paragon shopping mall, I did so out of curiosity. I was going to be in the neighborhood anyway and decided I'd go and check it out.

I checked in at the welcome counter a few minutes early and was seated in a very comfortable waiting room. Shortly, a concierge, for lack of a better word, greeted me and personally led me up the escalator to an upper floor of the mall which housed the exhibition. Even though it was a free event, it felt very exclusive and luxurious.

The exhibition was all about the Rolex GMT-Master II, a watch designed for pilots in the early days of commercial air travel and was the official watch of Pan Am's long-haul international pilots in the 1950s and 60s. What made the watch so special was that it was the first watch in the world to be able to keep track of two time zones independently. The watch featured a 24-hour bezel with a blue (nighttime) and red (daylight) half and an independent 24-hour hand calibrated to Greenwich Mean Time.

The watch has a really unique place in history and culture. Besides being a favorite amongst aviators and athletes, Marlon Brando wore one during the filming of Apocalypse Now, refusing to take it off even when Francis Ford Coppola insisted that a rogue colonel living in the jungle would not be wearing such an expensive watch. To compromise, Brando wore it upside-down with the face on his wrist to be less conspicuous when filming.

The watch has also been to space. Jack Swigert wore one on the infamous Apollo 13 mission and credited it as his good luck charm after safely arriving back on Earth.

The exhibition detailed the incredible attention to detail and decades of engineering that went into designing this watch. It was followed up by a 5-minute mini documentary about the GMT-Master's history and development.

I'll never own a Rolex. I can say that pretty safely. But I cannot deny how amazing the story of the watch and its craftsmanship is. Even though I don't have any particular interest in collecting watches, it was still really interesting to spend a half hour learning something new.

The Hau Yong Seng Soy Sauce Factory Cafe

Hau Yong Seng is Bangkok's last traditional homemade soy sauce factory. Located alongside the Bangkok Yai Canal, once home to 9 rice mills, 9 soy sauce breweries, and 9 shipyards, Hau Yong Seng has sought out modern ways to stay relevant even as soy sauce brewing has largely shifted to be mass-produced in industrial factories.

The salty smell of soy sauce hit our nostrils as soon as we stepped up to the charming little cafe and took a seat next to the water. It was a warm but breezy afternoon, and the canal was quiet save for the occasional longtail boat zipping along the famous old waterway.

The soy sauce factory, or brewery to use the proper term, has been in operation for more than a century, and is currently run by the 3rd and 4th generation. They still use the traditional method of brewing soy sauce for up to six months using exposure to the sun in large clay jars before cooking over a wood fire.

Visitors are welcome to walk around the courtyard at the old factory and look at the jars of soy sauce slowly fermenting in the sun.

It was the 4th generation, now in their 20s, who had the idea of turning the struggling family-run soy sauce brewery into a trendy riverside cafe.

Of course, you can buy bottles of their locally brewed soy sauce to take home with you (we did!), but what has made the cafe Instagram famous lately is their menu of soy sauce-based food and drinks.

Pinky ordered a soy sauce latte, and I ordered a soy sauce chai yen, the iconic orange Thai iced tea. The soy sauce added a subtle salty note that gave the drinks a little more richness. If you didn't know what you were supposed to be looking for, you might have a hard time identifying the extra flavor. It wasn't overpoweringly salty or anything like that, just a nice little addition to the otherwise very sweet flavors of the drinks.

We had lunch as well, which I'm sure was cooked using the house soy sauce, and finished up with dessert: a scoop of soy sauce ice cream! It was delicious, especially on such a hot day. The saltiness of the soy sauce made it taste a lot like caramel, and it was so satisfying.

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I love discovering hidden gems like this. It's nice to see little slivers of old Bangkok kept alive in the modern day.

The Siamese Cat Workshop

Even though life has gotten busy and I haven't been able to get involved with the National Museum Volunteers much lately, I'm still on the email list.

When I saw the topic of this month's lecture, I knew that I had to go, and since the event was held on a Thursday, my wife was able to join me.

The small-group lecture, held at the National Museum's auditorium, was all about Siamese cats and their importance in Thai culture! As cat lovers and the parents of a Siamese cat ourselves, Pinky and I were super excited to attend and learn more.

We had been looking forward to an interesting lecture, but we hadn't expected how much fun swag we would get for attending! We each got a Siamese Cat Workshop tote bag, notebook, pen, bookmark, and postcards.

We settled in at a desk near the front of the lecture hall, enjoying the complementary coffee, tea, and cookies (cat-shaped, of course) which were provided for attendees.

The lecture began with an introduction of the "Maew Boran", or Five Ancient Cats of Siam, recognized by the Thai government as native cats and an important part of the cultural heritage of the country.

https://thailand.prd.go.th/en/content/category/detail/id/48/iid/445301

In 2025, these cats were officially made national symbols of Thailand, and I will be introducing each one in this blog post using these adorable cookies which were included with our lecture swag.

Wichienmaat (Siamese Cat)

The most famous of the "Five Ancient Cats" is the Wichienmaat, which literally means "Diamond Gold". The Wichienmaat is also called the Thai cat or Old-Style Siamese and is what most people would recognize as the iconic Siamese cat.

In the 1980s, the Thai cat was recognized as a separate breed from their more modern cousins, the Siamese. Basically, the Wichienmaat is an older "natural breed" with a rounder face and softer features than the highly selectively bred Siamese with their angular faces and sharp points. I personally think the Wichienmaat is cuter, but I may be biased since that's the kind of cat that I have. From here on out, though, I'm just going to be referring to both types as Siamese.

Wicheinmaat (Thai) - left

Modern Siamese - right

Siamese cats are renowned for their distinctive pale fur and darker points on their paws, face, ears, and tail, and for their brilliant sapphire blue eyes (unless they are blind, like my cat!).

Siamese are actually known as "temperature sensitive albinos", and their pattern is caused by a gene affecting melanin production, meaning cooler parts of the body at their extremities develop more pigment and appear darker, while the warmer core stays pale. Siamese kittens are born completely white and gradually develop their darker points as they grow.

The Siamese has long been favored at the royal court and has appeared in photographs since at least the time of King Rama IV as a feature in the royal coronation. One part of the ceremony is the Royal Housewarming, in which the king moves into the palace. He is accompanied by a procession of items symbolizing home and comfort. Cats, as notorious homebodies, are emblematic within the context of the ceremony of domestic comfort.

Korat (Si-Sawaad)

The Korat cat, named for the area it originated in ("Korat" is the nickname and common name of Nakhon Ratchasima, the biggest city in northeastern Thailand). The Korat cat is known traditionally as a good luck cat and is renowned for blue-grey fur and vivid green eyes.

The Korat plays an important role in the Hae Nang Maew, or "Procession of Lady Cat", an ancient rainmaking ritual traditionally performed by farmers during the Southeast Asian dry season or periods of drought.

The procession would take place when the period of drought became concerning to the villagers who relied on rain the heavily agricultural pre-industrial Siam. Villagers began planting their fields after the annual Royal Ploughing Ceremony in early May, but when the rains didn't come in time, that was when it was decided to perform the Hae Nang Maew.

A Korat cat, whose coloring was said to look like that of a stormy sky, was placed in a bamboo cage and paraded around town to the sounds of drums, gongs, cymbals, and the singing of rain-based folksongs. All the while, the poor cat was splashed with water by the people as the procession passed by, and its screams of annoyance were said to call the attention of the gods and spirits.

Nowadays, live cats are thankfully no longer used, and the ceremony is performed with a clay or wooden cat instead, and some places even use a Hello Kitty or Doraemon figure!

Konja

The Konja cat is jet black with bright yellow eyes. To be considered a pure Konja, it cannot have even a single white hair in its coat.

While some Western folklore paints black cats as bringers of bad luck, it is the complete opposite in Thailand. The Konja in particular is considered to be very auspicious and is said to bring good luck and fortune to their owners.

Good luck cats, particularly the Konja, are even used in wedding rituals or placed in cradles of babies in certain parts of the country to bless the newlyweds or newborns.

Khao Manee

One of the rarest and most stunning of the ancient cats is the Khao Manee, or "White Diamond". As you might expect from its name, its fur is completely white without any other markings.

But not just any white cat can be a Khao Manee. What makes this breed so special is its heterochromia; each one always has one Siamese-like sapphire blue eye and one gold eye.

The Khao Manee is one of the rarest cat breeds in the world, and a pedigreed kitten can go for up to $11,000 USD! The Khao Manee came to the West for the first time in 1999, relatively recently, however they have long been associated with royalty and were traditionally renowned as bringers of good fortune and in possession of mystical healing powers.

Suphalak

Commonly known as "thong daeng", or "red-gold", this copper-colored cat is a symbol of wealth, good fortune, and prestige.

When Ayutthaya fell in 1767, the invading Burmese army destroyed the city and looted its treasures. According to a Thai legend, King Hsinbyushin of Burma discovered a Tamra Maew, or "cat treatise" poem calling the Suphalak cat "as rare as gold" and saying that anyone who owns one will become wealthy.

The tale goes that the king ordered his soldiers to round up and capture as many Suphalak cats as they could find to take back to Burma along with other looted treasures. The story is often told as a humorous explanation as to why Suphalak are so rare, but interestingly, the cat has been recognized as the ancestor of the Burmese cat, so who knows how true the legend may be!

After the fascinating lecture, we had the chance to make our own cat painting to take home with us! An art professor and his assistant gave each of us the option of which of the five cats we'd like to paint. Pinky and I decided to paint different cats so that we would have two new pieces of art to hang on our walls. I decided to paint a Siamese, and she decided to paint a Suphalak.

Once we’d divided into groups and settled in with others painting the same cat, each participant received a canvas dusted with faint red powder, transferred through a perforated stencil of a temple mural.

Each of the templates is taken from a real temple mural from across Thailand depicting one of the five ancient cats. I felt a bit overwhelmed (well, maybe more than a bit) when I looked down at the canvas in front of me. The red pigment was easily smudged and completely disappeared when painted over by the thick paint. This was going to be difficult, especially keeping the paint within the lines without losing any of the detail.

In the end, I decided to work in layers. The powder-based paint dried very quickly, so after covering the solid color of my cat's body, I was able to reapply the lines via the stencil and red powder and continue working on the details.

It was a blast! Of course, everyone who participated in the workshop was a cat fan, and we enjoyed chatting about cats and the events of the National Museum Volunteers as we painted. I sat with my British friend Tracy who I actually just met recently on the trip to Wat Bang Phra. The expat community, especially those who are more interested in temples and museums than in bars and partying, is a fun, small, closeknit group, and it's easy to make friends with people from all around the world.

I had my doubts about how good my painting was going to look, but in the end, I was really impressed with how it turned out! It was such a fun activity to do, and now we have two new pieces of art that we made ourselves to hang on our wall.

And Cricket, as you can imagine, is very proud to have a painting of one of his ancestors.

Wichienmaat by Michael

Suphalak by Pinky

Wai Kru at Wat Bang Phra (The Sacred Tattoo Ceremony)

It's been a few years since I've had a Saturday off to go with my friend Noi on an adventure out of the city, but when I saw what he had planned for the first weekend in March, I knew I had to rearrange my schedule to be able to go along.

It was a sunny early morning, as I took the Skytrain to Krung Thonburi Station to meet up with Noi who had booked two big vans for our group.

Every year on the first Saturday in March, some 10,000 people travel to Wat Bang Phra in Nakhon Pathom, about 40 minutes outside of Bangkok, for the annual Wai Kru ceremony, the event that makes this otherwise quiet monastery so famous.

The Wai Kru Ceremony is related to the ancient pre-Buddhist practice of sak yant, traditional sacred tattoos believed to imbue the wearer with spiritual protection and magic powers. These tattoos are typically applied by monks or tattoo masters using a long-sharpened bamboo needle. The designs are drawn from ancient Khmer or Pali Sanskrit script, Buddhist prayers, and animist symbols.

Sak yant tattoos are especially popular as a form of protection with policemen, soldiers, taxi drivers, and others in dangerous professions. Usually, when you go to receive a sak yant at a temple (Wat Bang Phra is probably the most famous sak yant temple in all of Thailand), you consult with the monk or tattoo ajarn who read your astrology and "prescribe" a tattoo design for your back or arms; you don't get to choose your own design. The tattoos can cover your whole back, and often feature animals associated with specific blessings or powers.

Read more: The Blog of Michael Desrosiers: The Ajarn's Studio: Sacred Sak Yant Tattoos

The annual ceremony at Wat Bang Phra, known formally as the Wai Kru Sak Yant Festival, is a day when devotees return to the temple to honor their tattoo masters and recharge the spiritual power of their tattoos.

I'm not sure when the crowd began arriving, but it must have been before dawn. The temple was packed with people by the time we arrived and found a place to watch the proceedings from a bridge spanning the nearby canal.

The ceremony began promptly at 9:30 as the monks began praying and chanting mantras meant to refresh the spiritual powers of the tattoos. That's when it began to get really interesting.

It is believed that as the magic of the tattoos is recharged, the wearer can become possessed by the spirits evoked in the tattoo design. As the monks chanted, occasionally, someone would stand up from the crowd and begin charging towards the raised platform, acting as an animal - a monkey or elephant or whatever might have been depicted on their tattoo - all the while making loud, animalistic sounds. When they reached the platform, they were restrained by attendants guarding the monks, and the possessed individuals slumped down as they came back into themselves. All the while, the monks never broke their chanting.

This happened several times sporadically and without warning during the short ceremony, and it's the phenomenon that makes this Wai Kru so famous and so mysterious. Of course, the belief, rooted in ancient animism and shamanism, is that those affected are so overpowered by the recharged spiritual energies that they are literally possessed by the spirits. From a sociological or psychological perspective, perhaps it could be understood as a form of religious ecstasy, not unlike what you might see even in the United States amongst the more extreme Pentecostal sects (think snake handlers or speaking in tongues).

The ceremony was over much quicker than I had anticipated, and soon, the monks finished chanting and prepared to give a water blessing to the crowd.

Now, typically a monk uses a bundle of bamboo or reeds to dip into a consecrated bowl of holy water and fling the droplets over those seeking a blessing. However, the crowd in attendance at Wat Bang Phra for the Wai Kru ceremony numbered around ten thousand, and it would have been impossible to give everyone a blessing in the traditional way. Instead, the monks began spraying the crowd with hoses, making sure that everyone was able to receive the blessings of the holy water.

Songkran isn't for another month, but this felt like a preview!

The crowds began dispersing immediately after the water blessing as the ceremony concluded. In fact, I was amazed at how fast everyone cleared out!

Noi gave us about an hour to freely explore the temple grounds. There was a small market area set up alongside the canal, a chapel where the mummified body of one of the original monks who developed this monastery's tattoo tradition is displayed in a glass coffin, and the on-site studio where, for the price of a 20 baht offering and a box of cigarettes, the monks will administer the sak yant tattoos.

I grabbed an iced coffee and wandered around the canal area. Vendors were selling snacks and noodle dishes, and a sort of makeshift amulet market had sprung up as well. People had set up booths with trays of amulets, prayer beads, and Buddhist statues, and if you weren't interested in or brave enough to get a tattoo yourself, you could even buy a sak yant t-shirt instead.

It was nearly lunchtime when we returned to our van and drove on to the nearby Wat Lamphaya Floating Market. The old-school floating market is built out on piers over the sleepy Tha Chin river.

I had rice with crispy pork for lunch, then spent some time exploring the market. While most of the shops are built on a network of platforms and docks, there are still a handful of spots at the market where you can order your food right off of a small wooden boat just like in the old days.

For dessert, I decided to treat myself to something I hadn't had in a long time: lukchup!

Lukchup are little traditional Thai desserts made from mung bean pastes and agar-agar and shaped into various fruits and vegetables. They are mildly sweet with a nice, smooth texture, and I always really enjoy it when I have the chance to find them. It's an old-fashioned Thai dessert, and you don't usually come across lukchup outside of markets like this one.

The Blog of Michael Desrosiers: Lukchup

In the afternoon, it was time to head back to Bangkok, but not before stopping for one last coffee. No Thai Road trip is complete, after all, without visiting at least one trendy countryside cafe.

Memory Gallery is a cafe and restaurant located inside an old wooden house with a large yard. The surrounding land has been made to look like a sort of retro 1960s Thai village, complete with corner shops, street cars, and period-accurate signs and advertisements. Apparently, a lot of Thai music videos have been filmed here.

I don't usually have Saturdays off, but it was nice to have a chance to take one of these little day trips again. Hopefully I'll be able to do more of this type of activity in the future. It helps me feel more connected to Thailand, and also helps me break my routine and get away from my desk for a while.