Veranda Resort and Spa, Chiang Mai

The conference organisers put us in this RM500 per night hotel located at the outskirts of Chiang Mai.

The place was incredible. Beautiful, spacious and filled with greens. It has a panoramic view of a jungle and mountains. So incredible that it deserves a blogpost on this blog!


The bar is just next to the pool. Some of my friends decided to swim in their undies after a few drinks.


The room comes with a massive bathtub. It reminds me of an Egyptian mummy’s tomb.


Everyday around 530pm, the hotel will send us some desserts to warm our palates before dinner.

The only problem with this place is it is quite far from the city. It takes about half an hour to get there. The other problem is the mosquitoes. We usually have dinner in the hut and drinks thereafter. Many of my friends became mosquitoes’ dinner. Wearing long pants is highly recommended at night.

Website: http://www.verandaresortandspa.com/chiangmai/

Nimmanhaemin Road Food Guide

Wawee Coffee

Since I only slept an hour before my flight, I was dying to have coffee. We stopped by Wawee Coffee for their Wawee Coffee. It was thick and aromatic. Fueled me to walk around this place for hours.

Address
Nimmanhaemin Soi 9

Nimmanhaemin Road Ice Cream

The highlight of Nimmanhaemin Road to me is probably is home made ice cream by Home Fresh. Their ice cream is sold at a house. You need to ring the doorbell for service.


Jack @ #277, Nimmanhaemin Soi 5 (B2)

It has numerous unique flavours such as mango sticky rice, pandamus with young coconut, toddy palm and red ruby. I went with mango sticky rice and I must say it was good. Never I had rice in my ice cream before! The texture is a little hard but you have to wait for it to melt a little to enjoy it.

Address
#277, Nimmanhaemin Soi 5 (B2)

Khun Mor

Lunch at Nimmanhaemin Road was at Khun Mor’s Cuisine, a place recommended by a guide book.


I ordered Pad Thai. It was good save for the bloody bean sprouts. I hate them.


Jack ordered Khao Soi Kai which is Chiang Mai’s signature dish. It comes with deep fried egg noodles, chicken, pickled cabbage and lime. It taste like curry laksa to me.


As a side dish, we had Sai Aour, which looks like their well known dish. You can even buy a packet of it to cook at home. Sai Aour is basically spicy sausage. Taste good.

Address
10/1, Nimmanhaemin Road

Nimmanhaemin Road, Chiang Mai

On our first day, we had couple of hours to kill before the start of the conference. Instead of sleeping, we got our hotel to drop us at Niammanhaemin Road.

This place is filled with trendy pubs, cafes and boutiques. Filled with is an understatement. The whole place is packed with them!


Each road has a list of the shops

The facade and interior designs of these places are very well designed. So good that it makes you think that whatever that they are selling are good too.

One of the nicest shops I went was Silverbirch, a shop selling wooden carving. The entire shop is dedicated to selling miniature wood carving which are mostly pigs.


Jack bought a few pigs with letters and had the shop glued them together to from a word.


This place has a few stand alone premises with different stores. Interesting concept.

The only problem with this place is that they don’t have many boutiques that cater men. I wanted to get some local designer’s stuff but unfortunately, I couldn’t find many shops that cater men!

In any event, this place is a good place for photography. I’ll definitely come back again.

Multilaw Academy 2011 @ Chiang Mai

Multilaw is an association of independent law firms around the world.

My firm sent my colleague, Jack and me to Chiang Mai for this week long training. The training given was fairly simple but focused on interesting topics. But most importantly, it was an academy for all junior lawyers from all Multilaw members.


Infinity pool @ Verandah Hotel!

We were put in a very nice hotel by the name Verandah Resort and Spa. I will talk about this place on a separate entry.

The week long conference was very memorable. Our day would start with a class by Multilaw senior lawyers. Our night would start with dinner and end with heavy drinking – everyday!

The participants were mostly young lawyers ranging from mid 20s to early 30s. We had lawyers from Brazil, Netherlands, Philippines, China, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Canada, Turkey, Denmark, Ethiopia and Poland. Every night we will stay back for drinks after dinner. It was a good mix of people. We all got along really well and had loads of fun. I don’t think there was a day which we didn’t drink.


The participants and trainers. I’m the tallest one. Stand out, don’t blend in!

In respect of the training, there were two things that I remember the most. The first is the mock negotiation. We were split into groups and given a scenario. The scenario relates to a share purchase agreement. We were given instructions from our mock clients and then we have to negotiate a deal between the two groups. I partnered a Dutch and we were tasked to negotiate with a Dane and Filipino. It was tough but fun! I learned so much!


Training in progress

The second training was on what an in-house lawyer wants from his lawyer. Multilaw invited an in-house counsel from a large multinational company to speak. It was highly informative. For the benefit of my readers, I’ve summarized some of the points given by the counsel:-

1. Get law firm partners’ and associates’ comprehensive details on firm website. In-house lawyers always look at them.
2. Put pictures of partners and associates in a presentable manner. Not too casual.
3. Details of associates in the website should include a capability list.
4. Get into Chambers Guide (law firm ranking guide) if possible.
5. Lawyers should specialize. In-house lawyers always look for experts.
6. Once engaged by a company, ask in-house counsel on what do they dislike from a lawyer and try to avoid doing that.
7. Always understand and read about the client. Sign up with Google Alerts for daily updates on client.
8. When meeting clients, don’t start rambling about yourself. Ask open ended questions like what their views are and how we can help them
9. Ask the client how they like to be contacted. Eg phone, email. Some clients like to speak on phone and some like emails.
10. Be known to be giving a lot of value. Tell client that you are not charging for certain work.
11. Billing is an art. Only bill things that are of value. Don’t bill for things like looking for phone number or files.
12. Be known to be responsive. Always reply queries immediately. Get back to people promptly.
13. On emails, not necessary to give answers immediately but respond with some pseudo substance response eg I’ll get back to you tomorrow

We were given a one day tour around Chiang Mai. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to see many things. We went to the night market and find that most of the stuff sucks. And as usual, we ended up drinking at a pub.


Our hot Turkish lawyer. She doesn’t drink beer. She only drinks tequila.


We had dinner at one restaurant that allows its customers to draw on its walls. We had all our names written on the wall.

We ended our academy with dinner at a nice place called the House. Jack and I sat with the guys. It’s been a while since I had so much fun.


At the dinner

After the dinner, we headed to Mandarin Oriental for drinks.


Mandarin Oriental. Yes, Mandarin Oriental. No kidding!

We ended our night around 2am. By then, all of us were dead tired and many had to rush back to their hotel room to pack for their early flight. Jack and I slept only an hour to catch our 9am flight.

The gang shook hands and hugged before departing. Although it was only 7 days, everyone bonded very well. It was kinda sad to see the academy ending. There may not be a time where all of us would be together again.

Nevertheless, in order for us to keep in touch, I started a Facebook group. Almost everyone that attended are now on that group.

It was a great experience. I hope the new found friendship will last until the end of our lives.

Chiang Mai, Thailand

I’ll be off to Chiang Mai for a one-week conference this Sunday. I haven’t had the t time to research on the place.

The only place that I know in Chiang Mai is Laddaland, which was made known from the show, Laddaland – a horror Thai film.


If you love horror films, watch this show. It was so scary that I laughed out loud -_-

The other thing that I want to do is rock climbing. Unfortunately, I got no kaki or gears to do so.

Anyone got any recommendations on things to do, eat or see in Chiang Mai?