But not everything is up in Samui’s rising tide. While the
luxury market expands at a rapid clip, last year the island actually lost 1,800
hotel rooms, or 11% of its total supply—most of them at the budget level.
“As Samui becomes more sophisticated, the lower-end tourist
trade has been pushed out to other islands like Koh Pha Ngan and Koh Tao,” says
Bill Barnett, a Thailand-based hotel consultant, who penned a provocative white
paper on the island’s future chances.
As a New Yorker I’m seldom envious of other cities’ food scenes. Climate, basketball teams, affordable housing stock, sure, but not food. And then there’s San Francisco. I hate you, San Francisco, because I love your food so much. Not too long ago I was there for a two-day visit and spent pretty much the entire time eating, in one long progressive meal. Thank God I was on foot.
Do you love oysters? I do. I love them so much I’ve spent the last three years on a madcap international Oyster Quest, traveling to 19 countries on six continents in search of the perfect oyster, and the perfect oyster bar. (Okay, I was already going to most of those places anyway—but wherever I traveled, bivalves were never far from mind.)
You'll soon find the, er, pearls of my transglobal trek in T+L’s August issue. Meanwhile, a quick hit of briny goodness from one of my local haunts, the great Shaffer City oyster bar in New York: Shaffer City has 15 to 20 varieties on offer at any moment, even in summer, and they’re the only one in New York I know of to stock the coveted Olympia oyster, native to Washington State and seldom found elsewhere. Olys are smoky, coppery specimens the size of a bottlecap with a flavor ten times as big. If you run across some, grab them up immediately—and if you don’t like the taste, send the rest to me.
Peter Jon Lindberg is Travel + Leisure's editor at large.
One night after a mind-blowing dinner at El Bulli last week I caught the opening stand of the new U2 tour in Barcelona.. The show was astonishing, the crowd and the venue equally so. Read my full report here.
Five days in August in Camden, Maine, in the company of 20 fellow foodies and four guest chefs, for a sort of locavore Olympics: lobster-trapping, oyster-shucking, mussel-hunting, trout-smoking, sausage-making, mozzarella-crafting, blueberry-picking, pie-making, whiskey-distilling, ale-brewing—even pig-butchering, under the tutelage of the extremely cool Tom Mylan from Brooklyn’s Marlow & Daughters. All that, plus a lobster bake and dinner at Francine Bistro with the fantastic Brian Hill?
BOY.
Peter Jon Lindberg is Travel + Leisure's editor at large.
Australians are an aggressively casual people. Their insistence on a defiantly relaxed, “no worries” worldview has turned them into chronic abbreviators and nicknamers. This happens whether you like it or not. In Australia, for instance, I have never once been called by my proper, two-syllable name (which I greatly prefer). Instead I am forever “Pete.” Or maybe “Petey,” or “Pete-O.”
I hereby offer this brief glossary to aid in translation.
chardy = chardonnay voddy = vodka (though you’d rarely order just one, hence the more common “voddies”) pokies = video poker machines in Aussie pubs brekkie = breakfast arvo = afternoon mozzies = mosquitoes sunnies = sunglasses ute = utility truck spag bol = spaghetti Bolognese Darlo = Darlinghurst, the SoHo of Sydney footie = football, as in Australian Rules Football, the national obsession blunnies = Blundstone boots
Sometimes abbreviating seems inappropriate. On a December visit to Sydney I kept noticing signs in shops saying “Sale for Chrissie!” or “Buy Something Special For Chrissie!” and wondered who this lucky “Chrissie” person was until I realized they meant Christmas. Really?I thought. I mean, “X-Mas” is irreverent enough, but “Chrissie”? Other times the diminutives are just baffling. Some Sydneysiders abbreviate their hometown into something kind of like “Sidd-y,” which, having no fewer syllables and only one fewer consanant than the original -- and also being easily confused with the word “city” -- makes no sense whatsoever. Would it require THAT much more effort to pronounce the “n”?I think I know the answer: No worries on the ‘brevvies, Pete-O!
Peter Lindberg is Travel + Leisure's editor-at-large.
