For my alcoholics and people in need of instant satisfaction, here are the Top 8 places, then the not Top 2 places to get (in pictures of course) the ultimate masculine drink based strictly on flavor and delivery, not scenery. 1. Seychelles 2. Miami, Florida 3. Nassau, Bahamas 4. Las Vegas, Nevada 4. Cartagena, Colombia 5. Budva, Montenegro 6. Phoenix, Arizona 7. Mauritius 8. Maldives Dishonorable mention: 1. Sihanoukville, Cambodia 2. Bocas del Toro, Panama
#8: Pho-nix Hotness
Welcome to Phoenix, home to 120 degrees dry heat summers. Dry heat is a great marketing scam. Here’s what Phoenix really feels like: Picture getting into your car only to be burned by the metal of the seatbelt, drenched with sweat from an air conditioner that blows marginally cold despite being on full blast, all the while wondering how you ended up in this sunny hell. What goes better with a broken thermostat than a hot bowl of pho? The answer is another bowl of pho. If you are looking to enjoy the benefits of a steam room while enjoying some of the best pho worldwide, come to Phoenix in the middle of July. You have two quality choices for pho, both equally refreshing during a scorching hot day. 1. Noodles Ranch Noodles Ranch is located in Scottsdale and is my home away from home when I am in need of a quality bowl. My usual booth is informally reserved for me at the back left of the restaurant. Here you will find the friendly owner André doing it all- prepping the pho in the back to waiting on guests in the front. What sets Noodles Ranch apart from all of the pho mentioned in this Top 10 list is the focus on healthy eating. The beef cuts are lean, the broth is not oily, and the flavor is not lost. 2. Pho Thanh Pho Thanh is a traditional pho restaurant. You won’t find any frills or anything fancy in this place. What you will find is a jam packed room of pho lovers including the local Vietnamese community, the curious first comers, and me, the pho king himself. Pho Thanh serves as a much needed pho detox following a night out on the town as it is both casual and inexpensive. The authenticity of the pho is tough to beat and the lack of AC only enhances the genuine pho experience. Fortunately, Pho Thanh promptly opens at 8:30am; no doubt due to the unbearable Arizona heat. Actually, because of a similar hot climate in Vietnam, pho, unknown to most, is a breakfast meal.
Everyone Likes Top Ten Lists
Even I, the angry professor, find myself clicking on those terribly captioned articles, “top 100 places to go before you die.” Whenever I do click on them, I realize that I have been to virtually none of them and probably will never to go to any of them making me more depressed than impressed. #28, a private island with a restaurant underwater. Wait, I did go the Maldives. Regardless, top ten lists of any kind always get people talking and clicking. So, I, in an effort to not conform will also put my own spin on some top 7 lists. Of course, we have to start with the 5 greatest rapper of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9lg6HqJeY0
The Cost of Roaming
“$800 cell phone bill, how can that be right?” We’ve all been there on the phone with Sprint arguing that the roaming charges applied to our account while we were in Mexico are bogus. Good faith bargaining leads nowhere forcing us to ask for a supervisor in the cancellation department. A few ‘do you mind holding’ and a few more hours of negotiating and our bill is magically reduced to a somewhat normal level. This week has been a week of hell in the world of telecommunications for me. Recently, Sprint has found it suitable to charge customers their full monthly bill while providing zero service in their homes. Even their VOIP service, which routes calls through a user’s cable modem stopped working. With no texts coming and the inability to make phone calls, I called Sprint to tell them of my crippling problem. What was their reaction? I’m sure you already know. Hours later I was at the AT&T store asking for pricing. Here’s where things get tricky. Currently, I have a Blackberry Bold 9900 with AT&T that used to be a symbol business and commerce. Now, the reaction I get from everyone is, “You still have a Blackberry!” I keep this gem of a phone around not because of its amazing app store and interactive web browser, but because it has a keyboard and most importantly unlimited international data plan. AT&T knows I love this relic so much that they will not allow me to upgrade unless I want to give up my unlimited plan. Therefore, I am stuck carrying two phones; one for voice and apps (used to be iPhone now it’s a Samsung S5, no wait it’s a HTC M8, no it’s . . . they are all crap) and the other, the Blackberry, for international travel. With no solution at AT&T, I moved onto T-Mobile who says their phones come with international roaming but only at 2G speeds and even those connections are capped. So I went to Verizon who also did not offer an international solution and wanted my first born in exchange for their communist red map of service which brought me right back to Sprint and no service in my house. Globalization is the buzz word these days only if you do want to engage in international trade be prepared to swap your life savings in order to make the deal with your global partner. To all service providers, the professor would like to say, good riddance but my phone just dropped the call.
Final Score: Savvy Beer Drinkers 100 – Benihana 0
āItās Like Riding a Bike.ā Those words have haunted me for years.
The mission: Visit the best wineries in Mendoza, Argentina. The reward: Endless Malbec. The obstacle: The bicycle. “It’s Like Riding a Bike.” Those words have haunted me for years because they simply are not true. The secret that I kept from everyone is that I do not know how to ride a bike. I had not ridden a bike since the sixth grade and since that time I had done everything I could to avoid going near a bicycle. When I travelled to remote islands like Seychelles, tour guides would recommend renting a bicycle in order to see secluded beaches. My retort, “We don’t have enough time, I think we will just take a taxi.” Why was I so scared of riding a bike? First, I was never really good at it when I was a youngster. I never graduated to the big boy bike opting to switch to rollerblades instead. You can laugh at me for that. Next, following years of ‘blading I graduated to a moped and got into a couple of dust ups riding those. Finally, my intimidation of keeping my balance in spin class when that was a fad made me avoid biking altogether. So why would I, 2.5 decades later, risk life and limb to get back on this death trap? The answer: grapes. Well, not just grapes, special grapes called Malbec. In French, Malbec means ‘bad beak’ or ‘bad mouth’. Legend has it that it was named so because of the poor wine it produced. Ostracized by the French, the underdog Malbec made its way to Mendoza, Argentina where they thrived in the sunny climate. When I went to Buenos Aires, Argentina, I drank the finest Malbecs and feasted on the greatest steaks. Meanwhile, I knew that in a few days I would have to leave the safety of BA for the dangers of Mendoza. The anxiety became impossible to hide as my companion began to wonder what was amiss. I tried to cover up my nervousness by blaming it on work problems at home. The truth is that I knew my emasculating secret would be a secret no more. The day arrived that I had to leave the incomparable Park Hyatt Buenos Aires for the insecurity of the Park Hyatt Mendoza. While both resorts are highly touted, the latter could not provide me with the same peace of mind as the former. This was not due to a lack of gracious service from the front desk. No, my trepidation was a result of the concierge that, without hesitation, recommended a bicycle tour in order to visit the local wineries. At last, the time had come to face my demons. As we drove to the rental shop, I reminisced about the anxiety from riding my first rollercoaster, the Gemini at Cedar Point. The dread of hearing the ‘click, click, click’ as we made it to the top of the coaster only to plunge to certain doom played through my head as the taxi driver inched ever closer to the bicycle shop. When we arrived, I confidently exited the taxi, thanked him for his time, and praised a higher being that nobody else was at the bike shop. The owner gave us a map and asked if we required helmets. “Helmet?” I said to myself, reenacting a scene from the Wonder Years, “I need training wheels.” Fearless, I declined, paid for the rental, and courageously made my way to the bike lot. I picked out the standard 10 speed, with 2 wheels, reactive brakes and tried to use as much technical jargon as I could to prove that I was a regular on the tour circuit. Then this happened: Moments later, I was on the road, stopping every 10 feet to give myself a pep talk and curse at the trucks and cars that would insensitively honk as they passed by. Giving up was not an option, as a group of elitist Australians coasted by, shouting something that was unintelligible English. While spite could have served as a more than adequate motivator, the real reason I pressed forward was those savory Malbec grapes. They were outcast because of their apparent deficiencies, cast off as unworthy producers of proper wine. Facing the same circumstances, I too refused to give up, and kept peddling/veering from side to side forward. A few panic attacks later, I arrived at the Garden of Eden, happy to be alive, surrounded by the beautiful views of endless Malbec grapes. Glasses later, I mustered the courage once again to hit the road, only now driving crooked for a different reason. “It’s like riding a bike,” they say. Yeah sure, tell me that after I have gone through my first bottle. Salud!
The Kama Sutra of Airplane Sleep: Surviving a 17 Hour Flight
“Your flight time will be 16 hours,” the flight attendant nonchalantly announced after going through the safety procedures. This was the second time in four months that I would take this hellish route from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia back home. Having to endure this much time in the air never gets easy, especially when flying cattle class in a 2-3-2 configuration. So how do you pass the time when there is no WI-FI, a movie selection that is uninteresting (seriously the episode of “Friends” and “How I Met Your Mother” needs to be changed), and your best efforts pleading for an upgrade to business class have been denied? The answer is sleep. But that is easier said than done. Let’s go through all the annoyances that eliminate the chance of having a marginal night of sleep on the airplane. The Annoyances 1. Meal service Just when you are about to get cozy with that disgusting, old blue blanket, the flight attendant taps you on the shoulder and asks you if you would like dinner service. Groggy, you opt for the chicken because fish for dinner is out of the question. 2. The talkative seatmate After that microwavable meal, you are about to sit back and relax, as far back as you can go, when the person next to you engages you in a conversation. Not wanting to be impolite, you soon find yourself listening to this stranger’s sad experience playing defense for his first AYSO soccer team. Hours later, the conversation finally ends when your new found friend excuses himself to go to the bathroom. With only seconds till he returns, it is time to find that perfectly uncomfortable position and play possum. 3. The flight attendant But wait, just as you finally have found the one spot on that silly 2*4 inch white, hospital bed pillow, to perch your head on, you are, once again, awoken by the flight attendant. “Sir, do you have your seat-belt fastened?” The new regulation requires you to have the seat-belt on top of your blanket which is almost impossible to do comfortably. 4. The reading light Seat-belt fastened, food cleared away, tray table up, serenity is here at last. Not so fast, as the blinding light of the Luxor Vegas shines in your face. Your gregarious neighbor suddenly has found the energy to read Tolstoy’s War and Peace. “I’m sorry does this bother you?” he asks. 5. The fuel stop Exhausted, beaten, and distraught, at this point no light, no meal, no flight attendant warning, not even a loss of cabin pressure, could stop you from passing out. Then due to the limited range of the airplane, the plane must make a planned stop in Rome, Italy for refueling. The refueling takes 45 minutes and during that time you are not allowed to use your phone or go to the bathroom for security reasons. The cabin lights are turned on and in preparation for takeoff your seat that barely reclined in the first place must remain in the upright position. You sit there and wait too tired to complain, too tired to sleep. Gassed up, ready to go, the plane heads down the runway bound for insomnia at 30,000 feet ready unfazed if annoyance 1-4 to happens all over again. 6. Wah! Wildcard! How could I forget about that baby crying at the most inopportune time. Speaking of babies, I will say that turbulence for me is not an annoyance. It turns me into a happy baby, rocking me right to sleep. But wait, there is a strategy for survival. It is the real mile high club- the Kama Sutra of Airplane Sleep. The Kama Sutra of Airplane Sleep 1. The window This is my personal favorite, I shove the pillow between the seat and the window and let the drooling commence. Possible interferences: a) the window that is not correctly aligned with the seat making reclining and leaning impossible. b) the neighbor behind you bumping your chair forcing your pillow to fall. 2. The table Put your tray table down, take out your portable Lysol spray, and plop your head straight down. Think of it like sleeping in class which by far was the best sleep. Possible interferences: a) the neighbor ahead of you reclining his chair and smashing your neck. b) the delay of the flight attendant to clear your food. 3. The lean back Push your chair back as far as that stupid, cold gray button will allow. Do not worry if your neighbor to the rear complains, etiquette allows for you to recline all the way. He can do the same. Then do your best grandpa after Thanksgiving dinner passing out in a recliner imitation. Possible interferences: a)your neighbor is violent and intimidating. b) your neighbor acts out his violence by kicking your chair. 4. The brace position For takeoff and landing, if you want to pass out quickly and you don’t want to take a chance of being disturbed by the talkative neighbor or the overzealous flight attendant, follow the safety video and embrace the brace position by putting your head between your legs and falling asleep. Possible interferences: a) ribs grinding against you. b) neck cramps. 5. The friendly neighbor Remember our scholarly neighbor? Well, if he or she was comfortable enough to talk to you forever, then surely he or she won’t mind if you lean on them for the duration of the flight. Possible interferences: a) arrest. b) criminal prosecution. 6. The yoga qi The yoga chi is an art that I have perfected over the years. It is my quest to find a holistic balance where it doesn’t matter if I am sitting in the window, middle, or aisle, because I can make myself comfortable, refusing to let the airline deny me good sleep. It is mind over matter at its finest. Possible interferences: a) the image of walking through first-class and seeing lie-flat seats b) 16 hour flights. 7. The contortionist The only way to sleep on a plane is to be a Cirque du Soleil contortionist and unconsciously cycle methods 1-6 throughout the flight. It would be hilarious to have a time-lapse video of me trying all of the Kama Sutra sleep positions all the while keeping my eyes closed- a requisite precaution to not get sidetracked by the annoyances. *A quick note on performing enhancing devices: People who bring those silly pillows and accessories look dumb. I’d rather work on my qi than be the clown with an inflatable inner-tube pillow pretending to rest comfortably. The Outcome “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are arriving in Washington D.C.” . . . and somehow you have survived another flight and you swear to yourself you’ll never fly coach again, promising to read Points101 and fly business for free.
VIP no more, I headed back home outraged
I have designated Friday the day where the angry, perhaps whiny professor, gets to rant and rave much like Peter Griffin about anything that’s on my mind. Consider yourself warned. Today’s topic: hotel customer service in the United States. A friend of mine is in town this weekend for the usual partying in Scottsdale so naturally being a great friend, I volunteered to get him a room at the W Scottsdale, a Starwood hotel. Obviously, I had my own selfish motive- points. Last year, I stayed at Starwood properties 25 times in order to qualify for platinum status. This provides 4PM checkouts, room upgrades, and, most critically, bonus points for free stays. Staying at hotels throughout the world, I quickly learned that status counts more than the size of your wallet. Upon hitting the coveted ‘platinum’ status I was invited into a world of pampering that I did not deserve. Everywhere I went it was “Mr. Bachuwa, is everything up to your standards?” “Mr. Bachuwa, we have taken the liberty of upgrading your room.” I was given a sneak peak of how the rich lived everyday and grew anxious at the prospect of being demoted down to lowly ‘gold’. The difference in service are not to be scoffed at. Let me provide some examples: St. Regis Mauritius Hilton Doha W Doha Which brings me back to the W Scottsdale. I went to check-in, excited that I would, once again, be given the “Mr. Bachuwa” respect that should be reserved for my father, not a character like myself. Instead, the front desk didn’t even thank me for my loyalty failing to utter the sweet words, “We recognize your platinum status.” Worse, she told me I was in a standard room on the third floor. Entitled, I had to ask, “Aren’t there any suites available.” A quick “no” followed by the cold exchange of room keys and I was on my way. VIP no more, I headed back home outraged that I was appropriately treated just like any other guest. And it’s much bigger issues in the world, I know, but first I had to take care of the world I know. – Jay Z Jay Z notwithstanding, it is remarkable how hotels overseas seem to take care of their guests with a different level of service and it’s not because of your status, your wallet, or your name. It’s just something that seems to come naturally. They want you to feel comfortable and will go out of their way to make you feel at home. The same is true regarding domestic airlines versus international. Guess which one happened on a Delta flight and which one on Cathay Pacific? “More f@!king peanuts,” as my knee is hit by the cart. “Mr. Bachuwa, let me bring you some ice cream before we land. What flavor would you like?” Now where’s that damn Starwood customer service number . . .