MEMORABLE MOMENTS

Sitting on Thailand’s Phuket Laem Sing Beach sand, a week after a week in Paris, I was contemplating what true luxury really is. And whether guarantees it?  If you pay through the nose, is the red carpet always silk, the ice still squeaking from the freezer in your room when you arrive, the air-con already on, and the telephone operator supplied with your name the moment you pick it up? 

That had not happened at the famous and expensive George V. But now I had walked to the end of the beach by the rocks and found a small bar with its own little inlet.  With perfect music, sand, and warm tropical water. When I asked if they had an umbrella, I was told ‘yes,’ and moments later a small local appeared with a banana tree he had cut and plunked it down in the sand next to me.

I had found luxury.  

Photo Courtesy of Hotels.com

While in Paris, Ken Hom, famous BBC Chinese chef, invited me to lunch at the three-Michelin-starred L’Arpege. It was recently famous again because its genius chef and own…