The different kinds of food, bbq, noodles, fried rice, boiled rice, coconut wrapped in banana leaves, quail eggs cooked on little griddles, papaya salad, spicy kai lob (chicken) made with the freshest of herbs give unblieveable taste and flavor to dishes from street vendor to high class restaurant. I love the Pad thai, the Papaya salad, the bbq chicken sticks, the bbq corn on the cob.
Each day or evening the street vendors set up their little stalls. On the stalls they have either the noodles or rice that has been precooked and ready to be reheated or being kept hot over a boiling pan. They have hot-coal pots that sit neatly into the cart with the coal-rack just at the same level as the cart, keeping the hot coals below and out of the way of passing people and danger. On the cart they also have all the herbs, fruit or vegetables that they’ll use for making their particular dishes. They also usually have a glass cabinet that sits on top of the cart that holds the meat or other delicacy that is their particular thing to sell. It can be everything from pork, chicken, fish and other unknown meats to just noodles for Pad Thai. The bug vendors exclusively only serve bugs such as worms, scorpions, cockroaches and crickets.
The variety of fruit is enormous, dragon fruit, rambutan, lychee like fruit that taste a little like grapefruit but just a tad sweeter. Watermelon, pineapple, papaya, melon, apples, small local bananas that taste so good bbq'd, Farang fruit, and endless amount of new fruits to taste. Orange juice squeezed from the most delicious little fruit oranges I have ever tasted.
I don’t recognize half of the stuff they are selling. I do know that the round balls on the skewers can be anything, pork or chicken or a combination of stuff that I probably don’t want to know.
The rice or noodle sausages are interesting but I think the one time I tried it it wasn’t from the best vendor. Or else they are simply not my thing.
Banana leaves are used extensively as plates or coverings on rice baskets. They’re also used to make containers for coconut or other delicacies and they are also used as little dishes to cook quail eggs in over the hot coals. It’s surprising how versatile they are.
Leon’s stories about his time in Jail in Iraq are harrowing. He was locked up for 14 months in Iraq. Tortured by electricity. Not allowed to use toilet facilities so his toilet was his jail cell. His back is destroyed because of the torture and he never uncovers it in public.
He was evacuated from the Iraqi jail by the US Royal Marines in a helicoopter, after which it took him a year to recuperate from his experiences. The man’s indestructible. And that’s after he had encephalitis twice, 2 paralyzing strokes as a young, numerous other diseases from trips in Africa and other wild places. His legs still show the marks of the disease he picked up in Africa. Now he has been diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumour. It’s on the stem of his brain which means it’s inoperable. He’s had chemo twice already.
Round the town there are Akha women dressed in traditional tribes clothes selling their wares. People who are paralyzed don’t have wheelchairs or perhaps they are using the sympathy vote by not using it to get money. I can’t tell.
Craig the idealistic British student of Thai brought his teacher to the Guest House one evening. All I can say about his teacher is that he looks like he’s on so many drugs he never sleeps. His eyes are sunken deep into his face and the dark circles under his eyes are not just circles they are half moons. He’s dangerous but Craig just can’t see it. He’s also very rude and uncommunicative or social. I put it down to the fact that he’s strung out on something. He looks close to death. His dour countenance and personality only make him seem more sinister.
Transport here is all Sengthaw which I believe are left over small troop movement trucks from past wars. But I think they're made as a general means of transport now. A Sengthaw can be hailed at any point in it’s journey and you negotiate where you want to go and what the price is. Then you climb into the back of the truck which has wooden benches on both sides and is covered by a canopy top. The sides are open to the air. Anytime in your journey the driver may stop to pick up other passengers. The more people he can get into the truck the more money he will make on each trip.
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