Category: Around Mahasarakham

Babyblade CBR fun

My friend Ben just bought a used 2011 Honda CBR250R w/ABS in Pattaya and brought it back to Sarakham. I helped him out a little with the details of the transaction and choice of bike, so of course, I got to try it out. Perhaps today wasn’t the best day since it was drizzling and quite windy out on the highway, but that did not deter us.

Honda-CBR250R

The bike was lighter and more refined than I expected – I would say it’s more tame than beast. The single-cylinder engine is very smooth and steady, and the bike is very quiet with the stock exhaust (even if it is wrapped with a faux carbon fiber sticker – which according to the internet, grants about 3 extra hp). In my mind, the CBR 150 is more fun at lower speeds, but the 250 is great for cruising on the highway (and probably even more fun when the wind isn’t kicking grit into your face at high speed).

Until this point, I had been riding the CBR around town and Ben was following on my scooter. When we stopped, Ben said he wanted he wanted to ride bitch to “see how girls felt,” so he got on the back and I pretended to be a twenty-something French guy on a glorious circuit around the Maha Sarakham bypass. Getting into the role of a racer-playboy, I recommended embedding a switch-activated vibrator in the rear seat cushion for increased high-speed thrills. For his part as a scared young Thai girl, Ben kept saying, “slow down, Ajarn, slow down!” (I was actually riding very slowly since I’m no longer invincibly young).

It was a lot of fun.

Maha Sarakham Restaurant Review – Little Tokyo

Went to a new Japanese restaurant opening today with Tong. It wasn’t crowded at all, and my first impression was bad because it reeked of fresh paint inside.

I don’t want to go into much detail, because we only had a few dishes, but what we did have was enough to lure me back again to try some other things.

The interior is neatly if unimaginatively decorated,and the coolers work well.
The interior is neatly if unimaginatively decorated,and the coolers work well.
"Little Ramen" - actually kinda full-sized and with decent broth and good toppings, but the noodles were way overcooked. 5/10.
“Little Ramen” – actually kinda full-sized and with decent broth and good toppings, but the noodles were way overcooked. 5/10.
Katsu and Omurice - Bleh katsu and not really omurice, but tasty and filling for 49 baht. 7/10.
Katsu and Omurice – Bleh katsu and not really omurice, but tasty and filling for 49 baht. 7/10.
Tom Yum Gyoza - the best dish we had by far. 8/10.
Tom Yam Gyoza – the best dish we had by far. 8/10.

Menu highlights outside.

Front view of the restaurant; fucking awesome reflection.
Front view of the restaurant; fucking awesome reflection.

Overall, I give this place a 6/10 (so far) – worth going to check out. The food had problems, but hopefully they will be ironed out soon.

Strengths: Reasonably priced (much cheaper than Japanese restaurants in Sermthai Complex). Has at least a couple strong dishes; soup gyoza is pretty good (tried two dishes with it).

Weaknesses: Smells of paint. Bad noodles (unforgivable for Japanese ramen). Bad sushi (not pictured above). Not much parking. Iced green tea is tooth-dissolvingly sweet. Hot tea is cheap and flavorless.

The place is located next to the copy shop on the corner of Highway 208 and Nakorn Sawan Soi 18 (the street that goes down to N&N 2 and Med Side) next to the copy shop.

http://goo.gl/maps/4E53T

Golden Shower at New City Hall, Maha Sarakham

C. fistula - binomial nomenclature courtesy of the man himself, Carl Linnaeus
C. fistula – binomial nomenclature courtesy of the man himself, Carl Linnaeus

 

The Rachapreuk tree has naughty names (only for perverted minds?) in English (golden shower tree), Latin (Cassia fistula), Spanish (caña fistula), and translated Chinese (sausage tree). It’s name in Ayurvedic medicine is aragvadha, or “disease killer,” and it’s the national Flower of Thailand as well as the state flower of Kerala, India. It blooms at the hottest time of year here in Thailand, and I think serious modern research into its medicinal properties is long overdue.

Keeping termite nests

A couple months back, we visited a small restaurant in neighboring Kosum Phisai, on one of the two main routes to Khon Kaen from Maha Sarakham. This place advertises along the highway as serving spaghetti and pork steak, the local iterations of which are invariably disappointing… but I bever order that crap anyway, so it didn’t really bother me. What did bother me was what I found on the bathroom wall:

20121126various-DHD006
Do Not Disturb!

20121126various-DHD007

Nam reported that the same could be found in the women’s restroom as well (the man’s and women’s were separated by a wall, so it was probably connected through cracks or something.

This was one of the more disturbing sights at a restaurant last year, somebody caring for the termite nests.

 

Hi-so in Sarakham – New Sermthai Complex, Maha Sarakham

Lunch @ Oishi Ramen
Lunch @ Oishi Ramen
New SF Cinema has 5 or 6 theaters, 2 in SONY 3D
Some famous Thai TV dude
Some famous Thai TV dude

——–

Three years ago, when we moved into this house, many people doubted my choice of location. I simply told them that it would be a few years until this became the new center of Maha Sarakham. Our house was one of the first up around here and, back then, was surrounded by nothing. Now there are hundreds of houses that have sprung up all around us, a new Big C supercenter, dozens of new stores and restaurants, and as of today, a huge new shopping mall.

The oldest shopping center/minimall in Mahasarakham is Sermthai plaza, located next to the canal in the old downtown district – this year is its 55th year of operation. It was built by a very wealthy family who were some of the original settlers here, when it was literally a jungle. I knew when we bought this house that the land originally belonged to this family. It made sense that if they were going to invest in big projects, the area around our house was the logical place to do it. Sure, some swampy land had to be filled in, but landfill is cheap for rich people who can shuffle dirt from worthless pieces of land to valuable ones. So I stand vindicated today, because they have just opened the largest mall in a 60 kilometer radius just across the street from the back entrance to my neighborhood – a five or ten minute walk. Hopefully, this further increases the land value of this area. Thank you, rich people, for sharing the wealth with us peasants – and thank you for making a decent ramen shop ten minutes from my house.

Walking around the new Sermthai Complex on opening day, two things really stand out:

Maha Sarakham really is the definition of a university town. I have heard there are ten thousand teachers at the various schools and universities here, and I’m guessing the number of students may be ten times that. Many businesses really attract a crowd by offering student memberships and discounts, and many businesses just close during long holiday periods – two whole months during the summer break – because the population of the city is seemingly cut by half as students go back home. For certain businesses that depend on students for income, the long breaks simply are not sustainable. Dormitory room rates near the universities discount their rates by half during these periods. So this new mall will hopefully be a great place to visit during the long school breaks.

Also, people watching at the new Sermthai today was just a study in contrast – I’ve never seen so many low-so people in such a hi-so place (I count myself as an honorary low-so person); like Beverly Hillbillies on some grand scale, set in SE Asia. Awesome.

Monsoon Season

A big storm blew through here yesterday… At one point, it was gusting as hard as I’ve ever seen it. The reeds at the edge of the pond were blowing sideways, and the doors of the house seemed unsure of whether to blow in or out. The babies were sleeping at the time, and stayed that way even though the thunder seemed to boom right over us and the lightning tripped the Saf-T-Cut twice. Nam was still at work, and the street in front of our house flooded a bit, but not as bad as last time.

The storm blew over and the sun came out. The babies eventually woke up and Max must have remembered the floods from last year since he asked me to go get him a fish. Neither the pond nor the storm drains were overflowing this time, so there weren’t any fish.

I had to run errands on the other side of town and saw that the storm had blown down a huge highway sign right in front of our neighborhood. I hope nobody got hurt. The rear entrance was flooded again, like last time, and for a while it was a bit too deep to drive a car or motorcycle through, although pickups were making it through just fine.

If anybody stupid enough to drive through that storm was going under this sign when the telephone pole-sized steel legs bent in half, they either crapped their pants or didn't even see how close they came to being squashed because it was impossible to see or hear anything.
They closed off one side of the highway to pull down the sign with crane trucks. This was the only way to get into my neighborhood, though, because the rear entrance was still flooded.
This doggy found a juicy treat.

It rained again hard today, which made us scramble around to get things done (Nam’s car is in Khon Kaen getting resprayed so we’re doing it all in the Crown and with the help of my <150cc bike fleet), but it’s all good now.