Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
I am a huge fan of stewed beef, and I love the texture of stewed meats in general. Nam’s friend from middle school opened a noodle shop near her university and we visited a while back.
It was so good. I’m also loving the camera on this used Pixel 6. I was shocked to find out that a local phone accessory shop could cut me a hydrogel screen film with their cutting machine. It had the specs for my phone in its memory, along with thousands of other models I could see.
Maps Link: Racha Stewed Beef
Weather and schedule permitting, I walk around this area every day around sunset.
I caught a double rainbow framing the “medieval church” convention center last week:
A stall selling wigs at Robinson Roi Et shopping mall. It must be noted that the number of the stall is also shorthand for the name of the city, Roi Et, which means “a hundred and one.”
According to Wikipedia:
The name of the province literally means ‘one hundred and one’ (Thai: ร้อยเอ็ด; RTGS: roi et ). Correctly, the number should be “eleven” (Thai: สิบเอ็ด; RTGS: sip et ), as the province was named after its eleven ancient gates built for its eleven vassal states. In ancient times, the number “eleven” was written “๑๐๑” (101) and the provincial name was written accordingly. Later, people took “๑๐๑” to mean ‘one hundred and one’ and have since then called it “Roi Et”.[4]
“Roi Et” is also jokingly called “LA” by the locals.
Pat Prik Gang Moo Krob Khai Dao – Red Curry Stir Fry with Crispy Pork Topped w/Fried Egg (AKA Star Egg) at a short order joint between my office at Rajabhat Maha Sarakham University and the National Sports University down the street. They serve the highest form of Pad Thai in the known universe, topped with crispy pork, only available at a couple restaurants I’ve ever seen.
I guess you could say this was taken at our new (side job) workplace. Mina and I have been brought on as facilitators for Chit Chat Corner, a program sponsored by the American Embassy in Bangkok aimed at providing an English language conversation space for the community at Maha Sarakham University’s American Corner.
I’ve been doing 3km walks capped with short jogs here every day recently… It’s hard for me to get out the door to exercise if I skip days, so it’s easier just to get in the habit of going every day. So considering side jobs in the evening (the only realistic time to exercise is wither before or after it gets sunny) and the weather (it’s currently thunderstorm season), I probably average 6 days/week right now. Although I did a three week stint without a day off, which felt like a big deal.
Nam and I went on a nice trip to pick up Mina in WA and for Nam to see Max after four years of COVID lockdown/US visa processing. The last long leg of our trip saw us dropped this bus stop in between the two sides of Maha Sarakham city at dawn.
As it turns out, we aren’t moving back to the states just now.
Mina has come back to Thailand; she missed her friends here.
I have many tales to tell.
No photos here, just a link to a 13 year old post I updated about some local lizard species which are called the same thing in Thai/Isan languages: กะปอม/กิ้งก่า), but ended up being distinct species with different common names: Oriental garden lizard (Calotes versicolor) vs. Calotes mystaceus (the Indo-Chinese forest lizard).
For the sake of posterity, I hereby shorten their names to Bob(s) and Dan(s). Bobs are the red ones, Dans are the blue ones (did you know that roughly 75% of people on social media would have used apostrophes to indicate plurality in that sentence?)
Update: Uh oh, there are Emmas (green when mating) in Thailand as well: Calotes emma
Further update: There are also some references to a species called Calotes goetzi which is treated as a separate species on some pages, but is also reported to have replaced Calotes mystaceus (who I just call Dan[s]) altogether according to this page, which also says that Dan is called กิ้งก่าหัวสีฟ้า (ging ga hua si faa) in Thai. This literally means the “gin ga (forest lizard) with a blue head,” which I immediately think is weird, because a much larger area than just the head turns blue, and also, every local I’ve ever talked to has just called it a “blue forest lizard” in Thai – there is no reason to be more specific, especially when it’s less accurate.
The whole country is flooding from the heavy rains of the past week (a result of Typhoon Noru which had a completely different name in the heavily ravaged Philippines), but we are safe so far. Usually, our neighborhood floods when there’s heavy rains, but the drainage systems just in our immediate area have worked well this time around. There’s supposed to be more opening of floodgates upriver (mainly at the Ubolrat Dam in Khon Kaen) in the coming week, so it may get worse. For now, there are a lot of volunteers filling sandbags in preparation of more rain and rising rivers. My students coworkers haven’t lost their sense of humor, either.
Our beloved cowboy hairstylist has passed from natural causes. He was a local philanthropist, often offering free cuts at pubs along the canal and various festivals in town. I just loved him because he was a hardcore cowboy that popped up here and there quite often.
All four of us have had our hair cut by him many times over the years. He was a real pro, and will be missed.
