Category: Photos

Culinary Constant

Larb goi (a local steak tartare) with Leo beer, breakfast of champions.

 

Grilled rat tail, overcooked jungle fowl, and Leo beer.

 

When you bring your own bottle to Kaew Kant, the most happening local live house, they mark the bottle with this sticker (it’s a bottle of Clan Gold, which I haven’t covered here yet).

 

I had these photos up on Facebook, but wanted them here as well.

Khon Kaen to Sarakham

We came back from KK yesterday after staying at the Rachawadee Resort near the airport for one night. We had stuff to do on Saturday (power steering line replacement) and early Sunday morning (dentist for mommy/Mina) as well, so it made sense to stay in Khon Kaen instead of coming back since the price for accommodations is cheaper than gasoline (the non-ethanol-adulterated version of which is known in Thailand as “benzine” from the German “Benzin”, not to be confused with “benzene“). Besides, we had always wanted to see the resort — it was nice with a good pool, and photos will be forthcoming pending discovery of our digicam’s charger.

Anyway, here are some shots from the way home from Khon Kaen on the same route we took, although about a month earlier, when I was playing with an old 70-200 slide zoom.

The Jesus is strong in this one. Actually, we have a Japanese Jehovah’s Witness teaching at our Thai university, so maybe raughing Jesus Fish isn’t so rare here.
KHON KAEN backwards is NEAK NOHK, which sounds like a Cambodean border town where “Auntie” Tina Turner reigns supreme in post-apocalyptic Soka Gakkaian glory.
A fish farm. There are several along this stretch, but this one has the best signage.
This buffalo head sign can be seen along highways in this region, but infrequently. It indicates sale of seed pods shaped like a buffalo’s head containing dry, flavorless seeds that must be an acquired taste, although I’ve never found anyone who says they actually like them. Possibly the most unpopular natural food item to sell in Thailand.

In the tank: Notopterus Notopterus, Oxyeleotris Marmoratus, and Hypostomus Plecostomus

Max and Mina have interesting fish in their aquarium (a real one, not the ghettoquarium) – besides Pleco, the armored catfish from South America (algae eater Hypostomus plecostomus), who came with the tank from my in-laws, I decided to only stock native fish.

The first inhabitants were 5 marbled sand gobies (Oxyeleotris marmoratus) that the nanny brought from her bi-annual fish pond draining. These are actually one of the most farmed fish in SE Asia and are good eating, but I requested them specifically because I’ve seen how hardy they are – before we had an aquarium, the nanny brought a goby (local name: pla boo) that escaped from its bucket and lay on our tile floor overnight and survived. I now know that was possible because the marble goby oxyeleotris marmoratus activates hepatic glutamine synthetase and detoxifies ammonia to glutamine during air exposure (thank you internet and Singaporean fish nerds)

The second inhabitant was a bronze featherback (Notopterus notopterus) that the nanny’s husband caught in the pond across the street from our house, perhaps nine inches long. Watching a featherback swim, with its long underfin undulating, is like watching a dinosaur – almost scary on a primal level.

Unfortunately, this fish was kind of an asshole and would constantly try and start shit with the other fish in the tank. The thing is, it’s mouth is small and doesn’t have teeth, so it can’t really do any damage, it would just hone in on one of the other fish and peck at it for a while. Pleco, in particular, hated this guy. They would have these long, drawn-out fights with no conclusion because neither had the right kind of mouth to do damage with – I just recently read that Plecos can attach themselves to larger fish, but it never happened with mine AFAIK. In the end, I decided to give the other fish a break and threw the featherback back into the pond after snapping some photos.