Category: Thai Society/Culture

Mina’s Picnic

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Out of the blue, Mina told us that she and her best friend, on the last day of school (yesterday), had promised to have a picnic together today.
It was quite amusing to watch her put together a bag of snacks and water, and she even washed a plastic bowl and dried it carefully with a paper towel. But when it came to asking what time they were supposed to meet, she gave me a blank stare…
“She’ll just know, daddy, we’re best friends!”
Knowing which way this was heading, I asked if we all could go together. Mina agreed and we were soon hitting the McD’s drive thru and heading off to the park near her school for the picnic. Mina was of course devastated that her friend was not there and kept expecting her to show up throughout lunch. Afterward, she asked me why her friend hadn’t come.
I thought for a while and told her that you have to set a time when you want to meet somebody. Then she asked me if that’s why I’m always angry about people being late.

Alien eyestalks

I found these crazy-looking plants in a local wet market at the base of Phu Rua National park in Loei province yesterday afternoon. An old lady was selling plants from the roadside and forest (Loei people are apparently known to be formidable foragers) across from a stall displaying animal traps, snares, and freshly skinned rats.

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Nobody who has seen these photos (+/- a few hundred Thais in person and my wife’s Facebook) has ever tried these plants before. But the old lady told me how to prepare them, so we steamed them and ate with a green chili dip (the alternative was to make a soup).

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As it turns out, the bigger of the two types of plant (the alien eye stalk one) was better than the smaller iceplant-looking one. If you ate the “eyes” one at a time, they were sweet, but the more you put in your mouth, the more bitter they got. Strange. The iceplant-looking one tasted like… well, like how I imagine iceplant to taste (Thank you, thank you).

Mina loved the mini kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) I also picked up in that market in Loei.
Mina loved the mini kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) I also picked up in that market in Loei (a stringer of 3 sold for 10 Baht)

Although I associate bitter vegetables with poison for some reason (college flashbacks maybe?), we suffered no ill effects from eating these unknown plants, maybe (Nam had a funny stomach feeling possibly due to the cold she was getting over). Overall experience: Exciting in good and bad ways, anticlimactic.

Bicycle lane at work

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When the curb is lined with cars and long pickups (can you see the diagonal parking lines? ), you definitely do not want to hug that lane line too closely… I’ve backed in in this photo, but people usually park forward, and back out pretty much blind if there are cars on either side of them.
On a more positive note, that’s possibly the best bicycle drawn freehand with a paintbrush I’ve ever seen.

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Gang Wai

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Made from the tip of some mysterious plant which I’m too lazy to Google at the moment, the wai in gang wai is both seasonal and local, so it would probably sell out at Whole Foods back home. This particular iteration also contains white ants. It is one of the best bowls I have ever eaten. Coincidence? I think not. Insects make everything better, people (you eat parts of them every day anyway).

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