Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
Right on the heels of the Best Product Name of 2013 comes a damn fine contender for Best Marketing Campaign, but I forgot to take note of the brand of jeans using it. I’ll have to check it out next time.
UPDATE: The brand is Maximus Roma Jeans, who do’t have much of a web presence but apparently put a value of 110 baht on each of their individual asses.
I’m going to declare this the automatic winner for 2013, even though it’s only January. I found it for sale in the canned goods isle of our new Tesco Lotus megastore.
This is a can of vegetarian fried rice that I assume was supposed to be, “I Like Veggies.” It isn’t “I Like Veggies,” however, it’s “I LIKE VAGGIE.” That’s rude, crude, and totally the best product name of 2013.
I take quite a few photos of random riders; I can’t believe this is the first “generations” photo I’ve posted for seven years! The last one was in Vientiane.
The kids are having a blast. Incidentally, we are on the mighty river separating Thai and Laos, and it ain’t the Mississippi.
@Chiang Khan, Thailand
@ Surin Province, Thailand – New Year’s Eve
This big guy was attracted to the lights we leave on at night in our pavilion. I found him in a weakened state under our Japanese-style table in the morning. This is an extremely important food source in many Asian countries because of its strong odor, which it uses to attract mates and is used as a potent flavoring in various dipping sauces. This insect is also eaten whole in Thailand, usually deep fried and then stripped of legs and carapace.
Because of the perceived sexual behavior of this bug (just sitting around attracting females with its scent), the term maeng da has been adapted in Thai slang to mean something like a pimp or useless man who mooches off of women.
No, I did not eat it.
Fish and Fish Dishes of Laos is my go-to book on any freshwater creatures I see/catch/cook/eat here in SE Asia. It was written by famed British diplomat and historian, Alan Davidson, who included recipes used by the royal cook for the king of Laos. I only have a reprint of this book, which suits me just fine, since I’d feel guilty carrying around an original in the trunk of my car with a short bush pole and a battered old tackle box. I will find the original someday in a used book store in downtown Vientiane, I can just feel it.
I recently found a link to a related e-book (free) that might turn out to be interesting: The Fresh-Water Fishes of Siam, or Thailand. It was published posthumously by Hugh M. Smith, an American ichthyologist and powerful administrator in the Bureau of Fisheries, who spent time in Thailand as adviser to the Thailand fishery service from 1923-1935. I’ve only read a few random pages so far, and it’s pretty interesting.
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There are a couple more items I wanted to write about here, but my daughter is insisting that giving her my full attention is more important than going full fish nerd here at this particular time… Ah, well, it is her birthday, after all.
For the past year, we’ve been relying on a Cefiro specialist in Khon Kaen for repair of our Cefiro A33 (Infiniti I30), and we had noticed a huge pagoda just down the street several times. A few weeks ago, we took the kids along with us and decided to visit the pagoda after dropping off our car to fix leaky power steering hoses. It was a great trip to a temple truly rich in history, Wat Nongwang (aka Wat Kaen Nakorn)
I had these photos up on Facebook, but wanted them here as well.
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.
