Category: Thai Society/Culture

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.

Elephant Delivery Service

These guys are from one of the ethnic villages in Surin where the government has granted them license to keep elephants. As elephants can eat hundreds of kilos of food every day and because there are simply too many to perform at the “elephant village” tourist attractions, many elephants are taken to towns across Thailand, especially the northeast, to walk the roads and beg for money for “food” – the handlers sell 3 baht bags of sugarcane or bananas for 20 baht to people along the way (people sitting outside of restaurants or pubs are popular targets). This practice has become so lucrative that we often hear of the villages renting elephants out for big sums of money, hopefully to people that know how to keep them safe and healthy.

The small elephant shown above looked hungry and thirsty, and Max was happy to oblige.

Nok Krata (Thai Jungle Quail)

Note: The words “Thai” and “Jungle” were included as descriptors in the title and are probably not part of their real name (which eludes my lazy Googling at this point in time). Rather, I found them for sale at a roadside market stall surrounded by dense Thai jungle in a town called Koi Mek, in Kalasin province, on my way home from Nong Khai a couple months ago.

They were about 60 baht (less than $2) a piece, and the old lady who sold them to me said they were caught that morning. I took the birds and chased Max and Mina around with them, then gave them to our nanny to have her older sister cook at home. The next day, she brought a Thai basil stir fry prepared in my least favorite way – chopped in small pieces, bones and all – which was still mighty tasty if not entirely edible.