Chitraroff Blog Thai Entry
Bangkok, Thailand, Day 3
Sunday, 11/20
“Pom ben kroo wityasa” I’m a science teacher.
“Nang piya bahn patung khan” I’m a OBGYN nurse.
“Di-Ma” Good
“Mai-Di” Not Good
“Arroy-Mahk” Tasty
“Soo-Jahwd” Awesome
Wow, what an incredible day we had today. Upon exiting the hotel at 6:30 this morning I could instantly tell it was Saturday because there were vendor stalls everywhere, the streets were already bustling with activity and there was lots of noise. We had an early start so I went to the closest vendor and bought some pastries (triangular filo pastry with chicken and sauce inside, and steamed buns with minced pork like Dim-Sum style).
We met our cycling guides in the lobby of our hotel at 7am. There names are “Andy” and “Top”. We boarded a super styled-out van with an insane sound system and headed out of Bangkok for about a 1.5 hour drive. Our first stop of the day was a remote floating market called Thaka. The floating markets are historical markets where the vendors bring their goods from the surrounding environment via water canals. The vendors each have these long boats filled with fruits, vegetables, spices, meat, and cooking apparatus to make food on the spot. Today, we will visit 3 floating markets but this first one was our favorite because it wasn’t crowded and it was the most traditional (only human powered boats, not motor powered).
We sampled a little bit of every type of food offering that was available, but by far our favorite were these little half-hemisphere baked meat pies made on an Ebelskiver cast iron pan called “Kanhomkok”. They had some made with cracked little quail eggs and others made with a rice flour batter topped with shrimp, ham and other types of vegetables. The outsides were toasty and the insides were so flavorful and delicious. Kanhomkok is definitely a dish we will learn to prepare at home.
As part of our tour, we boarded a long boat and paddled through the canals to a coconut plantation. Their business here was all about extracting the sugary coconut milk from the coconut flowers. The job of collecting coconut nectar is probably the most labor intensive job I’ve ever seen. He climbs over 100 coconut trees 2x every day, collects the nectar, then slices 1 cm off the end of the flower to stimulate the flow. Once the nectar is collected, the wife boils it in these large baskets which then crystallizes into a sugar, then the coconut sugar is pressed into molds and sold at the market. The guide whispered to me that they have a black market of making coconut hooch. They package it in plastic water bottles and bury it on the property, selling it on the sly because it is illegal. I tried to get a bottle of the booze but was politely rejected.
Our bike tour started from the market and we rode about 24 miles through the coconut plantation countryside. Riding that far in high humidity without a chamois proved a bit troublesome to the nether regions. Can you say, “Swamp Crotch”? Ooooh, that ‘s disgusting! I know, I know. “Kor toht” (excuse me, sorry) I think our pace of riding surprised the guides and the boys kept pushing to go faster. After our first stop, they commented that we need to ride slower for the rest of the tour...we smiled. The rest of our bike ride included a stop at more floating markets, a tour of a coconut processing facility, a lunch stop at a riverside restaurant and a visit to a 300 year old Buddhist temple. The Buddhist temple was enshrouded in climbing vines and featured a sitting Buddha that you could walk around and apply gold foil to. Outside the temple, there was a traditional Thai ensemble playing music on unique instruments that we’ve never seen before.
The lunch stop was definitely a highlight because they served a 5 course spread of amazing Thai food including a chicken curry dish that would blow your socks off. “arroy-mahk” I guess that curry is not really a staple of central Thailand but more common in Northern Thailand. Riding the next 5 miles proved a bit difficult as we were pedaling with bloated bellies.
Traveling through the countryside was reminiscent of being in Latin America with the familiar smells, the burning coconut palms and husks, the lame and scruffy dogs and the partially constructed houses with raw rebar reaching skyward. It was a very nice respite from the bustling activity of downtown Bangkok. After we boarded a ferry to visit our last floating market we found a nice tea house along the river and ordered some Thai Iced teas and just watched the world go by. The one thing that surprised me is that the long boats here had exposed V8 engines with extremely long drive shafts that reached into the water. Apparently, Thailand does not have the same smog requirements as does California because the engines roared to life and spewed black smoke into the sky.
Our trip back to Bangkok took us about 2 hours due to heavy Saturday traffic. After arriving at our hotel room and putting down a cold one, I fell fast asleep. In fact, everyone was pretty wiped and we fell asleep by 8:00 fed by a couple of bananas that were left overs from our tour.
Tomorrow, we fly from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. The following day we will then shuttle to Chai Lai Orchid where we will interact with the elephants.
“sa-wat-dee krub” (goodbye),
~The Chitraroff Family
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