During the last 3+ months of my travel through India and Nepal I was staying at Airbnb’s of families who were cooking daily for the family and making regular trips to the markets for fresh food. I participated in purchasing food and in the preparation. I was lucky that the family had “staff” there to clean after the meals. The hospitality is a little different in the Airbnb culture here in Bangkok. People are renting their spaces and do not engage much with their guests, providing food and companionship as I have experienced in the past. Every culture has its different way of engaging with tourists (more on this later).
Everywhere I was staying, I made sure I experienced the street food, the most popular foods in the area and the local markets in all the places I was staying. I wanted to see the real cultural foods in the areas and learn how to cook them. In India, I learned what a “curry” is and the differences from the north and the south and why they are different. I learned how simple cooking Indian food really is and how complex I was making it when I was trying to teach myself back in the USA.
Now it’s time for Thailand. By the way… yes, I am seeing the city, some of the major attractions and some of the temples and I will write about them later. It’s just that the local traditions, food culture and Buddhism is way more interesting to me…
Woah! … Things are MUCH cleaner here. Street food is WAY more sanitary in this part of Asia than in India and Nepal. Cleanliness is next to godliness, oh yea! I’ve been eating like crazy since I’ve been here. Fresh fruit juices – Passion-fruit, orange, guava with NO sugar added YAYYY! Pad Thai every day. I want to learn “curry” from Thailand. Greed, Red, Yellow and Masaman curry and how those pastes are made and noodles… one of my favorite things. Where to learn?
I was learning from the locals in India and Nepal… and I want to learn from the locals here.
In Bangkok… in the big city… well… that’s not really happening. There are plenty of commercial and professional classes for big money but that’s not what I want to be doing. I do have a couple of leads here I’m following here in Bangkok though. I have a possible lead with someone who provides lunches for business people. Sort of like a personal chef. We shall see where that goes. I think that when I go up north in Chaing Mai there will be more opportunity. We shall see.
In the meantime, I’m visiting the markets. OH, MY, GOD… the food. The good, clean and absolutely gorgeous food. Watching them make fresh coconut milk. The live fish and prawns in tanks. All the Thai ingredients… the curry pastes, fruits/veg, rice noodles/papers… all fresh fresh fresh!!! WOW! I want to buy everything and cook. Yet, I’m not sure what to do with some of it. I’m trying to have patience and investigate where I can go and learn and to create what I want. Patience young Jedi!
I decided on Saturday to go to the Chatuchak weekend market. One of the largest markets in the world. It’s a little funny for me to go because I’m not really a shopper, I just wanted to see the hoopla. What I didn’t know what that across the street was Or Tor Kor, rated one of the best fresh markets in the world that I just stumbled across. After only two days in Thailand it was wonderful to walk through and see all the local items. The problem was that nobody spoke English. I spent about an hour trying to see who might speak English to no avail. On my way out of the market I stopped to look inside a shop and low and behold someone spoke English. That’s where I found my first possible contact to learn authentic thai cooking.
Yesterday (Sunday) was a day for the books. I met a Thai local who invited to take me to the morning market (6am) at Wat Klang Bang Kaew and the Lam Phaya floating market in Nakhon Pathom about a 60-90min drive from Bangkok. I was getting some really funny looks from the locals, being the only “white” person around… I was even looking for other “white westerners” and couldn’t find any except for a moment when one tour came through the floating market in the afternoon. I was getting what I wanted, a real local experience. I got some major lessons from a Thai local about Buddhism, why the locals buy live fish from the market and them release them back into the water, and some of the local foods. There was a little language barrier and we used google translate to try to bridge that gap.
Once again… all I wanted to do is buy everything and eat everything. If I ever wanted to have a bulimic eating disorder it was this day. From 6am it was food everything. Starting with a traditional bowl of Thai breakfast… porridge, meatballs, liver, poached egg, pork belly and something crispy on top. Thai charcuterie, sweets, and, yes, more pad thai. We took a boat ride down the river and it was narrated in Thai and because of the language barrier with my new friends, I did not get any of it. Oh well ????.
I had a few moments during this day where I felt I was in some kind of dreamland. To be in this place, with these people, being treated so kindly, around all of these fabulous foods… I had gone to heaven. Of all the countries I have visited in the world so far… I think I found the place I could easily live.
I’ve been here in Bangkok for 5 days and its now Christmas. I’m exhausted. My feet hurt from walking 10-15km a day. I need a different pair of walking shoes; my keens just aren’t cutting it for this amount of walking. And this morning I’m going to Khlong Toei, yet another morning market with my host family to purchase the food we will be cooking tonight for a traditional Thai Christmas dinner. Stay tuned…
Merry Christmas 2018!
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