Thailand Taster 2

OK, forget political protests... Can I just talk about food for a moment? Thailand has THE BEST FOOD EVER. Hands down, absolutely positively, THE best food on the planet. Plus, in my experience, the cheaper the food is, the more delicious -- I swear it's a goddamn mathematical equation. All of my favorite meals, favorite fruits, everything that has prompted me to use words like "delicious" and "phenomenal" and "WOW this is amazing," have cost me 20-60 baht (75 cents to about $1.75), and usually come from either a tiny, local eatery or outdoor market. Most of said meals, mind you, were also purchased by throwing caution to the winds and pointing dumbly to a vague multicolored mush, the contents of which I hadn't the foggiest. Tonight, for example: 1) Puke-green colored mash with red flecks and wormlike chunks folded in banana leaf; 2) banana leaf wrapped around something I assumed was rice, but in fact wasn't; 3) something that looked like noodles and vegetables in the dim light but I couldn't quite tell; 4) bag of soup and vegetable just because it looked like it had vegetable. (Note to the reader: My Thai is virtually nonexistent. I learned my numbers, thanks to Gabby, and have "hello" and "thank you" down pat, and I think I can manage the word for "how much," but even if I knew "what is that," I don't have the vocabulary to understand the answer. Therefore, all of these transactions are conducted with a big, mute smile and often a self-deprecating shrug.) Result: 1) aromatic, melty, salty, spicy patty of minced tiny fish with tiny disintegrating bones; 2) fiery hot noodles with a bit of chicken and a bit of ginger and a bit of lemongrass and a bit of magic, I have no idea still; 3) noodles that were also fiery but with totally different ingredients and flavor, the oily fantasticness of which I can't even begin to describe; 4) I didn't even have room left to eat this, but stewed greens in a salty, fragrant broth.... wish I had a fridge cause it sucks to waste even a few baht of all this wonder.

And now, shall I pluck a lychee from the tree outside my guesthouse, or should I stick to the miniature mangoes that grow outside the office where I'm volunteering and the incredible brown rice milk I've discovered at the 7-11?

There are also these lip-smackingly delicious snacks at the 7-11s and markets, what I've seen labeled in English on some of the packets as "broad beans;" in Thailand they are salty crispy nutty delights, a cross between a nut and a dried delicious mystery you might find the pale comparison of in an "oriental snack mix" in the bulk food section of a health food store. And my new favorite fruit, which I've only had once, on my birthday (you will appreciate this, Adam -- the closest thing to pifa I've had since Panama!): The Yamango, a name Gabby and I came up with to describe a brilliantly hued, mango-shaped and mango-colored fruit that is as close as you could possibly get to a fifty-fifty cross between a sweet potato and a mango. Not kidding. Tastes like a mango, has the sweetness and flavor of a mango, but has the rich, creamy, starchy, hearty, vitamin-A goodness of a sweet potato. It was extremely fortifying for my birthday bike ride up a mountain to Doi Suthep, that gorgeous Buddhist temple outside of Chiang Mai I mentioned. Or what about those small, yellow skinned, cherry-sized fruits that look rather like small plums or loquats but have four sour-sweet juicy pods inside, begging you, like most of the fruits here do, to slurp and suck and gnaw and dribble juice and morsels of peel all down your chin and hands?

The few established restaurants I've been to have been mediocre and/or, at least by Thai standards, insanely overpriced (i.e 6 to 9 US dollars for a meal? You must be CRAZY! That is more than I am paying for a night's lodging!). Today at lunch I ate an indescribable fish soup with minced fish and sticky rice. I was treated, so it was free, but even if I hadn't been, it would have cost me 30 baht (less than a dollar). As my dining companions agreed (Paul and Patricia, the co-founders of the Khom Loy Development Foundation, for whom I am randomly volunteering this week and loving it, it's like having a real job in Chiang Rai... but for a limited time... ahhhh.... and thank goodness for Paul's loan of this incredible bicycle -- I feel like a local, even the women who work at this guesthouse asked me "if I was going to work today"): you just can't describe this stuff. Fish balls and minced fish? With a plate of raw vegetables and rice? I mean, sure, sounds like you're getting fed, but this tiny, smoky hole-in-the-wall that only serves these two dishes (fish balls in soup and the minced fish) has produced perhaps the finest lunch I think I have ever had.