brought my camera to the market this time

After class today some of the other teachers and I hopped on motorbikes and visited the local market. I remembered to bring my camera this time, so I got a few shots of the stalls and their strange and wonderful offerings [..ensuring that there was no doubt remaining in anyone's mind there that I was a complete foreigner.]

One edge of the market, with everyone's motorbikes piled up on the left


A stall selling strange fried fishy, vegetable-y jelly

This stuff is probably made out of rice flour and water, i'm thinking, stirred into a gelatinous paste and then mixed up with onion, spices and an unidentifiable chopped green vegetable (the green ones) and some strange orange fishy cubes (the lighter ones). On the bottom right are the uncooked blobs and on the left are the jelly blobs after a good greasy deep fry. I bought three for about 40 cents but, i'm afraid to say, they were the first thing here that i've been unable to finish due to utter disgustingness. Fishy, leafy, slimy jelly dripping with fat - i just couldn't do it.

a vendor presenting her custard filled pumpkins

**6/13: this dessert is called fak thong sang-ka-ya

Storm rolling in over the market
we made it into a taxi just moments before the downpour

What I brought home...

squishy balls of coconut

inside of the squishy coconut ball

The outside of these spherical little treats is a rice flour dough (a lot like the outside of mochi ice cream - buy it at trader joe's) rolled in dried shredded coconut, and on the inside is a mixture of sugar and coconut, - has a sweet, almost burnt flavor.

Fresh lychee for 20 baht/kilo (about 50 USD cents)

Ripe, juicy mangoes -
bought a shopping bag full for 15 baht (40 cents, or so)

Paperthin green crepes filled with "hair"

This crispy filling which looks (and feels a bit) like the hair on my old American Girl doll is similar to cotton candy, but instead of being soft and artificially flavored, this stuff is more like straw made of nothing but sugar - it crunches as you first bite into it, then immediately dissolves. I ate about 10 of these. [they're especially good with some mango slices tucked inside]

Custard stuffed pumpkin

The custard inside reminds me of a stiffer, less smooth version of flan. It's sweet and creamy and is made, I assume with some squash puree. decadent and rich - I'm going to have to learn to make this stuff.