friend, market, desserts

After a frustrating exchange trying to buy credit for my mobile at the local 7-11 Friday night (it resulted in all of the employees, shoppers and several volunteers herded in from the street all speaking to me rapidly in Thai, taking my phone, pressing buttons..) I resolved to teach myself Thai.

After a lovely swim in the completely deserted pool, I spent the rest of Saturday morning cleaning the house, doing laundry, grading tests... all the while listening to and parroting this "learn thai" podcast i've discovered.. it's essentially just a series of simple audio thai instruction lessons The houses are so close together in the neighborhood here that I can tell when my neighbors are peeing and showering and shaving in the morning, so I'm confident these same neighbors could hear me, the crazy american, repeating phrases in thai like "turn left. turn left. turn left." and "yum, it is very delicious. yum, it is very delicious." all morning.

By mid afternoon i decided it was time to go try out my new linguistic skills, so I went out to visit the local market. I tried with varying success to use my the words I'd just learned but honestly, by the time I arrived at the first fruit stand I'd forgotten about 99% of them. nonetheless, I had good fun exploring and learning (then promptly forgetting) new words for the foods I encountered.

I think, as a foreigner, the key to success in the markets is assuming that everyone is laughing along with me. not at me. I meander through the maze of stands and the vendors and shoppers stare, giggle, talk amongst themselves or directly to me and i just grin hugely, and bow and say "sawadee kaa" (hello) and when they show me what they're making/selling I smile even bigger and rub my belly and say "arroi! arroi!" (delicious! delicious!) and laugh and bow and spew out a few words that I think may be thai (though from the reactions I get, i'm beginning to think they're not). no doubt i look incredibly ridiculous, i'm just hoping it's a sort of endearing ridiculous..

Still, after repeating the phrase over 50 times by now, I can't quite figure out the right way to say "what is this called?" so i normally just point to things and try to convey my question by wrinkling up my eyebrows, tilting my head to one side, shrugging my shoulders and raising my hands in the classic "huh?" pose. and it normally works. eventually. this is how the typical transaction pans out:

First, the person I'm talking to will laugh and say something to me in thai.

I then proceed to try to speak thai to her/him and that really gets them laughing.

So they call their friends and family over to watch the "farang" (foreigner) struggle to buy a kilo of limes

and all at once they start speaking to me in thai, confusing me all the more and resulting in further uproarious laughter...

at some point someone normally pushes a shy child from behind all the adults and they poke and prod until the child (surely taking some sort of a basic English course) slinks forward and says a few words to me in what is clearly a valiant attempt at English, but which I can't understand to save my life. I speak back in English, the child says a few more unintelligible words, I say "good! good! thank you! kap khun kaaa!" and the adults are satisfied. I get my bag of limes (or mangoes, or curry, or bag of mystery liquid, or, or, or) and move on to repeat the scene at the next stall.

During one of these transactions, a man came up to me and asked (in English!) if he could help me with anything. I leapt on the chance to have a someone fluent in Thai and English show me around the market and said, "Why, yes! Shall we go buy some mangoes?.." I had a fantastic afternoon learning thai words and phrases (all related to food. and let's be honest, that's the topic I'm really interested in here) and trying things I might not have otherwise discovered...

sweet, hot, mysterious dessert-in-a-bag

boua loy kai wan (kai wan= with syrup poached egg)



boua loy kai wan, again

I was skeptical, to say the least, when my new friend suggested I buy this bag of thick white/grey liquid, full of pale blue and yellow chunks and an egg bobbing around in the middle...
Turns out, it's fantastic - chewy, sticky little nubs made from glutinous rice flour and water, floating in sweet hot coconut milk with an egg (poached in a thick sugary syrup) floating on top. Ended up my favorite food of the day.

second mystery dessert bag:
chunks of pumpkin boiled in sweet coconut milk. self explanatory. a little too sickly sweet for my liking. didn't stop me from eating the entire bag after dinner with leftover rice, though.

My other favorite purchase of the day was a little tub of spicy, salty, tart and slightly sweet dried tamarind. The texture of these salt, sugar and chili flake/seed encrusted chunks is a bit like the meaty slabs of dried mango I buy at trader joe's back home. My friend, when he suggested I buy this stuff, told me he keeps some in his desk at work, "for the time I need to feel like a want sleep in bed but must work so I put it in my teeth and, wow! i can work until evening." a good description.

chewy, spicy tamarind snack

Now I'm stuffed, and headed to bed.