Farang Farang

Again with the street food. I know, I know. It’s been done to death almost but every time I see another video like this, I think, “I have to post it.” They show a similar concept differently. This one is light and almost humourous. When you think you must have seen the end of the food, sure enough there’s twice as much as you thought. It mimics the confusion a farang might have when first venturing out for lunch at the market. So many choices and nothing looks familiar.

Dim and Ernie Geefay of Thai Food Tonight bring us this video, which is a good and entertaining recipe for mango with sticky rice. If you have never had this Thai dessert, I command you to go out now to a Thai restaurant and order it. It’s one of my favorite Thai dishes – sweet and rich with the goodness of coconut and mango. It really doesn’t get much better than this.

This fun, short video shows how to deal with a minor but potentially frustrating aspect of life in Thailand – removing the elastic band from the baggies of food you buy at the market. You wouldn’t think it would be an issue at all but these things are everywhere, always ready to frustrate the unsuspecting farang.

Wiang Kum Kam is an ancient city near Chiang Mai, dating back to the Lanna kingdom and abandoned under the reign of King Mengrai. The city today consists of a few ancient Wats (Buddhist temples) and some ruins, largely built over, but as you can see in this video by Nanfeng Oranges, some of the ruins are still visible and some even rededicated as temples.

This shows a bit of the river taxi culture in Thailand. The medium-sized boats rush up and down the river, carrying passengers from one port to the next. Notice the guy who jumps off at his stop. It’s not a huge jump but it’s rare that the boats come completely to a halt and right up to the dock. Often they slow to a crawl and passengers jump on and off with ease.

This may not seem like much of a problem and usually it isn’t but imagine falling between the boat and the dock. That’s a whole lot of weight that could easily crush a person, so i guess it is a good thing the boats rarely actually dock. Also, the river is quite murky. As I mentioned before, the river is an all-purpose water resource, used for both supply and discharge, so to speak, and is full of yucky nutrient content. You don’t want to fall in there!

This may not look like much but it captures an interesting moment of everyday life in Thailand. Notice the smoke of the fire wafting on the breeze. Today, as I type this, it is about 95 degrees outside at my home in the Washington, DC area and it feels like my memories of Bangkok. I can’t imagine standing at a hot fire in the sun, cooking as people approached and having to stoke the coals all day long.

As I watched the two young women who are turned away from us, I wondered what they were buying at the store and what conversation was going on. As they turned and walked away, I wondered where they were going and whether they found what they wanted and how this small interaction fit into the larger story of their day or their lives. I love little snapshots of life like this.

Our friend in Thailand Frankie Bishop again, this time with a tour of a Thai supermarket. What’s really cool is that he gives and analysis of the price conversions, based on 30 baht per US dollar, which is about right for now. This is an upscale or medium-scale supermarket, so the same or equivalent products can often be found cheaper elsewhere, but this can give you a good idea about the range and cost of products available there.

The folks at Nanfeng Oranges made this video, which gives some interesting history about Thailand, while at the same time chronicling their trip to the country.

Chiang Mai has a very tourist-driven night bazaar with all the typical junk tourists buy as souvenirs. It’s cool to see once but there’s not a lot there of real interest. It’s mostly insistent merchants selling things you don’t need but can’t find at home.

One interesting section is an area with artists. This fellow can paint lovely pictures from a photograph. He is not alone in his art, as many artists there can accomplish such feats, in addition to creating realistic copies of masterpiece paintings by such greats as Van Gogh, Renoir and Monet, among others. Copying art is a big deal there but at least it allows artists to do what they like and what they are good at and get some great training by following the styles of some masters.