The Thai Pirate - Thai Blog and Travel Stories

The Thai Pirate AKA The Fat Farang

Hindsight is 20/20. I could have happily called my blog 'The Fat Farang' and posted all about Thai food, I like it so much.

Nevertheless, it's always nice to eat the things you've been brought up on back in the old South end of the Sea.  In Thai towns and built up areas, its not usually that hard to find farang food, but this gets gradually harder the more rural you go (...impossible even, when you hit tracts of dirt road, road side shacks / jungle etc).

If you want to get your unwholesome fix of pizza, burger, sandwich, ham egg and chips etc, you would need to get to a medium-to-large sized town, who cater to such awful taste.

I generally mix my Thai food intake with some farang food, I reckon it's about 70/30. 70 percent Thai, 30 percent farang. I cook farang stuff at home, mash potatoes are always a funny one, I think they are a bit of an oddity to Thai's, who pretend that they look delicious, but make various excuses for not eating.

You see, bland food and the Thai palate just don't mix. Thai's just don't taste anything in most farang food cases. It's fine, I can understand why they are not keen. Before I got used to hot spicy food, I couldn't go near most of Sutiya's dishes, they were just too hot. Nowadays I scoff chillis and sniff hot sauce with the best of the Thai iron mouths.

I do get amused with those Thai food 'purists' (always a farang), who act like they have never enjoyed a plate of chips. I think eating and appreciating well cooked bland English food is just as big and clever as appreciating trendy Thai spicy cuisine. I think this because I miss bland food. I miss bread and butter, cheese sandwiches, cornish pasties, hash browns, those crappy packet steak pasties from a petrol garage, that are full of cancer and cack (probably).

I never even used to eat most of these things in England, now I MISS them.

I guess if you can't have something etc.

These days I'm actively hunting down and cooking more and more old dishes from home, and these are becoming increasingly more accomplished as I find out where to buy things. Make no mistake, I love Thai grub, but it's much better to have the option, innit.

Anyway, the picture above is probably my favourite little farang food fix. A club sandwich, with cheese, egg, chicken, ham, tomato, onion and some salad, with chips. And if I'm really fat farang, I'll stick an omelette on top (yum).

Doesn't sound like (and isn't) Michelin star food, but whilst abroad, sometimes one needs to get a good old farang food fix, just to recharge the old bland batteries, and to remember that, crappy bland food will always have a place in my flabby, cholesterol-enriched heart.

Mai chai poochai !

A friend recently sent me this pop video following a recent post I did of the G-Tech mobile phone ads. It features the famous ladyboy Nong Poi in her popular music video 'Mai Chai Poochai' (I'm not a man).

(Warning: This video may leave red blooded males frightened and confused).

Late night hospital pig out

Mere was a bit unwell last week, she had a spell of flu which made her quite ill, so she booked herself into the local hospital in Suphanburi for a day or 2 just to get checked up.

The first evening the girls (and me) turned up en masse for a late night feast with Mare. Included were Thai sausage, lots of green leafy veg, some spring onion, these rice noodle 'wrap' type things and various mouth blowing hot sauces, enough to scare off any disease.

To drink, the girls bought along a plastic screw top container, quite large, full of ice and some purple liquid that tastes just the same as very lightly sweetened water. We all shared a tin cantina, glugging away to dampen down the heat of the sauce, carelessly making sure everyone got in on the germ action.

From outside the hospital room it must have sounded like a party, the amount of noise everyone made, chatting away and scoffing.

Whoever or whatever it was that informed me that the Thai's are a shy retiring bunch is mis-informed. Clearly they haven't got anywhere near a frenzy of feeding Thai girls, who shout at each other from two paces, laughing away, mouths full....

Things to do in Thailand (1) - Amphawa Boat Trip

Having sussed the market and been beaten up in a Thai massage, Sutiya and I decided to take one of the little boat tours on offer.

Our destination wasn't specific, the captain just gave us a local 'tour' of a few close by destinations. The boat makes two or three stops along the huge river, and you get the chance to wander around a couple of local points of interest (if possible, take a Thai person with, unless you speak and read Thai) plus, you get the opportunity to chill out on the boat and take in the atmos.

Couple of very strange places we visited, the two that stand out were the first boat stop, which after a little walking we came across dozens of mock Thai warriors, who stand in pairs and all are locked in some kind of mortal muay thai / martial arts battle. Not sure of their significance, I guess the models show Thai combatant 'trainees' how to form the various shapes and moves required whilst partaking in a bit of 'ass kicking', so possibly they are training models of some sort........

And the second (sorry I don't know the names) was towards the end of the tour, the place housed a little market, beyond which lay a massive tree (it is, in fact cleverly made to look like a tree, but is actually a building 'disguised' by lots of creepers and climber plants which are thick enough they look like branches).

Inside the tree building is a large old Buddha, and visitors are free to walk up steps behind the Buddha and place gold leaf and say prayers etc.

Different boat tours drop you off at different points, and there are lots of other destinations, so if you want to be more specific check where you are heading with the captain.

It's nice sitting on the boat, looking at the river houses en route and spotting various lizards and wildlife lurking in the undergrowth and the river. The boat trip is great way to 'take a weight off', and whilst speeding along the captain is quite likely to whip up some wind and water, so it's a lovely cool oasis away from the heat on land.

I think we paid 100 baht each for an hour and a half boat ride, three stops, so not too terrible, and well worth it just for the 'chill' factor.

Places to visit in Thailand 13 - Amphawa Floating Market

If you're looking for an authentic floating market (it's not included in any of the guidebooks I've seen) and on a manageable scale (i.e its not too large to walk the whole market in the heat), Amphawa is the floating market for you.

Located in the coastal province of Samut Songkhram (the home of the first Siamese twins), it is close to Bangkok, and the market itself is next to the King Rama II memorial park, so you can spend your time visiting both of these great locations (old post on King Rama II park here).

A little floating market history - Bangkok, prior to becoming the seat of governance in 1782, was a small but popular trading post that ships would stop by en route to Ayutthaya. Due to its many networks of canals, it quickly became known amongst Western visitors as the 'Venice of the East'.

Change began in the 1950's after WWII, when the population began to expand and grow outwards from the centre of the Chao Phraya river, bringing business centres, housing and roads to what were previously farming fields and rice paddies.

Consequently, this spread also meant that many of Bangkok's canals had to be filled in.

But thankfully many floating markets inside and on the outskirts of the capital remain, and the Amphawa market is the perfect size for visitors to have an interesting walk up and down on the shaded wooden promenades that run on either side of the river, crammed with various gifts and offerings on land as well as in the water stalls.

There are also various river trips on offer that are very reasonably priced and which run to several locations outside of the market tributary. The boat drivers like to put their foot down, so if you find yourself sitting at the front of a boat trip then prepare to get a little wet.

We decided to take one of these tours, more on that in the next post, but as we had spare time I decided to embark on my first full body Thai massage.

I am not especially over confident when it comes to strangers kneading and squeezing me, but it seemed the 'perfect' time, as Sutiya was keen to have a foot massage, and as we had a couple of hours to kill it fitted nicely with our schedule.

To be honest, it didn't go too well, mostly my fault. I had no idea I would be embarking on my first Thai massage and hadn't dressed appropriately (I was wearing a collar shirt and trousers). In hindsight, much better to wear something looser and less formal, normal t-shirt and shorts fit the bill perfectly.

So this Thai guy comes out, he's a strong looking fella, as wide as he is tall, and he goes to work, pulling my arms forward and out, clamping his hands on my knees, spinning me over and sticking his knee in my back etc. The whole massage lasted about an hour, and was more like a work out than a period of relaxation.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't unpleasant, and afterwards, I did have a certain 'spring' in my step (he had, after all, folded my knees up under me, and sat on them). But during the hour this strong Thai bloke pulls, pushes and slaps you, be prepared to blurt out the odd 'urrrrgh' and 'aarrrghhhh'.

Must be great for your circulation though. I felt like one of those squeezy stress toys they hand to women giving birth.

Whilst I was being 'beaten up', I remember looking over at Sutiya, who was sitting across from me in the same room, fast asleep, as she had her feet massaged and thinking 'maybe I will go for that next time'.

Afterwards we took a little boat tour which will post on next.