Bangkok Glutton

(Photo by Andrew Hiransomboon)

As I was waiting for my friend Andrew to show up in front of Emporium Suites, a bird flew head-on into a clear window, lured by the delights of Au Bon Pain, and fell to the pavement, twitching and bleeding before eventually lying still. I thought it might be a harbinger for our trip to Koh Kret, a man-made island that is home to a Mon community who settled there after the fall of Ayutthaya. It’s considered a short day trip from downtown but is a trip that neither I nor Andrew ever remembered making. Following the advice I took from a cursory Google search, we would take the boat to Nonthaburi from Saphan Thaksin and get a long tail boat from there to the island.

When Andrew arrived, of course he took a photo of the dead bird before we got on the Skytrain for the very easy trip to Saphan Thaksin. And that is where our plans started to fray. For if we had bothered to extend our Google search to the Chao Phraya Express schedule, we would have known that service is suspended on Sundays. Ha ha, some people pay me to do online research.

So we got on the first ferry we saw, the one to Icon Siam, and got a taxi from there. Thus began a trip that I imagine the three wise men must have taken to see the baby Jesus in his manger. Crossing the river multiple times, it was at least 200 baht before we got to Nonthaburi Pier, where we encountered a napping dog, a few Thai people with luggage milling around, and absolutely no ferry at all. A man selling fish food near the entrance offered to take us to the island on his long tail boat for 200 baht apiece (what is it with 200 baht?) After promptly agreeing, we joined a family of equally clueless Thais on a trip up the river that easily took about 30-40 minutes.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice trip, even if my butt was numb by the time we disembarked. Buoyed by promises that our driver Tow would wait for us for the three (!) hours he thought we would need, we were released into the wild and headed smack into the midst of a lively outdoor market in full swing. Set in the shadow of Pramaiyikawat Temple, the market offers everything you would expect of a Thai market: noodles, sweets, those Thai popsicles made out of soft drinks, and of course, fried things.

Some fried things are better than others. I am always partial to chicken of course, and some fish, even fish fins and bones. But the fried flower vendor we found near the water’s edge (Pa Oud, 081-632-8681) was the first of its kind either of us had found anywhere, offering more than a dozen varieties of varying levels of crunch and scrumptiousness. I was partial to the juicy yellow buds, the name of which I was told three times and promptly forgot each time.

(Photo by Andrew Hiransomboon)

The vendor was happy to serve us a number of different varieties that she thought we’d enjoy, and then because there was no seating, we took up space in front of the temple and made our hands sticky with the sweet chili sauce (bring wet wipes like Andrew).

The next stage of our traveling lunch was past the temple at the water’s edge, where a vendor promised us khao chae (summertime rice), even though we were well past the season. And then I remembered, yes, khao chae is a Mon dish, and of course we should have it while visiting Koh Kret.

Sitting down by the river with a cooling bowl of fragrant rice was all very well and good, but then we discovered the ferry from Wat Sanam Nuea, which is the normal way that everyone else who knows better comes to Koh Kret. Ha ha again.

Finally full, we thought we should probably try out what everyone was banging on about when it comes to this island: the Mon-style pottery. Many of the places that we passed have a kiln, even the seemingly abandoned ones. Because of a recent flood in October, many places had not been cleared up yet and we could still see marooned boats and bits of buildings along our walk. But the signage was up and stores were open, all offering examples of the distinctive terracotta-colored vessels with elaborate carvings on the top or side. I finally bought a trinket at the only store that offered us the chance to spin (or throw?) our own pottery.

Finally, we ended up where we would spend the rest of our three (!) hours on the island: Chit Beer. Open at 1pm, we arrived only a few minutes past 1 to find the place already half-packed. I ordered a white mango IPA and can tell you it is the best one, fragrant and wheaty like a Hoegaarden. Andrew ordered some other stuff that wasn’t as good as mine. We took a seat overlooking the main dining room floor next to the river and watched as the place filled up in spite of the occasionally very loud Thai rock music playing. It was a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

A few days later, Andrew sent me a holiday card.

This time next week, I will be in Seattle for the start of what should be 10 weeks in the US. As this will probably be my last post of 2021, happy holidays everyone, and here’s to a better year ahead of us.

When people ask me, “What do you do?”, I give varying answers depending on how honest I am feeling that day. Sometimes I say I am a “food writer”, which usually elicits raised eyebrows and a sense of bewilderment as to how someone could get a job like that. The real answer, of course, is that very few people can get a job like that, and in my case, only sporadically. So sometimes I tell them I am unemployed. To me, “food writer” and “unemployed” are frequently the same thing in that I eat food, I write about it, and I don’t get paid.

Very once in a while, I do get promises of getting paid. Which is why I dragged my friend Nong, who is always up for exploring corners of Thailand, south of the city to explore some floating markets — not the fun big floating markets guaranteed to yield things to do, eat and buy, no — but the smaller, lesser-known ones mainly patronized by actual Thai people. Markets like Bang Noi, made up of a series of vendors lining the Bangnoi canal and set up in the shadow of Amphawa. While the market is busiest during the waning and waxing moon, it’s open every weekend and offers enough action to warrant a visit from an inveterate market-goer and scourer of street food (me sometimes, Nong most times).

While the Tourism Authority of Thailand website recommends you visit the only roti shop in the market, we were not in the mood for something sweet. After trawling through every food vendor on one side of the canal (and buying more than a few woven baskets and pomelos that turned out to be flavorless), we stopped at a welcoming guay thiew moo tom yum (pork noodle with spicy lemongrass seasonings) vendor boasting a dining balcony set out over the river. We were early enough that we had the veranda all to ourselves, with a quiet and relaxing view of the disconcertingly large fish in the water.

But as we sat and ate, we noticed a persistent caterwaul across the canal from a rival noodle shop advertising guay thiew poo (crab noodles). No, it was not a cat, but a man, singing what appeared to be traditional Thai songs in between advertising various dishes at the eatery. It was when he mentioned hoy jor (Thai-Chinese crab-pork fritters) that I was compelled to brave the music and cross the bridge to the other side of the canal.

The fritters was not what I had been hoping for, greasy and accompanied by an aggressively sweet dipping sauce. But it was the scene before us that kept me riveted: a sort of karaoke club, made up of retired locals who took turns singing very old Thai songs for the assembled noodle shop throng. In between bites of our food, we ended up joining in with the egging on of various singers (as with any karaoke club, two people ultimately competed for the microphone) and clapping enthusiastically when they were done.

The noodles were okay, too.

And if I occasionally got shards of shell from the crab, so what? We also enjoyed something we hadn’t seen before, a plate of “purple pad thai” featuring noodles colored with dok anchan (butterfly pea) extract. After our pork noodle appetizers, both dishes were a lot for us to handle.

It was only when the singers began asking us for requests, and then asking us to sing, that we decided to pay our bill and get out of Dodge. Don’t let it be said that we would ever overstay our welcome. Besides, the only Thai song I know is “Sabai Sabai”. I had a feeling they didn’t have that one.

I went away last weekend to Koh Phi Phi, and although it was a wonderful trip surrounded by good friends and family in beautiful surroundings, I felt so stressed that I broke out in hives. I decided that I needed to spend the next week recuperating from my island vacation, holed up in my house and obsessively reading a romance fantasy book series that my friend Nat had gifted me for my birthday (it’s this series, in case you are curious. Don’t judge me! Actually, you can go ahead, I probably deserve it).

This is, to paraphrase probably every magazine writer ever, self-care at its finest. For me, of course. It’s true that my time would probably be better spent elsewhere, with more “nutritious” occupations, like taking care of my family, or taking a shower, or work. But would it be as all-encompassingly engrossing? No. Responsibilities suck. Nutrition is necessary, but taking a break is as much of a necessity. How many of us rush around, feeling exhausted all the time, never having fun except for the fleeting moments when we are gobbling up a handful of chocolate chips from the fridge in the middle of the night? (Too specific?) This is what the break does for us; it makes the nutritious parts of the day less of a slog. “Real Housewives of (insert here)” is a break. Doing yoga in the middle of the morning is a break. And reading something that will not help me in any way in my life might be the best break of all.

Well, except for eating roti sai mai, of course. This snack, which you can find sold by vendors next to the highway as you head down South, is basically a flatbread wrapped around spun sugar (aka cotton candy aka fairy floss), sometimes colored pink from roselle or purple from butterfly pea flower or green from pandan leaves. But even when the sugar is left to its OG beige, it remains a delight, especially when the roti comes fresh from the griddle like in Khlong Toey market. With the roti warm enough to risk melting the sugar inside, the appeal is undeniable, an unmitigated joy.

When I see it, I buy it. So in the middle of what is undoubtedly a “nutritious” task: finding appropriate bathroom tiles for an aggro 11-year-old on the cusp of full-on teendom, we rewarded ourselves with a trip to this vendor outside of Boonthavorn, bringing bags of the stuff on the way home after a morning spent doing emotional wrestling with our son.

Dare I say it: even now, in this time when my son’s one response to seeing my face is “What?!” and my husband makes me stressed enough to sprout hives, this one treat brings us all together again, for a minute, as we take a break from the day.