Me Farang
I should feel lost. Overwhelmed. Out of place. Culture-shocked. Something like that. Instead, I feel perfectly at home. Its the smell. The musty, moldy smell of tiled buildings that are perpetually steamy and damp. The sickly sweet smell of fetid water that wafts up from the canals. The clouds of roasty, acrid smoke that billow from the carts of street food vendors the locals descend upon at the end of the work day. Pineapple. Barbecued chicken, pork, fish, shrimp, squid, crab. Frying oil. Sweat. Lime. Gasoline. The thick, heady scent of a thousand flowers I can not name. Salt and sea. These are the smells of Phuket, and as each one washes over me I breathe deeply and settle into myself. I feel at home here.
Leaving the relative cool of the temple shadow, I perused the market. I breezed by handicrafts and clothes, cheap junk and trinkets. I was interested in food. I got my first look at fried bugs-- giant winged cockroaches, paper-clip sized brown crickets, little beetles whose tiny legs were fried clean off, squishy-looking grubs that puffed as they fried, and collapsed and wilted as they cooled in the evening sun. There were more fried meats than I could identify. Tiny banana pancakes folded and filled with jam, or honey, or bean paste. Hot donuts. A salad bar type arrangement with absolutely nothing I could name on it. Flies thronged with tourists to get to the food. Like the other farangs, I ate fried chicken from a stick. God how I love food on a stick. Almost as much as I love street food. I left the market, the sweet scent of spiral cut pineapple hanging heavy in the air.
On the way home, I found it. The holy grail of thai street food, the thing I had been looking for: Som Tam. Green papaya salad. My favorite food ever. Made by a salty old man and his equally salty wife, familiars of the flies, he ground dried shrimp and lime and chilies into a paste with a giant mortar and pestal. He liberally doused it with fish sauce. He added peanuts and tomatoes and long beans and shredded green papaya. He put in plenty of peanut oil. Then he tasted it with the same spoon he used to taste every previous customers' meal. Then he offered me a taste from the same spoon. How could I refuse? It was like manna from heaven...with fish sauce. As I wandered down the beachfront back toward my guesthouse, my salad in a plastic bag firmly in hand, I watched the sun set over the water. Lizards scurried down their burrows as I passed. And I realized this was the perfect day.
I walked past the many tourists who smelled of coconut oil and whiskey. Potato chips. Yeast-leavened bread. Perfume and fabric softener. Musky feet briefly freed of tennis shoes and loafers. Fruit-flavored gum and grape popsicles. They were just rousing themselves from their afternoon naps in the wake of afternoon drinking, in preparation for a night's partying. But I was headed home, the smell of green papaya salad and sweat thick in my nostrils. Happy.
I will leave you with pictures of my day, as I eat my green papaya salad and listen to the pounding rain of a tropical thunder storm that broke only a moment ago.
These little white dots in the sand are actually sea shells. Tiny, perfectly formed, white to translucent shells. Like clam shells the size of the head of a pin.
My som tam chef!
The cicadas' constant droning trill makes my eyelids heavy, and the sun seems to lay like a blanket across my shoulders. I want to stretch out in the sun and close my eyes and simply breathe it all in. I did just that today, if not quite literally. I began my day with an unexpectedly familiar touch: English tea and yoghurt, and I started what is quickly turning out to be an excellent book by a modern Thai author. I started slowly, savoring each moment from the outset.
Later, I would wander down deserted soi, exchanging smiles and pleasantries with shopkeepers bustling before the heat of the day set in. I bought a sun hat that, despite my best efforts, would not save me from sunburn. As I wandered, I ate passion fruit popsicles, sticky yellow drops trickling down my fingers. Eventually, I joined the tourists and made my way to the beach where, for 100 baht, I got a chaise lounge and an umbrella for the day. I floated and laughed in the beautiful blue waters of the Andaman sea, wishing for the first time in my life that the water were cooler. I drank my first Thai beer, which tasted smooth and sweet, even as it warmed in the tropical heat. And I acquired a flaming, patchy sunburn in spite of the umbrella, and the sunhat and sunblock I wore. As my skin prickled and pinked, I finally gave in and returned to my guesthouse for a shower and some air-conditioned shade.
My day was far from over though. As the jungle shadows lengthened into evening, I began the mile long walk to Wat Suwan Khiri Khet, the local Buddhist temple that hosts a weekly market. Looking around the outside of the temple, taking pictures, admiring simply the unfamiliarity of the place, I dripped sweat in a long dress and a large scarf wrapped round my shoulders. I dressed that way out of politeness-- this was a temple after all. I was feeling a bit foolish for my modesty, surrounded by scantily clad tourists going to the market, until I was approached by a saffron-robed monk and invited into the temple. His English was excellent. Despite already having seen my fill, it is very hard to refuse a monk. I felt less foolish sweating in my modest attire under his serene gaze, but I desperately wished I could wear his loose, shoulder-baring cotton wrap.
My day was far from over though. As the jungle shadows lengthened into evening, I began the mile long walk to Wat Suwan Khiri Khet, the local Buddhist temple that hosts a weekly market. Looking around the outside of the temple, taking pictures, admiring simply the unfamiliarity of the place, I dripped sweat in a long dress and a large scarf wrapped round my shoulders. I dressed that way out of politeness-- this was a temple after all. I was feeling a bit foolish for my modesty, surrounded by scantily clad tourists going to the market, until I was approached by a saffron-robed monk and invited into the temple. His English was excellent. Despite already having seen my fill, it is very hard to refuse a monk. I felt less foolish sweating in my modest attire under his serene gaze, but I desperately wished I could wear his loose, shoulder-baring cotton wrap.
Leaving the relative cool of the temple shadow, I perused the market. I breezed by handicrafts and clothes, cheap junk and trinkets. I was interested in food. I got my first look at fried bugs-- giant winged cockroaches, paper-clip sized brown crickets, little beetles whose tiny legs were fried clean off, squishy-looking grubs that puffed as they fried, and collapsed and wilted as they cooled in the evening sun. There were more fried meats than I could identify. Tiny banana pancakes folded and filled with jam, or honey, or bean paste. Hot donuts. A salad bar type arrangement with absolutely nothing I could name on it. Flies thronged with tourists to get to the food. Like the other farangs, I ate fried chicken from a stick. God how I love food on a stick. Almost as much as I love street food. I left the market, the sweet scent of spiral cut pineapple hanging heavy in the air.
On the way home, I found it. The holy grail of thai street food, the thing I had been looking for: Som Tam. Green papaya salad. My favorite food ever. Made by a salty old man and his equally salty wife, familiars of the flies, he ground dried shrimp and lime and chilies into a paste with a giant mortar and pestal. He liberally doused it with fish sauce. He added peanuts and tomatoes and long beans and shredded green papaya. He put in plenty of peanut oil. Then he tasted it with the same spoon he used to taste every previous customers' meal. Then he offered me a taste from the same spoon. How could I refuse? It was like manna from heaven...with fish sauce. As I wandered down the beachfront back toward my guesthouse, my salad in a plastic bag firmly in hand, I watched the sun set over the water. Lizards scurried down their burrows as I passed. And I realized this was the perfect day.
I walked past the many tourists who smelled of coconut oil and whiskey. Potato chips. Yeast-leavened bread. Perfume and fabric softener. Musky feet briefly freed of tennis shoes and loafers. Fruit-flavored gum and grape popsicles. They were just rousing themselves from their afternoon naps in the wake of afternoon drinking, in preparation for a night's partying. But I was headed home, the smell of green papaya salad and sweat thick in my nostrils. Happy.
I will leave you with pictures of my day, as I eat my green papaya salad and listen to the pounding rain of a tropical thunder storm that broke only a moment ago.
These little white dots in the sand are actually sea shells. Tiny, perfectly formed, white to translucent shells. Like clam shells the size of the head of a pin.
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