Sticky rice is twice as nice

Thai food: It’s difficult to know where to start. I honestly think I might be in love. If I could feasibly bring anything back as a gift for my family, it would, without doubt, be almost every culinary delight I have experienced these last two months. Unfortunately, baggage restrictions and airline policy are probably going to make this a bit problematic, so I keep telling myself I’m eating for five. I don’t think I’ll ever forget my mentor’s look of utter delight when I broke the news that I had gained two kilos in these seven weeks under her guidance.

The generosity of my fellow teachers at Piyabut School has been unbelievable. Seven thirty; a standard morning at the Piyabut School gate… bleary- eyed and sweating in the thirty five degree heat, I ‘Sawasdee Ka’ – ed the pupils as they arrived at school, and casually made conversation with two non- English speaking teachers. The conversation turned to the fruit stall across the street, as the Thai teachers tried to ascertain which of the fruits one could eat in England and which were exclusively Thai. I’m not sure if it was the language barrier or my early- morning enthusiasm, but somewhere along the line, ‘I’ve tried Mangosteen. It’s nice’ got mis-translated from lukewarm appreciation into wild declarations of love and devotion to the sweet, sweet fruit, similar to garlic in its interior appearance.  Sure enough, even before nine am, five kilos of Mangosteen had materialised on my desk. A mere four days later, a different teacher brought me another bag full, accompanied by the ominous words ‘I heard you like Mangosteen’. 

5 kilos of Mangosteen... and counting 

Lesson learnt: mentioning that you like a particular type of food acts as a guarantee that never again in Thailand will you go another day without eating it.

In all fairness though, I do really like Mangosteen.

Unsurprisingly, another staple part of my diet here is rice. I still find it had to understand how it can be pleasant to routinely eat rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner… Or how the Thai people are so thin, right across the country- really, it is a mystery. Fortunately, Katherine managed to negotiate cereal for breakfast, so that’s been quite nice. The mentors often take us out for lunch, or we eat at the school canteen. Probably my favourite Thai dish is Som Tam (Papaya Salad), and my favourite fruit here is Som Or (Pomelo), but honestly, everything is just amazing.

Signature dish: Gai Pad Thai

SO MUCH FOOD!!

Due to the fact that we are essentially in the middle of nowhere, all the menus here are in Thai, which makes reading them quite difficult. The five of us ETAs go out for dinner most nights and we’ve grown accustomed to just pointing at various characters and pictures. At first, a game of charades seemed to precede almost every meal, but we’ve figured out a lot more now, picking up a few words of Thai, and falling victim to some pretty crazy chilli overload incidents on the way. We now consider ourselves locals at a few places around town, and we’ve befriended one of the restaurant owners, Ton Lor (a retired teacher from our school) who sporadically sends us emails about the birds in the morning. When we first arrived in Ban Mi, Ton Lor drew us a labelled map of the town; apparently there are five banks in Ban Mi, which does seem a little unnecessary, given the size of the place.

Ton Lor treating us to dinner!

The food in Lop Buri province is great; actually we’re lucky that people here don’t make a habit of eating strange parts of animals. The students in my co- curricular conversation class were telling me that in Surin they often eat dog. However, they also told me that all Cambodians are ugly prostitutes and that their parents are dead, and so I’m still not really sure whether we’re seeing eye to eye on a sense of humour basis. Perhaps the Thai students are just enjoying their inappropriate jokes at my expense. Quite a lot of jokes here do tend to revolve around really awkward topics, though… That’s something I definitely was not prepared for.

Our conversation class: Best students ever!

Weight is a particularly popular topic; when in Chiang Mai, a street vendor managed to offend most of us in the space of about thirty seconds when she took it upon herself to make observations about each of our different sizes. My day- and indeed life- were in tatters, after I was told in a matter of fact way that I looked like a child and was ‘not sexy’. Needless to say, I did not appreciate her sales technique, and henceforth did not purchase a bikini from her.