guyinthailand

I lived halfway between Bangkok and Chiang Mai and put up with the constant burning, both necessary and mostly unnecessary, of just about anything the pyromaniac Thais could light: jungle leaves, plastic garbage bags, rice fields, making charcoal, etc. There was always smoke in the air, but I got ‘used to it’. But then recently everyone and their mother started growing even more cassava (thai word: mansapparrang) because ethanol drove prices up. Thailand is one of the worlds biggest producers and exporters (Europe buys thousands of tons for animal feed) of this fibrous plant that looks sort of like a sweet potato. Fields of it grow everywhere in fields and in backyards—at fist glance you might think you were looking at a field of ganga growing. Used for animal feed, making noodles, capsules, fiber board, flour, tapioca and many other things---an amazing plant. But the Thais won’t eat it directly as it is difficult to prepare properly because it contains cyanide compounds. However, most of the noodles you eat in Thailand probably come from this plant which the Thais buy already processed by someone else. Several years ago 20 or so Phillipine kids dropped dead after eating at a noodle cart after school. First reports blamed terrorists but it was later shown that they ate improperly prepared cassava.

In the village where I lived the cassava harvesting and preparation goes on non-stop, 24 hours a day, and to prepare it for shipment to the piers of Bangkok it had to be dried and cut up. You can see the farmers hauling the tubers by the ton down the road day and night. The cutting, chopping and pulverizing creates huge dust clouds of cassava dust that turned our village skies an eerie sci fi orange light color during the day. Everyone was coughing and complaining and I had to wear a mask just to get through the day. It is no wonder I had barely enough energy to walk from bed to couch and collapse---I was breathing cyanide. I’ve never felt so out of energy and sick in my life. Cyanide, apparently, will do that to you. When the sun went down, the air got a bit better and I could once again function.

Having to breathe cyanide day after day was the last straw for me. I am now back in the USA breathing air that doesn’t contain cyanide. I miss the friendliness of the sweet Thai people who lived in my village but I’m not willing to breathe cyanide in order to see smiling people every day.

Anyway, it won’t surprise me one bit if these tourists are found to have died from cyanide poisoning given the nature of this dangerous plant and how easy it is to get sick or die from improperly prepared cassava (mansapparrang). Someone probably served them improperly prepared cassava noodles. I doubt they were deliberately poisoned but I of course wouldn’t rule it out, given what happened to me some years ago in Pai. I am sure I was deliberately poisoned in Pai after arguing with the cook at a guest house over her crappy food. The next night when I ate there I go violently ill. This cook had an ‘evil eye’ and I bet she poisoned me. Fortunately I had some activated charcoal in my travel kit and ate a bunch of capsules of it after making myself throw up first. Note: activated charcoal is readily available at pharmacies and hospitals as it is a first line of defense against many kinds of poison including ingestion of cyanide (though charcoal is not by itself sufficient to treat cyanide poisoning). In fact, the first sign of food poisoning is not diarrhea or vomiting but rather simply not feeling ‘good’ or ‘right’—and when you feel that way it is a good idea to eat activated charcoal (which is non-toxic). Amazing stuff: I’ve used it to save dogs which were deliberately poisoned with rat poison or insecticide by Thais. The activated charcoal absorbs and inactivates many poisons, which is why every hospital emergency room has kilos of the stuff readily at hand.