What thai dish every brought you to your knees?
For me it was Laap Nuea Dip.
Minced raw beef dish.
I was young and un afraid.. hmm, doesn`t a song go like this?
Well, anyway, I had stayed a fair time in a mubaan far, far away in Nakhon Nowhere with the in-laws and the missus.
I had been eating their meals, which were not something you would ever find in a restaurant, as those meals were predominantly consisting of weird shit they found in the wild. The water we drank, was from the roof top that went straight into a large clay jar.
Never had a problem with that.
As life in an Isan village is boring as Hell, I every so often ventured out on my own to take in the local sights.
Of course the village dwellers would go like this to the missus: Now, your farang husband takes off and never comes back.
Boy, did I prove them wrong.
She could have accompanied me any time, but she usually just never felt like it.
Too strenous.
And some of those trips were rather strenous indeed.
I went to Phu Kradung in Loei. As I stepped off the bus, a motobike driver took me the rest of the way to the entrance of the park.
"Do you want a Sao Suay (pretty young woman) to accompany you on your hike to the summit?
i did not, as I was perfectly able to carry my gear myself, thank you very much never the less.
I had to sign in at the park head quarter to have access to the park. Cool, I was the only visitor on that particular day.
Wow. An entire NP all to myself.
Hmm, It soon turned out that thai people did not have to sign in, and that there were at least a 100 students on the same trek.
Of course they all paid porters to take their gear to the summit.
10 baht a kilo. Amazing, young fit and skinny people paying porters to bring their stuff? I never could figure that out.
Night comes. It is in the month of December and much to my surprise it gets foking cold up here. I now somewhat regretted that I did not bring the "sao suay" or at least my wife in my tent.
It was no more than 5 degree centigrade and to say I got any sleep would be an exaggeration.
And the thais went all through the night with their guitars and shit, drinking into obliverance (sp) . There was no lack of them asking me to join them, before I went to sleep, but I was not really into that.
After a sleepness night, I got up at first dawn.
All the thais were sound asleep. I headed for the first restaurant that I could find.
Rice soup, if you please.
I sat there waiting for the rice soup as I suddenly felt a hot puff of air behind me.
WTF? I turned around only to see a huge sambar deer measuring me up.
"Don`t worry, it is a tame sambar deer" the owner of the "restaurant" said to me.
I tried to offer it some veggies, but it declined it.
"It only eat cookies, and as it so happens I have some for sale"
Not with this farang, you are not. Now, Sambar deer you just bugger off.
I spent the day, enjoying the rising temperaturs and wandering around the plateau.
Very nice it was too.
Late afternoon, I decided to descent.
I quickly got a following of a bunch of thais. They had been drinking heavily during their stay at the summit, but were now in a mode where you could actually have an intelligeble conversation.
As it turned out, they were all teachers at the Khon Kaen Uni.
"Would you like to come with us to KK"?
KK was never my first priority, and it remains way down my list after my visit.
But I went with the guys on a pickup truck.
They had great fun in that I guessed their age all wrong.
They all looked like teenagers, but were all in their mid 20`ies.
"Now, we stop here to have a special meal" They said to me during our trip to KK.
We stopped at a very, very modest looking "restaurant".
"This is Aharn Pee Set" Very special food.
It turned out to be Laap Neua Dip. Minced raw beef.
I had no idea what it was at the time, and it took me out for like 3 days.
I missed out on a solar eccplise on that occasion, but I shall probably have the opportunity to withness this again in a few milleniums.
