sawadee, tom yum and other thai things

A little while between posts because I'm in Thailand and internet access is intermittent. And also because there is far too much good food to eat and frankly, anything else is a distraction. Culinary highlight thus far: dried pork on a papaya salad from a street stall. Ordered by Carney, consumed by me. I am terribly parasitic - 'oh, I'd love a bite. you want any more?' - when it comes to street stalls and desserts.

Two nights ago - is today Friday? ha! hate me, I on holidays! - after an existential crisis about whether we were supporting an ethical industry, Carney and I went to a night of Thai boxing. I was expecting it to be a pretty awful touristy sort of thing where fat/drunk/burnt/all of the above westerners sat around drinking and betting on fights. Or worse still, nominated themselves to have a go and got knocked out and chocked on their own vomit, but it was actually something of a cultural experience. Particularly if you compare with the I time I went to Ibiza and they had white t-shirt competitions that you could enter for free shots. At a Denny's-style family bistro. And the entrants were mothers. Whose ten year old sons were present. But that is, granted, a low yardstick.


Anyway, we went here :

Image credit

And it was actually pretty cool. Because we are semi-important people we sat in the 'medium-VIP' section at barstools with our own table (decorated a single long stem rose in a vase - a curious addition I think) and table service for food and drink. But the nicest thing (aside from the prolific salted nuts) was the sportsmanship - e.g. fighters helping their opponents up after knocking them out, etc. It was quite heartening, I liked it.

And that's all I have to say about that. Air conditioning beckons.

Kitty x