Advertisement
Published: June 12th 2008
Hello,
I am having a great time with May in Lauren in Thailand. I think I have probably gained 30 pounds in the last 3 days though. We literally eat every two hours. Lauren and I go to pretty much every street vendor we possibly find and eat. The only good thing, is that everything is pretty much bite size so you don't ever really get stuffed. So far one of my favorite things to eat are these little mini coconut creme pancakes that have green onions in them. You can get about 8 silver dollar sized ones for about 20 bhat, which is about 60 cents. I have also really been enjoying all of the fresh fruit. I tried to upload photos of some of them, but the internet is too slow. One of my favorites is called mangosteen. They also use this fruit to make red wine, but it tastes awful. We bought a bottle and it really just tastes like chineese herbal medicine. yuck!
Two days ago, we went on a tour of a palm sugar plant and the floating market. The palm sugar gets extracted from the coconut, and then is boiled down and becomes really syrupy and allowed to cool. We were allowed to sample some of the final product, which was delicious. The floating market was also really neat, we took a 1/2 hour boat ride to a dock where a bunch of small boats with goods are docked. The floating market is an interesting concept to me. People stand on the dock and the boats with goods are in the water. There are so many little canals here, that this was the only way for many locals to exchange goods. we again tried to eat everything in the market, including guava, fresh egg noodles, and mini coco creme pancakes.
Yesterday we took a tour of the Royal palace and the Emerald Buddha Temple. They were beautiful and covered with leafed gold and tiny gems. They have a very strict dress code, and require that all women wear skirts and have their shoulders covered. We also went to a differnt local temple, where we had our fortunes read. YOu had to shake a can that had a bunch of different sticks in it, and once a stick fell our you took the corresponding fortune and read it. Mine was apparently the worst that the tour guide had ever read. Haha. However, in Thai culture you can leave bad fortunes behind and opt to choose your own fate. I decided to leave that one behind. ha. We had dinner with May's cousins last night and are about to go to her gma's house for two nights. I'm excited to finally meet all the people that I've heard so much about over the years!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.099s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0634s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Laura
non-member comment
Embo!
I'm an idiot, I can't navigate this blog at all :) It says there are 80 pictures, where are they? What an awesome trip. I really want to see India now. I'll be excited to hear what it's like at your friend's family's place, that will be such a nice change from hotels and hostels. Can you bring me a little foil wrapped package of those coconut creme pancakes? They sound scrumptious. Love to you.