THAILAND TRAVELS: A Journal PHANOM DONG RAK (cont'd) Page 5
Sunday 15th:
Pleasantly cool at 26ºC at 7am, but has been very wet over past days. Right in the middle of the wet (monsoon) season. And we are talking RAIN and I mean RAIN. Someone up there has a lot of buckets to chuck down all at once.
But it’s hot and when the sun does re-appear it’s baking.
Easy to be a good boy here. No bars. Nearest one is 25 miles away. ☹.
With it being wet-season, the mozzies are rife! But with my jungle-strength DEET I appear to be unscathed so far.
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- LEFT: After massive rain storm I had the task of digging out a drainage channel.
- RIGHT: What, no engine. With her younger brothers bike.
Very different way of life here. It gets dark at just after 6:20pm and everyone is in bed asleep by just after 9pm but up and about at 5:30am; it is a farm after all.
Nights are unusual with some very strange jungle noises around the perimeter of the house.
Still nice to pick up a freshly fallen coconut from the ground, pick some bananas, papayas and mangoes from the trees; they’re like weeds here.
All this rain has made for an excellent rice-crop. The sugar cane’s doing well too and there should be two harvests this year. Rubber trees not so keen on the wet this time of year.
Evening spent zooming round on one of the motorbikes visiting Aom’s relatives. Still amuses me to see anything up to an entire family of 4 people on a 125cc with no skid-lids belting down the road without a care.
Houses and furnishings so very different. This is the REAL Thailand and not the crap one hears about from tourists who only stay in the resorts. Most who have been to Thailand only ever see the tourist cities and their unsavoury reputations. Away in the rural areas it’s a lovely way of life with very strict morals and customs. They really are a smiling lovely people living simple day-to-day lives.
Monday 16th:
Up 6:30 (late). Today the dossing in one of the hammocks under the trees reading are gone. I’ve work to do today helping in the Rubber tree forest; at least it’s in the shade. No rain today and temp back up to the mid-30’s.
Food: 100% Thai/Cambodian food here. But actually, tasty and very different to the food one gets in so-called authentic Thai restaurants in UK.
There are some things I wont eat that they do, but mostly no problem… you have to be fond of rice!
Veggies would be at home here as there’s a host of different vegetables, legumes and plants available with most meals. Some taste odd others pleasant. One looks like big watercress but tastes like parsley. All veggy stuff sourced locally. Also freshwater fish is readily available. I’ve caught many decent sized in the ponds with rod and line. [photo].
You have to be a little bit adventurous with the food on offer but it mostly pays off although Aom warns me of the more potent and lethal spicy dishes.
I reckon you could fuel a Titan rocket with some of the more lethal spicy dishes; I think they’ll glow in the dark! Same dish less spiced (just for me) is OK. Some dishes look awful but taste OK. As said virtually all meals served with rice grown on the farm.
So-called sticky-rice is very popular in Surin and neighbouring Buriram Provinces; this glutinous rice is tasty and good.
For a full description of sticky-rice, go to Page 11.
In the main cities any food is available from Sunday lunches, KFC & Big Macs to sushi and curries, but here in the sticks you have what’s grown or bred here.
