This is Thai Culture

On Sunday Jennifer and I joined the Thai family we meet for their trip to the market. I did not catch the father and mothers names, but their daughter is Aom and their son is Tii. For the sake of this post ill refer to their father as "Ajan", which means teacher.
They picked us up from the end of our Soi (side street) and drove a good deal into the country side. Parts of it just looked like areas of Florida. Ajan was very keen on pointing out different things on the way and Aom and Tii were able to answer almost any question Jennifer and I had about Thailand.

When we arrived at the market, their dad was quite excited. He definitely took us to a Thai market because i think i saw only one other white person there, and he was with a thai person himself. Durring the entire time there Ajan would point around generally, or to specific things and say "this is thai culture" he was a man proud of his heritage and country.

Upon entering the market we saw a man who made snacks out of sugar. But these werent merely candy, they were art. He took the sugars, and created animal figurines out of them. Ajan bought Jennifer a monkey that had caught a fish.

This market probably had more fresh food in once place than i had ever seen. There were piles of fruits, and cauldrons of meats cooking.

Ajan and his family selected some of their favorite foods to share with me and Jennifer. The sales people were all so nice and often gave us free samples.
If we responded positively to a food, Ajan would buy enough of it for the whole family and us. We were going to eat it all on a river cruise. It was hard to get Ajan to NOT buy food if we looked at it too closely.

On the boat, I realized that Tii and his Mom had also been buying food for lunch. The family set out a Thai feast before us and all 6 of us went to town as the boat pulled away from the market.

I'm not even sure of everything i ate, it was really just an explosion of flavors, after flavors. My favorite had to be the fish/coconut mash that was cooked in banana leaves. It was just phet (spicy) enough to make me need rice (sticky rice works better than water at making the mouth feel better), but not too phet to make me freak out.
My least favorite had to be the corn. Coming from Wisconsin and going to school in Nebraska, I know what i like in corn, and Thai corn was just bland. However, that was the only item of the day that I did not enjoy.

The river was as beautiful as expected. Along the banks the houses would switch from poor thai villages with tin roofs, to western style mansions, to traditional thai houses.


Near the end of the voyage a long boat pulled up alongside us and threw a rope aboard. Was it pirates?! Where they holding up the boat?! No, it was just the friendly neighborhood icecream boat.
They served up some wonderful coconut ice cream, and then went on their way.

Our voyage ended, and as we left through the market Ajan still bought fruit for us. He had me try a Thai orange. I told him earlier than i hadnt had any Thai oranges because we have oranges in the USA and I wanted to try new things. Well, the Thai orange was the best tasting orange i have ever had. In fact this trip to the market was like my tongue learning how to taste for the first time. It was like that part in The Giver when he first sees color.

On the way home, Ajan and Tii continued to give us advice about thailand, and Ajan continued trying admirably to pronounce my name. (the sh sound is very hard for thai people. they seem to prefer to call me jack). Ajan said we should visit him again sometime and we promised to do so.