Que Será, Será

The Thai Insurance Company has a TV advert that has created a lot of discussion here over the last few weeks. It features children from Srisangwan School (a school for children with special needs, and a project of the late Princess Mother Somdej Phra Sri Nakharindra Boromaraj Chonni) singing Que Será, Será a song originally made famous by Doris Day back in the mid-50s.

Quite possibly the advert is exploitative, but it definitely has a strong emotional effect, too. Note the joy on the faces of the children and the pride on those of the parents. This deserves a wider audience.

[429]

Hissing Sid, Again

Just got home. Undid the padlock on the gate. Then looked down. Just centimeters from my fingers, wrapped around the bracket of the lock, was a snake. I was, to put it mildly, a little taken aback.

Here’s a not very good photo of the poisonous critter. By the time I’d positioned myself for a second shot he’d scarpered.

[423]

Under the Banyan Tree

The restaurant I visit more often than any other in Ayutthaya is called “Sai Tong” (ไทรทอง) , which means “large banyan tree”. In the centre of the establishment is, indeed, an enormous banyan tree. These trees are considered sacred, and under their branches is considered a suitable place to dispose of old spirit houses. Like most banyan trees here in Thailand, there are bands of coloured fabric tied around its trunk. There’s also a small altar for offerings of food and drink to the spirits which live in the tree.

The restaurant is next to the Chao Phraya river, close to a ferry which takes passengers and motorbikes across the river for a few tical a time.

Today the river was exceptionally high, with water lapping at the lawn of the temple opposite. The remnants of a tropical storm have brought heavy rain to the north, and that water is now making its way down to the sea. As is government policy, the land around Ayutthaya is being flooded to protect Bangkok. The local farmers don’t like this, but there’s nothing they can do. And the government does pay some compensation for the lost crops.

The sky is overcast. There’s a light breeze. And the flags in a row outside the temple make desultory attempts at fluttering before giving the task up as in vain.

When I arrived there was one other table occupied by a group of four. However, there’s a long table set out. I surmised it was for a group of teachers or bank workers. But I was wrong.

I’m glad I arrived before the big group, since such groups put a great strain on the kitchen, and I might have had to wait too long for my lunch.

Then the group arrives. They’re tourists, Americans in their 50s and 60s. They’re clearly excited to be in Thailand and everything around them fills them with awe.

I watch with a feeling of trepidation as they sit down to dine. The plastic chairs, which in the West would be considered cheap, outdoors furniture, might be unable to bear the weight of these portly visitors.

Not that they stayed seated for long. After a few moments many of them were up and wandering around the restaurant. It felt as if I were dining in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. I was not exactly thrilled.

And, oh, they were all so loud!

Madam, I’m not interested in how you feel you should sit at the end of the table because you’re left-handed.

Sir, yes, you do take a little food from the communal dishes and put it on your plate.

And yes, you can have a small bowl of fish sauce laced with potent chillies (even though it’s totally inappropriate for the sweet, Chinese-derived food that has been set in front of you, and nobody is remotely interested in your attempt at demonstrating machismo by partaking of more chillies than anyone else).

(The guide had done a good job of ordering the least-challenging food items on the menu for her charges – nothing too spicy, nothing too interesting. Of course, the fried rice has to be served in a hollowed-out pineapple – that’s what tourists like – and the meat comes on a hot metal pan, just like one gets at ethnic restaurants back home. Chinese, Thai, Korean – they’re all the same, aren’t they?)

And no, Sir, you can’t get a discount on the bottle of beer you’ve ordered because you don’t want the bottle of water that’s included in the set price. Do you realise how much of a cheapskate you appear to be? You want to save 25 cents?

***

I’m sure these were good people, thrilled to be visiting a country strange and exotic to them. I’m happy they were enjoying themselves so much. And I wish I didn’t feel so curmudgeonly. But as it was, I couldn’t leave the restaurant fast enough.

[419]

Shogun Steakhouse

Though Ayutthaya probably has hundreds of eating places I tend to frequent but a handful of them. However, I’m always on the lookout for new recommendations. One such recommendation was a restaurant by the name of “Shogun”, just across from one of my regular haunts. Apparently it’s held in high esteem by a large number of foreigners working in Ayutthaya (which, as it turns out, sadly reflects upon the palates of the aforementioned workers).

It’s a fairly simple place, with a few tacky pieces of Japanalia helping one realise that this is notionally a Japanese restaurant, though any restaurant in Japan serving such execrable sushi would have gone out of business long ago and the owner driven to seppuku. The rice was woefully overcooked and mushy, and the fish sliced to a parsimonious thinness. The eel in some of my pieces of sushi was still frozen. And whilst in some parts of the world frozen eel sushi might be appreciated as a delicacy, it’s definitely not when it’s on my plate.

The main course featured the restaurant’s other speciality: steaks. That said, I’m not sure that it would be fair to call the thin sliver of pork meat hiding under an over-salty black pepper sauce a “steak”. As is the custom in such fine dining establishments the dish was accompanied by a few cold french fries and a triangle of toast smeared with marge.

Rarely have I had such a hard time keeping a straight face whilst dining; the experience was so pathetic as to be laughable.

[402]

Sleepless in Ayutthaya

The neighbours are having a party – not that I’ve been invited. How do I know? Well, the first clue was last night with a motley group of labourers erecting a canopy in the front garden and tying swags of blue and gold cloth to the front railings. And now the whole house is shaking to the heavy thump of over-amplified music – and I use the term “music” only loosely. If I didn’t know about the party I’d be tempted to call the RSPCA suspecting gross cruelty to cats – or even cruelty to a gross of cats. It’s only midday, so I can look forward to several more hours with the doors and windows clamped shut, stifling in the heat, and struggling to hear the TV.

***

At one o’clock I headed out to lunch at a riverside restaurant. I see that a giant bank of loudspeakers has been erected not in the garden of the party family, but on the opposite side of the street in the road. In the garden there are three middle-aged women lounging around. All this racket is, so far, solely for their benefit.

***

At the restaurant I see a floating platform, the sort used to ferry cars across rivers, accompanied by four barges, one to each side, one in front and one bringing up the rear heading up the river. The vessels are packed with party goers. Then I remembered, we’re just about to enter the rainy season retreat when young men traditionally enter the monkhood for three months to make merit, often for their mother or grandmothers. It’s a source of great pride for each family concerned and is often marked by an extravagant party. On the way back home I spy a number of other parties in progress.

***

7 p.m. the party next door is still in full swing. The street is clogged with parked cars. The first couple of restaurants I visit are packed with groups celebrating. I head elsewhere.

***

Midnight. The music has stopped.

Under other circumstances I might feel a little miffed by the intrusive noise, but I understand that this is a very special day for the young men and the families concerned. Let them have their fun.

***

Sunday, 5 a.m.. They’re back to strangling cats. I’m woken abruptly by a song calling on all to wake up and start working. I resist that siren call and struggle to regain oblivion.

***

11 a.m.. Now someone is reciting the life story of the young man concerned. After an hour they’ve only reached the day of his birth. It’s going to be a long, long tale. I also now understand that they will be partying until he goes to the temple tomorrow (Monday) morning, in time for lunch (the last meal of the day for monks) which is taken before midday.

***

4 p.m. and the music throbs on. In fact, the volume’s so loud that it’s taken to setting off the alarms of the cars in the vicinity. I’m just glad that I’m now returning to Bangkok and will flee the ongoing cacophony. The other neighbours have to put up with this until some time tomorrow.

[399]

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

As the years pass my forehead expands relentlessly to claim space previously occupied by my flowing locks. It seems I am genetically predisposed to join the ranks of the follicularly challenged. Not for me the strong heads of hair, long, thick, jet black and straight, that are the preserve of the people around me.

Not that Thai people are oblivious to the beauty of their hair: many has been the time that I’ve visited a public restroom and had to wait whilst all the basins are occupied by young men preening their hair, teasing each strand until it’s just so.

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
- Ecclesiastes 1:2, Authorised King James Version (1611)

In search of individuality, some young men dye their hair – usually to a dark chestnut colour, though some go further and reach for the Clorox.

These same young men weren’t allowed to display their crowning glories when they were at school; the Thai educational system demands that all boys have closely cut crops. If a teacher thinks a student’s hair is too long she (for it almost always is a she) will grab a clump of hair and cut it off with a pair of scissors, so forcing the student to make an unscheduled trip to the barber.

***

In searching for the quote from King Solomon I came across this optical illusion, which is apparently quite famous, but I hadn’t come across before and think is worth duplicating here, even though it has nothing to do with Thailand:

- All is Vanity, C. Allan Gilbert (1892)

Incidentally, Gilbert, an American, was only 18 years old when he created this image.

[398]

A Fruit For All Seasons

Despite the tropical climate, fruit in Thailand is highly seasonal. Earlier this year the cost of limes sky-rocketed from the usual one or two Baht a piece (according to size and juiciness) to 60 Baht for a pack of five in the supermarket. This was quite a headache for the restaurant trade since lime juice is very widely used as a souring agent in Thai dishes, balancing the sweetness of added sugar (usually palm sugar), which in turn is there to balance the fieriness of the chillies; the high cost of limes was definitely eating into profits. (The common souring alternative, tamarind, is only used in a relatively small number of dishes, mostly from the South.) Anyway, the rains broke about a month ago and the price of limes is back to normal and I can enjoy a slice with my sundowner gin and tonic once more.

This is probably the best time of year for Thai fruits, with both durian and mangosteen in season. These fruits are known by the Thais as respectively the king and queen of fruit. And rambutan, the spicy, pink and green alien testicles are still around and very cheap (about 25 pence per kilo).

Durian, with its custardy flesh and overpowering smell of rank sewage, is definitely an acquired taste. And the best thing about acquired tastes is that one doesn’t have to acquire them.

Mangosteen is something that I hadn’t got around to trying, until today. The purple skin, which is soft when freshly picked, quickly hardens until it needs to be cut with a knife to reveal the soft white flesh within. To be honest, I wasn’t overwhelmed by the taste. The flesh is soft and a balance of sweet and sour, but without any particularly aromatic notes. Still, until they breed mangosteens which taste like foie gras or belly pork, I guess I’m going to remain unimpressed.

[397]

Lizard Superstitions

Perhaps the two most feared things in Thailand are ghosts and lizards. Thai ghosts aren’t of the friendly “Casper” kind, nor do they look like someone draped in a white sheet with holes for eyes. Almost all ghosts are both female and truly terrifying – some taking the form of simply a head and digestive tract. Probably the most famous ghost is Mae Naak. Born about a hundred and thirty year ago in Bangkok (that’s according to some versions of the story – there’s really no historical evidence for her existence, and some sources claim she lived in the Ayutthaya period), she died during childbirth and was buried with her unborn son. However, her spirit pined for her husband who had been conscripted to fight a foreign war, and she refused to pass on. When her husband returns from the war she disguises both herself and her son as human. However, when her husband sees her reach through the floorboards of their wooden house to retrieve a fallen lime he realises she’s a ghost. Not surprisingly, he flees, only to be pursued by his wife. She then goes on the rampage, killing everyone who crosses her path.

The story continues with the attempts of the villagers to get rid of her spirit, involving black magic and “spirit doctors” in the process – but nothing works. Her terrorised husband takes refuge in a temple, but the monks can do little to protect him. At last a gifted novice from a far away province captures her soul and puts it in a clay pot which he drops in the river.

All scary stuff. And as for Thai ghosts, you certainly wouldn’t want to meet one.

The fear of lizards is perhaps less understandable. Most houses have a few small lizards hanging around the light fittings of an evening, eating the occasional passing mosquito. OK, they are inclined to poo everywhere, but only in tiny quantities – and it’s far less offensive than essence of dog or cat.

Anyway, the belief is that if a lizard falls on you it’s bad luck. And today I can confirm that’s true: as I was opening my bedroom balcony doors this morning an adolescent house lizard fell on me. I’m not sure if I or the less-than-sure-footed critter was more startled. Anyway, I stepped backwards and caught my heel on my bed frame. Soon blood was gushing from my wound. So, proof definitive: having a lizard fall on you is bad luck.

[396]

Trumpets and Foie Gras

According to Sydney Smith (a long-dead clergyman), heaven is “eating pâté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets”.

Today I was sitting in one of my favourite riverside restaurants with the deafening drumming of rain on the corrugated iron roof. Across the river was a magnificent Thai temple, gold paint glittering in the half light. Nearby was a sugar palm, its lollipop shape stark against the gloomy sky. And the river ferry carried on its work, taking motorcycles and passengers across the river, to-and-fro, to-and-fro.

I was waiting for my lunch: steamed pork spare ribs with soy sauce topped with finely chopped green chillies and garlic, a smoky, warm salad of grilled aubergines with minced pork and prawns, and some plain rice.

It then struck me that this has become so normal for me; I no longer look upon the temples with awe or feel thrilled by the brilliant food.

One can have too much even of foie gras to the trumpets’ clarion call.

[395]

A Maggot in the Lotus

Last weekend I was entertaining. Rather than cook something Western I decided to showcase my talent (or lack thereof, as it turns out) for Thai food. Admittedly, this was a little foolhardy. Most Thai people are very particular about their food and analyse it in far more detail than your average Westerner would. Most Thai recipes include a comment about how the food should taste, along the lines of “first sour, then spicy, then equally sweet and salty”. Get the balance wrong and it will be noted.

My menu was straightforward:

• duck salad (Thai style) with rambutan
• tom yam gung (a hot, sour prawn soup)
• hor mok (steamed finely chopped fish and other seafood in a spicy coconut milk custard).

At least, it was straightforward until I went to Tesco-Lotus to do the shopping. The first problem was that they didn’t have any duck. And the second was that they didn’t have mussels. (I’d wanted to serve the hor mok in mussel shells; this curry is usually served in banana leaf cups, but serving it in mussel shells is a rather more elegant presentation.) After a bit of thought I substituted beef for the duck – not that Tesco-Lotus had any nice steaks or similar, so I made do with some tough old cut which I marinated for a few hours first. And as for the hor mok, I settled for serving it in ramekins.

The beef salad turned out pretty well – though apparently not quite as spicy as it should be, so I was told – though my sinuses and tear ducts beg to differ. The other two dishes weren’t so good. The hor mok had a good taste, but I hadn’t ground the curry paste quite finely enough in my enormous granite mortar, I’d not added enough fish sauce (leaving it under-salted) and there was rather too much coconut milk for the quantity of fish. The tom yam gung – using a recipe from a relative of HM The Queen none-the-less – was a total disaster. It was strangely cloudy, and neither spicy nor sour. The prawns were fished out and consumed, but the soup itself was left untouched.

A friend made the pudding – taro root cooked in a heavy syrup and chilled served with salted coconut cream. It may sound a little strange, but it works really well. However, I still don’t know how I’ll ever get my saucepan clean again!

But back to the subject of Tesco-Lotus – or “Lotus” as it’s generally called in Thailand. (Actually, it’s more like “loh-tut” since Thai people, for the most part, can’t pronounce “s” at the end of syllables.) I usually shop there because it’s rather more convenient to get to than Big C (which opened a little over a year ago), plus it seems rather more hygienic: Big C has sparrows flying around inside doing what sparrows do. My opinion changed somewhat earlier today. I picked a packet of red curry paste from the shelf in Lotus. (I only make curry pastes from scratch when I’m entertaining – it’s such hard work grinding the ingredients by hand.) I then noticed a movement at the back of the shelf: it was a large, fat, sleek rat. I jumped back in surprise. A couple of middle-aged Thai women looked at me askance until I explained what I’d seen.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba wrote:

“The honey in the flower or lotus does not crave for bees; they do not plead with the bees to come. Since they have tasted the sweetness, they themselves search for the flowers and rush in.”

When it comes to Lotuses of the Tesco variety, it’s not the sweet honey that attracts the bees, but rather the lack of a decent alternative.

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