A week ago we had two pairs of visitors, one on their final day in Thailand after a month-long vacation and another on their first day in Thailand on the start of a multi-week vacation. While the two pairs had never met, I rented a van and driver, bundled them all in, and took them down on a Friday night to the floating market in Amphawa, a town about 90 minutes southwest of Bangkok.
I’ve been to Amphawa many times but on each visit I discover something new or, at least, a new way to approach it. As such, I feel like I’m refining this “tour”, if you will. Each subsequent guest gets a better experience. For example, I have decided that Fridays are a much better day to go than Saturday or Sunday because the market is much less crowded.
I’ve also decided that it is best to hire a boat and visit several of the temples along the river in the hour or so before sunset. This way you get few tourists but lots of interesting “golden” light. This temple, which has been abandoned to the forest, is at Bang Gung (literally, “Area of the Shrimp”) and while I’ve visited here on bicycle before, I didn’t realize it was an easy walk from the river. Add that to future itineraries.
Riding a long-tail boat down the Mae Khlong River just after sunset it a breathtaking experience. The sky is so beautiful and the water is so calm. Afterwards we explored the floating market, ate lots of tasty, fresh, and inexpensive seafood and other treats before heading back to Bangkok.
(Updated Monday am) Sunday afternoon, the polls closed in Thailand’s second general election since the 2006 coup that saw Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra ousted by factions of the country’s military. The results, announced last night by the Election Commission, are that Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra will be the kingdom’s next Prime Minister, and also the first female PM in its history.
Tensions have been high because this election is seen, more than anything, as a litmus test on how the political situation will go forward. First, let me make clear that I have no particular interest in any of the parties involved in this election. Here’s the long and short of it:
Thaksin was removed from office by a coup in September 2006 despite his party having won majority votes in two prior elections.
After a new post-coup constitution was ratified, a subsequent election saw the reincarnation of Thaksin’s political party (dissolved because of charges of breaking election law) again winning a majority.
The next two PMs, both from Thaksin’s party, were removed from office upon being found guilty of minor offenses and after a minority coalition party switched sides, the military-backed Democrats were able to form a government with Oxford-educated Abhisit Vejjajiva as Prime Minister.
Now, it looks like we’ll be back where we started, pre-coup. Or, at least, something close to it since Yingluck and her Phuea Thai (“For Thais”) party have run on the slogan, “Thaksin thinks, Phuea Thai acts” and a proposed amnesty for Thaksin has been openly discussed as a leading policy position.
Election campaigns in Thailand are every bit as much of a circus as they are in the United States, although they take place in a much more compressed period of time – less than 60 days elapsed between the dissolution of the previous Parliament and these elections. Yesterday, while waiting on the Skytrain platform at the Asoke station, Prime Minister and Democratic Party candidate Abhisit and his supporters were waiting for a train on the opposite platform, shaking hands and taking pictures with people.
Here’s a closeup of the man, described in one US Embassy cable that was leaked during the Wikileaks scandal as handsome and ineffectual.
Something that I will be glad are gone now that the election is over, are the large campaign signs that are tied to trees and poles along the streets, blocking the sidewalks. In some areas they are so thick that the footpath is entirely hidden from the street, which I suppose is not necessarily a bad thing!
These posters by the Phumjaithai (“Proud Thailand”) party showed male and female athletes with the face cut out, encouraging you to see yourself as one of the winners. I couldn’t resist.
Driving around the city after the polls closed at 3pm, I noticed many people in small motorcycle driven push-carts, collecting these election posters. “So quick to clean up!” I thought, until Tawn explained that these people were collecting the posters to use as building material. The heavy corrugated plastic sheets can be used as roofs and ceilings in the slums. Sadly, this may be the most any of these candidates actual do to improve the lives of the kingdom’s poor.
Even though Tawn and I had a chance to visit with them in Los Angeles just a few weeks ago, it was a pleasant coincidence that Gary and William had scheduled a trip to Bangkok for the end of June. We were able to see them several times during their visit, and they invited me to travel to Kanchanaburi Province with them to visit the Tiger Temple.
First stop was the town of Kanchanaburi itself, about two hours northwest of Bangkok. This town, located on Maenam Kwai (“River Kwai” – pronounced “kwae”), is the site of the bridge made famous in the 1957 David Lean film, Bridge Over the River Kwai. We made a quick stop at the very good Thai-Burma Railway Centre, the better of two museums in the city about the building of the bridge.
Next, after a delay of about 45 minutes, we jumped on a train pulled by a 40+ year old GE diesel engine for a trip across the bridge and about an hour towards the Burmese border.
Riding in a nearly antique (but still considered standard, third-class quality by the State Railways of Thailand) car, our interest quickly faded as the passing scenery blurred into a hazy green.
William, leaning out the window, takes a few shots of the countryside. Fear not, we were actually stopped at a small country station when he did this. Otherwise, he would have been whacked in the back of his head by overgrown bushes alongside the tracks.
A lone motorcyclist travels a country road as we pass a pair of houses.
Young rice grows a vibrant green in rich, volcanic soil.
Can you identify these crops? Our tour guide disappeared for most of the train ride, but I was eventually able to learn that these are cassava plants, from which tapioca starch is obtained.
After much too long on the train, we disembarked at a dusty whistle stop and boarded our van, which had been chasing after us. About twenty minutes later we arrived at the Tiger Temple. The temple itself started out as a forest monastery in the mid-1990s. Over time, the monks came to care for insured birds, an injured boar, and other animals they either encountered or were given to them. The large grounds of the monastery developed into something of a wildlife sanctuary.
In February 1999, the first tiger cub was brought to the temple. The cub had been orphaned by poachers and then had been sold to someone who was going to have it stuffed. The cub survived the botched procedure to euthanize it and was brought to the temple. Over the next few years, other orphaned cubs were brought to the temple and the head monk cared for them in following the principles of compassion for all living beings.
My last visit there was five years ago and the temple has developed quite a bit. It remains a very popular tourist destination and the visitors’ fees go to support projects to protect the tigers. The temple has also come in for some criticism from animal rights activists, which I won’t go into here other than to say that I did not witness any signs of ill treatment of the animals.
Okay, not a tiger, but a very large fire ant. I was impressed with the macro focus on my camera!
The tigers, much like all cats, were napping in the warm afternoon. There were about three or four staff members and volunteers for each cat and we were instructed about how to approach the cats and then the staff would take pictures.
There were also plenty of other animals roaming about the large temple grounds, including this very friendly deer named Ta Waan – Sweet Eyes – who knows our tour guide because he always brings a bag of dried corn with him to the temple.
After feeding her, Ta Waan became our new best friend, following us around the temple.
Many of the tiger cubs are handled by various monks. They play with them and keep them out of trouble. This one made a lunge for Ta Waan, who bounded away, and the monk literally had to grab the tiger by the tail to keep him from running after the deer.
Since my last visit, the temple has introduced several programs that allow more interactivity with the cats, all for an extra price. One of the programs was being able to feed and play with the cubs. Gary and William opted for this and ended up with some wonderful pictures and great memories. You’ll have to stay tuned to Gary’s site for those pictures.
Another program was being able to exercise the big cats. Visitors are escorted by staff members into the exercise enclosure (Daniel in the lion’s den?) and get to play with them much in the same way you play with your cat at home: by holding something at the end of a stick that they will want to pounce on. The enclosure has good vantage points from which you can see the big cats enjoying themselves.
As for the danger level, these are definitely wild cats and I observed that a lot of work is done by staff and volunteers to ensure that visitors don’t do anything that would startle the cats or cause their natural instincts to kick in, causing harm. I suppose that also keeping them fed (boiled chicken) and happy do a lot to minimize some of the risks.
While I was standing there filming from the wall (standing about where the man in the white shirt is taking a picture in the photo above), I suddenly sensed that there was something just over my right shoulder. Sure enough, the tiger cub (pictured with the monk several photos above) was walking along the top of the wall and had stopped because I was in his way.
This picture, one of three that turned out very nice, wasn’t taken with any zoom lens! I was about two feet away from his whiskers. Beautiful animal but a bit unnerving to be caught unawares.
I’ll leave you with this video compilation, about three minutes of footage of the tigers playing in the water.
All in all, I think Gary and William had a fantastic time and I’d include a visit to the Tiger Temple on the itinerary for other guests. It is certainly an experience you won’t have at home.
This weekend I’ve been scrambling to prepare for a dinner on Tuesday night, at which I will cook for up to 80 people. This will be the largest group I’ve ever cooked for by a factor of three, and I’m excited to take on the challenge. Oh, and an added challenge: I’m working on a budget of 80 baht (US$2.63) per head. How did I get roped into this?
Two months ago, my friend Doug, an expat American to whom I was introduced by a friend from the San Francisco Int’l Asian American Film Festival, invited me to an event called the “River Space Dinner Party and Talk”.
The dinners are inspired by Jim Haynes and his famous Paris dinners which have lasted for more than 30 years. Jim’s son, Jesper, helped launch the Bangkok dinners at the River Space a few months ago. Jim described his dinners during a piece on NPR’s All Things Considered:
Every week for the past 30 years, I’ve hosted a Sunday dinner in my home in Paris. People, including total strangers, call or e-mail to book a spot. I hold the salon in my atelier, which used to be a sculpture studio. The first 50 or 60 people who call may come, and twice that many when the weather is nice and we can overflow into the garden.
Every Sunday a different friend prepares a feast. Last week it was a philosophy student from Lisbon, and next week a dear friend from London will cook.
People from all corners of the world come to break bread together, to meet, to talk, connect and often become friends. All ages, nationalities, races, professions gather here, and since there is no organized seating, the opportunity for mingling couldn’t be better. I love the randomness.
I believe in introducing people to people.
Here in Bangkok, the dinners are held twice a month in a second floor flat on the banks of the Chao Phraya River, immediately next to the Millenium Hilton hotel. The space is used for various arts events and is mostly just a large, open space.
The space is spectacularly situated, though, just above a small market and adjacent to the local ferry pier. The reflection of the setting sun bathes the banks of the river in shades of purple and pink as residents who live on the west side of the river commute home.
The dinners are cooked by volunteers in a kitchen that is, to be generous, under-equipped. But there are plenty of hands willing to pitch in, which is the important thing. As I’m preparing to cook on Tuesday, most of my thoughts are about the strategy of how I’m going to do this in the most organized manner. What tools will I need, what equipment, what supplies?
The meal served when I attended in April. Potato salad, green salad, quiches (made at home by the head chef), and a wonderful strawberry triffle. One of the things I’ve realized is that to cook effectively in this space requires a lot of advance cooking at home.
When I say “under-equipped”, you get the idea when you watch Doug contorting himself as he tries to make garlic bread for what was about 50 people using only a tiny toaster oven. Needless to say, I was dragooned into the kitchen, willingly, and helped prepare the garlic bread.
So that’s the challenge I’m facing. Having given a lot of thought to the meal, I’ve adapted, updated, and revised my proposed menu several times. Finally, Friday night I cooked a “proof of concept” meal, to make sure the recipes worked (at a small scale) and would be on-budget.
The menu as it stands today: Mixed grains and vegetable salad with a sherry vinaigrette; stir-fried chicken marinated in green curry; and a yogurt relish with cucumbers and tomatoes. The homemade bread and hummus will not make the cut. Instead, the garlic bread and a green salad will be provided by another person. And for dessert? Saturday night I did another “proof of concept” and served homemade buttermilk shortcake with mangoes and ginger whipped cream.
Late Sunday morning, Tawn and I returned home from two weeks in the United States. While I still have a bit more to share about the trip, and will continue to blog about it in the coming days – including about some other restaurants we ate at! – I wanted to let you know that we were back in Bangkok so that you don’t get confused about what would otherwise seem to be a month-long vacation!
Here’s a short video I shot on the taxi ride in from the airport, where I discovered some helpful and slightly shocking tourist materials.
Tucked behind the Nai Lert Hotel, alongside the San Saeb canal and underneath an ancient ficus tree, lies a shrine dedicated to the goddess Tubtim. Originally a spirit house, the place where the spirit of the land (who was disrupted by your building on it) would reside, the shrine evolved over time into an unintentional fertility shrine as more and more worshipers brought offerings of phalluses. Ranging from the symbolic to the highly realistic, the collection fills the area around the shrine.
While my friend David and Chor Pharn were visiting from Singapore, we stopped by for a look. Here’s a short video to give you a sense of the setting.
A healthy selection of phallus-shaped offerings left around the largest ficus tree at the shrine. The irony is, sex toys are illegal in Thailand so if you were to try to bring a legitimate dildo into the country, you would be stopped. By highly realistic phalluses for the purpose of spirit worship? That’s okay.
Some of these phalluses are quite detailed. And at least one has studs in it, perhaps representing the Folsom Street Fair community?
Normally, spirit houses have some small sculptural figures meant to represent both the spirits as well as those who are there to entertain and serve them. So many figures have been added that they are arranged on two adjacent shelves. You can see the San Saeb canal in the background.
The figures include representation of parents as well as a host of animals.
Also, there are more than 100 traditional Thai dancers to keep the spirits entertained.
And, inexplicably, a pair of male dolls. Barbie’s gay brother Eric and his lover Stephen? The women on the upper shelf are all ladies in waiting.
Who’s living in the spirit house? I spy a kitten!
This one seems to have a fungal infection. Experiencing any itching or burning sensation?
On a tangential note, I thought I’d share this picture of the jasmine garlands that are sold by local flower vendors. These are the types of garlands that Tawn and Chor Pharn were trying to make in this entry.
Here’s the third video in my “Great Eats in Bangkok” series. In this chapter, Tawn and I head out for a typical Thai breakfast in our neighborhood, Thong Lo. While Thong Lo has developed over the years in the “Beverly Hills of Thailand” it is actually still a very local neighborhood with a wide socioeconomic range, various cultures, and everything from Mercedes Benz showrooms to sidewalk vegetable stalls.
Our breakfast consists of two things: jok (congee), a Chinese style rice porridge served with ginger, green onions, a fresh egg, and white pepper; and khao gaeng, a “curry and rice” shop that serves various curries, soups, and stir-fried dishes that you pick and choose from in a “Panda Express” sort of way, but much better. One thing that was interesting is that we ordered the jok at one shop, then carried the bowl down to the khao gaeng shop, returning the bowl after we were done.
One of the nice things about knowing Chow, the author of Bangkok’s Top 50 Street Food Stalls, is that I get exciting offers like, “Oh, there’s this really good beef noodle vendor on Sukhumvit Soi 16 I’ve been dying to go back to. When are you free?” To paraphrase Renée Zellweger’s character in Jerry Maguire, “You had me at beef noodle.”
Sukhumvit Soi 16 is this stubby little street near the intersection of Sukhumvit and Asoke Ratchadapisek Roads. It branches off Asoke about 100 meters down from the main intersection and then forms the back exit for all of the office buildings and condominiums that line Asoke Ratchadapisek Road, overlooking the beautiful Benjakiti Park next to the Queen Sirikit Convention Center.
Lining both sides of the soi at regular intervals are these street vendor stalls, the classic types of Thai street food that hug the street and, where one exists, generally push pedestrians off the footpaths. Across from the street vendor pictured above, on an unpaved shoulder lined with a masonry wall, we found our beef noodles.
The tables were overflowing and since we had arrived about 1:00, the tail end of the lunch rush, the wizened old uncle who runs the stall told us that he was out of everything but the thin rice noodles and the stewed brisket and beef balls. We ordered one bowl apiece and one of the other people working there – a relative, no doubt – found us a spot as a table of office workers finished up the last drops of broth in their bowls.
A few minutes later our order arrived: a simple bowl of thin rice noodles swimming in deliciously rich cardamom-flavored broth, with slices of brisket, beef balls, green onions, and bean sprouts. As we were eating, the uncle came over and apologized that the brisket wasn’t as tender as normal – the meat vendor had arrived late this morning so it hadn’t stewed as long as he would have liked. We assured him it was not a problem – and it wasn’t – especially as we enjoyed the wonderful broth.
After finishing our noodles and paying – including weak tea we paid something like 28 baht (US$ 1) each. Chatting with the uncle after the lunchtime rush, he explained that he’s been in business at that location for 40 years, gaining his reputation during the Vietnam War with American servicemen who were stationed nearby.
He explained how one building just down the soi, which is now the home of a nice brunch restaurant called Kuppa, was the headquarters for the American FBI. They found this out when one day a stray soi dog was clipped by a vehicle and was lying in the street, howling in pain. After a while, an American came out of that building, pulled out a gun, and put the dog out of its misery. And that, uncle explained, is how they found out the FBI worked there. Never mind that the FBI was a domestic agency and probably wasn’t here in Thailand during the Vietnam War, it was an interesting story that provided a spicy not to the end of our lunchtime adventure.
A year ago today, mobs set fire to various parts of Bangkok in the wake of the breakup by the military of a 40-day long anti-government protest. Those events, along with a related confrontation in April 2010, resulted in the death of 92 people (13 of those deaths have been attributed to “action by government forces” and if I recall correctly, four journalists were killed including two foreigners.)
The fires, set in at least a dozen locations around the city, resulted in an estimated 24 billion baht in damage (about US$ 950 million) and destroyed several structures including shopping centers, a department store, and one of the city’s oldest cinemas.
As of today, there are more than 130 people identified as participants in the protests who remain jailed, charged but not tried for their crimes. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission was unable to draw conclusions on many of the points it was asked to examine, including what role the military had in the deaths of protesters. The commission complained of the military not being forthcoming in providing requested evidence.
About a week ago, the Prime Minister dissolved Parliament and elections will be held 45 days from today. The only thing that seems certain is that, regardless of the outcome of this election, there will be further unrest from one side or another of the political spectrum. Whether the unrest is expressed in the same way is unclear. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail.
In my coverage of the protests last spring, I received comments from various people passing by my blog, accusing me of being blatantly pro-government or blatantly pro-protesters. Of course, I have no horse in the proverbial race. I’m a foreigner living here over the long run, a person who loves Thailand and the Thai people and who wants them to be able to continue to develop as a country and not end up getting caught in the middle income trap.
The Central World shopping center at the Ratchaprasong intersection, where the protests had been centered.
The burnt-out remains of the Siam Theatre, one of the oldest single-screen cinemas in Bangkok. Today, the property sits empty, awaiting a redevelopment plan by its land-owners, Chulalongkorn University.
Along Rama IV Road, barricades of tires were set aflame and buildings were looted and burned.
Also along Rama IV Road near the Lumpini Boxing Stadium.
This weekend we enjoyed a return visit by David and Chor Pharn, a Singaporean couple who make frequent visits to Bangkok and whose presence at our dining room table made for a very pleasant Sunday brunch and garland making exercise.
We met the two (Chor Pharn is on the left, above, and David is on the right) through another couple we know from Singapore. In fact, since I met my first Singaporean while in university I’ve learned that once you know one, you soon seem to know nearly all of them. Sure enough, once I met Yuen Ping, I met Otto, then Han, then David and Chor Pharn, and the list cascades from there. Not to mention another two strings’ worth of Singaporeans, most of whom seem to know each other or, at the very least, know of each other. It’s a small island, after all.
Having them over for brunch gave me a chance to try some new recipes, continuing to refine an easy-to-prepare brunch menu that doesn’t require me to slave away in the kitchen while guests are here. Above, a beautiful loaf of homemade bread.
As an amuse bouche, I prepared some homemade muesli, served with unsweetened Greek style yoghurt with a slice of canned peach and drizzled with some peach syrup.
Tawn insisted on using his ice cream goblets that he hand-carried back from Paris. The coffee was some of the 100% Kona beans I brought back from our March trip to Hawaii. Perfect for a French press.
From there, we enjoyed plates with a trio of room temperature tastes: a couscous salad with mixed vegetables, pine nuts, raisins, and homemade preserved lemon rind; over roasted Japanese pumpkin glazed with Canadian maple syrup and a sprinkle of black truffle sea salt; and a mixed salad of rocket (arugula) served with a rice wine vinaigrette, shaved Parmesan cheese, and cherry tomatoes.
The warm dish was individual baked egg souffles with sliced pork loin, onions, and jack cheese.
For dessert, we had khao niaw mamuang – sticky rice and mango. Mangoes are very much at the peak of their season right now. The garnish is na gung – a shredded coconut that is flavored with shrimp, palm sugar, and kaffir lime leaves. This may not sound so good, but once it is cooked it becomes the perfect, slightly savory counterpoint to the rich, starchy sticky rice and sweet mango.
After lunch, Tawn and Chor Pharn set up the table to try their hands at an activity that has caught CP’s curiosity: making floral garlands, called puang malai in Thai. (Literally, “bunched together jasmine”.) Used as objects of decoration as well as veneration and welcome – left at shrines or statues, given to teachers, parents, respected elders, and visitors – the puang malai are made of small, fragrant flowers threaded onto a string using a long and very sharp needle. The above image is taken from Sakul Intakul’s book Dok Mai Thai: The Flower Culture of Thailand. Khun Sakul is one of the masters of the Thai floral arts, an engineer turned floral arranger, and his book illustrates the beautiful designs he creates.
Tawn and Chor Pharn get ready to start, while David and I try to document the occasion and stay far away from the long needles.
A quartet of blossoms: in addition to roses there are, from the left, dok rak (love flower) which is a very sculptural form of jasmine, dok malik (the highly fragrant Arabic jasmine), and dok put (talk flower) also known as gardenia.
Tawn starts arranging the jasmine blossoms in a rotating pattern. After you get a group done, you thread it onto cotton string. Traditionally, though, you would use a thread made of banana leaf.
A close-up of the progress, with rose petals folded in half, speared by the needle, then trimmed into shape with scissors.
The work ended up being quite a bit more tedious that expected. When you watch the vendors at the side of the street you mistake their speed and dexterity for the task of making a phuang malai being easy. It turns out their speed and dexterity is a result of their skill and experience and they make an intricate art look deceptively simple.
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