koh payam
yellow shirts are for the king
around the river, BKK
yam woon sen November 17, 2006
i’m obsessed with it.
1 small bundle glass noodles, (mung bean noodles, you can usually find them in small string-wrapped bundles), cooked and chilled
1 small cucomber peeled and thinly sliced, (the kind with less seeds is always better)
1 firm plum tomato sliced
1/2 small white onion thinly sliced OR 1 thinly sliced shallot
1/4 red pepper thinly sliced
2 thai chilis thinly sliced, 1 red and 1 green, (this will make it really spicy, if you don’t like spice use only one or maybe none)
1 small bunch cilantro
2 green onion chopped
1/4 cup chinese cabbage thinly sliced
1/4 cup shredded carrot
1/4 cup cashews roasted
toss noodles and vegetables and nuts with the juice from 2 limes. add a dash of soy sauce and/or a pinch of salt to taste
serves 2
the beach November 16, 2006
koh phayam is a small island in the andaman sea–off the thai/burma border. it’s basically dog town. the dogs run the show. there are all kinds of medium-sized dogs, black ones, yellow ones, black and yellow ones, and brown and white ones. there’s also a little pug–i have no idea where he came from, and there’s no evidence of him anywhere in the gene pool, who has it baaaaad for emerson. he’s always trying to snuffle around in his armpits and hump him all over the beach. emerson was a little disturbed by the attack. i thought it was hilarious.
the beach is beautiful. the sand is white and yellow and black in some places. it’s very fine sand, and it’s easy to find sand dollars and shells. the water is warm and clean, but there are too many jellyfish, and so it’s not so pleasant to go swimming. the stinging really freaks me out.
this island has cashew nut groves. it’s famous for the cashew nut and every harvest there is a big festival with all kinds of cashew nut delicacies, and a cashew nut parade, and a cashew nut queen, (and of course), cock fighting.
there are also lots of coconut trees and papaya trees. speaking of which–ripe papaya is really kind of poisonous tasting, isn’t it? i like green papaya–especially spicy green papaya salad with peanuts and chilis and lime. but ripe papaya tastes like something that should not be eaten. does anyone else have this reaction?
Koh Payam November 15, 2006
We are on Koh Payam, near the border with Myanmar. Payam is a quiet island where “the Cashew Nut is king”. Really, they do have the best cashews. Our Bungalow has electricity for only 3 hours in the evening and we walked 45 minutes to get to this internet cafe. Clean white beaches, though, and did I mention the cashews?
definitions November 13, 2006
pocketface: noun. an aging white sex tourist–very often, although not always, of german origin.
November 13, 2006
My favorite bit of loss-in-translation thusfar: the official poster for the Thai DVD release of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which is now hanging in the windows of the many Blockbuster-lookalike video chain stores here features this blurb:
”The cars only flirt with destruction, and the movie only flirts with entertainment.”
Subtle, isn’t it?
If you understood the word flirt to mean party, without the tentative, indifferent connotation, the review would read:
“The cars only party with destruction, and the movie only parties with entertainment!” Sounds like a movie you’d want to see! I guess the ad men only flirt with the English language.
