Our adventure begins. This will be Meghan and I's 5th full day in Thailand. After 27 hours of travel, and little sleep, up at sunrise (5:30am) and to bed at 10pm is finally feeling normal - in this part of the world, sunrise and sunset are like clockwork, and never change.
We've been staying with Meghan's brother, Steve, and his wife, Joy, just outside the small town of Ban Dung, and have been exposed to a side of rural Thailand we would never have seen otherwise. It's truly been a pleasure meeting Joy's family, and despite the lack of a common tongue, we've been received with warmth and hospitality. While there are marked cultural differences, as many of you that travel know, there are commonalities that transcend language and culture, allowing all of us to connect on some level - these are the connections we rely upon during a trip like this.
Food
Some of you are aware that one of my goals for this trip was to eat as many exotic dishes or delicacies as I could. As a result, I'm going to include a regular food section in each post to better track the various things I put in my mouth. So, first up: freshly brined snake.
Joy's brother caught, killed, and cleaned some large snake earlier in the day, and everyone thought it would be hilarious if the farang (pronounced "fah-lang") tried it. Honestly, it looked far worse than it tasted. While there was copious amounts of fish sauce in the brine, the meat itself was tender and extremely similar to a chicken wing. In fact, it had no distinctive flavour at all, but it was a bony sucker. The least appetizing aspects were the skin and scales - luckily I was able to peel them off, and chase the whole thing with a shot of homemade herbal whiskey called ya dong.
Isaan Breakfast
Not minutes after I published this post, I was invited to partake in a typical north-eastern Thai breakfast prepared by Joy's mother.
Ant Eggs
Two of the four dishes contained, as their main ingredient, red ant eggs. Yep, ant eggs, and you know, they weren't too bad and exhibited a satisfying "pop" when you bit into them - reminded me of a certain starburst joke. Can you spot the winged ant in the photo above? Yummy.
Tomorrow, April 21st, we head for Laos and whatever that brings. So, farewell for now, and feel free to ask questions in the comments section - I'll answer them as best I can.