When you first arrive in Thailand you might notice, as we did, the fascinating written characters. They're so loopy and curly, almost a silly looking language but silly in a good way. From a distance if you blur your eyes, sometimes it almost starts to look like English, but soon you realize it's definitely not. It's almost feels like what I'd imagine it would be like to be illiterate, where none of the symbols make any sense no matter how long you stare at them.
After leaving Beirut and stopping over in Abu Dhabi for an hour, we took a red-eye to Bangkok and landed around 7:30am...not leaving us much time to get our bags, get through customs, get money out, take a cab to the bus station, and board the 9am bus to Mae Sot. But we're awesome and we made it with about 10 seconds to spare. The bus ride was long, we arrived around 5:30pm, but the fact the roads are well maintained made it a completely different experience from Kenya. That, and there was air conditioning, and people weren't crammed standing up in the aisles for 10 hours throwing up onto the floor or into marika's lap. We took a tuk-tuk to the main market and after wandering around with all our backpacks we finally got some help and found our new home. It's a 2-story traditional thai looking house on a side street in between two major one-way roads through town. THe long alley way that leads to the house is home to two raggedy old dogs with raggedy old barks, if you can even call them barks.
We rented bikes to get around, which sounds great, and it is because you get a little breeze going which makes the 96 degree humidity a little less stifling, but there is SO much to take in on the streets that it was a little dangerous at first. The smells coming from all the roadside chefs, preparing their soups and satays and other tasty looking concoctions with colorful ingredients. You also have to navigate the visual stimulation from all the young people strolling around, the little grannies standing and watching life go by, the old men lining the clothing and electronic shops staring you down as you pass by, and not to mention the plethora of potholes, people carrying babies on their scooters, and other bicycles.
Our first stop was a this little roadside shack with the two old ladies who didn't speak a single word of English, and our Thai was limited to hello, thank you, pad thai and basil chicken. After a long game of charades, and providing much entertainment to the 15 or so locals who came/ordered/ate/and left while we were trying to order, we finally just pointed to the bowl of the girl sitting next to me and decided to try whatever she was having.
The bowl of noodle soup was interesting, with a strong fishy flavor and miniscule dried shrimp, but was not filling. I guess I forgot to mention that we hadn't had anything to eat since the airplane ride and were absolutely famished and delirious when we got to Mae Sot. Next on our culinary adventure was the Night Market in Mae Sot. Imagine a block lined on both sides with food stalls selling everything from soup, fruit, juice, noodles, and unidentifiable meat on a stick. We found a stall that was packed with locals so we sat down for some pad thai (for 20 Baht, less than a dollar for a generous size plate). This trip is going to make it all the more painful to pay $14 for a place of pad thai back home, that doesn't even come close to the rich flavors we found here. They always give you a whole plate of sprouts to add to your pile of noodles, and there's a wide assortment of hot sauces - my favorite is the orange-colored one in front - it cuts the sweetness of the pad thai and makes it more savory, but giving it a nice kick with the peppers. yummmmmmmmmm. For less than a buck, I know we'll become regulars here. After getting mango and sticky rice for desert, we had spent a grand total of $4 among the 3 of us for our 3 courses.
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