Shady Project: Category Thailand

Transit In Thailand: Taxis

Shady — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:03:00 -0700

Taxis in thailand are pretty much like Taxis anywhere else in the world. Flag 'em down, hop in, go where you want, pay what it says on the meter. Par for the course. That said, there are a few difference to be aware of.

The first, and most noticeable, difference is the color: there isn't just one standard color for a thai taxi. No, thai taxis can come in any of the following colors: Yellow (yawn), Bright Green, Royal Blue, Neon Pink, Royal Purple (usually with some kind of yellow or pink stripe on the side - these appear to be advertisements for thai airways), a Lighter Purple, Metallic Bronze, Candy Apple Red, and a two toned Red/Blue or Yellow/Green.

The two toned taxis bring us to the next difference: All taxis except the Yellow/Green variety are members of the taxi drivers union. Yellow/Green taxis are actually independently owned and operated by private citizens. Despite the private ownership, the taxis charge exactly the same rate as the union members. They appear to exist solely as a way for private citizens to make some extra cash. They are, however, regulated. Owners of private taxis (you can have more then one) must be licensed by the communications(?) department.

Like pretty much everything else in Thailand, taxis are really really cheap. From Victory Monument to where I am staying on Don Muang road (approximate distance 12 miles) was less then 5 bucks. Can't really go wrong.

Check out the pictures of every conceivable color of thai taxi in the gallery.

Eating in Thailand: Domestic Chain Restaurants

Shady — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 01:06:00 -0700

Thailand has, like any other country, a large variety of restaurants. You have the huge trans-national conglomerates like KFC, McDonalds, and Burger King of course, but you also have some local chains, or country wide chains that you won't find anywhere else. We'll cover the interesting changes the trans-nationals have made at a later date.

We're going to start with my second favorite of the local chains I've tried so far. I've been to this place 3 times since I came here. It's called MK Restaurant. It's Jibs favorite restaurant, and was my favorite until I discovered the restaurant I'm going to talk about below. MK restaurant is essentially chinese style hot pot. If you're not familiar with hot pot, it works like this: you have a hot plate at each table, on top of which is a pot filled with water. When you sit down, you can order from a huge variety of raw items, that you get to put into the hot water to cook. Of course you have sliced beef, pork and chicken, but you also get to choose from such delicious items as shrimp, fish tofu, squid, seasoned fish balls, pork balls, liver, and tripe. You also get some tasty vegetables to add to the mix. Nothing special here (lettuce, etc) with the exception of Morning Glory, which the Thais apparently consider to be a normal vegetable and eat all the time. I was skeptical at first, but it's actually really good. But I digress. So you put all your raw ingredients into the pot and wait for them to cook. You also get a brown sauce that is similar to hoisin sauce. You also get a small bowl of chopped chili and garlic that you can add to the sauce to adjust the taste to your liking. When everything is done cooking, you fish it out, put it into your bowl with some of the water that everything has been cooking in, as as much of the sauce as you want for flavor, and enjoy. It's tasty, healthy and surprisingly filling.

Although the focus of the MK Restaurant experience is the Hot Pot, they also have a nice selection of dim sum, and pre-cooked appetizers that you can munch on while waiting for your soup to finish. These appetizers come with signature green noodles. They're just regular old rice noodles, that have been turned green via food coloring. It's a strange gimmick and unnerving when you first try them, but they taste like plain old noodles. Another interesting gimmick is the receipt you get from MK contains a list of the nutrients your meal contained, and the percentage of your RDA that those nutrients made up.

Next up on the Thai chain restaurant list is my personal favorite: Bar B Q Plaza. Originally, MK was my favorite. I was only lured into trying BBQ plaza by on of their advertisments on TV. I like to think of myself as not the type who is swayed by advertising (don't we all), but this particular ad was just too good for me to not want to try the place out. The concept is similar to MK (communal cooking) the execution is different. Instead of a hot pot type cooking method (i.e. boiling) BBQ Plaza uses a thai style grill on top of the hot plate. For the details about thai barbecuing and the style of their grill, check out the pictures in the gallery here. You can also see a short video here. Essentially you have a hot metal cooking surface at the top, and around the sides you pour in water to catch the drippings and flavor of whatever you're grilling. You eat this soup along with the grilled items and fried or white rice.

Although you can order individual a la carté items such as ham, bacon, and squid, like at MK, the main focus is combination dishes. You pick a selection of dishes with names like beef economy pack and ultimate family pack, each of which contains slices of either a single type of meat (beef family pack) or a selection of multiple different kinds of meat (ultimate family pack). The ultimate family pack, for example, comes with beef, ham, bacon, sliced pork, chicken, squid, shrimp, narutomaki (japanese style spiral fish cakes), udon noodles, cabbage, baby corn and carrots. You dump the veggies in the water at the sides of the grill, slap the various meats at the top to cook, and wait. The end result is simlar to MK restaurant but you get the added flavor that comes from grilling the meat. After the first or second round of grilling, you have a nice brown crust on the top of the grill, that you can deglaze with the water to add incredible flavor to the soup at the sides.

Yum Saap (no website, sadly) is a restaurant that I think could only ever be created in south east Asia. That's not to say that it couldn't do well in, say, Hawaii or California, but the overall taste and menu items are geared specifically towards this geographic region. The focus of Yum Saap is the Thai style papaya salad, and its ilk: beef salad, pork salad, etc. The salads served at Yam Saap are quite spicy, in the tradition of a lot of Thai food. It's very good, if you're used to that sort of thing, but even the Thai people I ate with commented on how the papaya salad was "ped mak mak" (really spicy). Of course, simple papaya and other type of salads are not the only items available at Yum Saap. They have the usual variety of a al carté items available, but even these are geared more towards veggies and present a seemingly healthier option for consumers of fast food.

My Fellow Americans...

Shady — Sun, 27 May 2007 20:33:00 -0700

We have been royally gypped when it comes to chip flavors. In Thailand, the Lays company makes some of the most astounding flavors of potato chip possible. These include, but as far as I can tell may not be limited to:

Nori Seaweed
Spicy Seafood
Seafood Mayonnaise
Barbecue Sparerib
Bacon and Cheese
Cheese and Onion
Sweet Basil
Thai Chili Paste
Korean Pork Bulgogi

Okay, so, the first two I can understand not bringing stateside. But cheese and bacon? I mean, is there anything that americans love more then that combination? Maybe guns? I dunno.

We'll start with the flavors that don't disappoint:
Bacon and cheese tastes like, well, bacon. And cheese. Delicious, and nutritious. Well, at least as nutritious as bacon and cheese flavored potato chips are capable of being. The barbecue sparerib flavor is not, as I initially reckoned, the same as the barbecue flavor we have in the U.S. You can actually taste a hint of meat and barbecue in the chips, thus making them actually worthy of the name. The nori seaweed flavor (which I am eating as I write this) taste like a regular potato chip, with a hint of seaweed. Obvious, one might say. However, these chips are the pinnacle of seaweed-as-snack. I've tried the plain old seaweed strips, and they're okay but a bit over powering. Seaweed crackers are nice, but lack some of the punch of seaweed flavor. These chips strike the perfect balance. Seaweed flavor, and potato chip. In harmony. I wonder if I can ship these stateside in bulk...

Now, on to the flavors that, while delicious, really don't live up to their full potential:
Korean Pork Bulgogi tastes nothing like real bulgogi. It pretty much tastes like barbecue, with a hint of a spicy aftertaste. The same can be said of the Sweet Basil flavor; simply replace spicy aftertaste, with sweet aftertaste. Spicy seafood is an odd one. It's definitely different then the sweet basil and bulgogi flavors, but it's still not much different then a standard barbecue chip. Shrimp crackers taste more like seafood then spicy seafood chips do. They're not even particularly spicy.

I haven't had the chance to try the thai chili paste or seafood mayonnaise flavors yet, but I will be sure to record my observations on them for posterity.

Shadyproject. Where only the most important issues are ever discussed.

Pattaya

Shady — Sat, 26 May 2007 01:54:00 -0700

Went to pattaya for a night before leaving for Koh Samed this weekend. Pattaya is what most people who tell you about Thailand are talking about when they tell you about Thailand. Most of Thailand isn't like that at al, but Pattaya and Phuket pretty much give the rest of the country a somewhat questionable reputation. It's loud, kind of skeezy, and is the nexus point for every single Creepy Old Guy in the known universe.

Truth be told, not all of Pattaya is like that. When you come in from Bangkok, it looks more or less like any other place in Thailand. As you get closer to Pattaya City proper, however, you notice an increase in three things:

Neon Lights
Foreigners (seriously, they're so common I didn't get stared at a single time here
Questionably dressed females

These three things slowly increase in number until you reach the famous Walking Street. Think of it as a mini vegas strip, but with less class and taste.

The walking street is filled with foreign tourists going bar hopping, to come visit their particular go-go bar, and hundreds of Creepy Old Guys walking around with women who were, at best, old enough to be their daughters. In several cases, granddaughters was far more likely. Even the younger tourists have this kind of sleazy aura about them.

Each bar seems to have it's own house band composed of either 1)expats living the dream of being in a rock band (and sucking) or 2)Thais doing covers of english songs (and sucking). At one of the bars I visited with my friends, I had the privilege of witnessing a very white, very jewish expat living his own personal dream (apparently) of being a rapper. Yes, he rapped live with a backup band, and his partner for some duets was a real, live ladyboy. It was the sort of thing you read about in travel guides (or some tools blog) and wonder if it really happens.

On the whole, I really didn't care much for Pattaya. It was loud, expensive, and there were way too many Creepy Old Guys and Hos. The shopping isn't so bad, but everything else can take a running jump. I much preferred Koh Samet, Ayutthaya, and pretty much anywhere else I've seen to Pattaya.

Ayutthaya

Shady — Sun, 20 May 2007 21:05:00 -0700

Went to Ayutthaya over the weekend. It's only about an hour and a half by bus from Bangkok. The ride itself isn't too bad; nothing special scenery wise, and at some of the stops they'll let vendors into the bus to sell you food and drinks.

The first stop of the trip was to see Wat Mongkolbopit, a unctioning Wat not ruined near the entrance to the ruins of Wat Prasisanpet.

Ayutthaya was the capital of thailand in the past, and it was also sacked by the Burmese twice during the many, many wars Thailand fought with Burma. As a result, you can find lots of ruins in Ayutthaya, in addition to the usual plethora of Wats. The primary ruins are the ruins of Wat Prasisanpet which was the private chapel for the royal family back when Ayutthaya was the capital. It also houses the ashes of three previous kings of Thailand, in three huge stupas, which you can see in the gallery Ayuttaya, inside the Thailand gallery.

Although Wat Prasisanpet was destroyed by the burmese, Wat Yaichaimongkol was built after Ayutthaya was reclaimed a second time, and as a result is in much better over all shape. You can still see the buddha statues made of stone, and they are still a fully functioning temple to this day. You can find a reclining buddha here, as well as some other large ones.

The third and final Wat that I visited today was Wat Pananchueng. This wat is a mix of Chinese and Thai styles, and for the Chinese, the buddha here is considered to be the protector of sailors. The buddha here is simply huge, and at one point it was exposed outside, where it could be seen for quite a distance. At this wat one of the things that you can do, is to pay 10 baht and get large bag of fish food. You walk out onto a dock, and feed the huge numbers of catfish that congregate here.

Although you can ride elephants around in Ayutthaya, I didn't get the chance to do that. I did however get some pics taken with the pachyderms, and I recommend that anyone who goes to Ayuttaya do so. They're pretty smart and who doesn't love elephants?

Finally, I had the pleasure of a river dinner cruise around Ayuttaya. Ayuttaya is surrounded on all four sides by river, which is why it was originally chosen as a capital. You can order a wide variety of delicious foods (Fried Boar with Curry Sauce!) and watch the scenery go by. There are several companies that offer this type of dinner cruise, but the one I went with is the Pasak River Queen. It's he biggest boat, a dual level ship with the first level enclosed and air conditioned. The second level is open on all sides. The only down side to this is having to sit through some rather appalling karaoke (seriously, you don't know bad karaoke until you hear the engrish version of Zombie by The Cranberries). However, bad singing aside this really is an awesome way to end the day.

You can see all the pictures from Ayutthaya here

Pics are up

Shady — Mon, 14 May 2007 01:59:00 -0700

You can find them in the gallery named Thailand.
Gallery sucks. Hard. Pics are down until I fix it.
Gallery still sucks, but the pics are back up.