Thailand - The Rough Guide to Southeast Asia on a Budget - page 701

eat are the local night markets ( talaat
yen ), where pushcart kitchens congregate
from about 6pm (sometimes until 6am),
often close to the fruit and vegetable
market or the bus station. Each stall is
fronted by tables and stools, and you can
choose your food from wherever you like.
At a cheap café, you'll get a main course
for less than B60, while upmarket
restaurants can charge more than B130.
Nearly all restaurants open every day
for lunch and dinner, often closing
around 9pm.

Sweets ( khanom ) don't really figure on
most restaurant menus, but a few places
offer bowls of luk taan cheum , a jellied
concoction of lotus seeds floating in
syrup, and coconut custard ( sangkaya )
often cooked inside a small pumpkin.
Sweets are more likely to be sold on the
street, alongside sticky cakes made from
glutinous rice and coconut cream
pressed into squares and wrapped in
banana leaves.
hais don't drink water straight from
the tap, and nor should you: plastic
bottles of drinking water are sold
countrywide, and in some towns you'll
find blue- and-white roadside machines
that dispense drinking water at B1 for 1
or 2 litres (bring your own bottle). Night
markets, guesthouses and restaurants do a
good line in freshly squeezed fruit juices
and shakes, as well as fresh coconut water
and freshly squeezed sugar-cane juice,
which is sickeningly sweet.
Beer costs around B35 for a 330ml
bottle in a shop, more in a restaurant or
bar; the most famous beer is the locally
brewed Singha, though many people
prefer Leo or Heineken. At about B60 for
a 375ml bottle, the local whisky is a lot
better value and hais think nothing of
consuming a bottle a night. he most
drinkable of these is the 35 percent proof
Mekhong. Sang Som is an even stronger
rum . Bars aren't an indigenous feature, as
hais rarely drink out without eating, but
you'll find a fair number in Bangkok and
the tourist centres.

10

WHAT TO EAT AND DRINK
hais eat noodles when Westerners would
dig into a sandwich - for lunch or as a
late-night snack - and at around B30
they're the cheapest hot meal you'll find
anywhere. hey come in assorted varieties
(wide and flat, thin and transparent,
made with eggs, soy-bean flour or rice
flour) and get boiled up as soups, doused
in sauces, or stir-fried. he most popular
noodle dish is pad thai , a delicious
combination of fried noodles, spring
onions and egg, sprinkled with ground
peanuts and lime juice, and often spiked
with dried shrimps. Fried rice is the other
faithful standby. Although very few hais
are vegetarian ( mangsàwirat ), you can
nearly always ask for a vegetable-only
fried rice or noodle dish - though many
places will routinely add fish sauce as a
salt substitute. All traveller-oriented
restaurants are veggie-friendly.
Aside from fiery curries and stir-fries ,
restaurant menus often include spicy hai
soup , which is eaten with other dishes,
not as a starter. Two favourites are tôm
khàa kài , a creamy coconut chicken soup,
and tôm yam kûng , a prawn soup without
coconut milk. Food from the
northeastern Isaan region is popular
throughout the country, particularly
sticky rice, which is rolled up into balls
and dipped into chilli sauces, and sôm
tam , a spicy green-papaya salad with
garlic, raw chillies, green beans, tomatoes,
peanuts and dried shrimps. Barbecued
chicken on a stick ( kai yaang ) is the
classic accompaniment. Raw minced
pork is the basis for larb , subtly flavoured
with mint and served with vegetables.

CULTURE AND ETIQUETTE
Tourist literature has so successfully
marketed hailand as the “Land of
Smiles” that a lot of tourists arrive in the
country expecting to be forgiven any
outrageous behaviour. his is just not the
case: there are some things so universally
sacred in hailand that even a hint of
disrespect will cause deep offence. he
worst thing you can possibly do is to
bad-mouth the universally revered royal
family . he king's anthem is always
played before every film screening in the
cinema, during which the audience is
expected to stand up.