A Fisherman's Tale

My colleague and I had fixed lunch to catch up after the Christmas and New Years break. I found out that he had never been to the Som Tam place. Som tam (papaya salad) is an Ishan (northern) dish in Thailand, which is very popular among both locals and foreigners. Since my office is located on Phar Atit Road, one of the touristic places in Thailand, we have plenty of options for lunch and there are many places that we have not managed to explore yet.

As always we had lots to catch up with each others’ lives. He started talking about his missions (field trips) and his holiday. Then he was telling me about his uncle who owned a house in Japan. After having lived a rigorous working life, his uncle had decided to retire by a seaside in Japan. How his uncle would take him to the sea where they would spend hours fishing. His uncle could sense which parts had fish and which did not just by looking at the water. After a good catch, they would enjoy a nice barbecue by the sea. Since the uncle was from a family of fishermen, fishing was in his blood and he spent most of his day on his boat. His wife was never worried about him; she knew that he would always come back.

One of such days, he took his boat and cleaned it carefully. Then he went to the sea. But unlike other days, he did not come back that day. Hours after dark when there was no sign of him, the wife started getting worried. She inquired around the neighborhood but no one had seen him. His boat was not there in the shed either, meaning he was still on the sea. Police were called and they started a search. They found his boat floating in the sea and a half broken fishing rod. They searched the water nearby but could not find him. As much as he loved being on the sea, he had now become a part of the sea.

After hearing this story the first thing that came to my mind was: all this time he was the one catching fish and now the fish had caught him.

Thai Zumba Lessons and Dinner by the Chao Phraya River

A friend of mine is visiting from Nepal. After her undergraduate studies, she joined teaching at a college in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Since it is summer holidays in schools now, she is visiting us (my other friends from college and I) in BKK. Yesterday, we took her to the nearby Rama VIII Bridge, named after the King Rama VIII. The Bridge is 2.45 km long and spans the Chao Phraya River. On our way, we passed series of restaurants filled with local people. Since eating out is cheaper and less time consuming, everyone eats out here. We also passed a Indian restaurant run by Nepali people. One would think that these people from your homeland would be more helpful and nicer to you in a foreign country, but instead they started making sleazy passes and comments at us. Then we passed a vegetarian restaurant on our way, which had peculiar open hours. When my friend asked as old lady, who seemed like the owner, what time they would open, she replied 11. We were shocked, a vegetarian restaurant opening at 11 pm? But then she later clarified that she meant 11 am the next day.

After about 20 minutes of walk we finally came to the bridge. We saw a group of young boys playing football by the bridge. This reminded me of my football days in middle school, when I used to be on the school team and also my first year in college when I played varsity soccer. Although I was tempted to go join them for a while, I resisted. My three friends and I climbed the top layer of the bridge and that’s when I found men fishing with fishing rods that had really long strings attached to them and they were using binoculars to detect if they had caught any fish. Although the river was dirty, it looked beautiful from up there on the bridge. There were beautiful giant ships with lighted pink, yellow and blue colors, sailing on the river. A little further down, we saw a group of at least 30 women and men dancing to the tune of some Thai pop music. There was a tiny stage in front of them with a very fit looking instructor on it. It looked so much fun that I decided to join them myself. Dancing to the fun Thai music and facing the river was the best exercise experience of my life.

It was time for some food after the random exercise. We found rows of people, especially couples sitting on hand woven mats and cooking some kind of soup by the river. It seemed such a strange coincidence that everyone would be cooking the same thing. Then we found out that you could actually order those soup pots and pick which ingredients you wanted and cook them in the hot mud pot by yourself. So we called the lady who was taking orders. Since one of my friends is vegetarian she specified that we did not want any of the seafood, or meat or eggs. She looked confused so I asked her to go with the lady and personally supervise the ingredients for the soup. Apparently, the lady seemed very disappointed when my friend rejected all kinds of fish, lobsters, octopus, meat and eggs. Nevertheless, we ended up cooking yummy soup out of greens and vegetables. The river looked so beautiful with the reflection from houses on it and the air was refreshing. The evening was certainly one of those fairy tale romantic types.

Where Creativity Knows No Bounds :)

Among many other things such as cheap food and clothes, fresh fruits, vegetables and smoothies at every corner of the road, there is another thing that stood out to me in BKK. People here are very creative and by that I mean majority of them, be it a local vendor or a great dress designer. It is hard for anyone here to starve to death. I have seen toys, hats and purses made up of recycled soda cans. I have seen amazing motorcycles and scooters with so many businesses being carried on them. The first one that I saw was a whole vegetable shop being carried on it. Then it was a fast food noodle shop. Finally, I got to see the motorcycle taxis, where men are in orange shirts and they take you to places faster than any regular four wheeler taxis. I am yet to ride one of those taxis though.

I found a soap in Jatuchak market that had built in body scrubber, no need to get an external one. When it comes to clothing, I am sure we all have seen how creative and cute BKK designs are. I came across one of these scarves that had beads and crystals sawn into them. So along with your pretty scarves, you can also show off the fancy jewels without having to wear them separately. I am sure the Western countries will soon have them imported in large numbers. I also saw a pair of bra with detachable covers so that if you wanted to wear low cut clothes without revealing your bra then you could just attach those cute covers on top of your bras. In addition, dresses with shorts styled skirt can be found easily which are very convenient to wear. I also saw fancy umbrellas shaped like wine bottles, cartoon characters and Japanese dolls.

Creativity knows no bounds here: Yesterday, I saw rows of men standing on the high bridge of the King’s river and fishing with rods that had its strings at least 500m long. As the fishing was done deep inside the river, they could find fish at a higher frequency. The men used binoculars to confirm if they had caught any fish at the far end of their fishing rods. BKK is a city, which gets light rainfalls pretty often. Although the rain usually starts and ends within 2-5 minutes, it certainly causes discomfort for vendors that are selling fruits, vegetables, meat, etc on their carts. Hence, the vendors walk around with emergency plastic covers that they cover their carts with in case of rain and still continue with their business. To those who are looking for niche, come visit BKK and go back to start up a great business!!!