Turtles and Thai Food

During our orientation, we were told that Bangkok has three seasons: hot, hotter and damn hot. I have learned that you can say the same of the food.

My hosts here are wonderful. We are very well taken care of, housed, entertained and fed. We have breakfast at the house - fruit and museli (Todd if you are out there, I know you are jealous), either a packed lunch or lunch on the road; and dinner at home or in a local restaurant. Thailand is not for the faint of heart when it comes to food, as many menus are indecipherable, many dishes unidentifiable, and the Thai people seem to take a perverse pleasure in seeing just what you will eat if put in front of you. While the meals at home are tempered to western palates, the food in the restaurants is made for the Thais and often leaves you with a runny nose, watery eyes and a unquenchable fire in your mounth. If I thought I had a tolerance for spicy food before I left, I will be quite impressive after three months here! I have also crunched into things on my spoon, thinking they were fish bones, only to spit out an entire crab, complete with shell and legs!

It also turns out that Thai's do not eat turtles. Rather, the turtles in the market are sold to gain merit. Thai's (Buddhists) believe that there are certain things that you can do to gain merit if you are down on your luck - offering food and flowers to local monks and setting animals free. So the worse your day, the more turtles you should let free. I don't plan on having bad luck, but I am going to set a few turtles free, preferably far from where I purchase them, or it is likly that they will go right back in the bucket the next time they round up turtles from the river.