Our Thai Village
For the past 10 years I’ve spent as much time as possible in the winter months at my wife’s small village in Eastern Thailand. The contrasts are great when compared to our life in California. Shall we start with the food?!
Thai Food
Every evening the in-laws turn on bright blue “bug” lights which hang above large trays of water. What appear to be juicy flying worms are quickly attracted to the light, buzz around and then fall in the water from which there is no escape. In the early morning the villagers collect these in buckets and by breakfast time they are fried up with oil and a tasty local vegetable leaf. After eating thousands of these I know longer “think” that I’m eating insects! There are too many insects for the village to eat so all the extras are bagged and sold in a local market.
Our Thai Garden
Home Brewed Rice Wine
Then there is the rice wine. This is home brewed and the entire process takes about three hours. Special yeast is used and a lot of hand kneading and mashing on straw mats occurs before the wet rice is placed in large covered urns to ferment. Another food highlight is hunting for wild bee hives. We roll up pieces of dead grass, banana leaves and palm frond leaves that have fallen to the ground. We light the end of this and it soon makes clouds of grey smoke. The bees are very small and sensitive to smoke and part of the hive can be quickly harvested as they flee the scene. There is nothing quite like eating fresh golden honey right from the hive. Rather than using chapstick we make a lip balm from combining beeswax with coconut juice and then heat the ingredients. It smells refreshing, smoky and is certainly all natural.
Fresh Vegetables and Fish
Pre-Drained Fish Pond
Food is either raised or grown in or around the village. Meals are prepared from scratch. There is no shortage of fresh vegetables.
An annual winter event is when we drain a nearby pond and then wade into the deep mud with nets looking for fish. This is a messy 24 hour job where the passing time is helped by ample whiskey. We drain the pond at night and collect the fish during the day. After a few minutes of walking in the pond we are unrecognizable blogs of mud!
Change has come quickly to the village. When I first visited there were about nine Thai style homes (built up on stilts with comfortable space underneath the home to relax). Today there are only 2 homes left. Most of the villagers decided to move out and buy property on the outside of the village and then use the money from the sale of the property as well as some materials from their dismantled homes to build Western style homes.
Changing Village Life
Fish Pond in the Village
Phone lines just came to the village 2 years ago – before that it was only cell service. With phone lines we now have high speed internet – and the speed is twice as fast as what we can qualify for back home in California! Preceding this, I used to have to drive a motorbike 25 minutes into a town to use dialup internet on a network of about 12 computers.
Running water came to the village about the same time as the phone lines arrived. We used to have to walk 5 minutes to a pond, turn on the pump and then use the water as necessary and then walk back to turn off the pump. Showers were always taken with water from urns using small buckets. We still do not have hot water and during some nights for a few weeks in the winter months you don’t want to take a shower after sunset!
So this is a glimpse of life in a Thai village. One may think village life is boring but there is always something to do – or as little to do as one wants. Hammocks swing under the floors of the homes and some days all you want to do is lie in these and read a good book.
