Trust

There’s a certain level of trust that a foreigner must have with their guide, a certain blindness to be had. When I was being taken to Khao San by my housemate Nam, I felt completely blind. She asked me what I wanted for dinner and I wasn’t sure. When she suggested, Khao San, I recognized the place and I agreed to go with her. Just so you’re aware, Khao San is a densely populated street full of farangs, (foreigners/westerners) who come to Bangkok for cheap food, booze and entertainment. You’re likely to see hippies and frat boys milling about with to-go cups of cheap Bacardi. It’s a place with very little rules and the only reason they have police patrol is for westerners safety.

Getting there wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. There are set bus routes and with numbers, so I know that bus 56 and 68 will take me to Khao San. Bus 40 will take me to the Tesco Lotus and Central, the Thai Wal-Mart and the super mall. So I can get to these places by myself, in theory, but getting back might be another story.

Anyway, Nam and I took Bus 40 to Central so she could get her cell phone looked at. The Thai are all about their cell phones. Then we took a bus to our final destination. When we got there, it was a carnival of street vendors, beggars, and westerners. I walked fast to keep up with Nam, who is smaller and more knowledgeable of the area. She ducked and weaved through the crowd, asking as she went along: “You like Thai food?” I nodded and said, “Yeah, I do.” She was taking me deeper in to the crowds until we made it out the other side, where there were more Thais than farangs. “I know good place for Thai food.”

While I was walking behind Nam, I thought for a second, just a split second that she was leading me somewhere unknown to westerners where someone would step out of the shadows and knock me over the head with a lead pipe. Then they would drag my unconscious body down a black alleyway where a old rickety Japanese manufactured pickup truck sat, full of drugged or knocked out farang women. We’d all end up in the sex slave market, some of us worth more than others on account of hair and eye color. Hopefully they would find me too tall and dark featured to put up with me and then return me to Khao San. But like I said, I only thought about that for a second.

Finally we came to a small, very small, restaurant with two long tables and a dozen small plastic stools. I let Nam order food for me which could have been a mistake. “You like spicy food, chai?” I nodded. “Chai ka,” I said in agreement. And it’s true, I love spicy food, can’t get enough of it back in the states. The spicier the better.

In Thailand, however, there is a level of spiciness that we westerners have never experienced and probably should avoid for health reasons. The cook of the restaurant lived to that creed and set before me a strange soupy dish that could only have been shrimp chunks. Yes, that’s right, the only meat that could be identified was pieces of strangely blended or pureed shrimp. I knew from the looks of it that I would not like it, but I took a small spoonful and sipped it just the same. As soon as the spoon hit my lips, my entire mouth was on fire. Once I got over the sting and bite, the actual soup proved to be disgusting. I didn’t know which part to complain about first, so I did the polite thing and said to the cook, “Too spicy.” He nodded and I apologized for being so farang and weak. He told he would make me a new dish. I told him that it was not necessary and that I would eat the vegetables he set out for us. The cook refused my pleas and said he would make a new dish, garlic shrimp. Mmmm.

Poor Nam ate the soup by herself and I watched in amazement and in concern as she shoveled it down without pausing for water. This pint-sized girl was my new hero. When the cook brought out the new dish, I knew from the look of it, that I would like it. It was dark brown and saucy with recognizable garlic pieces and huge shrimps. Huge. The difference however, is that the shrimps in the US come to us all cleaned up. These shrimps still have their legs and their tiny face staring up at you. I did not care one bit, I cut them in half, ate the back end and was very satisfied.

Nam refused to let me pay for the meal, even the gross soup she ended up eating by herself. All in all, the meal which consisted of my gross soup, my garlic shrimp and the vegetables and rice between us, was just under 20 baht, which is a little less than 5 US dollars. That still amazes me.

As we took the bus back home, I started to get a little sleepy and allowed myself to be a little blind once again, I closed my eyes and let Nam tell me when we were to get off. It turned out to be a great evening. I made a grave food error, I learned my way to a new area in the city, and I got a little closer to my housemate. I think I went to bed that night feeling a little better about being a farang in a big city.