thai delight

This is attempt number two to start my Thai diaries, or my Thaiaries, if you will. Ahem. 

Anyway, here I am in Si Racha, Chon Buri, Eastern Thailand, 120 km southeast of Bangkok. The town is best known for first producing the (apparently) world-famous Sriracha sauce, known locally as pretty much just sauce, I suppose. It's everywhere. They put hot sauces on everything, including fruit, so you can imagine my disappointment when I finally established once and for all that I don't really enjoy spicy foods. Luckily for little farang (i.e. Western) ninnies such as myself, they do sometimes give you the option not to garnish your food with liquid fire. Bland is best, I say. 

The streets of Si Racha are also home to some of the most mouth-watering scents in the world, as well as the most gut-wrenchingly noxious fumes one could ever imagine assaulting one's olfactory system. A morning drive through the city is guaranteed to be an emotional roller coaster. The smell of freshly baked or grilled delicacies will inevitably give way to that of sun-baked refuse, and, of course, the durian, which, unfortunately, is currently in season. If you are not familiar, the durian is known as 'the king of fruits' by people whose idea of a king is apparently... I don't even know. Someone very smelly and disgusting. I guess it does look kind of impressive though.

THE MAJESTIC DURIAN!! 

There are other, less absolutely fucking terrifying fruits. The pineapple here, for instance, is amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I can no longer eat it, having overdosed within the first four weeks. I am totally sick of pineapple, folks. Life is hard sometimes.

When this hardness of life occurs, however, worry not excessively! For there is always a reasonable chance that you will see three people and a small dog on one scooter (or even five and a chicken, as I've heard), and that is just adorable. If you're lucky, one of those people will be a little girl painting her toenails.