A new friend

Well, it is unlike me to stay in one spot for too long but this must be my mid journey pause. . . and besides there's a great Sunday night market I want to see and a friend to hang out with on Monday.. . It's nice to travel to where you have friends and really something when you make frineds along the way. . .So I was in Mae Sot (not far from the border of Myanmar (Burnma) eating at this AMAZING hole in the wall labled only "tea shop" located across from a Mosque. I've discovered one of my new favorite things in life it is called a Rootee. . . basically a thick crep but what makes this my favorite is that this one was filled with chicken curry!!!!! Oh what a delight. So it was about a week and a half ago or so and I'm sitting watching the night sky darken over the mosque and the people coming and going when a woman pulls up on her bicycle, jumps off of it smiles and says something along the lines of goodevening to me as she springs up the steps of the open fronted shop and and and orders. She is about to sit down behind me when I turn around and say, are you eating alone? You're welcome to join me. She flashes her wonderful smile again and joins me. We connect! We talk about everything, food, Thailand, chewing beetlenut (which she shows me how to do correctly since I'd bougth some from a young muslim girl from her little crate box stand earlier in the evening when I was wandering around a residental neighbornood inhabitated mostly by "Burmese" immigrants both muslim and nonmuslim). . . we talk about travel, living abroad, careers and suddenly we realize that we've eaten all our food and I've finished my second cup of masala tea and well, we really should get going so they can close the shop. . . Siripan suggest that we go to the night market and walk around. We have a wonderful time exploring the inner part of the city's night food market. First off we find the insect ladies and I decide the crickets look doable. . .I've already eaten silk worm pupa as this is quite the thing in Korea. . . I've eaten plenty of worms in my days, the locusts look a bit big to begin with so the crickets get the vote. Siripan makes sure the women make them nice and tastey for me with chili and soy and well I get a skewer of 3 hoppers. My new friend did me the favor of documenting this cullinary adventure for all of you to witness when I get back and load my photos on the blog. hahahah... They were actually surprisingly delicious, yes I know, I'm crazy but this one is true.

We continued along the market stalls and I was given an expanded education on some of the local cullinary traditions by my new friend. There is nothing better than having a local guide! S bought her favorite sweet for later and we worked our way along the streets of town heading slowly toward my guest house. We found a Burmese food stand with wonderful sweets of coconut, peanut, fennel sugared syrup and red onion wrapped in banana leaves that I would later go back to try on my journey back through Mae Sot. We visited a Burmese style temple, well the grounds of the Watt only and thus began a discussion about Buddhism which we kept returning to for the rest of the night. We found a newly opened Boutique Hotel and checked the place out, it was gorgeous!!! and finally landed at an outdoor cafe to have a few drinks. We closed that place too. . . It was like being with someone I'd know for years and it was the first time we'd met. . . It's an amazing thing that happens sometimes when traveling but the unsusual twist about this story is that she is Thai and lives in Chiang Mai so here I am now and we will have a chance to do it all again in her "home" city. . . I am so pleased and warmed to have a Thai friend with whom I share such a genuine connection. . . the world becomes a very small place very easily when you travel. Life is GOOD!