chow

So last night, Koong made me eat some of the more esoteric snack foods. A funny chick. She and her pals are street vendors. Despite five years of University? Haven't gotten to the bottom of that one. Koong, Jak, Kong, Toto, Mak, sometimes Jak's older brother.
So the fried little frog was probably the best. The grasshoppers weren't too bad; when you deep fry anything and hose it down with fish sauce, it starts to taste ok. The fried silkworm pupae didn't really make did actually make me jump and make a face. Too squishy on the inside. You can't pretend that you're eating anything else. You know that you're eating bugs.
So it's fun. Hang out on the street, playing guitars, drinking rotgut Thai whiskey out of a bucket, learning to speak Thai, helping thm improve their English. Nice thing about this city is it's so damned hot that ewveryone hangs out outside. It's nice like that. Except at 2:30 AM it's still so hot the sweat is dripping off of your temples. That's why you put so much ice and water and coca-cola in your whiskey bucket. Keeps you cool. Even ice in the beer. Don't know about that one. But it's not brilliant beer to start with, and you end up with something approximating Coors Light. Which Billy Carroll would claim is the finest beer in the world.

So I swear I'm not in a state of total dissipation. Just getting used to the turf here in Thailand. Figuring out what this place is about. Getting a couple of ideas for a few photo assignments to give myself.

The Khao San road is like a crazy street fair every night. Which gets a little stale and silly, but it's certainly got a lot of energy to it. Lively. Hey.

It kind of weirds me out to talk to Thai girls because I can't tell always who's a hooker and who's not. You can pretty much tell. but it makes you a little distrustful. Depends on what neighborhood you're in. In a heavily-touristed area, the ratio of hooker to non-hooker is rather high. When all of the bars close, they swarm. Walking around as a single white guy attracts a disproportionate number. And something I've been learning as I get to know more and more locals and western transplants, the line between hooker and non-hooker is generally nowhere near as clear as it is in the west. Plenty of girls around dressed to impress who aren't necessarily looking to turn a trick, but they're definitely looking for guys with money who can buy them drinks and take them out and probably sleep with them. I guess the term should more be "gold-digger" rather than "prostitute".
Anyway. Chat more later.