Central Thailand (March 6th - March 16th)(continued)
I then went back to town to make a big decision. Earlier in the morning I had an iced coffee. The lady at the stall simply took a cup or so of Nescafe filtered it through what looked like a stocking, added 4 spoons of sugar and filled a large plastic cup with crushed ice. It was a little sweet but once the ice melted and watered it down a bit, very refreshing. It comes with a little bag for ease of carrying.
The decision part was due to another type of iced coffee that I noticed yesterday. There are stalls all over town that have cans of carnation evaporated milk piled up so I found one and asked for an iced coffee (kafe yen).
In this one she put a few ounces of evaporated milk in a plastic cup then added a cup of crushed ice, almost to the top. She then poured a cup of filtered Nescafe over the mixture, followed by a little more carnation and a final small scoop of ice. It was delicious and after downing it, decided it was the winner. Whew, all that effort making decisions made me thirsty, so I had another.
The Thais have to be the world's biggest consumers of crushed ice, plastic bags and straws. If you order a pepsi from a street vendor, they pour the bottle in a plastic bag with handles, fill it with ice and you drink it with a straw. When I go to a store I often get a few items, usually a bottle of water and then one of my yoghurt drinks and I will be given 2 straws. I don't like drinking out of straws (too slow) so I always give them back. All the iced coffees and drinks in a restaurant come with a glass full of ice. I often see people driving on a motorbike while carrying a bag with a straw. One day I went to a 7/11 and picked up a bottle of water, a yoghurt drink and a small bottle of iced coffee that I wanted to try. I wasn't watching and went I got outside with my nice plastic bag with handle, I opened it up and right along my three drinks were 3 plastic straws.
This is a restaurant in Ayutthaya where I ordered the seafood curry with rice and a large Chang beer, followed by a plate of fresh fruit containing watermelon, pineapple and banana. I am definitely going to enjoy Thailand.
