Final Post

The night train in Chiang Mai arrived in Bangkok around 8:00 a.m. on December 19.  We took a taxi and checked back into the Lub'd Hostel before going back to one of my favorite places in the world, Bangkok's Chinatown.  Anna and I were on a mission to find Thai iced tea bubble slushies.  Before traveling to Thailand, I had never had Thai iced tea, but I quickly became addicted to it.  Thai iced tea is bright orange and is typically made with a combination of star anise, black tea, ground tamarind, cardamon, cream, sugar, and condensed milk.  Chinatown was much less crowded, probably because it was a Wednesday morning, and we searched all over before we finally found this drink.  The combination of the creamy Thai iced tea in a slushy form with tapioca pearls = the perfect drink for a hot day in Bangkok.  After buying another steamed egg custard bun, we went back to our hostel to move into our rooms and rest.  It was Sarah's 21st Birthday so that night we had a great dinner and went to an Asian saloon, after which occurred an unexpected turn of events that resulted in a very memorable night, to say the least.

The next morning, December 20, Anna and I said goodbye to Sarah and Jenny and we left Bangkok for Ho Chi Minh City.  I was going to leave Bangkok on the 21nd, but Eliza and Molly were leaving a day earlier from Vietnam and I wanted to see them before they left.  Anna and I were craving mango sticky rice and luckily the Bangkok airport anticipated this as it was sold in almost every store.  Full of pad thai, carrying Thai iced tea and mango sticky rice, bags bursting at the seams with scarves, lanterns, and embroidered cloth from Chiang Mai and jewelry and clothes from Khao San Road, I was ready to go back to Vietnam. 

Once Anna and I landed, we went back to the SIT office and had coffee with our professor, Co Thanh.  We told her about our travels and she discussed her plans for the program this coming spring.  It is strange to think that she does everything again with an entirely different group of students each semester.  Anna and I wandered downtown into District 1 and looked at all the Christmas decorations on the fancy stores.  We went up to the bar of the Caravelle Hotel because I knew they had an outdoor terrace where we could watch the sunset over Ho Chi Minh City.  Both of us were ready to go home and see our families, but now that we were at the end of our trip, we could not believe it was actually over.  We walked to get sticky rice for dinner and then went back to the guest house (where we had first stayed) to get our luggage that we had stored there for the afternoon.  

Walking back, I was exclaiming how good I was at crossing the street in the insane traffic.  It was especially crazy because it seemed like every single person in Vietnam was driving around to take pictures with every single holiday light display.  "I'm not even afraid anymore.  See I've finally gotten the hang of just walking straight through traffic and I'm not even worrying!"  Literally, two minutes later I was hit for the first time by a motorbike as a woman was stopping.  I was completely fine and just walked away (after saying "xin loi" (pronounced sin loy), sorry in Vietnamese, to the driver), which shows #1 that I did absorb the standard Vietnamese calm reaction to traumatic events and #2 it is still difficult to cross the road in HCMC.  You just have to hold your breath and hope for the best.  Looking both ways might also be a good idea.  

Anna and I said goodbye as she got into a taxi to take her to a relative's house and I got in a taxi to go to my host family's apartment.  My host family was kind enough to let me stay with them for my last two nights in Vietnam.  I had tried to keep my host sister updated throughout my travels and was excited to see her again and hear about her new job.  On Dec. 21, I reconnected with Eliza and Molly and we spent the day at Saigon Square buying gifts and catching up.  We parted ways that evening and I spent the next day riding motorbike and baking cookies with my host sister for her English club's holiday party. 

My two backpacks and one rolling suitcase were stuffed to the max as I arrived at the HCMC airport for the last time.  With promises to stay in touch, I said goodbye to my host mother and sister.  Sarah was on my flight to Tokyo so we said our goodbyes in Japan.  16 hours of flying later, I was greeted by my Dad and brother in the JFK airport.  And after sleeping for almost fifteen hours straight, once I arrived home, I was ready to celebrate the holidays.  Winter break flew by and before I knew it, I was back at Barnard.  I have loved reconnecting with all of my friends, starting a new internship, and taking new classes, but there are always moments in the day where I will stop and think about what the new SIT group is doing in Vietnam and reminisce about my time there.  

Things I miss about Vietnam:

50 cent bubble tea

20,000 dong to the U.S. Dollar

Passion fruits, mangos, custard apples, mangosteens

Sticky rice

My host family

The open food markets

Phở

The Lunch Lady's soups in HCMC

Bun Bo Hue

Learning about the culture

Living in a different city every week

Attempting to speak Vietnamese

Using chopsticks at every meal

Living out of a suitcase (somedays I miss that)

My host mother's Mooncakes (and all her cooking)! (Photo courtesy of Sarah)

Riding motorbike

The scenery

Vietnamese coffee

Fresh seafood

The freedom and ability to travel all around

Banana flower salad

The beaches

All the people I met

Preparing for Vietnam's Monsoons haha (Photo courtesy of Jenny)

These people

And especially these people and this place.  (Photo courtesy of Libie)

Thank you to everyone who has been following my blog!  It has been fun writing about my adventures and sharing my experiences with you.  

Until the next trip,

Helenka

Post SIT Travels: Day Two - Chiang Mai, Thailand

We were all exhausted after our elephant riding, bamboo rafting, Lady Boy watching day in Chiang Mai.  Luckily, the the next day, December 18, we already had plans to take a cooking class through Sammy's Organic Thai Cooking School.

We packed our bags, thanked our gracious hostel host Vee, and left Bunchun Hostel around 8:00 a.m. A driver greeted us outside Bunchun in a pickup truck and drove us to a local market where we met our cooking instructor and a few other people who were also in our cooking class.  The market, was in a covered pavilion and had over fifty vendors selling fruits, vegetables, flowers, snacks, rice, and much more.  Just like the Chinatown Market in Bangkok, I could have spent all day looking at and tasting the fresh ingredients.

A sleeping vendor.

 Different varieties of rice.

One person was selling over twenty different types of rice.  Another woman sat next to a table piled high with banana leaf wrapped steamed cakes.  We hadn't had breakfast yet, so we tried steamed rice with a custard topping and steamed rice with banana.  The custard was sweet and had a hint of vanilla-like flavor, but there were no visible specks of vanilla bean so it could have been made with pandanus, the Thai-version of vanilla.  Pandanus is a long and slender leaf that is commonly used to flavor Thai desserts.

Steamed rice with custard topping.

Our instructor was a very sweet Thai woman who handed us all sheets of paper and told us to pick one thing out of each category that we wanted to cook.  We had to choose between:
1. yellow, red, or green curry
2. cashew chicken, pad thai, or thai holy basil chicken
3. tom yum, spicy vegetable, or chicken coconut milk soup
4. spring rolls and green papaya salad
5. banana coconut milk dessert or sticky rice with mango

We all choose something different so we could try each other's dishes.  I chose to make green curry, cashew chicken, tom yum soup, green papaya salad and sticky rice with mango (of course).  Once again, these are Anna's pictures so they portray many of the dishes she made.  The instructor took us around the market and introduced us to new vegetables and spices.  After the market tour, we got back into the pickup truck and were driven to Sammy's Organic Farm, where the cooking class was held.  It was a beautiful location in the countryside on the outskirts of Chiang Mai.

The class was held in an open pavilion connected to a house.  There was a garden behind the buildings filled with fresh herbs like lemongrass, kaffir lime, and thai holy basil.  Next to the garden, there were about ten hammocks.  We started the class by making our own curry paste.

Mincing the shallots, garlic, chili pepper, galangal ginger, and kaffir lime. 

Ingredients for red curry: shallot, kaffir lime rind, lemongrass, galangal ginger,
garlic, fresh turmeric, and red dried chili pepper.
I'm pretty sure  cumin and coriander seeds were added as well. 

Red Curry Paste

I recently went out for Thai food in New York City and ordered red curry.  My friend asked if it even compared to what I had eaten in Thailand.  The flavors are similar, but there are differences, like the freshness of the ingredients.  Most everything we cooked with had just been picked.  There was no freezing, transporting, or storing involved.  It is also hard to find all of the ingredients like long beans, fresh tumeric, galangal ginger, and kaffir lime in many parts of the U.S.  Green beans, powdered tumeric, ginger root, and lime zest are all good substitutions, but they alter the robustness of the dish's flavor ever so slightly.  The curry pasts that we made were incredibly flavorful and balanced with just the right amount of heat to accent the dish.  Believe me when I say curry paste from a glass jar does not compare to making your own.  It is worth it to prepare your own curry paste and grind up all the herbs and spices when they are fresh.

After we minced and pounded the ingredients into a smooth paste, we were ready to make the actual curry.  All the ingredients were pre-measured so each dish was a perfect one-serving portion.

Red Curry Ingredients: red curry paste, tofu, thai basil,
long bean, baby corn, pea and baby eggplant.

Red Curry

During my time in Vietnam, many of the students on my trip bumped into people that they had known back in the U.S. Tom first saw a guy he knew from California in Hanoi.  Then we proceeded to see him in Sapa, Hue, and Ho Chi Minh City.  Molly ran into someone she knew from high school at a club in HCMC.  I was just waiting to randomly run into someone I knew.  At the cooking class, there was a guy who was originally from a city just north of the tiny town where I grew up in NY.  He had gone to a high school that was my school's rival and graduated one year ahead of me.  Small world right?

Green Curry

 We cooked our curries, soups, and either chicken or pad thai dishes then sat down to have lunch together.  There was sticky and jasmine rice to go along with our delicious meal.  Everything was wonderful, but the yellow curry was my favorite dish of the meal because it had a very vibrant flavor.

Jenny proudly showing off her yellow curry.

Yellow Curry Paste Recipe (from Sammy's Organic Cookbook):

1/2 tsp. roasted coriander seeds

1/2 tsp. roasted cumin seeds
4 dried chillies

1 Tab. chopped lemongrass

1 tsp. chopped galangal

1 Tab. chopped shallot

1 tsp. chopped garlic

1/2 tsp. chopped kaffir lime rind

1/2 tsp. peppercorns

1 tsp. chopped fresh turmeric

1 tsp. yellow curry powder

1/2 tsp. shrimp paste

1/4 tsp. salt

Grind the seeds into a powder with a mortar and pestle.  Add the ingredients except for the shrimp paste and yellow curry powder.  Pound until thoroughly combined.  Add shrimp paste and yellow curry powder until the mixture becomes a smooth paste.  Use it right away or cook the paste in a skillet for a few minutes then put it in a sealed glass jar and it will keep for one month. 

Yellow Curry with Chicken Recipe (from Sammy's Organic Cookbook):

2 Tab. yellow curry paste

100 g. sliced chicken breast

1/2 cup coconut cream

1 cup coconut milk

1/2 onion, peeled and sliced

1 cup potato, peeled and diced into bite-sized pieces

1 Tab. fish sauce (Be warned that fish sauce is salty! It's better to add a little then add more to taste)

1 tsp. palm sugar (or raw or granulated sugar)
1 green onion sliced
A few thin slices of red bell pepper or chili pepper

Heat the coconut cream in a saucepan until boiling.  Add the yellow curry paste, stirring until it becomes fragrant.  Add the sliced chicken breast and cook until they are almost all cooked.  Stir in the coconut milk and bring the mixture to a boil.  Next, put in the potatoes and onion turn the heat to low and cook until tender.  Season with fish sauce and palm sugar.  A little fish sauce goes a long way so be sure to start with a little then add more if needed.  Cook for two more minutes then remove from the stove.  Garnish with the green onion and thin slices of either red bell pepper or chili pepper.  Serve with jasmine rice and enjoy. 

Holy Basil Chicken

After we were all happily full, the instructor told us to take a nap in the hammocks for two hours while they cleaned up and prepped the kitchen for the next round of cooking.  I fell asleep swinging in my hammock in the shade of the garden.  At 2 p.m. we resumed cooking and I made green papaya salad and mango sticky rice.

Green papaya salad ingredients. 

Green Papaya Salad 

At the end of the class, each person was given a cookbook filled with all the recipes we had learned. Our instructor was nice enough to package up our leftovers with some wooden chopsticks so we could eat them for dinner on the train back to Bangkok.  The pickup truck dropped us off at the train station and we boarded our night train for the fourteen hour trip back to Bangkok.  The time passed fairly quickly as we reminisced about our travels.  I could not wrap my head around the fact that in five days I would be landing in the U.S.  I finished my mango sticky rice and watched as Thailand flew by out the window of the train.

Me, Jenny, our cooking class instructor, Anna, and Sarah

Post SIT Travels: Day One - Chiang Mai, Thailand

Traveling does not always goes according to plan, even if you think you have organized everything and are prepared for anything.  Like when you think you're headed to the international airport, but realize once you arrive at the airport it's the wrong one (because you can't find your airline) and the international airport you need is 40 kilometers away (this is why you should be early for flights).  Or when you pay $15 for a eight hour bus ride that ends up taking twelve.  Or when you lose the key to your locker that holds all of your luggage and your bus is about to leave.  Through it all it's important to remember "just breathe" and that everything works itself out in the end.  You may even just laugh about it later, eventually.

On our way to the airport to fly to Chiang Mai we were all in a good mood talking with our taxi driver.  I was holding a copy of our ticket information so when our driver asked me what time we were departing, I glance down just to clarify what I thought I knew.  "We leave at seven oh sh*t!" Everyone's heads in the backseat snapped up as I read and reread our ticket time.  "Why does it say we were supposed to leave at 7:30 a.m.?"  The taxi driver looked mildly amused as we all figured out what to do.  We decided to continue onto the airport and try to buy tickets for the 7:30 p.m. flight.  We were all to blame for not checking over our tickets.  We bought our four tickets at one time with one card to guarantee we would be on the same flight.  I was paranoid that our names wouldn't be spelled right or someone's passport number wouldn't match so I was compulsively checking that.  I guess it should have occurred to me that the time should have read 19:30 not 7:30 since Thai airlines use military time.  Anyway, we got to the airport early and had plenty of time to buy new tickets.  I kept consoling myself by thinking "Well remember how cheap those tickets were to get from Cambodia to Bangkok? Now you can use the money you saved to travel quickly in a big, clean, fast airplane".  It was definitely worth it.

Anna had reserved all of our spots in hostels before our trip started, which was very smart and a huge help.  If you are thinking of traveling, www.hostelworld.com is a great resource.  Anna found some of the best hostels through the site by reading people's reviews.  In Chiang Mai we stayed at Bunchun (translates to "my house") hostel.  We walked into a big room where there were two tents, a bed frame with a mattress, and at least five mattresses with sheets laying on the floor.  Guests had written thank you notes in sharpie all over the walls and someone had created a huge artistic tree on a middle pillar of the room.  There were also two Chihuahuas running around.  One was so small it could fit in the palm of my hand.  The owner and all of the other guests who were staying there greeted us enthusiastically.  Since we were only spending two nights, Vee, the owner, helped us decide what we wanted to do.  He had a lot of brochures and gave his recommendations.  We decided that we would trek the following day then take a cooking class on our final day.  He made the necessary calls and registered us for each program.  That night (December 16), we went to the Sunday night market with some of the other guests.

Photos courtesy of Anna.

The night market was very crowded and we didn't even make it to the end of the street to see all of the vendors.  People were selling embroidered pillows, t-shirts, lanterns, food, scarves, shoes, jewelry, paintings, and much more.

 For dinner, we had pad thai omelets, one of the most brilliant culinary inventions ever.  The cooks made the pad thai right in front of you in a giant wok.  In a separate pan they poured in eggs (that had been whisked together) to form a thin circular layer around the pan.  Then they put a huge serving of pad thai in the middle and folded the sides of the cooked egg around the pad thai to make a perfect bundle.  We were able to add extra peanuts, lime, and hot sauce.  While in Thailand, pad thai became one of my required meals of the day.

Omelet pad thai

The following morning, we woke up early for our trek.  The pamphlet said we would get to ride elephants through the jungle, interact with locals, trek to a waterfall, and go bamboo rafting.  We did do all of that, it just turned out different than I had imagined it to be. 

In the morning we were picked up by our tour guide and a driver.  We stopped to get two more people who would accompany us the rest of the day.  First, we went to the elephant sanctuary.  A big group of people had just left with the elephants so we walked around and saw a baby elephant with its mother.  (Fun fact: Elephants are pregnant for around 2 years.) 

The mother elephant and its baby were strong! The mother broke branches in half just with her trunk and the baby could easily push an adult human around.  The baby's hair felt very bristly.  I have heard elephant hair described as feeling like toothbrush bristles, but it was more stiff and at least two inches long.

The elephant is reaching its trunk up to get bananas. 

Sarah and I were able to ride on an older elephant.  She was fifty-three years old and throughout her life she had given birth to four babies.  The elephant followed a well-worn muddy track up a hill, through a wooden area, and back down another hill.  The whole time I was hanging on for dear life; it felt like I would slide out of the seat at any moment.  A young man sat perched on the elephants neck and directed it through the trail.  He started playing Taylor Swift on his phone and said, "American".  Talk about globalization, I was not expecting to hear "You Belong With Me" on top of an elephant in northern Thailand.  I really think that the elephant knew the route by heart and would have been fine without prodding.  The young man actually made Sarah and me feel really uncomfortable because of the way he treated the elephant.  We were fine going slowly along the trail, but the man kept whacking the elephant on the forehead with a pole and grunting at it loudly while shoving his heels into the elephant's neck.  Sarah had traveled to Botswana to do research on elephants over the summer so she had a special attachment to the animals.  We kept telling the guide it was okay that we were going slow, but I think he was trying to show off and act macho and in control.

That part of the trek made me think about the negative effects of tourism.  We had heard from another backpacker that they took a trek where the elephants were hit and abused and she had not recommended paying money to any tourist program that centered around animals.  The hostel owner told us that the company we used had a good reputation so we decided since we were in Thailand, we would see the elephants.  Tourism helps to keep the elephant sanctuary running, but also puts the elephants in a vulnerable situation where they are subjected to carrying tourists around the same route day after day.  Before embarking on a tour in any country that includes interacting with animals, I would recommend researching the company to see how the animals are treated.  I also think that more research programs should find tourist attractions where the animals are not treated well and try to educate workers about how to handle the animals and be in control, without using brute force.

Waterfall

After seeing the elephants we drove to a place where the native northern Thai people were selling their handicrafts and doing weaving demonstrations.  None of us had brought any money so we didn't buy anything.  I'm not sure the people believed that we didn't have money and I'm sure a lot of tourists say that if they don't want to buy things.  We went to a waterfall and had the opportunity to swim before lunch.  The water was freezing, but all of us jumped in.  We had a very simple lunch consisting of soup and fried rice then went bamboo rafting.

Our guide was a little eccentric and had joked with us the whole day. So after he had a beer at lunch then told us he would going to guide us on the bamboo raft down the river we thought he was kidding. Turns out the other guide cancelled so he had to step up and steer, which made me really nervous, especially after I saw the "rafts".  The bamboo rafts were about three meters long and one meter wide.  Ten long, dried bamboo shoots were tied together.  The guide stood in the front with a long pole to try and make sure we wouldn't hit any rocks.  Sarah, Anna, and I sat spaced out evenly on the rest of the raft.  Jenny and the two other people went on another raft with a different guide.  When we got on the raft our guide warned us to keep our hands in the raft.  "There are big snakes!" he said, grinning at us.  The rafts were very unsteady and we all sat with our legs crossed on the bamboo.  Our guide did not help to calm my nerves when he proceeded to say that he hadn't had to guide a boat in months so he hoped our journey down the river would go smoothly.

The river was cold, but luckily not flowing too quickly.  In a few places there were small rapids and our guide had to steer us around rocks in our path.  He did almost fall off the front of our raft once and I honestly don't know what we would have done since the water was fast in that section.  After about an hour we made it to the end and I could finally breathe knowing that I had survived.

Bamboo rafts.

That night, one of Sarah's friends, who was working in Chiang Mai teaching English, met us for dinner. We ate street food at an outdoor market.  It was hard to decided what to eat, but I finally settled on red curry for dinner and mango sticky rice and a fluffy steamed egg custard bun for dessert.  After dinner, we shopped and went to a Lady Boys Show.  It was free, you just had to buy a drink.

This Lady Boys Show is famous in Chiang Mai.  All the performers are men who dress as women who dance and lip sync to a variety of songs.  The performance set to Madonna's song "Vogue" was by far the best.  It was really incredible watching them dance.  First, they are all in much better shape than I am, they can dance in tall heels like a pro, and their makeup skills are far beyond my own.

Photo courtesy of Sarah.

Photo courtesy of Sarah.

Photo courtesy of Sarah. 

Post Lady Boys Show.  Photo courtesy of Sarah.

We packed in a lot during our first full day in Chiang Mai and I enjoyed every minute of it.

End Note: Sarah shared some of her photos with me so I added a few more pics to my post about Cambodia.  Check them out!

Post SIT Travels: Bangkok, Thailand

After seeing the magnificent sunset at Angkor we finished the night by shopping at the night market and  having Chinese food for dinner.  The next morning we took a bus from Siem Reap to Bangkok for $15.  Now my uncle had warned me about the buses from Cambodia to Thailand saying to be really prepared for the bad roads and bad service.  Looking back, I should have listened to his advice.  

The first part of the trip went okay.  We started out at 6:20 a.m., twenty minutes later than planned, and an eighties karaoke video was playing for the first half hour (luckily the video player soon broke).  After we arrived at the border everyone on the bus was given a small red sticker.  We had given them our tickets so that was all we had to prove we were on the bus.  People started unloading our bags and I grabbed mine right away.  Some boys were putting bags onto a trolley and when my friend tried to take hers off they said something in Cambodian, shaking their heads.  "But that's my bag!" she said and took it off anyway looking confused at them.  I do not know where her bag would have ended up if she had not taken it.  Everyone on the bus lined up at the customs office leaving Cambodia.  We were all fingerprinted again to make sure our arrival and departure prints matched.  Once we made it out of Cambodia we still had to walk about 300 meters along a road where there was a casino before we arrived at the customs office in Thailand.  Entering customs in Thailand there was a huge sign written in English and Thai that said "Transportation of Drugs Punished by Death".

We filled out immigration cards and obtained our free 15 day tourist visas.  (If you arrive by air, you get a free 30 day tourist visa.)  After exiting the building my friends and I were told by a woman, "You have red sticker? Keep walking".   About 100 meters further along the road, where trucks filled with goods were driving by, we arrived at a pickup truck with seats in the truck bed.  They luckily saw our red sticker and instructed us to get in the truck while we waited for the rest of our group.  Once the truck was full we were driven to a small rest stop area where we thought we would meet up with our coach bus.  We were very wrong.  After 45 minutes of waiting, we were told to go into a very small van, that we somehow fit fifteen people into.  "Okay 4 hours to Bangkok", the driver said and everyone squished in the hot van looked shocked since it was already close to the time that we should have been arriving.  Maybe it could theoretically take four hours, but every hour we had to stop at a gas station and wait in a long line of cars to refuel.  Finally, we made it to Bangkok, much later in the afternoon than we had anticipated.  Moral of the story, you can't buy time so maybe consider flying if you only have a few days to travel.

We went directly to our hostel, Lub D, which was an amazing place.  It was very clean and had a very artsy/modern feel to it.  We were lucky because the dorm rooms we had booked were filled so we got two double rooms for the night for no extra charge.  Since we were in Thailand, we went to find pad thai for dinner and it did not disappoint!

First pad thai in Bangkok. Thanks again to Anna for letting me use her photos.

We explored the night market in Bangkok and went on a hunt for mango sticky rice.  For those of you who have never tried mango sticky rice, let me explain.  First, sticky rice is a different type of rice than say jasmine rice.  Sticky rice has to be soaked for several hours then drained and steamed to obtain the perfect texture.  Each grain of rice should still hold it's shape so it should not be mushy, but when properly made the grains still stick together.  After the rice is steamed, coconut milk is poured over and it's left to soak in.  To serve, you put a mound of the coconut sticky rice on a plate, slice a ripe mango, place it over the rice, and top it with more coconut milk and crispy mung beans.  It's one of my top favorite desserts (it might even beat Magnolia's banana pudding and that's saying something!).  After asking over ten people in English and broken Thai we finally found a street vendor who sold it.  It was well worth the hunt! 

Mango Sticky Rice

 Since we had spent most of the previous day on a small, hot bus, we decided to spend the day in Bangkok and fly to Chiang Mai, a city in Northern Thailand, later in the evening.  Previously, we were going to take a train, but we could not bear the thought of being on a train for ten hours instead of an hour and a half flight.  We had almost the entire day in Bangkok until our flight left so we decided to sleep in and explore Chinatown.

 Bangkok is a huge city so we had a taxi drop us off on a street in the heart of Chinatown.  Chinatown was mobbed with people selling steaming food and bright juice, bartering in cramped stores, cooking on the street, and buying everything imaginable.  We found a dim sum restaurant and ordered a large assortment that included pork and shrimp dumplings.  The restaurant we ate at, and many others in the area, also sold shark fin soup and birds nest soup, which are controversial dishes in the U.S.

Dim sum

We also had black bean steamed buns, bbq pork steamed buns, and (my absolute favorite) egg custard steamed buns.  In Vietnam, banh bao, a steamed bun filled with different meat, vegetables, or eggs, was one of my favorite snacks.  After eating we walked through an indoor market and the surrounding streets.  I could have spent all day going through the spices, identifying the vegetables, and trying the fruits.  Instantly I fell in love with all the foreign smells, the bustling people, and all of the food.  I am convinced you could buy any ingredient imaginable there.  They even sold sea cucumbers!

Hanging pork belly and crispy duck. 

Grilled and fried bananas.  

A big dried fish. 

Spices, flowers for tea, dried berries. 

Sea cucumbers

Chinese lanterns.

While walking around, we came across this woman who was making what appeared to be mini taco-like treats.  She spread a thin layer of batter in an oval shape over a heated griddle.  Then she put a dollop of what appeared to be creme fraiche.  Half were topped with a stringy yellow substance that I recognized as a version of fios de ovos that is used in Portuguese desserts.  It kind of looks like cooked spaghetti squash and is made with egg yolks and sugar.  I found another food blog that discusses how it's made and the countries it's made in, Thailand included! You can read that here, http://www.oohmummy.com/2010/04/i-wanna-eat-keiran-somen.html. The other half of the ovals were topped with a sticky orange substance.  Both varieties were piled into a small plastic bag and sprinkled with sesame seeds and green onions.  The "tacos" were bite sized and packed a punch.  We think the orange substance was made of dried fish or shrimp, but it was still surprisingly sweet and had a kick of chili at the end.  It actually paired really well with the green onions creating a perfect bite of food.  

Add caption

Larger versions of the "tacos". 

 On each street there was also at least one person selling freshly squeezed orange juice and pomegranate juice.

The most perfect pomegranates. 

Decorated paper that families buy to burn during the New Year. 

Purple yucca

Colored steamed buns. Don't they look like Easter eggs? 

Bangkok

After our exciting day in Chinatown, we packed a small bag and headed to the airport to fly to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.