Challenges over in Bangkok

Working in Bangkok is full of challenges. The most challenging part is the language barrier, which is much more severe than it was in Jakarta. Thai language is a totally different language. So far, I only managed to learn a small handful of Thai language. Its only enough for me to do bargaining at shopping. Hehe!! Bargaining skill is a must in Bangkok!

Our bigger issue is the problem during food ordering, especially those without English menu/ pictures! What can we do were either simply pointed at something or pointed at their customers’ bowl/ plate and asked for the same dish. Then, fingers crossed and hoped that the dish is what was expected. Therefore, we usually opt for the restaurants with an English menu or at least picture menu. We thought the real bowl of rice/ noodle should not go very far off from the picture. Haha!!

Taking about food, another challenge for me is the spicy food!! Their chilies are superb in term of spiciness. Most of their tom yum or soup is added with tones of chilies. The chilies come in different sizes and shapes, including thin & short, fat & short, fat & long, and even green & round!! There was once T thought the rounded green chili was a green pea. LOL! He bitted on it and threw it out immediately. That was freaking spicy! For me, I always ended up with lots of water/ ice after the spicy meals.

Last weekend, my colleagues and I visited the Pratunam market. Along the street, we saw a stall sold some fried stuff. There were fried grasshopper, beetles and worm. I suggested to T to tryout some of them. He bought 1 packet of fried worm and he dared me to eat them!! Ouchh!! They are worms…

Check out the fat and juicy worms

He tried one and commented that it was not bad! ST tried one too. They said it tasted like the Chinese 'kam heung' cooking style of fried worm. Emmm... Ohh well, I ended up trying too! I took 1 bite at the tail instead of the head (the 2 eyes at its head were freaking me out). Its texture tasted like green pea!! I hate eating green pea. So, this is not my cup of tea. I won’t eat it again even though the taste was not horribly freaky.

My half bite fried worm

T seemed to love it a lot. Haha! He poured a lot of the worms onto his plate of chicken rice and ate them as side dish. I should have snapped a picture of his rice island that was surrounded with fried worms.

I believe that there will be more challenges ahead. I'm ready to face all those upcoming challenges/ events. Com’on, bring it on!! :-)

*Cheers*