EatingAsia

Gat Luang Diaries IV: A Punjabi Cook, and Gooseberries

Mr. Singh came to Gat Luang's Namdhari Sikh gurdwara from Bangkok and, before that, Punjab. For six years he's been priest and cook at this eighty-year-old center of Namdhari worship in the Gat Luang neighborhood.

When we first visited the gurdwara's kitchen last February, as part of our project to document daily life in this historic neighborhood Mr. Singh was back home in India, and the institution's weekly Friday dinner was prepared instead by a trio of female members. It was good, but there was something about the way our host at the temple spoke of Mr. Singh that made us want to revisit and see him in action.

His kitchen is spotless. Walking into the gurdwara on a Friday afternoon, we're encloaked in an intense  fugue of spices. I expect to encounter a corresponding tumult in the kitchen. Not so. Stainless steel gleams and light bounces off pristine white tiles. On the stove, big pots and a huge wok are arranged in a neat row, each perfectly centered on its burner. Prepared fresh ingredients sit in little bowls arranged tidily on a corner of the counter.

Mr. Singh works alone in the hot space preparing a five-dish meal for sixty, yet his kurta and pajami -- white, as Namdhari tradition dictates -- show no trace of perspiration, no splotches of stray curry.

He moves slowly, gracefully on bare feet, floating from burner to burner, between sink and refrigerator. He doesn't rush but everything gets done. When we arrive Mr. Singh is dicing his homemade paneer, holding a hunk of cheese in one hand and cutting it into cubes with a serious looking curved blade held in the other. The rest of the cheese sits on the counter, beautifully swaddled in a gauzy white scarf as if it had been styled for a photograph.

When he's finished dicing the paneer Mr. Singh deep-fries a few cubes, dusts them with garam masala, and offers us a taste. It's the best I've eaten. Made with milk taken that morning from cows at Chiang Mai University it's buttery and clean, without the rubbery texture that often plagues commercially made paneer. Then he offers hot samosa stuffed with curried potatoes, to dip into tangy tamarind sauce. And there is kheer, more of that creamy milk, lightly sweetened ("For us Indians it would be made sweeter," our host tells us.), laced with cardamom and floating vermicelli and a few tapioca pearls, served hot in metal bowls.

When we arrived Mr. Singh, with his heavy brows, full beard and lush moutache seemed remote and unapproachable, even a bit fierce. But as we praise his food his eyebrows shoot up and his face crinkles into a smile. He is proud of his skill in the kitchen. "You must return tonight for dinner," he says, and we will.

On the counter by the sink in the kitchen are a stainless steel pitcher of cool water and a bowl of amla -- Indian gooseberries -- a seasonal delicacy eaten with spicy dips by northern Thais. At first bite the hard, pitted fruit has no flavor, and then it's sour and bitter, with an astringent finish that sucks all moisture from the mouth.

When you eat this strange fruit water drunk afterwards tastes shockingly sweet. Mr. Singh likes to make amla into a chutney. "Next time you come," he smiles.

A Punjabi saying:

Amle Da Khada

Aur

Shyane Da Keha Bad

Vich Acha Lagdahaey

(Roughly translated for me, by our host at the gurdwara:

Just as the gooseberry has little flavor but makes water taste sweet afterwards, so you do not believe when an elder speaks to you, but learn later in life.)

On the Mekong, Lime-Free Laab and Cool "Noodle" Soup

Two weeks ago we found ourselves working on a story at a posh resort in northern Thailand. It was the type of gig that strangers, when I tell them I write about food and travel, envision as they reply dreamily, "Wow, that must be amazing."

Don't get me wrong. It is amazing, to be able to do what we love to do -- eat well and travel and meet intersting people -- and call it a job. But a job is a job and traveling for work is nothing like traveling for pleasure. And jobs with the sort of perqs we enjoyed two weeks ago come along... well, near to never.

We worked our butts off for four days because that's how away-frome-home work is. Nothing like the fear that you won't get everything you need while you're on locationto inspire pre-dawn risings and pre-bedtime hours at the computer. But it was all good: the bed didn't give us backaches and the spray in the shower was as hot as we wanted it to be, and generous too. Our room came with a deck and views, of a grazing ground for elephants and egrets and beyond, Burma -- the Ruak River and a patchwork of farms trailing to pine green hills. The staff were wonderful people who worked hard to help us do our jobs. After every photogenic and much-photographed sunset there were lovely cocktails and good food and excellent wine.

And yet, and yet. By the evening of day two I was missing the flavors of the street, craving the tastes and textures of down and dirty northern Thai cuisine. I wanted the snap of roasted chiles and the tingle of prickly ash, the richness of fatty barbecued meat and the bite of sticky rice. I was chafing to imbibe something of Chiang Saen, the nearest town, and its surrounds. There were local specialties there, I knew, and I wanted to try some.

So, as I sat at the bar sampling a tom kha cocktail (addictive) the night before an early morning photography foray to Chiang Saen market, I sought advice from the mixmaster. In Chiang Saen, try the fish grilled in a bamboo tube with herbs, he advised. A nighttime specialty, served by the river, but we'd be in the vicinity early morning. What else is there to eat? I asked. Oh, khao ram feun in Baan Sop Ruak! It's on your way into town! He described a dish of jelly-ish gram flour squares in a cool tomato-based broth that sounded like a memorable treat we enjoyed a couple years ago on the street in Luang Namtha, in northern Laos.

So the next morning, well before we alighted at the dock in Baan Sop Ruak, I told our our guide that we'd need to stop on the way to Chiang Saen in Baan Sop Ruak for a bite or two. I've dealt with guides associated with high-end resorts and hotels, and usually they are resistant to any requests off the beaten path. I hate being handled and I'd steeled myself for protests: Oh no, that food is too dirty. Oh no, that food will make you sick. Do you dare to eat something spicy? I think it's not a good idea, you're not used to the food.

Surprisingly, and delightfully, Khun R's response was nothing of the sort. "Alright," he said, with a smile. After alighting from our boat near a big golden Buddha statue across the Mekong from an atrocious Chinese-owned resort complex in Laos we made our way to a stall set back from the street where a middle-aged woman was setting up for business. She was happy to serve us khao ram fuen, she said, but we'd have to wait a half an hour.

We decided to wait it out with an "appetizer" of laab khua, beef laab prepared in the nothern way, with odd bits and meat and lots of fresh herbs and chilies and dried spices. At the table next to us sat a group of Thais just off the night shift at the casino. As we waited for our order we watched, mouths watering, as dish after dish arrived at their table: gaeng om, a heady beef stew enhanced with a mixture of dried spices, thick slices of barbecued pig's neck with tamarind-soured dipping sauce, two kinds of laab, fried chicken, somtam local style, with bplaa raa instead of fish sauce. All accompanied by Saeng Som and soda and bottles of energy drink. 

Finally our laab arrived,and it was perfect. There is something so unidentifiably deep and rich and almost mysteriously fabulous about northern-style laab -- the absence of a light note like lime juice, perhaps, or the combination of dry and fresh spices or the meatiness of the meat in Thailand. We dabbed it up with fingertipfuls of sticky rice and agreed that it was among the best we'd ever eaten, better perhaps even than our favorite laab in Chiang Mai.

By the time the last nib of water buffalo meat had disappeared into our mouths the khao ram fuen lady was ready for us. She offered two types of "jelly" -- one made with sticky rice flour and one made with a combination of sticky rice and yellow pea flour. We ordered one of each. For both orders she sliced the jelly-paste into rough cubes, added a few yellow noodles, and then sluiced on a ladleful of thin liquid by boiling tomatoes in water and then passing the mixture through a sieve.

Condiments came next: a dab of fresh red chili sauce, a splash of Mae Sai-style semi-liquid tua nao (fermented and sun-dried soy beans) mixed with chopped cilantro, spoonfuls of ginger-garlic water, Shan (and Sichuan)-style sandy chili oil, salt and ground peanuts.

On top of it all, fresh cabbage shredded and tossed with pea sprouts, and a mixture of blanched snake beans and bean sprouts.

After she'd served us Paa Laa (Aunty Laa), as the vendor is known, encouraged us to personalize our bowls with the addition of anything we wanted more of. That meant more chili sauce and cabbage for me, more tua nao and chili sauce for Dave.

What we ended up with was certainly one of the most delicious concoctions we've come across in our by now fairly extensive northern Thai travels, a dish that pushed all our buttons with its fresh vegetables and copious amounts of chili. The snap of the cabbage contrasted nicely with the yielding jelly-paste cubes, the nuts and fermented soy beans added heft and umami. By the time we got to the bottom of our bowls the dish's range of flavors had melded in the remaining tomato-y soup.

Resisting the urge to order a repeat, we departed with a bag of lovely crisp-fried banana slices (by Paa Laa's daughter, who works next to her), toddling off to the Chiang Saen market where more deliciousness, in the form of pounded pomelo salad with black crab paste, awaited.

Khao ram feun and laab khua, Baan Sop Ruak. On the river near the golden Buddha statue, about 100 meters towards Chiang Saen. The khao ram feun is sold on the river side of the road and the laab khua shop, with its two tables, is directly across the street. Look for Aunty Laa, but if you don't find her ask around for khao ram feun -- there are plenty of other sellers after about 930/10am. This is a morning/early afternoon dish. Aunty Laa says she usually sells out by 1230/1pm.

 

 

 

Seasonal Somtam

Chiang Mai in August is not Chiang Mai in February.

In August the air -- relatively clean, with not a trace of dry-season smoke or dust -- is heavy with moisture. You love those steely gray clouds, you pray for them. Even torrential rain is tolerable, certainly preferable to blue skies. Because when the sun comes out it's so clammy-hot that sweat begins dripping from your earlobes in minutes.

Chiang Mai markets in August are not Chiang Mai markets in February. The result of monsoonal rains is evident in the mushrooms, mushrooms everywhere. Last month we cooked, in our adopted apartment, bushels of petite chanterelles and a few other varieties varieties of mushrooms I can't name, often with tender curlicue-tipped gourd vines displayed in fist-thick bundles by seemingly every other seller at Muang Mai market.

We ate no mangoes, but devoured plenty of school bus-orange sour starfruit picked in someone's home garden and sold from a basket in front of a travel agency on Tha Phae Road. The travel agency owner also offered up bushel baskets of fresh santol -- a tart, somewhat astringent fruit with vanilla to blush pink flesh and velvety peach-fuzzed skin -- and had a refigerator case stocked with homemade santol jam (delicious stirred into fresh yogurt) and santol pickled with chilies. Last month in Chiang Mai the vanilla scented watermelon we purchased every evening outside Don Lam Yai market in April were scarce; our preferred vendor proffered green guava instead. And carts laden with pomelos lined up in the lane behind Warorot market.

Some of the rainy season's bounty finds its way into seasonal somtam. To sample a salad made with santol -- which is gatawn in Thai, ba dtun in northern Thai -- we payed a visit to our regular somtam guy, in the alley next to Bpu Bpia temple (behind Warorot market). Dtam ba dtun is what we ordered ("pounded" santol), and asked him to exclude the salty preserved crab he usually pounds into his version. Into his big mortar went the fruit, meticulously cleavered into thin slices, as well as sugar, a bit of lime, chilies, and several mini ladles of bplaa raa.

What came out of the mortar was a surprisingly rich dish of soft-ish fruit thickly coated with a fishy "dressing" reminiscent of that which cloaks anchovy-heavy Caesar salad. For us fishiness is not a bad thing, and the dressing played nicely off the assertive tartness of the fruit. We picked our way around pieces of pit and ate our dtam ba dtun with morning glory (water spinach) stems and sliced cucumber to tame the heat of the salad's fresh green chilies.

After a week of searching off and on for dtam som-o (pounded pomelo) -- the fruit is a favorite of Dave's, who is especially enamored of tart-sweet Thai pomelos -- we found it on our last morning in town at a row of stalls across the moat from Chiang Mai old town's Somphet market.

This was a fairly straightforward dish: pomelo pounded to near bits with green chilies, fish sauce, a bit of bplaa raa (at our request) and a little lime. Quartered green golfball eggplants added a hint of of bitterness. Overall the dish was bracing, refreshing, just the thing on a soggy-sticky late morning during northern Thailand's wet season.

(Second) Home Again, and Nam Ngiaw

I'll admit it, this space has been quiet the last few months. In over six years (six years! How does that happen?) of blogging we're at our lowest ebb ever. It's not for lack of material, inspiration or interest. It was The Move, I think. It through me for a loop, knocked me off my stride. Moves tend to do that, even more so when they're sandwiched between intense spurts of work -- in Malacca before The Move, Taiwan and Kelantan after, then Hanoi. When it rains it pours, they say. If you're a freelancer you're pretty much guaranteed a monsoon when it's time to move.

After Hanoi there was Chiang Mai, to continue work on the Gat Luang project. We're getting down to the wire now. Lots of photos, lots of interviews, lots of time out and about gathering what we need to make our part of the project a reality. Dave had some test prints done for the Gat Luang gallery show he'll have in Chiang Mai around Chinese New Year, and we saw a mock layout of our part of the book, five beautiful pages (we'll have 75 total). Exciting, exhilerating, and exhausting.

But despite the rushing about being in Chiang Mai was like taking a long, slow deep breath. It's become that way this year. We've been visiting the city on a regular basis for five or six years, but 2011 will be the year that Chiang Mai truly became second nature to us. Being there, even if we're working, is relaxing. It's like being home without all the little hassles of home.

On our last couple visits we've been lucky enough to stay in a friend's apartment, which gives us the option of cooking in. We do, most nights -- as we do here in Penang. The highlight of this last trip was our first dinner at "home", made with ingredients we carried from Hanoi and foraged in Chiang Mai. Quesadillas two ways: chanterelle and manchego with grilled tomato, green chili, and sawtooth herb salsa, and goat cheese and squash vine with sour starfruit, cilantro and fish sauce salsa.

During the day we usually eat out, and by now we have our favorite spots. Though every visit brings new dishes, new vendors, new restaurants, we have an unwritte list of shops and restaurants and stalls that we return to again and again and again -- even several times on the same trip.

That's what being home is like. When you're home you know you'll be back so there's no need to fit every food experience in all at once, no pressure to get out there and eat every meal new. Chiang Mai is in our future on a regular basis. We know there will be time to try something different, and so we're comfortable revisiting what we already know that we enjoy.

Like a little shop around the corner from our rental called Nam Ngiaw Tha Phae. On our last trip, in April, friend and Gat Luang project collaborator Wilaiwan said she wanted to take us to her favorite shop for kanom jeen nam ngiaw. Imagine our surprise when it turned out to be a place we stumbled on 5 years ago, but hadn't returned to since. It's firmly on our own "favorites" list now. It was  first place we ate after arriving in Chiang Mai in late August.

Like many good places to eat in this part of the world, Nam Ngiaw Tha Phae has a history. The original shop was opened in the vicinity of Don Lam Yai and Warorot markets by the parents of current sister co-owners Pisiwan and Saiyut. After mom and dad retired older sister Pisiwan took over. Then, after what's known as The Great Fire closed Warorot in the 1960s, Saiyut took over from Pisiwan and moved the business to its current a few blocks towards Tha Phae Gate.

Saiyut now runs the nam ngiaw show with the help of her daughter, while Pisiwan concentrates on Thai French fries. (More on those shortly.)

Sisters Pisiwan (left) and Saiyut

Pisiwan and Saiyut's grandfather on their mother's side was a Shan from Burma, one of many who settled on Tha Phae Road, outside Chiang Mai's old city. (Many workers for British companies involved in teak logging in Chiang Mai during the 1800s and first half of the 20th century were Shan.) Nam ngiaw is a Shan dish.

If you don't know kanom jeen nam ngiaw -- a surprising number of visitors to Chiang Mai don't, and sadly leave without trying it -- the dish consists of fermented rice vermicelli topped with a thin-sauced meat (sometimes beef, sometimes pork) and tomato stew. (The noodles are called num banh chok in Cambodia. We documented their fascinating production process in a village outside Siem Reap, here and here).

Bits of blood cake figure into the dish as well. Don't let this be a turn-off. You can avoid the blood cakes if you like (when ordering kanom jeen nam ngiaw say "Mai ao lyaat -- My Ow Luh-aht"), but even a blood cake-neutral eater like myself has to love the dull red bits in Saiyut's nam ngiaw. They taste not of blood but of smoke, and are firm and a bit chewy. And they saok up the nam ngiaw soup like nobody's business.

Nam ngiaw -- in flavor if not texture -- is oddly reminiscent of a great Bologna-style ragu, especially when it's made with pork. Though it's soupier and lighter, whenever I dig in to a dish my first thought is always "ragu bolognese", followed by visions of the sauce over spaghetti noodles with a grating of parmesan reggiano. (Further north in Chiang Rai nam ngiaw is an almost entirely different being, in-your-face piscene-pungent with bplaa raa and often blisteringly spicy -- delicious in its own way but not ragu reminiscent.)

The sauce's meatiness is balanced by a bit of sourness from the small cherry tomatoes you see all over northern Thailand, and it gains a great depth from tua nao. Tua nao is fermented soy beans that are sometimes seasoned with chili and either sold as a fresh paste or pressed into rectangular cakes or smashed and flattened into discs and dried in the sun. They are northern Thailand's (and Laos' and Burma's) umami bomb of choice, in the way that shrimp paste and fish sauce are central Thailand's.

(If you find yourself in northern Thailand, buy some tua nao to take home. The sun-dried cakes and discs are grilled/roasted before using, and they're great eaten out of hand with or without a dip, or pounded to an almost-powder and mixed with rice.)

To make her nam ngiaw Saiyut fries a paste of tua nao, garlic, shallots, shrimp paste and dried chilies chilies in oil. She insists that her dried chilies are special, smoked while still fresh before being completely dried. To me they taste a bit like New Mexico dried chilies -- a tiny bit sweet, a little bit bitter, spicy but not overpoweringly so.

To garnish servings of kanom jeen nam ngiaw: cilantro, chili powder, fried shallots, and whole oil-roasted dried chilies (the rubber bands are for tying take-away bags!)

After frying her nam ngiaw paste Saiyut mixes roughly diced pork with turmeric and salt, then cooks it "to get the oil out". She removes the pork from the wok, adds the cooked paste back in and stirs it a bit in the pork fat, then returns the pork to the wok. She adds water, a bit of chopped Chinese pickled mustard -- her secret, she says, "to make the soup sweet" -- and tomatoes, plus a little black soy sauce for color. Then she brings everything to a simmer and cooks the nam ngiaw till the pork is nearly falling apart.

Saiyut buys her kanom jeen from Mae Rim, not far from Chiang Mai. The likes the sourish fermented taste of the noodles made there, she says. I can testify to their lovely elasticity. After dousing the kanom jeen with nam ngiaw Saiyut garnishes the dish with browned shallots, a bit of coriander. They're over the top delicious when eaten with a few strips of deep-fried pig skin crumbled over. I always crush a few small, fiery oil-roasted chilies into my noodles.

About those Thai French fries -- that's what Wilaiwan has dubbed Saiyut's sister's specialty: kabong tawt. Kabong is a green gourd -- a bottle gourd, I think -- and "tawt" means deep-fried. Pisiwan's kabong tawt are for earlybirds only. She starts selling them from a little stall out front of the shop at 6am, with bags of her own nam prik num (a dip made with roasted green chilies and, unusually these days, tomato too).

One Sunday morning before 7am we watched motorcycle after motorcycle toodle down the narrow lane outside the shop and come to a stop in front of Pisiwaan's oil-filled wok. She worked steadily but the wait for fritters stretched to 20 minutes in some instances; customers were walking away with 8 or 10 bags at a time. And we've yet to taste her nam prik -- it sells out within minutes of opening.

But having indulged in Pisiwaan's kabong, which are dipped in a ground chili-enhanced batter and turn out light, hardly oily, fantastically crispy outside and almost custard-like within, I can without hesitation pronounce them:

Well. Worth. Getting. Out of. Bed. Early.  For.

Nam Ngiaw Thapae, Chang Moei Soi 2, 8am-3pm. Closed Sunday, but the kabong tawt are sold everyday from 6-10am. Try also the khao ngiaw, banana leaf-wrapped rice that's been mixed with, yes, blood and steamed (again, there's no blood taste) -- it's served drizzled with a little shallot oil and topped with caramelized shallots. And once you're seated it's quite OK to order pretty good satay from the stall next door to eat there as well.

[NOTE: If you don't follow us on Facebook or Twitter you may not know that we have, here in Penang, started work on a big project. And we've launched a blog to document it. Have a look at Ah Tong Tailor and be sure to subscribe if the topic is of interest. We'll rarely be blogging Ah Tong Tailor material here at EatingAsia. Thanks.]

Gat Luang Diaries III: The Other Side of Songkran

Last week marked our first Songkran in Thailand.

When we lived in Bangkok almost 10 years ago we fled to Hanoi in the lead-up to the New Year, staying away until the Thai capital returned to its normally torpid, hot-season self. If not for our continuing work in Chiang Mai's Gat Luang neighborhood we would have passed Songkran 2011 as we've passed every other Songkran that we've lived in Asia: far, far away from Thailand.

It's true -- there is a not-so-pretty side to Songkran. To whit: A furor broke out when three Thai girls were videotaped dancing topless in Bangkok. On Chiang Mai's Tha Phae Road a farang standing next to me suffered damage to her eye when a high-powered water gun was aimed at her face. (According to traditional Songkran etiquette splashing is for below the neck.) An obviously inebriated bikini-clad farang hopped onto a float in last Friday's provincial procession to the Chiang Mai governor's house. (Note: Thais are generally non-confrontational and unfailingly polite. Just because Thais do not tell you that your behavior is offensive does not mean that they don't think it.) A nationwide death toll of 271 between April 11 and 17, (The silver lining: that's down 25% from 2010.)

But there's another side to the Thai New Year as well.

We began the first day of Songkran by joining the members of Gat Luang's Namdhari Sikh temple in a ceremony marking the Sikh New Year, which begins on the same day as the Thai New Year. After prayers, some sung to the accompaniment of a harmonium and drums, we ate a Sikh New Year breakfast of chickpea daal, paratha, raita studded with bits of wheat dough, and sugar-soaked jelebi hot from the wok -- all prepared in the temple's kitchen.

Then more food -- in another local kitchen we learned to make several northern Thai dishes from the recipes of a family with connections to Gat Luang that go back more than a century. (Recipes will be included in the book, but look for one here later.) One of the dishes was gaeng hang lay, a Burmese-influenced pork and ginger curry that's soured with tamarind. Because it's cooked for half a day, it is considered special occasion food -- especially appropriate to the New Year celebrations.

We then hurried to Tha Phae Road for the annual procession of Buddha images. The statues are brought out from wats around Chiang Mai, paraded through the streets, and washed by observers with splashes of water from silvery cups. The procession finishes in the Old City, at Wat Pra Singh, and then each Buddha is carried back to its home wat.

The third day of Songkran is devoted to dtam hua -- paying respects and making merit. Wat Saen Fang sits on the edge of Gat Luang, set back from Phae Road. The wat's prayer hall and other buildings are Burmese in style, and the old wooden house that now serves as the monk's quarters was built by a Burmese family whose wealth came from the Chiang Mai logging trade.

Around 7am worshippers began arriving to make merit, first in the prayer hall -- for themselves and their living relatives -- and then in the entrance to the monk's quarters (the wat's abbott is pictured above). Some brought baskets of packaged foods, while others brought out pots and bowls from their car trunks and prepared trays of home-cooked dishes. (The opening photograph is an example of the latter -- gaeng hang lay is at about 11 o'clock on the silver tray on the right). An offering is made for each departed ancestor, whose name is written on a piece of paper and handed to the monk so that he can utter it during his prayer over the offering.

Finally, wat members plant paper flags in a sand chedi next to the prayer hall, to wish for a long life. The sand chedi are constructed the previous day (the second day of Songkran). They were once made from sand carried by by community members from the Ping River, but these days trucks make the sand delivery. Why the sand? Throughout the year earth is carried out of the wat as community members come and go. This is a way of returning what one has taken from the wat.

Dtam hua of a different sort took place in the afternoon of Songkran's third day. Every year each municipality in Chiang Mai sends representatives to participate in a procession to the Chiang Mai governor's residence. Partipants carry a variety of most agricultural gifts -- nowadays, mostly symbolic items such as dried betelnuts strung together in the shape of giant lotuses, or large trays of earth planted with herbs and vegetables. The procession starts in the Old City at the Three Kings Monument and ends on the governor's front lawn, where participants may join a line to be blessed by the governor.

Dtam hua is a Songkran tradition repeated in homes, workplaces, schools; the young dtam hua to their elders, staff dtam hua to their employers, students do the same to their teachers. And it's a tradition that northern Thais hold dear. This year Chiang Mai's newish governor -- a descendent of King Rama IV appointed, as most of Thailand's governors are, rather than directly appointed -- caused a stink by announcing that in order to avoid troubling the people on their holiday he would cancel this year's dtam hua procession. Vociferous objections arose from all directions, and the dtam hua procession was held as usual.

If you were in Chiang Mai this year and didn't get past the goings-on at the moat you might not know that Songkran is a deeply spiritual time for many Thais. We're thankful for these peeks at the other side of the Thai New Year. We might even return in 2012.

A Few Reasons to Linger in Chiang Khong

We've journeyed to Luang Prabang a few times, but never by boat -- which I suppose explains why we'd never been to Chiang Khong before our diversion north from Chiang Mai last month. You see, Chiang Khong sits right across the Mekong River from the Laotian town of Huay Xai, from which boats depart south. So to most travelers it's little more than a way station.

But in less than 24 hours we found a few reasons to view Chiang Khong as more than a pitstop.

We drove into town on a Sunday afternoon, famished. Bypassing main street's row of empty cafes  advertising Western fare and espresso beverages, we headed downhill to the river. Before long we spotted a restaurant serving a small group of middle-aged Thais -- a good enough reason as any to stop.

We climbed a flight of stairs to a covered porch overlooking the Mekong. Presented with English menus listing central Thai and Isaan standards like tom yam gong, yam woonsen, and [shudder] fried rice, we set them aside and surveyed our neighbors' table instead. Two dishes in particularly beckoned.

When our dishes appeared from the kitchen they went straight to the Thais' table, only to be refused (they'd pretty much finished eating by the time we started), then ferried around the small dining area in search of another group of Thais. We waved our arms and smiled beseechingly, and the finally laid before us. We had an audience as we ate.

The deep-fried tiny fish called bplaa naa oon (opening photo), our waitress told us, had been plucked from the river that morning. Fried with a hillock of garlic shards, they were crispy enough to be eaten heads, bones, and all, and so sweetly caramelized that the chili sauce served alongside was superfluous. We finished our first serving in record time and promtply ordered another. And 5 hours later, we returned for another, to gobble down with a few ice-cold Singha beers.

The second dish, plaa khao phad chaa, is one of the most heavenly fish preparations we've ever eaten in Thailand. Bplaa khao is a white-fleshed, meaty, and not-too-bony river fish. It had been cut into generous chunks, deep-fried, and then incorporated into a stir-fry with yellow bell pepper, heaps of ginger matchsticks, fiery green chilies, sprigs of fresh green peppercorn, and basil sprigs. The chilies and fresh peppercorns lent a searing kick and low pleasure-pain quotient. Every bite of this dish literally hurt, but it was so delicious we couldn't bring ourselves to stop.

By the end of lunch we were smitten with Chiang Khong. After dropping our bags at a nearby guesthouse we explored the "port" below, where bottles of Fanta and cartons of instant noodles bound for Laos are loaded into boats that have just disgorged onto the beach fresh vegetables, twine-tied stacks of used cardboard, and bundles of cloth. We joined locals having an evening stroll on a strip of river promenade closed to cars, and wondered how on earth so many guesthouses, bars, and restaurants catering to tourists survive when there didn't seem to be any tourists about. And as the sun set we watched activity on the watery wind down from our balcony, over glasses of Sang Som and soda.

Around 8pm our sleepy guesthouse became a hubbub of activity as low-budget tour group arrived. Doors slammed, backpacks hit the floor, beer bottles clinked, a rush of orders were put in at the guesthouse's cafe, and a singalong -- accompanied by really, really bad guitar playing -- ensued. We imagined similar scenes playing out at every one of the empty guesthouses and cafes we'd scene on our walk earlier that evening.

When we headed out fpr a stroll the next morning around sunrise we passed a few farang nursing hot cups of Nescafe in the cafe. On the main street, busy now with Chiang Khong-ians on their way to work and school, farang pitched forward under the weight of backpacks made their way to the port and the bus station. Others kicked back in tuk-tuks and pick-up trucks.

We ducked down a sidestreet in search of breakfast, and found a woman dishing up kao soi Tai Lua from the front of her old timber house. And afterwards, when we returned to Chiang Khong's "city center", we found it .... empty.

Once again we had Chiang Khong to ourselves, and we would have gladly lingered a day or two had we not been expected back in Chiang Mai that evening. Our last meal was had just a few steps from our first, at cute little corner house with a sweet view of the river from its front dining area.

When we arrived around half past eleven the place was all but empty. But once again the culinary gods were smiling upon us. We'd unknowingly stumbled upon a lunchtime hot spot; 30 minutes later there was a wait for empty seats.

 A delicious kanom jeen nam ngiaow (fine rice vermicelli with meat-and-tomato 'gravy', a northern Thai specialty) -- super spicy, but neither as tomato-y as versions served in Chiang Mai, nor as fishy bplaa raa-heavy as those eaten in Chiang Rai -- is what's served here. Unlike any version we'd eaten before it featured nicely bouncy fish balls, as well as pork.

We finished our lunch with a house specialty that disappeared shortly after we snapped up our own two bowls' worth: khao tom, banana-stuffed pillows of steamed sticky rice,topped with crushed peanuts, gratings of moist fresh coconut meat, white sugar, and ground black sesame seeds. This sweet alone would have prompted us to linger another night if we'd had the time.

For more hop over to Dave's Chiang Khong audio slideshow, here.

Delicious fish at the restaurant next to Rimnan Guesthouse (forgive us, we did not note the name), one block in from the river.

In the wooden house on the corner of the same block, find superb kanom jeen nam ngiaow and khao tom. Around 11am till they run out. Closed in the evenings.

Kao soi Tai Lua, Tedsaban Soi 8 (green-painted flower shop on the corner, Tedsaban is the main road -- it's a small town, there's just one main road), about 1.5 blocks up from Tedsaban. Served from the front of a small wooden house on your left as you're heading away from the main road.