I Would be Perfectly Content to Eat Nothing But Yellow Mangoes for the Rest of My Life

So, here I am. Sitting on my bed in Chiangmai, listening to some awesome post-rock, and studying my Thai. Well, I was. I can now string short sentences together, mainly about eating, and when people talk I am able to pick up some vowels like ‘to be’ and ‘to go’.

My host family is extremely kind. Just a quick recap so I don’t have to keep on explaining: Khun Mae is my mom, Khun Por is my dad, and Ann and Nan are my sisters. Nan is to be living in Raymond, AB, for the next year. I hope you guys will make her feel as welcomed in Southern Alberta as I have felt here.

Khun Mae is very kind, when we go somewhere in the car she teaches me short phrases in Thai and is extremely encouraging. Quite frankly, if it were I having to sit there while some strange foreigner pointed out rot si deng! Every time we saw a red car, and rot si kao every time we saw a white car, and so on and so forth I don’t think I would be nearly as kind about it.

Khun Por doesn’t speak much English. However, he is a very good cook and has taken to piling food on my plate and adding all the little spices and such that they eat with their food.

My sisters are very nice and always more than suitably impressed when I attempt to utter some terribly-accented Thai phrase.

I live in a nice house in essentially the center of Chiangmai, I have a room to myself, and my bed is about 16 times more comfortable than that I had at home (but that’s not really saying much). I start school a week from Monday, because they want to wait so I can start with another kid. This mean that next week I get to stay home alone. Khun Mae said she would give me a key and I could go out and explore the city. I will attempt to upload some sort of map on this here blog to show you all where I go each day.

But anyways, that being said let’s move on to the important stuff.

FOOD.

Oh man, you guys would not believe the fruit over here! The yellow mangos are so juicy and sweet. They have lychees too, and persimmons. OM NOM NOM (That was for you, Carlson).

And yesterday my host mom took me for lunch at this incredible little hole-in-the-wall. We had green curry and red curry (the difference being that green curry is made from green chilli and the red curry is made from red chilli) at least, that’s how Khun Mae explained it to me. I just ate it, and it was delicious. Then for supper we went to this Restaurant inside this big sports-building-place (don’t blame me, it was dark) and we had more delicious rice with seafood curry. And this really good thin noodle dish. Which, incidentally, they also eat with rice. This morning we ate this soupy rice dish with liver and pork. And then they add in ginger and onions and all sorts of stuff. I am going to have a much stronger stomach by next summer.

I am trying to master the art of eating with a fork and spoon. I’m pretty sure I look like a slightly demented goat attempting to use utensils despite the lack of opposable thumbs (or any digits at all, really).

I think that’s about it. Next week I will give you all the low-down on my Chiangmai adventures of epicness.

Next time on SlightlyAwkward TV…

Crazy foreign girl makes complete fool of herself, Weird chick uses the wrong tone when speaking, and Canadian in Thailanad burns the roof of her mouth off.

Stay tuned for even more embarrassing stories…