Culinary (and other) Adventures in South East Asia - Part 2 - Koh Lipe, Thailand

Ah Thailand.  Why oh why did I wait thirty years to visit you? Your beaches, your ocean, your jungles and yes, your amazing food.  Perhaps a better question would be to ask, why the heck does the Thai food in Thailand taste so completely different than the Thai food in the United States?  

Everything there is just so cheap, so fresh and has such a clean flavor that I would imagine that living in the Mecca of local, fresh produce that we could at least make an attempt to replicate it.  But no, all too often we are stuck with 10 dollar bland curries that come from a jar.  But I digress.

Thailand is certainly a land of great dichotomies.  From the extreme poverty that I witnessed on the Island that I stayed on for a number of days to the extreme wealth on display in Bangkok's streets full of brand new Porches and Mercedes.

What held all of these seemingly disparate parts of this incredibly diverse country was the love and  seemingly constant search for food, drink, sweets and more.  Especially in Bangkok, I have never been in a place that was more covered with small stands, restaurants, hawkers, wagons, trailers, smokers, pretty much in every size, shape, color and type of food they sold.

The first place I visited was Koh Lipe, a small island more off the coast of Malaysia than Thailand proper.  With the dramatic expansion of tourism, no island as beautiful as this could go untouched.  However, as it was not a particularly easy island to get to and no resorts to speak of, most of the people came for two reasons: laying undisturbed on beaches that were as isolated as you desired or diving.  I was there for the diving.

I felt fortunate enough to have gotten a recommendation from friends that had stayed on this island just a few months before with a diving company called Forra. Every so often when you travel, you find yourself in place that makes you feel like you are home.  Forra had that feeling.  Everyone that was staying there, all of the staff, all of the divers were so friendly, so welcoming it made me not want to leave this idylic diving commune.  I highly recommend that if you go to this island, to stay with Forra.  But, and that is a BIG but, I had a sinking suspicion as I was staying on Koh Lipe that it was on the cusp of completely blowing up as a tourist destination.  In fact, they were building no less than 2 large hotel/resorts that would be done in less than 1 year.  I am not sure I would go back to Koh Lipe, afraid of the changes occurring, but Forra might just make it worthwhile.

Also, as in most beautiful destinations that bring in tourists, there seemed to be a growing rift between the local Chao Ley natives (known also as Sea Gypsies) and the Thai and Foriegn owners of the businesses.  According to people that have been coming to Koh Lipe for years, the Chao Ley are becoming more westernized, yet more distant and no integrating well into the new economy. They do, however, have the monopoly on the main method of transportation within the chains of islands in the South Andaman Sea - the longtail boat.  Many of them are painted with beautiful colors and designs such as this wrecked ship.

In addition, as you walked into the interior of the island, the lack of a good waste disposal system and any type of water treatment or water supply system made itself painfully obvious.  The farther you walked away from the beautiful beaches, the more obvious the facade became, decreasingly able to cover the poverty lying just beneath.

While not being memorable in flavor, the beer of choice in these surroundings was Chang.  Now, I prefer Singha to Chang, but as anything cold and thirst quenching in these environs will hit the spot, I drank it with gusto.  

In addition, I discovered just what people mean when they say Thai food is spicy.  Being that I am allergic to fish, a horrible thing to be when on an island by the way, I was restricted to meat and vegetable products.  I decided on one pleasant evening to try the Chicken Larb.  Unknown to me, this is quite possibly one of the spiciest dishes that one can order in Thailand.  In addition, I ordered in with the true "Thai" level of spiciness, as I consider myself quite capable of handling spicy foods.  Well, 3 Changs, a large bowl of rice and an unknown number of napkins as sweat mops later, I was finally able to finish a dinner serving of Larb.  This dish consists of minced meat, lime juice nad other seasonings and chiles....Lots and lots of chilies, dried chiles, ground chiles, fresh chiles you name a kind of chili found in Thailand, and I am sure it ends up in Larb.  After staggering back to my bamboo house with a numb mouth and a spinning head from the Changs (6.4% alcohol will do that to you), I finally stopped sweating enough to sleep.

Next up - Part 3 - Cambodia