More Thai Village Life

We spent the better part of the afternoon husking and opening very mature coconuts in preparation for a big dinner tonight (coconut curry). I had flashbacks of Wilson in that Tom Hanks movie from several years ago. I’ve eaten hundreds of coconuts over the years but never from one that had already started sprouting. The inside of the coconut fills with a white foam like growth which can then be eaten in its own right or more appealingly sucked on to get the juice from this sponge-like material.

We’ve set aside several of the coconuts for making a lip balm moisturizer. We mix the juice with wild bees wax from hives we collect near the village making a very handy balm! The wild honey by the way is amazing and we always set aside some of the beeswax for sucking on. A few dried banana leaves, a match and some smoke is all one needs. These small bees do not seem to aggressive once they are enveloped by the smoke.

What seem like hundreds of chickens roam around the village in packs – attacking anything edible in their reach. After meals we throw glop over the mesh net that surrounds our small house and these packs of chickens all rush over in a frenzy pecking at the ground and at each other. They also wake us up at 5am or thereabouts every morning.

There is a temple about 2km from here and for the past 9 nights we haven’t been woken up by the chickens but rather by the monks who in their efforts to raise money to expand their temple have been chanting nonstop *all* night. Its rather a calming effect when one wants to go to sleep but with the varying crescendo and tones and their powerful sound system, a light sleeper can be easily awakened.

There’s always something running through our house it seems despite the house being up on stilts. At times we see chickens, large spiders, geckos, house lizards and armies of ants. If you leave something sweet out briefly the alert goes out to all the ant colonies in the area and within minutes you have a new “in house” ant colony. Last year we even had a cute clutch of kittens setup shop in the roof!

Our cute niece making crazy face for camera – she loves this sugar cane, with no shortage of sugar cane planted in the village, she’s always in supply.

Related posts:

Thailand Village musings Australian Sport, raising spirits in a remote East African Village A Thai Wedding Story Wat Thai, Los Angeles – November 2005 Golden Temple, Amritsar India – October 2007