In Search of Som Tam or The Ying to My Yang

It’s been a month now since I landed in the Land of Smiles and all in all I’ve settled in quite nicely. Aside from a few floods, an AWOL girlfriend and a cold or two things couldn’t be better, well, they could always be better but I’m not worried about drowning in my condo anymore if you know what I mean.

But this post isn’t about settling in, no, it’s more about searching for something or not searching for something as it were.

I ventured out to my local on Wednesday night to have a few vodka lipo’s( liptovitan is like Red Bull but it tastes better and has no fizzies ) and hang out with friends, it was a nice change from the weird weekend I had and a nice break from studying. I’ve been coming to my local for almost 5 years now and the faces behind the bar I have known for just as long. Sometime around midnight I got this restless feeling that I should be moving on, can’t really put a finger on it but I paid my bin and headed out into the night.

Somewhere along the way I found myself by soi LK Metro so I decided to stop in another friends bar and buy him a beer. But before too long I again found my feet heading out of the bar and towards soi Buakow. It would have been a short walk up soi Buakow to soi 15 and home and that is exactly what my intentions were, but my feet had other ideas. Maybe I was lost in thought or I had one too many vodka lipo’s, either way instead of staying straight on Buakow I turned up soi Dianna. A few feet into the soi I realized what I had done but kept walking anyway because there is a cut through half way up the road that will take me home, and then I heard it.

Thai voices can be very hard to distinguish from one another at times but there is one voice I know well and there it was asking the local vendors where the som tam cart could be found. Before I knew it I had said something no Thai woman ever wants to hear, “No som tam for you”. She turned to look at who could say something so mean but she didn’t recognize me and instead gave me a scowl for my efforts and ventured on up the road.

Her name is Ying and she probably has the most beautiful Thai smile I have ever seen, it’s as if her whole face lights up when she smiles. I’ve known Ying for about 3 years and she never fails to flash me that smile and give me a big hug,  except tonight. It was dark and my hair is much shorter and my stomach a wee bit bigger so I can understand her not recognizing me. Now, I could have just let her know it was me but what fun is that? Instead I beat feet past her and headed up soi Dianna to where I know the som tam cart parks, for those of you that don’t know, som tam is spicy papaya salad, and when I say spicy I mean class A incendiary device spicy.

I make it to the som tam cart well before her and have a talk with the vendor. I tell him there is this Thai woman coming and I want him to make her the best som tam he has ever made but when she goes to pay for it to tell her the price is 600 baht. Som tam is normally 30 baht so this will surely confuse her. As I sit on a nearby motorcy I can hear ying come up and express her happiness for finding the som tam cart, she makes small talk and then sits on a motorcy right next to me waiting patiently for her food.  She had that dull, eyes glazed over look that most som tam junkies get and never paid me any notice.

When her food was ready she opened her purse and pulled out her wallet and asked towry ( how much ), without cracking a smile the vendor told her 600 baht. At this point I thought she would flip out but instead she went digging in her purse for more money and sure as shit she pulled out 600 baht. In her bid for for sam tam nirvana she had lost sight of everything else including reason. I lost it and the vendor was laughing hard as well and there was Ying holding 600 baht  and saying to me falang pee baa before it finally hit her that she knew me and that 600 baht was way too much for even the best som tam.

We had a good laugh and a hug and decided to get me some food too before we headed back to my place to eat and catch up. There is one thing you need to know about Ying, she speaks no English whatsoever. Although she works for a friends Visa company she has had little to no contact with falangs. The only reason she knows me is due to som tam…it’s how we met. She was looking for som tam one night a few years ago and I was waiting at the same cart for some food, the vendor went to the bathroom and I pretended to be the som tam man…didn’t work to well but provided a few laughs and a friendship.

So, here we were 3 years later catching up. Not an easy thing to do with my limited Thai but we get by. She was none to pleased to hear about the breakup of my relationship with Pookie and told me I needed a good Thai woman to take care of me. We sat on my balcony and talked for hours and as the sun came up she decided I needed breakfast and went to work. Another thing you should know about Ying, when she says pet nit noi ( spicy a little bit ) she actually means she is calling the gods of hellfire into your food.

As we finished our delicious, but spicy as hell, breakfast Ying sat on my lap and told me that Buddha brought us together last night and that she knows a very good woman that would love to take care of me. She then took a shower and proceeded to clean the condo in only a towel…out of the frying pan and into the fire I go…again.

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