Petchaboon

When I last left you I was returning from a short blogging break that ultimately became much longer than I expected. I was all set to get back to my normal posting routine when all hell broke loose. One by one all of my websites and server were hacked, and I mean hacked good. After 2 weeks of working on the various problems with my host we finally got all the problems taken care of but I was pulling out hair for a while.

My girlfriend Mo, Yes, I said girlfriend , wasn’t sure what to make of me during my mini meltdown but she definitely decided I was not the same happy go lucky guy she knew, so, she decided I needed a break. More like she kidnapped me as she surprised me with bus tickets to Petchaboon the night before the bus was to pull out. I realized she was right, I really did need a break and off to the province of mountains and sugarcane we went.

I’m actually about 50 miles outside the main city of Petchaboon staying on the family farm surrounded by sugarcane and mountains. It’s been nice to get back to rural Thailand with all it’s customs and quirks…and let me tell you I have seen some quirks such as dead children being channeled through a Buddhist medium but more on that later.

It’s been nice to eat real rural Thai food again , I mean who doesn’t love buffalo brains in spicy sauce? It even felt good to revisit the rural hongnam complete with it’s squat toilet and the ritual dumping of cold ass water on yourself and calling it a shower. Most of all I’ve really enjoyed spending time with Mo and her family and all their crazy animals, who you’ll meet soon enough.

This trip has really re-focused me to the possibilities Thailand has to offer. Over the last few months I have really gotten bogged down with day to day stuff and forgot about the wonders of exploring this beautiful country.

I have a lot of great stories to tell about the people and places I’ve seen and I will definitely be posting them every couple of days or so over the next few weeks to come but for now just a glimpse of the beauty that is Petchaboon and a quick line to let you know I’m back to blogging about the country I love, Thailand.

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My first trip up country I noticed a tree at the back of Pookies grandparents house that was well tended and guarded by a thick lattice of lumber and wooden poles. I tried asking but never got far in my search for answers, although, the clues were all there. Grandma, who doesn’t get around good or far, makes her daily pilgrimage to this tree and another tree in the yard and then spends 30 minutes or so cutting the dried fruit of one tree and wrapping it in the leaves of the other tree. Then she places the finished product in her mouth and chews on it.

Pookies other grandmother, who lives on the family farm in Nakhon Phanom,  is equally challenged with getting around. At 86 she does little more than sleep, eat a little and make daily trips to her sacred trees. Watching her perform her daily ritual of gathering ingredients,  then sitting down to combine them together with a mortar and pestle, tasting now and again and making sure the mixture is just right became my source of initial information.

You’ve probably seen it yourselves at one point or another but had no clue. Old Thai ladies with a wad of something in their jaw, smiling with black teeth, and of course the glassy eyes. The drug they are using is often refered to as the Betel Nut but in actuality there is no such nut. The betel nut is a mixture of the Areca Nut and the Betel leaf.

The Areca nut ( Mahk ) and the Betal leaf ( Plue )are both mild stimulants on their own but when combined become a more powerful stimulant that is made into a chaw. The betel vine needs something to grow on and the palm trees make a great host. The bamboo or wood lattice is used to help the vine grow and keep the vine protected from harm.

The Areca nut grows on, and is the seed of,  the areca palm tree. The fruit is picked when it is green and then left to ripen to a nice brownish orange color. In actuality it’s not a nut at all but the inner fruit becomes hard and dried like wood when the fruit is ripe. This is what is used as the stimulant.

The dried nut is sliced and wrapped in a betel leaf and then chewed in the case of grandma #1. Grandma #2 mashes these ingredients in a mortar and pestle along with several other ingredients which I confused as being added for taste. The other ingredients were lime, tobacco and chili pepper. Once sufficiently mashed up it becomes a chaw that she loads between her cheek and jaw.

The lime, it turns out, is used to keep the active ingredients in their base form which facilitates absorbtion into the bloodstream. The chilli pepper along withthe alkaloid arecoline found in the betel leaf stimulates the saliva glands and in and of itself becomes a stimulant. This is also what causes dicoloration of the teeth to a dark red or black. The tobacco is for taste but also adds some nicotine to the mix.

The combination of the areca nut and betel leaf is widely used in South East Asia and although no one knows where the practice began it is known that the areca nut has been used for thousands of years as a stimulant. The inclusion of the betal leaf to the mixture is thought to be a more recent addition dating back only a few hundred years.

Aside from the stimulative properties of the mixture it can can also be used as an antiseptic and a breath freshener. Unfortunately the mixture of these plants is also a widely known cause of mouth cancer especially when it is used in conjunction with lime and tobacco. Recent studies have concluded that the betel nut mixture on it’s own is a very weak carcinogen.

I noticed a clear difference not only in how this drug was used by the two grandmothers but also why it seemed they were used. Grandma #1, although old, still gets around reasonably well and is generally in good health. She seemed more of a casual user just in it for the stimulative effect. Grandma #2 is not in good health and doesn’t get around well or much. Her usage seemed to be more medicinal to help keep her more alert and from sleeping 20 hours a day.

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When I go  up country to see Pookie’s family in Issan we always head to Mukdahan first where her parents live , although technically they live in Nakhon Phanom as well but that is a story for tomorrow. Each time I see the house in Mukdahan there is a new addition and this last trip was no different.

The main house is a standard village house with concrete floors and walls on the first floor and the second floor built out of teak. The first floor serves as living room/bedroom for the kids, kitchen area and storage areas. The second floor is all for Mama and Papa. This means that the living room area becomes a bedroom at night for the children. They lay out their mats and thats where they sleep on the concrete floor.

Well, it seems little brother, who is 16, decided he needed a little more privacy so a little hut was built on the side of the house for him. I thought it odd at first that he would have a place separate from the family and honestly I still think it odd.  The only private rooms in a rural Thai house seem to be for the parents/grandparents. Pookie has another brother who is 18 and even he still sleeps with the family.

Either way he seems to be putting his new room to good use as you can tell by the beer bottles lined up by the door and the new addition of a table by his front porch. It’s a good thing he’s a small lad and not claustrophobic at all.

I’m really hoping my dollar goes a little further when I do make the move to Thailand…but if the house comes with beer there might be room for negotiations.

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