My New Favorite Restaurant

I've really come to enjoy my temporary neighborhood here at On Nut 65.  There's a lot of great little shops, food stalls, and restaurants.  There's no foreigners here, so the prices are even cheaper than if you were in central Bangkok.  Between training sessions on Monday the trainers took me to the little restaurant that is at the end of the gravel road that the gym is on.  Actually I don't know if it even qualifies as a restaurant because there is no menu; they only serve one dish.  In fact, I don't even know the name or if it even has one.

 
It doesn't look like much, and the whole place is made of corrugated metal, but who gives a shit, the food is amazing.  What you get when you sit down is a bowl of coconut curry broth with some noodles and meat or fish if you want it.  Spread out along the table is an array of fresh vegetables that you can add to your bowl as you like.  Everything from green beans, cucumber, cabbage, sprouts, and other stuff that I have no clue what it is.  (I actually have no clue what half the fruits and vegetables I'm eating in Thailand are)

The fresh vegetable spread.

  If you want dessert, they do have that.  It's a Thai snow cone thing, but way better than any snow cone back home.  First you choose what you want at the bottom of your bowl; they have different flavored jelly cube things, beans, fruit pieces and more.  Then they put a block of ice through the shaver on top of that.  Finally they put on the flavored syrup and some creamy frosting type stuff.  Needless to say, I eat one of these everyday between training sessions.

The best part?  The coconut curry soup with unlimited vegetables costs 20 baht or $0.66, the icy desert is 10 baht, $0.33.  Lunch and desert for $1. 

The two owners are super nice to me, and they seem to enjoy explaining to the other customers that I'm in Thailand to train Muay Thai.  At least that's what I'm assuming, because the only words I understand them saying is Muay Thai.  But the woman sitting beside me today spoke some English and asked me about the gym, where I was from and how long I was saying.  It makes me feel special even though they're probably just talking about what a stupid gringo I am.

One last reason why I like to eat here is the two guys pictured below.  They're probably just strays, but they are always at the restaurant when I go.  I love orange tabbies, and these two are especially cute. 

Gym Flooding

As I write this, it is currently raining and has been for a couple hours now.  The flooding here at the gym is reaching biblical proportions.  The owners got a water pump, but after running for 24hrs, it made no difference.  This is a wetland, and you're not going to lower the water table by moving the water around.  They did finally get some sandbags down around the gym and pumped the water out which worked, but this evenings rain has erased all progress. Here's a picture from yesterday afternoon.  I might be filling sand bags tomorrow instead of hitting punching bags.  Oh well, they're probably both a good workout.   

Muay Thai Shorts

Finally, if you love Muay Thai, then you love Muay Thai shorts.  There's also no such thing as boring Muay Thai shorts, or at least there shouldn't be.  The flashier the better.  I decided to pick up a pair of Kittana shorts as a souvenir of my time here.  And here they are: