Kents Guide

A GOURMET'S GUIDE TO AUTHENTIC THAI CUISINE

Part 1

By World Traveler and Bon Vivant Kent Whitaker

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This is not your Father’s travelogue to Thailand.

It’s got fascinating people, beautiful vistas from lush mountain jungles, close encounters with elephants, black cobras (or at least one black cobra), a reformed witch doctor, 50 hours in flight with lousy movies and food, and (of course) Thai food unlike anything at the local restaurant. It also has a challenge for all of us.

When Paul Hicks (a close friend and member of Sugar Creek Baptist Church’s Mission Board) invited me to a Bar-B-Q last spring to hear Norman Rideout speak about his experiences as a life long missionary to the tribal peoples in the mountains of Thailand, I was not expecting to end up half way around the world at Norman’s house 6 months later. But his presentation was so compelling that Paul felt that he should tag along with Norman and his team as they did the Lord’s work in that primitive environment, to assess whether or not Sugar Creek should expand their support; and since I had been widowed the year before, Paul figured that I didn’t have anything better to do than to join him. So, on Monday, November 1, 2004, after waiting at the gate for 50 minutes to allow a connecting flight to catch us, the doors closed and I found myself buckling up for the 15 hour flight from Houston to Tokyo.

Besides Paul, joining us on our adventure was John Collings, who acts as the state-side agent for Norman and several other missionaries. John is a big, free-spirited former long-hair who found the Lord and never backed down from God’s callings, whatever they might be; i.e., my kind of guy.

I remember watching the in-flight progress map as we headed westward, retracing the path I had taken this summer when I went to Anchorage, Alaska. After 6 or 7 hours in the air, I looked down at Anchorage Bay, and realized that I was not even half way to Tokyo. I was already tired of reading, couldn’t sleep, and restless; and the crummy movie selection had obviously been made by some cheap bean-counter to save bucks, so I had given up on finding relief from watching any of it.

Eventually, we landed at Tokyo’s new airport, and due to our late departure from Houston, we only had about 40 minutes before our connecting flight to Bangkok took off. After cutting into two lines, we were aboard and took off on the second leg, this time a 7 hour flight. We arrived pretty wasted, but after changing some $$$ into local currency (Bhatt’s – which means “foot” or “foundation” in Thai) we grabbed the cab (a new Lincoln Town Car!!) that Paul had arranged to take us into town to a hotel for a few hours rest before our final leg to Chaing Mai. The hotel was remarkably nice for the modest cost, and there was a local crooner playing Western songs at the piano bar, with about 5 or 6 prostitutes hanging around giving us the look.

After what seemed like a short nap, the alarm went off and after a quick shower we were back into another Lincoln and into the plane for our short 350 mile flight to Chaing Mai (at this point any flight that wasn’t measured in calendar days seemed short), which is the Rideout’s home and base of operation. Norman and his wife Debbie met us, and we unpacked and began to unwind at their nice home in the suburbs.

Norman had warned that it was a mistake to try taking a nap, but to tough it out until nightfall, so that afternoon we did some sight-seeing. Our first stop was a mountain side Buddhist monastery. It was a relatively new monastery, and the Buddha was not completely covered with gold. The gold is applied by the faithful, who buy small sheets of gold leaf (perhaps two inches square) of 24 karat gold that is so thin that you can almost see through it. It is applied by rubbing it onto the statue, where it stays. There were monuments and smaller Buddha statues of various poses, as well as statues of other dignitaries everywhere, all with incense holders, plates and bowls, and glass containers for money. There was also a frame with several large cow-bells, and I asked Norman what would happen if I rang one.

He told the most amazing story. Once a year, the faithful would gather at the shrine, and the priests would ask for volunteers to be taken over by the spirits. As the volunteers would come forward, they would call out for the unseen spirits to take them over and possess them, and to seal the deal would ring one of the bells. Those possessed would then fall upon a live cow, dismember it and eat it raw down to nothing. The next morning, nobody possessed would remember anything, but they would get a type of protection from evil in return for allowing their bodies to be possessed. Gruesome, but true. This would not be the last we heard from the spirits.

As we sat around the big plaza at the shrine, visiting and trying to stay awake until it got dark, we noticed that the surrounding valley was becoming more hazy and obscure. It seems that everyone with something to burn (against the law) would wait until late afternoon: the inspectors and government officials would go home and everyone would be free to burn whatever they needed to get rid of, from garbage, to wood chips, to old tires, maybe even your dead dog. Those with allergies (such as Debbie) were badly affected by the smoke that permeated the homes at night (we did not need a/c, and slept with the windows open).

Norman tried to ease us into Thai food by taking us to a “western” Thai restaurant at the mall (yes, mall: if you didn’t notice the Oriental look of the clientele, you would think you were in Dallas or Houston). He ordered several dishes and we all tried them. Strange, but OK; however, Paul and John were less enthusiastic about the cuisine that I was. Finally, after watching Oriental CNN as they discussed the ongoing US Presidential election that was still up in the air, we finally headed off to bed.

The next morning we did some more sight-seeing, taking turns riding around in the back of Norman’s pick-up, drinking in the sights, sounds, and smells from a million 2 cycle motor-scooters and small diesel pick-ups. Most commerce in Thailand takes place in small shops, and they are everywhere; and they are all seemingly crowded and busy. Everyone works very hard with good attitudes, they are all polite, and I can understand why Norman’s grown boys look forward to returning “home” when their trips to America are over. After a trip to a silk factory, where we saw women weaving silk cloth from the strands of thread pulled from the vats of hot water and cocoons, and a trip to a silver factory where elaborate jewelry is made before your eyes, we hit the mall again for another restaurant and finally to bed.

The next morning we began our 4 nights, 5 day trip into the mountains of western Thailand. We would be picking up members of Norman’s team as we went along, and the first to join us was a wonderful and friendly guy named Piarchi (pronounced as best as I can describe it as Pear-Chy). Our first stop was two hours south and west to the city of Maecham (Mad-Jam) (pop. Approx. 50,000 and the major commercial hub for most of the villages in the region). The ministry runs a youth hostel with about 120 kids living there through out the school year. The government provides free education for everyone through the 12^th. Grade, but has schools only to the 6^th. Grade in the mountains; if you want a high school education, you have to figure out some way to get to a larger town and live there. This is totally beyond 99% of the children in the mountain villages, because not only do they have no transportation out, they have no money to pay for food or lodging once they get there, so the only way out of the cycle of poverty for these children is to find something like the hostel, where they are given free food and lodging. There is a waiting list for spaces here about as long as the flight to Thailand. These kids know how lucky they are to have a chance to escape the squalor and want in the tribal villages, and they are all very grateful for the opportunity.

The youth hostel is run by the second major team member in the group: Moses. He and his wife are Mom and Dad to these kids, and although they will not put up with any foolishness, the kids all obviously love them. Next time you think keeping your three kids in line is a problem, try meeting the needs of 120 pre-teens and high schoolers as they endure the pangs of growing up, homesickness, and the strangeness of a whole new world with radio and television and running water.

Moses is a very interesting man. He chose his name because God told him that he would be the Moses for his people (the Karen tribal peoples: 800,000 on the Thai side of the border, and another 6 million or so on the Burmese side of the border). When he was young, Moses’ mom died, and his dad was injured in a hunting accident, losing his leg, so Moses became the wage earner for his family. He only received a 6^th grade education, but in talking to one of his teachers, he asked what he could be when he grew up. The teacher told him he might become a doctor, a teacher, or a preacher. When Moses replied that he wanted to do all three, his teacher told him that he could only be one, but that he would have to go to high school for any of them, which Moses knew wasn’t in the cards. So in between working the rice fields in the mountains, Moses (who was already a Christian) began to preach and to reach other Karen villages, bringing many to Christ. As a result of his ministry, many would come to him asking for healing, and God honored this many, many times with Biblical type healings. Later, Moses realized that the only way for his peoples to escape the mountains was through education, so he opened the first of four hostels that he would eventually open. One day God told him how proud He was of Moses’ faithfulness, and did he realize how God had granted his wishes? He was, indeed, a preacher, a healer, and an educator, even though he had not received any formal education in these areas!

That afternoon, after the kids came down the hill from school, they did chores around the hostel, played soccer, did home work and we eventually had supper and attended their nightly praise and worship services in the open air pavilion. We were introduced, and each of us gave the first of many short messages of hope, and what we hoped would be encouragement to the listeners. We then went to Moses’ brother Nirand’s (Near-rand) home for the evening.

Nirand is the third of the major players who would join us. He and Moses live on the same street, and have nice homes, due mainly to the fact that a big fire had killed several people there a few years before. Since the Animist people fear possession by the spirits, they were afraid that the homes were haunted, and nobody would buy them. Nirand and Moses picked them up at bargain basement prices, which is the only way either could afford to own a home. This is also the way that the land that the hostel is on was purchased: since Buddhists perform cremation so that the spirits cannot possess the deceased’s body, and the crematorium was just above the property, nobody would buy it for years from fear of spiritual possession until Moses and Norman came along. Furthermore, the head of the high school is so impressed with the Christian kids that they have let the hostel run about 500 yards of electrical lines from the school to the property so that they could have power! Amazing. God uses the fears and assets of other religions to provide for those doing His work.

The next morning, after a fine breakfast of delicious, but sometimes unrecognizable food, we left to pick up the next member of the group: Pirrod (Peer Road) who is the only really educated member of the team except for Norman. He runs one of two Bible colleges that the ministry supports. From there we will make a short visit to the 50 child orphanage and into the mountains, where we will have the most amazing evening and morning of the trip. But more about that next time.

More later!!!

Kent

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John Collings and I getting on the plane to Chaing Mai