A gastronomic guide to my day...

Knowing what my readers are truly interested in, I thought I might write a brief guide to my daily diet.

I'm not quite sure what a Thai breakfast is. There is a Thai omlet that is delicious, but I don't know what Thai or Burmese people eat daily. I've been on a failed quest to find some kind of pastry that would rival Miss Cordelia's scones and am recently in favor of the coffee and bagel breakfast at Krua Canadia, a fine establishment run by guy from, you guessed it, Canada. It's about $2 US, which is a bit expensive but bagels in Mae Sot are a bit exotic. Most people here drink an instant coffee mix that has sugar and creamer mixed it. It's more sugar and cream than coffee and not that great. The 3-in-1 tea mixes are much better. Many places serve cappuccinos that are very sugary.

Lunch is almost always at one of two "restaurants" outside the clinic with a variety of clinic and BMA staff for company. They are great places, but it's under a shed roof on a dirt floor. Lately I've been eating noodles consistently, mainly Pad 'See-You' with chicken or pork. Beef is rare here. Other options are a similar dish with a more gravy-like sauce (rad-na?) or "Spicy Noodle," which may be my current favorite. All of these are about $.70. If I'm not hungry or feeling poorly I might opt for the great 25 cent bowl of soup. For less than 5 cents you can get fried chicken on a stick that comes with a delicious sweet and sour sauce.

When it was warmer I often found time to pick up some ice cream for may 70 cents.

Dinner varies. I first wanted to try lots of local food. There are many "upscale" restaurants that feature some western food and might cost as much as $2. I often look at the western food first, and if none of that seems appealing I move to the Thai and Burmese cuisine. The food at these places isn't that spicy. I don't think I've had anything here that was too spicy to eat, but I've often left meals with my lips on fire and my stomach feeling a weird combination of numb and queasy. Tonight I realized that I've just had a few curries. I really don't see many people eat curry here. It's more noodle dishes of the chewy variety or stir fried things. Glass noodles are great -- they are really fine, almost clear noodles. I think I like these more than Italian style noodles. Burmese food is very fried and greasy. I'll often throw in a 24 oz beer for maybe $1.50. It kind of makes drinking 12 oz beers seem like a waste of time.

One of my favorite places is the Tea Room (we think) in the muslim district. Lunch is the big meal with a variety of curries and other things served kind of cafeteria style over rice. The beef curry is like pot roast. It comes with another bowl of maybe a yellow vegetable curry. For desert (I think) is a warm bowl of sweet rice milk with strange tapioca-esque balls floating around in it. They also have some kind of creamy tea that I haven't tried.

I've also been trying various snacks from the grocery store. It's always a surprise, but usually good. The most surprising were individual packets of saltine crackers with something like Nutella sandwiched in the middle. Sounds strange, but they were good.