Got noodles? Got Sangsom? Got good times!
It’s just after dinner of a clear, spicy soup filled with locally grown lemongrass and yellow ginger. Those alone made it quite good, but the true topper was the chicken in it. I had seen that same chicken earlier when driving into our resort.
Now, I know why the chicken crossed the road; it was to get ready for my dinner.
I haven’t eaten many light foods yet in Thailand. Even the soft bakery bun of young coconut is deceiving as you bit into a refreshing taste of freshly scrapped coconut innards and pudding. It looks light, but isn’t.
Somehow, like in the US, bar foods hold to the notion that they must be fried. We’ve had spring rolls, grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches and potatoes in which it all was oil immersed and fried. Then there’s buffalo wings that tasted more like ham hocks and chicken nuggets, that could have come from McD’s. Sadly, all fried and all nothing too special.
We’re in the land of the spicy foods, yet it’s not, it’s the land of fried. It’s got to be all of the negative foreign influences.
On the other hand, the past couple of days lunches have been to two, really good noodle shops. The first, I spoke of it previously, in Khon Kaen offered up chewy dry noodles and fish balls. In Puey Noi, south of Khon Kaen by an hour, the noodles were thin and wide in another spicy clear broth supplemented by delicious green wrapped shumai and lightly fried spring rolls. These latter two foods make coming back to Puey Noi worth it.
Before heading to Sabua Resort & Spa in Phon for the night, we stopped at a market for vegetables and 7-11 for Sprite in preparation of finishing off a bottle of Sangsom this evening.
A glass filled with ice cubes, a few fingers of Sangsom, risen by a few more fingers of Sprite and topped till full with soda water makes a drink that’s ever so helpful to passing the day’s remainder in bliss.
Sadly, a well made drink of Sangsom goes down to easily and those that follow, even more so. Soon, if you’re not careful, you’ll nap where you sit. Then awakening from the intervening nap shows testament to the drink’s strength by the mental fog left to clear and weariness to get moving again.
Today though, wasn’t just about eating and drinking. It was also about visiting an 800 year old Khmer temple by Prasat Puey Noi. The ruins still hold some amazing details despite the passage of time. It also leaves you wondering, how the heck they choose the middle of seemingly no where to build the temple.
Also today, we learned just how handy having a sense of direction, a map, a way point and a GPS could be when the road signs are unintelligible and the road turns to dirt.
Direction wise, it was mostly stay right and head into the sun. 
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1/27/2010 – Recap of drinking, lunch, drinking, live dinner and ruins in Puey Noi and Phon, Thailand.
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