The Lonely Planet guide for Krabi Town’s day market says that the vendors that set up at there offer a ridiculous array of street food. The actual description left something to be desired, but the statement to “eat daring” was enough to entice me into checking it out.
But first I spent one day checking out Ao Nang, an incredibly touristy town (every other business on the main street leading to and around the beach is a hotel, a tour service shop, or a restaurant with a cocktail hour, wifi, and either “authentic” or “western” food.
Most tourists either love the town because it’s next to the ocean adn is set up to cater to their every whim. And it’s relatively cheap—maybe $40 a night for a luxury hotel room, and a full restaurant meal with a fruit juice or local beer for no more than $10, and that’s if you go all out.
But what I anted to see was the real Ao Nang, behind the touristy areas. There’s street food stalls that set up at night—hot pot, soup, satay, and chafing dishes full of green, red, and penaeng curries for quick meals. But a 5-minute tuk tuk ride away (my first one—the driver had to drop off a kilo of squid to his family first, so we took a little side trip) is a market.
Mostly fresh fruit and vegetables, homemade curry pastes in giant bowls, fresh shrimp, squid, mackerel, and dried versions of the same, meat, and lots of prepared dishes from soy-drenched greens to coconut oil-heavy curries. They’re also big into eggs, pickled vegetables (the salted fish and preserved vegetables are the only way to keep food from spoiling in a place with 35°C temps daily and high humidity…and a distaste for refrigeration.
On the walk back to Glur Hostel (a gorgeous, new place in Ao Nang with a zen courtard, stone-lined swimming pool, lush garden, free wi-fi, open kitchen and dorm rooms and single rooms with A/C (The first time I’d had it in a couple weeks), I also ran into two more mini markets. All had white tourists in them, but all were also mostly Thais. When one had labels on the fruit in English and not just Thai I wondered how “local” the market really was. But in the back was a bouncy castle that local kids were playing on, and the cheap dollar store-like stalls were full of things that local businesses would need, not tourists.
I saw lots of interesting fruit, from dragonfruit and mangoes to mangosteens and rambutan. And then there were the things I didn’t recognize, but cross-referenced at a local grocery store where the names were written in both Thai and English. There were winged beans and morning glory, pea eggplants and green peppercorns. Burn toffee salacca and lychee-like, sweet-and-sour sabodila fruit. More on these in upcoming articles.
I, admittedly, did not eat daring in Ao Nang. I ate leftovers from my cooking class instead. I made four types of curries (ground the pastes with a mortar and pestle), pad thai (soy-free for me!), tom yam and chicken and coconut soups, papaya sala (mortar and pestle again. the heirloom tomatoes here are amazing. They’re all heirlooms. No fields. And you gently crush them into a well-crushed garlic, sugar, fish sauce, tamarind, and chili-flavoured sauce along with noodle-like sliced green papaya and carrots.
The spring rolls we made at Chef Ya’s cooking class between Ao Nang and Krabi also used local pig ear mushrooms, and we tossed mushrooms growing from some containers in the kitchen into another of the stir-fried chicken dishes. Everything was so fresh. So I didn’t much feel like eating from the chafing dishes of deep-fried fish that had been sitting, unrefrigerated at the market for the last half a day. Food spoilage seems like a big potential problem here, but since I’ve already been sick, I feel as though my stomach can handle a lot. Still, no need to push it.
I saved my “daring eating” for Krabi Town.
There I headed to the day market. This is what I saw:
AH! My photo uploader isn’t working! I keep getting this message:
“An error occurred in the upload. Please try again later.”
If ANYONE can help me fix this, there’s jam in it for you. Or my eternal gratitude, if you’re not into jam—whichever you prefer. Please, please!
For now, follow this link to my facebook page for photos of the market.
Awesome post.