The final temple, Buddha mount, pretty much does what it says on the tin- a mountain with a lot of Buddhas on top. You have to give it to the Thais for the variety in the presentation of Buddhas at least. This one was 344 steps high and by this point I was really Buddhad out. I kept thinking to myself that there had better be some serious Thai foot massaging going on at the end of this evening. Careful what you wish for. But this final Wat offered something no other did- it had a pretty good view of Bangkok at the top.
Collapsed at the top of Buddha mount I began to reflect on my life….I’m kidding, I was thinking of one thing and one thing only- phad thai. The only thing that provided motivation enough for me to get off my ass and hit the road once again – Thip Samai. Apparently Bangkok’s best phad thai, and it was right around the corner from us (this of course wasn’t a coincidence it was all strategically planned).
The problem was that we obviously weren’t the only ones who wanted to eat Bangkok’s best phad thai. This place is good and cheap which means Bangkokians eat here, plus over the years word has gotten out to tourists through the Lonely Planet grapevine and with phad thai being the most recognised Thai dish on the planet the place has a massive queue before it even opens.
The phad thai is cooked on the street where there is a conveyor belt of chefs working on charcoal fires. Each has a role- one the shrimp fryer, one the noodle preparer, but the most impressive one is the egg wrapper. When cooked, the pad thai gets wrapped in a neat little blanket of egg. The egg wrapper pours a very thin layer of egg into an intensely hot wok and whirls it around like a crepe. He then places the phad thai in the middle of the egg and pops it out to form a perfectly wrapped little parcel of egg. How he doesn’t break it is very impressive because the egg is super thin, almost transparent. Back home I struggle to make a 3cm thick omelette without messing it up. It also takes years of training and egg wrapping experience as the man wraps about 8 phad thais a minute.
To break three common misconceptions amongst westerners about phad thai;
1. Phad thai is not made spicy. You can add your own chilli powder afterwards but it’s not supposed to be served spicy. Not everything in Thailand is mega spicy.
2. Phad thai is not the only dish in Thailand, surprise surprise. It was introduced by the Chinese many years ago and altered to Thai flavours but there are many areas of Thailand where they don’t even eat phad thai (unless they’re serving it to tourists).
3. Phad thai, or noodles in general, are the only thing eaten with chopsticks in Thailand, and that’s because they’re originally Chinese. So when they serve you something with cutlery, it’s not because they think you’re a dumb tourist, it’s because they actually eat with forks and spoons. The use of cutlery was introduced by one of the King Ramas and before that people used their hands!
The phad thai was good, but unfortunately I have to say I didn’t think it was the best I ever tried. We did wait 50 minutes for it (49 in the queue and 1 for the lightening conveyor belt to prepare it) so it certainly didn’t last very long on my plate, but I still think I’ve had better. Sorry Thip Samai, I’m sure you won’t be out of business any time soon.
After our mega intensive Buddha hunt around Bangkok, we desperately needed a massage. This time it was a Thai full body massage which meant no oils and no removal of clothes (which sadly meant no XL disposable panties). We were given Thai pyjamas to wear and greeted by two very cute, smiley, young, sweet looking masseuses. Mama’s checked the pressure with her- “soft or medium ma’am?” (She could clearly tell from the start this woman was too delicate for hard). I waited for mine to do the same but she just went straight into it. Either she didn’t speak a word of English or she decided just by looking at me that I was a hard kinda gal (turns out in the end it was both).
In one sharp move, swifter than a ninja, she had jumped on top of me and was using all her strength to break me in. Now don’t be fooled by the appearance of these skinny, cute looking Thai girls, they are professionally trained in martial arts and could probably break your neck in a second. I have a high threshold for pain and I almost always ask masseuses to go harder but this time I was actually crying silent tears of pain at some points of the massage. At one point she was “massaging” my foot and while my Serbian pride prevented me from pussying out and telling her to calm down, I had a genuine concern that she might actually break multiple bones in my foot. I had to give it a bit of a wiggle after she finished to make sure everything was working properly.
Nearer the end of the massage she started using her body to fold me into different positions. In a scene reminiscent of the WWF wrestling fights I used to watch with my cousins as a child, I’m pretty sure she had me in a death-lock at one point, my life in her hands, waiting for me to tap out. But I didn’t, and only in the last moment when she tried pushing my foot behind my head did I finally have to use my safe word. She looked at me totally shocked while I tried to signal her the sign language for “I just don’t bend that way”.
Meanwhile this whole time my mum was receiving a beautiful, relaxing and soft massage. Every now and then i would hear a soft purr coming from her direction as she would fall asleep in the gentle arms of her masseuse.
I wasn’t sure if my feet hurt more after trekking 2 days through Bangkok or a session with Thailand’s masseuse version of Hulk Hogan, but either way that experience was over. We ended the day with another amazing meal- including the best red curry I’d ever had which somewhat compensated for the fact I wouldn’t be able to walk totally straight for the next three days.
