Day 11: Visions of Lady Gaga in a Thai Farmers’ Market

Having finished the longest day of the race to date (558 km) and completing couple of very fast sessions, Avi and I were headed back to the hotel a little past 4pm. Typical to our “Road Runner” mode (nick name given to Team Saxena by the other contestants), we were zipping by other cars when Dionysus smiled on us.

As we made a turn towards Kanchanaburi (of The Bridge Over River Kwai fame), we were mesmerized by the glorious smell of BBQ wafting through the air.. (BBQ smell much like a smile or a wave is a universal expression).  It also helps to have lived for 20 years in Texas where BBQ is a religion and Texans think God created fire to help us BBQ.

Realizing we had at least an hour before we need to check in the Master Time Control, we did a quick U-turn and entered into a world of culinary experience unparalleled for my eyes and palette.

Here’s a quick tour visiting and sampling food with the local vendors including drinking coke right out of a plastic bag!! We also had to resort to aggressive miming to identify/verify what we wanted to sample as we didn’t want to get our meats confused… after all dogs, cats and pigs all have four feet.

After tasting a variety of local dishes, we topped if off with what appeared to be something that Lady Gaga’s hairdresser sold off to the Thai.  It looked like hair from a tonsured head and was rather colorful green-pink-blonde that I could only picture on top of the great poet Lady Gaga’s head.

Curious brothers that we are, we shelled out 20 Bhats (about 60 cents) and I tore into the plastic bag while fighting visions of licking Lady Gaga’s bald pate.  It is safe to say that is is the best damn cotton candy aka Buddi ke Baal I have had in my life.  Highly recommend it.. got same back for my room and plan to enjoy it as I soak once again in Epsom salt laced bath water.

A note on hygiene:
To play it safe, we applied Purell Hand Sanitizer on our hands.  However Avi pointed out that it was AFTER we ate all that stuff so we promptly squirted a few shots of Purell down our gullets for safe measure. Three hours later I am glad to report all’s good.

The journey continues as we get ready to race around The Bridge over River Kwai tomorrow, the mid point of our 24 day endurance race.