Thai food has ruined all other food for me

Hi all. This is short post as I am paying for my Internet now.

Let me just say that Thai food can be ungodly hot, I mean to the point of physical pain, yet Thai food just isn't Thai food without that certain kick to the back of the neck. After a week or so of eating with my family (locals), my tolerance has grown dramatically. Now, I could eat hot food before. I spent the last two months putting red and cayenne pepper in my food in preparation for my trip, but Thai chili peppers have the same rating as a Scotch Bonnet -- the pepper that averages just one step below the infamous habenaro pepper (one of the hottest mass produced peppers on earth), but which on rare occasions can surpass the heat of a habenaro.

So yeah, the food is hot. Anyway, I knew authentic Thai food had ruined me, after I visited an orchid farm in Chiang Mai. Sorry no pictures, I've gotten digital camera burn out after adding 4 gigs of memory into my Sony cybershot -- all thanks to the favorable exchange rate (only cost me 45 bucks U.S.). I went from only being able to take 48 pictures (256MB) to being about to take over 1200!!! Now, I run out of battery life before I even come close to using a fourth of my camera's memory. So 700+ pics later, I've got digital burn out. Anyway, back at the orchid farm, they had a tourist inspired buffet sans spice. After a few spoonfuls (it's impolite to bite food from your folk here), I requested the hot spice tray (pepper, vinegar, fish sauce and sugar) and loaded it up.

In other news, today, I ate lunch with an old acquittance from my Granville Towers days (private dorm at UNC). Kristin by coincidence is here for two weeks with her seminary (a Southern Baptist one near Wake Forest, NC). We ate American style food with her friend today because she didn't want to eat seafood or face a curry burn. They've only been here a few days, so they haven't quite adapted to the Thai tastes.

My cubano was pretty much tasteless. Small note: I order cubano's and or hot chocolate whenever I'm in a new exotic place -- I'm always chasing after the dream of getting back to the taste of the ones I had in Waveland, Mississippi and Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans, respectively. So, I'm guessing that my taste buds have given up the ghost. I'm afraid, I'll never be able to eat regular America fair again. On the up side that means I'll probably lose weight from or it, or start being one of those people that walk about with their own bottle of hot sauce where ever they go.

In case you're wondering my lunch with Kristin and her friend went well. I've been starved for good conversation and it was good to see a familiar face. Here's a ray of hope for all that disparage the lack of openness of the current strain of Southern Baptism that is popular in America (my spiritual roots believe it or not). Kristin and her fellow seminaries are here to study Buddhism and Islam. Neat huh? I suppose their doing it for perspective, but I didn't get into the details of their trip other than they're both visiting lots of temples to ask the monks questions.

I had a lot of fun and the usual difficulty in trying to explain Unitarian Universalism to them. It's always a fun challenge, not because they wouldn't be able to comprehend the basics of UUism, but well because UUism is not that easy to nutshell in the space of few sentences without first going through some it's history which frankly can take a while. Pretty much, I summed it up as UUs are like the democratic party of Religions. Lots of people from different backgrounds and belief systems coming together in common cause. Sure thats not all there is to UUs, but it's the best analogy that I've found so far.

Well this post is getting expensive, so sawadee crup for now.