| Here you get to learn how to eat fresh lotus seeds! Shot by yours truly while on a road trip travelling from Udonthani town to the temple. Wat Non Sawang. Since I didn't get any shots of the actual lotus flowers, I ripped them off the net so you can see how beautiful they really are. Back in Singapore, we get to see the flowers, but I for one, have never seen the seed pods with the seeds. We usually use the dried lotus seeds in soups, and though tasty, it is radically different from the fresh ones.  | Traveling is fun and exciting. What I like most about exploring another country is actually the food. Food excites me, it is tactile, I can taste, smell, see it…it engages all senses at the same time, and somehow, different foods give me different memories like a strange tag to an instant recall. In Udonthani, lotus flowers seem to be sold everywhere, and they also seem to grow everywhere.  The Flowers are really beautiful, and after the beauty fades, you get little green pods with the seeds inside. If no one harvests and eats it, it turns brown and the seeds are propagated to new lotus plants which will flower, akin to the parent plant. However, the lotus seeds and really yummy eaten fresh, and are slight sweet and very crunchy. It makes a good snack without the insane calories of our snacks like potato chips. |
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 Sizable pieces of honeycomb, complete with bee larvae and baby bees, go for only 150฿ at the market. This works out to be about 6sgd. I used to wonder how you eat the honey comb, since there were so many bees in it. Scroll down to find out more!  I realised only today that you were supposed to eat the bee larvae, which tastes alot like red ant larvae, which is creamy, sweet and pops in your mouth when you bite into the soft larvae. With a slightly milky taste, the bee larvae, mixed with the fresh honey, is a very good source of protein. This is very much like caviar without the fishy taste, is good for you and tastes good too. You don't really see the larvae nor the baby bees till you start breaking off pieces of the honey comb. There are hundreds of larvae and baby bees hidden. Every "hole" in the honeycomb is home to one larvae that will eventually become a bee. The baby bees taste a little bit like honey prawns!
So while you are eating the honey comb, you can choose to swallow or spit the wax out. It is a matter of personal preference, and this is probably the freshest honey you can ever get! Set near a beautiful lake, this sprawling restuarant has little huts set on the perimeter of the lake, and a main restuarant area for those who prefer to sit on chairs. In the huts, one would have to sit cross legged, but have the option to lie down too. Popular with families, it is a lovely place to lie back and chill out with friends too.
The menu is mainly in Thai, but contains many photos of the hot favourites and some English words too. Mid priced, my meal was a total of 1030 baht. 
Full name and contact of the restuarant if you want to try the food there
The snakehead soup with lemongrass and lime is simply amazing!
Photos of hot favourites
Star of the night! Actually I can't decide which I like more, the Tom Yam Pla or this deep fried fish in light batter with green mango salad. I can't really eat spicy food, so I ate the portion without the spicy mango strips. 
Deep fried pork in a light coating of flour. Deliciously crunchy. 
Skip the prawn - totally forgettable. Too much batter and too little (pun intended) prawn. 
This has to be the best Tom Yam Fish I have ever tasted. With a strong and slightly sweet tomato base, chilli, ginger, lime, purple onions and lemongrass flavour the amazing soup. Bubbling gently in a charcoal aluminium steamboat, it is filled with mushrooms and chunks of the fresh water Mekong river fish, the snakehead. 
Sliced pork noodles with pork balls
Sliced pork noodles are extremely popular with the locals and you often see people at all times at the shop. Open from 6am till late, the soup is a hearty broth made from pork bones and it is tasty and salty with a strong meat flavour. My noodles cost only 40 baht and look at how much sliced pork is packed in my bowl! I tried doing a takeaway, and was impressed all everything was individually packed. I also got to bring home an assortment of condiments, vegetables and herbs packed separately. It is quite a ritual customizing your own bowl of noodles. Choose the vegetables that will go into your noodles soup from cabbage, basil, mint and bean sprouts first, before tossing in condiments like sugar, fish sauce, vinegar and chili powder. Toss everything together as if it is a salad, and the resulting will taste different from your friend's! 
You can see a bit of Genting Highland Hotel from here
Going to Genting was fun! I took a bus from Singapore to KL, and from KL, took a taxi up to Genting. The bus from Singapore to KL was only $50 on Aeroline, boarding from Harbourfront. The taxi was 130RM after a lot of bargaining, and I went up at 11pm, after looking at the sights in KL. Checked into the hotel and the next day, went down to the mushroom farm and Chin Swee Caves temple. You can get a free van ride down to the mushroom farm, but I took a taxi, as I was heading to the airport after. The taxi ride, after bargaining really hard, was 180RM and he brought me to all the sights on the way down to the KLCC airport. When taking a taxi to or from Genting, you HAVE to bargain! The air in Genting is amazingly cold with loads of fresh clouds blowing at you. You can literally run into the clouds, mouth open, and pretend to eat clouds. One fantasy of mine as a child was to eat clouds, because I thought they were like cotton candy...they are not. Some photos follow, and if you have any questions at all, do leave a comment or two! |
AuthorVivien Goh travels alot, and she loves getting onto the plane and exploring the world when she arrives alone. There is something enticing about being able to discover new ideas, cultures and food that excites her. She travels light, with just one bag, but comes back to Singapore with loads. Be it for clothes, instant noodles, or game prizes for her show, she has to travel with extra bags in her little backpack. Verified!
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