With Sue in India doing teacher training and me in Nang Rong, I have to think about finding food more often than I would otherwise. I have already written about one Isaan basic food group, Som Tam. Today I walked down to Nong Biea for lunch. It is named after the owner’s young son and located by a red teardrop on our map.

It is run by a good friend, shown here with his wife who works alongside him. Previously it was a one minute walk from my house but he closed that to help care for his son who was in a bad accident more than a year ago. He has since reopened in a new location. It now takes five minutes. In the above picture it appears dark back in there. It’s not dark, it’s just out of the sun. The front is open to the outside, just like nearly every other restaurant and store in Nang Rong. He cooks out front, to the right in the picture.

I had the old stand by, kao pat gai, or chicken fried rice. I have him put in onions too. I can get something like it in the states and I’ve had it at different places in Bangkok, but I like it better here. If a new farang knows the Thai name of only one dish, this is probably it.

“Pat” means stir fried. Except for steamed rice, most hot things served in a restaurant, the meat and the veggies, have just been stir fried. The first time I see a microwave oven in a restaurant in Nang Rong, I’ll let you know.

Many of the restaurants in Nang Rong offer fried rice, but Nong Biea’s looks and tastes lighter. When Nong Biea was closed, I got kao pat gai at other restaurants. What made me stop eating it was getting a take out bag and putting it in the refrigerator for the next day. I took it out and looked through the transparent bag and thought “I’ve been eating this?” and hoped I had not been forgetting my cholesterol pills. It was easy to see the solidified white grease here and there. I heated it up in the microwave just to try it. It did not taste as good as the day before. I only ate the first bite.

After having sworn off, I tried it again a few weeks ago when working at the foundation office. We all ordered kao pat gai from Nong Biea to be brought in for lunch. It looked and tasted a bit lighter than I remembered, so a few days ago I did the “test” again. I got both a take out and an eat in order of kao pat gai. It was very good at the restaurant, and when I took it out of the refrigerator the next day it still looked good, without any more clumping up than already cooked rice is going to do. After microwaving it tasted pretty much the same as the day before.

Kao pat gai is normally not spicy at all. You can add the red peppers shown in the small dish if you wish. I usually do. At Nong Biea I also like gapow gai, a spicier dish with chicken and steamed rice in the rightmost picture. Pak boong, the green vegetable shown with it, is a very common vegetable and is maybe the Thai substitute for spinach.

Thailand is just starting to think about heart health. Many of the city hospitals are opening up heart centers and doctors here know more about heart disease than a few years ago. I suppose in a few years they will start thinking more about what they are eating (they still consume tons of MSG also). In the meantime, I would have already recommended Nong Biea for those of its selections I had previously tried, but now I can also say that they use vegetable oil for their stir frying, not the left over hog fat.

Sue and I are getting ready to leave October 6^th for Thailand. We have done this enough that it is pretty easy for us now, but I did call our county health department, where we get most our vaccinations, to see if we were up to date.

Everything was OK with nothing to do this time. What they checked for was hepatitis A and B, tetanus and typhoid. The hepatitis vaccination lasts for life, but the other two do need to be renewed periodically. Visit our website to see other things they might have checked for but are rare enough that in our case they did not bother.

We are not bringing Malaria pills. We never have. Don’t bother with these unless you are going somewhere none of us at the foundation have ever been. While you can find malaria in Thailand, you have to work hard to do it. In addition to Thailand, Sue and I spent a lot of time in Indian slums over the past 10 years and have never bothered with malaria meds. We will spend a week in the cyclone ravaged Myanmar delta area next month and will take some mosquito repellent, which we have never used in Thailand, but that is all. We are staying in small hotels at night. Sleeping outdoors in that area is unnecessary and not a good idea.

The Thai government and military have a mosquito abatement program that appears to work well. There are very few mosquitoes around Nang Rong, and few of those could infect you with a disease. Over a five month period I will get maybe two or three bites.

You really should get these immunizations. I remember one problem at a local restaurant that gave hepatitis to over a hundred people. I have also have had cuts and stepped on rusty nails which everyone knows leads to a tetanus shot since most people have let whatever protection they have had in this department lapse.

One thing is common to all these incidents. They happened in the U.S. The town with the restaurant hepatitis problem was Coeur d’Alene, Idaho where I am now. Our local health department knows that these vaccinations are good to have wherever you live. If traveling scares you into getting them, fine.

Whether you plan to come here as a volunteer or not, whether you will come next year or five years from now, go to your local heath department, tell them you are coming to Thailand, and get your shots. Anytime is good.