My friend, Dtuum, with whom I meet twice a week to practice Thai and English had her 67th birthday on November 28th. She invited me out to lunch, along with her husband and a friend of hers. The food at the Thai restaurant was delicious - sai ua (spicy Chiang Mai-style sausage, 1), fried pork rinds (took a pass on that), sticky rice, phak bung fai daeng (morning glory stir-fried in garlic and chili), a whole baked fish with tiny chopped up veggies called fish-in-the-garden (bplaa nai suan, it must be), spicy Dtom Yum Goong soup,(2), laap (spicy meat sald with mint leaves, 3), roast pork, raw string beans and basil for munching and a few hot chili sauces. Oh, and Heineken.
Kun Dtuum, สุ ข สั น ต์ วั น เ กิ ด or sùkh-sãn wan kùurt!
"The treachery of the phrase book. . . is that you cannot begin to follow the answer to the question you've pronounced so beautifully -- and worse still, your listener now assumes you're fluent in Swahili." Pico Iver
