On Sunday Noy went to the Hyatt Hotel to sample its legendary buffet with a gaggle of her girlfriends. The Hyatt’s Sunday buffet is best enjoyed over three or four hours followed by a three-day fast. The food is spectacular, from great sushi and oysters to a full Sunday roast, an array of Thai dishes from across the country, and a dessert spread that has me putting on weight just looking at it.
It was girls only so I had the afternoon to myself. I decided to swing by Tukkata’s house in Sukhumvit Soi 39. I didn’t take my car because a black Hummer is pretty distinctive so I caught a taxi in Soi Thonglor instead.
I had it drop me a hundred yards from the house and I walked slowly down the road. It was in the high thirties so I took off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves but even so I’d still worked up a sweat by the time I’d reached the house.
Several food stalls had set up on the opposite side of the road, wheeled trolleys next to a few battered metal tables and plastic stools. The middle stall was selling somtam. I’m a big fan of the dish which is a speciality of the Isarn people, a fiery concoction of shredded unripened papaya mixed with chilli, sugar, garlic, shrimp paste, lime and fish sauce. It’s an acquired taste, but I’d been in Thailand long enough that there were times that I’d get a craving for the dish, ideally with chunks of barbecued chicken and sticky rice.
The Thais in the middle of the country make a sweeter and milder version and throw a handful of crushed peanuts into the mix, but the lady pounding the papaya with a stone mortar and pestle looked as if she was from Surin and she was making hers Isarn-style with padaek, brined land crabs found in ricefields and canals.
She grinned with blackened teeth when I ordered a plate and asked me if I wanted it spicy. ‘Of course,’ I said, and laughed. ‘Somtam isn’t somtam if it doesn’t make me cry.’
She waved me to a table with her pestle. Her husband came over and asked me what I wanted to drink. They didn’t have Phuket Beer but they did have Heineken so I ordered a Heineken and he brought me one with a glass filled with chipped ice.
I drank from the bottle. Ice is generally okay in Thailand provided it’s come out of a machine. Shaved or chipped ice has probably been hacked off a large block with a dirty knife and is a pretty efficient way of contracting hepatitis.
When the woman brought over my plate of somtam I asked her about the house opposite. ‘They are a good family,’ she said. ‘They bought the house ten years ago and we were already here. My husband and I asked if they were happy for our business to be on the street and they said it wasn’t a problem.’ She laughed. ‘Sometimes the husband comes here to eat. He says I make better somtam than his wife.’
‘They must be rich to have such a big house,’ I said.
She nodded sagely. ‘Very rich,’ she said. ‘He has a big Mercedes and she has an Audi.’
‘And a daughter, right?’
‘A daughter and two sons,’ she said, nodding. ‘All the children are so polite. When they were very small they used to wave when they went to school.’
Another customer arrived and she went over to serve him. I ate the somtam, washing it down with beer. Her husband came back over when my plate was empty and I ordered another helping. And another Heineken.
When the woman came over with my second plate, I asked her if she knew what the husband did for a living.
‘He has many businesses,’ she said. ‘He has a property company and a computer company and an import-export business.’
‘It must be good to be so rich,’ I said.
‘It is more important to be happy, and to be healthy,’ she said.
Which is true.
Very true.
I tried not to think about cancer. And death.
She went back to her stall and started pounding papaya again.
I finished my second helping of somtam and the beer and I went over to pay the woman. I took a five hundred baht note from my wallet and handed it over with the photograph of Jon Junior. ‘Did you ever see a farang boy visiting?
She looked at the money, then at the photograph, and smiled.
She understood.
She looked at the photograph carefully, then called over her husband and showed it to him. He wrinkled his nose and shook his head.
She gave me back the photograph and slipped the five hundred baht into the canvas bag hanging from her belt. ‘We’ve never seen the farang,’ she said. ‘We’ve never seen any farang go into the house.’
I put the photograph in my pocket and thanked her. ‘Your somtam is delicious,’ I said. ‘The best in Bangkok.’
‘The best in Thailand,’ she said, and I had to agree with her.
And that was when Mrs Santhanavit drove up in her large Audi.