Legos and Beans

I was obligated to spend the night in Trat, in transit to Cambodia's Siem Reeaap, home to the famous Angkor Wat temples, from Thailand's Ko Chang, home to a sunny beach and respite from clogged cities. I dropped down just as night fell, and wandered about, led by my nose and rumbling stomach. Now, I never said my nose was looking for particularly pleasant smells, but it should have been. I noticed that my stomach, at some point, stopped talking to me as I wandered into the night market. This may be attributed to the fact that the was pleased that my legs brought me to food, or that he was disgusted/terrified with the potential prospects. The smells that brought me to that colorful block of shut warehouses ranged from extremely inviting- think fried rice and keffir lime leaves associated with thai food- to disturbingly...not- old fish paste and unidentifiable aromas, and that last adjective perfectly describes most of the foods IO saw. I knew that I needed fruit for the long drive in the morning to the Cambodian border at Ban Packard, and being of a curious nature, I smugly passed by the safe bets (apples, bananas, and the like) into foreign territory. Besides the bizarre colors and shapes the "fruit" in Thailand takes on, I was unclear simply how to consume them. My favorite was a fluorescent pink mango with super thick skin, which looked as if someone had taken a pair of scissors and snipped a few triangular layers away which curl back to expose an equally bright green petticoat. After the produce section, came the meat section, the main perpetrator of the smells. It was like looking at a car wreck, I glanced out of curiosity, then turned away, half of me racking my brain trying to pinpoint which body part of which animal that red/pink./purple.grey thing came from, the other half hoping to dear god I could not find the answer. I saw huge blocks of color, blue and red as bright as legos, being sliced like tofu with a thick jello like consistency and wrapped in leaves, pinned with small pieces of bamboo like gifts. Food? Entirely possible. I opted for rice and chicken- at least I think it was chicken. Since eating out is actually cheaper than cooking for the most part, dining outside amongst the stalls on broken, sun-bleached plastic stools and kiddie patio tables feels like your eating at a fourth of July BBQ in Thailand. Everyone seems to have dinner at these night markets, son eating off my "plate (Styrofoam container ripped in half) with my spoon" (fork) and "knife" (spoon), I never feel alone. One final interesting note, I recently bought some small bread rolls at a bakery. I bit into one, and small brown pebbles sized things fell out. Not chocolate, not raisins. The bread was filled with beans, people, beans.