A Visit To A Family Home

We did a home visit for dinner.  It was an interesting opportunity to see how a multi-generational family lives in Chiang Mai.  Located outside the city, the property had multiple buildings serving different purposes.

I don’t remember how many family members lived there, but the number is in double digits.  Hosting groups of tourists such as ourselves for dinner is a way they make money.  It’s interesting, as only the men gave talks, while women busied themselves in the background preparing food.

Before dinner, they showed us around the property, starting first with making a small bouquet of flowers to leave on the family’s “prayer icon” (my words, not theirs – I just don’t remember what it is called).  Apparently the tradition is to place the little model temple/building on the east side of the property to greet the day.  We placed our bouquets on the model, and (those who wished to) did a short, silent prayer or simply nodded in that direction.

Following the tradition, we took our shoes off and went up the outside stairs where we sat on tiny chairs (you either sit on the floor or on really tiny chairs in SE Asia) while a younger male family member (25-30 years old maybe?).

He gave us certain Thai things to try – something similar to chewing tobacco that, if used for many years, turns your teeth black.  You chewed betel bark and a leaf (not sure of the name).  As I’m writing this, Ron assures me that it significantly numbed his mouth.  It has an anti-bacterial property, serving as a substitute for toothpaste, as well as serving to freshen their breath.

Apparently a mouthful of black teeth is prized in Thai society.  Prized not to the point where people fake blacken their teeth for their Tinder profile picture, but it could happen.

The next thing was an “exotic and strange tasting” tea that has a lot of salt (Ron believes it helps while working in the field.  Carol points out that they chewed it, and said it didn’t have much flavor/taste at all. 

I didn’t try either – I had spent enough on fixing my dental issues over the last four decades that I sure didn’t want to chose black teeth or cracked teeth, and I don’t like tea.  

After that, we toured around the small (jungle/woods) in the backyard, A stream ran through it, and our man pointed out the various trees and what they used the leaves and/or nuts for.  We were given helpful advice not to stand under the coconut tree.  Just seeing the dozens and dozens of coconuts on the ground led me to believe that was good advice.

We came back to the main sitting area in the backyard, where they rolled tobacco in banana leaves and folks smoked it (once again I passed).  Ron says it tasted much better than he expected.

I remember Ron tried everything whilst I tried nothing, and he’s conveniently sitting in the row ahead of me on our flight from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City as I write this post, so I’ve been relying on both his recall and Carol’s recall.

After that, it was time for appetizers before dinner.  And there so many appetizers that we probably didn’t even need dinner!.  We sat on the tiny benches chowing down, before shifting to sitting on the ground for dinner.  

I demurred on sitting, given my bad knee, and brought a chair over to the large group circle.  The dinner food was quite tasty.

As good as the food was, the highlight for me the beer.  In Thailand you can get a small beer (regular bottle size) or a large beer – which is twice the size and only costs about 20% more.  It’s much cheaper to buy the one larger beer than two regular beers.  So you kind of have to buy the large.  Think of it like a magnum of wine compared to a bottle of wine.

Anyhow, they brought out my beer, and it had a huge chunk of ice sculpture on the outside of the bottle.  As Chuck Thompson would say, “Ain’t the beer cold!”  And it was.