Eating out in Bangkok

OUCH!

How they love their spices in Thai cooking!

OUCH!

By gum, Tues and Weds nights this week I nearly burnt my tongue off.

Theres is a particularly spiteful chili - gets you round the underside rim of your tongue -- like a million small hot needles all jabbing you at once.

Boy does it hurt.

But it's strangely addictive too.

On Tuesday night, I went to a restaurant I've been to a couple of times before ("Ban Chiang" in Surasak) -- based in a traditional Thai wooden house, it serves tremendous food @ reasonable prices (a £20 slap-up meal for myself & 2 colleagues ... Rajat the mad Indian and Genya the mad Ukranian). Ban Chiang gets slated in many web reviews, but I really like the place.

And on Weds night, colleagues from our local Bangkok Agency took me to a restaurant serving home-style Thai cooking ... that chili again!

Then they took me to 'The Londoners' pub - tiny Thai girls dressed in Beefeater costumes serving Fuller's London Pride. Surreal.

Ban Chiang (I found out later) is named after a famous UNESCO archeological site - must go some day.

Ban Chiang (Thai บ้านเชียง) is an archeological site located in Nong Han district, Udon Thani Province, Thailand, at 17°32′55″N, 103°21′30″E. It is listed in the UNESCO world heritage list since 1992.

Discovered in 1957 it attracted enormous publicity due to the red painted pottery found there. The first scientific excavation was made in 1967 and uncovered several skeletons together with bronze grave gifts. Rice fragments have also been found, which prove that the Bronze Age settlement was made by farmers. The oldest graves found contain no bronze and are therefore from a Neolithic culture; the latest ones are from the Iron Age.

The first dates of the artifacts using the thermoluminescence technique resulted in 4420 BC-3400 BC dates, which would have made the site the earliest ever Bronze Age culture of the world. However, with the 1974/75 excavation enough material for radiocarbon dating became available, which resulted in much later dates - the earliest grave was about 2100 BC, the latest about AD 200. Bronze making began circa 2000 BC, as evidenced by crucibles and bronze fragments. Bronze objects include bracelets, rings, anklets, wires and rods, spearheads, axes and adzes, hooks, blades, and little bells.

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