87 4.11 Food Trip, Ghost Trail and The Heavenly Monk. (1/2)

I decided to roam around on my Vario a few streets down and used my nose to whiff out the best smelling cooked food a pushcart food vendor was whipping up around the area, I stopped near one of them that happened to have a rather long queue.

I parked my bike nearby behind the pushcart vendor, and from the unmistakable smell that my hound's nose had picked up from it, I'm sure it's worth the wait to fall in line with others.

This particular pushcart food vendor was rather a permanent spot as they had about 1 Cook and 2 assistants. One of them is to prepare the ingredients while the other is to help to serve directly to the awaiting customers in the queue.

They had eight tables that would be able to seat six people at a time and by the time I was in line, all of the seats were taken. This must be a superb food sutra for food hunters like me. I peered through what the patrons were or had eaten and it looked rather sumptuous and definitely budget friendly.

I just hoped that I had enough in my worn out wallet though. I searched through the memory of Aroon and had discovered the pin number of his ATM, or I'd be stuck on how to earn money during this time.

Let's talk about the food, shall we?

The rice that was steamed looked and tasted unique. It is cooked in rich coconut milk, a few pandan screw pine was added for the scent, a dash of salt and some ginger slices. It's accompaniment the chilli paste; consisting of cooking oil, blended dried chilis, shrimp paste, garlic, ginger, shallot, scallions, palm sugar, black salted beans and lime juice.

This paste would be prepared over a wood fire for at least two to three hours and stirred continuously until the contents had turned from a liquid base into a thick paste that looked like hot lava from the top.

Without this chilli paste alone, one can never be able to bring out the rich coconut milk rice flavour by itself and it would definitely tickle one's palate and drown the taste buds with a wonderful whirl of spiciness, sweetness and a faint sourish aftertaste once these two are mixed together. *slurp*

This rich coconut milk rice and the chilli paste is like a match made in heaven. Really, you should try it, you know. Let me know where you are and I could point some directions on where you could acquire it, even if you are from the UK, Paris or in Germany even.

A variety of side dishes may include a mix of the following that consists of fried tiny anchovies, fried groundnuts, a sunny side up egg with its runny yolk, a whole deep-fried mackerel, deep fried chicken wing, crispy and fragrant German pork knuckles and stir-fried water spinach.

To top it off, they also serve 'Tam Tim Grob', a cold dessert made from shaved ice with water chestnut and coconut milk and another one ”Kaw Mao Durien” a sticky glutinous rice dessert amidst a seedless Durian floating in hot coconut cream.

If you are not into durian, the so-called King of Fruits, you may opt for a glutinous rice cake that would be filled wither with grated coconut and palm sugar OR glutinous rice filled with banana slices and caramel, OR glutinous rice filled with mung beans. These cakes were wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. Eaten with palm sugar syrup or thick coconut milk.

In Thailand, it is common to see dishes and desserts cook or drowned in coconut milk and the thing is that people do not get obese or have heart or high cholesterol-related diseases. Reminds me back on the first series of this novel where coconut is quite a commonplace to be made into everyday use items.

When it was my turn to order, I was like ordering most of the side dishes, 2 servings of rich coconut milk rice and a 'Kao Mao Durien”. I sat while the assistant of the pushcart food vendor prepares them and brought to my seat. And yeah, the price is within the budget and most importantly I had the most wonderful Gastronomical trip during lunch!

I ambled back to my bike, sat on the soft leather covered cushion seat and somehow felt that something is missing. Oh yeah... The pack of cigarettes which I had given to the elder security guard of our office building. Aroon himself was a heavy smoker, that smokes about a packet and half a day, while me being in his body, is trying to get rid of all the tar and nicotine from his lungs!

After letting a few burps of satisfaction, I straddled the bike and ride back to my office building where I intended to take a short nap to while the remaining lunch hour. As the Chief in editor, there is no problem for me to take an hour extra off during lunch hour but I think I could rest better after being fed in the office instead.

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I was resting in my swivel chair in my office when my mobile phone rang. I picked it up and answered and the other line was none other than Pornsak. She had asked me if I had eaten lunch and I lied to her that my office colleague had bought lunch for me and I stayed in the office while I ate. I explained that I was taking a nap when she called.

She hurriedly informed me that her uncle would like to visit me later this afternoon and to see if u could accommodate the two of them later at about 3:30 pm.

I checked the clock on my wall and agreed to the timing. She ended the call and I recalled what she had told me last night about the review of my Third Eye's and the Chi upgrade due to the fusion of both of our spiritual energies.

I still hadn't had time to check the rankings of the list of site Pornsak had marked out for me since I am awakened by the call, I decided to take a glance at the number of sites the SPI team were gonna visit and the intensifying horror, gore or simply terrifying events that had happened on the sites before.

It was titled ”Thai Hong” which simply meant angry spirits. These spirits would be found roaming aimlessly where sudden or violent deaths had occurred and there was neither an acceptance to their deaths nor their sudden demise where they had other unfulfilled intentions that had yet to be made before their deaths.

Such sudden or violent deaths would normally be resulting them turning to be angry spirits such as poltergeist that either moves objects, makes unearthly sounds, scaring other human beings, as well as spiritual possession of one's soul to in turn,take their own lives.

Some even were able to scrawl in comprehensive images or words across walls or floors and some even left their blood on the floors that cannot be removed by washing alone.

Normally in this situation, a Monk would be summoned to appease the spirits and guide them to the netherworld but these spirits sometimes can be stubborn and turned violent. They require another body to possess in order to 'speak' their minds to the exorcist or simply turn violent that turns the whole situation 180 degrees about.

In cases of suicide, some spirits may enter and possess weak souls of bystanders and make them commit suicide like the way how the former lives of those spirits ended their lives such as jumping from a height.

Most spirits were stuck in this world and the netherworld and seemed to repeat their way of demise by repeating the scenario over and over again. As in Thailand, there were cases where there would be more than one entity in some of the sites that the SPI team would be 'interviewing'.

Frankly, little was known about these SPI team main intention as they would soon be meddling with matters that really don't concern them at all.

The sites were as follow:

Wat Pai Ngoen, Bangkok

Type: Disused Crematorium

Ranking: 2/5 stars

Ajarn Chuam Ashram, Chachoengsao

Type: Dilapidated Temple

Ranking: 4/5

Thawi Wattana Road, Bangkok

Type: Abandoned House