Eat and eat trip (part 2)

After touching town in Bangkok, we proceed to take a bus straight to Nakhon Rachatsima (aka Korat). The trip took almost 4 hours.

Inside the Bangkok to Ratsima bus



Service on these long-distance coaches are quite good, we were given a sandwich and a coke, and along the way, the lady attendant would serve us more cups of coke and water.

The triple-layered sandwich with ham and pork/chicken floss...quite yummy.


Luckily, there is a toilet on board the aircon coach.

I also bought the Thai green mango to munch on the bus. This version comes with a sugar-chilli-powder dip. There's another version had a spicy sauce that looked like rojak sauce as a dip.



By the time we reached Korat, it was almost 9pm. At the bus terminus 2, we took a tuk tuk (50 baht) to the hotel. After checking-in, we went out, hoping to find some nice dinner. Most of the shops were closed by then, although there was a roadside stall near the hotel selling noodles which wouldn't be satisfying for us after having travelled for the whole day.

After about 8 minutes' walk, we saw a small cafe/restaurant and promptly went inside to try out luck. We were lucky that night!



The food and fruit shakes/freezes were very good and also good value for money! I was very satisfied with my Tom Yam Seafood soup which came in a mini steamboat. The SO had the E-mee and Chang beer. The prik nam pla (chilli padi in fish sauce) was also supplied voluntarily...yum!



We spent the next day exploring Korat town, and the surrounding streets to look for breakfast. We found a market and also a vegetarian restaurant a few doors away from the hotel.

Snacks seen at the market:





Some glutinous rice snacks which we didn't try.





I can't remember exactly what we had for breakfast, but we must have eaten some street food like yu tiao (fried dough fritters) and some really yummy pastries from Sweet Home cake shop. The pastries were freshly made and so good that we walked back to buy some more.

There was this fantastic pastry that had a small sausage and bits of pork floss in it (6 baht)




We passed by this shophouse that sells porridge (chok) and SO had a bowl of pork porridge

The interesting thing is most shops only sell their food and soft drinks or water, but they don't serve hot beverage, so we headed back to our hotel's cafe for tea and coffee. The freshly-brewed coffee was good, except that they used non-dairy creamer seemingly everywhere (instead of fresh milk).

The nice, cozy cafe at the hotel



There's a framed photo of the Thai King and Queen in their youth, and some car models in the background.

We explored the town a bit before proceeding to look for the bus to take to Dan Kwian, the pottery village. Along the way, we passed by this rustic eating place where the locals were having lunch, so we joined in.



The remains of our noodles soup (with char siew aka bbq pork & fish cake) and Phad Thai



Cold water with ice was free, but the SO cautioned me not to drink their water or ice, although I did drink it at some point during the trip when I forgot.

After lunch, we went on to look for the bus to Dan Kwian. Along the way, we saw a "push-cart" food stall selling food. When I saw what a lady customer had bought from the stall, I couldn't helped but asked to take a photo.

It was coagulated blood, which is no long available in Sg! The lady said it's chicken blood (in English). There were two huge chunks of the "kwey huiek" (Hokkien translation my own) and just a little noodles in her bowl. :P

We dare not try it lah, although I'd eaten curdled pig's blood as a kid.

At the Korat night market, we also found other foodstuff which we dare not eat.
Fried crickets, maggots, and other creepy crawlies...

(to be continued)