Feet and Guts

"I have leaky gut syndrome. Do you know what that is?" I paused momentarily at the question, unsure how, just two minutes into small talk, we had reached this juncture. "Um... Yes." I responded, hoping that a positive answer would maybe move the conversation along or prevent an explanation of the pseudo-syndrome to me. It didn't. "Really? You've heard of it?" He said, surprised. I was surprised too. I hadn't expected this level of interrogation. But I thought that I might as well double down. I continued "Yeah a friend of mine has it..."

I arrived in Bangkok on Saturday night and by Monday morning I had a middle-aged Austrian man in a torn t-shirt with "YMCA" written across the front explaining his gastrointestinal ailments to me. We chatted over breakfast sitting at the long bar stretching across the front window of our hostel in Bangkok's Chinatown. Delivery drivers wheeled their carts down the narrow laneway in front. I pondered the situation. I had not expected to be having this type of conservation so early into my trip. Like anyone I, of course, had expected the topic of leaky gut syndrome to come up in conversation. I was just surprised that it had leaked out so quickly (the topic, not the gut).

Chinatown was the right place to stay. It was busy, loud, confusing, smelly, filled with everything you could and couldn't buy and yet, oddly calming. A walk around the quiet back lanes on Monday morning was a bewildering contrast to the lively vendor scene the night before. Since street vendors are not allowed to operate on Mondays, the streets look and feel completely different from one day to the next. I was convinced twice when walking from my hostel to the metro station - a walk I had done half a dozen times in recent days - that I had gotten lost, merely due to the lack of street vendors. Though the smell of fermented fish, dried shiitake mushrooms, burned incense and chargrilled squids did remain constant, despite the streetscape changing around them.

By Monday night I was exploring the rows and rows of food and clothes in the recently opened outdoor marketplace, Jodd Fairs. With food trucks, semi-permanent restaurants and street-vendor style stalls, there was plenty to choose from. Whilst many diners devoured piles of braised pork ribs two feet high, my eyes were drawn to a vendor with a dish I'd soon become more intimately aware of in Northern Thailand - Khao Soi. The coconut-based noodle soup/curry seemed like the right option. But then my eyes looked to the right to a sign which read "Spicy Chicken Feet Soup." "Well I'm obviously not having that." I thought to myself. "But then again... Maybe? No, definitely Khao Soi. Or maybe the chicken feet? Khao Soi. Chicken Feet. Khao Soi. Chicken Feet."

I knew the answer before even asking. So I crossed fingers and toes (mine, not the chickens), hoping that this would not be the dish that would give me food poisoning twenty-four hours before an overnight bus trip. With excitement, I plunged my spoon deep into my bowl of soup, noodles and poultry extremities. I was met with a slightly-spicy soup, heavily spiked with lime leaf. Though it took some time time get through all the cartilage and skin around the bony feet, I had made the right decision.

For dessert I was faced with another big decision - mango and sticky rice or durian smoothie? I knew the answer before even asking.