Eggplants -- Thai style

Its been nice to re-discover Bangkok, but tonight I'm catching a train North to Chiang Mai to meet my friends at the farm. I'm excited for the hills, a smaller more relaxed place, and of course old friends.

I spent the afternoon with Vanessa, my new German friend passing the time before our evening trains. She is also heading out tonight onward to the beaches of the south to see a friend of her own. We wandered some of the side streets and had coffee and fresh fruit juice on the sidewalk, discovered all sorts of interesting things amongst the labyrithine maze of sidestreets just around the block, perambulated one of the innumerable wats nearby just behind the guesthouse, and feasted our eyes on the mind boggling assortment of plants, animals, and geez, all sorts of things that is a traditional Thai market.

I could wander around in fascination of markets like this for days, and I have...With so many amazing things to see it was hard settling on just one blip. In the end though there was somthing so gorgeous and interesting about the eggplants. Eggplants seem to reach incredible new levels of diversity here in Thailand. I have seen a few of the big purple ones typical to western markets, but for the most part they are very different. Mostly racquetball size in creamy whites, greens, purples, blacks, and striped. Some long and sinuous like a snake, others in bunches like grapes, excellent in curries where they burst in your mouth. Like so many things in the tropics, there is just more!

I've said it before and will say it again, eggplants are surely no different. TOO MUCH of a good thing can be wonderful sometimes!