the floating markets of Kanchanaburi

It was rather like a field trip, only we didn't stop by school first. The bus came right to my house. At the crack of dawn I was up and ready, but the tour company beat me to the punch. I was still throwing things into my satchel when a bleary-eyed young night clerk came up to tell me a car was parked downstairs for me. I dashed down and leaped into a full-size van, and off we went. There were already two bony, exhausted-looking young Italian girls inside, and on our way out of Bangkok we stopped to pick up three burly Indian fellows and two elderly, grinning Australian women. 

The driver was a tall, gaunt man with longish hair and a Heineken baseball cap who barely spoke two words and spent our rest stops sitting in the driver's seat and smoking a listless cigarette. The guide was a shorter, bug-eyed, toad-mouthed fellow with close-cropped graying hair. He introduced himself thus: "My name Cham Long. You call me Long Cham." He grinned a lot and had a wicked sense of humor. He kept patting my pudgy stomach and asking me when my due date was, and he hinted incessantly that one of the three Indian fellows was a ladyboy. 

The tour was good, but it was so...rushed. We had only an hour at the floating markets (after a two-hour drive to get there!) which was just enough time for a quick paddle around—for 200 baht—and a sip of coconut juice.

  

The markets were a royal letdown. I don't mean to be one of those twits who always yaps about authenticity, but the floating markets of Kanchanaburi weren't authentic at all. You could see this whole place had been set up for the tourists' sake. Everything: the boat rides, the cheap souvenirs, the countless Buddha and elephant statues carved from jade and quartz...it was all to fleece the fat white folks from the big city. There were no locals there apart from the mongers and merchants, just foreign phonies like me. I felt like such a poser sitting in that wooden boat, my sandalled feet wet with bilge water, snapping selfies and sucking on a coconut with a straw in it. I'm never going back. 

After we finished with the markets, Long Cham rounded us up and we were whisked off to lunch, an assortment of spicy, savory Thai dishes laid out buffet-style at a roadhouse. We were all too hungry to make much conversation, and people pretty much stuck to their own cliques. I was the only solo traveler, but that's fine; I was never much for conversation anyway. 

After another long drive, we found ourselves at...

cocktail review no. 58 - Piña Colada

I had second thoughts about reviewing this. The piña colada is a pretty common drink. Moreover there are as many recipes for it as there are grains of sand on a beach, and sifting through them to find best one seemed like a tall order.

But hey, I've gone out on a limb many times in my reviews (Swirling to the Beat of the Haggis Wings, anyone?). I figured that, every so often, my readers will appreciate me sticking with something simple and familiar.

...so long as I put a new spin on it, anyway.

I purchased my first bottle of coconut cream not long ago, anyway, and I have to find some use for it.

So here you go:

• 2 ounces light rum
• 5 ounces pineapple juice
• 1½ ounces coconut cream
• 1 cup crushed ice
• 1 maraschino cherry
• 1 pineapple slice

In a blender, combine the rum, pineapple juice, coconut cream and crushed ice. Blend well and pour into a collins glass. Garnish with the cherry and pineapple slice.

If you're really feeling festive, double the recipe and pour into a hurricane glass. Now it's a party.

I'm not going to tell you what it tastes like. You ought to know by now, if you're human. Besides, tropical drinks aren't really meant to be dissected; the flavors are supposed to meld into one big stress-relieving bundle of joy.

I'll simply state that this recipe, in my opinion, makes the best piña colada around.

Or you could try this one. Whatever.

It's a tropical drink. Mix it however you want. Go with the flow, man.

P.S. Piña colada is Spanish for "strained pineapple." Betcha didn't know that, Dr. Bamboo.