The bamboo tray man

The khan toke (file pic)

We now eat our meals northern style, around a bamboo tray on the floor.

Maiyuu staggered in the door the other morning with a round bamboo tray, called a khan toke, on which we have eaten all our meals since. He bought it in old Thai market where we live.

'Eating khan toke' (ขันโตก) is a tradition passed down from the Lanna Kingdom in the North - and now we have our own taste of it in our humble abode in Thon Buri.

Food which accompanies rice is placed on the tray. Families gather in a circle around the tray and help themselves.

It is designed to take the dishes we eat with rice, though northerners also use them as general purpose trays.

'Where did you find that?' I asked Maiyuu, as he squuezed in the door.

The khan toke looked large in his hands.

'A man in the market sells them,' he said.

I go into that market at least half a dozen times a day. How come I had never seen them?

Maiyuu also bought a selection of northern food to eat on our khan toke, and made a few more dishes to accompany them.

Instead of sitting at the dining room table as we used to do, we now get down on the floor around our khan toke instead.

Did I mention that we sit in front of the TV? That's probably why Maiyuu bought it, but it is a romantic addition to the household nonetheless.

'Don't spill anything!' Maiyuu said sternly. I have clumsy fingers.

When the meal was over - we ate lobster and a few curry dishes for our first meal, and khao tom pla before bed - I carried the tray back to the table, where it sits when not in use.

'Don't drop it!' Maiyuu warned me again.

In Chiang Mai, visitors can dine in the khan toke style at the Khum Khan Toke restaurant. After dinner, guests watch Thai traditional dance on stage, including the fingernail dance and candle dance.

Some khan toke tables are multi-leveled affairs with legs. Ours is circular and made from humble bamboo, but others are crafted out of wood.

Just don't show me the weight scale

Boyfriend Maiyuu made keow dumplings and sen lek noodles for breakfast.

When I went out to the kitchen to give him a thank-you kiss, he presented a tray of mussels. 'They're for lunch, with cheese,' he said temptingly.

'I'm going away to see my parents in six weeks - how will I lose weight, if you keep making all this good food?' I asked.

'No one forces you to eat it,'he said.

Maiyuu has been experimenting with different cheeses in his cooking. The other day he asked me which farang cheeses taste best.

'Tasty cheddar, blue cheese...but avoid ordinary cheddar, or those awful cheese sticks,' I said.

'I don't want smelly cheese,' said Maiyuu.

Unlike Maiyuu, I do like smelly cheese, so I recommended blue cheese anyway.

Maiyuu went to the supermarket and bought the cheese I put on his list, trusting I would not let him buy old cheese.

He was surprised when he arrived home to find that I had duped him.

Blue cheese smells!

He disliked the pong, but found it tasted better than he thought, and is also a potent ingredient in cooking.

Now, Maiyuu looks for new opportunities daily to grill or melt his cheeses.

The latest is mussels with grilled cheese on top. Last night, he made mini-pizzas with an eggplant, and roti base, again with grilled cheese on top.

I thought the diet could wait. 'Looking fat is better than going without food,' I said.

Maiyuu patted my stomach.

'I thought you'd say that.'

The little wife at home

Maiyuu probably won't bake for the shop I found in Thon Buri. A taxi fare there is B80, and he would have to send any baking he did to the shop by taxi. 'It's hardly worth it,' he says.

The shop would add its own (minimal) mark-up, and reserves the right to send back any food it cannot sell. Maiyuu and the shop's owner Wirut (Wut) have yet to talk, but already Maiyuu is going off the idea.

'Why don't you bring your friend...oops, boyfriend...here one night when you come?' Wut asked nervously last week.

A couple of times, he had asked me about my 'wife' , so I thought I had better set him straight.

Wut says he is an open-minded fellow. However, he still tiptoes around the issue carefully, as he thinks it might be a sensitive matter.

'He rarely leaves home, and hardly ever with me,' I told Wut.

'However, when you have finished making the changes to the shop, I will give you his number, and the two of you can talk,' I suggested.

Wut plans to add a small extension to the shop, to create more selling space. He could offer bakery from Maiyuu, sushi, coffee and packed fruit to customers as they pass on the street.

Maiyuu is still as busy as ever in the kitchen...last night, he made a lemon cream and coconut cake roll, followed by a chocolate cake. 'You have a talent for cooking and baking - I wish other people could see it and appreciate it,' I tell him.

'Never mind - I don't have to show other people. I am happy cooking for you and my friends at home,' he said.

Change your cooking oil!

Mum's shop in Pin Khlao

'I hear you have stopped going to Mum's shop and are now drinking at a new place in the soi?'

That was farang J, boyfriend of Mum's sister Aor, who is staying in the Northeast.

He took a taxi there as soon as he arrived in Bangkok from his native London several weeks ago.

We had not yet seen each other since he came, but already he knew that I had turned my back on Mum's shop.

Aor takes care of farang well, so no surprise if he should be enjoying his stay. I called him for a chat as I sat at the very same place which threatens to get me into trouble.

It is an eatery just down the way from Mum's shop. As drinking holes go, it is far superior, with its own outdoors bench and tables, a rock-pool garden, air conditioning, TV, music...

The eatery sits between Mum's rented apartment and her shop. She passes the place whenever she walks from her apartment to her own shop, or back again.

Last night I called out a greeting. Mum smiled awkwardly, but kept moving. In her eyes, no doubt, I am a traitor.

I had been going to her shop for six or seven years, when suddenly I upped sticks and took my custom somewhere else. Odd indeed.

Well, it's not my fault that she let the place go to rack and ruin. Mum and her husband do nothing to bring in customers any more.

Over the last few weeks, while I have been drinking at the rival place, I have seen just one customer sitting at Mum's shop, a regular who has been visiting the place even longer than I have.

'I left the shop because it's a dump,' I told farang J on the phone.

After we finished our call, a sense of guilt began to settle on my shoulders. I sent farang J a text message.

'Bugger it...I might have to go back anyway,' I said.

The new place suffers from one major drawback: cooking smoke from an open-sided eatery next to it drifts down to the outdoor area where I sit.

The open-sided place - really just a glorified food cart with tables and chairs - is outside a 7-11. It has a good name locally, and has been there for years.

They may have a good reputation, but they are slow to change the oil in their fry pans.

The stench of old cooking oil, accompanied by acrid smoke, drift down to where I am sitting next door. Cough, cough.

Why does the city not tackle smoke pollution caused by these lazy eatery owners who are too cheap to change their cooking oil?

The place where I was sitting is owned by a young go-getter called Wut. He has put B300,000 into his eatery, with ambitious plans to expand further.

The eatery is a bright spot in an otherwise dank and grey neighbourhood. It has been open only a matter of months, but already his customers are being smoked out.

If customers can't sit at his place without drifting down from some cheapo joint down the way, his investment could go up in smoke.

It's an Asian thing, perhaps, but it's also smoke pollution, and a health hazard.

The choices before me are looking sad. Mum's place is a dump, so I don't want to send time there. Wut's place is modern and comfortable, but covered in a cloud of cooking-oil smoke.

Maybe I should just stay at home with the boyfriend, where at least it is safe.

Seamless farewell

It pays to get to Thai funerals early. You get to meet the family, who are on hand to welcome guests.

One other reason? Thais cremate their dead promptly. The cremation was to take place at 3pm. Within 20 minutes, it was all over.

I went to the funeral of a farang colleague I barely knew. Farang K was Christian, but married to a Thai. He was cremated at a temple in town.

One couple turned up at 3.22pm. The deceased's casket was already in the furnace. I could hear it whirring, though smoke had yet to appear above.

What did they miss?

Thirty minutes before, a couple of men - possibly temple employees - carried the casket around the funeral pyre, set inside a small pavilion. We followed in procession.

The men carrying the casket took it up the steps of the pavilion, then set it down in front of the pyre.

Guests filed towards the casket, wai-ed the deceased, and left a paper flower in front.

As we descended the two or three steps of the pavilion on our way back to ground level, we walked past a large photograph of farang K, the man we had come to see off.

Later, as the casket prepared to enter the pyre, guests again mounted the two or three steps of the pavilion, to face the casket.

We set alight paper flowers and put them in front.

We left the pavilion one by one, then once again re-assembled into a group.

It was a casual affair. As soon as we re-joined the group, we resumed the conversations we had broken off when we entered the pavilion.

Even mounting the stairs to see the casket, guests were still chatting. It was informal, relaxed, and natural.

Two close friends of farang K, whom I had expected to see at the cremation, failed to arrive, possibly because they were stuck in traffic.

I arrived an hour early to the temple, in Ramkamhaeng. I was able to take part in all the ceremonies, including walking in procession around the funeral pyre. I was the only farang guest there at that time. The others were running late, but only by a few moments.

I was also able to meet members of his family.

If I had turned up at 3pm, the most we could have exchanged was greetings and farewells, as the ceremony lasts only moments.

At the cremation, I met farang K's ex-wife, his two adult children - who look much more Thai than farang - and his sister-in-law, who lives in the US but happened to be in Thailand when he died last week.

Farang K's children sprang to their feet when I arrived. They introduced themselves, and offered me water.

His daughter is an air hostess. His son is looking for work as a ski instructor.

I loved hearing them speak Thai, and watching them wai the Thai guests who turned up. I also enjoyed the casual, relaxed way they mixed with farang guests.

They took good care of us. Farang K had taught them the ways of the West. Their Mum had taught them how to be Thai. They switched from Thai mode to farang mode and back again with ease.

I am sure farang K was proud of them. I just wish I could have seen them together as a family when he was alive.

I also met farang K's elder brother, who travelled to Bangkok for the funeral, his first visit to Thailand in more than 20 years. That time, he came for farang K's wedding.

Guests were chatting in small groups as I left. I said goodbye to farang K's former wife, and waved goodbye to the kids.

By 3.30pm, I was heading back to the office in an office car with two Thai guests. My glimpse into the lives of these people, who I will probably never meet again, was over.

Farewell, farang K.

Through your Thai family, and the farang friends who knew you in Thailand, your ties to this exotic land live on.