bangkok
ESSENTIALS
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When to go: Thailand’ s‘ cool’ season( November to February) is when it welcomes most visitors, with temperatures hovering around 68-78F( this depends on where in Thailand you are). Currency: Thai baht Language: Thai Getting around: In Bangkok, there’ s a great public transportation system, featuring the BTS( aka Skytrain) and MRT( aka subway). Unfortunately, you can’ t use the Skytrain ticket for the subway, or vice versa, but the subway does include lanes exclusively reserved for using your Visa credit card to pay the fare. Outside of Bangkok, you may have to rely on taxis, tuk-tuks or Grab( the Southeast Asian version of Uber).
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Khao soy soup with red onions, limes, pumpkin seeds and coriander
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Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai has a distinctive food culture born out of Chinese and Myanmarese influences. This can be seen in what’ s perhaps Northern Thailand’ s most famous dish, khao soy, which combines a curried broth with Chinese-style egg noodles. Northern Thailand also enjoys a lot of Shan influence, courtesy of the Indigenous people who settled nearby between Myanmar and Siam centuries ago. This has resulted in dishes like khao kanjin, rice steamed in pork broth and wrapped in a banana leaf, and kanom jeen nam ngiew, a pork or beef stew with dried cotton flowers ladled over fermented rice noodles.
Sriracha
Thais don’ t go to the beach to sunbathe— they go to eat. Specifically, the freshest possible seafood accompanied by a chili-spiked sauce. Coastal Sriracha is a popular seafood destination for Bangkokians seeking to flee the air pollution and traffic jams of the capital, but it’ s also well known as a brand name, borrowed by David Tran, the Vietnamese-American founder of U. S.-based Sriracha. However, in Sriracha itself, Thais claim their own Sriracha sauce— a mix of red chilies, pickled garlic and vinegar created by a local housewife— is the only condiment to choose when eating the local seafood. image: stockfood. Illustration: Lis watkins
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