Port Noodles Street Kitchen

It is already hot! 30 degrees Celsius and the highest temperature will be around 32. And it is just 10.30h! After two weeks in Thailand I am comfortably seated in Kathu: I have a house, the housekeeping comes twice a week and all things that should work have already taken care of by me.

This means I know that I am living here like a king! I do know how Thai people are living: with 8.000 Bath or 11.000 Bath per adult person each month it is ok – if everybody have and keep his or her job! A simple room or when a family is there a simple house. A motorbike and you go out to the old market or if you are a bit posh to the new market and buy thinks you need.

I have made myself a first cup of coffee and when I am finished I will just drive – with my motorbike – around the corner and go for pork noodles. All in all, water to drink, pork noodles plus soup and some crispy pork skin comes for 60 Bath. And this is not the only venue there is: Every 100m or maybe at a small space at the street is one or several food stalls that offer something to eat.

You nearly can get EVERYTHING the Thai kitchen has to offer: From noodles small to big, with whatever meat you want to have, to more like lunch dishes with rice and meat or just a lot of vegetables, halal meat they offer at some places as well, everything that swims in the sea or in lakes or in rivers or grabs itself (well, not the grown up ones by fish farms) scampi. And in the evening people – I mean farang tourists – they have their posh places where they can eat from a broad variety of everything, nicely laid out and not so cheap anymore compared from the markets I mentioned above.

My breakfast is “around the corner”. Like most times. The street kitchen is just a stone throw away from our house. Well, houses and trees and everything are also there. So when I want to go there I take the motorbike. And it is quick und simple but really delicious. This two people make the pork noodles day after day, week after week and year after year. They seem to be content – and happy.

I park my motorbike in front of the street kitchen, say “Sawasdee khrub!”, get some pork skin that is hanging in front of the street kitchen and sit down – really nice – under a open roof and wait for my noodles to come. The soup is the best, I order it separately. They have chilli, sugar, some open vinegar with pepper and fish sauce. I mix everything just as spicy as I like to eat together with part of the soup and the best is the end when I still have a bit of the soup left to eat. And that is my breakfast for the day.

No expensive and posh hotel breakfast, no tricky places at the beach where a very simple Western breakfast costs 250 bath. My pork noodles are enough to bring me through the day – I hope I learn by time the happiness and the satisfaction from the simple Thai people.

• Sawasdee Khrub!
• "No Ploblem!"