This is a small open air restaurant.  I come here frequently to enjoy barbeque chicken and sticky rice.  My meal along with a coke cost me $1.10.  I write about this place in my column this week.  There is were I met the first honey girl.

The Honey Girls

Story of the Week in One Hour Flat

What is really interesting for me is just how fast something really interesting can happen in Thailand.  The people are open and inviting.   The situations that occur are typically friendly.  My main story this week took place in a single hour last Friday.

Weekly, I take my employees to lunch.  It's a nice time out for us and I get to boast about being "Pee" (the big guy) in treating everyone to some food.  Its not that common for a boss to take his employees out to my knowledge.   Each week for about $10 I treat 8 or 9 people to lunch.   Typically we go to food vendors area at the Lotus Tesco.

This week, we walked (or should I say that I walked and my lazy employees rode their motorcycles about 200 meters around a few blocks) to a nearby food stand where they sell roasted chicken, fish, somtum, sticky rice, and a few other related items.

This simple restaurant is an open air place under a common roof with several other vendors (picture up above).  There are no walls to the place.  There are no doors.  Just tables and cabinets and a couple of barbeque areas.  It's a simple set up and its common for the lower income areas of Thailand to adopt this type of market style structure.

Near the end of our meal, a girl walked up carrying products.  She had a wooden pole over her shoulder and on the back side of that pole was slung a box and on the front half a basket of goods.

As she drew closer I saw that she had a string of bee hives banded together.  Bottles of honey were also on either side of the hives.  This girl was a honey collector and seller.   She showed us a bottle of honey and asked us if we were interested.  I quickly though this might make an interesting story but I didn't have my camera.  So, I wanted to take some pictures of her and this honey product and I told her that I would certainly buy a bottle of honey from here if she would walk with me back to my office where my camera was.  Fortunately, my chief guy from the office was there to help me translate all this in Thai and she understood my intentions.  She agreed and so without much of a delay lunch was over and she and I were headed back to the office.  My employees split on their motorbikes.

We both walked through small market area on the way back to the office.   And sure enough there was another honey girls there selling.   I had never either one of these girls before.   I ask my girl about the other and she told me this was her younger sister.   Oh, ok.  There were is couple of them.

We continue on and sure enough another 10 meters up the sidewalk there is a third girl.   She was the older sister.  Wow, ok, we have nearly the whole family here selling today.

The first girl and I continued down the road and turned the corner and we back at my office.  We stopped at the ground floor and I figured that meeting downstairs would be best.  My translator guy comes down and I run up and get the camera.  Upon my return, I start to ask questions.

I asked "do you get this honey yourself?" She said yes.  I said do you just wonder out into the country side for these hives and what do you do to keep the bees away from you.   She replied that she and her family hunt around for the hives and they use small burning branches to condition the bees into leaving the nest.   From there they cut the nests down.  Some are squeezed for the honey and placed in bottle.   Other nests like the ones on here basket cart are sold as they are.

Just then, one of her sister shows up.   Ok, ok.  I think to myself, how did she know where we were?   She must have followed us because the first girl had never been to my building before.  No problem.  I take a couple of pictures.  A minute or two later, the third sister shows up.   We have the whole gang now.

I asked the middle sister, how long have you been gathering and selling honey?  She said all of her life, about 18 years.   So, I said, does you whole family do this and she says yes.

They pulled a couple of bottles out.   They had a noticeably different color.   I asked about the color difference.  She said the darker on is more aged.  It comes from a different season.   Some seasons are more wet, etc.   The darker one is more expensive because aging makes it better.

I asked how much?   She said 150 baht for the lighter younger bottle and 200 for the older darker honey.  ($4 and $5.50 USD).   These are whiskey bottles (with plastic soda  bottle tops on them), each are 750 milliliters I believe.  That's a lot of honey.   I buy the lighter one from sister number one on the left.

Of course, sister number two on the right pulls out one of her bottles, and I purchase a darker bottle from her.   And just when I think our trading is complete, sister number 3 makes me another offer, with a 50 baht discount.  I buy the third bottle and I give it to my translator for his family.

So, how does the honey taste?  This particular honey is sweet of course, and its a bit gritty in texture.  They obviously do filter it for particulates, but there is still a gritty texture.  I believe that girt is crystallization of the sugars (fructose and glucose) in the honey itself.   If you read about honey on the web you'll find that in the west, honey is heated for processing to prevent crystallization and heating also prevents the fermentation of yeast in the honey.   So, the normal honey we may have experienced in the west is smoother and in my judgment thicker than this honey straight from fields.  Some honey has characteristics from the flowers available to the bees.  I did not detect any taste or odor connected with any particular flowers that I knew of.  It's seemed relatively ordinary and a bit thinner in consistency.

With business in a good state, the middle sister started to ask questions about me.   She wants to know if I had a wife.  Of course this is a common topic of conversation.  I said to her that I didn't... and she proceeded to ask me if would be interested in her daughters.   And I laugh, and the girls laugh a little.  I said I don't know. (continued in the next section)

So Much for the Honey - Now on to the Assimilation

I wrote an article a number of weeks ago about call We areThai.  I spoke in that article about the natural tendency of the Thai culture to assimilate you into their families.   Hardly a new meeting goes by that I am not offered the opportunity to meet a young beautiful girl, and today was no exception.  Both the middle sister and the older sister had available daughters.

The first sister pulls out a picture and she says, I have two.  They are twins.  They are 18 years old.  Can you handle two?  And I let out a Thai groan that sounds like "Wheeaaa" and I say in Thai, two girls shopping and 2 telephones?, I don't think have enough money for that.  And all the sisters bust out laughing.  I take a picture of her daughter's photo (on the left).

Then the older sister (number 3) pulls out a photo of her daughter too tells me a little about her, and I snap a picture of that too (on the right).

I ask, are your daughters going to sell honey also?  They say no,  they are in school increasing their education so they don't have to be in the honey business.

I think its interesting to note that these honey girls were in their very early teens when this city (Nakhon Phanom) was over-run with GI serving during the Vietnam war.   Nakkhon Phanom is ideally located on the boarder of Laos with a natural barrier of the Mekhong river.  From this city, many targets in Laos and Vietnam could be reached by attack aircraft and helicopters.

These honey girls were just starting to come into their own at the end of that Vietnam war.  They were probably 5 or 10 years too young to be entertaining the American GI's, but many other girls did.   Many girls married GI's and are now in the states.

I thanked all the girls very much for coming by.  I snap off a few more pictures.  They insisted that I take a photograph with them.   They asked me for a copy of the photo the next time they came by the office for a visit and I agreed.

Incidentally, just to let you know.  The temperature outside is warm, about 85 degrees.  The girls are wearing long pant and shirts and have themselves completely covered because they don't want their skin to tan any further from the effects of the sun.  Light skin is viewed a valuable on a woman whereas dark skin is deemed un-attractive.

Who is Scamming Who?

During Stickman's "time off" from his weekly column, he has been out working on another new section of his site.  He is putting together a new photo gallery.   I must say his camera is first class.   He is getting very high quality shots (DaveTheRave take note).

I have a small beef with one of his photos that I wanted to make mention of it here.   Stickman doesn't frequently come into contact with the poor country folk and I really think he mis-read this one situation very wrongly and I wanted to make a point by bringing it to your (and his) attention.

On his first page there is a photo graph of an senior lady there.   Stickman asks to take her picture, she asks for 20 baht and then Stickman finds that she is somewhat uncooperative and doesn't want to simile for him.

Well, the picture shows her face, and perhaps she didn't directly look at the camera.  And certainly she is not smiling for the camera.

This is a woman who has long lost her youthful beauty.  Some 30 or 40 years ago things where quite different for her.  Long past are the days when she was given gifts from potential suitors.  Long gone are the marriage proposals.   Long past are the days when she had a full head of hair and a sexy figure, and everything else that goes with having position in her culture.  She is not far from the end and it looks like she lives day to day with just a basics.  She doesn't have any gold, it looks as if she is poor.

And if Stickman is not happy with the fact that she won't smile for him,  well, he needs to also understand the fact she hasn't had any teeth for a number of years.   At one time she probably had a beautiful smile, but now she doesn't.

(click on this photo for a close up) Take a close look at her hair.   The hair isn't cut, it broken.  My guess is that she is malnourished and her hair is breaking off on its own.  She looks thin as a rail.  Her body weight is down.  Maybe she is sickly. 

At one time in her life she may have had a lot  pride and stood tall, but now she is reduced to taking money when the opportunity presents itself.   Deep down she may really resent it, but she has no choices.   Does anyone reading this article sense the deep sorrow of such a position?

So, if she doesn't smile for Stickman, perhaps he could cut her a little slack?

OH, yea, more more thing.    Did Stickman tell her that he was going to be making money from her photo?  Did he tell her that?  Was Stickman consciously thinking "I'm going to profit from this woman's character stemming from her advanced age and poor condition"?  Chances are he wasn't thinking at all.  I hope Stickman makes lots of money from that damn lousy stinking 20 baht photograph.   And while he is at it - perhaps he can remove this "SCAM" complaint from his web site and show greater courtesy and respect for someone who has had it a little harder than he has had it.

People say that Stickman loves the people of Thailand.... and perhaps he does, but I think we see something different at work here.

Numbers for the Week

An interesting thing happened this week.  I posted an extra article about 5 days early and I saw a bump up in traffic.  How did this happen?   How exactly are people getting the word on this early article?   Are they using a web tool that tracks changes on a web page OR they are emailing each other.  Anyhow, I'm happy with the extra traffic this week.  

I have also included a listing of the articles people are finding interesting.   These numbers here are page views of those web pages.  By the way, the article that I released just 5 days ago called "StickmanSpeakAndTheCryBaby" are high up on the list for this month already and have been viewed 822 times.   I think that number is pretty decent.

Thumbs Up for DaveTheRaveBangkok

I really liked his write up on the some of the inner workings of the bar/go-go business.   I found the Jan 10th entertaining.  The go-go clubs and their dancers are always going to be interesting reading for westerners and Dave is in a unique position to get that story right.  Thanks Dave.

Also, a very short thank you to MangoSquashDave (the other dave) for making all the OTHER Thailand columns look great this week.

Thank you to TwoFatFarlangs

They asked me to answer some questions in an interview for their new web site  www.TwoFatFarangs.com.  I did answer all their questions, and they did print my words exactly as I had written them.  I appreciate their honesty.  They had no objections to my answers, and that is a bit surprising as I tend to be edge of controversy at times.

You can see that article now on the front page of their site.

Hey guys -- can you fix that one typo in the article?  The word "Shot" should have been "Shoot" (ahg! I can't proof read to save my life)

The Wrap Up

The bottom line is that so much can happen in Thailand in just an hour.   The honey girls were very interesting group.  They seemed like a very happy group.   They would probably be lovely to have as in-laws.   

I have been writing in my columns about how easy it is to meet up with girls here in Thailand.  Here is a perfect example of how it can happen.  Family and friends will introduce you to the single girls that are 18, 20 or 21 years old, they are almost always pretty.  Some are flat out gorgeous.    In this case I was talking directly with their mothers.  Were they serious?    Did the one honey girl really want me to consider her twin daughters?   I'm not sure, I would guess about 85% serious.

But, you know the question remains -- Am I lying about all this?   I could be.   So, whatever you do, don't be buying any story you read on the Internet.    Be very careful about what products you buy from Thailand on the Internet.  Nothing is better than coming here and seeing all this for yourself.

Thanks for a stopping by.

John Galt