The Thai bug connoisseur

It was my last night in Bangkok and was staying at a budget hostel on the Khaosan Road. The air was warm, the sky was smoggy, and tourists still lined the streets, even late at night, filling their day packs with pirated CD’s and DVD’s and ‘I heart Thailand’ tee-shirts.

The story

This story begins after a night of a few too many ‘Tiger’ Beer’s and some dancing, I was feeling adventurous. I dragged along my 2 new best friends I had met an hour previous- 2 timid English girls with nothing better to do- to come and help me fulfil a lifelong dream, and do it on the cheap. And that was to get my ridiculous long hippie hair dreadlocked. I winced my way through an hour of painful backcombing and plucking at my scalp with sharp hooks my dentist uses. It crossed my mind that perhaps these surgical instruments penetrating my delicate scalp skin were not properly sanitised between dreadings.

My fear gave way to my determination and soon I walked away fairly satisfied I could tick that one off my bucket list.

As we continued down the Khaosan, I was proud of my achievement and felt like I now looked like a (very) pale version of Bob Marley. There was then a moment when I realised the liquor was blurring my senses as I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a shop window. I looked more like a nerdy Krusty the Clown. I paid it no mind, I had 2 girls in tow (who were slowly distancing themselves from me), still had a beer buzz, the night was young and Bangkok’s nightlife was calling me.

Next stop: food. I couldn’t locate any kebab shops at this late hour, so I settled for a vendor who was selling food with comparable nutritional value- an assortment of fried bugs. One of the girls with me had almost finished studying to be a doctor, so I thought if she was game, so was I.

I had my pick of cockroaches, centipedes, grasshoppers and some other unidentifiable creepy crawlies. It was a tough pick, so I went for a giant mixed bag. At about NZ$3, I had all the bugs we could eat- what could go wrong?

The roach was too crunchy, but the centipede had a nice flavour balance, as well not being too dry on the palette. The bugs were fried in a fantastic satay sauce. I wondered how I might be able to smuggle a bag back through customs until the image of Steve Irwin on those customs ad’s entered my mind, so I thought it best to consume my bugs before I left.

The rest of the night was a blur, but suffice to say I woke up on the floor of my hostel room wondering what happened the night before. My eyes reluctantly opened to a scene from a less funny version of ‘The Hangover’. My hair was dreaded, my clothes covered in satay sauce and bug bits, my friends had abandoned me, my skin green and stomach doing the kind of somersaults only a night of excessive bug consumption could have caused.

My flight later that day was hellish as I spent more of it in the airline bathroom than in my seat.

My travel tip? Enjoy your Thai fried bugs in moderation people