When you finish up a 3-day trek through the hills (read: mountains) of Northern Thailand, what's the first thing you want to eat?
Well, I wanted nothing more than an In N Out burger. Since that wasn't an option, I settled on bugs. (ed. to be fair, I DID eat other things, so the bugs were more of a special treat at the end of the day. you know, like a bowl of ice cream or popcorn.)
After spending the afternoon recovering from the miles of uphills and seemingly endless downhill hiking, we went out for dinner at the night market in Chiang Rai. Most of the delicacies available at the night market were fried, and thus, right up my alley. My first course consisted of fried shrimp and fried chicken...and I threw on a skewer just to add the illusion of health to my chosen meal. Then my Canadian friend, who had been talking up a storm about eating bugs ever since we met, took note of the fried bug stand near our table. Being that I'm always interested in seeing other people make poor choices, and, for that matter am generally a willing participant in, not only, making my own poor choices, but going along with the foolishness of others for no reason in particular, I encouraged him to buy a plate of something spectacular.
The Canadian left the table, and when he returned...what was on his plate? Fried worms. Okay, so they might have been maggots. Who can really be sure? I never claimed to be an entymologist, so all you really need to know is that it was a plate of fried bugs, and three brave souls out of seven decided to take the plunge.
We were poised and ready (and one of us claimed to be a strict vegetarian, but spent most of the evening eating my leftover chicken fingers). With little prompting and cameras at the ready, we popped a few in our mouths and chewed...and chewed...and chewed...and, well, tasted nothing. I am of the opinion that fried maggots taste like exoskeleton--not because I've eaten exoskeleton or am a connoisseur of our armored friends, but because it seemed to me to taste like I imagine exoskeleton would taste like (given my limited experience of accidentally inhaling bugs on bike rides).
Unsatisfied with stopping at worms, I urged the Canadian to go for something more exotic--the large waterbugs. He left the table for a spell and returned empty-handed, unable to follow-through with the purchase. I decided then and there that if he couldn't do it, I would. I waltzed over to the bug counter and proudly ordered the large waterbugs (which look like enormous cockroaches). As I waited for my order, a German couple snapped photos of me and the buffet of bugs before me.
Within minutes, six large waterbugs were in my hot little hands, and I admittedly, really only wanted one, so I knew I'd have to get some more recruits so as not to waste such a precious delicacy. I arrived back at the table with my bounty and quickly grossed out and intrigued the members of our group. While it did take a bit of prodding and time to contemplate such a culinary extravaganza, the Bug-Eating-Trio were all over it.
The Canadian and the vegetarian were the first to have a go. I snapped photos as I watched them bite off the heads of their prey. Then, it was my turn. On the count of three, I ripped its head off with my teeth, and started chewing...and chewing...and chewing...and chewing...and...chewing. And once again, it didn't taste like much of anything. Dare I say it tasted like LESS of anything than the maggots. While it didn't taste like much, it was a very work-intensive meal. I think we chewed on our bugs for a good ten minutes before we were done.
After the feasting on insects, we decided to wash the good times down with a couple buckets of whiskey and coke. Wigs were worn (which distressing me that this is the second time in recent history that I've worn a bar wig in a foreign country that probably doesn't have the same concerns over health and safety as we do in the good ol' US of A), songs were sung, and I was thrilled to have a toilet inside the hotel room for the first time in a week (not because I was sick, but because I was tired of debating the necessity of using the facilities based on my hesitance to walk outside in the dark to find them).
It was a good night. And I wouldn't change a thing...except maybe NOT to have put Red Bull in the first whiskey bucket because that's just nasty.
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