it all comes back to me as the world shifts and tilts. oh yeah. and though i ve been looking out a whole lot of hotel windows these days, struggling to figure out where i am, being here, throwing back shots of rice whiskey with these guys, i know i m back in thailand. [ laughter ] not just thailand, but northern thailand. once known as kingdom of a million rice fields, it s a fertile, green and gorgeous area, home of the ancient lanna people. welcome to chiang mai province. tucked up near the borders of burma, china, laos, india not too far away. all of them have left their mark on the food.
are not going well. if you ve eaten, rice is such a fundamental component. andy: eating is synonymous with eating rice. to eat a meal without rice would be unthinkable. anthony: what makes their whiskey special? [ farmer speaking thai ] andy: because of the flavoring that they add to it. anthony: conveniently, our host, in addition to having provided us with a fine meal, just so happened to run a distillery out back. andy: they use a spice mixture they add to the yeast balls, let it ferment for five days, and then she smashes it with a wood mallet. anthony: thai rice whiskey, lao khao, bucket of hooch, whatever you wanna call it this stuff is a delightful beverage that tastes better and smoother apparently the more you drink. andy: uh-oh, here we go. sneaky, sneaky. anthony: oof. well. andy: and then, uh, fried fish. i believe it s called nile tilapia or nile carp.
plan is to try to get there before dark. alex: i don t think it s going to happen. anthony: nah, me neither. alex: no. alex: hi. anthony: hello. alex: [ foreign language ]. anthony: all those years ago, the man who looked after me at the longhouse was named itam. over 80 years old back then, he led us bounding uphill through the jungle, like a young gazelle. he still had the marks on his fingers of a man who had taken heads. in itam s case, presumably, communist guerillas when he d fought with the british during the malayan insurgency. we drank many shots of rice whiskey together under a bouquet of human skulls, trophies from another time. and i promised i d come back, for gawai, a big deal in the iban calendar, when friends and relatives return to the longhouse. a lot has changed since the iban tracked commies through the jungle, and much has changed in
plot. anthony: oh, that s okay. it all comes back to me as the world shifts and tilts. oh yeah. and though i ve been looking out a whole lot of hotel windows these days, struggling to figure out where i am, being here, throwing back shots of rice whiskey with these guys, i know i m back in thailand. [ laughter ] not just thailand, but northern thailand. once known as kingdom of a million rice fields, it s a fertile, green and gorgeous area, home of the ancient lanna people. welcome to chiang mai province. tucked up near the borders of burma, china, laos, india not too far away. all of them have left their mark on the food.
anthony: all those years ago, the man who looked after me at the longhouse was named itam. over 80 years old back then, he led us bounding uphill through the jungle, like a young gazelle. he still had the marks on his fingers of a man who had taken heads. in itam s case, presumably, communist guerillas when he d fought with the british during the malayan insurgency. we drank many shots of rice whiskey together under a bouquet of human skulls, trophies from another time. and i promised i d come back, for gawai, a big deal in the iban calendar, when friends and relatives return to the longhouse. a lot has changed since the iban tracked commies through the jungle, and much has changed in the ten years since i ve been here. itam passed away the year before last, at the age of 92.