The heat and humidity of Bangkok is relentless this afternoon as we leave Wat Po and head to the Amulet Market. On the way we pass hundreds of streets stalls selling everything form 10 year old Nokia mobiles, thongs through to expensive looking amulets.
I pick up a dozen good luck charms for work colleagues, a hand made leather sling man-purse and a cute USB stick in the shape of a canon camera (pictured).
The USB is a tiny little thing but reproduced so incredibly faithfully that it’s breath-taking. There’s something fun about buying this high tech device from a guy who’s selling it in such a low tech way; these USB sticks were simply placed on a piece of fabric on the footpath.
But I digress… the unbearable noon heat. Just before the Amulet Market, we usually stop at a tiny shop front that specialises in grass jelly and tofu desserts. Here too, it’s a simple affair, two enormous industrial sized pots, one with grass jelly the other with warm tofu. You can have one or the other, or a mix of both (as you can see in the featured video above).
I choose the refreshing dark green-grey grass jelly which come in large chunks in a syrup sweetened with palm sugar and chilled with ice. The sugar is added right at the end and not fully dissolved, I reckon this is down to the speed in which they’re made leaving little time to fully stir in the sugar, but after a while it becomes a feature of this dessert. Getting bits of undissolved palm sugar sends me on a high, helping me cope with the tropical heat.
The tofu dessert is served warm with long sticks of dough that does a great job of soaking up the sticky ginger syrup.
Our group devours two bowls of tofu and a bowl of grass jelly dessert. The entire is around A$1.50. What’s not to like?!
