rice

It's almost impossible to overstate the importance of rice here. Most Thais eat rice in some form for breakfast, lunch, and supper. I eat it twice a day, at least. You would think people would get tired of it, but it just doesn't happen.

Lunch and dinner are usually a mound of rice with some main dish served beside or over it. My very favorite breakfast is something called 'joke,' a sort of soupy rice porridge with ground pork and onion. Delicious. It is served very hot and at the last moment an egg is broken into it. The egg cooks as the joke cools. I laughingly told Ah Jan Winit this week that if God had provided joke during the Exodus instead of manna, there would have been no complaining.

Anyway, most of my American friends have never seen rice fields, so here you are...

Flooded paddies.

Strong, healthy rice. You can see it looks like it is growing in clumps. It is started as seed, and then transplanted like this.

Ready for harvest.