Food on the Go. Literally.

Walking up our road on the way to the gym this morning, I passed a man barbecuing chicken wings and pork satays on a cart attached to his moped. I saw the smoke before anything else but then, as I drew closer, a downward wind brought to me the delicious aromas of meat sizzling. My stomach growled, demanding that it be fed whatever was arousing it but I stood firm. I was on my way to the gym and not even those wonderful smells were going to tempt me. As I walked past, I glanced at the mobile BBQ and immediately wished I hadn't. It looked incredible. The chicken had been marinated and its slick bronze skin was glimmering in the sunlight. The sticky, juicy satays looked back at me, willing me to eat them. The vendor saw the glint of desire in my eyes and quickly said, "twenty baht, very good". I smiled and reluctantly shook my head. "Mai kaa," I said, "no thank you". I walked on determinedly, refusing not to be sucked in, and turned down a soi, away both in sight and smell from the BBQ cart.

Feeling proud of myself, I hummed to the song playing on my i-pod and walked up to the main road. Two minutes down the road however, I heard a tinkling, which normally indicates a food vendor trundling past, advertising his wares to anyone within earshot. It wasn't until the vendor had passed me that I realised that it was the very same BBQ cart from which I had only just torn myself away. Worst of all, he pulled in to the side of the road and stopped thirty feet ahead of me. Was he going to try his luck on me again, hoping that I wouldn't be able to refuse a second time? But no, he was merely stopping to turn the meat over - the chicken and pork was still cooking as he was riding along the road. Who says men can't do two things at once? As I walked towards the cart, I noticed that fumes from the mopeds, cars and coaches on the road were blowing all over the food. Suddenly, that barbecued meat didn't seem so appealing. This time it wasn't so difficult to walk on.