One More Thing to Check off My Bucket List

Here’s an interesting lesson: If you are dehydrated, you can get drunk off two beers.

Here’s another lesson: If you are drunk in Bangkok, it is possible your new friends will succeed in inviting you to eat some local delicacies, such as this creature.



Then maybe you order another beer and polish off a bag of local delicacies.



In retrospect, it was a pretty big bag. It was filled with barbecued crickets and frogs (eaten whole), which Ace and I apparently enjoyed.









The frogs were actually pretty tasty, smokey and savory like beef jerky, but crispy and easy-to-bite like soft-shell crab.

The grasshoppers I regretted in the morning. I ate them as if they were Pringles, but now I have a clear memory that they were closer to thin plastic tubes full of dirt and salt. With legs.

Just when I thought we were finished, Ace brought out a second course of ants in a chili-lime sauce served with scallions, scooped up with Thai basil leaves.



Before I moved to Thailand, I had a theory that anything in a chili-lime sauce had to be delicious. Theory proved. The bugs, even the queen ant pictured, just added extra crunch to the flavorful salad. I would eat that again.

But I might need three beers to get started.


Note: Many thanks to Kob for taking the photos for this post, and for continuing to date Ace after watching him eat bugs.