VILLAGE LIFE IN THAILAND, what its like in a small Issan village

We are just at the tail end of the rainy season in Thailand. And during this time, when it rains, it pours. The rain can last for hours and it seems to fall in buckets, not in drops. However, business goes on as usual. Thai people are resilient and are able to operate their business even in difficult weather conditions. I have so much admiration for their spirit and determination. Here at the Pimai Market, next to the family village, I always find time to sit down and have a cup of Kaffir Buran, a strong brewed coffee with a small amount of sweetened condensed milk. Sit down, watch the Thai news, and the village life goes by. This is called Gayasat Pimai. It's a local dish made out of puffed rice bound together with a sweet sticky palm sugar. It's got peanuts and sesame seeds. It's so delicious and you can only get it here. This afternoon, I'm going to make a fantastic Thai salad. And I've asked mum if she can cook some of her famous soft-boiled duck eggs. The duck eggs are farmed locally and everything is 100% free range. Not all produce in Thailand is farmed in big sheds by large corporations. Rather small individual villages will collect the duck eggs from their own ducks and then sell them to the market vendors. This is also common for rice, bananas, coconuts and other high-demand produce. Welcome to Ban Wai, my family's village. Ban Wai is one of the smallest villages, but it's the biggest when it comes to heart and soul. I am busting every time I come to Thailand just to get to the village. It's like everything inside you just stops for a moment. Time to catch up with family and ask them how they are doing and what we can do to help each other. It's so nice to connect with the ones we love. This is Grandpa. He's lived his whole life in the village and worked hard every day, building his own house, growing food and being self-sufficient. Life is a balance of hard work and time to rest. Village life is the ideal way to achieve this balance. While I was here, I wanted to cook something for the family and neighbours. And I know that a few kilometres down the road through all of the rice fields is this local girl, Nong U, who makes her own rice noodles in a completely home-built operation. She built the business together with her father, with her own two hands. And now the small business supplies noodles to hundreds of locals. It's wonderful to see such initiative. Using the ingredients that are available, the dried rice husks are used as fuel, slowly burning as she gently fans them to stir up the heat. The fire from the husk transfers its heat into this 60-litre pot of boiling water that is insulated by a thick render of mud and concrete. The noodle mixture is a wet batter of rice flour and water. It's been beaten to help develop the starch so the noodles are firm enough not to break when cooked. The batter is then pumped through this homemade device that looks similar to a shower head with a flip-tap on the side. The water has to be exactly 95 degrees for the noodles to cook perfectly. As the noodle mixture falls into the water, they are almost fully cooked by the time they reach the depths of this pot. The noodles are then delicately scooped out from the boiling water in a homemade fine-string net that is attached simply to a few willow sticks. The noodles are then refreshed with loads of fresh water poured through the noodles to stop the cooking process. Then they are rinsed twice more in a second and third tub of water to make sure that the noodles are less starchy. The noodles need to remain loose and separate, not glugging together. Finally, the noodles are delicately placed in the hand and formed into small bundles for packing. The noodles remain in this form until they are eaten cold with a hot curry sauce on top. It's very common for the families to employ relatives to help. Aunties and cousins are a very reliable and trustworthy source of assistance and also helps to support the local economy and the village community. After seeing the simplicity of these noodles, I can't wait to use them. Fresh, vibrant in my new dish. So these are those amazing fresh noodles, the konomjin noodles. You can take one or two bunches and this is how it's done village style. Very simple, feeding the family. Snake beans all cut up and some bean shoots on top. And then that wonderful konomjin sauce with the pieces of fresh chicken, coconut milk and the galangal. And then we finish it off by just putting on some fresh garden basil and also the mint as well. It's that easy. A pair of chopsticks and a spoon. This is real country food. I've asked mum to soft boil some duck eggs for my next dish. She says that for perfectly cooked duck eggs, you need to sing an old children's song three times and they're ready to eat. It's called the elephant song. Amazingly, it works. Elephant, elephant, elephant, have you ever seen an elephant? The elephant is big and not light. The nose is long and slender. The ears are long and slender. The ears and eyes are long and slender. And after two and a half minutes, the duck eggs are perfect. There is something so special about the village community. Most often, a family will buy one large acre of land and the whole family will build their houses next door to each other. It's a real sense of belonging.