Melissa, Brynley and I arrived in Ayutthaya exhausted from our long nights in Bangkok and wandered aimlessly around the streets hoping for a hotel to find us and reel us in. I had a specific hotel in mind but our collective willpower at this point was low and to have to look at maps and follow directions involved way too much effort so we decided after a short period of time that we’d done enough walking and settled for the nearest hotel. Relieved to have rid ourselves of our backpacks, we had a simple lunch, had a rest and headed out to the local night market for some dinner. With Ayutthaya being a fairly small town, we weren’t expecting much of a market. We had to walk quite a way from the centre of town to find the place, asking several local people for directions along the way until finally we could see a glimmer of lights at the end of a long dark road. The road seemed to be a favourite hangout for the stray dogs of the town and you never quite knew what they were going to do when you walked past them. Some were lazy and wouldn’t bat an eyelid, others would growl and grumble, one decided that he’d confront us and barked and snarled viciously as we crossed his path. We all just continued to walk, albeit a lot faster and with hearts and mouths, hoping that this vicious doggy wouldn’t attack us. Fortunately it turned out he was all bark and no bite and we all made it to the market in one piece. There was a narrow path with stalls lined up on either side for as far as the eye could see. Hungry from our walk we checked out some of the stalls at the start and immediately I was in heaven as I had found the holy grail of beer snacks, pork scratchings!!! What a find!! We grabbed a table immediately, bought a bag English style pork scratchings and a bag of the quaver looking pork scratchings which I guess are the more American style ones. All we needed now was a few beers… alas the stall didn’t sell them. Me and Brynley had to run the gauntlet past the stray dogs again to a nearby shop, bought some beers and Sangsom, and ran back, eager to get stuck into our snack. What a combination!! Ice cold beer followed by a salty crunch of skin all brought together by the porky tasting fat that envelops the inside of your mouth. Heaven!! However, we didn’t want to spoil an evening of eating so we saved some scratchings for later and went on the hunt for some more tasty treats.
The stalls went on and on and the food on offer looked great. Our plan of action was to walk to the point where the stalls ended, keeping an eye open for anything that took our fancy, and then walk back and buy the food. This seemed to work in theory but we couldn’t resist sampling some of the snacks along the way. Brynley set the ball rolling with some devilish coconut cakes.
Then we were lured to another stand selling some sort of herbal, medicinal whiskey which we downed with aplomb and followed it up by eating a sour fruit dipped in salt that looked very similar to a chickpea. Next were some very strange looking eggs, similar in style to a scotch egg except the outer layer was fried, minced fish as opposed to sausage. There were two types of egg, one of them being of the standard yellow yoked variety, the other having a frankly disturbing looking black yolk. Still, as disturbing as the black yolk looked, my curiosity got the better of me and I just had to try the eggs. The eggs were chopped up into pieces , dressed with chopped up spring onions and a dash of spicy sauce. They tasted good, the black yoked egg tasting a lot richer and eggier than the yellow yoked egg. I later learnt that black yoked eggs were a Chinese delicacy called century eggs, eggs that are coated in a mixture of mud, rice and clay, buried in the ground for up to three years, and allowed to go through a chemical cycle that makes them edible again. My dad informed me this type of egg was recently eaten by a ‘celebrity’ on “I’m a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here!”. Supposedly the ‘celebrity’ said it was the worst food she’d ever eaten. I told my dad I must have only eaten a half century egg then because the egg I ate tasted very similar to a normal egg. I’m sure a lot of the negativity surrounding the taste has to do with the colour of the yolk as black yolk is usually associated with rotten eggs. Also, the area surrounding the yolk is slightly gelatinous so the texture is different to a normal egg. It’s all mind over matter!! 
The snacking continued deep into the night as we munched on pancakes, sausages, and spring rolls. Melissa was snacked out and had to go to bed but Brynley and I decided to take our big bellies and herbal whiskey to investigate the second food market. We arrived and it was a far more formal affair than the first market with more areas to sit down alongside the river. I decided to try frog with green peppercorns, mainly because I was drunk and I’d never tried frog before. The plate of food arrived and the frog was predictably full of bones, crunchy and tasted like chicken. There was an overwhelming number of green peppercorns, hundreds of them! They were in clusters of around twenty to thirty, like bunches of mini green grapes. Eating them caused a peppery explosion inside the mouth and there were far too many to finish. If eaten carefully, peppercorn by peppercorn, they had a pleasant, almost floral taste. Brynley and I were finally defeated and we decided to call it a night.
The following evening, after an excellent day cycling around ancient temples, we all went back to the first night market because it was just so good and we decided to have a bit more of an informal sit down meal as opposed to gorging on snacks. We started with an eggy radish cake, similar to the one we had in Melaka, one lady cooking up plates of what looked like messy omelettes to the hungry queue of expectant customers.
We had to wait a good few minutes as she was so busy which is always a good sign. The eggy mess mixed with spring onions was comforting and enjoyable and after finishing this we went back to the start of the market for our main course, only to find that the man had sold all of his salt crusted fish!! We managed to find another lady selling fish and we bought some pancakes and a stuffed banana leaf to accompany. The fish and pancake were good but there was a surprise as I opened the banana leaf. I assumed it would be filled with rice, as I have had before, but you should never assume anything with a stuffed banana leaf. After unravelling the layers a pink, very raw looking piece of meat appeared before me. I wasn’t really sure what to do with it…. Should I eat it? Are you meant to take it home and cook it? The locals sitting next to me seemed to be giving me assurance that it was fine to eat. I tentatively took a little nibble and found the taste to be not so bad, similar to a salty Parma ham. Brynley and Melissa cautiously picked off a little and again, they didn’t find it to be too bad. But… there was just that ever present doubt in the back of all of our minds that we were eating raw bacon and this just wasn’t something we were used to. I left a little of the meat, it was very salty and rich tasting and the oniony looking pieces running through the meat were actually chewy pieces of rind. We managed to find some yummy, multi flavoured cream filled cakes (chocolate, coconut, vanilla, strawberry, etc) and a bag of coke (the sweet sugary type) to wash the saltiness away. If there was one thing we learnt from our feast it was to be wary of the stuffed banana leaf, because just like a bag of Revels, you might end up with the coffee one! 
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