In my last post, I promised I would tell you about the vegetables and the local markets in Chiangmai. Well, I also went with our driver to Warorot Markets, which are the local markets where the people of the hill tribes come down to sell their vegetables. They have very unusual vegetables. Unfortunately they come really early (1am) and by the time we went at 9am, they had almost all gone home! Even more unfortunately they don’t speak English and Mummy and I don’t speak Thai!!!
We were looking to buy purple long beans so that we could get seeds from them. But there were none that we could see and no one understood us. I was very sad so our driver brought me to KumTian markets and a big seed shop there, and I bought lots and lots of seeds, including purple (called violet, I guess that’s more fancy) long bean seeds. I will grow them IMMEDIATELY. Luckily they grow faster than eggplants. Here is the list of seeds I bought. If you want any, please let me know.
American Marigold Orange, Marigold Bali Gold, French Marigold Tangerine, Fu Fu Sunflower (looks like a teddy bear) and Sunflower Golden Millionaire (also a teddy bear)
Yard Long Beans (violet, black seeds, white and black seeds and red seeds), white short plump eggplants, sugar peas, wax gourd (2 types), white waxy corn and bright green okra.
Thai normal green long beans are really long, see:
Mummy managed to buy 2 vegetables that she did not recognize. One looked like a pretty spinach with curly tendrils on the end of each stalk, see?
Anyway, as we were walking home from dinner, we saw a group of 5 ladies, all dressed up in fancy clothes, outside a shop. They were peeling the same vegetable! So we asked what it was, and they said it was called sai-yoh-teh. I think it is spelt chayote though. I am going to try to grow it when I get back to Singapore.
Mummy also bought something that looked like a green hairy marrow but this one has bumpier skin and ridges too. Here is a photo:
Growing Like a Weed 