It’s a paradox of sorts. The Thais make their fruit extra luscious and edible with their carving skills — but you don’t feel like destroying such artistry by eating them. So one way out is to eat these amazing fruits right off the tree at a spot called ‘Suan Lamai’, 20 km away from Pattaya.
Suam Lamai: The Kingdom of Fruit on a Mountain
This relatively uncrowded stopover near Rayong in eastern Thailand has open-coach tours up a very picturesque hill. The reason it’s a popular picnic spot with the locals all through the year, even when it’s not fruit season, is the charming sheep farm, a big draw for families with children. We see gangs of excited kids feeding baby sheep, as we trundle further uphill. When all at once — much like Wordsworth spotting his daffodils — we see an entire valley of pink flowers freshened by a gentle shower just minutes ago. A made-to-order rainbow suddenly appears, making us rush out with cameras. Our fruity destination is almost forgotten.
As the best time to visit the orchards is June, later in the year, we are warned in advance not to expect the bonanza of pickings we may have imagined. The expression ‘low hanging fruit’ comes literally alive, as we grab those ripe for the picking with the delight of errant urchins. The many-splendoured variety of Thai fruit is later cut and served to us in an eat-all-you-can buffet.
“Do you know what the King & Queen of Fruit are?” quizzes our guide. “You will shortly meet them!”And that is our introduction to Thailand’s fruit royalty: Durian and Mangosteen.
Durian The fruit the world loves to hate . It can cause a rift among lovers, it can create heated arguments with strangers, it could even have you chucked out of a train in some South East Asian countries, by law! While our group’s reactions ranged from ‘ugh’ to ‘wow’ in equal intensity, the putrid-smelling durian lived up to its reputation of evoking extreme emotions. The spiky exterior is swiftly knifed through to get to the pale yellow flesh within. While die-hard fans may call this ‘Nirvana in a fruit’, the funniest description I have heard about the durian is, “It’s like kissing your dead great grandmother”. Sweet, and wonderfully smelly.
Mangosteen rhymes perfectly with Queen, and Thais will swear it deserves this title. Knowing we were plucking these purple-coloured wonders in peak season in Thailand, seemed to give the white pods of flesh within a superior taste, compared to the ones we pay high prices for back home.
Rambutan — the pretty pink-haired wonder; which perhaps should be the Princess of Fruit, following the two royals above. I’ve always thought it’s a Thai word, but am told it’s actually the Malaysian word for ‘hairy’, so christened by the Brits! Look for one bigger than a golf ball, advises my guide — they are the sweetest of all.
Guava Bigger than baseballs — the guava has this curious name in Thai: ‘farang’. If you thought that’s the same word for ‘white foreigner’ back in India, you’re right! Farang apparently got named as this fruit first came here from America, and now Thailand is the biggest and best producer in the world of this fruit.
Dragon Fruit Bizarre and beautiful outside, and even more unusual within, with its white flesh smothered with tiny black seeds. The locals also call it pitaya, and it is a favourite for food décor. The taste and texture is similar to a melon or a kiwi fruit, but a bit blander, is what we conclude, as we demolish a whole tray with toothpicks.
Papaya Brilliant even if unripe, it’s best known as Som Tam — Thai Green Papaya Salad — doused with chilli-lime flavouring and crunchy peanuts. Here, in its yellow-gold state, the Thai papaya seems to have a sweetness that’s rivalled only by mangoes.
Mango Okay, they stole the word manga from my language, Tamil, and we still think Indian mangoes beat any in the world, but here in Thailand, it’s the perfect mate for sticky rice. The Thais love to serve it with much artistry, and it’s my predictable choice of dessert after any meal in Thailand.
Snake fruit This one roused our curiosity the most, as we’ve never seen it anywhere other than Thailand. Why snake, we couldn’t quite fathom, but I recall seeing it sold as a snack all over Bangkok in carts, where the yellow lobes of flesh within are served in a sauce mix of salt and sugar.
Longan The delicious ‘little brothers of lychee’ have us storing them in our pockets to munch on bus rides. It’s called the dragon’s eye too, because of a white eye-shaped mark in its pit, and is very high in Vitamin C. But what comes as a surprise to me is hearing that it’s considered a great anti-depressant! Not that we needed any of it with the fruit-high we came back with...
Rose Apple It’s a pear-shaped apple with a shiny skin. Biting into this crisp delicious fruit with an audible ‘crunch’, it seems more like a pear in taste, and is a fruit you can find all year round in any Thai market.
I come away from this Garden of Eden thinking that I may have encountered the ‘Snake’, but where was the classic Apple? Perhaps, the rose apple was about as close as one could get to the forbidden fruit!
