Every night from my 27th floor apartment, I can hear Midnight Squid Man honking his bicycle horn. At street level, you will see him riding his tiny bike (without lights or reflectors) the wrong way up my busy one-way street.
To call this a bike is perhaps a misnomer-it is a contraption. On the back of the bike is a rack covered with clothespins from which hang tiny dried squid. There is also a tray with a little hand-crank gadget, a clay pot with hot coals inside and a wire grilling tool.
After flagging him down and placing one's order, MSM gets off his bike, unpins a squid and grills it over the hot coals. When it is perfectly grilled, he then runs it repeatedly through the hand-crank gadget to ensure the squid is nice and thin. Finally, he carefully places it in a small bag made of taped-together newspaper, hands it to you and pedals away.
The reason I will miss this is not because he has tasty squid (although my cats are crazy about it), but the perfect absurdity of the whole thing. Good luck Midnight Squid Man!
Okay this tugs at my heart. Thank you so much for sharing these stories. I value you perspective and observations of life in Bangkok.
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Glad you're interested-it's amazing how old and new live so closely together in the same place.
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