Durian

Imagine a dumpster full of food scraps whose forgotten lid rests on the ground as it rains. You ignore it for a few days, hoping your significant other will take care of it before the smell is too strong. But surprise, surprise, they don't. You grab a fresh garbage bag and trudge over to the dumpster with the intent of taking its contents to the city compost. When you arrive, you notice that someone recently added a layer of fresh, creamy, aromatic almond ice cream to the top of the dumpster. And despite the stink that lingers underneath, you are compelled to reach in with both hands and savor the flavor of the best ice cream you have ever tasted.

This is the best that I can describe the experience of eating durian.

It's durian season in Thailand, and things get a little crazy; not much unlike pumpkin spice season in the States. Durian is very popular fruit in southeast Asia who season begins in May and goes well into August. Uttaradit, the province I live in, is famous in Thailand for having the best durian. Which means that I am in the thick of the durian craze. There is raw fresh durian, durian flavored smoothies, durian flavoried ice cream, durian flavored cake, and for a brief time durian flavored kit kat.

This fruit, which can grow to the size of a large basketball, grows in an orchard. Its caretakers wear helmets to protect themselves from the very real threat of durians falling through the sky and piercing their skulls. Indeed, anyone part of the distribution process wears thick gloves, and use fancy paddles to dull the spikes before handing the fruit off to a customer.

Pii Thim at her family's orchard, a photo she shared to Facebook as one of many promotional posts.

The family of Pii Thim, one of the women I work with at the SAO, owns a durian orchard. Every weekend she goes home and returns with a truck full of durian. And every weekend when someone asks her to do something, she can't because she is "Sell, sell, selling" durian. Pii Thim has a box of them in our office at the SAO, and everyday people come in and out to buy from her. Which means every day our office smells like durian. Which as you can imagine, is not always pleasant. In fact, in some touristy areas like Bangkok and Chiang Mai, durian is banned from some hotels and taxis, because the scent is so unpleasant to foreigners. A no durian sticker is pasted right next to a no smoking sticker.

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