What kind of temps were they hitting in Winter ?
Thai Food is a favorite of mine! Thailand is one of the only cultures on Earth that considers "hot" a flavor. Thai Chilis are wonderful, and before it closed, we used to have a Thai food place here, where the family that owned it was from Thailand, and after being in there a few times, I became closer with the younger guy who took orders to the kitchen, and started talking to him about traditional Thai food, and one day I asked him a simple question when I was trying to decide what to order; "If you were going to make this dish for your Grandparents, what level of spicy would you choose ?" and he said "Triple Spicy".
The Menu had a warning on it, saying that "Most Asian restaurants that have spicy food, don't look at it the same way, and our "hot" is their spicy, and our spicy, is hotter than you'd ever be served there". They had a Chili next to dishes that were exceedingly hot, to give you a heads up, and the first time, I think I chose double spicy, but after the waiter said triple was how he'd give it to his Grandparents, I had to try it that way. It was so good it was almost unfair to any other place.
Eventually, I got to have a good back and forth with him, and one day I said "Pretend I'm not white, and give it to me quadruple spicy" LOL. His family in the kitchen came out and watched me eat it. It was good. I ate the whole plate in one sitting, no drink, and got all my sinus cavities opened up
My Mom... Poor thing ate a grain of rice off my plate to see how hot it really was, and the guy had to bring her Cucumbers in Water to stop her mouth from burning. She was like "How do you even eat that!?!" LOL. I've always liked spicy food, and Thailand is always going to have a special place in my heart for that reason.
YES! You know, back before Jeremy Wade started the show River Monsters, hardly anyone even knew what a Goonch was. To this day, there's no actual verified facts on how large they can actually get. I've seen locals in Nepal say they had seen fish over 10 feet long. I'll be honest, I wouldn't even go in that water if I knew a 10 foot Goonch was in there... We are totally on the menu for that fish.
They also have Wallago!!! Another giant species. You ever seen the Carp they have there? The ones that get 600 pounds ? You can hand feed them noodles!!!!
It's funny, because in the Jungle the heat would likely get me before the large Cats ever could. But knowing what's in the Water, I wouldn't go in LOL.
You know it's funny how Goonch species can survive in Thailand given the heat there. They normally like the upper parts of the river in the Mountains in India because they don't like it above 70 degrees. Like me LOL. You can have one as a pet though. They aren't cheap of course, but, assuming you had an Olympic sized pool... 300 dollars or so to keep one as a pet. Unless you get a Gold color morph! Those are about 10,000 dollars.
Yeah, I remember watching that show with Andrew "Bizarre Foods" and Durian, and that Viking Shark they age and smells like pee pee were two he couldn't handle, and I can't help but wonder LOL. I've heard Durian has a smell not unlike rotted creamy Onions, which is what Limburger smells like, and.... I kind of can't help but want to try it LOL. Apparently in Thailand they make sure the places where it's growing are down wind of cities on purpose.