Nancy and Chanda explored one of Bangkok's popular modes of public transportation: the canal taxi. These long boats zip up and down the canals that bissect portions of the city. Passengers have only seconds to board and disembark, and side skirts keep spray from drenching everybody when boats meet in the narrow canals.

Journal and photo by Nancy Olson

The longer this expedition goes on, the crummier my writing gets. For whatever reason, I am having trouble with my creativity, especially when it comes to writing. Have you ever sat down at your keyboard to start typing out a paper and just stared vacantly at the screen without a single coherent (or even incoherent) thought in your head? Well, I have. I just did it a moment ago, and, oops, I did it again.

I’m not sure what the problem is, exactly, but I have a couple of guesses. Part of it, I think, is that I have loads of writing to do. There’s about five or six feature articles I’m supposed to write, I have to caption a bunch of photos, I have these weekly journals, I have e-mails to answer, I have to proofread everybody’s journals and company correspondence, and I have to dress up my resume in preparations for my return home and my reintroduction to the “real world.”

I think being here in Bangkok for so long is cramping my brain a bit, too. I don’t do many exciting things each day that I think you’d be interested in hearing about. I’ll have to wait until we get going again to dazzle you with my literary brilliance. Maybe I’m getting lazy!

There must be something I can tell you about…

I know, I’ll tell you about the pomelos. Every few days, I will see somebody on the street selling big pale wedges of something on a Styrofoam meat tray covered in plastic wrap. Well, I took a close look at those wedges, uniformly fanned out on their tray, and I discovered them to be a type of citrus fruit.

Imagine taking a grapefruit, peeling it, pulling off little wedges, and then removing the skin so that only the little pulpy bit remains. You know how oranges and lemons and all citrus fruits, for that matter, have those tiny little kernels of pulp all stuck together to form the fruit, right? Well, now imagine a grapefruit (not a red one, but rather a sort of chardonnay color with a hint of blush) the size of a bowling ball (or a Size 3 soccer ball). The skin is actually green, but after peeling off an inch-thick layer of rind, the pale fruit part is exposed. But you can’t eat it yet. Even once it’s peeled, the fruit is inedible. You still have to segment it out and then peel the sheath off of each little segment, or wedge. Don’t worry, though, because the pulp bits are huge, too, and they stick together rather well if you are careful. The sheath bit tastes incredibly awful, with a bitingly strong, bitter, chemical-ish nastiness to which I have found no equal in nature. Um, and, like, I’ve heard it can wreak havoc with one’s innards and send one running for the super-squatter (toilet) like a madman (or woman). This whole process (not the bathroom bit, but the peeling and preparation bit) can take up to a half hour, which is why vendors do better selling it already prepared.

Anyway, I used to see these things on occasion and wonder what they were and whether I ought to investigate by purchasing some to take home, but I’d always decide not to. Finally, when Adam and Todd and I went to the Bridge over River Kwai, I decided to take the plunge. Holy schmockatolly, am I glad I did! My first bite of that sweet, delectable fruit was like discovering the nectar of the gods! It was like biting into a dozen exploding little grapefruit-juice bombs, but grapefruit juice that had been sweetened and had had all of the bitterness removed! I’m not kidding! It was incredible.
So I ate two servings of it, which is equivalent to at least two big California grapefruit, and that was the start of my pomelo obsession. Now, I eat it every day. It took some searching, but I finally located a source for this amazing fruit (already peeled, because I have given up on peeling them myself) nearby our hotel at the foodstore section of a store called Tokyu at MBK Center.

Todd tells me pomelos are available in the U.S., and I sure hope he’s right. Now that I’m a complete giant-grapefruit addict, I need to feed my habit. Anybody know where I can find some in northern California?

Help support our cause: The LONGITUDE Expedition is the longest journey ever attempted with a focus on Parkinson's Disease. The Drive Around the World team aims to raise money for Parkinson’s Disease research by driving four Certified, Pre-Owned Land Rover Discoverys around the globe following lines of longitude. Readers are encouraged to pledge small amounts of money per expedition-kilometer via a pledge form that can be found on our Parkinson’s page by clicking HERE. One hundred percent of donations received go directly to Parkinson's research, and all who donate $10 or more will be entered into a raffle to win an expedition-equipped Land Rover Discovery.