Finally found Durian!

If you have been following any of my #roadtosteemfest posts, you may know that I was going to try and find some durian fruit while I was there in Thailand and that I was very excited to try it.

After looking all over Bangkok without any luck to find any of the fresh fruit, all I could find was durian ice cream, durian candy, or durian milk. All of which I found quite delicious. @faitherz33.

^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

In my post about the Durian Ice Cream, Faith likened the taste of the ice cream to arm pits. I thought it was creamy and awesome.

But as we walked around the city and saw signs around that showed that they did not allow fresh durian fruit on the premises, buildings did not allow the fruit in them, and you would be fined for bringing them on aircraft or in the public transit, I saw my hopes of finding the fruit dwindling away.

Then when my wife and I went to Pattaya, that all changed. We talked to one of the locals about places to in the city, and they told us about a place called "Walking Street". It was early afternoon and we caught a Grab (Uber) out to the area and found where Walking Street was and began looking around.

^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

As we started wandering around Walking Street, we noticed that it was about 80% strip clubs. It was around 3 pm and everything was closed when we were there and we found out that the area comes to life at around 8 pm and that this area makes the Las Vegas Strip look like Disneyland.

^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

We kept walking and then out of the corner of my eye, I saw the spiky fruit that I had been looking for. I was expecting the strong smell of rotten death or some other nasty smell that everyone describes, but I couldn't smell anything. I didn't know if it was because of the plastic wrap on the durian or what, but I was a little sad that I couldn't smell anything.

I started talking to the guy that was selling it and he was pretty excited to tell me all about it and help me pick one out. It was pretty expensive compared to the other fruit you buy on the street, so I wanted to get one of the smaller ones, just in case it made me vomit all over the place.

The smallest one he had was 190 baht which is about $6.30. Hopefully it tasted good because 190 baht could buy about 3 meals on the street. I just hoped it wouldn't make me lose the meal I just ate, because it was pretty good too.

^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

I pulled open the plastic wrap and stuck my face near the fruit and took a big whiff. I still didn't smell anything nasty. Just a faint sweet smell. I guess I was one of the lucky ones that are immune to the smell of the rotten death of this fruit. Faith on the other hand was doing everything she could not to puke from the smell. She had to step away from the fruit stand because her chin was starting to quiver as she was holding back her vomit.

I touched the outside of the fruit and didn't really know what to expect. It was weird to be excited and anxious to eat a piece of fruit. It had a squishy feel to it and the outside was like a skin that kept all of the gooey insides intact.

^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

I bit into it and it was warm and mushy. The taste wasn't bad, but it wasn't delicious either. It had a really creamy texture to it and it did taste good, but I think the fact that it was so warm from sitting out all day it was made me not want to eat the whole thing. I took a few more bites of it, but the warmth of the fruit and the mushy texture was too much for me that I did not want to eat it all. Plus the skin and all the weird stringy crap on the inside was just odd. I think if it was cold, I could have eaten the whole thing without any problems.

All in all, I am glad that I found the durian fruit that I was looking for, even if we had to travel to the street of strip clubs to find it. They say that durian is the king of fruits, but I would have to disagree. While I did not find the fruit to be disgusting, there are plenty of other fruits that are way better tasting. The pineapple in Thailand was our favorite fruit to eat. We ate that with almost every meal and it was amazing.