The first time I visited a Buddhist temple was in Louisiana, at Avery Island Jungle Gardens. Its Buddha statue is around 900 years old and overlooks a lily pond with a stone bridge. Many years later, my husband proposed to me on that stone bridge. We take our kids there every few years, and they always love to play in the bamboo.

Otherwise, my knowledge of Southeast Asia (where the majority of Buddhists live) is pretty limited. What I do know is that I’ve never met anyone who didn’t love Thai food, including my kids. And Thai temples are among the most beautiful architecture I’ve ever seen.

“Sometimes I like to observe details—textures, little movements of things, shifting shadows. The focus is not only on the characters. Everything is a character.” – Apichatpong “Joe” Weerasethakul

Famous Thai film director

For this World Geography Wednesday, we started by watching Thailand: Tigers – Travel Kids in Asia through National Geographic Kids Entertainment. It’s about a Tiger Temple just west of the capital Bangkok, where monks give shelter to orphaned Indochinese tigers.

Then we pulled out our maps of Southeast Asia, Thailand, and Bangkok. A Google search for Thailand attractions had us hungry and wishing we could book a flight.

Let’s start with markets. Bangkok alone has over 100,000 street vendors selling food, clothing, medicine, everything. One of Thailand’s biggest tourist attractions is the Ayothaya Floating Market, which covers 70 acres in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Province. In addition to selling food from each region, they do cultural reenactments with traditional costumes and even elephant rides.

Thailand’s iconic long-tail boat is called “ruea hang yao”. They’re handmade wooden vessels that are used for beach tours, river cruises, city travel via canals, selling goods – you name it.

Enough research, it’s time to eat! I even busted out my fancy wedding tablecloth and place settings for this one. Maybe not elaborate enough for a temple, but it was certainly good enough for us.

I’m not experienced at cooking southeast Asian food, so it took me a long time. But you can use shortcuts by buying some of this stuff pre-made at the grocery store – especially the sauces.

Foodie Police Disclaimer: If you’ve read my other posts, you know I often simplify things to make it possible to prepare these meals on a school night. The idea is just to give my kids a general understanding of Thai food.

Drinks and Nibbles

Authentic or not, every Thai restaurant I’ve ever been to had Thai tea on the menu. My kids were in heaven with all that sugary-sweet condensed milk and caffein – which I normally don’t give them.

The starter was Thai crab cakes, “Thod Mun Pla”, which were surprisingly easy to make and savory. Everybody LOVED them, so I’ll definitely make this again. Traditionally you dip them in a sweet chili sauce, but I forgot to buy it and ran out of time to make it from scratch.

(No, that’s not an ant on my plate. That’s my Calamityware dinnerware. My husband gave me a set for Christmas, and I squealed like a girl at a BTS concert.)

I served the crab cakes with a fresh cucumber salad, “a-jaad”. Normally you use a chili pepper, but I used jalapeño. If you’re making this for children, make sure to remove the pepper’s ribs and seeds.

Main Course

The main attraction was pork ribs with Thai peanut sauce, “Saus Kacang”. You can buy a bottle of peanut sauce at the grocery store, but I made my own. The number of ingredients was bonkers, but it was incredibly flavorful, fresh, and simple to make: You just throw it all in a pot for five minutes over medium heat, then purée it. It would also be delicious over roasted chicken.

The side dish was Malay curried rice noodles with stir-fried veggies. I’d never cooked rice vermicelli before and was surprised at how fast and easy it was. Broken record warning: My kids loved it. I’ve included the recipe below in case you’re interested.

Dessert

For dessert, I made coconut sticky rice with mango. Honestly, I make this all the time, so it wasn’t super-duper special. But it’s still a family favorite.

Curried Noodle Stir-Fry

INGREDIENTS:

2 bunches of rice vermicelli noodles

chili oil or olive oil

1 onion

1 red bell pepper

pack of snow peas or sugar snaps

minced garlic and ginger

* 1 lb peeled raw shrimp

3 TBSP curry powder

1 can coconut milk

3 green onions

large bunch of fresh basil

TOOLS:

medium pot

knife and cutting board

colander

large pan, or wok

large spoon

PROCESS:

Soak the rice noodles in a pot of water.  While that’s soaking, chop the onion, red bell pepper, and snow peas. Put the pot of water and noodles on the stove and turn the heat on High. Let it boil for 2-3 minutes only, then drain it.

While the water is heating, put the chili oil in the pan and turn the heat on High. Add the onions, garlic, and ginger and sauté for about 5 minutes. Then add the red bell pepper, snow peas, and salt (* if you want to add shrimp, do it now) and stir-fry everything for 3-5 minutes. Add the coconut milk and curry powder and stir well. When the coconut milk is heated through, turn off the heat.

Once the noodles are done, add them in and stir, pulling the noodles apart with a fork to make sure they get evenly coated with curry sauce. Taste it and add more salt and curry powder if necessary. Top it with chopped green onions and fresh basil.

I hope you enjoyed this article on teaching your kids about Thailand! Check back here for more kid-friendly geography ideas.