Tom Yum on a Train Anniewan (Anyone)?

Many moons ago, my classmates and I took a train from KL to Bangkok for our retreat. When the train reached Padang Besar, which is the border of Peninsular Malaysia and Thailand, the engine and buffet coach were exchanged with their Thai counterpart.

After entering Thailand, my classmates and I decided to go look see (colloquial term for "have a look at") the buffet coach. There, we saw a couple from Suriname 🇸🇷 (a country at the north of South America) looking through the menu. The couple wanted to order tom yum and said to the waiter that they wanted to try tom yum, since the dish seemed foreign to them and they perhaps felt a little adventurous.

The waiter, a Thai, was not so good with English, and asked the couple: “You want tom yum 1... 2... 3... 4... or 5?” The couple thought 1 means lousy and 5 means very good, so they said 5, since they thought they would be getting the best and finest quality. When the tom yum arrived, it was super red, boiling and bubbling red in the pot, and there appeared to be volcanic eruptions. The tom yum seemed to have been transformed into a fiery angry dragon, full of brimstone and other nasty flame-like qualities ready to barbecue the taste-buds of anyone foolhardy enough to attempt a taste.

The couple offered my classmates the tom yum, seeing how scarily potent and vile it looked 👀. Naturally, my classmates politely said no and ordered their own meals instead. Otherwise, if they had attempted to savour such a dish, they would for sure "lau sai" ("keberakan yang tak terhingga", or "cirit birit", or a massive case of defecation in mass quantities, or acute diarrhoea) all the way to Bangkok. 🤔🤭😬 Having to run to the toilet to empty one's bowels every now on then, especially on a bumpy and moving train, would certainly be quite a preventable miserable experience.