Yesterday I showed you some of Southern Burma’s beautiful beaches.
On Myaw Yit beach, this man and his son were collecting sand worms when my driver and I happened upon them.
To find one, you have to stomp your heel into the sand in a certain type of spot (I never figured out what it looks like), and there’s something about the feel of it that’s different and that’s how you know there’s a worm underneath the sand in that spot. I tried and tried but never did figure out how you’d know there’s one there!
Then you poke your stick in the sand where your heel was, and apparently they move very quickly under the sand so about 20cm away you start digging like mad (no, I don’t know how you’d know in which direction), until you pull this little guy out of the hole.
Then you jam your stick into the end of it and all the way through, killing and gutting it all at once!
These can be sold in the market for 50 kyats (5 cents) for a small one, or 100 kyats for a bigger one, but these people were going to make soup out of them. Apparently they’re also good fried up with vegetables!
My driver was even amazed. He said he’d eaten them before, but had never really thought about where they came from! Worms for dinner, anyone?