Bananas are available in Thailand all year round.Bananas are perhaps the most popular of all tropical fruits, and Thailand has about 20 different varieties, ranging from fragrant, sweet little " finger bananas" to large specimens with thick golden skins. The fruit is also among the most versatile and turns up at Thai meals in numerous forms besides fresh at the peak of ripeness. When young and green, they may be eaten raw as a vegetable with a spicy sauce; more developed, but still unripe, they are sliced, dried in the sun, and fried for a snack. Bananas are also grilled and soaked with syrup (Kluai ping), boiled in coconut milk with salt and sugar (Kluai Buat chi), boiled in syrup (Kluai chuam), smoked in the peel (Kluai phao), and turned into golden fritters (Kluai khaek). Thailand's bananas come in all shapes, sizes and colours: there are spherical, ping-pong ball-sized Kluai Khai tao (turtle's egg bananas); red-orange coloured naga bananas; recurved, delectably perfumed kluay leb mue naang (dancer's fingernail bananas), and many more exotics.But four or five familiar varieties are common to all fruit markets. The kluay hawm, or "fragrant banana" is the one familiar to shoppers in western supermarkets. Smaller, firmer, and sweeter are the dark-yellow kluay Khai, or "egg bananas". Protein-rich kluay nam waa are said to be a fail-proof sex-enhancer when steeped in honey, and kluay Hak Mook are at their best when split open and grilled to softness over a charcoal fire. Banana blossoms known as "Hua plee" are used fresh as a garnish for the famous Pad Thai noodle dish, used in Thai salads or yam, or eaten raw as a salad vegetable served with chilli dips called nam prik.