Kelly's Transitioning Blog Sites...

Hello dear blog readers!

This is a brief message to let you know that Miss Sam Parker has returned to dear ol' Dartmouth on account of her collegiate education. I am still en route, now in Vietnam. As such I am transitioning to a new blog forum, leaving this one as a testament to the travels of Sam and Kelly. Here's to happy BGB travel reunions in the future, sure to come.

The new blog site will be a personal account of my travels since mid-March, written in cohorts with my sister, and will features the tales of "Global Growers"- individuals on the ground working to make positive change in their communities.We are just getting it started so please bear with us as it develops: veganvagabonds.wordpress.com

Happy reading! I hope each of you is safe and happy wherever you are in the world this morning.

Kelly

In the Jungle the Leeches Sleep Tonight: Highs and Lows from Koh Phangan to Khao Sok

The music today has been singing of home. Sam and I ate dinner tonight at a Thai restaurant on the main road leading to the gates of Khao Sok National park. While waiting for our dishes of Tom Yum and Tom Kha to arrive, the hostess turned on the restaurant’s oversized CD player and the first thing to play is John Denver’s “Take Me Home Country Roads.” I gasped and smiled broadly as soon as I heard the first cord. Two songs later and Cat Stevens is singing “Morning Has Broken.” Both of these songs have been played frequently in my father’s car for as far back as I can remember.

Then walking back to our guesthouse as we passed an open-aired café (they are all open-aired, which is great for enjoying the night air but not so wonderful for mosquitos) “Knee Deep” by the Zac Brown Band and Jimmy Buffet’s sounded on the restaurant’s speakers. My mother and I are the two in the family who appreciate country and we both particularly appreciate this tune because it’s pretty much how we want to be all of the time. That is, “Knee deep in the water somewhere. Got the blue sky breeze and it don’t seem fair. Only worry in the world is the tide gonna reach my chair.”

This morning on the playlist of another restaurant on this strip, Maria Carey and Whitney Houston’s “When You Believe” could be heard. This duet is the principle song for the cartoon movie, The Prince of Egypt, and my Aunt Marianne played the soundtrack often. Hearing the brief snippet of this song in passing brought yet another broad smile to my face.

Heck, as I type this Mr. Marley’s voice can be heard singing his “message to you” from the Chill Out Bar across the street: Don’t worry about a thing cause every little thing is gonna be all right.

Too true, Bob. Too true.

Now that I’ve informed you of the music in my life today I should explain where we are at the moment.

Sam and I left Koh Phangan on Saturday morning and we are now in Khao Sok National Park about 2 hours due west of Surat Thani, the major port for getting to the islands in the Gulf of Thailand. I think I will mimic the format of a blog post I recently read by Miss Amanda Lee, Dartmouth ’12 and very dear friend of mine teaching English in Thailand as a Fulbright scholar. She’s a smarty pants and an excellent writer so I think this is a good idea. In Amanda Lee fashion, here are the highs and lows of our last few days in Koh Phangan and our first few on the next phase of our journey.

Lets start with a high.

The sun rises over Koh Phangan as we say good bye.

High: Our last night in Koh Phangan.

After spending a final few hours in Nira’s Bakery, which came to be the café I frequented the most next to Footprints, I headed back to the hotel to pack up and await word from the gang about the evening’s plans. Jeremy- lead chef for the Phangan Project and generally awesome human being- picked me up on his scooter and we headed over to meet Sam, Tiffany, Felix and a couple of his newly-made friends at a Thai BBQ place. Now normally I would be wary of a BBQ place, but this all-you-can-eat buffet had tons of different vegetables and tofu to sample. Needless to say, everyone left very happy and very full. From there we headed to a “lady bar” in the town of Baan Thai. The street we went to is lined with these bars, where a customer can order both a drink and a girl for the evening. Apparently Koh Phangan is one of three places in Thailand, along with Phuket and Bangkok, known worldwide for its lady bars. The Koh Phangan places are more relaxed than others according to a friend and indeed the bar we went to felt entirely normal. Indeed it was far better than normal because the DJ, a big Australian man dressed in a pink lei and straw hat, played the most beautiful selection of 90s throwbacks and current top charters (Sam’s absolute favorite). We danced the night away to the sounds of “Baby Got Back,” “Jump Around,” “Mr. Saxobeat” and “Moves Like Jagger.” Around midnight a friend that we had met at Daruma (the one who wanted to learn the Cheeseburger Song) and was visiting Koh Phangan met up with us to bid us farewell before our departure. We spent four hours dancing our little hearts out and then scooted back to Thong Sala where we sat on the pier staring up at the stars and talking about the beauty (and challenges) of traveling. We got back to our room at 5AM with a little over an hour before we had to report back to the pier to catch our ferry boat. Sam slept for a whopping 30 minutes and I just pushed through, knowing that I take much longer to pack and get my butt out of the door. We were wiped for the rest of the day and our new bed at Smiley bungalow was very welcome on Saturday night, but I couldn’t have asked for a better way to end our time on Koh Phangan. I consumed more alcohol than I normally do (and incidentally ever have probably) and Jeremy took such good care of me- buying me water, checking in on me, taking us to his special spot on the pier to get some fresh air. Later in the day after we were hours away from Koh Phangan, he called my cell to make sure Sam and I were safely to our next destination. So we may have gotten no sleep Friday evening but it was well worth the hours spent in the company of newly found friends.

Low: A Lady Bar

I don’t think I can categorize the entirety of our last night in Koh Phangan as a high when we spent most of it a Lady Bar. While, like I said, it really was just a normal bar for all extensive purposes and we had a ton of fun, it still raises a lot of ethical questions for me- namely about the fact that middle-aged white men fly in from around the world with the purpose of frequenting these lady bars... Jeremy and I had an in-depth conversation about this while waiting for Sam and Tiffany to arrive to the dance party. It’s clear that there exists a wide range in the violence and severity associated with the industry. Who knows what the individual stories are that bring these women into this line of work, but to be sure they are not all by choice. I won’t go into all that we talked about here but I think it’s worth mentioning because the sex trade in Thailand is renowned and clearly a pervasive part of the culture and economy. We danced the night away and I had a wonderful time in the company of friends (and in the company of a delicious pina colada) but I definitely remained conscious of our surroundings and the industry that feeds it.

High: 9 hours on a bus!!!!!!!!!!! Yahoo!!!

Just kidding.

Low: 9 hours on a bus.

Sam and I have spent a lot of time on buses clearly. So perhaps you might think that a day of traveling from bus to a van to another bus would be incredibly enjoyable and comforting for us. In truth it kind of was comforting to hear that diesel engine kick on and the air-pressure powered door open and close as the coach bus driver let new passengers on. But like the Big Green Bus, the bus we spent the most time on traveling from Surat Thani to Khao Sok did not have the luxury of air conditioning. I felt little wafts of warm air blow on my shoulders from the vent above my head every now and then. However this did not prevent the layer of sweat that pooled on my skin an hour into the trip. It was quite cramped as well and some poor souls that hopped on board later in the trip had to stand for over an hour and a half of the journey. We were wiped from the night before though so every time we sat down, whether on the ferry or a bus, we fell asleep fairly quickly. When I wasn’t drifting asleep, I was taking in the view as we drove along the trafficked roads of whatever cities we were passing through. It seemed that the transition from city to wilderness happened instantly. One minute I was looking at a market of food stands lining urban streets, the next I stared out onto lush jungle rising up over bare limestone cliffs. In all likelihood I fell asleep for longer than I realized by the time we approached Khao Sok.

Given the views, the opportunity to sleep, and the familiarity of a coach bus, perhaps I would categorize our day spent in transit from Koh Phangan to Khao Sok as a mixed bag of high and low.

View of the mainland as we approach Surat Thani via ferry.

View from our bungalow outside of Khao Sok National Park. Please observe the mist covered jungle mountains and the rainbow!

Low: Leeches

We spent our first day in one of Thailand’s most famous national parks hiking to waterfalls along a trail that leaves from the park visitors center. Before we departed this morning Sam mentioned the appearance of leeches at the national park she visited in Thailand before arrived and suggested that I might wear long layers as a precaution. I took her advice, trading my capris for long khaki pants and my short sleeve shirt for a long sleeve. Thank goodness I did. By the halfway point into our daylong adventures, we were stopping every 30 feet to check our sneakers and shoes for these nasty little creatures. Well before that I had taken to tying the strings at the bottom of my pants tightly and tucking them into my socks. Even still, three leeches (of the thirty or so that I pulled off over the course of the day) managed to draw blood. Somehow, despite swearing to do so after our motorbike incident, I did not bring my first aid kit on our trip and had nothing to stop the bleeding. So the bottom of my pants and one of my socks are now soaked with a nice blood and sweat mixture. The first part of the trail was largely flat and wide, but once we crossed over the first small stream the trail became significantly narrow and more densely thicketed with brush. That’s when I noticed the first “inch worm.” It was the only wildlife I had seen up until this point on the trail so I excitedly told Sam about the numerous inch worms I had seen scattered on the path. They resemble stick bugs I told her, curiosity in my voice. She hadn’t seen them but she nodded and smiled as I talked about my sighting. Later, when we breaked for a snack, I felt something crawling on my shoulder. I casually flicked off the “inch worm” that had somehow landed on me. Again Sam smiled and nodded, now getting pretty skeptical that the critters I had seen before were inch worms but not wanting to freak me out. Sure enough 20 minutes later and I see something on my show. It’s fat and swollen but Sam enlightens me that this is the same guy who had been on my shoulder earlier. Well maybe not the same guy, but one of his bazillion brothers or sisters. He was a different shape than that first one because he’d had a few minutes to enjoy sucking on my blood. You’re welcome you nasty leech. After I plucked off those first few, I noticed them everywhere. The jungle floor is littered with them. I have always associated leeches with water. The only time I’ve thought to look out for them was when swimming in lakes in the northeast of the United States. Apparently they don’t need water, and if they do the moist jungle environment is enough for them to not just get by, but thrive. And these things are seriously sneaky. They sit on the path upright, thin strings reaching up to the heavens awaiting some innocent passerby to grab ahold of. Then they can use their extremely malleable bodies to fit into small crevices (like the small rip in the fabric of my shoe) and move quickly if needed. They scrunch up their body, making themselves very much resemble inch worms (in my defense), and then hurl the front half forward from that scrunched position so that they can grab on with the front part and scoot forward quickly in that fashion. It can get up your leg pretty fast if you’re not careful. Thus I tucked my pants into my socks and we stopped for leech checks every forty feet. I did a full body check at one of the waterfalls, unashamedly stripping down to my underwear, to make sure that none of the dirty stinkers had gotten past the sock and pants tactic. None had, but I’m still wary… Leeches lurk abound! That’s a serious low.

High: Hike through one of the most ancient forests in the world

While there were leeches, there were leeches in a forest that dates back some 160 million years old and plays host to some of the most beautiful biodiversity in Thailand. Elephants, wild dogs, tigers, tapirs, hornbills, monkeys, and the largest flower in the world (which Sam believes to be a fungi in truth) all call Khao Sok National Park and the adjoining wildlife sanctuaries home. We only saw leeches today, but it’s pretty awesome to be immersed in a landscape where theoretically I could see any one of these animals. If I had two weeks here I would love to venture to some of the less visited areas of the park in search of some fauna. As it is Sam and I will only be here for a total of three nights and two full days. So we chose to hike close to home today. The entrance to the national park is about a 10 minute walk down the road from the bungalow where we are staying. We started from the visitors center on a fairly trafficked trail that had 9 off-shooting trails leading to waterfalls of varying magnitude and grandeur. Despite Sam’s current handicap with her still-healing stitched up knee, we booked along passing everyone who had set out on the trail before us. (They would have been blown away by Sam Parker at full hiking speed!) We also went further than anyone else on the trail today, venturing all the way to its end at Tom Kloi waterfall. At this point the trail became quite narrow and lined with some thorny jungle plants. We were quite the trekkers and the sounds and sights of this ancient forest felt like something directly out of a children’s story book. Tomorrow we head to the Cheow Larn lake as part of a day long hike through our guest house. It’s supposedly a must see with dramatic limestone cliffs jutting out from the water and stalagmite-encrusted caves lining its sides.

We’ll report back tomorrow and let you know. For now, good night! I’m off to take some welcomed Benadryl to ease the itching of my healing wounds.

Wishing you a leech free Sunday,
Kelly

P.S. I'm about to post this blog and Avril Lavigne is wafting across the street from the Chill Out Bar speakers. Music of my childhood, of course.

Remember That Time I Said Kelly and I Weren't Bad at Driving.....

Doctor: “You are going to need stitches.”

Sam: (Beat) “Are you sure?”

Kelly: (Mildly Frantic) “Stitches, really? She needs stitches?”

Doctor: “Yes.”

Sam: “I might pass out.”

Doctor: “Can you please lie down?”

Sam: (Looks at Kelly anxiously)

Kelly: “Want me to hold your hand? Or, I can sing! Ummm......On my own, with no one here beside me....”

Sam: “Les Mis, really. That is not a happy song.”

Kelly: “Sorry sorry! It’s the first thing that came to mind. What about the Beatles?”

            Two full days after the Full Moon Party, Kelly and I are back in Haad Rin....at the hospital. Why? Motorbike accident. HOW stereotypical. Of course we’d been told not to drive down Thannsedet Road......during orientation. Good thing Kelly and I paid absolutely no attention to that little detail, assuming we were never going to rent a motorbike. But alas, we ventured along the dreaded road, hoping to see some gorgeous waterfalls on the northeast side of the island. Coincidentally, before we actually got to any of the waterfall trailheads, we stopped to get gas and Kelly ended up burning her right shin on the exhaust pipe trying to help me back the motorbike up. This sparked an active conversation on past injuries, namely my lack of them. Should have knocked on wood.

            As we continued along the road, we passed a sign – waterfall - and decided to stop before going on, just to make sure we were going the right way. We were. I had been driving and after seeing the upcoming downward slope, decided I no longer wanted to drive. So Kelly took the wheel, and we began our decent down the very steep gravel and dirt road. We were essentially riding the brakes – front and back- the entire way down, going at an extremely slow pace. Big mistake. We learned later that you should only apply the back brakes down steep slopes and, as Tiffany advised us, the more terrified you are of the slope, the more you should apply gas.

            Needless to say, we were not setting ourselves up for success. Thus, we crashed. The bike fell on top of us and we scraped ourselves up pretty badly. Lucky for us, a couple of extremely good-looking German men passed us coming up the hill on monster-size motorbikes. One of them turned immediately around to find us a taxi and the other stayed with us, distracting us from our open wounds with his charming accent and travel stories. The taxi arrived shortly, wanting 1800 baht to drive us to the nearest clinic. Are you kidding me. The taxi driver was actually going to charge us $54 USD to take us, two bleeding young female adults, to the nearest clinic. We couldn’t believe it. We decided to look for another option.

            Lucky for us again, two park rangers passed us almost immediately after the taxi fiasco. One jumped off the motorbike and began cleaning my wound with iodine. The other rode into town to get a truck to take us to a clinic. This did not become fully apparent until the truck actually showed up and we were hoisted into the vehicle. There was a bit of a language barrier. But these two guys saved us. They drove us up the steep, sinewy road towards the Baan Tai clinic, where they dropped us off before being transferred to Haad Rin hospital via ambulance.

            We arrived; they cleaned us up, gave us a zillion pills and sent us on our way. But it wasn’t over yet. Our bike was still stuck on Thannsedet road. Lordy. We called up our friend Jeremy who sent our other friends Felix and Egor via motorbike to help us retrieve our bike so we didn’t have to call the motorbike company and get charged a ridiculous retrieval fee. We were too shaken up to ride it back ourselves so Felix and Egor did it for us. Our heroes. Seriously.  They deserved far more than the beer we purchased for them upon their return.

            Maybe Kelly and I shouldn’t have ventured onto Thannsedet road. But we did. And we crashed. And we got injured. But we also learned how wonderful friends and strangers can be. I don’t know what we would have done without the two german strangers that stumbled upon us, the two park rangers who did the same and the other incredible volunteers here at The Phangan Project who rescued our bike and saw us safely home. Wonderful hearts – all of them.

Gimp love,

Sparx

Guest Blogger

This is a short, surprise blog post from a guest writer. Such a surprise is it, that this guest writer doesn't even know his words are being displayed on this blog. But indeed, here they are for your enjoyment.

We shall call this writing segment: "A Father's Response to Sam's Full Moon Party Blog Post."

From: timothymc@aol.com

To: Kelly.M.McGlinchey.12@dartmouth.edu

Subject: Fwd: BGB Goes Global

Monday, March 04, 2013 6:26 PM

1. Glad you opted out of the mushroom shake.

2. This sounds very much like what I've seen in the French Quarter in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. And just like Sam, interested to have seen it once, Never feel the need to see it again. 

3. What is "tried to Mack on me"?

4. Never mind. I don't really want to know 

5. Glad you opted out of the mushroom shakes.

Love you,

Dad

Full Moon Party

I am long overdue for posting a blog. I attribute this to 1) laziness and 2) my new philosophy of saying yes, which I will write a more thoughtful (this ones for you Kelly!) blog about later.

            As for now, a much needed post on recent events. 

FULL MOON PARTY

            For those of you that do not know, Koh Phangan is known for beach parties of all kinds: Jungle Party, Half Moon Party, Sramanora Waterfall Party, Shiva Moon Party, Secret Garden Party, Eden Party and so, so many more. However, the island is known for its Full Moon Party, which happens once a month during the full moon. 20,000-30,000 people show up to participate in the most hedonistic event I have ever witnessed. People literally fly in from all over the world to drink their brains out, dance violently to electronic music, trash Haad Rin beach and then leave when the party ends at noon the next day. It’s insane. I’ve never seen Koh Phangan as busy as it was the day of the party. Even our hotel, which is usually deserted, was filled with what appeared to be hundreds of MTV spring-break goers.

           

           

            Naturally, Kelly and I had to see the mayhem. We drove down to Haad Rin early (around 5 pm) to avoid traffic, especially taxi drivers looking to make massive amounts of money by shuttling as many people as possible to and from the beach. We parked our motorbike near sunset beach, the area farthest from the party and walked around, watching the chaos begin. People arrived in swarms from taxis, motorbikes and ferry wearing bright, neon colored clothing and carrying nothing but bottles of hard liquor and Chang (Thailands most popular beer). The streets of Haad Rin were lined with stands selling buckets (quite literally buckets), filled with miniature bottles of hard liquor, a red bull and one other mixer such as coke, mango juice, pinapple juice, etc., and stereotypical drunk food choices, namely pizza, pasta, mystery meats on sticks and donuts. Kelly and I opted instead for Indian food at a restaurant highly recommended in Lonely Planet’s Thailand travel book. When we finally made it to the Haad Rin beach, we were greeted, almost instantly, by an Australian frat boy who insisted on covering our faces with bright orange neon paint. If we didn’t fit in before that point, we most certainly did afterwards.            

            And then the party began. We had agreed to meet some of our other friends at Dive-In Bar around 10 pm, so we headed over there first, dancing on wooden picnic tables to America’s top 40, looking for familiar faces. Luckily, we found our friend Alanna who looked far more put together than we did. We failed, however, to meet up with Melanie and Maurice, the couple we met at Daruma Eco-Farm from Switzerland. Days later we found out that they had, in fact, been to the party.......for about 5 minutes. Not really their scene. With Alanna on board, we figured it was time to buy our own buckets from the lady at the stall who had called us her “special friends.” And we must have been, because she gave us our buckets at a much cheaper price than anywhere else we could find. And we were off. We let Alanna pick the DJ this time (“Call Me Maybe hadn’t really resonated with her earlier) and had an awesome time raging to electro-funk on a 4-foot platform with 400 of our closest friends for the night. The two highlights of that scene: Alanna making out with some hunk from down under and the small asian woman who pulled me aside to say, “you have a very beautiful face,” before trying to mack on me.

            We eventually met up with Jeremy, another volunteer here, and headed over to Mellow Mountain, a bar on the northern-most side of the beach. This particular bar is known for its “Mushroom Shakes,” which Alanna and Jeremy decided to try out before the bar was shut down by local authorities. Good timing on their part. Kelly and I opted out of the psycodelic, but from Jeremy’s perspective, everything, especially Kelly’s face, looked like an animated cartoon. Apparently it was better than TV.

            We ended our night around 5 am where we walked back over to sunset beach to watch the sunrise and go for a swim. Neither of which I participated in. Instead I attempted to steal a water raft from a near-by bungalow and when that failed, I was so tired that I decided to nap on the lawn of the bungalow directly next door.

            When I woke up, the sun was nearly up. Our group headed back over to Haad Rin and watched the party close out from an upstairs bar.

            All in all, this was potentially one of the sadder events I have witnessed. Thousands of people committing shameless acts and consuming to no end. I think the term “wild excess” sums it up pretty well. But what is most sad is the fact that this is what the Koh Phangan locals know of Westerners. This is their impression of us. No wonder none of them want to engage with us in a friendly manner. We disgust them. We show up with the expectation of drinking as much liquor as we can stomach to trash a beach and forget it happened 24 hours later. Out of sight, out of mind. It’s just too easy not to worry about it. And of course, once we return home we automatically become civilized human beings again; we would certainly never engage in those sorts of behaviors back home. Truly fascinating how we quickly we forget. 

            That being said, I had a great time at the party. I always do. And I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Would I do it again? No. But I appreciated the experience. I really did.

-Sparx 

Kitchen Experiments

Due to some recent injuries perhaps to be described in detail later, our plans to go snorkeling at Anthong National Marine Park and camp out on the nearby island of Koh Tao this weekend fell through completely. Instead of spending money on a dive trip to nearby world-renowned coral reefs, I have elected to use my funds to support the overpriced pharmacy down the street with my daily purchases of gauze, medical tape, and bandages. I’ll have you know that I am a highly valued customer at this fine establishment. Though sometimes I fear they may be taking it too far and are mistaking me for women kind of philanthropic donor. Like tonight for example, the woman rang up my 8 items and read out the total: 405 baht. I asked her for a ‘bin’ (receipt). I decided in that moment that perhaps I should attempt to do a better job of keeping track of the money I am spending. She jotted down something on a notepad and then handed me a piece of paper that read “dressing set… 405 B.” Thank you, mam... I clarified that I wanted an itemized receipt so she stamped one of her note papers and let me write out the items with their prices. Well thank goodness I did. I had a sneaking suspicion that something was off with her math. And sure enough she had charged me 45 baht each for two rolls of tape whose price tags read 35 baht. I told her so and she willingly returned the 20 baht that was rightfully mine. I will be keeping my 60 cents, thank you very much.

Now that I have shared this completely tangential story with you, I will return to the main point of this blog which, as the title indicates, has to do with the kitchen. (Has anyone else noticed that I write about scarcely anything but food?) Because I was unable to dive or snorkel or hike or do anything which might remotely result in a speck of dirt entering any of my wounds, I spent much of my Saturday and Sunday in the kitchen experimenting. Here are the final results and in many cases, the procedure. No formal hypotheses or conclusions. Sorry folks.

****************************

Experiment 1: Cashew Butter

I finished my jar of sunflower seed butter last week so of course it needed replacing. Peanut butter is quite expensive here (180 baht to be precise) but I remembered that a couple of weeks ago I bought a small bag of cashews, now growing somewhat soggy in texture. The Phangan Project kitchen has a nice blender so I stuck the cashews in there with some cinnamon and salt for maybe 5 minutes, and presto! Homemade cashew butter. I had no idea this was so simple but it is!  Forget Skippy. I’m just going to get myself a bag of peanuts (Relatively cheap here in Thailand and used in many dishes. See pad thai) and grind ‘em up!

Experiment 2: Durian Seeds

Perhaps you’ll remember that mangosteen is the Queen of Fruit in Thailand. Well she finds her counterpart in durian, the King of Fruits. Now despite its regality, durian is not as universally loved as the tangy, dainty mangosteen. Indeed when it comes to durian there are pretty much two camps: those who can eat this yellow fleshy fruit until they feel sickly full and those whose stomach begins to turn when they catch a whiff of a durian fruit that had been in the room ten minutes prior (durian has an intense odor). Fortunately for me, I fall into the first camp. I love this King of Fruits, and definitely have eaten enough in one sitting to make me need to just lay down and digest. Because so many people are durian haters, if the fruit is offered by some generous person I usually don’t have much competition in terms of other mouths to be fed. Unfortunately for me, durian is quite expensive so to become a durian lover is to pick up a pricey habit. So far I have only bought one durian that cost a whopping 245 baht and I have been determined to get as much out of that fruit as I possibly could. So in addition to eating the yellow fruits inside and using the spiky husks as a vessel for drinking water (supposedly a good practice to help counter the stimulating effects of the fruit), I soaked, boiled, peeled and salted the seeds. They were pretty slimey so I stuck them in the fridge for Sunday morning’s experiment. Proceed to Experiment 4 for more information.

Buying my very first durian, grown right here on Koh Phangan!

Durian's spikey exterior is not easy to handle but don an oven mitt and you're good to go! The yellow part on the right chunk is the fruit that you eat.

Experiment 3: Roti

Whole wheat flour + water + some clumsy, one-handed rolling = crispy (slightly burnt) roti, the perfect vessel for my cashew butter with some sliced mango.

Experiment 4:  Papa Bear’s Breakfast Potatoes: Thai Style

My dad’s breakfast potatoes have always been a staple breakfast item in our household. Over the past few years they have increasingly featured nutritious, brightly colored sweet potatoes and caramelized onions. They are always simple and always very well received. Taking inspiration from my father (a.k.a. Papa Bear) I walked to the ‘wet’ market at 6:30am on Sunday morning, bought one yellow onion, and hobbled back to the kitchen to slice it up. No one was up yet so I had the morning to play. I tossed the onion in and then diced the durian seeds that I had boiled and peeled the day before. As those cooked with the onion, I dashed out to the garden to grab some vividly green cellulon spinach. This leafy vine grows exquisitely at the Phangan Project with virtually no help from any of the green thumbs around here. Sadly it is vastly underused so these massive vines of spinach sprawl along the beds and over trellises put in specifically to deal with the abundance of spinach. I made use of it my Breakfast “Potatoes” dish, tossing it in with the onions and durian seeds and finishing it all with sprinklings of pepper, salt, tabasco sauce, and soy sauce. The result wasn’t terrible. Some of the durian seeds still retained their slimy consistency but they also have a starchy, potato-like texture that I thought would make them appropriate for this attempt at Thai breakfast potatoes. Of course sweet potatoes and potatoes are available at the market, but remember- I was trying to get as much out of that 245 baht durian as I could. I’ve already eaten this dish for breakfast and dinner today, and have some left over for breakfast tomorrow. Getting my money’s worth!

Papa Bear's Thai-Style Breakfast "Potatoes"

My Sunday breakfast extravaganza

Experiment 5: Hummus

Sam and I soaked uncooked chickpeas overnight last night. Then today when the blender was free for use, we stuck the chickpeas in with some lemon, tabasco, salt, pepper, water, oil, and crushed garlic. The blender was not so happy today so the final product is pretty chunky. But chick peas are delicious so that’s fine by me! Now we’ve got a giant tub of hummus with our names on it waiting in the fridge. Given how much Sam loves her chickpeas and has talked about hummus over the past month, I’d reckon this is a very good thing.

****************************

The weekend and its kitchen experiments have come to an end. Hopefully all of these final products will last a few days into the week. I wonder if I have successfully distracted you from the mention of wounds and bandages by my rambling about food. If I haven’t (or if I did and you have now been reminded again by the previous sentence), don’t worry. It’s just a flesh wound. Remember the family of bears that got my leg this summer? Turns out they have cousins in Thailand.

Who knew.

Kelly

P.S. If Sam were writing this blog post, she would write something thoughtful and insightful about the significance of using ingredients bought fresh at the market, getting creative with the foods that are available and in season… She might even delve into a discussion around food politics and the complexities around imports and exports in a global food economy…

I basically told you what I ate this weekend.

But you can hopefully infer that all of these experiments have some kind of deep significance too. Perhaps I’ll use this as an opportunity to encourage you to take action through food. Cook something from scratch. Use ingredients that make sense for where you are. Support a local producer. Make meal time about community. Eat with family and friends. Experiment, taste, and nourish.

There. Now I feel satisfied with the message behind my otherwise rambling blog.

Cafés, Cake and Ice Cream

Right now I have my butt planted at what may well become my usual table in Footprints Natural Foods café. The internet here is very poor but the community is wonderful. I head straight for the fridge of raw vegan desserts as I did last time and Chef Aivan of Italy is there to explain the day’s offerings, which seem to be getting more eclectic as time progresses. Two days ago I gobbled up a piece of masala chocolate cake and now my mouth has the pleasure of enjoying the creamy richness of some lemongrass cheesecake.

Fast forward three days and I’m back here again. It’s evening time on Saturday and tonight is the weekly Raw Pizza Buffet and Live Music night. There is no AC here and the fan’s are not doing the trick this evening but I love walking in and being greeted as a regular. I’m in my spot once more. Each time I have come here the price of my dessert has gone down a little bit, which could very well have to do with the type of cake I’ve gotten, but I like to think that it has to do with my forming relationships. We’ll go with that. On Wednesday when I was here last, despite having not slept for some 36 plus hours (Full Moon Party on Tuesday night. Google it.), I had a great conversation with Chef Aivan about his conscious ingredients sourcing, some of the challenges he faces and the solutions he has found. For a sweetener in his desserts he opts for coconut palm sugar. In fact coconut makes up a large part of the meals here. Coconut cream as a cheese substitute, coconut flakes as a pie crust, coconut milk in drinks… It seems a more sensible choice for this region of the world where piles of coconut shells line the streets. The coconut palm sugar used here originates from an organic producer in the Philippines.

Speaking of coconuts, guess who stumbled upon totally vegan coconut milk-based ice cream on a small island in the south of Thailand? Yes. I’ve hit the jackpot. Sam and I were scooting along up the main road that cuts through the middle of Koh Phangan, heading North, when we pass a sign that reads “Homemade Coconut Ice Cream.” Could it be? I wonder aloud to Sam if perhaps this sign could actually mean coconut-based ice cream, not just coconut flavored. She is doubtful, as am I, but I retain hope and curiosity about this homemade ice cream parlor. Well a week later, after our group hike up Khao Rah, we decided to check out the place. The vegan gods smile favorably down upon me. Over half of the flavors on the menu have a coconut milk base, and many flavors utilize locally prominent ingredients. Jackfruit, mango, taro, coconut, pumpkin… I opted for two scoops of pumpkin and taro, and have since gone back to buy a $3 tub of the pumpkin. It’s now stored in the Phangan Project freezer and ready for me when needed, which it most certainly was yesterday but more on that later…The main reason I returned to the ice cream parlor (in addition to getting my pumpkin ice cream) was to ask the staff if I might be able to apprentice in the kitchen for an afternoon. Just help out, talk to them about how they started, learn about where they source their ingredients, see the process. As you may be thinking while reading this, it didn’t work out. Labor laws would not be okay with me, foreigner, “helping out” in the kitchen. I asked the same of Footprints. No go. C’est la vie. Or more fitting: Sabai Sabai. So while I may not have gotten a chance to help out in the kitchen, my inquiry to do so piqued the interest of the staff and I had a nice, though broken, conversation in Thai and English with the brother and sister pair.

I have picked up some very basic conversational Thai while here. Hello. How are you? What’s your name? Thank you. Nothing extravagant but just these little snippets make a big difference in communicating and making people more receptive to conversing with me. I learned that the parlor opened 10 years ago and they source a lot of those unique flavors from Thailand. Yesterday evening Sam and I chatted with a market vendor as he cooked our pad thai. He worked in a restaurant on Koh Samui (the larger and more  commercial island adjacent to Koh Phangan) for 23 years but came here so he could “be his own boss.” Now he offers the best pad thai at the market, so says popular opinion of all of the Phangan Project volunteers. He cooks the dish right in front of you with fresh ingredients and you can tell him if you want more spice, or less peanuts, or extra cucumbers. I got mine without egg and shrimp and he put it in the glass jar container I brought along with me. Want to know how much it cost?

30 baht! That’s about 1 USD for a big jar of pad thai. Amazing.

I know keep talking about other people in my blog posts. Perhaps I am even doing this more than sharing my own stories, but it’s hard not to. The people I meet largely define what I learn, see and do.

So expect more stories!

Now I am contemplating a piece of raw cake… Is three in one week too much??

Kelly

Choose the Meandering Path

Over eight months ago I wrote about the value of meandering on the BGB blog. Now I find that word popping back into my life again. As Sam alluded to in her most recent blog post, I have been grappling with the decision to take a yearlong fellowship back home in the states. For the past month now Sam has heard far more than she ever bargained for about this position (thank you Sam!) and I have found my focus on the future pulling me away from the present. After many long conversations with my parents, Sam and a handful of very patient friends, I made the difficult decision to turn down the offer despite the opportunity it offered for learning and growing in my area of professional and personal interest. Perhaps a dumb choice from the outside and many of those that I spoke with may be surprised to hear that this is my decision. But I see now that the choice was less based on opting out of this fellowship opportunity, and more on opting for the adventure I am already a part of. I’ve decided to choose the meandering path. Let me explain.

Last summer in the wake of graduation and in my confused directionless state, I asked countless people that we met on the road with the Bus the same question: “What did you do after you graduated?” The post-graduation stories that enthralled me the most were from those daring individuals who had taken a large chunk of time to travel abroad after they finished their bachelor’s.  I heard tales of washing cars in Spain to raise enough funds to make it to the next European destination, dropping an unsatisfactory job in the Philippines to volunteer at a temple in India, trekking through mountains with nothing but the possessions in the pack on your back… Each new tale captured my imagination and sparked the small (but ever-present) internal flame that entices me to travel.

Two days ago I realized that I am on that journey too now. One day some directionless, confused, eager young beaver of a recent college grad will ask me what I did after I left Dartmouth and I will have a traveler’s story to tell. The temples of Thailand, Mt. Kinabalu in Borneo, living roofs in Thailand… these are the images that I want to look back on. I am fortunate and grateful to have a supportive family that not only allows but encourages such adventures. They gave me the push that I needed to recognize that I am here now. This big trip that I’ve been dreaming of, the tale that I want to tell- well here I am. And to cut that off after three and a half months seems to make less and less sense with each new traveler that I meet and each new project that I participate in.

As those who know me well can attest, this will be a challenge. I love being home. I love being able to watch Doctor Who with Jack and Liz. I love that I can call up my aunts in the afternoon and three hours later be enjoying a pizza night with the cousins. I love that I can wake up, skip down the stairs, and check my e-mail two seats over from my mother doing the same. I love that I can make soup with my dad or, more often than that, leisurely enjoy a delicious soup that my dad slaves away at for hours in the kitchen...

I fear what I will miss. I always have. I remember the way my heart ached when I read a letter Kerry sent to me while I was in South Africa. “Dear Kelly, This is my first letter I am writing in cursive. We are learning how in school. We miss you! Love, Kerry” My memory does not do justice to Kerry’s true eloquence but you’ve got the basic idea. Kerry writing me a letter in cursive script… when did she get so old? Flash forward two and a half years to Portland on the Big Green Bus and the girl who once had been my baby cousin Sarah is Facebook messaging me with inquiries about the boys in my life, and sharing gossip of her own. She’s doing the cheerleading team and what’s more she looks like this little woman now. And Jack! Every time I leave for a couple of months, I return and Jack has grown a foot, his legs bear a little more hair, and his voice has dropped an octave.

With everyone growing so rapidly, how can I leave? I want to be there for every minute of it. I want to be there for each meaningful moment in the lives of my loved ones- the way that they have been there for mine. Can you think of any other college graduate who has had seventeen family members travel across four states to attend the graduation ceremony?

Me neither.

It is no surprise then that nearly every time I have left home for a trip abroad it has been with tears in my eyes, sometimes only a trickle but often full out puffy-red-eyes, runny-nose bawling. If you’ve ever received a gushy text message from me while I am at the airport professing my love for you and declaring the extent to which I will miss you, rest assured I was sobbing as I sent it.

Yet there I was boarding that plane that time, and the time after that, and the time after that… And here I am now.

Why leave then? I grapple with this each time I’m planning a trip. I think my compulsion to travel- what pushes me out the door- revolves around these three guiding principles: perspective, understanding, and the joy of meandering. To meander: to follow a winding course. Remember that? What is traveling but the ultimate winding course. Especially on a trip like this. You meet a traveler who has just come from Malaysia, another headed to Indonesia, yet another who spent four months in Australia- each with advice, insight and stories to share. When you’re in a place for a few weeks time, you fully immerse yourself there experiencing all that you can because you know your time there is limited. It’s a crash course in taste, cultural exchange, conversation, language, art, ecology, music, and landscape in every place you visit. Take here in Koh Phangan for example- already Sam and I have hiked the island’s highest peak, trekked an old traditional Thai trail through the jungle, took a Thai language lesson, practiced Yoga with a British instructor, gardened in the island’s sandy soils, danced to the beats of a hippie-led drum circle as the sun set over the beach, and eaten half the island’s stock of Sriracha sauce.

But most meaningful have been the people, the conversations, the exchange of stories and lessons. We met an Oregon native who has been living primarily in the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand for the past seven years, setting up his hammock for the night wherever he decides to plop it and from the looks of him eating primarily fruit. We met a Thai native who lives halfway up the mountainside in a bamboo hut he built himself, grows whatever food he needs, and offers nature walks in the jungle to those lucky travelers who happen to pass his hut. We met a Swiss couple who have traveled from Switzerland to Thailand entirely by train and boat. To drive the “meandering” point home, about 30 minutes after writing that last sentence, I took a break from writing this blog post to head back to the Phangan Project. Who should I encounter on the tiny street in Thong Sala between the café and the project site but the very couple I had just written about! These world travelers had left Daruma Eco-Farm a week before Sam and I and have been traveling through Thailand since. Low and behold, there they were on the same street as me at the same time. It’s remarkable how two seemingly distinct meandering paths can cross again and again in this vast world.

So the moral of this very long story is that I am happy to be here, eager to learn, and ready to dive deep into each place I visit. I’m not sure where this meandering path will take me but that’s the adventure isn’t it?

I’ll end by saying that while writing this blog John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane” came on, nearly bringing tears to my eyes (nearly, but not quite. I know. I cry easily). But this was followed (and balanced) by Phil Collins’ “On My Way.” I recommend that you listen to both. The latter in particular is quite the happy traveling tune.

A special thank you to my family and friends for their support and advice.

With love,

Kelly

“Tell everybody I’m on my way. New friends and new places to see. With blue skies ahead, yes, I’m on my way and there’s nowhere else that I’d rather be.” – Good ol’ Phil Collins

Sabaai Sabaai

Today I did Yoga. I never do Yoga. In fact, I typically dislike Yoga. It takes a lot of concentration and patience, two skills I am severely lacking. But I do appreciate the art, and today I found it to be particularly thought provoking. I had spent my entire afternoon on the computer. A crazy thought considering the fact that I am on one of the most beautiful islands I have ever seen with vast amounts of potential for activity. And what was I doing on the computer? Looking for internships......for next summer.

            This is so typical Sam. Always thinking about the future, about the prospect of something bigger and better. A trait I’ve recently had to step back and analyze. Why can I not simply live in the moment and enjoy the time I have right now? Because I’m “motivated,” as my Professor James Rice iterated to me over and over fall term. I’m the type of person who needs a master plan, a fully attainable and outlined goal.

            But is there such a thing? Kelly and I have discussed this particular subject many-a-time. Back in high school it was so easy for me to have a “master plan:” work your ass off to get straight A’s, participate in multiple extra-curricular activities, and get yourself into the best college possible. Which I did. Boom. Done. But it’s not that simple anymore, especially in the field of Environmental Studies. Its very different than say applying for medical school, graduating after four years, completing residency and internships and getting a job as a doctor at a private practice or hospital. Graduate school is, of course, an option, but not a must. And, currently, there is no such thing as “environmental recruiting.” So great (*flash opportunity), I get to forge my own path to success, but this an incredibly daunting task. There are so many different options and watching Kelly struggle to figure out her life post-graduation has reinforced this idea. Where do I want to be in 10 years? I can’t honestly say I have a clear vision.

             I can see myself working with an environmental activist group, running campaigns and mobilizing communities around environmental issues. But how do I get to that point? It’s hard to know.

             But everything works out as it’s supposed to. I truly believe that. Alanna, one of the other volunteers at the Phangan Project, has reinforced this idea several times stating, “whatever choice you make is the right one.” Which is a fantastic outlook, but one that is hard to accept when you are in the process of making a big life decision or trying to plan your future out. I, for one, am very indecisive. I have a difficult time making choices, and when I finally do, I question them.

            But this trip has given me reason not too. Almost everyone we’ve met at both Daruma and the Phangan Project haven’t had any sort of plan. They are traveling, living day by day and seizing opportunity when it presents itself. They don’t question whether they are doing the right thing. They just do what feels right. And I envy that. Why worry about the future when I could be enjoying today, making the most out of what is directly in front of me.

            Through the Phangan Project alone, I have the ability to design and implement a permaculture garden, visit the local recycling center, work at other surrounding organic gardens, experience biodanza, learn thai language and culture through weekly workshops, and tour a raw, vegan restaurant. All I have to do is express interest and ask. And I am learning to do that. To assert myself and take advantage of all that has been presented to me. Why waste my time worrying about the future when I have so much to learn from in the present. As we say in Thailand, sabaai sabaai, or take it easy, all is well.

- Sparx

Motorbike Mayhem

            Kelly and I rented a motorbike. Not right away. We were actually very apprehensive about it. Not because we are bad drivers (I actually fancy myself as quite a good driver), but because neither of us had ever ridden a motorbike before. In fact, the only experience I had had driving an open vehicle was an ATV I rode at summer camp in 7^th grade, and that venture did NOT end well. I rammed the thing into a fence and scraped myself up pretty badly as I hit pavement.

            We had asked around for other options. Are bicycles available for rent? What about taking a tuk-tuk or taxi? But every response was the same: rent a motorbike. It is by far the cheapest and most convenient option on the island. It costs the same as renting a bicycle without the hassle of having to pedal up steep slopes. And lets be real. The slopes we encountered on our weekend excursion were gnarly. I would have never made it up the different ascents.

            So we walked around and asked every rental place on the block for a price estimate.  We do this, ask for price estimates at every restaurant, shop, and rental place, always, despite the fact that we normally encounter the cheapest prices at our first stop. Typical. We rented our bike, an automatic white Honda, filled out the appropriate forms and received a quick lesson on how to operate it from the owner of the shop. My first test run was a disaster. I pulled the throttle way too aggressively and almost ran into a parked car. The look on the owner’s face.......but I recovered quickly and drove the bike around the block, braking successfully as I pulled back into the shop so that Kelly and I could be on our way.

            And we were off. Cruising along the side of the road as other motorbikes passed us, steadily, on the right. I must have been driving around 20 mph, but I had no way of knowing because, ironically, the speedometer on our bike wasn’t working. Also, disaster struck when it began to rain and sunscreen trickled down into my left eye as I was driving. The look on my face must have been priceless. I was crying in one eye, blinking furiously with the other, and trying to swat at myself, while keeping the bike steady, every chance I could get to rub the water and sunscreen off my face. It’s a wonder that Kelly and I arrived safely to our first destination, Paeng Waterfall.

            Blunder upon blunder, I attempted to park our motorbike and ended up pulling the throttle simultaneously with the brake, knocking over another, parked motorbike. Kelly quickly got off of our bike, twisted our ignition to off and lifted up the other, now fallen, motorbike. All was good. No one was hurt, neither bike was damaged, and there were no witnesses to my little mishap. Thank goodness.

            We hiked up to the waterfall, which was a tad underwhelming. The waterfall was more like a piddle-drip; there was hardly any water flowing, which makes sense considering Thailand is now in its dry season. Regardless, we snapped a few photos and continued hiking up the trail to an incredible viewpoint. Wild, undeveloped jungle for miles. It was beautiful.

            When we returned to the base, we got back on the motorbike (this time Kelly drove), and meandered for another hour and a half. We actually had no intention of meandering, but ended up missing a turn and driving past the beach we wanted to end up at. Again, typical. But, we did eventually make it to the correct beach after a couple of wobbling, on-the-urge-of-tipping-over turns by McGlinch. And the rest of our afternoon was wonderful as we lay by the beach, tanning our casper-white thighs.

            The second day of our weekend, we again got lost. We managed to get back to the beach we had been at the day before and intended on finding a hiking trail to another beach on the other side of the mountain. However, this trail was very unclearly marked. We literally drove up and down the same road 3 times trying to find our way to the trailhead, which we eventually found through trial-and-error. The hike was wonderful, but far more strenuous than anticipated based on the description in our Koh Phangan activity book. The path sloped up and down several times without footholds like ones you might find hiking in the states. If it had been raining, we most certainly would have witnessed many a-landslide. But it wasn’t, and Kelly and I each managed to fall only once. The trail was marked with plastic water bottles, ironic eh?, which led, appropriately, to Bottle Beach, where we jumped immediately into the ocean and wiped off all of the dirt and sweat from our journey. Initially planning on hiking back to our bike, we instead chose to take a water taxi. Very smart choice in my opinion.

            More to come, always.

-Sparx 

Our Bangkok Experience

Kelly and I have had a busy last few days. Like super busy. We took a train from Bang Phra (good-bye Daruma Eco-Farm) to Bangkok on Monday afternoon and navigated ourselves via google maps to, Shanti Lodge, our accommodation for the next few nights. We discovered, after making our reservation, that Shanti Lodge houses an all vegetarian and vegan restaurant and that it sources most of its food from an organic farm near Erawan National Park just outside of Bangkok. Perfect, no?

            We actually spent our first day outside of Bangkok in Ayutthaya, the former capital of Thailand. What an adventure. After getting off at the train station (it took us about 2 hours to get to Ayutthaya), Kelly and I decided to rent bicycles at a little shop across the street for 40 Baht ($1.20 – what a steal) and travel around to the different temples on the island. Little did we know that the one bridge to and from the mainland was under construction, meaning we had to take our bikes across the river on a ferry. Easy enough – if you are smart enough to figure out how to carry a bicycle up and down two flights on stairs and onto a boat. Unfortunately, Kelly and I were a bumbling mess. Especially me. Coincidentally, I learned how to correctly carry a bike 2 days later on a bike tour Kelly and I signed up for around Old Siam. Regardless, Ayutthaya was beautiful. Kelly and I toured 6 temples and saw ruins a-plenty. All spectacularly designed and far enough a part that we got our work-out for the day. I was covered entirely in sweat and dirt when we finally boarded the train back to Bangkok. I’m sure I smelled glorious.

            The next day, we traveled to downtown Bangkok so Kelly could get pages added to her passport at the US Embassy (world traveler – watch out). While we were there we trekked over to MBK mall and had lunch, a “don’t miss Bangkok experience.” Bangkok is known for its shopping malls. It has zillions. Most of which are multiple stories (6 or 7) high and filled with everything you could ever want. Very similar to Harrods in London if you have ever been there. On floor 7, Kelly and I bought the most incredible pants. Seriously. I am wearing them right now I am so in love. Tie-dye printed parachute pants. They are probably the most touristy thing I could have gotten and I have no regrets. Then we vacated the premises (mostly to avoid buying more pants) and took a bus to Khao San Road where we perused bars, bookstores and local shops for hours, bopping around with other hippie-dippie college-aged travelers looking for a good time. Appropriately, we ended our Khao San experience at Hippie-De-Bar for a couple of drinks.

            Our last day in Bangkok we visited the Grand Palace, Bangkok’s number one tourist location. And I have to say, I understand why. It was incredible. All of the palace buildings were incredibly ornate, decorated with the most intricate details. Buildings were covered with hand-painted tiles and glass pieces, arranged in very diverse mosaics. I think I took around 100 pictures, which I will get up as soon as I can. Promise.

            Then Kelly and I hurried back to Shanti, repacked our bags that were in storage, walked to the bus stop and waited. And waited. And waited some more before we finally decided to cross the street for a different bus. As luck would have it, the bus we had been waiting for passed us almost as soon as we crossed the street. A cry from Kelly, “Are you kidding me?” But alas, we made it onto a bus, almost an hour and a half later, and then realized a minute in that the bus we were on was going the wrong direction. Oops. We got off, crossed the street, again, and waited for another bus, which we got on for two minutes before we were transferred to another bus on the same route due to some “problem.” Very unclear what said problem was. At any rate, we made it to the train station in time, boarded our night train towards Surat Thani, made ourselves sunbutter and wheat bread sandwiches and settled in for the night.

            We arrived in Surat Thani the next morning, caught a bus to the pier headed for Koh Phangan, boarded a ferry and finally reached our destination for the next 3-4 weeks: Phanganchai Hotel. We are here to volunteer 20+ hours a week for The Phangan Project in a permaculture garden with the hopes of participating in some sort of community outreach as well. Because we got here on a Friday, we had the entire weekend off to explore the island. Which we did in a very Kelly-and-Sam-like fashion. Lots of little bumps and bruises (literally and figuratively), which I will share with you all tomorrow. Until then........

- Sparx 

Bangkok: Through the Lens of Kelly’s Wallet

It’s nearly 1am on February 14^th in Bangkok. Sam and I have been on our feet since 7:15 yesterday morning walking, bussing, and taking the sky train to reach various parts of this eclectic city. We departed Daruma on Monday (how we miss our friends there!) and are spending three days sight-seeing in Bangkok before we head to Koh Phangan for the next big permaculture adventure. I thought it would be interesting to write out my expenditures for today in this blog post- a day in the life through the lens of my wallet. It will give you a sense of how Sam and I spent our time, and it will be useful for my own budget-tracking purposes. I spent exponentially more money today than I normally do because Sam and I went shopping and I decided it was a day to indulge. Today was kind of like a mini-vacation, you might say. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

For my purposes here ‘B’ stands for Baht, which is the Thai currency.

30 B = ~1 USD.

15B                        Bus from Shanti Lodge to Siam Square.

20B                        Sky train from Siam Square to Wireless Road.

$82 USD                Fee to add pages to my passport at U.S. Embassy.

120B                      Iced soy latte at Starbucks (yummy indulgence).

150B                      Transaction fee for cash withdrawal from ATM. Necessary preparation for what lay ahead.

50B                        Ridiculously spicy and tasty lunch at MBK mall.

400B                      Two pairs of incredible, floral parachute pants that I’ve been waiting for all my life.

65B                        Chocolate coconut shake at vegan hippie restaurant Ethos (yummy indulgence #2).

110B                      Photo album made from recycled paper and post cards at bookstore.

290B                      Handmade journal bound by string and bearing the Ohm symbol a.k.a. the most perfect place to hold the details of my adventures through Southeast Asia.

120B                      A ‘Hippy Lady’ at Hippe De Bar. Location chosen carefully after perusing the menu of every bar on Khao San road in search of the best deal. Yes, we asked to see the size of the glasses. (yummy indulgence #3).

35B                        Pad thai and spicy tofu curry for dinner. What a steal.

140B                      Vegan chocolate cake with coconut cream and bananas. To compensate up for my inanely cheap dinner, I returned to Ethos and got this delicacy to go. With no tupperware container to my name here in Thailand, I got resourceful and stuffed the hunk of cake with its banana chunks and soupy coconut milk in the oh-so-useful plastic Walt Disney World travel mug I tote around. (yummy indulgence #4... are your surprised?)

Total for the day (excluding U.S. cash for visa pages) 

1,515B

Expenditure breakdown

Transportation: 35B

Food & Beverage: 530B

Souvenirs: 800B

Other: 150B

When I first calculated the total I was slightly horrified. My expenditures have been almost nonexistent up until this point because Sam and I hardly left Daruma during the past three weeks. A bottle of coconut sap drink now and again, perhaps some rose apples from the market, or a 100B card to top off phone minutes... Nothing more.

Then I calculated the currency conversion. 1,515 B is about 45.45 U.S. dollars. Two pairs of pants that are out-of-this-world awesome (you should see Sam’s tie-dye pair), a journal and photo album I absolutely treasure, and an incredible sampling of the many tastes Bangkok has to offer... I’ll take it for $45, thank you very much.

Like I said, today was a mini-vacation of sorts so this certainly does not reflect my normal budgeting for the trip. But if you're looking to travel cheaply and still fully experience the many wonders of a foreign place, I would definitely recommend coming to SEA for a time.

Happy Valentine’s Day! (In case you are wondering yummy indulgence #5 will be some sort of dark chocolate in celebration of Valentine's Day. I've yet to actually see any legitimate dark chocolate... but I'm determined)

Good night to some and good afternoon to most,

Kelly