On the road since 2011 with a puppet frog and a laptop, keeping my international start up alive and kicking from anywhere I go. Subscribe to get updates when I actually post them.,,
Luang Prabang didn't seem to offer us too much. It's been great to meet my younger brother once again and spend bits of quality time together.The Kuang Si waterfalls near Luang Prabang (about an hour on a tuk-tuk) were quite spectacular as some of the following pictures will show.
Kuang Si Falls - enlarge this one :)
Kuang Si Falls with Frognector
One other highlight of Luang Prabang had been a pretty good vegan (so I
hope) buffet where you pay for one plate that you can fill up with loads
of yummy veggies, tofu, pasta, rice and unidentified objects the same
as you'd pay for the much smaller and poorer dishes you'd usually get in
restaurants.
I could further write about the only bar in Luang that seemed to attract people and how, since it closes at 23:30, all beer-thirsty tourists head on to the bowling alley. But it's just not that interesting. Enjoy the pictures :)
Some leafs are bigger than others
Drip drip drip goes the water
Bear with me please
Never saw so many ants on a log, wowwwww....
The guy at the back, wearing his Osama Bin Laden shirt, seems
very happy to have raised our interest.
A cock in Chiang Khong - a sleepy Thai border town
It has been three days of traveling from Pai, Thailand into Luang Parbang, Laos. One day exchanging buses in Thailand and two more days on a slow boat after crossing the border to Laos. While having a slow boat on the Mekong may sound cool, it's not that amazing. The view is really beautiful but quite monotonous. The boat is filled with falangs (foreigners) as the locals prefer the cheaper and faster buses nowadays. Felt a little bit like a college class trip.
Enjoy the pictures.
Frognector taking in some Mekong breeze
Feels a bit like a class trip for falangs (foreigners) herded into Laos
Cattle transported on the Mekong
The bulls didn't pay for their boat ride but I doubt
they'd be happy when they reach their destination
Only at the end of the last day we realized the boat's
roof can be opened so as to allow soaking in more sky
Pai is a beautiful small village a few hours away from Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. Nature is teeming everywhere here and it's a wonderful place I'll surely be coming back to.
Yellow and green, you can see my back on one of the many bridges crossing the river
At the first night, we've slept in the most animal-swarming room I've ever stayed in. On the outside, it looked like a lovely small hut of stilts near the river. Beautifully calm view. Inside, though, was a different story. When I first looked at the toilet, a toad smiled at me and asked for a flush. In the few hours before sleeping I saw another toad, a few lizards, cockroaches, dozens of suicidal flies near the lamp, a broken lizard egg with hundreds of ants feasting on it. "At least there's a mosquito net" was the relaxing thought which turned out to be a false one when the net seem more full of large holes than not. Oh well, for a single night it's all an experience. We were too tired to move. The next day we found a LOVELY room we'll be happy to come back to.
Unfortunately, most of my time in Pai has been confined to the lovely room we were taking here. Seems the cleanliness of Thailand was too much for my body to endure after the dirtiness of India and so my lungs decided to get somewhat infected. A few days of coughing and resting helped restore my power.
Water lilllllles
Well protected from the sun
Take me down to the river. No swimming though :(
Visionary Dana
This post is scheduled to be published when we're deep into Laos so perhaps some new information will soon be coming up.
What would you like to read about or see in the next posts?
Chiang Mai, capital of north Thailand, has an old city that contains a beautiful display of Buddhist temples. In Thai you say wat. No what, wat. WAT is a temple. Mixing it with English is funny as you this song might prove.
Here are some pictures you might enjoy. Most were taken the day we took a scooter around the city and even reach the relatively famous Suthep temple. This post is scheduled to be published when we're already in Laos so don't trust this blog to depict the present.
Feeding the monks. Traditionally the monks beg for food every morning
and give their blessing in return.
My new pants fit the Thai temples better!
Hard to pass by when people kneel down before you and ask for a blessing...
The meditating Dana
Frognector was nearly devoured by the temple dragon
She looks a bit Indian, don't you think?
Near gilded temple paraphernalia, Frognector spotted some playmates
Yummy tofu noodle soup, maybe I'll have another right NOW
While this post is longer than most posts I've written, I would appreciate you reading it the whole way though.
It's been 13 months that I'm vegan and I'm very delighted about it. I'm very happy, greatly enjoying my food and feel very healthy. In this post I'll describe both my reasons to change my diet and also the way I believe it can easily be done by others. Keys are: reduce animal suffering and don't be fanatic. I would welcome your comments to this post.
My Non-Vegan Past
Before the month of May 2011, I haven't even considered becoming a vegetarian. More than 30 years of my life I was enjoying animal products and had no intention of changing that. Two times in my life I've eaten a whole kilo of steak in a single meal. I used to eat meat everyday. Animal suffering? Oh well, it's part of nature! Health issues? Meat is healthy and milk is good for calcium! Environmental damage of the meat farming industries? Barely knew it existed.
So what happened that I suddenly became vegan? To some people it may seem extreme as vegans refrain from any animal products, not only their flesh. The truth is that it's not extreme at all once you understand some things and it's not even such a big effort.
Tipping Point
My tipping point was a famous lecture by Gary Yurofsky, known on YouTube as "The Best Lecture You Will Ever Hear" that I highly recommend you seeing. Dana introduced me to this lecture and, as I've received a lot of vegan
materials before, I wasn't too interested in seeing it. Ausrine used to
often send me vegan "propaganda" and, while I found it interesting,
never thought it should have anything to do with me. In retrospect,
however, it probably was building up. Although not too interested, I
didn't have anything else I wanted to watch that day so I went on with
the lecture.
The lecture didn't introduce anything new to me. Gary didn't tell me anything I didn't know before. What did happen was that, perhaps like a last straw effect, the abundance of materials I was aware of made me re-think my own behavior. There's so much animal suffering caused by the industry that we're all enjoying. Is it really a must? Do I wish to continue to be a person contributing to this suffering? The easy choice is yes since most people are a part of it and don't really care. That's the way I've been brought up and have lived most of my life. I never felt guilty as I wasn't committing any of the torture myself. We all know that treating a chicken like a product from birth to slaughter is horrible yet we intentionally block the fact that this tasty chicken breast used to be the flesh of that animal that has been horribly treated since birth just so I can enjoy the dish. You can see more about the psychology of meat eating on this video. My empathy started working, feeling horrible about the enormous amounts of terrible things we humans keep doing to animals.
Personal Change?
Okay, so what's the personal price for me if I decide not to be a part of it? Initially, even the thought of it scared me. I don't want to commit to being a vegetarian or vegan, that's crazy! I did, however, start thinking about my current diet and what I would have to change and my surprise realized that it won't be as enormous a change as I imagined before.
When I visited India during 2006-2007, I didn't eat meat for a few months. It wasn't an ethical decision but rather the result of seeing how disgusting the meat in the markets is. India isn't easy on a foreigner's stomach and meat is a big risk in many places so I simply gave up on it for most of my time there. When I got back to Israel, I ate meat again, but not everyday as I used to. I actually stopped buying meat for my house but did eat meat outside, probably 2-4 times a week.
Unlike earlier years, I was very happy to make my own food. Making your own food always tastes better :) I was already making myself very tasty and healthy Hummus and Tahini and pastas with fantastic sauces that were all vegan, more by chance than by planning. In the mornings I ate granola with yogurt so I can change that to soy or rice milk. Many evenings I used to eat Malawach with eggs and cottage cheese but I could eat it with fresh tomatoes and spices.
My thought process led me to understand that my personal sacrifice wouldn't be all that great. I wouldn't have to feel bad about not eating meat, dairy and egg products as I already had abundant choices. At the time I wasn't aware that becoming vegan actually ADDS MANY new options to one's menu. When you start asking around, you find yourself eating a lot of delicious foods you've never tried before.
First Steps
Even so, I didn't want to declare myself vegan to the world. What if I would change my mind later? What if I'd really want a juicy steak? I mean, screw that cow, it's already dead and I didn't kill it. Right? My decision was to try and see. I will try eating vegan and if I feel like non-vegan, I'd go for it. I won't deprive myself of life's joys. To others I said I was considering becoming vegan and I'll see how that works out.
After a few days, I gave away all the non-vegan food I had it my house. After about two weeks, I realized it's not really that hard and I started saying I'm vegan. A key to my decision was not to be fanatic. It's very bad when one feels he or she is holding back on life's pleasures for moral reasons. If there would be a dish I'd really want to try, I will. If there will be any food I crave, I'd have it. It's much about quantities. Each piece of meat you get is directly translated to a specific animal's suffering. If I convince others to eat less meat, it would have a much bigger effect than if I "sin" with a few bites here and there. I still feel that way.
Please understand that not becoming fanatic is not all that simple as the emotional process that
a person passes in becoming vegan isn't an easy one. Once you remove the
previous psychological block and allow yourself to feel the animal
suffering, it's really hard not to feel bad whenever you see how lightly
and gladly most other people participate in these disgusting practices. People make jokes about the flesh on their plate and completely block all their knowledge of how it got there. If people would have to individually grow and kill their animals, I'm certain there would be a lot less meat consumed anywhere.
How Has It Been?
To date, I've eaten meat only once since becoming vegan. Sitting with friends in a good Thai restaurant in Berlin, one of the friends ordered chicken and didn't finish. Nobody else wanted it so it would go to the trash. Being a few months vegan, I considered it a good opportunity to see if I miss the taste. Although my own vegan dish at that restaurant tasted great, that chicken dish wasn't really good to me. Seemingly our sense of taste changes as we change our diet. If this seems weird to any of you, do consider how many children think coffee is horrible and how many adults drink it. So called "acquired taste" is a known phenomenon. Eating vegan changes your taste preferences. I much more enjoy fresh and raw vegetables and fruits nowadays.
Traveling around the world, I often dine at restaurants and it's almost always quite easy to find good vegan dishes. It has happened quite a few times that I've been served dishes with dairy products although I tried my best to verify no dairy products would be included. In those cases, I just ate what I got. Bits of milk I consume will not make the difference in the world. Changing people's minds to understand that vegan is the right moral decision is.
If you've read so far I thank you. I'll probably do another post later on about common questions and annoyances I get from people who try to proudly defend their immoral decision to eat meat. Truth is that it's usually not a real decision as the person never opened up to the possibility of being vegan. I know I never did before I actually did. You don't want to consider it and you do whatever it takes to ignore and ridicule it. That is, unfortunately, natural. At the end of the day, it's whether you allow yourself to open your heart and feel empathy towards other living creatures. Being vegan is about a simple paradigm shift: animals are sentient being on their own accord and we do not own them. Simple shift that would make the world a better place if only people would follow it. A better place to humans as once you let empathy in, you try to do better to other humans and once you block empathy for certain creatures, you'll more easily block it in other cases.
As annoying, overbearing and hard as India was on our last day there, as comfortable, easy and indulging Thailand has been. Although I've visited both countries in my previous travel, it was almost a year and 8 countries apart. This time the change was so sharp.
Thais like their Buddhas gilded
In India people often stare at you as you walk around. Foreigners are so interesting and it's way too frequent that one curious guy would walk to you saying "you country!" or "come from!" or, the scholarly version, "what is your native place?". It's amusing, adorable, helps strike a random conversation and sometimes so misplaced, especially if you were just in a middle of a conversation with your friends or just in the middle of singing and playing the guitar. Privacy isn't an issue as it's existence in India is fictional. Thailand feels more like back home: almost nobody gives you a second look and cares about you when you're in the street.
Culinary superiority. As much as two vegans can appreciate vegetarian food in India, the food we've had in the Kaho San road on our first days was so much tastier, healthier and cleaner than what we usually managed to come by in India. Many people often drool on Indian cuisine but our taste buds welcomed tofu, noodles, great fruits and freshly cut vegetables with much delight. The coconuts in Thailand taste SO MUCH better than in India. They often put them on ice and each coconut feels like a treat.
Easy to fatten up in Thailand :)
Cleanliness. Hard to compare even. Thailand's dirtiest places are on par with India's cleanest. The air, the ground, the people, the animals. Everything seems cleaner and healthier. In both countries one has to take of his shoes going to holier or private places. In India the floor is almost always dirty on the "clean" side as well. In Thailand, the "clean" side is vigorously kept clean.
Buddha seems relaxed, so why shouldn't we be relaxed?
Smiles. That's where India always wins. Being a guy, you can look into anyone's eyes and smile and you're very likely to get a good smile back. Add a head wobble and you'll receive one as well. It's not as good to try that being a girl since they'll assume flirtatious behavior.
Remembering the days of phone cards
Prices. Thailand is surely more expensive but the feeling is that often you get your money's worth.
Bangkok from the river looks quite different
Transportation: there is so much extra space on Thai buses that, coming from India, I kept thinking we can put 3 times more people in the bus and still feel more comfortable than on Indian buses. The roads are often better than the ones in Israel and you often get a smooth ride rather than an almost off-road experience you often get in India.
Free cola on a local bus in Bangkok, it was a Sikh holiday.
Working on Colnect while on the road, seems Thailand is a much better option than India. Visa issues are simpler with India though, although on the long run Thailand might win on that as well.
Gilded Frognector fan near Pattaya
To summarize, it's not hard to understand why many westerns base themselves in Thailand which offers all western comforts in eastern prices. India has it's appeal as well but it's surely a different one and won't fit many people who are addicted to comforts. India is more challenging and has it's peaks and lows.
There was a good reason to splitting the former post. I highly doubt that any of my few readers here would actually afford more than a few minutes to read my pearls of wisdom. No, I don't blame anyone as I personally find the incredulous amounts of information at our fingertips today to be overwhelming. Anywayz, back to India.
After enjoying a relatively good time in Amritsar and feeling back in real India after the relative comforts of the Dharamsala tourist-ghetto, we headed to Delhi. This time around we planned on arriving at midday and leaving at night towards the airport. Considering the weather and the exquisite loveliness of the world infamous Main Bazaar, this wasn't a bad plan.
Rickshaw Near Waga Border
As simpletons don't seem to be able to ever buy a good train ticket
in India on a short notice, we got ourselves a general ticket and went
to the sleeper class. As a local suggested that Dana buys the ticket
(women are allowed to push to the front of the line) and as he asked for
a ticket for himself, we were destined to stay together when we got the
3 tickets printed on one paper. He was anxious sitting in the sleeper
class, having to await a paid upgrade but the joy of sharing time with
foreigners seemed to outweigh the monetary consideration. Amusingly
enough, we paid 100rs each to upgrade (meaning we got our assigned bed)
while other Indians sitting in the sleeper class with a general ticket
had to pay 300rs each as a fine for using their ticket in the wrong
class. In addition, they never got a sit assigned. Bewildering...
The
nice new "friend" from the line was a very cute Sikh college kid, or so
we initially thought. After I went to sleep, he found it appropriate to
start telling Dana everything about his sexual frustrations, having
never talked to girls and feeling guilty about his masturbation. He
never kissed a girl in his life (well, you usually do talk to one first)
and so tried repeatedly to be closer to Dana in not well hidden hope
that perhaps the foreign easy girl (because all foreign women are
considered extremely easy in India, and that's putting it nicely) would
decide she'd be happy to make out with him while her love is asleep on
the nearby bunk. Pathetic, saddening or simply disgusting? You can
decide.
So exciting to talk to a foreign girl while she still has an iPhone
In Delhi, it took some pushing and shoving to get to another
train that will take us to main bazaar. People were nice making space
for us to sit as most were crammed in. The heat was on, internal fans
quite useless and sweat pouring. We reached the right stop after half an
hour and managed to buy cold water to revitalize our energy to be able
to face the main bazaar.
The only interesting thing to mention about this horrible place
this time around is that a cool Indian guy we formerly met in the north
came there to meet us. He has lived in Delhi for a short while and never
visited the main bazaar. He thought it might be a red light district
and was shocked at how disgusting and unwelcoming the area was. He was
saddened to learn most backpackers coming to Delhi go there and that
this is probably one of the first impressions of India awaiting many
backpackers and other tourists.
After dinner we went to the metro to meet another friend. It was
one stop but in retrospect a grave mistake. I've heard about groups of
thieves in that metro before and as we went in, I told everyone to have
no valuables in their pockets. Dana had her iPhone behind a zipper in a
small side bag she carried with her. We were already carrying 2
backpacks each and Dana didn't put that bag under her front bag but
rather left it on the side which was a grave mistake. If you've never
been pushed in Delhi's metro, you've never been really pushed in a
metro. Excuse my analogy, but I doubt that they could push more Jews
into trains during the holocaust. Not an inch spared. Luckily, only a
few minutes ride with some excuse for an AC allowing us to keep
breathing. Getting of that horrible train, Dana saw the zipper where the
phone was had been unzipped. "Your phone was stolen", I told her. Dana
took a bit to digest and our Indian friends were surprised. The guy was
shocked (okay, he's cool but get's shocked very easily at hard-core
India :) ) and the girl (working as an attorney) suggested we go to the
police with it. I suggested she talks to the police and if the phone is
ever retrieved, it'll be hers. Didn't hear back about it. Personally, I
suspect the thieves might be working with the security inspectors. As
everything goes through x-ray, it's easy to know where your phone is.
Dana had only that zipper out of 3 open and nothing on the outside would
suggest that's where the iPhone was hiding. On the bright side, and one
must always find bright sides, I never liked the iPhone and kept trying
to convince Dana to move to Android :) Morally speaking, it's maddening
to realize that throughout our travels in India, the person who has
made most money out of us was the thief. An iPhone is worth as much as a
few months rent for a nice touristy room.
We later took the train to the airport. I mean, what? they're
gonna rob us again? :) The security inspections for the airport metro
were unprofessional and time consuming. Not surprising. The guy at the
cashier tried to cheat me out of 50rs change. Not surprising. The train
looked like first world. Surprising and impressive. Well, it also cost
as much as taking a taxi to the airport...
Sweating some bullets in the short local train ride in Delhi
Same train, other side. Not really crowded on Indian standards
Last picture at the airport after the automatic vending machine cheated me!
Getting to the airport, being happy to rid ourselves of the
country, a few more goodbye slaps awaited us. Started with the idiot
guards at one gate who insisted we cannot go in the departures hall yet
as it's too early. They even lied saying this isn't the entrance. When
other locals asked they had to cave in. Instead of arguing with them we
just went in the next gate and got in without any problems. Inside, we
got a "random" security inspection from two really bored security people
asking us the same nonsensical questions time and again. It wasn't
because they were really questioning us but because they were extremely
bored and foreigners are probably a treat in this job. I ended us
writing the woman a couple of websites for online employment and wishing
her luck.
Waiting for a few hours at the airport was fine though I was
wondering about the Indians outside staring inside as if something very
interesting is happening in the DEPARTURES hall. Yes, in other countries
you might have people waiting outside the ARRIVALS as a friend or
family member might be coming to visit but in India a big building is
interesting enough. Oh well, not that surprising considering the amount
of times I've seen Indians at train waiting rooms simply staring at the
wall waiting. Not reading, talking, sleeping or listening to music. Just
staring at a wall. No, nothing moving on the wall. Just a wall. It's
likely an advanced meditative state I am yet unable to reach and
hopefully one day this technique will be exported from India to the rest
of the world. "Dirty Wall Meditation" I now dub it. It consists of
looking at a dirty waiting room wall in an extremely noisy train station
and reaching nirvana. Very advanced.
When we got to the check in, we've been only 1.5 hours early,
which meant they didn't even have two near seats for Dana and myself. We
weren't too far off though. My sit was taken and the bozo who took it
took himself a few minutes to explain that he wants to sit next to his
friends if I don't mind. OK, I moved. In the new seat, I asked the
Indian guy sitting next to me by himself if he minded changing with
Dana, who was one bench ahead. He said he doesn't want to but then asked
to change with me (sitting next to him) so he could sit closer to some
other friends. Be an asshole and expect me to be kind? Not today!
A few hours later, we've arrived in civilization!!! Welcome to Thailand :) :) :)
After two weeks in Thailand, perhaps it's high time to write about
the last day we've had in India, which was quite hectic and left a
bitter taste that only now starts dissolving. This post is a bit of a
rant, so if you're not in the mood, just read the pictures :)
The
month spent in Dharamsala was great. A nice room with a big balcony and
mountain side view. Quiet and relaxing, unlike the main street 10
minutes walk up 234 steps that provided us with all the simple bear
necessities (read: feeding ground). Had it not been for the Indian 6
month visa running out, I'd have stayed there for a couple of months or
till the monsoon rains would chase me away. I managed to work well on
Colnect and introduce many important improvements at that time.
A denizen of Dharamsala contemplating the teachings on the Buddha
View from our balcony
The view from our room in McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala
A few days before leaving my SIM
card was blocked due to the infamous Indian bureaucracy countering
terrorism in some way I haven't yet deciphered. Yes, you can use your
SIM without verification for a month but then you're blocked if
verification fails. To me it seems any terrorist would find a month to
be enough time to buy a new SIM card that will work for an extra month.
But hey, I did learn not to challenge India with logic :)
Papaya-Banana - it's gonna catch on! :)
The landlord where we stayed seemed like a very nice and relaxed
person but in the last days showed his ugly side very well when he got
pissed off at something. I could have said it was disappointing for me
to get such a lame and disgusting attitude from him but unfortunately it
appears that when it comes to money, the grand majority of Indians we
have come in contact with put money much above anything else. Courtesy,
honesty, kindness all come much lower when you potentially have lost a
few rupees. Oh well.
Amritsar's Golden Temple
Amritsar's Golden Temple
Some people are not impressed with the normal sleeping floor outside the temple.
Probably more comfortable sleeping on marble in the hot midday.
Leaving Dharamsala, we took nice
local buses to Amritsar and were there hosted for free (read:
donation-based) at the beautiful Golden Temple. The setup had 4 big
rooms connected by a corridor and beds all over the place. Windows were
non-existent and the ceiling fans were keeping the humidity in
circulation. It was cool relatively to the hot weather outside and
probably better than the free dorms offered to Indians which consisted
of a blanket on the courtyard's floor.
The masses waiting to cheer for Hindustan
Notions of personal space known in the west should be forgotten in India
There
was surely a good vibe in the dorms and we met some really nice people.
We eventually headed up with a few of them up to Waga border to watch
the infantile ceremony that India and Pakistan have been doing everyday
for a while now. It consists of funnily dressed guards doing ridiculous
supposedly-fearsome maneuvers at the other side. More amusing are the
crowds going wild cheering for their own country.
Ceremonial head gear of a Waga border guard
Long hair, in whichever part of the body, means your country is the better one! Right?
India / Pakistan. As amusing as the whole charade is, don't forget they've
gone through some VERY BLOODY periods of hatred.
