TechCrunch vs. India Mess

You're most welcome to read about this quite awkward experience if you haven't already seen my comments on Facebook. Read about it on Colnect's blog: TechCrunch vs. India Mess

Kuang Si Falls near Luang Prabang

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.

Into Laos on a Boat

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

Mekong beach

No Pie in Pai?

One of our neighbors - picture by Dana

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?

What Wat? In the WAT?

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

13 Months Vegan!

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.

Goodbye India, Welcome Thailand

Meeting my lovely brother in Bangkok

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.