Time to Leave Thailand...

We’re back in Australia now. It was fun to go and play for a while in Thailand...we also found some aspects of being there a little challenging though – primarily the pollution factor...from car fumes to pesticides to litter, it felt a bit full-on for us... Here are some of my recent observations about life in Thailand:

1. In general, Thai people seem to me to be happy, relaxed, smiley, kind, generous and content. Indeed, enjoyment seems very embedded in the national psyche. One of the guiding principles of Thai culture is ‘sanook’ or ‘fun’ – if smthg is not ‘sanook’, there’s not really any point doing it ;) LOL – love it ;) People ensure to enjoy themselves together wherever they are – even at ‘work’ ;) – this is a nation who seems at some level to really get the idea of enjoying our time here...they could be thought of as a very heart-centred people in this regard...

2. ‘Tis a country where the bathrooms are generally very...wet ;) LOL...they seem to take the term ‘water closet’ literally and the whole bathrooms are usually like ‘wet rooms’, tiled throughout and quite often with no shower curtain or anything to separate off a bathing area – everything just kind of merges into one big sloshy fun room ;) I like it. Having grown up in England, where even the bathrooms obscurely tend to be carpeted, this is a refreshing alternative to me. ‘Tis also a country where I tend to shower a lot – at least once a day and sometimes up to 3 times a day. It’s very hot and humid and while I love sweating, I don’t like feeling sweaty for extended periods – I think that’s a throw-back from my obese days, when being hot and sweaty felt very uncomfortable to me...

on May the 14th I had:

1 quart water
2 cups INTENSE veggie juice (cabbage, celery, cucumber, cilantro, carrot)
water of 3 young coconuts with another quart of intense veggie juice
big bag of rambutan
3 dragon fruit
1 quart water
½ a fresh pineapple
½ a fresh durian
1 quart water


3. People tend to travel by motorbikes/scooters. They seem VERY skilled at riding them and very few people seem to wear helmets. It’s not uncommon to see people riding along on a motorbike while sending a text message (SMS) on their phone, carrying cardboard boxes, holding their babies and so on ;) Very young children routinely travel on the bikes and many speed past with 2 or 3 tots on board... It’s pretty remarkable to observe, for us. They seem to start learning to ride them very young too – a few days ago we saw an absolutely classic sight. A Thai girl who looked literally about 9 years old rode past us on a big black motorbike, pulled up at the side of the playground, then excitedly ran with her arms flailing towards the playground toys, where she sat and played. LOL...nobody batted an eyelid, while we mused on the fact that if a similar scene were played out in the US/UK, the parents would most likely end up arrested or smthg ;)

4. While we’re on the subject of children, I’d love to mention the distinct lack of strollers/pushchairs/prams in Thailand. I literally didn’t see a single one there, or any of the assorted baby-related paraphernalia that tend to go with them (except the packaged milk powders ;). Thai people carry their babies and when they’re old enough, they walk. I appreciate this simplicity. It also seems like it would be very challenging to even try to use a stroller/push-chair there if you wanted to – the kerbs are often VERY high off the road – up to a foot or more off the road – not very conducive to pushing baby strollers around... (BTW, there is a WONDERFUL book on the benefits of carrying babies, called ‘The Continuum Concept’.)

on May the 15th I had:

1 quart water
plate of fresh fruit: papaya, pineapple, rambutan, mangosteen, banana
water of 2 young coconuts with wheatgrass powder
amazing raw food restaurant feast at Rasayana in Bangkok – platter of taco cups, raw lasagne, raw pizza, pesto pasta, followed by banana ice cream with amazing macadamia/carob wafers
1 quart water
water of 2 young coconuts and 8oz carrot juice
2 divine mangoes
1 quart water


on May the 16th I had:

2 quarts water
1 cherimoya, 1 persimmon
2 cups water
romaine wraps stuffed with avocado, alfalfa sprouts & karengo seaweed, with some gorgeous macadamia/flax crackers on the side
1 quart water
3 little persimmons
1 pint water

5. One thing I find very challenging about life in Thailand is the pollution. It is shocking to me. As I mentioned before, the Thai culture seems mid-way somehow between ‘tradition’/old ways and haphazardly embracing aspects of a more ‘western’ lifestyle, with an apparent emphasis on...plastic and pesticides (see below for more on pesticides). Litter is abundant in most places, streams and rivers bubble with untold chemical concoctions and the streets are hazy with petrol fumes (so much so that we actually bought face masks to walk around in and Mr Monarch is of the opinion that the last 3 weeks in Thailand have aged him a couple of years ;O ). In many ways, this country is like a potential paradise (beaches, warmth, exotic fruit, coconuts, elephants, friendly people, inexpensive, etc), then not far underneath that surface, there is a much murkier reality. It’s like they’ve taken on different aspects from the ‘west’, yet managing those things doesn’t quite seem to flow well...or maybe they’re just not as adept at hiding it as other countries ;) People in western countries often speak of ‘throwing things away’, raising the question of ‘where is ‘away’?’, while in Thailand one almost gets the impression they don’t even bother to make landfills/other solutions to manage all the rubbish that’s generated from the packaged foods – people just drop it where they are – ‘away’ is...well, right here actually...imagine how abundant the soil everywhere would be if all those dropped items were fresh food scraps instead ;)

6. On the subject of fresh foods, pesticides and other poisons are a major issue in the Thai food chain. Some of you have been writing in asking why we’ve not been eating any veggies lately. Well, that’s why...it’s VERY challenging to find anything organic, so anything we’ve been eating tends to be smthg with a thick skin, so that we’re at least hopefully limiting our exposure to toxins. We were very blessed to have access to amazing organic veggies at the health spa where we stayed on Koh Chang – hence we were drinking veggie juices daily and eating veg-meals there. However, most of the time it seems wiser to focus on thick-skinned fruits and coconuts, though having said that, we hear that many people inject durians in Thailand with all kinds of toxins, as well as picking them before they’re ripe and dunking them in Sodium Dioxide to get them to ripen quicker – eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek... Fortunately a friend who used to live in Thailand advised us to ask vendors in Thai for ‘durian ban’ – smthg like ‘wild durian’. These are smaller, rounder fruits that usually haven’t been meddled with as much. We hear that organic farming is starting to be more common in the north of Thailand now, in the Chiang Mai area, which is encouraging... ;)

I’m definitely gonna miss the coconuts – love, love, LOVE having fresh coconuts every day, they feel soooooooo good to me...and all the fruit was fun...and the elephants... ;) We’ll have another video ready sometime soon hopefully concluding our adventures there...for now, bye-bye Thailand and thank you :)

One love,
Angela. xxx

Pressure

We’ve left the little raw food oasis at The Spa on Koh Chang now and we’re back on the Thai mainland, at a beach-side resort where the beach is about 10 strides from our room. Yummy :) We’ve had some wonderful adventures in the last few days. A couple of days back, we had Thai massage for the first time since we got here. WOW. It was INTENSE. I was absolutely amazed at the power hidden in these teeny-tiny, petite little Thai women ;) LOL...in terms of intensity, I think this actually rivalled a massage I had once from Igor Boutenko (Dad in the Boutenko family) – and anyone who has ever had a massage from this huge Russian powerhouse knows how hardcore his technique is... Well, I asked the Thai massagist for ‘medium’ pressure and I was literally squealing at times...I can only imagine what Mr Monarch was experiencing beside me, as he asked for ‘strong pressure’...eeeeeeeeeeeek ;O They use this VERY potent herbal balm on the back, which acts like ‘deep heat’, penetrating deep into the tissues. Aside from that, they also seem remarkably adept at pinpointing the exact points of most tension if a body and NAILING those areas with vice-like pressure...eeeeeeeek ;) I think I’ll ask for ‘soft pressure’ next time... ;)

on May the 8th I had:

1 quart water
shot of wheatgrass and water of a young coconut
bowl of mango/banana raw ice cream, ‘raw chocolate pie’ and a raw spirulina energy ball
2 cups water
½ a deliciously ripe pineapple
shot of gotukola juice and a glass of carrot/celery juice
2 cups water
bowl of papaya/coconut meat/spirulina smoothie with some seaweed on the side (sounds odd, tasted GREAT ;)
3 cups water

on May the 9th I had:

1 quart water
shot of wheatgrass juice and water of 2 young coconuts
3 cups water
cup of warm water with lime juice and honey
big bowl of banana/mango ice cream with honey/cinnamon sauce and bee pollen
2 cups water
1 tbsp wheatgrass powder
½ an incredible pineapple,1lb rambutan
a few pods of yummy durian, a few mangosteen
1 quart water

We were also delighted to go on a beautiful elephant trek in the jungle. REALLY yummy experience. It seems there’s not many places for elephants to live anymore here – humans have taken everything over. Many elephants now live in sanctuaries instead. We visited one of these sanctuaries on Koh Chang (which actually means ‘Elephant Island ;) We got to swim in a river with the elephants & scrub them down, then we climbed up ontop of them and trekked through the jungle. Naturally we were on the elephant who stopped to eat durian on the way – it was absolutely classic. I love their big huge round padded feet, which they use to just squish the durian open, then pull the pieces out to enjoy – nice style :) We also got to hand-feed them masses of bananas afterwards too. They seem so gentle to me. They also apparently have the biggest brains of all land animals – very intelligent and responsive. One of my favourite stories that I heard in recent years was that after the Tsunami here in the India/Thailand area in 2004,
in some areas, the elephants who had fled to higher ground before the tsunami struck then came back down and carried human children up to higher ground. WOW. I don’t know if that happened in this reality or not – I’d like to think it did though...and if it did, then what an incredible act of compassion, after all that humans seem to have done to take over elephant areas...

on May the 10th I had:
1 quart water
water of 2 big young coconuts with wheatgrass powder
1.5 lbs rambutan
3 cups water
an entire AMAZING little jack fruit – absolutely incredible, one of the best meals I’ve ever had – perfectly ripe, sweet like candy and DIVINE
3 cups water
water of 2 big young coconuts with wheatgrass powder
bowl of blended yum: bananas, pineapple, coconut meat, spirulina
3 cups water

on May the 11th I had:

1 quart water
water of 2 large young coconuts with wheatgrass powder
a few rambutan and half a fresh pineapple
3 cups water
another entire little amazing jack fruit
2 cups water
bowl of blended yum: bananas, coconut meat, spirulina, with a few gojis swirled in
1 quart water

While we’re on the topic of large ‘natural disasters’, I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that Burma is in a state of crisis right now after the cyclone that hit last weekend. Some of you have written in asking if we were affected by the cyclone. Physically, no – we were far away from Burma when the cyclone hit – on the east side of Thailand. We do however feel concern and compassion for the current situation there. As I write this, I believe the amount of aid being permitted into the country is still very small. However, one organisation I’ve received information from this week – Avaaz - is collecting and sending money directly to the monks IN Burma, who are providing people directly with shelter and help. Avaaz has received over $1million in aid this last week from worldwide donations. You can see their site HERE if you’d like to contribute. I presume there are also many other organisations collecting and channeling aid money in a similar way to this too – Avaaz is just one that I’m aware of, if you’d like to send some financial support for our brethren in Burma...

One love,
Angela. xxx