Love Hate Relationship with Bangkok

I have been in Thailand for about a week and a half now, but to be honest it has felt like a lot longer than that.  I think because in New Zealand my pace of doing things is much slower than the pace we keep here.  I arrived in Bangkok around 8 in the evening and checked into my hotel without much difficulty.  I was pretty tired from my 15 hours of flying so I set my alarm for when I needed to meet Caitlin and went to bed.  My alarm went off at 2 am and I went searching for Caitlin.  I found her in the lobby - it was really great to see someone from home.  She was wide awake from traveling, I had gotten a good six hours of sleep, and it appeared that Bangkok never slept so we went for a walk to find some beers and some food.  I believe we found both along with an impromptu dance party in the middle of the street.  It was pretty cool but we were winding down a bit so we went to bed.  The next day we woke up pretty early and the plan was to go to the Grand Palace.  We ended up talking to this guy on the street who told us the Grand Palace was closed until the afternoon.  He called up a tuk tuk and sent us to other sites that were supposedly open in the morning.  Now anyone who has been to Thailand will be laughing at this point because we fell for the classic scam that the guidebooks warn you about.  The local people will tell you that whatever you are going to is closed and send you on a tuk tuk ride.  The tuk tuk started to take us to some sites but then took us to some tailors, a travel agency, and a gem shop.  He takes tourists there and in exchange gets coupons for gasoline.  So we had to go into the tailors and gem shops and pretend we wanted to buy or he wouldn't get his coupons.  We played along but were a bit annoyed that we had wasted our morning.  Riding around in the city was pretty fun though.  In the afternoon we went to the grand palace, which was really beautiful but since we had wasted our morning we were tired and now it was the hottest part of the day.  So after 1 day in Bangkok we decided it was time to book our train ticket south.  Now don't get me wrong - I really love Bangkok.  I keep calling it a love/hate relationship.  I love the cheap, delicious, and sometimes spicy food (Caitlin and I have both had a situation where liquid was coming from our eyes because of accidentally chewing or swallowing a pepper).  I love the people (that are not trying to scam you) who are warm and helpful.  I love seeing a different culture from my own.  I love the spraying devices for your nether regions that are in every bathroom.  I love the fresh fruit and fresh fruit smoothies.  I love the $6 massages.   I love the sun and the heat.  I hate the people who are always yelling at us to buy something or take a ride with them.  I hate being sweaty all the time.  I hate trying to figure out when someone is trying to scam us or trying to help us.  So the next day in Bangkok we booked a train ticket for later that evening and did a little more exploring around the city.  We took a river ride and explored some markets, then picked up our stuff and went to the train station.  More about Thailand as soon as I can make myself sit down and write another post - much love!!

Caitlin and I in the tuk tuk

at the Grand Palace

At the Grand Palace

At the Grand Palace

This was in a bar - I thought it was a funny thing to have in a bar

 

So I did something touristy

I went on a bus tour.  I think I need to do something like this every once in awhile to remember that I am not a huge fan of touristy type activities, even though I currently am a tourist.  I am in the northern part of the north island and had plans to see the very tip (hehe) by continuing to WWOOF up north.  But plans changed, and I ended up buying a plane ticket to Thailand.  I had heard that Cape Reinga was really beautiful, and since I wasn't going to get to spend any time up north, I decided to at least see it.  And the best way to do that was a bus tour.  There were some things I really liked about the tour, but also a lot of things that I really hated.  The first thing that I really hated was as soon as the tour started, which was around 7:30, the bus driver would. not. stop. talking. and not just normal talking, the cheesy tour guide kind of talking where he kept repeating himself.  Turns out my brain cannot handle that in the morning or maybe that early I just don't have the ability to tune it out.  I become more ok with it as the day continued.  What was beautiful at that time of the morning was the sunrise + the scenery, stunning.  Unfortunately I cannot really take photos out of a moving vehicle very well.  Soon we got to a part of the tour that I really enjoyed.  There is a beach up north called the Ninety Mile Beach.  I think it is actually 90 miles long and the cool part is the beach is a state highway, so you can drive on it.  I would never drive my car on it, because I am from Washington, and have heard too many stories of people loosing their cars to the ocean.  If you ever get the chance driving on a beach is awesome!!  It was even cooler that our bus was basically the only car on the beach.  The next part of the tour was sandboarding on the sand dunes.  I almost left this part out because I didn't want to betray the true wussy that I am.  But I didn't do it.  Not because I was afraid but because I didn't want to get wet.  It had been a sunny day, but weather comes out of no where in New Zealand, and a shower was just coming up and it was freezing and raining.  I also figured I am going to SE Asia soon and I will probably have a chance to do it there and I know it won't be cold there.  We continued on to Cape Reinga, which is a place on the coast up north where the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea meet.  The place is considered very spiritual by the Maori population.  It is a really beautiful place.  It was pretty cool to see and hear the two large bodies of water coming together.  There is a little path and lighthouse that you can walk to.  Now another part of the tour that I hated.  We had dinner at a place that claims the best fish and chips in New Zealand, but we had to get it to go and eat it on the bus while it was driving.  I have to say the food was delicious but I hate eating in the car, especially in a moving vehicle.  I am not talking about snacking in a car, that is perfectly acceptable, if not preferable on a long car ride.  But when I pay for a hot, delicious meal I don't want to have to worry about the grease dripping through the paper onto my pants, or hitting a bump and having my ketchup fly off my lap, and not being able to take a drink of water because the bus is moving.  It ruins the experience of the meal.  After the meal the final stop of the day was to see a Kauri forest.  Kauri are a type of tree that grows very large in New Zealand.  There are different types in areas around the pacific but a certain type that are the longest living exist only here in New Zealand.  Then we returned and now I am cozy in my bed.  It was a long day and I am tired.  My introverted self got tired from being around strangers.  I am glad I saw the things up North but don't think I would do the tour again.  For the night I am at Farm #3 and I leave tomorrow.  I am headed to Farm #1 to store my car then staying in Auckland on Tuesday to catch my early flight on Wednesday to Bangkok.  Cheers!!

Ninety Mile Beach - the way it looked and the way the waves crashed reminded me of a WA beach (on a sunny day)

The bus driver had time to take pictures of people since he didn't have to watch where he was going.

Da bus

Lunch spot

Cape Reinga

Bench and lighthouse at Cape Reinga

This is what it looks like where the sea and ocean meet.

More of the lighthouse

The giant Kauri tree.  Sorry, no person to show perspective but it was big.

Kayaking and Farm 3.1

Usually I only do a blog post when something new and exciting has happened but since I have continued to stay at the same farm, not much new has happened but I have had a good week.  I am still at Farm #3 in the Bay of Islands.  For one day this week Kristina loaned me out to her neighbors (I am calling them Farm 3.1) who have taken a really different approach to managing their property than Kristina has.  They have an extremely neat garden and grow mainly tropical plants.  They are on a north facing slope and planted wind blocks so they created a tropical climate in a sub-tropical zone.  They even grow about 100 pineapples at a time in little pots.  It is pretty cool.  I mainly just did some pruning for them.  Below is a photo of one of their banana plants (I have been told they are not trees).

Bunch of bananas growing at Farm 3.1

 I also had a day off where I got to go sea kayaking.  It was one of those kayaks where you sit on top, which to me isn't as comfortable as the kind that you sit in.  It was free so I can't complain too much.  I saw some fish and some birds, but mainly, the highlights were the scenery and the sun.  I got a blister on my hand and was pretty excited that my arms and core were sore the next day which meant I was using both to paddle.  Hopefully someday it will just be my core.  I made a little map of the area where I kayaked (see below) and took a risk by bringing my camera along - it survived.

The red line is where i went to - then went back.  Going back was much harder.

Lunch spot

The classic self portrait

I also had a little scare this week with my wwoofer host.  We had come in from the rain one day and were planning on cooking some kale chips and parsnip soup when all of a sudden she couldn't remember what we were doing and she was very confused.  I was really worried and thought she might be having a stroke but she felt fine but just would ask me what we were doing over and over and never remember what I was telling her.  Her husband took her to the doctor and it turns out nothing was wrong she just had an episode of TGA (transient global amnesia).  Which just goes away on its own and usually doesn't happen again.  I am glad she is ok and we are back to cooking and working in the garden.  Today I made parsnip soup and my first bechamel sauce.  Someday I will have a kitchen again and will be able to experiment with it.
I am going to Thailand in less than a week couldn't be more excited.  I got my typhoid shot and malaria pills.  I have gotten a lot of good advice from friends who have been there and starting to separate my stuff in to things I am bringing with me to Thailand and things I am stashing in my car.  Turns out I am bringing a lot less stuff to Thailand than I brought to New Zealand.  Anyways I my next post will be from there.  Enjoy the sunrise.

Composting and Chicken Behavior

Composting has been a large part of each farm I have been to.  One of the reasons being that garbage is very expensive to dispose of in New Zealand, so composting reduces your amount of waste.  Another reason is compost is actually a very valuable material that can be fed to animals, or once broken down, to plants.  Composting is important for keeping soil fertile.  While I have been on my trip I have been thinking a lot about my future piece of property and how I want to run it.  How much land do I want?  What kind of animals do I want to have?  What kind of plants will I grow?  What kind of composting system will I have? All very important questions, most of them I haven't answered.  But at this farm I think I have found how I will do my compost.  The way they process compost is there is a series of three bins.  One of the bins is the one you are putting compost into, one of those bins you are taking compost out of, and one bin is "cooking" (I am calling cooking, but I am referring to the aerobic process of the organic material breaking down and producing usable material).  If you are producing more compost or it is not "cooking" fast enough then you can just add another bin to allow for more time or empty one onto a tarp as soon as it is done.  I like this system a lot because it looks neat and there is no mixing involved.  What they do at this farm is once a bin fills up from the home compost, a layer of the from the chicken pens is added to the top, it is covered, and sits until it is ready to be used.

Here is a photo of the three compost bins.  The one we are taking from is the middle one - you can add boards to open and close.

I love the chickens at this farm they are so cute.  There is a flock of laying hens with one rooster.  It is really funny because they act like a flock of hens and he acts like a rooster.  When I bring them greens and goodies to eat the rooster is the one that tries it first then he will make a noise signaling for the hens to come and eat the food.  Kristina said that a good rooster, when there is something really good, will signal the hens and not eat any of it himself.  There is the laying flock that live in pens but then there are these four tiny chickens that run around the farm that are mainly used for pest control.  I wish I could show you the tiny chickens but when you take a picture they just look like chickens because there is nothing to show their scale.  Anyways just imagine a flock of four tiny chickens running around making cute noises.

This is the Rooster.  Isn't he pretty?  I think he was posing.

Here is one of the hens - most of them have the same coloring as the rooster but this one was the only one cooperating for the camera

Here is a photo of some of the garden beds.  I pounded in those stakes on the lower right.

This farm has two dogs.  Very well trained.  This is Siri - I love her.

Pumpkin Soup

Today it was raining at Farm #3 so we spent the morning cooking!!  I had a very good time - spending time in the kitchen doesn't really feel like work to me because it is something I like to do.  The day I got here they had butchered a rooster so we made chicken stock using the carcass an meat and we also made pumpkin soup from a pumpkin grown in the garden.  I am not usually a fan of pureed soups but this one turned out fantastic so I thought I would share it.

Ingredients (I am going to put what we used but you can adjust for the size of pumpkin or piece of pumpkin you are using):

a 4 kg (or 9lb pumpkin)
4 or 5 medium to large onions
2 large potatoes
6 cloves of garlic (peeled and crushed)
1 and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin
4 bay leaves
salt and paper to taste
a dash of hot sauce (optional, if you want spicy pumpkin soup)
enough water or broth to cover the pumpkin once it is added
butter or olive oil to saute the onions

Process:

Cut the pumpkin and clean out the seeds.  Cook in the oven (or microwave) until soft then peel (you can peel then just throw it in the pot uncooked but it is a lot harder to peel that way).
Chop and saute the onions in butter or olive oil until translucent.
Then add the pumpkin, bayleaves, and water (or broth).
Chop and add the potatoes.  Keep adding water if needed. 
Simmer until everything is cooked (about 20 minutes mainly waiting on the potatoes but also the pumpkin if you didn't cook it first).
Then add spices (cumin, salt, pepper,) and crushed garlic cloves.  Simmer for another 10-15 minutes.
Then puree the soup in a blender or food processer.

This recipe makes a SHIT TON of soup.  So you can put it in containers and freeze it if you want.  Or if you only have a bit of a pumpkin it is easy to scale down the recipe.  I would guess you could also use any type of squash instead of the pumpkin.  What I liked about this recipe is the soup tasted so creamy - it was almost like there was some sort of cheese or cream added, but there wasn't.  So I know it isn't squash or pumpkin season in the States right now but tuck this recipe in your brain for when it is.  I should've taken pictures while cooking but I didn't realize the recipe would be good enough for a blog post - hope you enjoy even w/out the photos.

This is the type of pumpkin that we used.

Farm #3

I left Farm #2 on Friday morning.  It was so sweet for my final dinner at Uli and Waltruad's farm they asked me what I wanted to eat and I said pizza.  One reason was because I love pizza and the other is because they had this really great pizza oven in front of their house and I wanted to see it in action.  So they heated up the oven all day and made me a wonderful pizza.  The crust was amazing.  The oven heats up to 500 degrees celsius and the pizzas cook in about 3 minutes.  It was hard to say goodbye but off I went, North, up the coast to an area called the Bay of Islands.  I am in a town called Russell and the farm I am at is on a small piece of property over looking the water and the islands off the coast.  It is an amazing view I can't even believe it and so far I have been having a great time here.  I mainly work with Kristina who is originally from Sweden but moved here to live with her partner Edward.  Kristina is a retired dentist and now just works in her garden.  Eddie is a carver and makes beautiful jewelry out of jade and bone.  They have two very well trained dogs and several chickens.  They have several fruit tress and plants and vegetable gardens.  I have been working here for three days so far and my work generally includes pruning, weeding, and cooking (see next post for Pumpkin Soup recipe).

This is the view from the house.  It reminds me of the San Juans.

This was the sunrise my first morning here - this is the view from my bed.

A recent decision I made was to buy a ticket to Thailand, to leave on June 13th and come back to NZ at the end of July.  I got a message from Caitlin (good friend from Olympia) saying that she was planning on traveling this summer because she had just finished up with a masters program.  She asked if I would want to meet up anywhere and I told here I wanted to go to SE Asia.  She said that sounded great.  I thought it was a good idea because I wanted to go there and it is moving into winter here in New Zealand, so I would miss the darkest coldest month here in NZ.  I am happy about my decision, I had been worrying about how I was going to fit in SE Asia on my trip.  I only have a couple of pictures of the scenery and since it is raining today I don't want to take any today. 

Another Book Review

Ok this one will be quick.  Uli and Waltruad have a large collection of books and a few they have recommended while I am here.  One I have especially liked is the Resilient Gardener by Carol Depp. 

One reason I like it because she is from Corvallis Oregon a lot of the gardening advice is applicable to Washington where I have gardened some but probably will more in my future.  Other reasons I like the book is because it covers things like diet and how to have a lively garden with minimal effort.  The book covers also covers how to preserve your harvest and how to save seeds.  She is also gluten intolerant and has a few recipes for corn bread and pancakes for all of my gluten intolerant friends.  However the recipes do include eggs.  In the last post I mentioned that here I am eating a high protein and high fat diet here at the farm.  Something I have realized and something I have seen in a few things I have read is that fat doesn't actually make you fat.  What makes you fat is excess calories.  If you eat no fat (which your body needs) you will not feel satisfied causing you to eat more.  This book touches on this subject a bit.  Hope you enjoy!!