New vegan friend shows me the way in Bangkok

I know this is suppose to be a Meatless Monday post but Wow, I had an amazing weekend and want to share it with you!! I will admit that when I got to Bangkok I was not too thrilled. It's smelly, hot and humid, trying to get anywhere takes so much effort and time, and I don't really have money to spend. Things started to change when a British girl who teaches English here saw my post on ecorazzi and reached out to me. Brighde (pronounced like Bri-dee) offered to show me around and we made plans to meet up on Thursday. I saw a cool event posted on couchsurfing.org, a traditional Indian dance performance called Kathak. So we went for dosas before-hand and I really enjoyed the music and the performance. The dancer was beautiful and dancing so fast with bells around her ankles, it was very impressive.

We made plans to meet up for dinner, drinks (I don't drink though) and a chill Friday evening. I took the canal boat taxi all by myself and was very happy I learned how to get to B's house all on my own. She has a super swank condo in a fun, bustling part of town, 2 adorable kitties, and a really nice boyfriend from Canada. We started at this bar down the street from her, I had fresh lime soda. Then we went to a fancy Thai restaurant and I got to try a few new things I'd yet to experience!

The first is a beautiful Thai appetizers called Miang Kum. It includes edible tree leaves with a variety of fillings. You wrap up the bottom of the leaf to make a cup and put a little bit of each of the fillings along with a dollop of sweet sauce inside. Then you wrap it up and eat it. It's not only tasty but one of the most fun foods I've had in Thailand. Second was Yam Som-O, or pomelo salad, usually made with chicken but this restaurant made a vegan version for us. I swear it had jackfruit pieces in it, but I forgot to ask the waiter. Overall it was really delicious and the staff was super nice.

After dinner she took me to the grocery store where she shops and they had SO much awesome vegan stuff. I scored some chocolate, and they had oat milk, chocolate soy milk, Amy's products and a whole slew of cool stuff. Most of it was double what you would pay in the US, so it was clearly out of my budget. We scored raspberry sorbet too. Then we went back to her place and watched The Waking Dead. Amazing series!!

I crashed there because it was close to 2am before we knew it. Brighde and I made banana pecan pancakes with blueberry sauce in the morning and they had Earth Balance and real maple syrup (turns out her bf has maple farms, how Canadian!). It was amazing!

So, it turns out if you have money (but really you don't need that much to live comfortably here) then you can take advantage of all the great things that Bangkok has to offer. I really thought that I was being deprived here, but now I realize I just wasn't in "the know" and had to meet some awesome vegan locals to show me around and hold my hand. I am so blessed to have these new vegan friends here. Next weekend we are going to the Bangkok Symphony in the park with a picnic and having a bbq. Woohoo!