A Lunch date with May Kaidee

Anyone who is following my blog since a while, will now know that I keep hunting for vegetarian / vegan food wherever and whenever I travel. So when we were planning to visit Bangkok, some friends recommended the May Kaidee’s place to us as a must visit.

Initially we were quite skeptical because vegetarian food in Thailand is quite tricky (in some places that we visited they said that fish and shrimp paste is also vegetarian) but for some reason we decided to go and give this a try. And I am so glad we did.

May Kaidee’s is an institution in itself where vegan Thai food is concerned in Thailand and May’s story is a complete Cinderella story. This place was set up 20 years ago by May (pronounced as Mai), an extremely poor young girl who loved food but couldn’t follow her dream due to the family circumstances.  But after getting an opportunity to move to Bangkok to help her aunt cook in her vegetarian restaurant, May began to create her own tasty traditional Thai dishes that substituted meat with vegetables. And this was a huge success. Today the food at May Kaidee is some of the best vegetarian Thai food you’ll ever find in Bangkok.

Cambodia – Visas, Border Crossings and Scams

Cambodia is not a very easy place to reach, more so if you are budget traveler and looking to save money. It is not as well-connected by flights and the tickets are normally quite expensive. So, for my own budget trip, I had to put in numerous hours of research on the net and speak with loads of people and travel agents to decipher the best and cheapest way to reach Siem Reap. Since I had put in so much of an effort, I decided to write a detailed post on the best ways to reach Siem Reap from Bangkok for my other fellow travelers who too are struggling as I was.

Since the post is very long I have split it into 3 parts –

• Part 1 – Bangkok to Aranyaprathet (Aran) Border (Thai border) by train, bus, mini-vans or taxi. – Already done and available at http://wp.me/p29z7S-iT
• Part 2 – Visa requirements, Visa on arrival Vs e-visa in Cambodia, the Border Crossing and the various scams near the border.
• Part 3 – Transport from Poipet Border (Cambodia border) to Seam Reap by bus or taxi.

This post is part 2 of this 3 post series and in this I shall cover the visa requirements for visiting Cambodia, the actual border crossing experience, tips for the border crossing between Thailand to Cambodia and finally the various scams prevalent around the land borders.

Neemrana Hill Fort Kesroli (Alwar, Rajasthan)

About a year ago, my friend Archi and I had managed to take a 10 day trip to what we call our own modified Golden Triangle visit in North India i.e. we visited Amritsar – New Delhi – Alwar instead of the typical Agra – New Delhi – Jaipur. While I’ll write about New Delhi and Amritsar in separate posts, this post is about our visit to Neemrana’s Hill Fort Resort Kesroli in Alwar.

We had quite a full Delhi and Amritsar visit, hence had decided to end our trip with a nice relaxing 2 nights 3 day visit to this property and booked everything in advance from Mumbai. Before the actual booking we had come across several negative reviews online and were pretty apprehensive about the place, but then just decided to give the place a chance and went ahead with it.

My Cccooofffeeeeeee……….

Everyone who knows me (even the tiniest bit) knows about my love for coffee. Well quite a few of my past posts and talks have also been dedicated to this subject. 🙂

My motto is that coffee can be had at anytime of the day (morning, mid-morning, noon, night, mid-night), in any form (hot, cold, frappe, latte, chocolate, filter, normal) and as any meal (breakfast, lunch, evening snack or dinner).

Goa in the monsoons

Ever visited any beach destination completely off season and that too during peak rains? Well I have. We had once visited Goa in July (which is the peak monsoon season in the western parts of India). While this is not the actual touristy season, I felt Goa had another side to offer during the monsoons, which was as much and more fun.

During this season all major beach activity is shut as it’s not safe to enter the waters, the shacks are pretty much closed and the party places are empty. But during this season you can actually see the wild side of nature in Goa – with strong winds, mad rock crashing waves, crazily waving palm leaves and beautiful greenery all around.

Beach Hopping in Goa…

I am one of those people who have visited Goa numerous times (for all of us who live in Mumbai that’s the closest holiday destination and an anytime quick trip). But I must say, that despite the numerous trips,  my holiday has never been repetitive and neither have I ever felt that I have explored Goa completely. There is still so much more that I have to see here.

Goa

But my most memorable one has been my last trip to Goa, which was a lazy mad trip with 2 of my equally mad friends, where the most important decision we took was which beach to go to and which shack to choose to plonk ourselves in for the day.

Vacation Relaxation

Normally, vacations are for much deserved breaks, relaxing, letting go of the long pent-up stress of work and life related tensions. However there are some people (including me) who just don’t understand this concept.  A friend of mine found this really cute pic (at www.phdcomics.com) and sent it to me. And I just couldn’t resist posting it for all my friends and family members who are exactly like this.. 🙂

Does this sound familiar to you too? 🙂 Comment below or tweet at traveler_budget.