Just Your Average Morning In Koh Chang

I am usually so excited on vacation that I am up at the crack of dawn...sometimes earlier. Lucky for me, my family are all morning people. When in a tropical setting one must spend the morning...

Walking on the beach

Swinging out over the ocean,

Playing with the little crocs,

And picking up breakfast at the local market....all before 7 am. That leaves the rest of the day to play in the ocean. I love this plan.

Koh Chang

Just a warning that the travel posts begin. I only made it out of Thailand with one drive worth of photos, the others were in "the backpack." Imagine the damage I could have done here with all of the photos at my disposal...but instead I'm left to try and get by with only 617 photos. Ha.

I imagine that Thailand's beaches are to Europeans and Australians, what the Caribbean and Mexico is to Americans: relatively close and affordable tropical escape. Koh Chang sits in the shadow of her more popular sister, Phuket, whose white sand beaches are sought out by many vacationers each year. From the traffic on Koh Chang, I'm guessing she's not far behind in catching up with her sister as a hot vacation destination. I heard many a German, English or Aussie voice, and for good reason--this island is truly is a tropical paradise.

Welcome Home

It's hard to prepare yourself for what 50 hours of travel will feel like. It shouldn't be that exhausting because really, aren't you just sitting on your butt for 80 percent of the time? But with each move to a new bus, train, tram, taxi or plane, it's as if exponential amounts of energy are sapped. I'm not going to lie to you. When I reached Seattle and the Customs Agent stamped my passport and said "welcome home," I started to cry a little. They were the best two words I heard in days. I think I scared him a bit because I'm pretty sure he tried to grab my passport to cross out the admittance stamp for the crazy lady.

Thailand was fabulous and I wouldn't trade the experience and the time with family for the world, but it is exhausting to travel to the other side of the world and back. Add in a little incident after a 10 hour bus ride into Bangkok, and it's just that much more exhausting.


I placed everything I owned of value into a backpack so that I could keep it all with me...camera lenses, camera, cell phone, video, jewelry, purchases, etc. When that backpack didn't fit in the bus overhead, I was forced to stow beneath the bus with my luggage. A simple black backpack can easily confused with other black backpacks. At the final stop, my backpack was gone, but another black backpack remained--full of laundry. I admit, I'm a sucker for laundry, but I'd rather have the video of my family in Thailand, and sitting in a police station hours before your flight is not the ideal way to leave a country. 40 hours of travel home allows you spend a lot of time thinking...

Thailand was amazing and the people were incredible. There are no words to explain what it's like to hear family stories and see where generations of your family lived their everyday lives. And Thailand was also incredibly humbling. Bangkok could be any town in the US, but go outside and you are presented with a country in which many homes are built with whatever materials can be easily found and very often do not have walls, mothers travel with their infants and toddlers all on one scooter, and toilets are often ceramic bowls in the ground. And with all this, they are happy. There is not the focus on the newest technology or owning in excess of what you use. Life is not all about careers and getting ahead and growing your portfolio. It's about happiness and enjoying your days. While I would find it difficult to live that minimally and be 100% okay with it, it does get a girl thinking about the excesses in her life. How is it that I even had one backpack with contents valued at over the annual income of many Thai families?

Someone asked if I'd ever go back and the answer was absolutely. Allowing the loss of "stuff" to dictate how or if I traveled meant I would lose more than the contents of my backpack. I was absolutely heartbroken on losing the irreplaceable items, but in the end I had a peace knowing that it was just indeed "stuff." And the positive side of the backpack experience was insight into family bonds and Thai generosity. My aunt sent a friend to the bus station to pick me up and get me to the airport. While I kept saying it wasn't necessary, I was so very glad in light of the backpack incident. This woman took an entire evening of her time to travel across Bangkok to meet a stranger, spent time as her interpreter, took her to the police station, insisted on paying all cabs and tuk tuks and drove her to the airport in the end. When my baseball cap flew off on an especially exciting tuk tuk ride, I shrugged at her thinking it was pretty appropriate in light of everything else that had happened. She came down from her condo later with her own baseball cap that she gifted me with--it's now my favorite hat. My mom has called me numerous times about family in Bangkok and up north spending time at the bus stations trying to track down the owner of the other backpack and I told her to let them know they seriously didn't need to go through so much trouble. And yet they persisted because they were upset for me. That family effort and concern makes me want to travel back to see them right now--even with a potential 50 hours of travel. My mom called me a bit ago to say they'd found the owner and my uncle had my backpack. All that effort for me, makes me cry a little now.

So 50 hours after it all began I arrived home, and just in time. Just twelve hours after I arrived, DIA begain grounding flights due to another Denver spring storm, and it's been snowing ever since. Perfect if you are snowed in at home with a batch of cinnamon rolls rising on the counter. I do however feel for those affected by this storm who are traveling, tired and just want to get home.

Cookbook #46 Tyler Florence's Real Kitchen

I'm not going to lie to you, I have a bit of a crush on Tyler Florence. Sure, he's not one of the more exciting personalities on Food Network; he's really a more "cut to the chase" kind of guy. But the boy can cook. When he starts explaining cooking techniques, and his passion for food comes through, I'm just a sucker staring at a TV. That's not even mentioning that homeslice has an entire kitchen set filled with the most fabulous copper pans...sigh. I love a man who lives dangerously, and leaves the nonstick to the amateurs.

Tyler's first cookbook is a favorite of mine. Filled with such tried and trues as Roasted Carrots with Orange Brown Butter and Sage, Blueberry Scones with Lemon Glaze, and Roasted Chicken with Morrocan Spices as well as recipes marked to try such as Hong Kong Crab Cales with Baby Bok Choy, and Spicy Tuna Hand Roll, it comes off the shelf quite often.

I've been wanting to make Tyler's Dumpling Soup with Chinese Greens for quite awhile but was just put off at the thought of making so many wontons. Pushing all hesitation aside, I followed the recipe almost exactly, minus a substitution of ground turkey for the pork. And while turnips sounds a bit interesting for a filling, when everything is pulsed together, the turnips just seem to blend in perfectly. I was actually a bit surprised to see that this filling tasted like the Costco frozen potstickers. With a the garlic and ginger flavor infused into the broth and the fabulousness that is bok choy, I was definitely glad I finally got around to giving this recipe a try.

Dumpling Soup with Chinese Greens

Adapted from Tyler Florence's Real Kitchen

Filling

3/4 pound ground turkey (or pork)

1/2 med turnip

1 green onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 Tbsp fresh grated ginger

1/2 bunch of cilantro

1 egg white

2 tsp cornstarch

2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce

2 tsp sherry

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp ground pepper

Broth

3 qts Chicken Stock

2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce

2 inch piece of ginger, cut in half

4 garlic cloves, smashed

Soup

wonton wrappers

1 egg white

1/4-1/2 lbs bok choy

1/4 lb shiitake mushrooms

Pulse the filling ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Set aside.

In a large pot, simmer all broth ingredients together for 10 mins. Turn to low & cover.

Lay wonton wrappers on the counter. Brush with egg white & drop 2 tsp of turkey filling in the center. Fold in half to form a triangle. Press the sides together to get rid of air bubbles, then seal tightly. Once all wrappers are made, strain the broth to remove the pieces of garlic and ginger. Bring the soup to a simmer over medium high heat. Add dumplings and boil for 12 minutes. Add the bok choy & mushrooms, continue to simmer for 3 minutes.

The Heat

As I packed my cameras into my bag, I wondered which one would see the "unfortunate death" on this trip. There was never a question of if, but which and when. I have lost a camera on just about every international trip...some were literally lost, one dropped 5 stories onto concrete, etc. I crossed my fingers and hoped it would be my point and shoot and not my dslr and as it turns out, my point and shoot has spontaneously combusted. Serious here. It went into my backpack one night, and then the next morning I grabbed it to shoot some video and the LCD screen was a big spiderweb of black lines and apparent goo oozing around inside. That's how hot it is here in Thailand people, camera's spontaneously combust. It is so hot that this little "falang" has a forehead that looks like a molting snake. I've never burned and peeled like this in my life...and I wouldn't trade this experience for the world.

I had hoped to post more while traveling as it seems a lot easier than posting it all when I get back. I love technology--to think that a blog can replace a journal to save your memories. But alas, with busted camera and slow internet speed, I'll have to wait until I get back to sort through photos and post about the trip. And truthfully, I'd rather spend time with family now. I feel almost greedy about this last week with them all. I've met great aunts and uncles, cousins and darlings. Here in this little village near Denchai, it seems everyone here is actually family. Introductions from everyone in this little town start with "He is brother of your grandmama" "She is darling of your mama's cousin" etc. I think the equivalent would be like living in a subdivision in which you are actually related to everyone within. You would ride your motorcycle down the street to buy breakfast from your uncle's darling, run down to your cousin's to pick up ice, and in the evening, various family would show up with contributions to sit with all for dinner.

I've loved everything about this trip so far, the family stories, the walks around, the sites and the weather isn't even all that bad if you take 3-4 showers a day, which everyone seems to do. The only dislike I've harbored on this entire trip are the damn roosters that wander the family property. They are truly and 100% of the devil. In those children's books, you are told they crow at dawn, and I always thought it was just once, kind of like a cuckoo clock. But really it's whenever they feel like it, dawn, 2:00am outside your window, 4:00 in the afternoon. Evil creatures.