January 19, 2023
Voting with Your Dollar: Hotels, Cosmetics, and TV on My Listby Randi / August 23, 2019Living in London, we missed good Mexican food so much that we decided to take an epic trip to Mexico earlier this summer. Okay, we had other reasons too but the food, man, the food is incredible (and so easy for vegans)! So are the sights! And everything else! We had the best darn time making our way through the Yucatan and Mexico City. Today we’ll take a look at the first part of our trip: the Yucatan by way of Valladolid. In this section of our trip, before moving on to Merida, we saw the amazing ruins of Ek Balam and Chichen Itza, plus our favorite thing in Mexico (besides the food), the cenotes (natural sinkholes for swimming (“I call it my swimming hole”)).
Husbo and I had surprisingly never been to Mexico before this trip, surprisingly because we are from the USA and it seemed like everyone else we knew had at least been to Puerto Vallarta with their families or Cancun on spring break. Even drunk on a dare you make it to Cancun! Since we now live farther away, we had to make the most of this chance to see Mexico, a place I feel like it goes without saying is, like anywhere, in large part wonderful and nothing at all like Cheeto Mussolini would have you believe but a lot of things you hope go without saying nowadays do have to be said so alas I said it. We only had about 8 days, but we packed each day to the brim with activities, sights, and fun. And guacamole.
The first big decision, after the “We’re going to Mexico!” one, was deciding what we had time to properly see. It was hard to cross Tulum, the most popular Mexican beach right now for seemingly everyone on Instagram who loves green smoothies and yoga (hi), off the list, but it was more important for us to finally see the wondrous ancient ruins of the Yucatan than to lounge on the beach. We’re not really lounge-y people anyway, and we are definitely ‘climb around ancient ruins in 100 degree heat so you have something to complain about’ people. Well at least I am. You know I love complaining. So that meant four days in the Yucatan to see Chichen Itza, Uzmal, and other ruins we’d come to know and love along with our new best friend: the cenote. Then after a short flight, we’d spend four days in Mexico City, what the cool kids call CDMX, and seeing all those sights, eating all their food, and making lots of new dog friends! It’s a plan!
We flew into Cancun airport and immediately got the hell out of there. Well, not immediately – between baggage delays and the UNACCEPTABLE rental car delays (they kept taking Mexican customers who arrived well after us blahhh) it was two hours from landing till driving away – but after we were immediately greeted by guys with carts selling neon yardstick spring-break-resort-style drinks and dozens and dozens of resort representatives, we were like mmm bye. We are not rave-going people and even the Cancun airport is very much PARTAYYYY TIME! I mean I guess they know their main audience.
I’m really happy I brought a sandwich from Baltimore (where we were flying from) for the 3 hour-ish flight, because I didn’t see many options in the Cancun airport and we had a whole day of driving ahead of us. When we stopped to get gas, we did go a little nuts at the gas station convenience store buying more water (gotta drink that water!) fruit, chips (gotta eat that salt when you drink that water!), and my new favorite thing ever – lime & chili peanuts. Mexico does lime and/or chili everything better than anyone and it’s amazing.
The drive out of Quintana Roo and through the Yucatan was often lovely, shady with trees, with few other cars on the road until we got closer to the city of Valladolid. The city is the third largest in the state, with 45k+ residents at the time of the last census. I loved the vibe of Valladolid – relaxed, comfortable, and culturally old-fashioned in a nice way). At least that’s how it seemed to this tourist who was there one night and one night only and is about to say a whole bunch of things that, as usual, would probably make more knowledgeable folks and residents wince. And that, my dudes, brings us to the latest edition of:
Valladolid, named after the same named city in Spain (the capital when the Mexi version was founded, in 1543), was actually originally placed a bit aways from its current location, by a lagoon. That sounds lovely, sure, but the Spanish settlers soon realized stagnant water + heat = mosquitoes and humidity but yeah mostly mosquitoes and they were NOT having it (I mean I wouldn’t either) and they made authorities literally just move the entire city. I’ve never identified so hard with Spanish settlers.
Of course, settlers are bad and do bad things, so when the city moved, it displaced more Maya people and their buildings (they wanted those stones). The Mayan revolted, but, as always happens to the indigenous people, lost. Some bullshit. Almost 300 years later, the Mayan people revolted again, and after a noble was killed, the revolt grew and grew into legit battles and became a key location of Yucatan’s Caste War, when the native Maya all over the Yucatan revolted against the European descendants. The war lasted more than 50 years, ending due to occupation by the Mexican army. There were some reforms that addressed some of the problems, but tensions and violence persisted.
So, clearly, this is the perfect place to begin our lighthearted tourism! No, it is important to learn the history of any place you travel to, and we learned a great deal about the indigenous cultures throughout our trip, especially in Merida. Today, Valladolid is a charming and peaceful place that’s celebrated for its traditional architecture, lovely surroundings, dedication to craftsmanship, and its perfect location for accessing the big sites. It’s so special that it’s been named a Pueblo Magico of Mexico, or Magic City. Approved!
We arrived in the city late that first day after an afternoon of driving (and waiting for the car, yes I’m still mad) and checked in to the Hotel Meson del Marques, a charming (everything is charming here), sprawling, traditional hotel right off the main square of the town. Most importantly, it has a pool. When you go to Mexico in the summer, you need to make sure every place you stay has a pool. We spent almost zero time here, as we left early the next morning for our jam-packed day of sight-seeing (you’ll see; it’s like the fullest day ever), but we liked what time we did have.
After doing my #1 thing to do after a flight no matter how long it is (shower), we explored our one evening in this – say it with me – charming little city. The central square is definitely the highlight, full of locals, tourists, touts, food stalls, and general happy vibes.
we went in just to take this picture
we were on our way to dinner so I also prayed that our restaurant of choice was open
Our chosen restaurant for our only night in Valladolid was the wonderful Yerbabuena de Sisal, located in the trendy Sisal neighborhood near the above-shown convent and colorful Valladolid sign. Yerbabuena is the CUTEST DARN restaurant and is vegan-friendly. It’s not vegetarian, but they have plenty of exciting vegan offerings, delicious juices, and picture-worthy decor.
We were beyond excited for our first guacamole of the trip, and theirs did not disappoint. (I mean, I don’t think it’s possible to have less-than-stellar guacamole when in Mexico.) We were also delighted to find that Yerbabuena had the vegan-friendly Yucatan staple dip of sizil pak, a traditional Mayan pumpkin seed dip. SO GOOD!
Even though they didn’t have the vegan lasagna (they don’t have it till 8pm and we arrived at 7pm because we are not cool enough to eat at normal times in any Spanish-speaking locale, apparently), I was after Mexican food anyway (it’s literally why we came here) and I was thrilled to have tamales! I love tamales! These were great!
As you can see, it came with a side salad. Mexico, as you know if you’ve heard any lazy jokes from the past 50 years, is famous for giving tourists some tumtum troubs, and we knew to stay away from raw veg and unwashed produce in general. However, I had a feeling that if any restaurant were safe to trust, it was Yerbabuena. I’m happy to report I did not get sick! And I got to have a salad! My happiest day. (I wrote in my notes from this dinner: “I am eating the side salad make sure to note on the blog if I get sick or not!” I did not!) I get the tumtums super easily so I am confident in reporting that the salad here is safe for all.
We really pushed our luck on our first meal in Mexico, hilariously, because we also broke the other main rule about eating in this country: we had drinks with ice! They were amazing juices, one chaya (a spinach-like green we would have a lot this trip, loves it) with pineapple, and one tejate, a juice from the cocoa flower.
With its amazing food, including must-try traditional dishes like sizal pak and tamales and tejate and chaya and guacamole and really everything we had omg it was so delicious, plus safe-for-our-weak-stomachs salad AND ice, I wholeheartedly recommend dining at Yerbabuena when you visit Valladolid and the Yucatan.
After our yucatangfastic (omg sorry) dinner, we strolled through the city center again and saw what we would learn is a staple of nights all across the Yucatan: enormous dance parties in the street. But the fun adorable kind, full of older Mexicans dancing and playing music and having a jolly time while the nearby sidewalks are packed to the gills with people watching. It was so sweet.
On the way home, we also found incredible paletas, frozen fruit popsicles. I had my first and probably the best one ever. This was watermelon, and it was literally just perfect sweet frozen watermelon juice. Ugh so perfect, especially with the background of YA books in Spanish (I see you Bajo La Misma Estrella, trying to make me cry!).
It was a pretty great first night in the Yucatan, and our last relaxed segment of the entire trip. We had shit to do!!
After a decent night’s sleep and a very nice plate of fruit for breakfast, the next day we enjoyed the busiest and best day.
EK BALAM
Ek Balam is about a 30 minute drive from Valladolid. It often gets overlooked as tourists concentrate on the big kahuna, Chichen Itza, and the next biggest kahuna, Uxmal, but you must make room in your schedule for a visit to Ek Balam as well. It doesn’t require too much time – you could probably spend only an hour if you are pressed – but it is definitely a worthwhile starting point on your ruinous journey.
I’m like already tired
Ek Balam was the seat of a Mayan kingdom dating back to 1000 BCE, now a Yucatec-Mayan archaeological site. King Ukit Tan Lek Tok, who ruled during the height of this city’s power in 770 to about 800 AD, is buried in the Acropolis.
We got to Ek Balam early, and I suggest doing the same because you can climb all over (most of) the pyramids and structures here and you want to beat the heat and the crowds. It makes sense to see Ek Balam and Chichen Itza on the same day, so you may be thinking that it’s better to get to the big one early and have a better experience there. However, you can’t climb the structures at Chichen Itza anymore, so beating the heat for that reason is not applicable. Also, Chichen Itza is the biggest tourist attraction in this entire state – meaning, you will never beat the crowds. It’s always crowded. With Ek Balam, if you arrive early you might be one of only a handful there, so at least you will get one set of ruins almost to yourself! (Also, Chichen Itza is enormous in comparison, so the everpresent crowds, even in the afternoon, are never really a problem. You’ll see later!)
There are 45 structures at Ek Balam, but a lot of them are smaller and/or not permissible to climb so it seems smaller than it sounds, especially compared to the other sites. The big climbing challenge is the main structure, the Acropolis, and even if it wasn’t 100 degrees out it would be hard.
(Oh, side note: Yes I am talking about temperatures in Fahrenheit, obviously, because I am smart. Americans rightly get a lot of shit for their systems of measurement, and for the most part it’s deserved. Sure the metric system makes more sense than the random number of feet in a mile. But I will never stop arguing that Fahrenheit is such a better system for measuring weather temperatures than Celsius. Oh sure in Celsius your temps for the freezing and boiling of water are easy to remember (0 and 100) but that’s not the kind of information you’re after when discussing WEATHER. Fahrenheit has a wider number range for temperatures we actually use in average normal weather (below 0 to over 100F in a normal year in my city, versus what, -10 to 40C?? what is that nonsense), so you get more information from that number than you do in Celsius. It’s much more precise. I need everyone to stop lumping our use of Fahrenheit for weather into the ‘Americans can’t measure shit’ debate because the argument for Celsius when it comes to weather does not exist. This is the hill I will die on.)
Or maybe this is the hill I will die on – at least I was terrified I would:
Climbing up this monstrosity is a lot of fun (it’s fun to climb things!), but like all the giant pyramids and ruins we’d encounter on this trip, coming down is TERRIFYING. It’s so steep and the steps are so narrow and you are just going like straight down and omg it’s forking frightening. I went down a lot of these steps sitting down. It’s just safer. Omg I am so scared again looking at it. Fun story, so I climbed it, said yee haw, and made my way miraculously back down. But then I saw how cool the pictures we took of Z sitting on the steps looked, so I climbed back up and took some of those (like the one below) at different points on the stairs. Then I miraculously tempted fate and got safely down again and thanked the Mayan gods.
And this perspective lets you see how forkign steep this was, since you can’t even seen the steps I mean man
But THEN, when we were both on sacred ground again, we realized we forgot to take a selfie at the top, a thing we like to do when we climb things. So up again I went, for the third time, and down again I came, thinking that ‘third time’s the charm’ would mean something bad for me, but luckily I made it and please do not make me climb it again.
Aside from my terrors, it was a pretty great morning. Ek Balam costs 413 pesos (very typical for these sites) (about $20) and it’s cash only. As is the case with most tourist attractions in the Yucatan, there will be guys (yoots) hanging out in the parking lot who will offer to watch your car while you tour the site, for 20-30 pesos. Of course this is a scam, but you do it, okay? They really do watch your car and if you say no they will probably, um, not. So just suck it up and pay them, it’s fine.
CENOTES
After our climby climby morning at Ek Balam, we enjoyed my absolute favorite part of this trip: the cenotes. A cenote is a natural sinkhole formed from the collapse of bedrock, exposing groundwater underneath. The ancient Maya may have used these for sacrificial offerings but luckily I didn’t know that until after we swam in a bunch of them because ew and oh no. I got to enjoy these for what they were to me: beautiful natural swimming pools, one of my favorite things (pools in general; considering my favorite smell is the chlorine of indoor pools the ‘beautiful’ or ‘natural’ element isn’t required but it was definitely a perk here).
Our first stop was the Cenote X’keken, which I can’t even describe how I’m saying wrongly in my head let alone how to properly say it, I’m sorry. (Is it like schnecken?? now I want schnecken.) This cenote is well signed since it’s pretty popular. Going to Schnecken alone is 80 pesos, but a combined ticket with another cenote on the same grounds is 125. If you are short on cash, just the one is fine and you probably won’t swim in both anyway.
The cool/crazy thing about X’Keken is that it’s completely underground. The guards will point you through the grounds, past a semi-abandoned sort of circular mall with bathrooms and changing rooms and, luckily, one lady renting towels outside (we paid 30 pesos), and over to a hidden staircase leading underground into literally the bat cave. The cave is, indeed, filled with bats. It’s so freaking cool! The bats keep to themselves flitting around the roof of the cave so you don’t have to worry about them bothering you or anything.
As you can see it’s pretty big, and even with a crowd it doesn’t feel crowded. It was pretty awesome! Everyone just leaves their stuff along the sides of the rock, but of course leave whatever you can in your car.
After our little schnecken swim, we drove about an hour to my favorite place: the Yokdzonot Cenote. This location has my favorite cenote, as well as a great restaurant. And best of all, it’s also a women’s collective, run by the local women of the community. Entry only costs 80 pesos and it’s the most beautiful cenote ever.
We timed our day perfectly so we arrived at Yokzdonot (or as I say in my head without wanting to, yoka deez nuts (I am sorry)) for lunch. We learned about this place and their ability to make vegan food from a PPK friend (the best and og vegan forum, never to be surpassed never to be forgotten), and sure enough they brought me this very nice plate of steamed nopales (cactus), nicely flavored rice, refried black beans, cabbage slaw, and a whole plate of soft tortillas so I could wrap everything up in my own special messy way. We also of course got guacamole, which was great.
After we ate, we changed in the changing rooms + bathrooms that are right off the restaurant space, and then put everything we didn’t need back in the car, which was a little annoying to keep walking out to but so what who cares. And then we went swimming in the best cenote!
At first, I was annoyed at the rule that everyone who enters the cenote must wear a lifejacket, but honestly it ended up being good because I was pretty tired from the heat by this point and it was nice to just float and relax and enjoy the scenery without worrying about drowning. This was such a lovely experience, and luckily it wasn’t too crowded for most of our visit. Yokadeeznuts is not the kind of place that can accommodate big bus tour groups, fortunately, but more and more people seem to be discovering it. I’m so glad we had a relatively chill time here. I love this place so much.
After one of the most relaxing experiences in recent memory, we went back to the car, grabbed our clothes, went back to the restaurant, changed back into (gross, sorry) clothes, and girded our loins for the big forking thing.
CHICHEN ITZA
Chichen Itza was one of the largest Mayan cities, built in approximately 600 AD, actually not that long ago in the scheme of ancient ruins. A variety of architectural styles decorate the site, suggesting that the population here was more diverse than the rest of the Mayan world. A cenote on the site (not swimmable, sadly) was likely used for sacrificial purposes – as you learn pretty much everything in the ancient Mayan world was.
The famous pyramid, El Castillo, is also called the Temple of Kukulcan. Kukulcan was a Mayan feathered serpent god like the Aztec’s Quetzalcoatl, the inspiration for Wetzel’s Pretzels. You are no longer allowed to climb El Castillo, which, ya know, fine by me.
Like I said before, Chichen Itza is always crowded, so instead of futilely trying to beat the crowds or the heat, we decided to do the opposite on both counts and go late afternoon, so that we would finish exploring the site at its closing time. (Just under two hours was, surprisingly, more than enough time for us, and we usually take forever.) This sounds like the opposite of anyone’s advice for seeing any place, but honestly it was a great move! The site is ENORMOUS – so much more than the famous pyramid that we took 1000s of photos of – and goes on for miles. So, the crowd disperses fairly quickly and it doesn’t feel crowded at all. It’s especially spacious around El Castillo and the Great Ball Court (oh, we will learn about the games that happen in these ball courts in the Uxmal/Merida post, just you wait).
that’s a safe bet for anything you see in these sites
Entry to Chichen Itza is 480 pesos per person, and you have to pay in cash. I know you’ve seen information that says it accepts card, but they will tell you it’s cash only. And if you persist, they will tell you you can pay the main fee by card, but you still need to pay the 75 peso “federal fee” portion of the price in cash regardless, so it’s all annoying and just expect to pay cash everywhere even though the touts selling tees and tchotchkes inside the grounds have card payment capacity. At least there are toilets inside the grounds as well as in the entrance hall!
El Castillo and all of Chichen Itza was pretty incredible. I’m so glad I got to see it. I am so lucky and grateful that I got to see all of these spectacular places that I knew mythologically for so long, and I fully do not believe that all of this happened in one day. What a day! Once we closed down Chichen Itza, we got back in the car for the long drive to Merida, where our next adventure awaits.
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“The Essential Vegan Travel Guide” & Interview with the Author, The Vegan Word!
This is Caitlin! Caitlin says hi!
Hello everyone! Today we have a special post about the very helpful book “The Essential Vegan Travel Guide”, by Caitlin Galer-Unti of The Vegan Word. The book has been out for a little while but Caitlin and I are both very very important people so this is more of a reminder to buy the book rather than new news. Not only am I going to share my thoughts, which you love, but we have a super awesome interview with the super awesome author herself, CGU! Caitlin Galer University! I ask the tough, hard-hitting questions that we all wished Megyn Kelly had the balls to ask, so gird your loins. Just kidding I ask fun questions. Also buy it here!
A shot from CGU’s travels in Romania! Romania! She knows what she is doing. Photo cred: Caitlin Galer-Unti.
Before we get to the interview and find out about all the drama that went down during it (zero drama), let’s talk about this book. I haven’t been so happy reading a book that felt like it was written just for me since I read the backstage account of the “Wicked” run in San Francisco called Unnaturally Green. If you are vegan and if you ever traveled, you will connect with this book (the vegan travel one, not the Wicked one) in many ways. And if you are vegan and want to travel ever again, this book has some great tips to make it easier and better.
Right off the bat, the introduction will have fellow seasoned travelers quickly commiserating about the worst thing that happens when you’re traveling – finally getting to that restaurant you’ve been so excited to go to and finding it closed. Ew and oh no! Luckily, CGUniversity gives great advice for how to avoid such heartbreak. I appreciate how the book actually describes new-to-me research methods for finding vegan food in any location instead of just saying ‘use the internet, it’s all there.’ I know how important and how frustrating research can be for any purpose, so having new tips and tricks at my disposal is going to make such an important difference in this most important purpose of research, finding food.
Cake in Stockholm! I didn’t get any cake in Stockholm! What the hell! It’s because I didn’t have this book yet! Photo cred: Caitlin Galer-Unti
You’ll also be commiserating hard with her recap of a terrible American Airlines flight (is there any other kind) where not only did they forget her vegan meal, but they also LAUGHED at her. Guess what? American did the same thing to me! Well they didn’t laugh (CGU that is AWFUL) but they just didn’t believe me that cheese and eggs weren’t what vegan meant and tried to persuade me that I was the one mistaken. Moral, don’t fly American if you can help it. What a bunch of shittoboggans.
But most of the book is inspiring, and you will feel not only excited but ready to make your next trip a slam-dunk. Or you will be ready to slam-dunk it. How do basketball words work? I love loved how the book strongly suggests making friends with vegan and vegetarian locals. Honestly, I never do this and I really want to now. It’s clearly the best thing to do – these people will know where you can eat and where you can eat well, and they’ll know the best things to do in their town! Why haven’t I done this more? Why haven’t you? Another, very different, thing I never considered doing is making oatmeal in a coffee maker! Dude! That’s hilarious and also brill! I don’t even make coffee in a coffee maker (I don’t drink coffee) so I never really considered their usefulness to me. This is a game changer for places where your only other breakfast option is maybe a piece of bread with nothing on it, or, you know, if you love oatmeal, which everyone does.
CGU offers lots of tips like these and more, all while maintaining an optimistic tone. I cracked up several times at her blunt humor. For instance, when responding to the common refrain we all hear about how we will ‘insult the local culture’ if we don’t eat their traditional foods, Caitlin points out the very true, very persuasive fact that ‘even non-vegans might refuse to participate in [some local traditions] – like bullfighting, child marriage, or stoning gay people.’ Cracked. Up.
The only thing I wanted more of was how to deal with the non-food part of your travels, the activities in places where everything you can do seems non-vegan. I almost went on a trip like this, where the only things to do were like hunting and ice-fishing and bear-riding or something like that and decided not to go. But maybe I missed other things I could have done. But obviously that is not the intent of this book, which is a great help about the most important part of your travels – eating. Go buy it! Here’s a link! I get a kick-back!
But most of the book is inspiring, and you will feel not only excited but ready to make your next trip a slam-dunk. Or you will be ready to slam-dunk it. How do basketball words work? I love loved how the book strongly suggests making friends with vegan and vegetarian locals. Honestly, I never do this and I really want to now. It’s clearly the best thing to do – these people will know where you can eat and where you can eat well, and they’ll know the best things to do in their town! Why haven’t I done this more? Why haven’t you? Another, very different, thing I never considered doing is making oatmeal in a coffee maker! Dude! That’s hilarious and also brill! I don’t even make coffee in a coffee maker (I don’t drink coffee) so I never really considered their usefulness to me. This is a game changer for places where your only other breakfast option is maybe a piece of bread with nothing on it, or, you know, if you love oatmeal, which everyone does.
CGU offers lots of tips like these and more, all while maintaining an optimistic tone. I cracked up several times at her blunt humor. For instance, when responding to the common refrain we all hear about how we will ‘insult the local culture’ if we don’t eat their traditional foods, Caitlin points out the very true, very persuasive fact that ‘even non-vegans might refuse to participate in [some local traditions] – like bullfighting, child marriage, or stoning gay people.’ Cracked. Up.
The only thing I wanted more of was how to deal with the non-food part of your travels, the activities in places where everything you can do seems non-vegan. I almost went on a trip like this, where the only things to do were like hunting and ice-fishing and bear-riding or something like that and decided not to go. But maybe I missed other things I could have done. But obviously that is not the intent of this book, which is a great help about the most important part of your travels – eating. Go buy it! Here’s a link! I get a kick-back!
On to the interview!
TEN QUESTIONS FOR CAITLIN GALER-UNTI OF THE VEGAN WORD
Italics are my words, non-italics are CGU’s. I mean also try to look at what’s in the form of a question.
Italics are my words, non-italics are CGU’s. I mean also try to look at what’s in the form of a question.
1. First of all, I’m going to ask something that only I really will care about. In the book, you mentioned a boat hostel in Stockholm. About ten years ago, I stayed in a tugboat hostel in Stockholm! The Red Boat something? Did you stay here? Because that was awesome and I haven’t thought about it in ten years!!
CGU: That’s the hostel! Unfortunately I didn’t stay there though. It looks so cool though!
(thus ends the questions I asked for personal reasons.)
2. Everyone knows you are a baller of a vegan traveler, but did you travel a lot (or at all) before going vegan? If so, how do the experiences compare?
CGU: I’ve done more travelling since going vegan but I did travel quite a bit in my pre-vegan days. I’m a lifelong vegetarian so all my pre-vegan travel experiences were of vegetarian travel. I went all over the U.S. with my family as a child, mainly on road trips. I don’t know exactly but I think we visited between 40 and 45 states! I also went to Canada and 7 countries in Europe as a vegetarian, some of which I later visited as a vegan.
So, I’ve visited a few places as both a vegetarian and a vegan and can directly compare. And honestly, the main difference is I eat SO much better as a vegan traveller!
It does involve a bit more upfront planning – now instead of reading a guidebook, I find myself looking up vegetarian and vegan restaurants in advance of my trip and reading reviews. It means I never end up at just any old tourist trap – not that I ever set out to eat at tourist traps, but I definitely didn’t take very much care in choosing restaurants prior to going vegan, and would often just eat at the first place I saw. And sometimes the result was some pretty dissatisfying meals!
For example, I remember eating at several bistros in Paris in my pre-vegan days and being told the only vegetarian option they had was chips and a side salad. We actually ate pretty awful food the whole time we were in Paris. I’ve been back many times since then as a vegan and I’ve eaten so well! Although Paris has historically had a bad reputation for vegan food, it’s improved a lot in recent years and I’ve had some great food there, from vegan fondue at Gentle Gourmet to a burger at East Side and even an all-vegetarian bistro experience that was miles beyond my experience eating vegetarian at a non-vegetarian bistro.
Taken in Barcelona, where CGU now lives! Lucky! Photo cred: Caitlin Galer-Unti
3. The advice in this book will definitely help in avoiding such situations, but how do you cope in those rare times when everything goes wrong, you can’t find food, it’s pouring rain, you’re lost, you’re homesick, you’re actual sick — aka, the amalgamation of travel nightmares?
CGU: I had pretty much that in Beijing and I just allowed myself to feel really sorry for myself. I had a really bad flu, and coupled with the pollution had developed a hacking cough. It was raining and I couldn’t find a vegetarian restaurant which wasn’t where it said it would be on Happycow (this is why I suggest in the book that you always double check the address and even call in advance!), and I was nearly an hour’s walk from the nearest metro. I was hungry and angry and I just sat down on pavement and cried. I got all the frustration out with my tears and once I was done I actually felt a lot better, and was able to pick myself up and go back to the only vegetarian restaurant I’d been to previously and was able to locate easily. I got myself some takeaway and went back to my hostel to have an early night. Then I found a vegan on Meetup.com who arranged the vegan meetup in Beijing, sent her a message and she suggested a traditional tea I could pick up for my flu – within a couple of days I was feeling better!
4. You’ve recently moved to Barcelona! How cool is that? I went to Barcelona for a week in 2006 but haven’t been back since; I really can’t wait to return! Where did you live before and how did your traveling prowess help with the move?
CGU: Barcelona’s such a great city and it’s really improved for vegans in recent years! The first time I visited was in 2011 and there weren’t many vegan options but the vegan scene’s really exploded in the last few years and now a new veggie place seems to open every month.
I moved from the US to London in 2008 and lived there until moving to Barcelona last summer. While I was in London I had the chance to travel around Europe a lot so I got pretty used to finding vegan food all over.
5. How does Barcelona’s veganness nowadays compare with your hometown’s? What would be the first piece of advice to you give someone traveling to Barcelona?
CGU: Hahaha – my hometown is in the middle of the cornfields and fields of cows (in the summer when the wind blows the whole town smells of manure) in the Midwestern US so Barcelona is about a hundred times more vegan! Actually, I hear there’s a vegan restaurant in my hometown these days so it’s made some progress (just goes to show you veganism’s growing everywhere!!).
Barcelona’s really vegan-friendly today so my advice would be to start familiarising yourself with the vegan restaurants here! I’ve got a lost of the vegan dishes you absolutely must-eat in Barcelona and I’m actually working on a vegan guidebook to Barcelona right now (you can sign up for updates on the book plus get my list of Barcelona’s best-kept vegan secrets here). The vegetarian and vegan restaurants in Barcelona are pretty concentrated in the centre and the alternative neighbourhood of Gracia, so you’ll run into most of them just walking around, and if you’re seeing the main tourist sights you’ll never be too far from one! While there aren’t as many veggie places as in London I’d say they’re more concentrated here in Barcelona so you’re more likely to stumble across them. For example in my neighbourhood, Gracia, I live within 10 to 15 minutes’ walk of an all-vegan supermarket, vegan bakery, vegetarian bar, a vegan deli, plus a couple of vegetarian and vegan restaurants and countless small health food shops.
6. Part of being a good traveler is having respect for other lands and cultures, buuuuut, if you could change one aspect of a place you’ve been lately, what would it be?
CGU: Apart from making everyone vegan? 😉 I’d say I’d get rid of the ham here. Barcelona’s really good for vegetarian and vegan restaurants but I’d definitely get rid of all the jamon (Spanish ham) if I could. People eat way too much of it, they put it on absolutely everything, rendering otherwise vegan dishes non-vegan, and there are giant ham legs hanging from ceilings all over the city – so gross!
7. Do you prefer traveling alone, or does it depend on where you’re going?
CGU: It depends who I’m going with! Haha. I generally prefer travelling alone, because I feel like I see more. I get really distracted when I’m talking to someone and don’t really pay attention to my surroundings. Plus sometimes when you’re travelling with another person or a group, you end up in a little bubble and don’t interact with locals. However there are some places I haven’t been that I’ve heard are generally safer to visit with someone and I’ve saved those to travel to later….Now I just need to find someone I can travel with without wanting to kill them.
8. Do you collect souvenirs or something similarly tangible on your travels? When I was younger, I strongly eschewed souvenirs and claimed I was ‘collecting experiences’, but now I’ve started buying personal souvenirs to remember those experiences. My stance fully switched. Have you completely changed views on some aspect of your traveling?
CGU: I tend to spend most of my money on food so I never have any left over for souvenirs! However I do fairly frequently end up buying some item of clothing that I forgot at home, like a scarf or gloves, and I always enjoy looking at it later and remembering where I bought it.
I used to try to spend the absolute lowest amount of money on travel I could (like so many 20 year old backpackers!), which often meant taking a flight at some ridiculous hour of the morning. I always insisted that was absolutely fine and I’d never pay extra for a flight, but now I have completely changed my mind and I’d much rather pay extra to not have to get up in the middle of the night to catch a plane!
9. Name three people that you wish would buy your book, whether you know them or not. What do you hope they will gain from it?
CGU: Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, because they are my vegan heroes and their book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World made me go vegan. I’m sure that Isa and Terry are vegan travel pros though so they probably don’t need it!
And then this is cheating a bit because it’s not a specific person but I’d say anyone who is vegan but struggles with travelling. I’ve heard so many stories of people eating non-vegan stuff on their travels (like this) and it makes me super sad! I usually end up reaching out to them and offering them a free copy of my book – which is probably bad for my bottom line but I think it’s way more important to make sure that people are informed about finding vegan food on the road. (this is a cheater answer I really just wanted to know if you knew any celebrities just kidding really nice answer 😛 )
10. If an anonymous benefactor wanted to bankroll one month of travel for you, where would you go and what would you do? Is this a place you’ve already been?
CGU: Ooh! If an anonymous benefactor’s reading this (hi! 😉 ) I have this dream of doing a vegan Lenten tour of Eastern Orthodox countries. In the Eastern Orthodox church, devout followers eliminate meat, dairy and eggs (though sometimes not fish) for Lent and for other religious festivals during the year. I found out last year during a trip to Romania that these countries become incredibly vegan-friendly during this time. Most restaurants offer vegan Lent menus, even in really unexpected places like fast food restaurants. I’ve heard in Georgia Dunkin Donuts does vegan Lent doughnuts! So one of these days I’m going to plan a road trip through Eastern Orthodox countries during Lent so I can report back to everyone on vegan Lent delicacies. I’m just waiting on that anonymous benefactor… 🙂
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That’s all folks! Go buy “The Essential Vegan Travel Guide” and have better vegan travels!
Yangshuo, China: The Best Boat Ride, Pretty Landscape, and Adventures in the Town
After weeks of hustling around China on crappy trains, we made it to the ‘relaxation’ portion of our 5+ weeks in this country – four days in Yangshuo, on the Li River. The area is quiet, a make-your-own-adventure sort of place, with incredible natural beauty both on and away from the river. I prefer water beauty, so the boat ride from Guilin to Yangshuo down the Li was my absolute favorite (abfav) part, which is a slight shame considering it barely counts as the beginning of this section. It only gets worse from here! No it was all fiiine. We’ll get there. The journey takes about four hours, and despite the chaos of the boat station (it cannot be called a marina or a ship terminal; the typical Chinese chaos makes it a boat station), the boats themselves were sleek and nice – with the usual full-volume phone noises and screaming children (and adults), naturally.
Our hotel/teahouse (it’s hard to tell what’s a hotel or hostel here; nice places are like, teahouses) in Yangshuo booked our boat tickets for us and had a bus (full of other tourists and other pickups, naturally) pick us up at our Guilin teahouse (the Traveling With, loveyou4eva) and take us all to the overflowing boat station, where a nice lady gave us all our tickets. Thanks to the Tea Cozy, our Yangshuo digs, we had Second Floor tickets and not just measly First Floor. Supposedly that means a better view, quieter/well behaved crowd, and an overall better, ‘upper floor’ experience. I think it definitely is worth it for the views – that’s what this boat ride is about! – but I laugh at you if you think elevation helps crowds of Chinese people behave civilly. Yes this trip is making me intolerant! Make it stop!
We were seated in a comfy chair section of 6 (all the floors on all the boats look like this, pretty surprising) with two Chinese couples, one with a child who was, let’s just say, not well behaved, as per uzh. At this point in our trip, Z was ill. He will downplay it now, in hindsight, but it was quite flu-ish and awful, so he just wanted to sleep, but this kid sitting with us wouldn’t let that happen. Actually no one onboard would let that happen. We took turns going out to the deck for pictures and fresh air (haha no that’s where everyone smokes there’s no fresh air in this country) (I guess we just went out for sunburn then, and lots of it (I’ve never been so tan I hate it)). At one particularly nice stretch of scenery early on, I asked Z if he wanted to go take a look for pictures and he said “I might go out just to throw a Chinese kid overboard.” We learned soon after that the parents sitting with us had just returned from a year at Oxford…so…oops. Unclear if they heard it, but they definitely speak English. But hey, your kid’s obnoxious.
There were so many other screamy kids that soon it all balanced out with noise coming from all angles, so it was okay? Is that how it works here? I especially loved this little girl who was wearing a shirt covered with PICTURES OF KRYSTEN RITTER. WHAT??? Whoooo do the parents think it is? Is she big here? I mean I hear Jessica Jones is great and I quite enjoyed Don’t Trust the B**** in Apartment 23 but on a toddler’s t-shirt? In China?! Such random shit here.
probably the best thing I’ve seen in all of Asia
The boat ticket includes lunch, but of course this being a lawless, orderless land, there’s no way to get a specific sort of meal, like, say, vegetarian. Everyone gets the same tray, and that tray includes stuck-together rice (not sticky rice, that’s different, just poorly cooked rice), frozen peas and corn, a section of breaded crayfish I think, and a section of breaded chicken strips. Cool. Cool cool cool cool. At least I had peas and corn and rice. I hated wasting the other food and it was frustrating that they didn’t have the option of not wasting it in the first place. The bar downstairs sold chicken nuggets and watermelon in addition to the regular soft drinks and potato chips so I had watermelon. Isn’t that so interesting.
Aside from the overall minor noise and the food issues though, this boat was so amazing. As usual, the signage was great; I got a few of the goods. The second picture is blursula so check the captions.
this sign says ‘Fallinto the Water Carefully” I mean if you say so
I think I would love a cruise through scenery like this, I guess they do them down the Yangtze. But then again it might be like just a loooong wavy version of the train journeys so far so maybe not. Dammit other people ruining everything. Well they didn’t ruin this. It was too beautiful!
It really was incredibly sunny, as you can see from my trademarked Sun Face.
have you ever seen a forehead so SHINAYYYY like a treasure from a sunken pirate wreck scrub the deck and make it look SHINAYYY
pretties!
water buffalo!
I almost didn’t want the gorgeous ride to end, but I was excited to get to our boutique teahouse in the countryside of Yangshuo for four days of relaxation, swimming, hiking, biking, climbing, kayaking, whatever. Z chose the Tea Cozy Hotel, which had a very nice room with an amazing view from the balcony (which was too hot to go out on, but still, what a view).
apparently i just share pictures of toilets now on the reg
view of the balcony from the bed
view from the balcony
The biggest problem was the same problem that plagues all of China – despite many official ‘no smoking’ signs, the staff didn’t bat an eyelash at the many, many Chinese men (I don’t even think they were all guests, just like random taxi drivers and who knows who) who would smoke in the lobby and throughout the main floor, PLUS for a few nights our next door neighbors were smoking in the room, which is REALLY not allowed. Even the staff got the teensiest bit upset that someone was smoking in a room, but there was ‘no way of figuring out who it was’ apparently and while we had this conversation 4 different men were smoking near us in the lobby. FFS CHINA. (And yes, it was billed as a non-smoking hotel when we booked online.)
Another main drawback was that it didn’t have a pool, and like, the #1 activity in these parts is seriously ‘having a pool’. The staff had promised us months ago that we could use the pool at their sister property 1 kilometer away anytime we wanted, and that they’d take us there. That’s not the most convenient but hey it’s better than nothing! Of course, of course, this being wild west China, the pool at the resort had to be emptied the day we arrived for some reason, and this being a land of low-to-no technology, it took more than 3 days to fill it. So despite asking every day ‘can I please go swimming now?’, I was repeatedly told that, sorry, the pool only has a foot of water in it/two feet/three feet/red fish/blue fish. Only on our very last day was I able to go, and only because the sister property’s guests had apparently had enough and they were swimming even though the water STILL wasn’t up to the proper level! So the other staff told my staff ‘sure send her over there are people swimming anyway so who cares anymore.’ Thanks! It was a pretty nice pool, kind of cold and…I don’t think chlorinated? Also it wasn’t until I was leaving after my swimming time that someone decided oh right we should be constantly filling this pool to get it back up to normal and then stuck a hose in. I mean. Get your shit together.
pretty decent pool huh
This sister prop had really nice grounds (ours was just a single building) and apparently had a gym too, so I was a little disappointed at first that we didn’t choose this one, but like, I think I’d be even more pissed off if we chose the place that had a pool and paid for that amenity and then COULDN’T use the pool for three out of four days. If I were the guests there I’d be demanding money back.
So, our staff of apparent teenagers? felt bad? about how I couldn’t go swimming? and about the smoke? no I don’t think they did I think they just sensed my rage and didn’t want me to hulk out, so they gave us teacups as presents. Now, that’s a very nice gesture, don’t get me wrong, but you’ve heard about the state of our backpacks. We now have bubble-wrapped orbs sticking out of them, taking up valuable peanut butter space. I hate living out of a backpack.
We had all these high hopes for exploring the Yangshuo countryside, but Z’s illness got worse, or at least didn’t get better, which sucked for him, so one day we asked the staff if someone could drive us into town to a pharmacy we saw one night. They got a driver to take us TO A WITCH DOCTOR. We wanted to go to a regular (for China) pharmacy in the town where we could try to find recognizable stuff. Instead, we were driven to a dusty garage area where an old man stood at a dusty brown counter in front of a wall of hundreds of brown dusty bottles that an old woman sorted through for the small line of patients. It was, shall we say, not trustworthy. It was kind of frightening. But we couldn’t communicate what we actually wanted because the driver didn’t speak English, so we just went ahead with this freakshow. When it was our turn at the shack opening, we handed the witch doctor the list of symptoms that the hotel lady had written down for us. Then the old man and woman started sorting through no less than 18 different bottles of pills and sorting combinations of 18 pills into 7 different hastily folded little paper corners to hold them. Z was like ‘…this isn’t all for me, right? I have a bad cold maybe.’ But no, all those pills were for him. They communicated to take one combination of all 18 pills THREE TIMES A DAY. That is a LOT OF SHIT for what might just be a horrible cold and even for what could be the flu. TOO MUCH WITCH DOCTORING. Z was like…um…okay…sure…and then the witch doctor was like oh wait stop, and ALSO take two of these other pills that are in a regular foil pouch morning and night. We looked up the characters on the foil later and it was amoxicillin. Pretty sure he didn’t need that but whaaat. All of this medicine cost 18 yuan, or like, $2.75, so at least it wasn’t expensive to tempt fate like that.
Z did indeed take the pills a few times. I know! The next day, after 3 or 4 epic pill-swallowing sessions (SO F-ING MANY), he looked at me and was like WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING TAKING THIS I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS! I went into town and got him regular cough medicine (children’s, I think, best I could do).
Unfortunately, because of Z’s sickness, it hindered what we could do with these four days meant for exploring nature and being all outdoorsy and stuff. I mean, most importantly, poor Z was sick, yes that’s what I meant first. Further down the oh no list is how it affected my vacation of course. He just slept all day every day, pretty much. So I had that one day of swimming, I worked out a lot, we watched the one channel on the TV that had English movies (cut by ads at worse times than they do in the UK, which is quite a feat, like midsentence instead of the UK’s preferred right-as-a-sentence-ends-but-before-you-hear-the-enunciated-end-of-the-syllable-so-it’s-crazy-abrupt cuts), I went into the town by myself and had a shittonne of bubble tea, I went to a wacky expat’s wellness center for a yoga class (we’ll talk about that later). I should have done more myself, but a) I would have gotten so lost you can’t even believe, b) I probably would have gotten injured, knowing me, and then been injured AND lost, and c) it was a nice bed, so, we were lazy and it was nice. At least we still got to enjoy the incredible karst scenery from the nice bed. The karst scenery is the kind of limestone landscape that got eroded into cray cray bananapants shapes like caves and grassy hills and overall mountainous terrain that juts out of nowhere, so it seems, and surrounds the village with peaks that seem completely alien to what should be there, like they were dropped in from nowhere to make the area look like a foreign planet with huge peaks and valleys of green. It’s pretty awesome, and I guess I should have explored more by just like walking around it, but again, see above a, b, and c. The village our hotel was in was still the dusty dilapidated sort, and the town was only a slight improvement on that, so I think seeing the view from the balcony (from the bed) was probably the nicest way to enjoy the area. Or at least that’s the story I’m sticking to for my benefit.
Yangshuo town! Cute!
So about that yoga class…
There are two HappyCow places in Yangshuo town, a vegetarian Chinese restaurant we went to twice, called Lotus, and a Western hippie’s wellness center + cafe called Mood Food Energy Cafe, with juice, smoothies, salads, and other western health food like tahini sunflower burgers, plus massages, meditation, yoga and other classes. I was eager to try their yoga classes, and maybe get a massage or try the ‘tourmaline sauna’ that the owner had raved about when I visited the first day just to gather information. When I went back for yoga, my first of what I hoped would be daily classes, I went in assuming, because the owner was an English-speaking man and all the staff i’d seen so far were white, that it would be in English. Fair guess, right? Everyone was white! I was the first student to arrive so I made myself comfortable and stretched on a mat. It was a pretty nice studio. Then an older lady walked in. I pointed to the mat set up at the front of the room for the instructor and then pointed to her, asking ‘are you the instructor?’ She smiled and went over to that mat and lay down on her back and started doing scissor stretches with her legs and arms. So I copied her. For like five minutes. We just laid there kicking one leg up then the other just chilling and getting warmed up, I assumed. This is a lot of assuming that has happened by now. And then, three other people came in, plus a younger Chinese lady who said something to the older lady which I’m gonna guess is, “hey that’s my mat, I’m the instructor and that’s where I go”, and took her rightful place at the front. So I had spent five minutes following some random old lady’s old lady stretches because I thought she was the instructor, and she apparently thought I had said, ‘hey I got a mat out for you and put it at the front of the room, lady I don’t know and didn’t know was coming!’ So I was already deathly embarrassed before we even started.
There are two HappyCow places in Yangshuo town, a vegetarian Chinese restaurant we went to twice, called Lotus, and a Western hippie’s wellness center + cafe called Mood Food Energy Cafe, with juice, smoothies, salads, and other western health food like tahini sunflower burgers, plus massages, meditation, yoga and other classes. I was eager to try their yoga classes, and maybe get a massage or try the ‘tourmaline sauna’ that the owner had raved about when I visited the first day just to gather information. When I went back for yoga, my first of what I hoped would be daily classes, I went in assuming, because the owner was an English-speaking man and all the staff i’d seen so far were white, that it would be in English. Fair guess, right? Everyone was white! I was the first student to arrive so I made myself comfortable and stretched on a mat. It was a pretty nice studio. Then an older lady walked in. I pointed to the mat set up at the front of the room for the instructor and then pointed to her, asking ‘are you the instructor?’ She smiled and went over to that mat and lay down on her back and started doing scissor stretches with her legs and arms. So I copied her. For like five minutes. We just laid there kicking one leg up then the other just chilling and getting warmed up, I assumed. This is a lot of assuming that has happened by now. And then, three other people came in, plus a younger Chinese lady who said something to the older lady which I’m gonna guess is, “hey that’s my mat, I’m the instructor and that’s where I go”, and took her rightful place at the front. So I had spent five minutes following some random old lady’s old lady stretches because I thought she was the instructor, and she apparently thought I had said, ‘hey I got a mat out for you and put it at the front of the room, lady I don’t know and didn’t know was coming!’ So I was already deathly embarrassed before we even started.
And then it started, and it was in Chinese. The instructor spoke English and tried her best to repeat everything for me after she’d explained to the others, but there’s only so much time in a day so I’d hear like 3 minutes of Chinese explanation of a pose and its benefits or whatever, and then in English she’d simply say ‘reach your shoulders like this.’ So I didn’t get the maximum benefit, I imagine.
It would be fine, not knowing the language of instruction, if it were a yoga class like any I’d ever done before. And I’ve done yoga since I was like, 17. That’s a whole lot. But it wasn’t a flow or anything familiar, and she didn’t say the sanskrit names for poses. Because it wasn’t really a ‘doing poses’ kind of yoga! It was so herky jerky and random. Like, we did a few sun salutations to warm up, that was great and familiar. But after those two minutes, we all got belts, and she wrapped them around our shoulders and we reached overhead for like, 15 minutes. It hurt! I have extremely tight shoulders and upper back, which has only worsened this trip with the backpack, and she was not happy about that. So instead of being like every other yoga professional in the world and gently offering ways to improve or stretch in a certain way to safely expand on this movement, she hoisted the belt back and up so hard that she almost dislocated my shoulder, and I was screaming in pain and she kept pulling my arms up and up where they clearly would not and could not go, until I looked at her and said ‘stop!’ Like, are you kidding me? What kind of yoga is this! Is it just because you can’t sue for anything in China so they’re like screw safe practices?!
After we tore our shoulders apart, she had us wrap the belts around our thighs and do variations on chair pose for 20 minutes. I didn’t understand what kind of baby squat they were all doing until after she did her Chinese shpiel and then said to me, simply, ‘like chair pose.’ Thanks, finally! That was intense, obviously when held that long, and everyone was laughing through the pain but like, is this yoga? So strange. For this, since she kept wanting to pick on me for everything, she realized she hated my feet, like, a lot, and she tried to pull my big toes out to make them straight. I’ve told you before, I have bad bunions, so like, pulling my big toes to make them straight REQUIRES SURGERY, woman. After I realized what she was doing I was said ‘clearly they aren’t going to do what you want them to do, fake podiatrist!’ It was ridiculous! Was she trying to break bones to see if the center could heal them with crystals or something after? Or was she just an idiot? Needless to say, despite the great thigh DOMS I got later, I did not return as I had originally planned. What a shame! I was so excited for a real yoga class with other people after all these months of travel and then I find one with a crazy lady literally trying to break all my bones. If anything though, this kind of made me want to get certified as an instructor JUST SO I could balance out her awfulness in the instructor universe with my normal-yoga-doingness-that-doesn’t-lead-to-broken-bones.
After this super random class, I went downstairs and had dinner in the cafe. I was so excited for a big salad and other health food-y stuff, but honestly I have to say, while I liked the food okay, the service was abysmal. The friendly owner I had met days before wasn’t there, and it was full of all these women who were kind of glaring at me the whole time. There was an office-type room full of white women working on computers – I think getting massage training? according to some signs in the room? – and they just kept staring and giving me resting bitch face and I was like duuuuudeeeee what is wrong I changed my sweaty clothes what am I doing wrong? Despite how awkward it’s been for us as the only white people in a lot of these parts of China that we have trouble understanding and grasping, THIS was the most uncomfortable I’d felt in weeks – surrounded by other white women.
NOOCH SALAD!
I did get my big salad though, and guys, it was covered in nooch! Nooch! It’s been so long, I’d forgotten how much I loved it! Yay! It was a really good vegan health food store take on a Caesar, so, in fact, nothing at all like a Caesar, but just how I like it, a lot of lettuce and tofu and nooch. I also got salad rolls (so much salad!) that were fine, if needing a little more substance inside. I got that tahini-sunflower burger to go for Z plus a pita and hummus plate, which they wrapped up HILARIOUSLY with the hummus and other dips in those tiny tiny little plastic bags, like thumb-sized. Not enough hummus for your prices, guys! But clever packaging, I guess! The burger was decent (of course I ended up eating it the next day, Z’s first desired solid food in days was not going to be yoga center health concoctions) but the dips were weird. I wanted to try all the vegan desserts and smoothies and stuff but the service really was bad and honestly, despite seeming on the surface like a place tailor-made for me, I couldn’t get out of their fast enough. Kind of sad. But what an experience!
take out container pictures you love it
lolol it’s like they repurposed the tiny plastic bags that extra buttons on a Gap sweater come in and put hummus inside
A much better food experience awaited at Lotus Vegetarian, on the happening pedestrian West Street, near plenty of clubs and coffee bars and, a new fave, a place called Mango, where they specialize in mango smoothies of various sorts. I know! Amazing! We went to Lotus a few times and tried so much that was all pretty good, some great. They also bring you a dish of watermelon and a little set of peanuts, corn, and pickles right when you sit.
Above, we have my standard big ole plate of broccoli order, this time coming with black fungus (fun mushrooms) and noodles (because why not just throw noodles in everything); next is the Homestyle Tofu, which was very good; and then it’s the Guilin-style stir-fried bean noodles, tofu skin, and mixed vegetables. Loved this dish! It combines all my favorite things – vegetables, tofu skin, and beans in noodle form! Good stuff.
Above we have a huge plate of bok choy and mushrooms, most of which I put in our room fridge and had cold the next day, and then a really good black noodle dish with MORE bok choy (GIVE ME ANOTHER VEGETABLE MAYBE ONE DAY) and spicy tofu that was so spicy that I didn’t even realize at first that it was STINKY! It wasn’t TOO stinky so it was still good, but yeesh! China luuurves its stinky tofu!
Finally, we have this stupid hot (temperature! wasn’t spicy and also spicy is never stupid) fluffy tofu and vegetable claypot sort of jawn that was delicious, and probably my favorite dish from Lotus, the Kung Pao Chicken mockery. I tried to bring most of this on the train the day after ordering it; NB, bringing leftover Chinese food on a train is a bad idea. Eating all this stuff in a restaurant when it is cooked is a great idea though!
I only had one meal at the hotel, because the food was fine, but some of the staff members really put me off. Like they commented on how much food we ordered when it was literally like a salad, a tofu, and dumplings. That’s a normal amount of food for one hungry person, let alone two. Shut up. Anyway, the food was just okay. The tofu was really good but the dumplings were not. And guess what kind of salad it wassssss yes you know it.
that’s right
Dinner at the hotel was really only worth it because the other tables were occupied by a group of Italians, which led Z to make THE DAD JOKE TO BEAT THEM ALL: “What’s an Italian’s favorite Chinese food? CIAO MEIN.” oh my god it still hurts.
Lest you think Yangshuo town is all food fun and no drink fun, I must admit that my favorite part of this entire four day stay was my drinkage. I went to the aforementioned Mango a few times – there are outposts of various sizes on literally EVERY block – and got the regular mango smoothie (most others have milk) and a cup of plain mango. Each time, I tried a different bubble topping because as we know by now I am obsessed with the bubble tea bubbles. Mango has a CRAZY bubble/pearl menu. The first time I went, I didn’t realize that their offerings weren’t just the regular tapioca balls, and I was HORRIFIED when I bit into one and it was the juice-squirting kind. SO GROSS. I do not want a little thin-skinned ball full of fruit juice; I want chewy weirdness! Luckily my second attempt was a total win. For some reason I pointed to the pearl option that said sweet potato – I guess I was just super curious. Lo and behold, the little thin skin of the pearl ball gave way to an inside of cooked sweet potato! WHAT. Just tiny little droppings of cooked sweet potato inside the bubble ball pearl dot. Can you EVEN. Because I COULD NOT. I am so obsessed! WHO MAKES THESE.
Wonderful smoothie, GROSS BUBBLES
Good mango, AMAZING bubbles
But you know what’s coming. Obviously I saved the best for last. Right up the block from where our hotel’s shuttle (regular car and driver who I think only drove me around the whole week) picked up and dropped off was a GONG CHA! My favorite of the bubble tea chains! Now, I’m pretty sure that this is one of the fake, copyright-infringing imposter Gong Chas that Jojo warned me about, BUT, I think I actually liked it more than the real! I KNOW BUT HEAR ME OUT. What are my main requirements for good bubble tea? A menu with English translations that I can point to, with a section for adding bubbles, and a sugar level chart so I can get low-to-zero sugar. CHECK, CHECK, CHECK. And, unlike all the others, they actually listened and didn’t make my drinks diabetes in a cup like all the others. And what’s my favorite thing about bubble tea? THE BUBBLES. And this amazing imposter Gong Cha gave more bubbles than any other place! Like, to the point where I was STRUGGLING to catch them all after I’d finished the liquid. It was so great. I love that stupid fake shoppe.
One time we forgot to pay – we each thought the other had paid and the worker didn’t seem to notice – and we didn’t realize until we were at dinner later! Luckily we were still downtown, so we just went back after dinner and saw the guy and were like, we didn’t pay! And it wasn’t until we took money out of our wallets that it clicked for him and he was like ahhhhh you didn’t pay but I didn’t even realize you didn’t pay! Good thing too or we would be in a some scary Chinese jail. Where I doubt they give you bubble tea.
Given that the town had my favorite tea shop, a lot of mango smoothies, good vegetarian food, fun yoga adventures, and a decent overall vibe, I think I enjoyed my time there more than I did out at the remote teahouse – the complete opposite of what was supposed to happen. It’s just that Yangshuo is meant for nature-tourism, and aside from looking at the beautiful scenery, I didn’t actually do that. Maybe I squandered my time in the end, but I enjoyed myself in my own way. Also I slept a decent amount, which has been seriously lacking this summer so hooray! Despite its issues, we were able to relax at the Tea Cozy as intended and enjoy that view. So cool. Here’s one last piece of karst for you!
