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Lanna food: the flavours of northern Thailand
I thought I was already familiar with Thai food. You know, green curry, pad thai and all those kinds of delicious things. Then I actually travelled to Thailand and found that I was so wrong. Yes, there’s plenty of green curry and pad thai in Thailand. But there’s so much more. I spent the vast majority of my time in Thailand in the north of the country and it’s there that I discovered the joys of Lanna food. This is the regional cuisine of northern Thailand, named after the ancient Lan Na kingdom. It’s hearty food with bold, punchy flavours and is one reason why I’m pretty much always counting…
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Monk chat and the pursuit of happiness in Chiang Mai
“I’m not religious but if I were, I would be Buddhist”. If I had a pound for every time I heard someone saying this then…well…let’s just say it would be one way to fund my travels! I do get where people are coming from though. Buddhism enjoys a rare position of privilege among world religions; a belief system that seems to be both inoffensive and, in some ways, desirable to a lot of people. For me, however, the interest in Buddhism comes less from a “spiritual” perspective and more from one that relates to my health. As someone who is so often immersed in a fug of depression and…
