My friend Inderjit Singh from Bangkok picked me up and we visited his farm.
The drive took two hours, it felt great to be leaving the smog and seeing greenery! The air felt amazing and I was filling my lungs.
We brought back many bananas!
Inderjit Singh on the right sitting next to his helper. The helper is a very lucky man, a while back a king cobra came into his bed. Luckily he heard the hissing got out, killed and ate the snake! Apparently the king cobra is the tastiest!
50 acres of farm, ready for harvesting
The bananas we brought back.
Once Inderjit Singh has built a few huts to sleep in, he will be looking for WWOOFers. So if you do not mind snakes…..this will be a great area to learn about organic farming.
On the way back to bangkok we stopped for a late lunch at
Chokchai steak house. They do vegetarian meals, the staff are knowledgable about soups containing chicken broth.
Chokchai Steakhouse was first established in 1971 when Khun Chokchai Bulakul built “Chokchai Building”, the tallest skyscraper in Thailand at that time (26 storeys), and opened Chokchai Steakhouse on the 23rd floor. The restaurant was styled in a classic Country & Western motif, offering spectacular skyline views of Bangkok. Soon after the opening, Chokchai Steakhouse became famous for its high quality steak, offering both imported and Farm Chokchai beef.
In 1985, Chokchai Steakhouse expanded its business in the form of a fast food restaurant at the food center of MBK Shopping Center, which remained a success until 1990, when the space leasing contract was up.
In 1986, Chokchai Steakhouse, the Pakchong branch was established in the front area of Farm Chokchai, Pakchong, Nakhon Ratchasima. The restaurant has been so well-received from customers that it has been expanded to serve up to 600 guests, compared to 150 guests at the beginning, and is now housed in a three-storey building with meeting space.
In 1991, Chokchai Steakhouse, Rangsit branch, was founded with the dream of creating a steak house with a Modern Country style blended with a cowboy edge: the distinctive look of Chokchai Steakhouse.
In 1995, Khun Choak Bulakul launched Chokchai Prime Steak House, Sukhumvit 23 branch, in a different style which offered a luxurious Modern Western ambiance that still epitomizes the legendary cowboy of Farm Chokchai.
After a VERY cold night we had breakfast at the ‘station’ a communal area which sleeps about 5 people has two settees a log fire, this is where we have breakfast, lunch and dinner (dinner is cooked by us on the weekends, Shaun provides all the required ingredients) wow reading this back it sounds amazing it was actually not my standard! Especially when we have a resident mouse!
There are other fellow WWOOF’ers here, Piet from Germany, Fei Fei from China, Evita from Argentina, Marlene from France. A great set of people who were so welcoming.
Piet
Loves his food!
Fei Fei
A Chinese girl who does not how to cook rice!
Marlene
You can just hear her mind churning away ready to ask another question
Evita
Gets rash when she starts gardening, also she wants to protect animals. Me: “so are you vegetarian” Evita “no I eat meat” me “!?!!’ (Puzzled)
For farming work we had to do some weeding!!! I hate weeding at home and I travel half way around the world to do weeding!!!
As it was our first day we had to do 5.5 hours, this is very tough work, i was amazed that Shaun has to do this as well as other very hard work seven days a week. Alongside us was Pia, Shaun’s ex girlfriend, she is very knowledgeable about organic farming also has an astrological approach to farming and seeding. About half way through our weeding it started to hailstone, in this part of the country you can get the four seasons in one day, wind, sun, snow and rain!
We stopped for lunch at 1pm for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (my new favourite) and cheese with lettuce (Sangeet picked the lettuce from the farm, so you could not get any fresher and very tasty lettuce!)
After lunch Sangeet and I did another 1.5 hours of weeding. Afterwards we went to Balclutha a town about 30 minutes away, as Sangeet was cooking for everybody in the evening, we wanted to stock up on a couple of items. I also saw a laundrette there perfect for drying our clothes which I did later in the evening.
Before I went to the shops. I started the log fire, when we got back I saw Piet had done some improvements, good old German engineering! The fire was giving great warmth to the station.
In the evening we had another WWOOFer called Ruth from Germany. She together with Marlene helped Sangeet cook the dinner, we had lentil curry and potato, cauliflower curry. Everybody enjoyed the meal very much. Whatever is left is taken care of by Piet!
Ruth putting her nursing skills into use
After the fantastic dinner we all sat in the station chatting, every so often somebody would put another log in the fire…..the heat in the station was nice and very cosy. When we went back to our caravan it was freezing, it was tempting sleeping in the station with the mouse. On the way back to the caravan we noticed the sky, with so many stars it was a beautiful sight, unfortunately we could not stay out too long because of the extreme cold.
After a comfortable night at the hostel we had a wander into the city centre. The city looks very similar to a Scottish city like Edinburgh and Dunedin is the gaelic word for Edinburgh! We sat in the central ‘Octagon’ area and used the free wifi offered by the city. Afterwards, we made our way to the library where you can use the computers for 30 minutes (free), you go to the second floor register your name and they give you a PIN number to sign in with. It seems like the South Island is better connected to the Internet and at faster speeds then the north island.
Afterwards, we walked around a few shops with Nolan as Sangeet needed some pumps. After buying some pumps, we found a ‘vegan’ restaurant called:
Circadian Rhythm Cafe
72 St Andrew Street
Dunedin
T: 03 474 9994
They do a NZ$10 buffet which consists of lentils, potato curry, curried chick peas and boiled rice, it is not a bad deal. If buffet does not take your fancy you can buy a ready made meal from the counter. Please note although the restaurant says vegan in its name they use cows milk, and one item had egg, so please do ask before buying. Also they have a very good selection of gluten free items. Nolan and I chose the buffet and Sangeet had the lentil cottage pie with roasted vegetables.
After a filling lunch the three of us went our separate ways, Sangeet had a walk down to the old train station which is very impressive (we drove past it later), I went back to the library to use the Internet and Nolan went to the art gallery.
Train station:
Library:
We met back in the Octagon just outside the town hall at 3:30pm, from there we walked back to the car and headed to the Otago peninsula. The drive was amazing overlooking the water. Sangeet and Nolan wanted to see the yellow eyed penguins so we headed to the sandfly overlook.
The drive to Clinton, where we are going to do our first WWOOFing, is 1.5 hour. We drove up the dirt track and arrived at an amazing house with very smart gardens and lots of sheep. I thought wow this will be fun, the owner said the house you want is back on your left. We had driven too far! At first sight the house was not so amazing. Shaun who is our host is a great guy, the accommodation for the WWOOFer’s was not at all what we were expecting. We are staying in a VERY basic caravan, you can feel the cold, hear trains passing in the night and see stains on the blankets. We are supposed to be here for 10 days!!! I really do not think I can last three! As a host they provide all the food and accommodation in return for you working on their farm, in the evening we went to Shaun’s house for dinner. He asked us to take our shoes off before entering, then when we went in there was a dog and cats wandering about all over the place. I do not like animals in the house, especially not the kitchen! There we met four other WWOOF’ers from Germany, France, Argentina and China, all very friendly and talkative.
For dinner we had lasagne which was fantastic apart from the handful of chillies Shaun likes to add to foods! He made Sangeet gluten free pasta.
We headed back to our accommodation which is about 50 yards from the main house, showers and toilets! It was VERY cold we put on extra layers of clothing but could still feel the intense cold, we could tell it would be one chilly night! Sangeet made the caravan as cosy as possible and as we lied awake shivering wondering what what else was sharing our bed, we could not stop laughing as we thought about how crazy the whole situation was!!!
Hi, thanks for visiting my blog, feel free and have a look around.Here is a bit about me, as you may or may not have guessed my name is Mandeep,I work to travel as opposed to work to pay bills and die!Every trip for me is an adventure, I have been very fortunate to stumble across amazing places and meet awesome people along the way.
Why gaygoat? When I first started this blog I was a vegetarian, so gaygoat – happy goat! Also you have to admit it is catchy and a URL you will not forget!
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