I must be sick… I want bland!

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We are now in Thailand. We had planned to mooch round the Thousand Islands in Laos but I have a stinking cold with shovel loads of green snot oozing out of my snout. I am breathing hebbily through my mouth and I say hebbily because that is how I talk at the moment. And every 10 minutes I have to blow hard or choke on the filthy stuff. I am knackered, a mass of aches and surrounded by sticky crumpled tissues containing gruesome monstrosities. Today something came out that was grey and I swear it had tentacles. I can feel a void in my skull where it used to be.

Here’s what the survival doctor has to say on thick green mucas. This is a useful site for info when help is not on the way. Their tagline not mine!

Any how Savanakhet, (see above), for all its crumbling charm is no place for a sick lady so we have crossed the Mekong, left Laos behind and are now enjoying the delights of Mukhadan, Thailand. Rather we are enjoying the delights of the blandest of hotel rooms. The hotel is on the outskirts of town overlooking the shopping center. It is a 15 minute walk from the bus station and about as far as I could manage. It is like a superior travel lodge. Its lovely, new, clean, has air-con the biggest softest bed ever and a great shower. I cannot deal with anything ethnic, authentic or backpacker at the moment. Also, due to its completely soulless location, it is very cheap. My plan is to lie here for a couple of days and see what happens to the snot flow. Will give you detailed updates…

We were sorry to miss the Thousand Islands but it was 5 hours there 5 hours back and the weather was on the turn…. maybe not such bad luck. And we heard there were nice things to do here in Mukhadan. And even if we don’t find anything we have been on the go since Kazakhstan, freezing in Mongolia, jostled in China and sweating in Laos – slowing things down might be a good thing.

And there is always the shopping center. It is ages since we have been anywhere that shiny. Really crossing the river has meant stepping back into the bright lights of the capitalist world. For sure China has modern shops, KFCs even, but they are always surrounded by a hive a teeny retail outlets and temporary stalls selling fried pigs heads and pickled snakes. Plus a million people pushing past you, snatching at the snacks and spitting in the doorway. Laos as far as I can tell doesn’t have any shopping centers or American fast food outlets. Certainly not the places we were. Mongolia? Ha! Ditto Kazakhstan. And, despite all these countries ditching the more inconvenient aspects of communism, (like the restrictions on unbridled personal wealth for a limited few), an ascetic, socialist aura still lingers like a disapproving aunt who won’t join in but won’t go home either.

Don’t get me wrong, I love those countries and personally I think the aunt has a lot to offer. I hope the old besom sticks around…. but not when I am ill. When I am ill I want bland and the capitalist shopping center certainly provides that. It is big, modern, quiet and peaceful. Everyday we visit the Big C supermarket. Most stuff is plastic packed so we don’t buy. Rather we wander round marveling like a couple of hicks from the sticks! Grubby hicks at that. We are extremely travel stained and need to get our clothes washed.

On that note I will go get a shower

Later Gators

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2015 Plastic free July Mongolia

by Posted in 3.2 Outside the U.K., 3.5 Plastic Free People, Projects & Campaigns, 6 archive Tagged , , 2 Comments

…..is hard. Here’s an update. So far we are totally about 4o items that contain some plastic and 4 plastic wrappers each.

It has been pouring down here (with a light dusting of snow – sigh!), so we have been sitting in a lot of cafes in an effort to keep warm and sometimes try to log on to what they advertise as wifi but is in fact an exercise in optimism. Something I am rapidly running out of.

When we sit we have to buy a drink. Here they serve milk tea. A confusing name because it contains no tea at all. It is a dash of milk a lot of hot water, a dollop of grease (butter?) and enough salt to make your lips twist. It tastes…..another sigh! I’ve tried, I really have - but I don’t like hot milk at the best of times. And these are most definitely not the best of times!

So we have been drinking a lot of plastic related beverages. Never a beverage from a plastic bottle! I’ll never sink that low but glass bottles with plastic lined lids, plastic lined cans and the occasional tea bag (which of course contains plastic). You can find out more about these sneaky plastics here.

This adds up to around 2 items a day each.

When we have access to hot water we are making our own tea with loose leaves we bought in China.

For water we are using our Steripen to sterilize tap water.

But we have been trekking and camping in yurts so have had to buy some of our food. Outside of Ulan Batur the choice is poor. There are markets but they sell mostly pre packed processed food – plastic packed sweets, plastic wrapped processed sausages, instant noodles and packet soup. The only fresh food is weird buttery cheesy stuff that looks like grimy wax and tastes mildly yet unpleasantly of rancid butter. There are a few shriveled fruit and veg that are extremely expensive and meat. And lots and lots of meat. All around sheep are being skinned or carved up into bloody chunks. Furry feet are discarded on the floor, and once a sheep head staring up from the park bench where it had been absently left.

But we have had to eat something while huddled in our yurt and so we have bought 3 plastic wrapped loaves of bread and 3 packets of biscuits. Rather then leave them out in the national park rubbish bins I burnt the wrappers on the fire. There were simple polythene and so (it is claimed) safe to burn.

Back in Ulan Batur and our hotel gave us a sandwich for breakfast. It was included in the price and made as we thought in house. Today they served it in a plastic box. I ate it anyway. And I bought another packet of real coffee. Plastic packed of course.

Litter

With all this plastic packaging hardly surprising then that there is quite a lot of plastic trash. Everyday we litter picked in the national park collecting huge amounts of bottles.

Waste disposal methods in the city also leave a lot to be desired. Plastic bags are dumped in the street to to be collected by truck at some point. Stray animals scrabble through it looking for food. Then bin men go through the garbage first looking for cans. Inevitably some plastic rubbish escapes in the process.

Check out our FB album for updated photos.

Posted by Planet trash on Sunday, 19 July 2015

CAMFORR Keep It Real Keep It Clean

So for Plastic Free July I am begging everyone to join in campaigning for real rubbish. You can read about it here.

Keep Our Glass

And asking folks to sign the petition asking Dairy crest to keep their refillable glass milk bottles.

In the pack

Rummage in our plastic free backpack here

Travel Notes

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Back on the road - new places new rules. Getting online is tricky. I can only access Facebook or Twitter sporadically. Managing the blog is patchy and connections are very ssssssllllllloooooooowwwwwwww. Sorry if I don’t back to you as soon as I would like. But there will be all kinds of interesting posts on how to avoid cracked heels when travelling plastic free, is it wrong to wear pyjamas out and trialing the new Steripen.

Why Plastic Free Travel?

So why travel plastic-free? It’s not always easy, you have to carry a years supply of sun block and home made tooth powder looks just like drugs making border crossing stressful. You can find out why do we do it and our top plastic free travel tips here.

Plastic Free Places

Need to know where to buy bio bags in Helsinki? Want to know where to refill your water bottle in Jaipur? You might find the answer here. These are posts about our plastic-free travels. They go back a number of years so some of this info may now be out of date
but it’s a start, right? Outside the U.K.

Travel Blog

Where the pack are we. Read Our Travel Blog to find out where we are and what we are up to. Tag Travel Blog

Organic Textile Company

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Being edited

I did buy from this store. They too had a good range of fabric and they state that ” All our fabrics are good quality inexpensive organic, cotton fairly traded.
” Though they don’t actually have a fair-trade certificate you can see that they are commuted to the cause. There are some nice personal details about the people they work with. I know who made my fabric,

They also supply ready made products like aprons and tea towels for craft projects.

Know what you are sewing

The fabric descriptions are not so clear. There is nothing on the dies used. They make some suggestions for what to make but do not put in the fabric weight. If you are new to sewing it might be a good idea to use their sample service. I copied the following from their website.

For 50p/£1 you can choose your own - buy separately, denims, cord, velvet,etc You can buy all current woven organic cotton and bamboo samples for £20 around 200 samples. Jersey samples are extra, order set 4.

If you are in the UK and would like 2 small free samples …..
It would help us greatly if you send an SAE (self adressed stamped envelope) saying what you would like and we’ll be happy to send them to you.

I was too rushed to use this and just ordered what I thought would suit. The fabric was lovely and the service prompt. Reviews to follow.

Packaging NOT PLASTIC FREE

Sadly the packaging was plastic.

Due to the nature of what we send through the post it is not suitable for us to use paper packaging. We do reuse packaging that is from parcels that have been sent to us and we would be able to send out fabric using recycled packaging if it was requested by a customer.