Vegan Thailand

Trav­elling as a ve­g­an can be tricky at times, es­pe­cial­ly when deal­ing with lan­guage bar­ri­ers, cul­tu­r­al dif­fer­ences and un­known food in­gre­di­ents. To make things that lit­tle bit easi­er for glo­be­trott­ing ve­g­ans we are pleased to pre­sent a se­ries of trav­el guides cov­er­ing the ba­sics of gett­ing good food around the world, start­ing with this look at the land of smiles and ele­phants, Thai­land.

Ve­g­an Thai­land- How to say that you’re ve­g­an.
Luck­i­ly the Thai have a word for ve­g­an, more or less. “Jay” means strict veg­e­tarian, no meat, dairy or egg (though you may in­ad­ver­tent­ly de­ny your­self onion, gar­lic or beer when an­nounc­ing this). The word is writ­ten:

To say I eat ve­g­an food use the phrase ‘chan gin jay’ if you’re a fe­male or ‘pom gin jay’ if you’re a male. There is al­so a word for veg­e­tarian “mang sa wee rat” which can be use­ful in some ar­eas of the north where the term jay may not be recog­nised, which you can sup­ple­ment with ‘chan/pom mai gin kai/aa-haan tee tam jaak nom’ which means ‘I don’t eat eg­gs/dairy prod­ucts’. There is a use­ful pro­nun­ci­a­tion guide with au­dio here.

Places to eat
This guide will fo­cus on three of the most visit­ed ar­eas in Thai­land – Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket. We’ll look at some of the best veg­e­tarian res­tau­rants as well as things to do and traps to avoid, es­pe­cial­ly with re­gards to ac­tiv­i­ties that may in­volve the ex­ploi­ta­tion of an­i­mals.

Bangkok
The king­dom’s cap­i­tal has much to of­fer for the hun­gry ve­g­an, with many veg­gie res­tau­rants lo­cat­ed around the Khao San road area. One of the first places to head in Bangkok is Ethos (be­hind the Burg­er King at the Ta­nao Road end).

You can lounge in Ethos for hours on the com­fy floor cushions, sip­ping cof­fee and en­joy­ing the free wi fi. There is a wide se­lec­tion of dish­es from both east and west, rang­ing from ve­g­an lasagne and ‘meat’ ball spaghet­ti to Pad Thai and Tom Yum soup, for dessert the ve­g­an op­tion is cho­co­late cake with co­conut cream.

A few doors down on each side are a cou­ple of Mai Kaidee res­tau­rants, which are great for grab­bing a quick take away af­ter a meal at Ethos (where the at­mo­sphere is a lit­tle nicer). Some de­li­cious meals in­clude the pump­kin hom­mus, the pa­paya sal­ad, and deep fried sea­weed with chil­li man­go sauce. Mai Kaidee al­so of­fers dai­ly veg­e­tarian and ve­g­an cook­ing class­es.

We had heard great things about An­o­tai, but had al­so been warned that it would be hard to find. An­o­tai is lo­cat­ed at 976/17 Soi Ra­ma 9 Hos­pi­tal in the Huay Kwang dis­trict, about twen­ty min­utes or so by taxi from cen­tral Bangkok (in good traff­ic. In bad traff­ic bring a book!). The Hap­py Cow web­site has de­tailed in­for­ma­tion on how to get there.

The staff don’t speak much En­glish but menus are bilin­gual and with a bit of pom mai this and pom mai that we were able to work out what was ve­g­an eas­i­ly enough. We or­dered sev­er­al exquisite­ly pre­sent­ed en­trees, tem­peh tem­pu­ra with sweet and sour dip, nori wrapped to­fu with was­abi dip and the Spi­cy to­fu and ci­lan­tro dip. The menu al­so has an ex­ten­sive Italian sec­tion, fea­tur­ing dish­es like spaghet­ti with as­para­gus and mus­tard white wine sauce. The food was exquisite and defi­nite­ly worth the trip. If you want to tell the chef how much you loved the food, the phrase is ‘a roi’.

Th­ese are just a few of the many res­tau­rants serv­ing good ve­g­an food in the Thai cap­i­tal. Hap­py Cow con­tains an ex­ten­sive list of many more veg­e­tarian op­tions in and around Bangkok.

Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai in the north is re­al­ly the mec­ca of all things ve­g­an in Thai­land. You can walk al­most any­where you want to go and the few places you can’t are a short tuk tuk ride away. Ac­cord­ing to lo­cals there are over 100 veg­e­tarian res­tau­rants in Chiang Mai.

Our first stop was Taste from Heav­en, a spa­cious air con­di­tioned veg­e­tarian res­tau­rant where a por­tion of the pro­f­its go to sup­port Ele­phant Na­ture Park, a sanc­tuary for res­cued ele­phants (more on this be­low). Some high­lights were the Tom Yum served in co­conut, the Pump­kin cur­ry and the Crispy Morn­ing Glo­ry, there are al­so a num­ber of west­ern dish­es on the menu like the to­fu burg­er and fries, and sev­er­al spaghet­ti vari­a­tions.

Taste from Heav­en of­fer dai­ly cook­ing class­es in small groups of around four peo­ple, where you can choose any dish­es from the menu (even the non ve­g­an dish­es can be ve­g­anised). We signed up and de­spite be­ing the world’s worst cooks, spent sev­er­al hours un­der the tute­lage of pa­tient head chef Nan grind­ing our own cur­ry pastes, learn­ing about lo­cal in­gre­di­ents, dis­cov­er­ing how to open a co­conut with a machete, and plat­ing a table full of de­li­cious meals. At the end of it we were able to feast on our cre­a­tions and bag the rest for take­away.

Khun Churn, lo­cat­ed at Nim­man­hemin Soi 17, is the on­ly res­tau­rant men­tioned here that in­volves any trav­el, though it’s on­ly a ten minute tuk tuk trip. Set in a tran­quil out­doors court­yard, for around two or three Aus­tralian dol­lars you can reload your plate as many times as you like from the huge lunch buf­fet of fresh cur­ries, noo­dles, soups, sal­ads, desserts and drinks. If none of this sat­is­fies, you can al­so or­der from the menu which fea­tures North­ern Thai dish­es like the Khao Soi. The staff there didn’t speak much En­glish so it may take a bit of ef­fort to work out what’s ve­g­an and what’s not, but it’s defi­nite­ly worth the ef­fort (there is al­so a Khun Churn in Bangkok, which if it’s any­where as good as the Chiang Mai res­tau­rant, is well worth a vis­it).

Like many of the veg­e­tarian res­tau­rants in Chiang Mai, we stum­bled up­on Jui­cy4U at 5 Ratcha­man­ka Road by ac­ci­dent while walk­ing around town. The colour­ful cafe spe­cialis­es in smoothies and de­sign your own sand­wich­es (just tick off the in­gre­di­ents you want on a sheet of pa­per). Jui­cy4U al­so do a ‘full mon­ty’ break­fast with veg­gie sausage, to­ma­to, baked beans, mush­rooms and toast.

Free Bird Cafe is a non pro­f­it cafe that rais­es funds for Hill­tribe (many of the in­dige­nous Hill Tribes are not giv­en the same rights as the Thai peo­ple) and refugee fam­i­lies. We had tas­ty eg­g­plant and hom­mus sand­wich­es un­der um­brel­las in the out­door cob­bled path gar­den cafe. Ap­par­ent­ly they are now selling peace cheese, a ve­g­an pis­ta­chio based cheese. There is al­so a Chiang Mai Mai Kaidees which serves up the same de­li­cious fares as the Bangkok coun­ter­parts.

No re­view of ve­g­an food in Chiang Mai would be com­plete with­out men­tion­ing the Chiang Mai veg­e­tarian so­ci­e­ty. Lo­cat­ed just out­side the ci­ty walls at 42 Mahi­dol Road, the non pro­f­it din­ing hall pro­vides sim­ple fare like cur­ries and fried to­fu along with greens and rice or noo­dles. We were told the food would be ridicu­lous­ly cheap, even by Chiang Mai stan­dards, but we couldn’t tell for sure since both times we were there it was some­body’s birth­day and all the food was free, all they asked was that you do your dish­es on the way out.

Ele­phant Na­ture Park
If you’re in Chiang Mai a vis­it to Ele­phant Na­ture Park, an hours drive out of town, is es­sen­tial. Nes­tled in a lush green val­ley, Ele­phant Na­ture Park is a sanc­tuary for res­cued ele­phants from all over Thai­land. You can vis­it for a day or overnight, or vol­un­teer for a week or more. We stayed for a week and wished it was longer.

Many vis­i­tors to Thai­land go on ele­phant treks, un­aware of the great cru­el­ty in­volved be­hind the scenes. Ele­phants in the Thai trekk­ing in­dus­try are typ­i­cal­ly ‘bro­ken’ us­ing the prac­tice of phaa jaan, which in­volves chain­ing the young ele­phant so that they are un­able to move, and then lit­er­al­ly beat­ing and jab­bing them with nail end­ed spears over a pe­ri­od of days un­til their spir­it is com­plete­ly bro­ken. You can view video of this heart­break­ing prac­tice here. Any tourist who goes for an ‘ele­phant ride’ is un­know­ing­ly sup­port­ing the cont­in­u­a­tion of this an­i­mal abuse.

The res­cued ele­phants at the sanc­tuary have sur­vived work­ing in the trekk­ing in­dus­try, street beg­ging and il­le­gal log­ging. They have sur­vived hav­ing feet blown off by land­mines and eyes gouged out by an­gry ‘own­ers’ be­cause they were not work­ing hard enough. Now thanks to the Ele­phant Na­ture Park they are about to live out the rest of their lives in peace.

Vol­un­teer­ing at the sanc­tuary in­volves ac­tiv­i­ties as varied as bathing and feed­ing the ele­phants, har­vest­ing truck­loads of corn with machetes, and ba­si­cal­ly help­ing out with what­ev­er needs do­ing. Even if you don’t like ele­phants (joke! Who doesn’t like ele­phants?) it’s worth go­ing for the food alone. Each day a huge de­li­cious spread of North­ern Thai food and an as­sort­ment of hot chips, vege sausages, springs rolls and so forth is laid out. Un­for­tu­nate­ly there is some meat served but 90% of the food is ve­g­an, and all the non-ve­g­an foods were al­ways point­ed out to us by the kitchen.

Phuket
Com­pared to Chiang Mai, Phuket is a big is­land, rel­a­tive­ly ex­pen­sive to get around, and doesn’t of­fer that much for the ve­g­an. The one mas­sive ex­cep­tion is the an­nu­al Veg­e­tarian Fes­ti­val, which is the largest veg­e­tarian fes­ti­val in the world. For nine days each year it is cele­brat­ed around Thai­land, but in par­tic­u­lar on Phuket Is­land.

The fes­ti­val is rather bizarre, with the most notable fea­ture be­ing dai­ly pa­rades of devo­tees self mu­ti­lat­ing in in­ven­tive­ly grue­some ways to ‘in­voke the gods’, in­clud­ing hot coal walk­ing, tongue chop­ping and ex­treme face skew­er­ing. What any of this has to do with veg­e­tarian­ism we nev­er did work out, but it was fas­ci­nat­ing to watch nonethe­less.

Dur­ing the fes­ti­val street ven­dors serve up all ve­g­an food. You can walk down the street and safe­ly eat any­thing with­out con­cern. Al­though deep fried to­fu, deep fried mock meat or any­thing else it is pos­si­ble to deep fry, was the over­rid­ing theme – quick­ly turn­ing us in­to hu­man grease traps. The cer­e­monies cen­tre around Phuket Town but the whole is­land is in on the fes­tiv­i­ties, even the 7-Elevens were cov­ered in ‘jay’ signs, with jay food clear­ly la­belled.

Out­side of the fes­ti­val, there are a hand­ful of veg­e­tarian res­tau­rants on Phuket. Those we visit­ed were large­ly un­me­m­orable din­ing hall style Chi­nese mock meat cafes. Pa­tong is the most renowned beach area in Phuket, but you should pack a lunch as there are no veg­e­tarian res­tau­rants. And if see­ing sex tourists, lizards on leash­es and stall af­ter stall of fake Guc­ci bags (at least they’re prob­a­b­ly non leather) is not your thing, there are many other beach­es to vis­it.

Sev­er­al times we were ap­proached by peo­ple with gib­bons of­fer­ing to take our pho­to in exchange for mon­ey. This is al­ways a bad idea. Gib­bons are tak­en from the wild and ex­ploit­ed as tourist at­trac­tions, in or­der to get the ba­by gib­bon the poach­ers have to kill the par­ents (and of­ten the ba­bies are killed as they fall from the canopy). It is il­le­gal to have a gib­bon in cap­tiv­i­ty so if you see this hap­pen­ing please let the po­lice know.

There you have it, a be­gin­n­ers guide to Ve­g­an Thai­land. If you come across any out of date in­for­ma­tion, know of a great place we’ve missed, or have any use­ful tips, let us know in the com­ments. Sawatdee!