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Chiang Mai, Thailand

Chiang Mai: The best vegan restaurants

Chiang Mai, the cool city in the north of Thailand, has become one of the most visited places in Thailand because of its chill and relaxed atmosphere where you can get tons of good food.  When you arrive to Chiang Mai, you won’t help but notice all the signs that points out to vegan and vegetarian restaurants. It’s one of the best cities to visit if you eat a plant based diet. Since I’m a vegetarian (going vegan), I made sure to try as many restaurants as possible. This proved to be more difficult than expected though since there are SO many of them. It’s hard to choose which plant based restaurants to go to, but after doing some research and asking around, I found a few cafés I can highly recommend.  Here are my favorite ones.

GoodSouls Kitchen

It is a bit more on the expensive side, but you won’t find better vegan burgers in Chiang Mai than here. The staff are all very welcoming and friendly, the atmosphere is cozy and it’s located in the old city, which is great if your hostel/hotel is there. If you have some space in your stomach for dessert, don’t miss out on their amazing vegan cakes.

Vegan Heaven

This 100% vegan restaurant is a really good bargaining since the food is both really tasty and inexpensive. One pad thai will cost you 90 baht and the rest of the meals aren’t more expensive than that. The restaurant isn’t as beautifully decorated as GoodSouls Kitchen, but it’s definitely worth a trip here if you want to go to a fully vegan café where you don’t have to break the bank.

Free Bird Café

Free Bird Café is more than just a restaurant, it’s also a social enterprise and all the profit goes to the Thai Freedom House that supports refugees from Burma and Thai Hill tribes, therefore the Burmese influenced food. There’s some Thai dishes as well but don’t forget to try the Burmese salads, they’re delicious. If you don’t have any breakfast plans, swing by here and grab some vegan pancakes.

Bodhi Tree Café

Want to eat hearty vegan food and do yoga? Then you must go to Bodhi Tree Café! They offer yoga classes everyday for 250 baht. Afterwards, have a vegan meal at their cute café. The prices here are inexpensive as well, just like Vegan Heaven, and one meal costs about 100 baht. Their menu consists mostly of Thai food. Take the opportunity to try some local food with a vegan twist to it. It quickly became one of my favorite places because the place felt so welcoming and the staff were really nice.

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Ho Chi Minh City

Finding the best cafés to work at in Ho Chi Minh

The biggest city of Vietnam might be slightly chaotic, but there’s plenty of cafés to go to if you want to escape the hustle and bustle of the city. If you’re a digital nomad, or just want to find a quiet place to sit down for a cup of coffee, you’ll quickly notice that the city is filled with cufe, bohemian cafés. When I was there, I found a handful of them and I was pleasantly surprised by them all. Here are the best cafés to work at in Ho Chi Minh City.

M2C Café

M2C is a quiet and calm café with good service and, perhaps most importantly, excellent WiFi. They open early every day at 7:30 so you can pop in here for breakfast if you’d like to. They also have an extensive lunch menu. The food here is Vietnamese so you can try out some new dishes. They also have a wide variety of coffee, juices and other interesting things such as coffee with grass jelly. The decor is very European as well and overall the atmosphere is cozy. You’ll want to stay here for a long time with your laptop.

The Workshop Coffee

Perhaps the most famous coffee spot for digital nomads, it’s centrally located and has a rustic decor. The place is large and full of young people who are sitting on their laptops or chatting away with friends. However, if you want to try Vietnamese coffee, this isn’t the place to go to. But if you’re interested in trying coffee from around the world (and some local brews), you’ll find plenty here. The staff will happily help you pick out your coffee as well. Besides coffee, they have food such as sandwiches, burgers, pasta and pastries, for everyone with a sweet tooth.

The Maker

Located in the popular ‘Café Apartment’ building in Ho Chi Minh, it’s one of the best cafés to work in. It can get quite busy during the day, but you just need a pair of headphones to drown out the noise. They offer everything from coffee to western food such as burgers. After you’ve checked out all the boutiques in the building, sit down here and enjoy a cup of cold iced tea.

The Loft

Just as ‘Café Apartment’, it’s located in a building filled with boutiques and cafés. But The Loft is perhaps the best coffee shop to work in due to its cool interior with tiled floors and marble tables. It’s a bit more expensive but definitely worth it since you’ll probably end up staying here for a couple of hours. Yes, everyone who’s a digital nomad is guilty of ordering a cup of coffee and staying at the café for hours. But Vietnam is a cheap country to travel in so even if you spoil yourself and get two(!) coffees, you still won’t break the bank.

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7 American towns named after food

The United States of America has 50 states in its mainland. The geography of each state are so big that there are some towns you haven’t even heard existed until now.

Foodies who love to travel to the USA will go crazy knowing that each town gets its namesake from the dish it’s known for.

Each of these seven towns are named after its staple food or ingredient. Let’s take a look at some of them:

Walnut Creek, California

Rancho Arroyo de Las Nueces y Bolbones was a Mexican land grant given to the state of California in 1834. The land on the western slope of Mount Diablo the small city of Walnut Creek, California.

It was named such because native species of walnut trees can be found there hence, the California walnut.

More than 99% of the walnuts in the country come from this part of California. These valleys supply two-thirds of the world’s walnut trade.

Bean Station, Tennessee

The state of Tennessee has Nashville for music and Memphis for basketball. Little do they kow that on the intersection of the Old Stage Road and the Great Wilderness Road lies a small city known for good bean dishes.

It wasn’t the dish that gave Bean Station its name however. The city was named after William Bean, a pioneer and associate of early American frontiersman and folk hero Daniel Boone.

It used to be a frontier outpost established in 1780. It became an important stopover for longhunters and travelers back then.

Hot Coffee, Mississippi

There really is wonder hiding in small places. Just like this town that grew up on the road from Natchez, Mississippi, to Mobile, Alabama.

Hot Coffee, Mississippi was a well-traveled route in the 1800s. Its name’s history traces back to 1870, when inn and store owner L.J. Davis  hung a coffee pot over his door advertising “the best hot coffee around.”

This famous coffee helped steel travelers regenerate after being on the road for days hence, leading to the community adopting its name today.

Bacon, Texas

Texas might be the king of food-named cities in America. There is Noodle, Ding Dong, Oatmeal, Salty, Sugar Land, and probably many more. One city however takes the gold as it is named after America’s most popular greasy food.

Bacon, Texas is located in Wichita Walls. It is close to the Texas-Oklahoma border. Bacon isn’t the only greasy delight the town has.

Locals residents look forward to the Texas Oklahoma Fair every September. It is the time of the year they get to feast on the town’s signature Polish sausage sandwiches. Corndogs there are also a foot long!

Some of the guiltiest culinary pleasures can be found in Bacon, Texas whenever there are state fairs.

Pie Town, New Mexico

This simple town in New Mexico serves the best apple pies in town. It probably is also why it got its name “Pie Town.”

Pie Town, New Mexico sits astride the Continental Divide in the remote west-central area of the state. It resembles a ghost town on its facade but it has a hidden sweet treasure. It also looks as if you are more likely to find horses there than cars as there are no stoplights.

The Pie Town Café serves the best New Mexican Apple Pie. Their pies are made with green chilies and piñon nuts.

It got its name though back in the 1920s. Hungry travelers stop by this town to buy supplies and snacks while enjoying.. you guessed it. PIES!

Popcorn, Indiana

The next time you go to a movie theatre, you will never stop thinking about the state of Indiana.

Popcorn, Indiana got its name from the company Popcorn, that grows heirloom-in-hormone kernels on GMO-free soil. It is a very small town with a population of only 42.

Story has it that the town was named after the nearby Popcorn Creek. The company claims however that they gave each other its name.

“Both. Popcorn gave its name to the town. The town, in turn, then gave its name to our brand of popcorn,” says the company’s website.

Two Egg, Florida

This little Florida town earned its name during the Great Depression. It was a recession which made unemployment and hunger serious issue back then.

Citizens relied on barter where they traded goods for supplies. The story of Two Egg, Florida’s name is that one day, two boys came into a local store to exchange two eggs for a cup of sugar.

The two did it so regularly that the people there started calling it a “two egg store.” A traveling salesmen would then spread its name to neighboring towns thus, earning its reputation.

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