@lewisjfclarke, Having born in a moderate Hindu family, I have been a vegetarian my whole life. I have been Vegan on & off whimsically as I felt like it.
My grandparents did not even allow eggs to be brought inside their home. They provided a separate vessel to boil eggs or prepare chicken (again strictly no beef or pork or red meat) if someone (the later generation) in family desired to eat it, but it had to be cooked outside the home in the garage or shed. We have been born and brought up that way and we never felt the need or urge to eat meat. Strange as it might seem, I ate beef only once in my 53 years of existence and that too just out of curiosity. But we haven't felt the need of protiens that meat provide us as we had never been exposed to it. Of course we have lived normal healthy life all these while with very little sickness or physical weakness.
I am saying all this to say, it is perfectly normal and very much possible to stay vegetarian or Vegan for any period of time that you choose to and continue to stay healthy. For us in India, it is our natural dietary habit (we are Hindu Brahmins community to be specific)
I wholly understand that It is indeed challenging to you, considering your regular dietary habits and I hope you come out stronger and very positive at the end of your month long Vegan sojourn.
I was in India about 7 years ago for 6 weeks, and during that time I was mostly vegetarian. Not to prove a point, but because in the tourist areas meat was so poorly stored that it was highly likely that you would get sick after eating meat. The only time I ate meat (They may have been another time, but I don't remember) was when me and my mate went to a Pizza Hut and gorged on everything. To be honest I didn't miss meat at all.
Thanks for your comment, it was very informative and helpful. I'm hoping this month will become very positive like you say. To be honest the only problem I see is having to go out of my way to find places that serve vegan food. There are many places in Thailand that don't differentiate vegetarian and vegan, so I have to be on the ball and make sure what I'm eating is in fact vegan. Other than that, it should be quite a fun challenge, and could be a part of my everyday life if it goes really well :-)