Europe | Food and Drink

There’s a lot more we have to write about Europe as yet, but as we move on, I’m already missing some of the really interesting food and drink we had while we were there…so without any further ado, here’s my list of things I’ll probably be searching for in the USA! *in no particular order

Chin8

Chin8, or Chinotto as it’s pronounced, is an Italian soda that has apparently been around since the 1950s. It’s flavored with a particular kind of orange, namely, the myrtle-leafed orange, which interestingly really isn’t an orange at all but a distinctly different citrus fruit. It’s a bitter enough drink that I think it’s a bit of an acquired taste–kind of a bitter cola flavor–but in the end, I just kept getting it. I think it works well as a digestif.

Gingerino

Gingerino is similar to Chin8 in being a pretty bitter soda, but it’s an attractive red color and comes in a cute little bottle, which is good for people like me who are like magpies. It’s local to the Veneto region we were near when we were in northern Italy, and gets its flavor from a mix of sugar, spices, and herbs–it would probably make a good mixer for cocktails, I imagine, with its color and similarity to some bitter liqueurs.

Aperol Spritz

Such as the Aperol in an aperol spritz! Aperol’s been around since 1919, though it interestingly didn’t become popular until after the second World War. It’s similar to the maybe more well-known Campari in flavor, but it’s got a lower alcohol content. When mixed with sparkling white wine, it makes for a very pretty orange-red, very easy to drink cocktail that will still knock you for a loop regardless of the lower alcohol content. It’s perfect for happy hour! Or, aperitif hour, or, appy hour, if you will!

Cedrata

Cedrata is a lovely chartreuse soda that’s flavored with citron, a.k.a. that giant lemon-like fruit that you don’t really eat. It’s really refreshing and not-too-sweet, but also not-too-tart and not-too-sour; it’s a Goldilocks of lemony sodas. And, it comes in a classy unlabeled bottle!

On to Scotland…Dandelion and Burdock Soda

a very windy Dandelion and Burdock

Dandelion and burdock soda is a dark drink that doesn’t taste anything at all like dandelion greens, which, in the end, I think is best for everyone involved. It may or may not taste like a burdock. I honestly have no idea what a burdock is; it may be an animal or mineral for all I know!

Oh! It’s a plant. It’s kind of like a thistle, or maybe a burr sort of thing. The more you know. Anyway, a new Scottish friend described it as “the gentleman’s Dr. Pepper,” and that’s pretty apt. It’s in the realm of root beer or sarsaparilla, but a lot more like bubblegum. While also being like those things. Look for a Fentiman’s to make sure you try it with natural and original flavorings!

Elderflower Soda

Elderflower soda, like elderflower liqueur, has the most delightful, joyful scent to it, and unlike some things, that scent actually carries through into the flavor. It’s a sweet but-not-fruity flavor–it’s pretty unique and definitely one of my favorite flavors. I think it just makes people happy!

Tunnock’s Teacakes

Tunnock’s Teacakes were introduced to us by our lovely friend Amy and her roommate Jess. It’s apparently a Scottish institution, which is pretty impressive for a marshmallow on a very thin biscuit coated in chocolate. It was also the centerpiece of the opening ceremony of a previous Commonwealth Games, in an apparently utterly hilarious way, which I simply could not do justice trying to describe as they did to us. It’s a nice little treat, though!

Irn Bru

Irn Bru, or “Scotland’s other national drink,” is not, as we very quickly learned, pronounced like it looks like, ie, “rrrrn broo.” It is rather a funny sort of abbreviation of “iron brew,” which had to be changed because “brew” would indicate that it was a beer sort of drink, which just wouldn’t do. It’s a fun, radioactive sort of orange, and tasted like orange-cream soda when we first tried it in a restaurant, but then bubble-gum when we tried it in a can (so, in other words, get it on draft in a restaurant). It’s also known for some pretty funny advertising campaigns, eg, “It’s not a drink from those crazy Yanks, because it’s made right here you know it’s tougher than tanks!”:

Haggis

Haggis is like…well I was going to say it’s like mujadara, but the latter doesn’t have heart, liver, and lungs in it. Either way, both are peasant sort of foods, for the salt of the earth, and both are–to me, anyway–solidly good, but not something I’d go out of my way to eat. I enjoy both of them, both have good, savory, spiced flavors and similar minced combination of things textures, but it’s not mind-blowing. It does usually come with the amusingly named neeps and tatties, or, rutabaga and potatoes, which is fun. And Bonnie enjoyed trying the vegetarian version, which actually seems just as common as the traditional meat one.

Mars Bars

Okay, yes, these are in the States as well. And, though we didn’t try the fried Mars Bar that Scotland is famous for, we did try regular Mars Bars, and they were noticeably different than ones we’ve had in the past. Amy actually informed us that it’s because the chocolate in the UK is made differently than say, Australia or the USA, and doesn’t use anti-melting compounds. And it’s consequently more delicious! Points to the UK!

Reflections on India and a Summary

Considering how long it’s taken to write this post, you might have guessed that India was…let’s say…challenging. I had wanted to visit India for as long as I can remember, and I know that Frank had similar feelings, but it was definitely by far the most difficult place we’ve traveled. To be honest, I think we were both slightly traumatized from the experience. And this was after expecting the worst–it’s just so different to actually experience it. Rather than complaining, though, I want to try to concentrate on some of the more practical and positive details.

We started in Kolkata, mostly to visit the Dakshineswar Kali Temple, which was a good introduction, but also quite a different experience than the rest of our trip. From there, we traveled to Delhi to meet up with our parents. It was great to see them, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend spending as much time in Delhi as we did. After a couple days just the 5 of us, including a rickshaw food tour of Old Delhi, we were able to join our parents’ tour for a couple days in which we visited many sites including the Jama Masjid, Red Fort and the Gandhi Museum and Memorial.

After we said goodbye to our parents, we took a day trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. This was definitely our favorite spot that we visited. Rather than rushing around and trying to see all the sites in that area, we decided to just spend our 3-4 hours entirely at the Taj Mahal, and we were so glad we did. The building (and surrounding buildings) are incredibly beautiful, and the grounds compare. It’s large enough that we were able to find some seclusion away from the crowds (but it is also great for people watching), and I think it was the first time we’d experienced actual quiet since we’d arrived in India. For those who’ve never been, Indian drivers use horns constantly. I actually think if someone played that prank where the brake is connected to the horn, you’d hear it less than you do now. Hearing the horns incessantly, you just never feel completely calm or relaxed.

Our next stop was Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram) where we’d signed up to take an Ayurveda course on cooking and nutrition. After meeting very few other travelers in India, we were excited to meet the other students. Little did we know that we were the only ones in the class. Once we realized that, we were excited to at least get to know the students in the yoga teacher training program. Unfortunately, only one of the 7 days did our lunch break line up with theirs. We thought we’d get to know them better, but it almost felt like the staff were purposefully keeping us separate…oh well.

Many of the Ayurveda courses you can find online are geared toward tourists and not necessarily authentic. I think we did manage to find an authentic course, for better or worse… This was a real, local Ayurveda center that was definitely not geared for tourists. Our teacher even left sometimes in the middle of our theory session (in which she basically just read from the book) to consult with patients, leaving us waiting sometimes up to 10 minutes. Our favorite part for sure was the practical session every afternoon in which our teacher and 2 assistants demonstrated the various food items and explained how they helped the body and for which body types. We loved learning to make and getting to try lots of different South Indian foods that we probably won’t see in the US (most Indian food in the US is from the North). We learned all sorts of soups, rice dishes, curries, dosas, snacks, desserts, drinks, etc. that we’re definitely going to make for our friends and family when we get back to the US.

While we were staying in Trivandrum, we did our best to see the local sites, but it seems to be a city that’s much better for living than for visiting. The best trip we took was to Kovalam Beach, about a 30 minute bus ride and seemingly a world away. We, having dressed modestly, were by far in the minority. I think it’s the first time we’d seen that much skin in public in quite a long time. Anyway, it’s a beautiful beach and made for a really nice afternoon visit.

After a week in Trivandrum, we took the train to Kochi. It was an ok experience, but again, even though there were some other travelers around, it’s just not set up for meeting people very easily. We wandered around a lot, visited some of the historic sites and went to the beach that would have been beautiful if not for the trash everywhere.

All in all, I just don’t think the overall culture or the structure of the cities was our favorite among the places we’ve visited. We both wanted so badly to like it there, and maybe if we’d spent more time in smaller places, we would have had a different experience, but even then, I’m really not sure how different our experience would have been. This trip gave us a good preview and next time we’ll find some more out of the way places to visit.

My Survey of Vegetarian Khao Soi in Chiang Mai

I am someone who’s always loved Thai food, and I can’t even count the number of Thai restaurants I’ve been to in the US. As much as I’ve loved the food in Thailand, strangely, it’s often not necessarily better than what I’ve had at home–that’s not an insult to local Thai cuisine, but rather, a compliment to the Thai cuisine in the US. Thai restaurants I’ve been to in the US always have an assortment of soups, noodle dishes, curries, stir fries, salads, etc., but the one thing I don’t ever remember seeing is khao soi. After being in Chiang Mai for quite some time and getting to try a variety of options, this dish has become one of my absolute favorites.

Khao soi is a Northern specialty soup that consists of a yellow coconut curry broth, flat egg noodles and a variety of garnishes (any mix of fried noodles, shallots, cilantro, green onion, lime, fresh chili and pickled vegetables). The meat version is usually served with meatballs, and the vegetarian versions can have anything from meat substitutes to tofu and all sorts of vegetables.

For some quick further background, Chiang Mai is a vegetarian’s paradise. To give you an idea, I’m pretty sure I could eat at a different dedicated vegetarian restaurant for every meal for weeks and still not try them all. That’s why I’m not doing a survey of vegetarian restaurants in general; it’s just far too overwhelming. So instead, I decided to try as many different vegetarian versions of khao soi as I could during our time there. Some I tried after deciding to write this blog post, and some I tried before that, so I didn’t get photos or detailed information about all of them. Anyway, here goes!

These are listed in no particular order, and prices are approximate because I didn’t always remember to write them down. (30 baht = $1)

Morning Glory

34 Prapokklao Rd. (Near Chiang Mai Gate)

The first thing I noticed about this dish was that it seemed somewhat small, and there was very little broth. The broth itself was pretty spicy but not super flavorful otherwise. The crispy noodles on top were quite good, obviously house-made. Not my favorite but still good. (60 baht)

Bamboo Bee

177 Ratchaphakhinai Rd. (North side of the Old City)

This one was piled high with fresh-looking garnishes (cilantro, green onion and fried shallots), so I knew I was going to like it. It had a generous amount of broth which wasn’t spicy but was very flavorful. The broth was actually almost over seasoned, as if they’d used a bit too much curry paste, but was still very delicious. This one included some fake meat and broth but no vegetables. One of my favorites. (90 baht)

Bird’s Nest Cafe

Sinharat Lane Soi 3 (near northwest corner of the Old City)

Luckily, I actually ordered this one by accident the first time because it’s not listed as khao soi on the menu. This was probably one of the largest portions I sampled and also one of the creamiest. It had a light, delicious flavor and some vegetables. Garnishes were shallot, cilantro and lime. Another favorite. This one was also particularly special because it was shared with several friends, a great accompaniment for tying on friendship bracelets! (85 baht)

Free Bird Cafe

116 Maneenoparat Rd. (just outside the Old City, to the northeast)

This one definitely took the cake for the greatest quantity of garnishes, which included red pepper, pickled vegetables, purple onion, cilantro, lime, cilantro and house fried noodles. I would actually venture to say that this was more a bowl of garnishes with a few noodles, broth, potatoes and carrots at the bottom. It was actually almost hard to eat because of all the garnishes. The thin creamy broth had a kick and was very flavorful. (90 baht)

Free Bird Cafe supports Thai Freedom House, a non-government, not-for-profit, language and arts community learning center in Northern Thailand dedicated to assisting families and individuals who are refugees from Burma and members of minority groups of Thailand.

Aum

319 Moon Mueang Rd. (near Tha Phae Gate)

Aum’s khao soi has been voted the best in Chiang Mai. Frank said it was his favorite, and I liked it a lot as well. The broth was very flavorful and slightly sweet with medium creaminess. It included baked tofu, potatoes and mushrooms. The top was garnished with green onion and coconut cream. Garnishes served on the side were lime, shallot and pickled vegetables. (70 baht)

Angel’s Secrets

27 5, Moon Muang Rd. Soi 9 (east side of the Old City)

I tasted this one before I started the research for this blog post, so I don’t have any detailed information about it. It included vegetables in addition to the typical ingredients, and it was delicious.

Blue Diamond

35/1 Moon Muang Road, Soi 9 (northeast corner of the Old City)

Many people rave about Blue Diamond’s vegan baked goods and nice patio atmosphere, but most say that the food is just ok. I would mostly agree with that. The khao soi was decent but not super memorable, but it did include lots of vegetables and tofu. The broth was somewhat thin but had a decent flavor, especially after I asked for a lime wedge.

K’s Kitchen

3/1 Ratchaphuek (across from Kad Suan Kaew Mall)

I’m grateful that a friend recommended this place because it’s quite hidden and I never would have found it otherwise. Their vegetarian version of khao soi is the pumpkin khao soi. It had a relatively thin broth which was somehow also nicely creamy. It has a complex, slightly spicy, slightly sweet flavor. Vegetables included were carrots, green beans and pumpkin. Red chili, green onion and cilantro garnished the top, and served on the side were pickled vegetables, shallot and lime. My only complaint was that it was a slightly small portion, but I guess at that price, you can order 2! Another favorite. (55 baht)

Kanlaya

27/2 Mun Mueang Road, Soi 9 (northeast corner of the Old City)

I tried this one all the way back in August and almost forgot to include it. Unfortunately, I don’t remember anything specific about it, but I remember enjoying it. I’m pretty sure it was the first one I ever had, so it must’ve been good for me to want to try so many!

Maya Food Court, Vegetarian Food Stand

Thanon Charoen Mueang (northwest corner of Huay Kaew and Nimmanhaemin Roads)

B1 level of Maya Mall, near the glass elevator

This one was probably the most authentic, which meant that it was less creamy than others but also more savory and spicy. It was a large portion that included mushrooms, several kinds of fake meat and was garnished with celery leaves. (40 baht)

I decided to include this one last, not because it was necessarily my favorite (it was very tasty though), but because of the relationship I had with the cook, Mile (pronounced more like Mai). Frank and I visited this vegetarian stand at the Maya food court almost daily for lunch for quite a while, and we developed a relationship with the family who runs it. The mother, son and daughter who run the place are always cheerful with genuine smiles on their faces. Mile always called me “Bonnieeee!” and she called Frank “Bonnie husband.” Seriously, we loved them. After the brother’s wedding one weekend, they gave us a special cake they’d saved for us from the wedding. It’s supposed to bring good luck to couples who eat it together.

Anyway, if you go to Chiang Mai and you’re a vegetarian (or you like vegetarian food), you have to visit them; they’re very popular. They have probably 20 delicious dishes available every day, all vegan, and you can add a fried egg on top if you want. These include vegetarian versions of many northern Thai specialties, such as lemongrass-y sausage and a chili tomato dish that’s just delicious. Everything tastes fresh, and if it’s not hot enough for your taste, they’ll pop it in the microwave for you. Rice and one item costs 30 baht, and each additional item costs 10 baht more. And just remember, 30 baht equals $1–it’s really impressive.

Being a Survey of Fruit and Other Flora of Note in Southeast Asia and Oceania

Passion Fruit

Purple-y mauve spheres with blushes of scarlet. Surprisingly lightweight – may induce an urge to juggle. Light, subtle fragrance. Slice open down the middle to effectively create two bowls of yellow-gold goop and delicately crunchy seeds. They’re still good even if outwardly wrinkled a little!

• Pros: the burst of aroma that is released when they are cut is downright scent-ambrosia; tangy and fun to eat their weird insides
• Cons: sometimes too tangy, or too goopy, or on the other side of the spectrum, almost-hollow and empty duds

*if you’re really, really lucky, you might also get to try supremely sweet yellow and pink passion fruit straight from the tree in your amazing Thai host’s garden

Starfruit

Light, flourescent green/yellow. American football-shaped, with five ridges that form a five-pointed star if the fruit is cut into slices by width, which is the best and really the only not-getting-juice-all-over-your-face way to eat them. Also the prettiest way to cut them.

• Pros: decoratively exciting, light and refreshing flavor, very juicy
• Cons: can taste excessively green if unripe; occasionally overly astringent, does not make a very good tasting juice

Mango

Green or yellow (or both), lopsided egg or kidney shape, thin skin, big pit that can be sliced around with special technique, flavor in yellow-orange flesh.

• Pros: pleasantly soft texture, great in fruit salad, sweet floral flavor, great with lassi and sticky rice
• Cons: can be stringy (which can lead to the worst smoothie ever), surprisingly not particularly great in Thailand or even cheap to buy the whole fruit

Snake Fruit

Vibrantly brown teardrop shape, bristly with hairs poking out between reptile-like scales, often sold in bunches, grey-white lobes of stiff flesh inside

• Pros: bizarre appearance is kind of fun
• Cons: kind of smells and tastes like ammonia that went bad, bristles are hella pokey

Rose Apple

Like a red apple and a pear and a delicate ballerina baby, surprisingly lightweight, subtle and delicate scent, very crisp and light flesh

• Pros: light and refreshing in texture, pretty to look at and cut
• Cons: tastes goofy…just…not a great taste; it’s wacky

Papaya

Big and heavy, yellow-orange when closer to ripe, can be sliced lengthwise to reveal a yoni-like shape, black spherical seeds and goop need to be scooped out, when unripe can be shredded for use in a delicious salad called som tam

• Pros: soft texture and darker flavor are great for fruit salad; versatile in use when green, which makes for a fantastic, spicy salad, great for “cleansing,” so eat them it the morning
• Cons: can be musky, slightly foot odor-y; avoid the som tam with the black, fermented crabs in it at all costs!

Dragonfruit

Looks like a particularly fabulous dragon had a baby with a cactus fruit, bright pink skin with yellow and green highlights and “scales,” ovoid, easy to peel skin surrounds a uniform ball of flesh that is white or magenta with thousands of miniscule black seeds, very light and subtle malty flavor

• Pros: fantastic for breakfast in being light and refreshing, gorgeous whether cut into slices or peeled, really pops with the addition of lemon zest, subtle yet delicious flavor, satisfying texture
• Cons: can be flavorless on occasion, but texture is still nice; the magenta variant can be gummy, and is much bettter in Malaysia than Thailand

 

Ambarella

Small, green, slightly flattened egg shape; hard flesh, often found littering the ground beneath trees, tastes like leaves…green leaves

• Pros: supposedly healthy, most often used in juice, which at least tastes healthy if not great
• Cons: ….tastes like leaves…green leaves

Custard Banana

A short, fat banana, often sold in fanned arc bunches, rarely has Siamese twin bananas contained within a single peel

• Pros: custardy, addictive flavor and texture, ripen nicely and last long
• Cons: it’s very challenging not to eat the entire bunch all in one go

[kad_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSUVXAsQe4I” ]

Micro Banana

Come in similar fan arc bunches to custard bananas, but are tiny and more slender, almost bite-size

• Pros: make for a nice little snack, strong banana flavor
• Cons: don’t ripen nicely or last too long, have to eat a lot of them to feel ike they register on a having-eaten-a-banana scale

Long Beans

Basically green beans that seem to be the length of the endlessly long Red Vines you used to get at minigolf places as a kid

• Pros: that’s a whole lot of bean in a conveniently connected and one-dimensional package, you get green beans without the need to cut off all the ends
• Cons: it’s kind of tempting to whip things with them (maybe a pro?)

Durian

Gigantic, irregularly shaped spiky, smelly green things that look like they would kill someone if they fell from a tree, pale yellow flesh that looks like someone was liposuctioned and smells like onions, body odor, and worse

• Pros: people might think you’re more macho for eating it?
• Cons: everyone around you will be wrinkling their noses and slightly gagging as you eat it; also, you’ll more than likely reflexively spit it out in a projectile fashion

Jackfruit (and Cempedak)

Vaguely cousin-ish to durian, but with much less aggressive spikiness, and to quote a friend, “feels like you’re doing an autopsy on an alien when you cut it open” due to glossy, slimy lobes of yellow flesh

• Pros: can be made into really interesting fake meat products for vegetarians
• Cons: when fresh, tastes like bubblegum that went very bad

Custard Apple

Green, bumpy approximation of a soursop, with similar sweet-creamy flavor and white flesh, easy to pull apart with hands and share with friends while dripping juice everywhere

• Pros: tastes like a sweet milkshake version of a fruit, easy to eat
• Cons: sticky, delicious juice, everywhere

Sugar Apple

The evil doppleganger of the custard apple! Beware!

• Pros: may make you feel a bittersweet melancholy for the fruit you thought it was
• Cons: hard to cut or peel, lots of annoying seeds, gritty and grainy and irritating skin and flesh, easy to accidentally eat some of the skin, which is super bitter

Butterfly Pea Flowers

Beautifully indigo flowers with a hint of white/yellow in their center; resemble their genus name in shape, or a Georgia O’Keefe painting, if you will; served and used dried, but often seen growing in gardens and alleys

• Pros: can be used to dye food (especially rice), and makes gorgeously blue tea, or bright green if added to green tea, dark purple if combined with hibiscus, and bright purple with lemon juice
• Cons: it does need a little sugar or other flavor, as it’s more aesthetic than flavorful

Bael Fruit

Not…actually sure what the actual fruit looks like; sold in orange-ish, dried, circular slices with holes that might have held seeds

• Pros: makes for a tea that tastes like iced-tea with lemon, supposedly very healthy
• Cons: kind of looks like a disconcerting sea creature in your mug

Longan

Small, tan spheres commonly sold in bunches, still attached to their twigs. Hard shell can be cracked to reveal a small, lychee-like fruit (ie, a slimy translucent eyeball with a pit in the center)

• Pros: very cheap, possibly better dried than fresh, good for throwing at people
• Cons: often end up being well past ripe, and thus too soft and gooey and off in taste

Longsat

Look very much like longans unless closely inspected, and are often mislabeled as such; longsat, however, have a subtle teardrop shape and smell slightly more acrid – inside their skin, they resemble a translucent garlic bulb complete with “cloves”

• Pros: sweet, floral and heady flavor that is very hard describe; it’s fun to peel apart the cloves
• Cons: you might have accidentally bought longans; also, if you don’t get all the skin off, it’s super bitter

Rambutan

Crimson hairy balls with yellow-green highlights – they seriously look like alien eggs or larvae or who knows what; more like a lychee inside than longans

• Pros: while similar inside to longans and lychee, not as slimy as either; really weird and fun to eat
• Cons: sometimes a bit of the pit sticks to the flesh, no big deal but some people don’t like it

Mangosteen

Cutely bulbous crimson-purple fruit with an adorable stumpy little stem; press the bottom to pop open the uniquely cake-like skin and reveal pillow-y white lobes with the occasional black, shiny seed

• Pros: easy to eat once you know the trick, ambrosia flavor that is addictive, and yet light and refreshing
• Cons: pretty hard to eat if you don’t know the trick, only available for a very short season

Cooking where no one cooks – Part 2

In part 1, I talked about why everyone in Chiang Mai should cook, even though eating out may be cheap, convenient and delicious.

Now let’s get down to the practical stuff.

This post is specifically directed toward people living in Chiang Mai, but many of these tips may be useful for others.

 

You can make a kitchen anywhere

I worked for the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, in Tucson, for several years, two of which involved regular cooking demonstrations. My job often required basically carting around an entire kitchen. This isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds. I had a variety of supplies available to me, but most of the time, my mobile kitchen consisted of an electric frying pan (with extension cord) and a large plastic tub filled with various other kitchen essentials (knife, cutting board, spatula, large spoon, bowls, etc.). And depending on what I was making, I sometimes had a wheeled cooler as well. I became adept at setting this up quickly just about anywhere, including on a folding table at a farmers’ market. And if I didn’t have electricity available, a propane camping stove worked great outdoors.

What I’m trying to say is that if your place doesn’t have a kitchen, it’s very easy and pretty inexpensive to set one up. Hopefully your apartment has at least a kitchen sink, small counter space, and a refrigerator. If not, I know this can all be done on a table. (If you don’t believe me, see the previous paragraph.) And if you don’t have a refrigerator, stock up on the things that don’t require refrigeration, and then just buy what you need for the day.

 

Our setup

Here is what we started out with when we moved into our apartment:

 

• small countertop
• kitchen sink
• decent sized refrigerator
• electric kettle
• 2 glasses
• 1 spoon
• 1 cabinet above the sink/counter

 

 

 

 

We immediately bought:

• electric wok (came with a lid)
• rice cooker (cheapest, smallest one we could find–only has an on/off switch–we can make about 4 servings of rice at a time)
• surge protector/extension cord (our kitchen area has no convenient plugs)
• 1 small sharp knife
• 1 wooden spoontula (thanks, Brian, for the name)
• 1 small cutting board
• 2 glass bowls (deep and large enough to double as plates)
• 1 spoon (because we already had 1)
• 2 forks
• 3-pack storage containers (which can also double as bowls for cold food and for serving fruit)
• 1 sponge
• 1 small bottle of dish soap

All of this came out to about 1500 baht (about $45 USD). We bought all of this at Central Department Store inside Central Kad Suan Kaew Mall. If you shop around, I’m sure it’s possible to find these things for less at local markets or smaller stores, but we were on foot that day and enjoyed the convenience of this option. Ours are also pretty decent quality and have held up well so far over a month of continuous use.

 

We later bought:

• 2 mugs (for hot beverages for ladling soup)
• 1 larger knife (not completely necessary but nice for mincing garlic, cutting carrots, etc.)

We purchased these items for approximately 100 baht total at Tops.

 

Food

Kitchen staples:

• brown rice
• dry noodles
• lentils
• textured vegetable protein
• dried mushrooms
• quick cooking oats
• muesli
• onions
• garlic
• spices (coriander, cumin, black pepper, salt)
• soy sauce
• cooking oil (we use soybean)
• sesame oil
• mushroom sauce

(if you’re not a vegetarian, fish sauce and oyster sauce are often used locally instead of soy sauce and mushroom sauce)

 

Other foods we like to keep around:

• all sorts of fruits, whatever looks good and is a good price
• variety of vegetables for cooking and for salads (again whatever looks good and is a good price)
• bird’s eye chilies (if you like spicy food)
• limes
• green onions (aka: scallions or spring onions)
• cilantro (or other herbs that look good)
• yogurt
• eggs
• bread
• peanut butter (no oil added)
• jam (only fruit, sugar, and pectin if possible)

To give you an idea, we spend about 500 baht ($15 USD) every 2-3 days and get about 6 meals (between the 2 of us) and several snacks from that. Those trips are mostly for fruits and vegetables and sometimes the occasional staple that ran out. We’ve made a huge effort not to let anything spoil, so we buy only what we think we can use within a couple of days, and it’s really paid off. We find throwing food away quite painful, especially since it’s not really practical for us to compost at the moment. There are some chickens nearby that we’ve considered throwing scraps to, but we’re not sure how their owners would feel about it.

In the next post, I’ll give you some more practical tips for cooking with electric appliances, as well as some of my go to recipes.

Cooking where no one cooks – Part 1

Where are we now?

We’ve now been in Chiang Mai, Thailand for just over a month this time around. It’s a haven for digital nomad expats–apparently, there are 40,000 expats living in Chiang Mai, and walking around town, I believe it. Living expenses are very low, internet is fast and widely available, and there’s lots of fun stuff going on all the time.

Yes, we cook

For those who may be unfamiliar, food in Thailand (especially street food) is cheap, convenient and delicious. So understandably, people we talk to are constantly amazed that we actually cook here (though, admittedly, most of the people we talk to are expats). They’re even more amazed that we cook daily, usually at least 2 meals every day. When you talk to expats who live here about getting a place with a kitchen, most will say “don’t bother.” But I say otherwise. If you’re planning to stay for any length of time, get a kitchen–even a little counter space and a sink is sufficient, as you really don’t need more than that, and electric appliances are very affordable. (More detail on that in the next post)

Here are my reasons.

1.  It’s also inexpensive to buy and cook food at home

Even the Western-style grocery stores by us (Rimping and Tops) are cheap if you’re careful about what you buy. Interestingly, both Tops and Rimping are inside shopping malls, one very modern, and the other…well, let’s just say its heyday has passed. You can find basically any food item you could want from the Western world, but much of that category tends to be pretty expensive, so we’ve tried to stick mostly to what the locals might buy there.

But even better–there are tons of local markets all around. These markets can either be pop-up style like farmers’ markets back home, or they can be more established in an open-air, warehouse sort of building. The latter type might require a bit more courage, and ideally, an orientation from a local. You can find everything from a huge variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, to recently butchered meats, freshly made curry paste, coconut milk squeezed while you wait, flowers and candles for visiting temples, and much more. They’re great places to find just about anything you’d want, inexpensively.

Admittedly, we haven’t taken advantage of local markets as much as we’d like to, but we’re going to start. This morning we tried one that’s more of the farmers’ market kind, at Baan Kang Wat, and maybe it’s just getting started, but it was rather small. We did find some delicious jam and a woman who sells hummus, but sadly she ran out by the time we got there. Frank did get a delicious grilled cheese sandwich, and we shared some nice local kombucha. But just remember, don’t shake your kombucha. I turned it upside down a couple times just to try to mix it and managed to explode it somewhat. Oh well!

 

2.  You can control what goes into it

Since it seems like all the other expats eat out for every meal, I’ve heard complaints that restaurants use MSG, too much oil, and often that vegan/vegetarian food is not actually vegan/vegetarian. The reason for that last complaint is one that I’ve personally experienced. Many Thai cooks don’t realize that fish sauce and oyster sauce aren’t vegetarian by many people’s standards. They just think of the meat itself and not the sauces. Interestingly, though, sometimes if you order your meal vegetarian, they do often ask if you want egg. Coming from the US as a vegetarian, it’s interesting that here they would be more careful about eggs than about fish sauce or oyster sauce.

3.  You’re probably tired of eating out for every meal

As much as we love restaurants, after 4 months of travel through Vietnam, Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore, eating almost every single meal out, we were really getting tired of it. We absolutely love waking up, making some oatmeal, cutting up a bunch of fruit, making some tea, and relaxedly eating at home. This takes us maybe 5 minutes even when we’re not rushing. In the past, breakfast involved getting up and dressed, going out and often having to settle for something we didn’t actually want. If we were lucky we could find some kind of yogurt/fruit/muesli bowl, but that wasn’t always an option. Traditional Asian breakfasts are rarely vegetarian, and the “Western” alternative was often expensive and included some kind of unknown sausage, oily eggs and a couple pieces of white toast.

4.  It’s fun to use ingredients that you don’t have at home

Bird’s eye chilies, galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime zest, kaffir lime leaves, Thai ginseng, passion fruit, star fruit, soursop, dragonfruit, many varieties of bananas, longan, rambutan, mangosteen, etc., etc. The list goes on and on. You may be lucky enough to have an Asian market at home, but odds are, these ingredients will never be as fresh or as cheap as they are here. And do we really want to support the importing of foods from all the way across the globe? So use them now while they’re local.

5.  You can practice new skills

How many of us have a souvenir cookbook from a cooking class that’s just been sitting on a shelf? Use it! Another side benefit is that getting used to cooking in a tiny space will make anything back home seem luxurious.

In part 2, we’ll get down to the practical stuff.

 

Some more photos from Baan Kang Wat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos from a market we visited in Bangkok in June

Looking back a bit: The Cameron Highlands

The Town – Tanah Rata

After about 4 hours on a twisty, windy road, we made it up to the Cameron Highlands, specifically the town of Tanah Rata. Unfortunately, our first impression was not the best–lots of construction, road noise and car exhaust. From what others had told us about the place, we expected something pretty serene and quiet, but what we got was the opposite. Our hostel was located in the center of the town, which in our minds is basically a 2-storey, square-shaped strip mall…that’s the town. When we’d ask people where something was, they’d say “oh, it’s down the street and on the left,” to which we’d reply, “do you mean in this same building, the square?” They’d nod. We couldn’t quite believe that that was the entire town. After some exploring, we discovered that there is one other long bulding with shops along it, but yes, those two buildings are basically the town. In comparison to other mountain towns we’ve visited (looking at you, Sapa–you spoiled us), it really just doesn’t have much character. Mind you, this was our first impression, and it did get somewhat better over time. Another first impression was the chill in the air. We certainly welcomed the change, but it would have been nice to have a second blanket on the bed. And, although during the first couple days we thought we’d escaped the haze, it did eventually find us.

Although there was lots of construction, street noise and car exhaust, the hostel itself – Orchid Lodge – really was a lovely place. The people it attracted were very nice, and we met some friends while we were there. The first night, the hostel owner (or who we think is the hostel owner) and his friends cooked us a great communal dinner. They placed sheets on the floor of the common space, and we all sat in a circle to eat. The food was healthy, plentiful and delicious! We also finally learned how to eat the giant, prehistoric-looking things that look massive mesquite pods. After dinner, we were talked into checking out the one bar in town. It was ok, and in a sense, you could tell that they had no competition; they certainly weren’t grateful for our business the way some places are. Incidentally, that same principle applied to the haircuts we got on the other side of the square.

One friend we actually met on our ride up there: Ben, from London. Our schedules lined up, so we wound up basically hanging out the entire time we were there, which was nice.

Hiking on Our Own

On our first full day, we signed up for a tour (that we’d go on the next day) that was highly recommended by others at our hostel, and then we went out to do some self-guided hiking. The trails aren’t super well marked, but we did manage to find one pretty easy trail and then part of a harder trail that went up a hill. It wasn’t the most beautiful hiking we’ve ever done, but it was nice to get out of the commercial area.

Tour with Eco Cameron

The next day was our all day tour, which we did with Eco Cameron. We were somewhat apprehensive about what the guide would be like based on our past experiences with tours, but we were completely pleasantly surprised. He was a local of Indian descent who apparently speaks 4 languages fluently: Bahasa Malaysia, Tamil, Hindi and English. And he said he dabbles in Japanese because so many of the tourists are from Japan. His English was great, he had a fantastic sense of humor, and we learned so much from him throughout the tour. We’d hoped that the name “Eco” had some real significance, which we found out it did: our guide also does extensive conservation work. They’re working through the schools to teach the younger generation the importance of protecting natural resources. It sounded like he does work all over the region as well as in the Cameron Highlands.

Beautiful Overlook

The tour started out with a jeep ride to the highest point in the area that you could drive to. We were warned by those who’d done the tour before us that we might just end up looking at clouds and fog, which ended up being the case for us. We climbed an old metal tower up into the clouds, and it was really quite beautiful. We couldn’t see the view, but it was definitely a unique experience, nonetheless.

Tea Plantation

From there we drove to see a tea plantation, and fortunately, it was harvest time, so we could see how the tea is harvested. The plants themselves are quite old, and only the young, bright green shoots are harvested. The workers use a sort of scissors with attached containers to cut the leaves and then carry the cuttings in huge bags on their backs. The guide explained to us about growing tea in different altitudes and that only certain altitudes are really ideal. He also explained the different types of tea (green, black, oolong, etc.) and that they all come from the same plant–they’re just processed differently.

Mossy Forest

Next was our visit to the mossy forest. Our guide explained the ecology of the forest and its importance to the wider system. He stressed that this is some of the only forest of its kind left in the area and that if it’s lost, the water supply of the area will be severely threatened. The moss soaks up the moisture from the clouds and then it trickles down to the valley below. He also described the ground as “chocolate cake,” which is quite apt. Our shoes got super muddy, and the drier parts are very spongy from all of the moss. The forest also contained huge biodiversity, including pitcher plants of all sizes.

BOH Factory

The tea processing facility for the company BOH (Best of the Highlands) was our next stop. We got to see all the steps from harvesting to drying, oxidizing/fermenting, sorting, etc. And then we all sampled a cup of tea. There was also a museum that better explained the processing steps and the development of the company.

After lunch, we also visited a strawberry farm, butterfly farm, local museum and Buddhist temple. All were interesting but less notable than the first part of the day.

Local Cuisine

Now you’re probably asking, what was the food like in this tiny town? Well, we actually had some of the better Indian food that we’d had thus far on this trip. “Steamboat” is the local food culture of the area, but it just didn’t really appeal to us, and we’d basically already tried it in Georgetown, so we stuck to some known favorites. Both Singh Chapati and Cameron AA Curry House served delicious Indian food that actually listened to us when we ordered it spicy. I remembered to use my tried and true strategy of asking the server for the best thing on the menu, and it turned out well again this time (unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of what I ordered though…). That’s how I first discovered bindi masala years ago, which has since become one of our favorites. We also tried Barracks Cafe, which inhabits a former military barracks had some delicious and unique food, including a chickpea burger with apple chutney and a chicken tikka masala sandwich.

From there, Ben was off to the Perhentian Islands, while we had to go take care of our Thai visa in Kuala Lumpur. He said the islands were beautiful, so maybe we’ll return someday to check them out.

Alas, Singapore, we hardly got to know ye…

There is just flatly too much to do in Singapore for one trip! That said, it’s not an ideal city for backpackers – it has a very successful economy and is very developed, and so is consequently very expensive relative to the rest of the region. Luckily, via Frank’s mom and our friend Arlene back in Tucson, we had a connection with Arlene’s nephew Rick and his wife Robin, and thus a place to stay while we were visiting! Thanks for making the trip possible for us, guys!

Singapore is a really interesting and unique place – after it was forced out of the nascent Malaysian nation, it was a city on its own with little resources and a hugely ethnically diverse population. That might have been a recipe for disaster, but Singapore was having none of that – it became a powerhouse economically, militarily, and in terms of local cohesiveness. Just in walking around, we saw many little examples spinning off from that history, including:

• The first fighter jets we’ve seen/heard in Asia, which besides making us nostalgic for Tucson, led us into an investigation of Singapore’s disproportionately large and advanced military, and all of the history and strategy that lead to that state of being
• All the little things that lead to the city being as amazingly clean and orderly as it is, especially in regards to public transportation (more on that below)
• The sheer diversity of people happily coexisting in the city, which is similar in a sense to the diversity of the United States, but with more linguistic variability and English as a lingua franca (other official languages are Mandarin, Malay and Tamil)

And really, many more things – but we should get into more specifics about what we got to see!

Sri Veeramakaliamman

Frank’s been excited to visit this Hindu temple for a long time now. It’s the first temple devoted to Kali we’ve been able to visit; Kali is Frank’s Ishta Devata, so in a sense, it was even a kind of pilgrimage. The temple is right in the middle of Little India, and even in the middle of the day on a weekday was hugely busy with devotees. The outside is overflowing with statues depicting various stories and divinities, and inside there are numerous shrines to deities specific to certain aspects of life and regional beliefs, including a few we looked up out of curiosity, like:

• Sri Piriyachi Amman – goddess with a brutally violent legend, yet who is associated with childbirth and protecting children
• Sri Dandapani, a variant of a god of war, literally “god with a club”
• Sri Dakshinamoorthy, a variant of Shiva known as a teacher for those who haven’t found a human teacher yet

There are also more well-known gods and goddesses, of course, like Lakshmi and Saraswati, but the main aspect of the temple is the cordoned off path leading straight to the statue of Kali in the center – it’s all very beautiful and complex and busy, both in terms of aesthetics and in people praying, meditating, and conversing. Also, there is delicious free food distributed at the back of the temple for whomever would like some – yet another example of a temple really being used and cared for, which we much preferred to many of the temples we’ve seen that have just become tourist attractions.

Singapore Botanic Gardens

Although it’s a large city full of skyscrapers, we were quite impressed by just how much green space there is all throughout the city. One great example is the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which actually took two days to explore, and we definitely didn’t hit every part of it. In a sense, it’s like New York’s Central Park; it’s a large, gardened section of the city with paths full of people meandering and jogging and grassy lawns for picnicking and wedding photos. Just, there are more monitor lizards. They’re big and tame and everywhere, and when they suddenly rustle dead leaves next you, you may or may not yelp and dance away.

There are numerous interesting exhibits to wander through, from nut and fruit trees of the region to a surprisingly beautiful and variegated foliage exhibition (who knew just leaves could have so many colors, patterns, and shapes?), to a gorgeous bougainvillea garden (even with having unique variants like giant white bougainvillea, still doesn’t beat Frank’s mom’s unique bicolor one she used to have, though), a pleasant herb garden, and a “healing garden” with medicinal plants…not as aesthetically pleasing, but interesting.

Frank’s favorite aspect was the “fragrant garden” – it had flowers that radiated aromas of all sorts, from citrus-y to the unpleasant “cream donut that went off two days ago” to the bizarre and head-swimmingly strong plant that smelled like some sort of ambrosia version of incense.

The crown jewel, however, was the National Orchid Garden. Featuring a huge garden of almost entirely just orchids (and a small section for bromeliads), there were enough unusual and beautiful varieties to rival and even beat out Orchid World in Barbados. And almost all, of course, interestingly without needing a greenhouse! Of course, that also meant we were hot and sweaty, but that’s being one degree off the equator for you.

Singapore Art Museum

This museum provoked a discussion between us: must art necessarily be beautiful to be art, or can it also be not at all beautiful and yet thought provoking? The other discussion that was provoked was during a free tour we happened to be on time for: just how annoying can that Indian couple be while interrupting both each other and the tour guide continuously?

The current motif the museum was centering its works around was “Utopias” – not in an idealized paradise sort of way, though, but rather a more depressing paradise-lost or flawed sort of manner. Installations included a (relatively tame) nude photography piece that had apparently set off protests and political scandal in Indonesia, a giant hollow metal ball that an artist had slowly rolled across Cambodia, a dieselpunk war machine made entirely out of paper and cardboard, and an unnerving, shiver-inducing disco ball/bomb piece with accompanying ominous audio placed inside a former chapel.

Asian Civilizations Museum

The ACM seemed to be one of the more famous museums in Singapore, so we decided to check it out as well. Set along a very pretty river waterfront, it displays historical artifacts from all across Southeast Asia and Oceania. The artifacts themselves were interesting, but the more engaging part was really getting to work through the way the various civilizations of the region (the modern versions of which we’ve been traveling through for months) interacted over the centuries. A small exhibit on Singapore’s relatively short but still significant history happened to be up when we were there, and, also the whole museum is free, so you can’t go wrong there.

Singapore Public Transport

Is crazypants good. There are buses constantly going in seemingly every direction, and to startlingly precise locations even in residential areas, to boot. In fact, the buses were so useful that we flipflopped our usual preference of preferring the metro, though the subway was perfectly good as well. With the cards we were able to borrow from Robin, it was also eminently affordable – yes, the buses admittedly do take longer than a cab (about an hour from where we were staying to most things), we weren’t in any rush.

Lightsabers and Exercise

Speaking of the metro (#awkwardsegue), we got to take a pretty unique exercise class under a metro overpass. Thanks to Kevin and Imgur, we discovered the Saber Authority, a group who gets together to practice fighting with lightsabers. We’ll put a link there just in case there’s someone out there who hasn’t seen a Star Wars movie (Frank: We know you saw it, Mom, even if it was on a bad first date, heh). The Saber Authority’s lightsabers are durable and slightly flexible plastic, so they can be whacked into each other fairly hard, and also do the trademark light and noises really well. The actual class, which had both drills and sparring, is based on Filipino martial arts and aikido, so it’s both more legit than randomly playing around (which would still be fun, of course) and is great exercise.

 

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Speaking of exercise (#bettersegue), Singapore is the first city we’ve seen in Asia or Oceania with people exercising everywhere. Granted, some of the roads in Thailand and Vietnam would be borderline suicidal to try to jog on, but it was really refreshing to see both people running along the roads and park paths and exercising in huge groups in school fields.

Dinner With Zoe!

We also got to meet up with a friend we’d made in Chiang Mai during a Tantric yoga retreat, Zoe! Hi Zoe! She’s a Singapore local, and was kind enough to meet us at Keng Eng Kee, a local outdoor restaurant for chili crab. Chili crab, while being exciting in being crab and a national dish, is unfortunately way the hell out of our budget. Nonetheless, we rallied and tried coffee-glazed ribs and salted egg calamari, both flavorful and delicious!

Zoe also explained some ins and outs of Singapore culture to us, including the local analogue of social security, which promotes financial literacy and gives each person discrete savings that they can keep track of – it’s pretty cool. Hope the upcoming election goes the way she wants it to!

Gardens By The Bay

Regardless of whether we had seen them in Hitman: Agent 47, the Gardens by the Bay definitely caught our eye each time they slid into view from a bus. One can easily see why they were put into a near-future science fiction movie – they’re like botanical gardens that time-traveled from the future. To our sadness, we only got to them when we’d really run out of time, and so didn’t get to see the inside of the snazzy dome-greenhouses they have. We did make a point of checking out the skywalk in the Supertree Grove, which are huge towers that combine horticultural architecture and solar power, though!

Shopping in Funan DigitaLife Mall and Sim Lim Square

Well, we attempted to shop in Sim Lim Square. But it was just a big building full of dingy, dubious shops and jerks who laughed in our faces when asked questions and then tried to get us to spend hundreds of dollars in the next breath. So, nuts to that place.

Funan DigitaLife Mall, on the other hand, is six floors of friendly, helpful, and clean shopping. Aside from a few restaurants (where we tried kaya toast), it’s exclusively devoted to electronics, cameras, computers, games, gadgets and similar. Shopping in Singapore? Shop in Funan – we found everything we were looking for there.

And, the food really doesn’t have to be expensive

Contrary to popular opinion, that is. The trick is to look for hawker stalls and food courts, the former of which are a lot like Portland foodtruck pods, and the latter of which are like mall food courts in the USA, but Asian-themed and much more affordable. In the first one we went to, for example, we tried starfruit juice, carrot cake (hint: the cake is a lie! #Portalreference), and duck over noodles. It’s good stuff, and for cheap.

Changi Airport

For those of you who haven’t heard about it, Singapore’s airport has a bit of a reputation. To give you an idea, it’s often the first thing people enthusiastically mention when you tell them that you’re going to Singapore, and if you look it up on Google, the airport has a 4.6 rating with over 1,100 reviews. Even within the airport, just about every station (even bathrooms, security and immigration) asks you for feedback on a touchscreen computer. We were in terminal 1, and although we’d allowed some extra time, we didn’t quite have enough time to visit the Butterfly Garden, Sunflower Garden, Orchid Garden, 12-meter tall slide, video games or movie theaters at the other terminals. If we hadn’t checked our bags, we could have gone swimming in the rooftop pool in our terminal. However, if one were so inclined, there was at least one store in the swanky shopping area where you could buy swimsuits and flip flops. Our terminal also featured the Social Tree, Cactus Garden, Piazza Garden, claw games to win prizes, Be A Changi Millionaire (a game for those who’d spent at least S$30), and various other art installations and attractions. Next time we’ll have make a day of it.

Brunei and the Rainforest!

One of the reasons Bonnie and I travel without planning very far (if at all) in advance is that we’re banking on the chance to meet interesting people, and to take advantage of the interesting opportunities that often come with them. Case in point: our new friend Louise! We met her at the ROR Festival where she was giving a talk on pangolins and conservation – I wanted to talk with her not only because she gave a great lecture, but also because pangolins were my all-time favorite animal when I was growing up. Hence, it was to our delight that she offered we might tag along on some work she had to do that directly relates to pangolins and saving them from poaching. On top of that, we’d been very much wanting to explore the rainforest, but had been finding it almost impossible to do it without an expensive, touristy tour, so bonus was compounding upon bonus!

First of all, Brunei

We’d been pondering going to Brunei anyway, as it turns out – we had found the idea of a small, peaceful monarchy keeping to itself in the midst of Malaysian Borneo intriguing, despite the naysaying of other travelers. Namely, mostly Australians decrying it because of confiscated cigarettes at the border and being unable to drink because alcohol is outlawed. But hey, neither of those is really a problem for us! To explain a little, Brunei is indeed tiny, but is also wealthy all out of proportion to its size because of oil wealth – thus, along with seemingly quite effective government and Muslim cultural values, its best adjectives are “relaxing, peaceful, and unassuming.” It also has a huge portion of almost untouched rainforest relative to its overall size, making it great for the research Louise is doing.

Getting there…

There are three options for getting into Brunei: by plane, by bus, and by boat. By plane was a bit too expensive from where we were in Kota Kinabalu (KK), Malaysia; going by bus, there are seven checkpoints to get through (check out that little leg of Brunei in the east, and imagine getting across all those borders to get to the main part). So we went by ferry, but actually ended up spending an extra night in KK because of the ferry clerks misinforming us about which ferry to get on. Womp womp. But hey, with our extra day in KK we got to see Hitman: Agent 47 and get some fun ideas for Singapore because of it, so we had that going for us, which is nice. Little sidenote for other travelers: when you get to Labuan to switch ferries, take the time to immediately go pay the exit/entry tax before you go grab lunch, otherwise you’ll be sweating in the tiny ticket office room and then sprinting to catch the next ferry because you didn’t think to check about that. Like us.

Also, once you get to Brunei’s capital, BSB, there may or not be a taxi or any sort of transport available for the 30km to the city from the ferry dock. We were lucky enough to get a taxi sort of ride from a random guy who happened to be loitering there (and quick-sketch portraits from an art student Korean gal we shared the car with!), but that could have easily gone a very different way. Also, unless you get one of the more expensive hotels, your hotel may or may not be halfway out of the capital at the back end of long series of mechanic shops and alleys run by stray dogs. Like ours was.

Bandar Seri Begawan

But that said, most of the capital seems, like I said above, to be peaceful and unassuming – even at the back of all the mechanic shops. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that much of it even seems like a giant country club, complete with grassy lawns and fancy but classy architecture.

Even though we were delayed by a day, we actually ended up having the perfect amount of time to see what we wanted to see. Number one was the Royal Regalia Museum, which displays both the various clothing and ceremonial weapons used in a Bruneian coronation ceremony (hint: lots and lots and lots of gold-plated everything, including a hand to hold the sultan’s chin) and all the gifts given by various countries upon said coronation. It’s nice on two counts: it amounts to being something of a hugely varied art museum, and it’s free. Oh and it’s also very air conditioned. So it’s nice on three counts, then.

Number two was the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque, which, like the rest of the city, is fancy but also generally understated and not overdone in its decoration and style. I have to say, having just driven by the other big mosque in the city, I think I might have rathered to have seen that other one – it looked way more colorful – but I appreciated the simple white and gold exterior of this one.

Last was a quick survey of the water village, a historical area of the city that exists entirely over water on stilts and boardwalks. This we did after crossing a very long rickety, swaying, rotting wooden bridge that we initially shied away from, but then we remembered our time hanging out with the Moab Monkeys. Then we just had to cross the bridge.

Foodwise, we simply had to try the national dish of Brunei, ambuyat, partly because it’s a vegetarian national dish, and partly because it sounded so bonkers. And lo, it totally was bonkers. A side order of ambuyat netted us a big pot of translucent, mucus-y goop – it’s eaten (aka, slurped and chew-swallowed) by pinching a smidge with springy, connected chopsticks, twirling until you get a smaller blob from the big blob, dipping said blobbie in a condiment, and then pretending it’s a vegetarian oyster. Except an oyster that’s still alive and trying to fight back. My opinion? It would actually be really good with dessert-themed condiments, given its perfectly flavorless on its own, but with the sauces they gave us, mm-mm, nopers.

 

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We also got to watch a nature documentary and hang out with some of the good people at 1stop Brunei Wildlife, which lead into…

The rainforest! And what we were doing there.

So. Brunei has oil wealth, check. But oil is non-renewable…and now the country is starting to think about that, and how it can’t be passing out government jobs to everyone, and how most people here don’t know entrepreneurship or private enterprise very well….and how that might lead to developers moving in and logging, and cutting down the rainforest for other things, like the endless palm oil plantations we saw in Sabah.

How does this tie into us hanging out in the rainforest? Well, Louise and the crew from 1stop have set up several cameras out in an almost untouched area to capture images of wildlife that pass likely-looking areas. The cameras snap photos – in both daylight color and infrared – when they sense an animal’s presence, and every image of wildlife seen is valuable for general wildlife research. They’re also hoping to build evidence of the presence of all sorts of species, evidence that could possibly be used to help slow down development of the rainforest. All of our hiking was to get to the cameras, check their batteries and replace the memory cards to see what photos had been collected.

Aw, yeah. Rainforest.

First, though, we started with some night-spotting: walking very, very slowly out into the pitch-black forest, shining flashlights and headlamps in all directions, looking for eye-shine from animals (we saw some slow lorises…lorisii?) and some other oddities, like a gorgeous red and blue puffball of a sleeping bird, bright alien-looking ginger flowers, small orchid-looking flowers and a scuttling crab in a stream. And heard lots of fun noises, like the kind that lead our new Bruneian friend Nazri to spin towards me and whisper with wide eyes, “Did you hear that too?!” Yes, yes I did, and yes I did wonder whether I was in a horror movie for a moment.

We spent the night on the floor of the common room of an Iban longhouse – they were some wonderfully hospitable folk, for which we were very grateful. Also, interestingly, Iban people were once the famous headhunters of Borneo, but nowadays they farm durian. Unless that’s just a cover….but no, they were super friendly and generous; they’re really cool.

By day, the rainforest was much more colorful and expansive than the green tunnel it had seemed to be at night. It was actually nicely shady for the most part, thanks to the extensive tree canopy above – a boon which also was of great benefit when heavy rains started later in the day, and the same canopy acted as a kind of giant, leaky umbrella. I should slip in a small note somewhere in here: leeches. Wriggly, sticky, inch-wormy, bloodsucking leeches that crawl up under your clothing and stick to sometimes very awkward places. Leeches. Most of the time (but not always), it was possible to feel the moment they’d latch on and then pull them off immediately. Bonnie, however, ended up with two very happy (and fat) leeches at the end of the day that she didn’t notice until she changed her clothes. #bodyhorror

While the hiking was often quite challenging, especially after the rains came and made everything about five times as slippery and muddy, being in the rainforest was pretty amazing. And that’s especially true given how almost untouched this particular rainforest was – we were one of only five or six people that had been around there for probably decades. The sheer abundance of life, variability and oftentimes strangeness of it, and the epic scale of it all (re: endless, cloud strewn jungle glimpsed from an abandoned military outpost at the tip-top of a narrow ridge) is absolutely going to stick in our memories. And, the photos taken from Louise’s cameras were a great success – she got everything from argus pheasant to wild boar to civet cat to squirrel to something of a holy grail: a clouded leopard!

Winning.

Chiang Mai Highlights: Round 2!

Let’s see, what else have we done so far in Chiang Mai…

Muay Thai fights!

We went with a couple people from Lantern House Backpackers, along with discounted tickets; thus, we learned a great deal about teaching English in South Korea from a pleasant Canadian fellow while watching people beat each other up!

Who, you might ask, were beating each other up on a raised platform amidst multiple cheap bars and cheap tables with cheap seats? Well, there were several rounds of slight and yet very hard hitting teenagers, for one. Now we can conclusively say we’ve seen one teenager knock another one out cold. There were also the more main-event, more professional seeming older fighters, of course, which were interesting, but not as interesting as the two female fights. One was between two Thai women, and was one of the more technically impressive fights Frank had seen in a while (at least since seeing Ronda Rousey do her thing only days before, anyway). The other was between a Thai woman and an American woman, and it was a complete throw-down. Muay Thai fighters aren’t exactly known for bobbing and weaving, either, and these women lived up to that reputation and took it on the chin in a battle of attrition that went the distance.

There were a couple unexpected things, also: one was a strange little interlude wherein a group of teenage fighters (and one very obese teen) tied on blindfolds, and then play-fought while completely blind. Or maybe actually fought, in moments? It was both comical and wince-inducing to see them stumbling around. Or another way to look at it:

As amusing as that was, however, the real highlight was an a choreographed exhibition of krabi krabong, the traditional Thai weapons-based martial art. Thus: two guys acting out a pretty solid-fight scene with two swords each, including moments both comic and skillful.

Yoga and Meditation Retreats!

Which were actually quite a contrast from each other. Both were affordable, one remarkably so, and the other especially so because we caught an early-bird price at the beginning of the month we were here, but other than that, they were almost on either end of a spectrum.

The first was a Buddhist meditation retreat through Wat Suan Dok, a large and beautiful temple on the west side of the old city. They have a “monk chat” program that encourages people to come and, as the name suggests, chat with the monks to learn about their lifestyle and for the monks to practice English. Tangenting from this is the meditation retreat we attended, which is a silent couple of days at the International Meditation Center a good bit outside of Chiang Mai. We learned – and practiced for pretty solid amounts of time – concentration, walking, and Vipassana meditations. We also learned a great deal about the life of Buddhist monks in Thailand during a question and answer session towards the end of the retreat. Unfortunately, some rather strident people took it upon themselves to use that time to challenge the monk’s beliefs about diet and women, which he handled well enough that it wasn’t nearly as awkward as it could have been. Luckily, Bonnie came to his rescue and stood up for him, to the audible agreement of several other people in the crowd.

At that retreat we also got to practice some qi gong, a Chinese exercise similar in some ways to kung fu, thanks to Dr. Anchalee Gibbins. Bonnie and I even made a special trip later on to see her perform tai chi for the queen’s birthday!

The second retreat was through Tantra Yoga Chiang Mai. It was at a similar meditation center, though this one was an ashram built to more Hindu specifications, and was beautiful in its symbolic architecture. Here we learned about several topics over five days, including tantric philosophy, lucid dreaming, and tantric meditation. Incidentally, contrary to pop culture (and to our simultaneous appreciation and disappointment), “tantric” doesn’t necessarily mean “sex.” We were happily occupied with what there was, in any case, even with waking up at 4am for meditation and yoga to enhance our chances of lucid dreaming. It also helped that there was delicious and creative vegetarian food for every meal!

Also, some movies.

They’re cheap, come with assigned seats, and are a perfect break when we’re tired of walking in the heat. And so, we saw:

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation – BOMP. BOMP. BOMP BOMP BOMP. BOMP. BOMP BOMP BOMP.

Inside Out – Based in part on the work of one of our idols, Dr. Paul Ekman, this movie is like a really engaging, narrative manual of emotions and psychology. Which makes it sound a little dry (it’s not), and is actually one of our favorite movies now.

Fantastic Four – Fantastic Four….is not so much one of our favorite movies now. From the director of Chronicle, which was great, there’s a similar moody, dark-science, pensive atmosphere to this one, which really fits the material. But, yeah, like everyone and their mother has said, with anything more than a surface inspection, it’s really just not good.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation – No, we didn’t see it twice, it’s just the theme song is really catchy. And it’s basically another Mission Impossible movie, and hence, a little formulaic, but you know what you’re getting into – and, it has a strong, eminently capable female character for once. Winning!

We also learned stuff.

Frank took an art class at NoiNa Art Studio, specifically, drawing with pencil – it was an almost silent experience, but filled with learning and a great time perhaps because of that.

Bonnie spent the day at Thai Farm Cooking School. The school picked up Bonnie and the other 9 students in the morning, and the first stop was at a beautiful local market where she learned about the various ingredients. They then drove to the farm and took a short tour of the various plants. Apparently, they grow all of their own herbs (cilantro, green onion, lemongrass, etc.), galangal, kaffir lime, etc. organically. The setup was such that each student had his own preparation and cooking space, one thing that we haven’t had in our cooking classes up until now. So it was great to actually do all of the cooking independently after the demonstration from the wonderful teacher, Garnet. Step by step, she learned to make curry paste from scratch, soups, curries, stir-fries, spring rolls and desserts and then received a beautiful, full-color recipe book at the end. Bonnie had read in another blog that it was actually a good idea to take a class in which they also make meat (of course with vegetarian options)–that way it’s easy to know which items usually include fish sauce, oyster sauce, etc. This class was great in this way because the vegetarian alternatives were automatically given for every dish.

And another temple

This one was the famous Wat Phra That Doi Suthep (usually known as Wat Doi Suthep, but that’s just the name of the mountain). Unfortunately, it was a bit more of a tourist trap than we’d expected, considering that’s about 30 minutes up a steep windy road, but we still enjoyed it. The views were certainly spectacular. Bonnie noted that you can’t actually see your surroundings while you’re in the temple itself, only while you’re in the outer courtyards. Frank suggested that maybe it’s on purpose, and they wouldn’t want worshipers to be distracted by the views. Walking the many steps leading up to the temple compound is apparently supposed to be meditative–and maybe it is to some extent–but the bottom of the steps is covered with vendors selling everything from fruit to clothing and other souvenirs.

And another museum

We visited the Art in Paradise illusion art museum. We weren’t quite sure what it was, as guidebooks don’t really give you a very good idea, but all the reviews on Trip Advisor were great. The walls are covered with paintings that made to look like they’re popping out from the wall. Some pieces work better than others, but overall it’s a fun experience. Oftentimes there was a sticker on the floor telling the photographer where to stand for an optimal photo, so that was helpful. We did think that the 300 Baht ticket price was a bit steep though.