yum - taste of asia

these photos are a selection of the lovely things available in asia. The first photo is a deep fried cricket, we met a couple of Italian guys who were brave enough to buy just 2 (they usually come in packs of ten, just like cigarettes, but probably tastier??this is fish amok from Cambodia, you can see that they have held with tradition and used the customary banana leaf to present the dish, all held together with the traditional fastening of staples....



the Grand palace in Bangkok, it was beautiful.

Sam and I in the local market in Saigon, each eating shrimp noodle soup and bbq pork with rice in cho ben than
this is for Nic and Sam's Mom and Dad. When was the last time you saw us outside Dairy Queen? this was in Muscat airport, sadly it was shut but still gave us a taste of our childhood!
OHH! Deep fried pumpkin flower with chilli sauce, yum x
for those of you that wanted more photos, weird, i hate other people's holiday photos x but our mommy loves us and my photos
this is for you xx big kisses. This is a temple in Angkor. Below is an Apsara (heavenly being)



then a tuk tuk for Tony who does not know what a tuk tuk is, then a picture of the floating village and then a cyclo. please now imagine our butts being pushed around on on one of these by a small Vietnamese chappie.

Me Love you Long Time!

Day 19 evening.
You never quite know what is going to happen in Vietnam, the fact that there are fabulous and surprising aspects to Vietnamese society speaks volumes about the people and is in direct contrast to how we experienced Cambodia. We ate dinner at restaurant 13 a delicious combination of salted pork in caramel sauce, garlic chives and spinach sautéed and a weird dish called violet tomatoes. We were slightly disappointed when they turned out to be aubergines! All this under the beady gaze of frogs, snakes, prawns and rats...all of whch you can order from the menu, yum.
After dinner we fancied a drink, it can be dreadfully difficult to find alcohol here unless you are eating, all cafes only serve coffee and tea. Neil did the noble thing of flagging down a passing cyclo driver and asking him to take us to a bar. We hopped on, some what precariously. Western bums are not made for the tiny seats that can happily seat 4 tiny delicate Asian frames. Even Sam feels big here. The poor driver cycled us manually to a bar about 1 km away, we asked him to wait and felt guilty for asking him to push our lardy white asses around. We were ushered into a room, then pushed on towards the back of the room and entered the great pink gin palace of love. The room was filled with pink and white leather sofas, lava lamps and a bunch of Vietnamese chaps looking suspiciously like a branch of local triads, all engrossed in watching a terrible Chinese kung fu film. We ordered from the menu, as every single eye was on us, we were obviously a novelty. The whole experience was a complete amazing, surreal and possibly a glimpse into the mind of Salvador Dali had he ever moonlighted as a Japanese interior designer. Wow, the photos do not do it justice but it is something we will all remember for the rest of our lives.


Day 20
Can tho to Ho chi min. The journey was horrible. It took 4 hours n a bus that was rammed to the gills with locals and horror of horror a lady who was car sick sitting next to Sam and I. Lush. Also an experience never to be forgotten, but not for any nice reasons. We were grateful to get to Ho Chi Minh City, still called by everyone HCMC or Saigon. The city is fab, it is much more westernised and modern with a plethora of fabulous things to do any buy. For the first evening we went for dinner then found a fab bar called Laura’s secret bar, it is on the 3rd floor above her clothes shop and is the epitomy of a boudoir . As we walked up the stairs we were slightly worried that we ladies would not be welcome, but that Neil would and may be offered a “happy ending” you can probably see from the pictures on the stairwell how we leapt to that conclusion!however we were ushered in with grace and style to peruse the cocktail menu, it was here that we discovered the lychee rose martini. A cross between fresh lychees and liquid Turkish delight with a large dash of vodka, even Sam had one.....love Saigon, we all do and each of us would be happy to spend lots more time and money here, but it is still the cheapest night out you could have. Tomorrow shopping he he he.


Day 21 – Me and My Worm
We have a stow away, a little parasitic friend who has hitched a ride to pastures new on to the other side, the nicer, more affluent side of the Mekong. One of us has Hookworms......
This little devil enters the body through the soles of the feet and can be easily passed on from walking in sandals or flip flops in dirty streets. Thank you Cambodia. For all you who think travelling is glamorous, this should lessen the envy.
Never mind, it has been easily treated by buying 30,000VND of medication (£1)
We went to drown our sorrows with lychee and rose martini’s ...3 martini’s a piece and we were feeling no pain, not even Stevie the worm. And one of us was drinking for 2. This whole episode cost us all of £10pp.
Aside from this, this is our first proper restaurant review. We stumbled across a tiny restaurant in a backstreet of HCMC, which specialises in food from Hue in central Vietnam. This town used to be the capital back in the early 19th C. Today it is well known for its poetry and exquisite cuisine, especially street food. This particular restaurant is called Mitau, www.mitauhue.com which is Vietnamese for you and me, moi et toi. The whole place has a grand 5 tables, each looked after by Mom and son, mother cooking , entering the dining room to dispense advise to the customers on what was good and to show off her golfing trophies. (1st place in the ladies tournament this year)
We ordered Bahn Khoai, an egg and rice flour pancake stuffed with bean sprouts, shrimp, mushrooms and pork which was chopped in to our bowls, by the avid Sam admiring waiter, her son. On to this was ladled a sesame and peanut sauce (Nuoc Leo) and mixed, by the Sam loving waiter with the fresh veg that characterise every Vietnamese dish. The greens were star fruit, green banana, lettuce, mint and another purple leaf which to this day remains a mystery. It was delicious.
Next came a dish of pork mushrooms and shrimp which was divided unfairly in Sam’s favour into our bowls by the lovely waiter, it was served with a chilli condiment and a crisp wafer of bread garnished with white and black sesame seeds. The crisp bread is used to scoop up the savoury pork mixture; offering a texture and taste sensation that made us all thank our lucky stars that we had sat here to eat. Wow. Reading our guide book later on we learned that it is normal to have to book in advance for this restaurant as it is regularly oversubscribed. So I guess the gourmet gods were shining upon us.
This was followed by some worming tablets and a new dish which was by far tastier, a mixture of spring rolls made with pork and crab and serves with rice noodles and more fresh veg and just a dash of sweet chilli sauce.
Wow, anyone coming to Saigon soon? Please visit, it is fabulous. And to be honest, there are no words to describe how amazing Nic, Neil, Sam and Stevie the worm thought this meal was. It was worth the thousands of miles we have travelled just to eat here. (Well obviously only several hundred in Stevie’s case)
The meal was rounded off with logan fruit and lotus nuts served over ice, delicious. Then a pot of ginger tea was brought to the table with home made candied ginger wafers sweetened with palm sugar. The lady was so pleased that we had enjoyed her cooking so appreciatively, she gave Sam and I a tea cup each to take home, however, I think she wanted to keep Sam for her son......watch this space, we may be going back there for lunch for Neil’s birthday.
Of course we did have to pay for the meal. It wasn’t exactly expensive by western standards however the suggestion that we left Sam with them as payment was relished by the excited waiter. His mum seemed quite keen to get her working in the kitchen or possibly as a amuse bouche for subsequent diners... In a country that eats rat anything may be palatable.

Still Day 21 – My handbag holiday
I love handbags. I especially love silk handbags from Asia. To date I have had 3 lovely presents from my lovely sister Sam. The first was a green, rough silk handbag purchased from a very expensive silk shop in Cambodia for the princely sum of $14 (£10) it is beautiful with a cream silk lining and a flower on the side. The second and third were purchased today in Saigon. One a black box embroidered with white daisies with coconut rings to thread the handle shut. And the third was pure indulgence, a ribena silk bag with cream flowers and black beads. Oh no, it deserves a whole new wardrobe to do them justice. I know that Christina will be very proud of me.

Other random purchases have included a grey silk ao dai for Sam which is traditional Vietnamese dress, some lotus flower tea, dragon ball jasmine tea and oh my goodness, weasel poop coffee. This lovely little creature eats fresh coffee beans from the plant and some poor bugger picks up their poop and decants it to make some of the most expensive coffee in the world. I have always wanted to try it and at 45,000VND for 100g ($2.5) £15 a poop sorry I mean pop in Selfridges! We made our purchase after smelling and being completely bowled over by the rich chocolate and cinnamon scent. (not like poop at all!!) We look forward to sharing it with anyone who is brave enough! Anyone for coffee?

I Love the smell of Vietnam in the Morning.....

Day 17

We rose early to take our tuk tuk from the hotel the Vietnamese border, a journey of about 8km of road and the following 37km on a dirt track. It rained for the first 30 minutes, soaking us to the skin before the storm blew itself out.the tuk tuk’s here are not like the average three wheeled trikes that you see in Thailand. Here they are a motorcycle, usually 125cc, with a 2 wheeled carriage attached to the back. Most of the ride was bumpy and uneventful, passing rice paddies, coconut palms and bungalows made from wood, the locals swinging from hammocks waiting for the sun to reappear. About 5 km from the border, our tuk tuk driver received a mobile phone call, wedging his phone under his helmet to speak. Then he turned around and drove to a small shack where 5 men wearing army cammo preceded to ask us to leave the tuk tuk and climb aboard their motorcycles for the last hike to the border crossing, judging by their clothes they were not officials. We refused to get out, you could see that the driver had been called by these thugs and demanded to return so that they could make some money ferrying us to the border. After much gesticulating and Neil being forced to talk to someone who could speak English on the mobile phone, we were at last allowed to proceed to the border, as originally planned in our tuk tuk. The driver, was paid and we left Cambodia as we had arrived, on foot.....

We passed through the Cambodian side of the border with no issues, walking the 300m to the Vietnamese border control. Unfortunately, it was lunchtime and the border, she was closed!

After a 20minute wait for the controller to eat his lunch, we had our passports stamped and haggled for a motorbike (xe om in Vietnamese) and we were driven in convoy to a hotel in Ha Tien.

Here is where our food adventure began! Cambodian food does have some fab dishes. Khmer curry, a delicious dish of chicken in coconut and spices, fish Amoc is also great and of course loc lac, beef marinated in lemon and pepper. But to be honest, after 2 and a half weeks of eating it, we were bored and ready to indulge in a little culinary adultery with the Vietnamese next door neighbour. Walking around the hotel, we found the local market, piles of produce, fresher, better prepared and more abundant than in Cambodia. In quick succession Sam, Neil and I sampled a beef, egg and onion steamed bun, a coconut bun and a sticky rice parcel. It was all delicious. I could hardly wait for dinner....

Dinner was noodles with fish cakes eaten in a tiny street kitchen, their tables and chairs set up on an empty bit of pavement. The noodles were served with fresh stir-fried veggies, morning glory |(a type of spinach) pak choy, cucumber and onions....delicious. After only 4 hours, we all decided that we liked Vietnam...after all, no one had tried to sell us a bracelet or a leg wax all day.

Day 18 – Oh how I have missed good coffee.....

We rose early to investigate the unidentified frying objects......Vietnamese street food is considered to be some of the best in the world, having tasted it, I have to agree. We sat in a local coffee shop and managed to order fresh filter coffee. It was served with its own mini dripper on top of the cup, alongside a pot of Vietnamese green tea. After enduring the coffee of Cambodia, which has the weirdest taste of plastic and syrup (even before you add sugar) it was a pleasant surprise that Vietnamese coffee is delicious, strong and enables you to run a half marathon after only one cup. We sat outside the coffee shop waiting for the rain to stop, getting completely soaked to the skin despite the canopy we were sitting under. Breakfast was calling so we ran to the covered market and quickly devoured several unidentified frying objects. One like a sweet flat Yorkshire pudding was delicious, then in quick succession, some coconut sticky rice and a pancake omelette type thing served with prawns and pork and wrapped in leaves was eaten dipped in a sauce of chilli, lime, fish sauce and palm sugar.....delicious. We also ordered a bowl of rare beef pho (pronounced fur) which is beef broth flavoured with lime, chilli and lemon grass which is poured over raw beef strips and noodles for breakfast. It was delicious, dipping the beef in the chilli sauce and adding our own veg and extra chilli kept the dish different and interesting, like having 7 dishes in one.

Having dried out over breakfast we were ready to visit the next town on our list Chau Doc. The bus collected us at 12.30pm and then subjected us to the most terrifying ride of our lives. In Vietnam, the left and right hand side are only there for guidelines, it is not necessary to drive on the correct side of the road or even go the same was as everyone else. Interesting.... in the course of the 2 hour ride on the bus we managed to knock a small child from their bike, hit a truck wing mirror and drive over the piles of rice that were drying on the side of the road. All this in a bus with no suspension and with a driver who obviously needed therapy for anger management issues. We gratefully found a hotel and collapsed to recover.

Day 19

The American as well as the Durian is a strange fruit. Spending their formative years on a diet of meatloaf and McDonalds, football (the American kind) and apple pie. They then feel the need to visit lands far away. The gap year students, for whom everything is Awesome! I guess not having any history of your own would make everything awesome. However there are a few other adjectives that I feel schools in the states may want to think of including in future syllabi.

So I’m a kid from some middle American backwater with a school sports field that would rival Wembley and I’m going to go on a trip RTW (Round the world), I have to use acronyms as words are just so passé. ‘Vietnam looks like a good stop off. Dad was bombing them in the 70’s and said it was Awesome!’

I find the whole idea of Americans or French for that matter visiting Vietnam a little odd. After defoliating most of the country and killing more civilians than military personal with their friends Agent Orange and napalm. A legacy still seen here today. Do Americans feel safe ordering food in restaurants? It must be so tempting to drop something a bit nasty into a dish for table number 4. It’s not as if their taste buds are going to detect it.

I am of course not forgetting the English gap year students from the Home Counties in there designer shorts and T-shirts, i-phones permanently glued to their ears ‘texting’ friends across the table. We like to eat chips and South East Asia has accommodated this peculiarity offering western versions of classic dishes everywhere, usually by adding chips and reducing the chilli content. Imagine if you will, the beef loc lac we described earlier, garnished with that excellent asian accompaniment of chips....somehow it detracts from the experience of asia, but it is what the people who visit here seem to want. A group of girls in a restaurant a few days ago were seen perusing the menu and after not enough deliberation one announced that she was going to the shop to buy some crisps. Returning a few minutes later to tell her confused nest ‘ I couldn’t find anything in English’ So they ordered chips and a bottle of Banana wine. My advice, go to Spain.

Can Tho, at the heart of the Mekong delta is a melting pot of tourism and industry with Vietnamese going about their daily lives surrounded by tourism. The people seem weary of tourists and therefore not as engaging unless a dollar is to be made.

Today we ate at two restaurants. One geared up for tourists and one mainly patronised by Vietnamese. The verdict; The local restaurant won hands down and Nic was beaten by a chilli. This is a first.

The journey from Chau Doc to Can Tho was driven by Michael Schumaker’s Vietnamese cousin a journey which was scheduled to take two and half hours was covered in a little over two and included a fuel stop, numerous dogfights with other buses and a group of bikers who we kept up with for a surprising amount of time. Never taunt a bus driver from the pillion seat of a bike. Mercedes Sprinters are surprising agile in the right hands. Upon a triumphant arrival at Can Tho Bus station the driver was present with a laurel wreath having shaved two hundredths of a second off his best lap time. Other passengers were given Valium.

Angkor Wat Photos

Hi All
It seems to have escaped my notice that I have not published any photos of the sunrise at Angkor wat. So here goes!!

Day 16 - Crab and Durian - the Marmite of Asia

We took a Tuk tuk ride from Kampot to Kep also on the south east coast of Cambodia. This is a one chicken town, there are no horses, it is simply not big enough. Aside from the guest houses, Kep has a giant crab statue, a couple of massive chicken statues, reminiscent of Big Bird from Sesame street and a crab market. The specialty here is Kampot Pepper crab. The pepper is grown locally and some of the best in the world. Just before the Khmer Rouge disfigured Cambodia’s landscape and population, the pepper grown here was sought after by every Michelin star restaurant in the world. It is truly wonderful with its fabulously hot fragrant taste, lending background and depth to each dish it graces. (yep this is Nic writing this, can you tell?) Arriving in Kep was uneventful, thought we did share a tuk tuk with a local who only had one eye and a natty taste in sportswear. We checked into a guesthouse and ceremoniously made our way to the crab market. Crab was plucked from the ocean, stir fried with green Kampot pepper, garlic and a hint of chilli and placed reverently before Neil’s greedy pincers. Sam received her citronella and chilli crab and the pair hungrily began to eat..............45 minutes later they finished the 6 crabs that each made up their “small” portion of lunch. Wow. It was worth it just to eat tidbits from their plates. I also believe that after 3 weeks out here, Sam is beginning to develop a decent level of chilli tolerance! I would seriously recommend anyone who likes seafood to come here, the crab is some of the freshest and sweetest I have ever tasted, the whole process from sea to plate taking 5 minutes tops.
After lunch as we reclined replete and at peace with the world. The durian sellers, sensing our good mood and an easy target moved in for the kill. The durian is a curious fruit loved by some and loathed by others, it is the marmite of Asia. As all of us had never tasted it before, we purchased a fruit which looks like an oblong spiky football and smells like a mixture of over ripe cheese and pear drops... We had been promising to try it since arriving in Cambodia and as the area is known not only for pepper but also for the quality of the durian it produces, here was the perfect place to indulge. After parting with $5 (£3) for 1.5kg of fruit, the ladies kindly sliced it open for us to eat. Leaving us alone with our prize, we each scooped a segment of fruit and took the plunge.......
For me it was like placing a delicate sack in my mouth and sucking the fetid festering pus from a spot. The ammonia, caramalised onion custard with the warmth and texture of someone elses snot was my reward. I gagged and spat the offending item into the South China sea. Never again will this fruit pass my lips, not even if it was found to be the elixir of life......it was purely the most disgusting and offending food stuff that i have ever eaten, even worse than chicken feet, offal , doner kebab and KFC all rolled into one. Neil quite liked it. He described it as a mixture of pineapple and custard with pear drops.... I however think that the chilli and pepper in his crab had killed his last remaining taste bud...... Walking home, the durian made its presence felt, even though 2 tightly knotted plastic bags, we were all happy to ditch it as soon as possible. We gave the rest of the stinky offending fruit to the local women who run the guest house, they could not have been happier and I am sure that we will get extra big portions at breakfast tomorrow as it is a delicacy here and very expensive.

After that, everything else was an anticlimax, we spent the evening organising our border crossing into Vietnam, one plus though, Sam has yet to ask what “no chilli” is in Vietnamese....i think we are making progress....

Kampot

Day 15
Wow! That us the first time that I have been woken up by a bird nesting in my hotel room!
We grabbed some breakfast and meandered around Sleepy Hollow, not much seems to happen in Kampot, the highlight being a bridge that was demolished by the Khmer Rouge now rebuilt in a mishmash of styles clearly from two or maybe three engineers who never communicated from either side of the river. Feeling thoroughly lethargic we mustered up enough energy to harass an equally unenthusiastic tuk tuk driver to take us to Phnom Chnong, a cave out in the sticks which was hijacked from nature by Hindus in the seventh century and turned into a temple. After an hours ride up a dirt road we arrived near the temple site where a small band of children whooped in delight as our carriage halted they all wanted to be our unofficial guides to the cave and after much debate we asked all of them to come along but explained that we could not pay all of them. To be honest without any of them we would never have found the cave anyway. Half way there we were intercepted by moto-monk bouncing along a dusty field to relieve us of a dollar each and to sign the visitors book. Not really how English Heritage do it but then they don’t have seven year old tour guides and Buddhist monks. The kids rallied us to the temple post haste as it was nearly closing time but they let us go round after hours. The many steps up the cliff were testing in the heat however our youthful companions cheered us along.
The temple was an anticlimax to be fair. It was much more fun to meet the kids who were so poilte, cheeky, good fun and innocent just like kids should be. One little girl called Tia or something like that asked if I was a monk pointing to my haircut which was kinda cute. Speaking to them they all had big dreams of what they wanted to be when they left school. Doctors etc. Was high on the preferred professions. On the way back we laughed and joked with them Tia telling me she was my friend and shaking my hand every twenty yards and teaching me how to say your my friend in Khmer. A couple of the boys were very good at English and one had a smattering of French. All of them loved going to school and English lessons were high on their favourite subject. One lad found a surprise near a tree and tried to hand it to the girls who were having none of it, so a handful of leaves in clenched fist were passed to me together with a small part of an ants nest of some rather large red ants! Kids!
Nearly back at the tuk tuk we stopped and held an impromptu English lesson and emptied our pockets of batteries, chewing gum and all the Riels we had, save for the money we had promised the driver.
The kids were definitely the highlight of the trip, however our day was about to take another turn....
We left the hotel to have dinner around half 7, thinking of another quiet night in the tiny town of Kampot. Standing outside a restaurant on the waterfront we heard an Australian man saying he fancied the baby back ribs with Kampot pepper for dinner, I, being the sociable person I am, who can also never resist a conversation about food starting talking to him and his assistant. And that is how we got take out for a very posh dinner by a millionaire! The chap was very nice and chatty, he was in Cambodia doing charitable work with the school kids there. He builds classrooms, sorts out water supplies and is generally a very nice guy.

Sun Sea Sand and Hawkers...

£2.00 bought us a 4hour bus journey to Sihanoukville. The Landscape changed dramatically the further south we travelled. Paddy fields became mountains and roads now have bends in them. The north of the country seems to have been tarmaced by Romans with die straight routes whereas the south follows the topography making for interesting travelling especially when the bus regularly attempted to overtake two or more trucks simultaneously on blind bends or my personal favourite whilst cresting blind summits. Apparently Cambodian vehicles are fitted with an invisible force field which is activated by pressing a button on the steering column making us magically impervious to crashes...where we in the west only have the horn.

We were treated to the usual tuk tuk reception in the wild west town and walked away from the bus station to a local Bavarian bar to let the stalking touts get bored and move on. Damn I knew I should have packed my lederhosen. Once a deal was negotiated with a local driver we were whisked to within an inch of where we asked to be taken and were dropped at a guest house who obviously pays commission.

This sort of scamming is becoming boring and is making travelling tiring.

We walked to the beach and found some pleasant bungalows at the north end of Serendipity beach and broke out the bucket and spades.

We are now lounging, swimming in the sea till late at night and drinking free beer. Hell really.

Day 11

The walk to Otres bech a few kilometres south took up most of day at the pace we achieved. We may move there tomorrow to some wooden beach huts literally on the beach. Nothing much else to report as my brain is now disengaged. Good spring rolls though.

Day 12

A small boat took us to a tiny beach on a south facing island about an hour offshore. The island seems to be inhabited by feral goats and dogs and has electricity for some hours of the day or at least while the generator is running. We had a beach hut which was around 10 feet from the sea at high tide. If a little basic the views over the sea, lack of beach hawkers and huge night sky made up for the lack of creature comforts.

Hammocks and beach combing are the highlights of entertainment. As well as swimming in the sea, having the beach to ourselves and watching sand crabs pirouette along the water line.

Day 13

Hammocks, swimming, hammocks, beachcombing ,clambering over coral graveyards, swimming, hammocks. You get the picture....if not here is one to give you a bit more of an idea

Day 14

The boat took us back to the mainland and dropped us at pedicure beach where everyone wants to give us a foot massage and sell us sunglasses. A brief stop for a coconut and we breezed into town to apply for visas at the Vietnamese consulate. It was shut. Opening again at two O’clock we killed the time at the G’day mate Australian bar.

Visas secure we have now headed down to Kampot for a night or maybe two in a guesthouse on the edge of town. Kampot pepper Squid for dinner perhaps? Hmm...