Author Archives: Laura

Puppies and pyjamas

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If I were to name two things that have particularly drawn my attention on the streets of South East Asia it would be puppies and pyjamas, a peculiar pairing perhaps, but an amusing feature nonetheless.
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Stray dogs are rife in South East Asia. For the most part they seem to be happily whiling away their time sleeping on street corners, ignoring the people around them and occasionally rummaging through the litter. Some strays have been adopted by local families (or perhaps it’s the other way round?) making fantastic pets with lovely temperaments. The general lack of animal welfare infrastructure means that the practice of neutering is uncommon and consequently puppies abound everywhere. We’ve had some great fun playing with incredibly cute little puppies (I think Simon is afraid one may suddenly emerge from my baggage at the airport) including one that we nicknamed Bart, as he insisted on trying to eat Simon’s shorts as we played a game of cards. Many a playful puppy has made us smile on our trip (even if Simon is laughing more at me than the puppies).

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As for the second p, pyjamas, I am
almost at a loss to explain. I was once shopping in the sales when I found a lovely floral hooded cardigan, for some reason hanging up amongst the sleepwear with ‘sleep well’ printed on the label. I looked around but couldn’t spot any matching bottoms and figuring no one would know if it was a pyjama top anyway, decided to buy it. I certainly know other people who have bought nighties and worn them out as dresses, however I never expected to see so many women wandering around the streets, carrying out their daily business wearing what can only be described as pyjamas. I imagine that these ladies don’t simply decide to go out for the day dressed in their sleepwear but have simply chosen to wear something light and comfortable in the heat. However, for those of you back home who have felt the temptation to walk down to the cornershop in your PJs you can rest assured that no-one here would bat an eyelid! Whilst I can perhaps understand the wardrobe choice based on comfort, I must admit that the decision to wear matching teddy bear-patterned tops and bottoms on the streets mystifies me!

Laura

Food for thought part four – Laos

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Fortunately, after a disappointing introduction to South East Asian cuisine in Vietnam, Laos has managed to redeem Indochina, providing fare with both an abundance of spice and an absence of garlic. Lao food may have a strong Thai influence, with coconut soups and curries aplenty, but it still supplies plenty of uniquely Lao dishes as outlined below:

Sticky rice
Sticky rice is a staple in Laos, served up in woven bamboo baskets, traditionally eaten by hand, by rolling into small balls and dipping into your food. Sweet sticky rice (often billed as rice pudding) cooked in coconut milk supplemented with pumpkin, mango, banana or even chocolate can be a very tasty (and filling) breakfast or dessert.

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Sticky Rice with bamboo basket

Laap
Laap is perhaps the definitive Lao dish, found in pretty much every restaurant. It consists of minced beef, pork, chicken or fish (although fish proved to be the elusive “Lao option”) cooked with chopped chillis, spring onions, fresh mint, fish sauce and lime juice served on a bed of lettuce.

Fish steamed in coconut milk
We only tried this once so it may vary from the following description, however our sampling of this speciality came in the form of a kind of steamed fish pie. The fish was blended with coconut milk, lime and chillis, moulded into a prism inside a banana leaf and steamed. The final product tastes much like a Thai curry, if somewhat more solid in texture.

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Fish in banana leaf

Street food
In Luang Prabang there is a fantastic street next to the Laos Heritage Hotel lined with stalls serving up a Lao buffet, all you can fit on one plate for 10,000 kip (80p, fish and meat extra). On offer are an array of vegetable and noodle dishes, curries, rice and battered deep fried chillis. For some protein you can choose from a variety of barbecued meats including ribs, chicken and elephant ear fish (from the Mekong) stuffed with lemon grass and grilled on a stick. An excellent choice when you’ve blown your budget visiting the Tat Kuang Si waterfalls!

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Street buffet in Luang Prabang


Pumpkin
Up until our recent visit to Laos I had thought that pumpkin was only good for two things: carving at Halloween and pumpkin pie. Laos has opened my mind to the versatility of this squash, supplying pumpkin curry, pumpkin burgers and pumpkin rice pudding, all very distinct but equally delicious!
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Sweet sticky rice for breakfast

Lao BBQ
Lao barbecue appears to be a combination of the street barbecue and hot pots that we discovered in Vietnam. However, there’s a real sense of ceremony to barbecue in Laos beginning with the revealing of a hidden hole in the centre of the table. A bucket containing glowing coals is positioned into the hole with a dish approximating a metal sombrero placed on top. The middle of the “hat” (perhaps not as quite as pointy as a sombrero) is greased by wiping pork belly over the surface, strips of beef and chicken can then be laid on top and cooked. Meanwhile, a broth is ladled into the “brim” and loaded up with noodles and vegetables. The “barbecued” meat and soup can be seasoned with chopped chillis, garlic and lime and mixed with a spicy peanut dip before eating.

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Lao BBQ

Spicy papaya salad
This salad makes for a refreshing starter comprising grated papaya tossed with chilli and lime juice, with the occasional addition of cashew nuts. The papaya doesn’t bring much flavour but it’s a refreshingly crunchy and zingy dish nonetheless.

Turkey and stuffing sandwich
Ok, this isn’t a Lao specialty, but it was a very nice unexpected treat. In Luang Prabang we discovered a fantastic bakery called Joma who not only produce delicious cheddar and chilli bagels but also put us in a delightfully festive mood. We cheerfully dipped our turkey, stuffing and cranberry sandwiches into little pots of gravy whilst humming along to ‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…’ with the sun beating down outside and Buddhist monks strolling by.
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Lao Lao
This Lao whiskey can make for some fantastic cocktails including Lao Lao mojito and piña colaolao, best enjoyed lolling in a hammock beside the lazy Mekong river.

Laura

Food for thought part three – Vietnam

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A lot of the food in Vietnam is very oriental in style and flavour, probably due to the thousand or so years that the country was occupied by the Chinese. Some aspects of Vietnamese cuisine have reinforced an opinion that we formed in China, namely that one of the benefits of being vegetarian is that you’re far less likely to accidentally find yourself eating some undesirable animal or part thereof, say duck eggs containing nearly mature embryos, or the delights of dog meat. Thankfully, despite not being veggie, we managed to steer clear of these delicacies whilst sampling some of Vietnam’s other specialities…

Pho
One dish that can be found fairly ubiquitously throughout Vietnam is pho. Pho is a noodle soup usually served for breakfast but that can also be found at other mealtimes. Pho consists of a flavoursome broth with rice noodles and chopped spring onions accompanied by either bo (beef), ga (chicken), or lon (pork). The noodle soup is also often supplied (although not always) with some fresh greens (coriander, mint and lettuce) and uncooked bean sprouts bringing a refreshing crunch to the dish. A regional variation in Hue is Bun Bo Hue, a supposedly spicy beef noodle soup. I’m not sure if this dish was simply dulled down for tourists when I tried, but I found it sadly lacking in spice.

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Pho

Hot pot
I believe that hot pot is probably a Chinese invention, but it is one that has certainly become widespread in Vietnam. A “hot pot” of bubbling spicy broth is placed on the table into which you dunk a variety of meats, seafood, vegetables and noodles, plucking items out when cooked and enjoying the soup at the end. If you want a great hot pot in London, just ask our friend Pey Shan who introduced us to it last year!

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Hot Pot

Street Food
Street BBQs provide the perfect opportunity to join the locals perching on tiny plastic stools mere inches off the ground, whilst sampling some freshly cooked street food. A plate of beef and vegetables are supplied for you to “barbecue” yourself. However, the term barbecue is used loosely as you are in fact frying the meat in oil on a small gas powered stove. However it’s cooked, the result is very tasty once you’ve braved the spitting oil, darting with your chopsticks to grasp a piece of beef and dabbing it in the seasoning of chinese five spice, salt, pepper, chilli and lime juice.

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A street BBQ in Hanoi

Fish steamed in banana leaf
This is a fairly simple Vietnamese speciality of delicately seasoned fish encased in a banana leaf and steamed to perfection, presented as a delightful parcel to be unwrapped and shared at the dinner table.

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Fish in steamed banana leaf

White Rose
This is a delicacy of Hoi An. The white rose, banh bao in Vietnamese, is a small steamed parcel of shrimp or crab meat a in manioc-flour wrapping to be dipped in a lemon and pepper sauce. A delicious little snack or starter!

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White Rose

Spring rolls (nem)
Vietnamese spring rolls come in a number of varieties and are quite different from their Chinese counterpart. Chinese spring rolls are usually made with a wheat-flour casing and are predominantly deep fried, whereas Vietnamese nem are wrapped in rice paper and either eaten fresh, steamed or fried. Fresh spring rolls, sometimes called summer rolls, normally contain glass noodles, raw bean sprouts, and some refreshing green leaves including mint. They can also contain cooked meat such as pork or shrimps (sometimes less pleasantly still encased in their shells) and are wrapped in moistened rice paper. For cooked spring rolls the meat and veg can be rolled in dried rice paper and either eaten as is, steamed, or fried, providing a nice variety of textures and flavours. Another variant tried by Simon was the “roll your own” spring roll, with pork patties molded around lemon grass to be rolled up in rice paper stuffed with salad leaves, rice noodles, carrots and bean sprouts and enjoyed with a sweet and sour chilli sauce.

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Spring Rolls


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Pork on lemongrass skewers, with spring roll ingredients

Baguettes and pastries
The French colonised Vietnam between 1867-1954 and left behind a legacy of baguettes and pastries. You have no idea how wonderful it is to once again taste unsweetened bread!

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Laura ate this and concluded 'Needs more chocolate!'

Rice wine
Rice wine isn’t really a wine, it’s a spirit of around 40% proof made from fermented rice, tasting a lot like rice flavoured vodka.

Coconut juice
Lop the top of a nice green coconut, stick in a straw and voila! You have coconut juice!

Vietnam certainly has some delightful dishes on offer but after the wealth of flavour found in India were sadly a little underwhelming. Whilst I found the food here lacking in spice the same could certainly not be said of garlic which abounds in almost every dish (perhaps this is the reason that Vietnamese cuisine did not endear itself to me)! Hopefully Laos and Cambodia will provoke more of a love for South East Asian cooking.

Laura

The good, the bad and the ugly – three months in

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Motor Mayhem

We’ve been on the road (or more often than not the train tracks) for three months now, a journey that has taken us overland from Beijing through China, Tibet, Nepal and India, before taking to the skies to reach Saigon, and meandering our way up Vietnam to Hanoi where we currently reside. Now seems like the perfect time for reflection, here are some top tips and travel trivia from our trip so far…

Lessons from far away places

How to drive like you mean it:
I was sitting in the back of a rickshaw the other day when it suddenly dawned on me that honking before over-taking is obviously the best, and in fact only, way to signal your intentions to the driver in front…. Isn’t it? Hold on, why is it then that people aren’t constantly honking their horns on the roads of England? What do I normally do when over-taking? Oh that’s right, I use an indicator! You know you’ve been away too long when you forget the existence of things like indicators. However, I do feel that the use of the horn on hairpin bends on hazardous mountain roads is completely justified, in fact I would positively recommend it. For a crash course (hopefully not literally) on driving in Asia you need to adopt the following attitude: Why brake when approaching blind bends, that would only slow you down! Why overtake just one vehicle when you can overtake two? In fact, why stick to just your side of the road at all?? Basically put your foot down, your hand on the horn, and drive like you mean it!

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Quality toilets in Tibet

What defines quality?
Obviously standards vary from country to country but we have established a good set of benchmarks that define a “quality” establishment in any given country. These basically revolve around the toilets, the one common feature everywhere you go. In China a place may be considered “quality” if it provides a western style sitting toilet. In Tibet you simply need physical dividers between the holes in the ground to qualify! Whereas in Nepal it would probably be somewhere that you don’t have to dispose of toilet paper in a separate bin. In India, the mark is hit by an establishment that will provide you with toilet roll free of charge (and in the case of multiple toilets, in each cubicle as opposed to a single common roll for all). In Vietnam the bar is set slightly higher with both the presence of toilet paper and absence of drainage odour required in order for somewhere to meet specification. I hope this helps some of you in the future!

Queuing
Don’t do it. Basically queuing appears not to really exist outside of the western world. There’s some evidence of it India (perhaps as it was once a British colony?) and apparently Beijing hosted queuing awareness days in the run-up to the Olympics, but I don’t think it stuck. Essentially just join the crowd and push your way to the front.

How do we rate our packing skills?

The five best things we packed:

  1. Silk sheet sleeping bags – they’re soft, light and easy to clean! Perfect for any place with questionable bedding, cool and comfortable on hot Indian nights whilst adding extra warmth to a regular sleeping bag in the chilly Himalayas.
  2. LifeAdventure microfibre travel towels – they’re large enough to wrap around your body but fold up to the size of a book. These towels are ultra absorbent yet lightweight and quick-drying, perfect for being on the move.
  3. iPhones – Where to begin? Well I’m writing this on my phone right now, amply demonstrating the ease of blog and email writing anywhere at any time, ready to deploy the minute we come within range of wifi! Aside from the obvious advantages of being able to stay in touch with the outside world, listening to music and taking photos, the plethora of apps available means that the iPhone can become your guidebook, currency converter, map, GPS, translator, taxi meter and board game amongst other things. I honestly don’t know where we’d be without our phones (seriously, we wouldn’t have google latitude would we?)!
  4. Flip flops – Ok this one is mine alone as Simon hasn’t got any, but I’m particularly grateful for these as they were the last thing I packed (thanks Mum!). Flip flops are great for shared bathrooms, beaches and basically any situation too wet for suede sandals or walking boots (e.g. flood waters – just watch they don’t float off). They also make a nice change from the footwear you’ve spent all day trudging around the city or countryside in.
  5. Hand sanitiser (otherwise known to us as handisan) – the perfect way to clean your hands in situations where soap and water are lacking or sanitary conditions are unfavourable.
  6. Roll-on mosquito repellent. Ok, I know I said top five but I couldn’t leave this one out! As Simon has discovered, spray-on mosquito repellent seems to be more effective at coating your airways with DEET rather than your skin. Roll-on repellent, whilst being slightly more unpleasant to apply, is definitely less hazardous to the (human) health and keeps those winged vampires at bay.

The five things we most regret bringing:

  1. Three white T-shirts. Needless to say, none of them are white any more! I know that Simon is feeling nice and smug about this one, having brought only one white T-shirt with him, but to me it seemed like a good idea at the time! My (flawed) thinking was that white goes with everything, is great to wear in the heat and as my friend Vic pointed out is great for showing off a tan! As it turns out white is (perhaps unsurprisingly) good at showing up dirt, and necklines and sleeve edges take on a grubby orange tinge from sun lotion. Oh well, at least it provided me with the perfect excuse to buy a new purple T-shirt in India!
  2. A few too many books. Now it’s my turn to feel smug having brought out one book to Simon’s four. Books are of course a great way to while away a few hours on long journeys but are also a bit of a dead weight when you can only read one at a time. At least I’ve benefitted from Simon’s library and his Mum would be proud!
  3. Nope, that’s it! Turns out we actually packed pretty well.

A couple of helpful items we’ve picked up along the way:

  1. An umbrella. I’m not sure I truly appreciated the humble umbrella until I began travelling in a hot climate. Umbrellas are just fantastic, and so versatile! They keep you (and your bag) dry in monsoon rains whilst allowing you to remain cool, a feature you’ll appreciate once you’ve sweated it out in a raincoat. Umbrellas also double-up as a sunshade, providing relief from the burning sun whilst offering the perfect way to hide from the persistent invasive stares of Indian men.
  2. A local SIM card. Local SIMs are a cheap and convenient way to ring ahead and book accommodation, allowing the phone to fulfil its true calling. They also permit the use of data for when you just can’t live without internet connection!

And finally, some highs and lows…

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The view from our cabin on the Junk

Best meal – Boneless chicken masala and vegetable jalfrezi with Kashmiri rice and naan at Peacock Rooftop Restaurant, Jaipur, India.

Worst meal – Strips of fat in Beijing, China.

Best hostel – Little Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam. Nice clean 6-bed dorm, big beds, free fruit and drinks in common area, free wifi, breakfast included and the loveliest, most helpful staff. All for £4 each per night.

Worst hostel – Family Peace House, Kathmandu, Nepal. Perhaps a little harsh, the place was adequate, good location and free wifi but fairly indifferent staff and grotty rooms. The bathroom felt a bit like a prison cell!

Best room – Cabin onboard the Golden Star Junk in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. Nicely fitted out, good decor, clean and with the most spectacular views!

Worst room – Hotel Bobina, Gorakphur, India. Expensive, dirty and mosquito-ridden.

Best journey – 42 hour train journey from Beijing to Lhasa. Nice compartments and excellent company – thanks Solveig and Gardar!

Worst journey – Bus from Kathmandu to Langtang, Nepal. The worst roads ever! Navigating terrifying landslides with the bus teetering on the edge definitely made us question our mortality.

Best toilet – Peacock Rooftop Restaurant, Jaipur, India. Beautifully adorned with decorative blue and white tiles, clean and complete with toilet paper. Definitely worthy of the distinction of “quality”!

Worst toilet – Everest base camp, Tibet. Three holes in the concrete floor with no partitions and delightful smell of composting human waste.

Best sight – Jodhpur fort. A majestic hilltop fort with beautiful glowing stained glass, and spectacular views over the blue city.

Worst sight – Pushkar lake. A big disappointment, surrounded on all sides by concrete and pushy “holy men” asking for donations.

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Stained Glass at the Jodhpur Fort


If you’ve made it to the end of this post congratulations! That’s all for now, roll on months 4-6!

Laura

Food for thought (part two) – India

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Being a huge fan of Indian food back home I was slightly afraid that the real thing may not live up to expectations…Needless to say my fears were totally unfounded!

Our sortie into the highly spiced world of Indian cooking may have had a shaky start as we waited for our stomachs to settle after the inevitable bout of “Delhi belly”. However, once recovered, we delightedly delved in!

Indian food varies from region to region but has proved to be tasty in almost every form. Generally breads (such as naans, parathas and chappattis) are more a phenomenon of the North, as are tandoori (clay oven cooked) and meat dishes. This is not to say that meat and bread do not appear in the South, just that you are more likely to find vegetable and seafood dishes.
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With that in mind here are some of the foodstuffs that we have encountered:

Breads
During our Indian cookery class in Udaipur we learnt how to make pretty much any kind of flat bread that you could ever desire. The basic ingredients for any Indian bread are flour, water and a pinch of salt; mix, knead, roll out and cook dry on a heavy iron plate and you have a chapatti. Parathas are essentially the same with a little oil folded in and used to coat the bread whilst cooking. Naans are slightly more complex with curd (natural yoghurt), baking soda and sugar added to the flour, and rested for 30 minutes before cooking (traditionally cooked in the tandoor, although a hot iron pan will suffice). Parathas and naans can also be stuffed with any filling of your choice, be it fruit, vegetable or meat to provide an endless variety of breads. And the difference between all of these?Chapattis are your common everyday accompaniment to a meal whereas naans are usually reserved for special occasions (well going out for an Indian in England is always a special occasion right?), whilst parathas are normally served at breakfast with chai.

Rice
I won’t say much about rice as it’s a grain I’m sure you’re all familiar with. However, I’ll introduce a small fact that surprised us: apparently a vegetable pilau should contain more veg than rice, whereas a vegetable biryani should contain more rice than veg (according to our teacher Sashi anyway). We both believed it to be the other way around! We’ve also discovered Kashmiri rice; rice cooked with various fruits and vegetables, usually including pineapple – a favourite of mine.

Pakoras, koftas and cutlets
It took us a while to ascertain the difference between these tasty little deep fried treats but I think we’ve finally cracked it. Pakoras are vegetables fried in a spicy chickpea (gram) flour batter, whereas koftas consist of vegetables that have been mashed together and moulded into a ball before frying, whilst cutlets are essentially flattened koftas. The nice thing about our experience with these finger foods is that they are much more flavoursome than their British counterparts.

Samosas
Sadly samosas were not covered in our cooking class but we discovered some of the best samosas I’ve ever eaten in a great little eatery in Jaipur named LMB. Samosas in India are much larger than those tiny little things we get in the UK, they’re also far more sumptuous. These fist-sized triangular parcels, packed full of vegetables and spices deliver a good kick with every bite. Our favourite samosa outlet serves them up with generous helpings of mango and coriander chutneys, the sweetness of which provide a good counterbalance to the spices inside. This is definitely a lunchtime favourite that will be sadly missed.

Chutneys
Aside from their pairing with samosas, chutneys are something that we’ve found surprisingly elusive. They are however deceptively easy to make, mango chutney can be made by blending together fresh mangoes, sugar, salt, chilli powder and a little water. When mangoes are not in season fear not! Simply substitute the fresh mangoes with mango powder (a very intense and sour powder made from dried mangoes), add some extra sugar and water and simmer until reduced to the desired consistency. Coriander or mint chutneys are made by blending the fresh herb with garlic, chilli, salt, a little water and some lemon juice, simple and delicious (maybe omit the garlic if you’re like me).

Dosas
Dosas are a distinctly Southern speciality; crispy rice pancakes that resemble giant brandy snaps in appearance but taste more like cheese on toast. A masala dosa is curled around a generous dollop of spicy potato curry and served with sambar (a spicy lentil and vegetable curry soup) and a couple of other unidentified but flavoursome accompaniments that come with free refills. Very nice for breakfast, lunch or dinner – or all three!
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Curry
What to say? Curries come in an endless variety, so much so that I won’t even attempt to describe them. On most menus in India you’ll find a selection of veg and non-veg dishes. With a large portion of the population being vegetarian, vegetable curries are not just relegated to the lowly side dish as they are in the UK. We’ve had some very nice veg dishes including stuffed potatoes (a skinless baked or boiled potato stuffed with paneer and served in a creamy sauce), pumpkin curry, and okra cooked in dry spices (a favourite of Simon’s). In the south we’ve had some delightful seafood dishes including prawn masala, meen papas (a creamy fish fillet curry) and grilled tiger prawns in a tongue tingling spicy sauce. Curries in the south of India (or perhaps I should say Kerala since that is the only part of the south we’ve had time to explore) frequently have a coconut sauce giving them a flavour reminiscent of a Thai curry, although without the fish sauce.

Meat
Meat can be a little hit and miss in India. For the most part beef is off the menu due to the Hindu sanctity of the cow. Pork is similarly omitted, presumably out of respect for the Muslim population, although this is just conjecture on my part. Mutton and chicken however can be found on most non-veg menus. Tandoori meats, either in the form of meat on the bone (e.g. Tandoori chicken), skewered boneless chunks (such as chicken tikka) or even minced and shaped into kebabs (common with mutton) are marinated in yoghurt and spices before cooking in the tandoor (clay oven) – delicious! When eating a meat curry in India you may prefer to choose a dish that is specified on the menu as boneless, otherwise you may spend your time picking what little meat there is off the bone. That said, most of meat curries we’ve had have been very tasty.
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Mystery veg
In the streets of almost every city we have come across vendors pushing carts stacked high with this miscellaneous green and purple vegetable that looks something like a cross between a mini bell pepper and a brussel sprout. What this vegetable is, or how it is supposed to be consumed we have no idea, the only thing of note is that the sellers periodically pour water over them. If anyone is able to identify this vegetable for us it would be most appreciated!
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Lassis
Lassis are yoghurty drinks, which can be plain, sweet or salty, fruit flavoured, chocolate flavoured or in the case of the Rajasthani specialty ‘Makhani lassi’ saffron and sultana flavoured. Lassis (or at least the sweet type, I cannot account for the salty variety) are very refreshing, providing a cooling antidote to both the hot climate and spicy food.

Chai
Not being a tea drinker I don’t believe any description I give will do justice to chai, therefore I leave this to Simon…
“A rich milky blend of tea leaves, sugar and spices, it’s nothing like the watery brown cuppa back home – although a bit of a shock when you see quite how many tablespoons of sugar they’re heaping in!”
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Sweets
You’ll find Indian sweets glinting temptingly at you like little sugary gems behind many a glass counter. We saved this treat for Diwali when sweet shops suddenly pop up from nowhere, bursting at the seams and spilling out onto the pavements, selling large boxes of assorted delights to share with friends and family. We stood in front of a counter and tentatively picked out a small selection to fill our tiny box. Of the sweets we sampled (and you’ll have to forgive me, I don’t know their names) were a round white coconutty one (a bit like coconut ice), a thick treacly cube in a paper case (similar to the topping of a treacle tart), an almond diamond topped with shiny silver leaf (essentially pretty marzipan) and a number of fudge-like sweets (including one chocolatey affair). We enjoyed these little bursts of sugar amidst the Diwali fireworks from our rooftop, a spectacular way to sample India’s sweet offerings.
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Laura