Here We Go Again - Food in Buenos Aires

Somebody once told me that this blog tends to read like a food blog at times rather than a travel blog.  What can I say?  I love food.  My increasing waistline is a living testament to this.  Since I don’t really have anything else to talk about at the moment with respect to my stay in Argentina, I decided to take some photos of food and do an entry on that topic.

In order to prolong my trip here, and because I know what I like and how I like it, I tend to eat the vast majority of my meals at home.  Without significant cooking skills, this leads me to eat rather simple items.  This was especially true in the beginning while I was getting used to my kitchen and the items that I could find in the grocery stores.

If you know anything about me and you know anything about Argentina, you know how this starts.  Steak.  I think I had steak every day during my first three weeks here.  That’s slowed down a little bit to about four or five times a week, but I’m still eating lots of steak.  My favorite cut is the Ojo de Bife (Rib Eye) because it’s tender, tasty and you can eat the whole thing.  I’ve never had anything left on my plate after a meal.  My back-up cut is the Bife de Chorizo (New York Strip), which also is fantastic.  I have tried the Bife de Angosto, which is another strip steak, though one that has an attached bone.  It’s cheaper than the others but not as good and probably not even cheaper once you factor in the weight of the bone.

 Another staple in my diet has been dulce de leche.  Dulce de leche is a spreadable caramel food that is often used here for baking or a topping for other sweet items.  Personally, I like to put it on toast with a little butter.

I have also had my fair share of empanadas.  Empanadas here remind me of mini-calzones.  They are stuffed pastries that can be filled with nearly anything.  Empanadas de carne probably are the most popular but the best empanadas that I’ve had have been cebolla y queso (onion and cheese).  At one restaurant that I had empanadas, the cebolla y queson empanada had various types of cheese, including blue cheese.  I’m getting hungry just writing about it.

Empanadas at home got a whole lot better after I discovered an American-type hot sauce that is sold here at the feria de San Telmo on Sundays.  The sauce is called La Boca Roja and is made by two American ex-pats.  They are musicians and make a jalapeño-based hot sauce on the side for funds.  Finding them has made a lot of the foods that I’ve had here better.

Another Argentine specialty that I’ve fallen in love with here are alfajors.  Alfajors are made all over the world but they’re a little different from place-to-place.  In Argentina, they tend to be two square cookies with dulce de leche in the middle and dipped in chocolate.  Here, they have alfajores negros and alfajores blancos.  The chocolate ones are the best.

From time-to-time, however, I’ve tried to get some traditional U.S. food into my system as well.  I’ve made some American friends here who have taught me where to find the best taco ingredients, including American cheddar cheese, so I’ve recently gone into the taco-making business.  There are also some restaurants that cater to the American taste bud.  I’ve had good, not great but good, hot wings at a local bar called the Casa Bar.  (Note:  Having returned to CasaBar and having the wings several more times, I'd like to revise my initial review of "good" to "Best hot wings in Latin America.")  Also, a few miles away in Palermo Soho, there is an American breakfast restaurant that has all kinds of American favorites.  It’s called Randall’s and I’ve only been there once.  On that occasion, I had french toast and real, American bacon.  Bacon, sweet bacon.  They also have biscuits and sausage gravy on the menu as well as hot wings, cobb salads and waffles so I expect to be back several more times during the course of my visit.

Okay, now I’m hungry so I’m going to go eat something.  I’ll try to come up with something different to write about next week.

Chichen Itza / Playa del Carmen

The bus ride from Merida to Playa del Carmen was rather painful but it also included one of the highlights of the trip, including the part that I was looking forward to most in my entire Mexican/Central American adventure – Chichen Itza.

We had a private van from Merida to Playa del Carmen, so that was pretty cool. At least comfort-wise, the trip wasn’t so terrible. On the way to Playa del Carmen, about an hour-and-a-half out of Merida is Chichen Itza. Chichen Itza recently was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World and is the largest archaeological city of the Mayan civilization in the Yucatan Peninsula. It was a pilgrimage site for the Mayans for over 1,000 years and is one of the most visited places in all of Mexico.

The most famous icon of Chichen Itza is the Pyramid of Kukulcan or El Castillo. This is the pyramid/temple near the center of the facility that was built for the feathered, serpent god Kukulcan. It is busiest during the spring and winter solstice when the sunlight plays optical tricks with the pyramid and gives the appearance of a large serpent coming down the pyramid. With the exception of only the Great Pyramid in Egypt, it is the most iconic pyramid in the world.

Another famous icon at Chichen Itza is the Great Ballcourt. I’m still not sure what the game was, but it involved putting a ball through a hoop – a little like the Charlotte Bobcats but presumably with better accuracy. With respect to the game that was played on the court, this is the largest and impressive court of its kind in the entire Mayan archaeological world. I seem to recall hearing/reading that the game was played to the death at Chichen Itza but there currently are other schools of thought on the matter, such as the “death” being metaphorical rather than literal. I guess there is hope for the Bobcats yet.

There are lots of other structures at Chichen Itza such as the Temple of the Jaguars, the Platform of the Skulls, the Platform of Venus and the Sacred Cenote, which isn’t so much a structure as a gigantic sinkhole in which people were sacrificed after being doped up with liquor made from peyote, among other things. Listing these things isn’t so much important as it is a way for me to elongate the paragraph in order to provide enough space to include another photo. I have so many photos from Chichen Itza that it seems wasteful not to include at least three in this entry, so hopefully this paragraph is long enough now.

Leaving Chichen Itza, the rest of the trip to Playa del Carmen was a three-hour painful ride. I won’t go into why because it’s not important. I just write this so I’ll remember it when I look back at this entry. I’ll know what I’m talking about.

I’m not going to waste an entry on Playa del Carmen. I didn’t even bother to take many pictures. It’s got a nice beach, which I strolled for a while, but the town as far as I could tell is just a tacky resort town full of tourists and bars and restaurants and is most useful as a spring break hangout.

There is one thing worth mentioning from here, though. At a restaurant around the corner from my hotel, I stopped for some tacos and beer. I ordered Tacos de Mexicano. I received a bowl filled with a stew of chorizo, beef, onions and other tasty treats and six corn tortillas. It also came with guacamole, hot sauce, pico de gallo with jalapenos and other goodies. Once assembled, they were the best tacos I have ever eaten in my life and I was a big taco fan to begin with. The one pleasure that I’ll leave with from Playa del Carmen will be my memories of those tacos. God bless you tacos!!!

Tomorrow morning, we are off from Playa del Carmen to Tulum for a little more Mayan history and a little more adventure. See you there.

Mexican Food

Thus far with respect to Mexico City, I’ve written primarily about the places I went and the things that I saw. In this entry, I think I want to talk about food and some other passing thoughts regarding Mexico City.

As I write this, I have been in Mexico for a week. Thus far, I can say with pride that I haven’t eaten anything but Mexican food. I almost broke down today and grabbed a hamburger because I was extremely hungover and needed some greasy comfort food, but instead I grabbed an omlette with chorizo and refried beans. I’m getting ahead of myself, though.

I heard a lot of talk before I came here about how authentic Mexican food was very different from the Tex-Mex stuff that I get in the United States. I have to say that I have found that to be very true. There are not very many of the ground beef and cheddar dishes that are common at Taco Bell here in Mexico that I’ve seen. I have had a lot of tacos here in Mexico City. Some look similar to what I’m used to, meat and toppings in a folded-over corn tortilla. (I’ve seen a thousand tortillas in Mexico thus far and I don’t think I’ve seen a flour one – all corn. The smell of frying corn tortillas is everywhere in Mexico City.) Other tacos have been wrapped up like a mini-burrito but with the same fillings as the others.

My favorite tacos so far have been Tacos de Arranchera, which is tacos with flank steak. The meat has been marinated and the typical toppings provided have been pico de gallo and onions as well as a white cheese that I don’t find too flavorful, but the cheese flavor isn’t necessary with all of the other flavors going on in the food.

I also tried mole, I believe for the first time. Mole is probably the most famous of the Mexican dishes and there are several varieties that are found all over the country. The primary ingredients are chiles and chocolate, but it’s not necessarily either very spicy or sweet. The most famous is Mole Poblano, which is mole from Puebla, but I’ll write about that when I get to the Puebla entries. In Mexico City, I tried enchiladas with mole negro. This was my first experience with mole and I found that the mole that I tried was a little sweeter than I liked. Specifically, the chocolate flavor was a little too obvious.

I tried a few other Mexican dishes as well. I must admit, though, that the majority of the meals that I had in Mexico City were pretty generic because of where I ate them. In Mexico City, there are two restaurant chains that are on almost every corner – VIPS and Sanborn’s. I ate at VIPS twice in Mexico City and Sanborn’s once. These chain restaurants are sort of Mexican versions of Denny’s and Chili’s. They are a step above the fast food joints but not places in which you would expect to find fine cuisine, either. I ate at these places while I was travelling alone, figuring that I would have better meals when somebody with some local experience directed me towards more authentic cuisine. Even after that happened, though, I have to say that nothing I ate in Mexico City blew me away. I still expect that to happen, though, before I leave Mexico and enter Belize.

Depending on who you ask, Mexico City is either the largest or second-largest city in the world and the largest city that I’ve ever visited. That becomes obvious when I look at all of the places that I visited and the things that I saw in and around the city and realize that I saw only a very small fraction of the city. In the north, there is much poverty and I know there are some dangerous parts of the city. I didn’t see any of that. I think that five days in Mexico City probably were enough for me, but I’d definitely recommend paying it a visit. Now, it’s on to Puebla.

Chili Crabs and Durian

My last day in Singapore was pretty uneventful. I went here and there and ate this and that. There wasn’t anything unique on my agenda so I won’t bother to write about it. Instead, I’ll write about the evening and the food, because that was the true highlight.

On my first night in Singapore, if you recall, I went out with some old friends and some new friends and we had discussed meeting on my last night for some Singaporean chili crabs. As it turned out, everybody had to cancel except for Angie, a new friend that I had met a few days before. She had found a place that was supposed to have great chili crabs and we decided to go to the place she had found.

The place she found was Melben Seafood. When we got there, which I think was around 6:00 pm, there already was a long line of people waiting to get in. Somebody came over to show us a menu and to take our order and then we proceeded to wait in line for about an hour, I believe. All we ordered was a chili crab, a vegetable that I don’t recall but it was green with chilis, and rice. After we got through the line and were seated at our table, it still took about 45 minutes to get our food. The wait wasn’t that bad because it still was relatively early for dinner and I learned a lot from Angie since she’s from Singapore.

The food came and it was worth the wait. The crab came with (I believe fried) bread to dip in the sauce. The crab itself was floating in a thick, sweet, savory sauce that was a little, though not very, spicy. The sauce was like a mixture of tomato sauce and chili sauce and was good with the crab, with the rice and with the bread. It was a little pricey at S$40 per crab but with the rice, the vegetables and the bread, it turned out that the one crab was plenty of food, so the total cost wasn’t horrible. Because I love food as much as I do, I have to say that the chili crab may have been the highlight of my trip to Singapore.

After dinner, we walked back to the subway/mall for dessert. And for dessert we had durian pancakes. If you don’t know durian, let me describe it a little bit for you. The first thing you notice is that it’s quite pungent. I’ve read that it smells like rotting flesh, but I think that’s an insult to zombies. It’s strong enough that it is banned on the Singapore subway system because of the aroma. Nevertheless, I was game. I got a durian pancake and took a bite. It was sweet but did have a strange taste, at least to my palate. It sort of reminded me of potatoes, onions and sour milk all glopped together and put onto a pancake. In order to get the pancake, we had to stand in line for about 15 minutes so it is very popular, but it is a taste that I have yet to acquire. It wasn’t horrible, though, just a little strange to me, so I continued to eat it. Before I finished, I had to go to the bathroom. I don’t think carrying food with you into a bathroom is a particularly good idea, so I scarfed down the last third of the durian pancake before I went in. For a split second, it almost came back up. That would have been bad, and thankfully it didn’t happen, though it would have been a suitable end to my durian adventure.

After dessert, I went back to my hotel. I had to get up early in the morning and head to the Singapore airport for my flight to Los Angeles via Manila so an early evening was in order. I’ll pick up there in the next post.

Eating at the Hawking Centers

On my second full day in Singapore, I was mostly concerned with something that I’m often mostly concerned with, food. In speaking with my friends the night before, I learned some stuff about the hawking stations in Singapore. I don’t know if what I learned was true, but I heard that there used to be stalls on the streets selling food all over town and the city wanted to get them off the street but not put them out of business. The solution was to build these centers and move the food stores into those.

There are a couple of huge hawking centers in Chinatown and I decided that I’d walk to Chinatown and get some food. The weather was overcast, with occasional sprinkles, but at least that kept the temperature down, so it wasn’t a bad walk, even though it was about 45 minutes each way. On the way, I passed some temples and, of course, malls, but the walk wasn’t particularly interesting.

Once I got to Chinatown, I started looking for the Maxwell Road Food Centre. At Maxwell Road, there are over 100 food stalls selling almost every type of Asian food imaginable. There were several sticky rice places, and some of them quite busy, but I wasn’t in the mood for sticky rice. Instead, I found another place that looked pretty busy (I heard that the busier the place, the better the food would be) and ordered spicy duck noodle soup. I love spicy Asian food and this was the spiciest that I had eaten since I was in southern China, so I was very happy about it. Overall, I definitely think that it was worth the walk.

After lunch, I walked around a little bit and walked to a market nearby my hotel to get some souvenirs. I also went to Bugis Street to use the free wifi. My only other goal of the day, however, was to head to the zoo to see the Night Safari.

The Night Safari in Singapore isn’t so much a safari as it is a combination floor show and tram ride around the zoo in the dark. I left from my hotel around 6:30 and it unexpectedly took me about two hours to get to the Night Safari, the entrance of which is next door to the Singapore Zoo. I had to transfer once I got onto the subway and then take a 45-minute bus ride from the final subway stop to the Night Safari. (Note: Since my iPhone doesn’t have a flash, I have no good pictures of the Night Safari so all of my pictures are from earlier in the day.)

Once I arrived at the Night Safari, I waited for about 20-minutes for a show featuring lots of the nocturnal animals. The highlight of the show was listening to the MC tell people in about a dozen different languages not to use flash photography during the show. Of course, some people still did.

After the show, I went to the tram for the 30-minute ride around the park to see all of the night animals. Of course, we saw all of the usual suspects – elephants, tigers, lions, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, etc. The whole trip is in the rain forest, so we probably were surrounded by unbelievable beauty, but of course it was night so it was difficult to make out much of the beauty. All-in-all, it wasn’t a bad trip, but in retrospect, I probably would have been better off if I had just gone in the daylight and see the Singapore Zoo that way.

It took another hour-and-a-half to get back to my hotel and by this time it was getting kind of late so I called it an evening. The next day was chili crab and durian day and we’ll get into that in the next post.

Getting Even Higher in KL

I reached my final full day in Kuala Lumpur, I only had a few of them, and I still hadn’t gotten as high as I wanted to get. Actually, I’m not sure I could have gotten any higher than the Petronas Towers, but because it is built on a hill, I’ve heard the view from the KL Tower is actually higher than those from the Petronas Towers. And since everybody had told me about the great views, I decided to check it out for myself.

Like my original trip to the Petronas Towers, I was able to walk from my hotel to the KL Tower. Also like the Petronas Towers, at times it completely disappeared from view. You’d thing that some of the largest structures in the world would be able to be seen from everywhere in the city, but like New York, Kuala Lumpur is an extremely tall city and giant buildings often get obscured by other large buildings.

Anyway, getting to the KL Tower was easy enough. I could tell you all of the statistics about the KL Tower, but I’ll just leave it by saying that it is one of the world’s largest observation towers. The KL Tower sits on top of a hill and upon arrival at the site, I took the free shuttle bus to the top of the hill and the entrance to the KL Tower. I forget how much the ticket cost, but it was fairly inexpensive. More importantly, unlike the Petronas Towers, there was no line required to purchase the ticket and the ticket didn’t require me to come back in order to go up to the observation deck; that privilege was bestowed immediately.

I took the elevator to the observation deck and immediately saw that what everybody had told me – that the views from the KL Tower completely trumped those from the Petronas Towers – was absolutely true. From the observation deck of the KL Tower, you get a complete 360-degree view of Kuala Lumpur and the surrounding area. The trip to the top also comes with a free audio guide that leads you to twelve observation posts and explains what you are looking at as you peer out the windows. If there is any problem, it is that the audio guide appears to get outdated quickly because of all of the construction that continues to take place in Kuala Lumpur. The views were truly breathtaking and this trip turned out to be my primary highlight in KL.

My final highlight in KL came later that night when I went to dinner. A few friends of mine had been to KL a few months earlier and told me about a tapas restaurant that was close to the hotel in which they stayed. I like tapas and I trusted my friends, so I went to the place for dinner on my final night in KL. I was not disappointed.

The place was called Pinchoa and even though it wasn’t the best tapas restaurant at which I had ever eaten, I did live in Madrid for a few months after all, it was the best I’ve ever had outside of Spain and better than some at which I had eaten in Spain. I don’t remember everything I tried, but I did order the usual suspects – Patatas Bravas and Tortilla Española, as well as some jamon y chorizo-infused items. All were tremendous. I also received a free sample of the jamon iberico from the owner, who is from Barcelona, and we sat for a few drinks and talked about Spain and the restaurant and Malaysia. It was a really good time and really good food and it left me with a great final impression of Kuala Lumpur. The next stop on the Sheldon train was Singapore and we’ll pick up there next time.

Crickets and Spiders - Breakfast of Champions

On the nineteenth of November, we completed our beach trip in Sihanoukville and headed back to Phnom Penh. At this time of year, Phnom Penh is packed because it is the weekend of the annual water festival, and since we were staying near the river, tourists were in town in hordes.

Once again, we arrived in Phnom Penh in the afternoon and didn’t have a lot of time to do things that we wanted to do. As soon as we arrived, a few of us left for lunch and then headed to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. With the exception of S-21 and the Killing Fields, which I wrote about a few days ago, these are the most famous landmarks in Phnom Penh.

The palace and pagoda complex contain numerous buildings, some dating back to 1866, and have housed the royal family for the most part since that time. I’m still not sure what happened to the palace during the period of rule of the Khmer Rouge, when Phnom Penh was evacuated, but it seems to be in as good shape now as it was before that period.

We didn’t spend a lot of time at the palace complex because the day was waning and we still wanted to go to the Russian market. The Russian market is called what it is because Russians were the primary tourists who shopped at the market back in the 1970s (if I remember correctly) even though almost all of the stores in the market are run by Cambodians.

I think I can say that the Russian Market in Phnom Penh has been my favorite of all of the markets that I visited in Southeast Asia, and every city seems to have at least one, so that’s saying something. I bought some t-shirts and other souvenirs as well as some DVDs. I bought 44 Woody Allen movies for $8. He’s probably not going to be happy to hear that, but I was pretty pleased with it.

I seem to recall that we had dinner and a relatively early night on our second night in Phnom Penh because, once again, we had to get up early the next morning for another bus to another Cambodian town. This time, that Cambodian town was Kompong Cham.

The bus ride to Kompong Cham was one of the most eventful bus rides we’ve had on this trip, primarily because of the cuisine. About halfway between Phnom Penh and Kompong Cham, we stopped for a happy house break at a place that our guide called “Spider Town.” At the place we stopped, there were many delicacies for sale, including pineapple and mango. Oh, and there were also crickets and spiders, deep fried, for purchase. I tried a cricket and it was pretty good except that I got a leg stuck between my teeth. I also held some spiders; I think tarantulas, but I’m not really sure. In any event, they were large-ass spiders. I ate the leg of a dead one. Once again, the thing was deep fried and crunchy and tasted mostly like the sauce in which it was cooked.

Unfortunately, the bus ride was the high point of the trip to Kompong Cham. We only stayed there one night and that was primarily to break up the trip between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. There was a market, but there wasn’t much to it. We had dinner at a man’s house in the outskirts of the town. It was very good, especially because much of it was fried (pork, eggplant), but that was short. After dinner, some of us congregated at a makeshift bar that a woman ran on the sidewalk across the street from the hotel. Once again, though, an early night was necessary because of an early-morning bus. After that, it was on to Siem Reap.

All I Have To Say About Hoi An

From Hue, we went to Hoi An, which was about a five-hour bus ride away. We were in Hoi An for three days, but I may have only this entry to memorialize it because it wasn’t that exciting. I had a good time, mind you, but there’s not that much to write about. Anyway, that should help catch up the blog.

Hoi An is an ancient port city that thrived as the center of the Silk Road hundreds of years ago, but disappeared from maps and everywhere else until the past twenty years, when it was revived for tourism. At this point, I’d have to say that it is now one of the biggest tourist traps that I’ve ever seen. One of them. Don’t worry, Vegas, you still have the title.

The big thing to do in Hoi An is shop. There are tons of places to go to get custom made suits, dresses, shoes, rings and various other items that you may want to have made. These items aren’t necessarily cheap, but they are extremely inexpensive when compared to Western standards. The problem, for me, is that I’m not really a shopper. I’m a non-practicing lawyer. I have eight suits and no job. The last thing I need right now is another suit.

That is not to say that I didn’t buy anything in Hoi An. The stuff is so inexpensive, that I couldn’t help but buy some stuff. I got a couple pairs of shorts, some touristy t-shirts, some sandals, a sleeping bag and some souvenirs. As an example, the touristy t-shirts were $2 each, and could be bargained down to a quarter of that if you had the time or the interest in doing so.

There is also what is probably a nice beach in Hoi An. From our hotel, the beach is a 4 km walk, so I went down to check it out. It wasn’t bad – sandy instead of rocky and the water was nice. The problem, however, was that I happen to be in southern Vietnam during the wet season and the wet season in southern Vietnam is pretty freaking wet. It rained the entire time we were in Hoi An, so at the beach, I mainly just walked around and imagined how beautiful it might be in beautiful weather.

The food in Hoi An was fair to good, depending on where we went. Like other tourist cities, all of the restaurants offer “authentic” local foods as well as pizza, hamburgers and anything else that the restaurants think will bring in Western customers. I did have a delicious sautéed noodles dish at Café 96, though. That and a Vietnamese iced tea cost me 53,000 Vietnamese dong – or less than three dollars American. If you’re in town, I recommend it.

In addition, several of us participated in a cooking class. It wasn’t nearly as fun or interesting as the cooking class I took in Yangshuo because we weren’t actually cooking our individual dishes. We learned some recipes and ate what we “cooked” – though that basically meant we ate what we chopped and somebody else cooked. All the “cooking” we did was turning some spring rolls in a frying pan. It was fun enough, I guess, and I did think seeing the geckos crawling around the wall of the class was pretty cool.

The hotel that we stayed in was nice enough, with free wifi. It had a buffet breakfast which was passable, especially at $1.50 for all-you-can-eat. There was a café a few doors down with coffee and beer and across the street from that is a karaoke bar, where we were able to drink some Tiger beer and belt out some English-language songs.

Like I said in the beginning, Hoi An is a nice town and I certainly had a good time. There’s just not a lot worth writing about it other than about the markets, the beach and the restaurants and not a lot more about those than I’ve already said. In several hours, I will be in Nha Trang, which is another touristy beach area, so we’ll see if that is much different than Ha Noi. Don’t worry; I’ll let you know.

Passing Thoughts: Vietnam Edition

Currently, I’m on a train between Da Nang and Nha Trang. I’ve been in Vietnam now for roughly two weeks and it seems to me that it’s about time for me to do another Passing Thoughts entry, so here is my first one for Vietnam.

Food: As always, this is an important topic for me and, of course, this can be broken into several categories. Generally, however, I’ll write a little about the food. I have had very little western food since I’ve been here. What I have had is a lot of rice noodles.Whether it be in Pho or Bun or sautéed or fried, I have had rice noodles galore. In Vietnam, it’s not uncommon for people to eat them three meals a day. I’ve enjoyed them, though I have to say that the food here hasn’t been nearly as spicy as it was in southern China and I do miss the heat. You can get chili paste, though, and there’s some delicious chili sauces with garlic and onion that add quite a bit of flavor to the dishes.

Food, Part II: The other food of which I’ve had quite a bit since I’ve been in Vietnam is spring rolls. I’ve had them steamed, fried, I’ve rolled them myself, I’ve even fried them myself. I’ve had vegetable spring rolls, chicken spring rolls, pork spring rolls – okay, I’m beginning to sound like Bubba. I’ll just say that there are a lot of spring rolls here and most of them have been outstanding, especially if the sauce is good.

Food, Part III: Another thing that I’ve noticed here is that the bread in Vietnam is particularly good. It’s pretty easy to find baguettes and they are crisp on the outside and soft in the middle.I have to assume that it’s because of the French influence in Vietnam.

People: I have to say that, as a group, the people in Vietnam may be the friendliest that I’ve ever met. I’ve had meals by myself in restaurants and more often than not, somebody will come over to me while I’m eating and start talking to me about Vietnam or the United States or any other topic. And, on top of this, I’d have to rank Vietnam with Argentina and Italy as far as the places that I have visited that have had the most beautiful women. (And, no, I still have not visited Brazil.)

Vietnam War: As you can imagine, the topic is still very fresh here. The Vietnamese lost 3 million people during the war, and that’s just the official count. I have heard that there are still another 300,000 people still considered “missing.” Here, the war is known as the American War. (Makes sense, since every war here is a “Vietnam war.”) I guess that the level of bias that you hear here depends upon the story teller and his/her own story, but I have heard a lot about the atrocities of war since I’ve been here and it has altered the way I view the war, both from the perspective of an American and from the Vietnamese perspective. Most of all, though, I think that it has inspired me to learn much more about this period of American/Vietnamese history.

United States: Both here and in China, there’s been an odd phenomenon involving the following conversation. Local Person (“LP”): Where are you from? Me (“Me”): The United States. LP:Where? Me: The United States. LP: (Perplexed look of person who has no idea what I’m talking about.) Me: America? LP: OOOHHH. America. It seems that, despite the desires of nearly every South American I’ve ever met, the United States is better known as America here rather than the United States.

Okay, I guess that’s enough for my passing thoughts at the moment. I’m sure I’ll rip off another Passing Thoughts entry before I enter Cambodia. Later.

Sapa - I Vant To Be Alone

On what was supposed to be our only full day in Sapa, I just tried to spend as much of the day alone as I could. Having felt suffocated a little bit by the group with which I was traveling, I got up, went to a buffet breakfast restaurant and then to a coffee shop. (The same coffee shop that I’m in now.) The following day, we were scheduled to go on a seven-hour hike to visit nearby villages and then spend the night in a Vietnamese homestay. While this would have appealed to me if I were doing it solo (Is the subjunctive correct here? I don’t really care.), the idea of spending all that time with everybody was not so appealing. I ended up running into the tour leader in a Sapa street (it really is a small town) and telling her that I was going to cut off from the group and remain in Sapa, where I would meet the group when they returned to pick up their belongings, before heading to Hanoi. From that point, actually from dinner the night before, I was on my own and that’s pretty much how I needed it to be at the time.

Now, truth be told, even by myself, there isn’t a bunch to report about Sapa. In the town, I walked around a lot; ate at a bunch of different cafes; and went to the local market. I have eaten a lot of stir-fried noodles with chicken in Sapa and I have developed a taste for it. As touristy as this town is, I don’t expect any of the Vietnamese meals that I’ve had are “authentic” but I guess they will provide a good basis for me to judge other meals since I will be in Vietnam for another two weeks plus.

I did buy some goods from one of the local women who was hawking stuff on the street. I bumped into her on my first day and we talked for about ten minutes because she was very nice and her English was excellent. The next day, I bumped into her again and I agreed to buy some stuff from her and her partner, whom I had also met the previous day. The transaction was sort of surreal. We went into an alley, not a scary alley but for a little shelter from the motorcycles and cars cruising down the streets, and she pulled out her basket and started showing me goods. Unfortunately, about a half-dozen other local sellers saw us go into the alley and they followed us. All of a sudden, I was surrounded by eight little Vietnamese women pulling out various local hand-made goods and saying, “buy from me.” I ended up just buying from the two that I had met the day before, but I felt like I was running a gauntlet through the alley to escape.

Even though I spent what amounts to about three days in Sapa, there really isn’t much else to report. Since the weather was so craptastic, and because I needed to start booking flights, trains and accommodations for my post-Bangkok trip, I spent a lot of time indoors at the hotel or in restaurants and cafes. In a few hours, the group will return to Sapa and later this afternoon, we will board an overnight train to Hanoi. Having had an opportunity to spend significant time alone over the past few days, I should be ready to return to the group without feeling claustrophobic. When we get to Hanoi, one person leaves the group and another eight to twelve will join. Hopefully, I will find the changed dynamic refreshing. In any event, I’m caught up now and I’ll write a little more after some time in Hanoi.

Looking For More Things To Do In Jianshui

The next morning, we all met for breakfast. (Recently, we had seemed to be having every meal and doing everything else together. This fact will become relevant in some upcoming posts.) We went to a place where I FINALLY had an authentic Chinese breakfast. Like everywhere else, there are several different types of authentic breakfasts, but what I had wanted for weeks was some steamed dumplings and dough sticks with soy milk. Just in time, too, because this was my last full day in China. The dough sticks were as good as they’ve always been. I think the traditional soaking of them in soy milk is unnecessary (I’m not a big fan of the soy milk), but it was definitely worth trying. And steamed dumplings with pork, well, need I say more?

After breakfast, we all hopped in a van. I mentioned in my last post that a lot of people were interested in going to a local village, but I wasn’t. Instead, a few of us were dropped off at the Shuanglong (Double Dragon) Bridge. It actually is a quite impressive bridge for such a small town. It was originally built during the Qing Dynasty. Unfortunately, I don’t know when the Qing Dynasty took place, so I don’t know exactly how old it was, but it was pretty cool regardless of its age.

Afterwards, we walked about five kilometers back into town. The walk took us through what I started calling Tombstone Alley because we had to walk about two kilometers down a dusty road in which there were various places at which tombstones were being carved. I could see why tombstones were so important on this road because I was almost hit by three cars and five motorcycles. But we survived – for now.

I went back to my room for a cup of coffee and went back out again to see if there was anything else in Jianshui worth seeing. I walked to three of the city’s walls and the only thing I came across was a bar. Bars are important, but not exciting. Later in the walk, I took a turn that looked promising and happened along the local market, which was very much like most other local markets that I had seen in China, with meat (cooked and/or alive), vegetables, herbs and local goods. I walked around for a while and then returned to the hotel.

When I got back to the hotel, the others had just returned from the village. We went to lunch and then I took them to the market so everybody would have something to do in the afternoon. While in the market, I decided to do one last thing in China that I had thought about, but hadn’t done. I bought some chicken feet. I wanted about five, but was given around twenty. I returned to the hotel and ate some of them. They were good. Not very meaty, it was basically like eating chicken skin off of little bones, but the sauce in which they were cooked was excellent.

While back at the hotel, it started to pour. We just hung out and read or played on the computer or ate chicken feet or what have you. The rain subsided and we went out to dinner. Afterwards, we headed to the bar that I had found while I was walking around earlier in the day. After too many beers, we returned to the hotel and our last full day in China came to an end.

Hot Pot in Kunming

After getting back to Kunming from the Stone Forest, there wasn’t much left for us to do. One person went to a temple and another to a provincial museum, but neither of these activities appealed to me. In fact all that appealed to me was a little nap and some shopping for some provisions for the next few days – instant coffee and toilet paper. (Note: Once again, I have no photos that are germane to the post, so I'm just going to post some previously unpublished photos of China. Enjoy.)

At dinner, we met once again for dinner. This time, we had a Chinese specialty – the hot pot. Evidently, the hot pot is trending all over the country and this was our first chance to partake. The hot pot was similar – in a sense – to the meal we had the day before, but with significant differences. The basis of the hot pot is to cook your meal while you eat it. It starts with a soup boiling on the table, which has an oven top wired to it. We had two soups – one spicy and one mild. While the soups boiled, we selected about a dozen meats and another dozen vegetables to cook in our hot pot. Most of the stuff was pretty mainstream. Our meats included beef, mutton, fish balls, squid and pork. Another thing that it included was duck tongue. Among the vegetables was the standard Chinese lotus root. We also put together our own little sauces for the meal. I used a tad too much chili oil and it meant that everything I ate would be spicy regardless of the soup base from which I pulled my food, but that was fine.

The meal was very good and a lot of fun. Among my favorites were the fish balls and meatballs which went very well with the sauce that I made. The vegetables also were outstanding and cooked quickly in the boiling soup bases. I tried the duck tongue – I figured that since I love duck and I love tongue, duck tongue should be particularly awesome. Unfortunately, it wasn’t particularly awesome. It was okay, but not particularly awesome. On top of that, there were a lot of bones and cartilage, so it was really more trouble that it was worth. That aside, however, it was a very good, if spicy, meal.

When we finished, it was still kind of early. The girl who had tried to get into China without a visa finally arrived with the group during dinner. After dinner, she and I went to a bar for some more Chinese beer. On the way, she stopped off to visit an ATM where she became the second person on this trip to leave a bank card in an ATM. Unfortunately, she didn’t realize this until about 24-hours and 400 kilometers later. She’s not having a good week.

In the morning, I tried the breakfast at the hotel in which we were staying. It was good, not great. I had some cold fried eggs (and they’re really not all that bad cold) as well as some fried dough sticks and some potatoes and onions. That’s about all the time we had to spend in Kunming because shortly before eight we were in taxis once again on our way to the bus station to catch a bus to Jianshui. That was earlier this morning and I’m damn close to catching up at this point. We’ll get to Jianshui in the net post.

Final Chinese Passing Thoughts Entry

As I write this, it is October 24 and I am Jianshui. Yep, that’s still in China. After about four weeks in China, tomorrow will be my last full day in China. It seems like as good a time as any to do another passing thoughts entry on China. It may be my last chance, so here it goes.

Chinese Beer: Why is Chinese beer like having sex on a boat? Both are fucking close to water.

Chinese Food: I think I’ve had to write about Chinese food in every one of the passing thoughts entries. The farther south that we have moved into China, the less Western the food has gotten, as well as having gotten much spicier. Most of the best meals that I have had in China are meals that I’ve had in the past several days.

Chinese Hotel Amenities: I’ve stayed in cheap hotels all over the world and several in China. China’s freebies in hotels and hostels are unique as far as I’ve seen – at least compared to the U.S. and Europe. In every hostel, there are free toothbrushes with toothpaste and combs. All of them. There’s also hot water, but that’s another topic.

Hot Water: You can get water boilers or boiled water in every hotel and on every train. It also is pretty common at many tourist attractions. This is huge because you can’t drink the water here, at least not until it has been boiled, so it provides safe drinking water. Also, it means that I can always have instant coffee in the morning and the instant coffee here isn’t half bad. It also means that you can eat practically any time because of the ramen noodles, but that’s another topic.

Ramen Noodles: It’s everywhere. It’s cheap; it’s convenient; and it’s good. The noodles are primarily sold in buckets with little packets of seasoning. I’m not sure how much I’ve eaten, but it’s eaten by almost everybody on the overnight train rides because it’s an easy way to have a hot meal while traveling, thanks to the boiled water that is available. You also see a lot of people here sitting on the side of the road eating it in touristy areas. I’ve developed a whole new respect for the ramen noodle.

Chinese Potato Chips: In the west, we usually flavor our potato chips with things that we put on potato products – sour cream and onion, cheese flavoring or salt and vinegar. The potato chips in China, especially the Lay’s brand, are flavored out of the most random things you can imagine. Among the flavors of potato chips that I’ve had since I’ve been in China are: Red Chili, Blueberry, Hot & Spicy Fish Soup, Cucumber and Lemon Tea. Some are kind of good, some are kind of gross, but all are kind of interesting.

Soft Drinks: There are all of the typical soft drinks available here, though bottled tea appears to be much more prominent here. There are two that I have fallen in love with here. First is a Minute Maid grape and aloe soda. It’s basically a grape soda – it’s green, not purple – with aloe. It also has a lot of pulp in it. It’s very good. The other is milk tea, which is basically sweet tea with milk. There are various brands of it that I’ve tried. My favorite is the Kirin brand but, shhh . . ., it’s Japanese.

Okay, I guess that’s enough for now. There may be more, there may not. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Venice: The Food and the Leftovers

Let’s see, what else did I do in Venice? I walked. I walked a lot. The weather was beautiful and the tourists were out in full force at the main tourist locations, so I just walked along the Grand Canal, and then along other canals, soaking in the good weather and listening to my iPod.

I found a park. It wasn’t very big and didn’t have much in it except for a few statues and a lot of benches. Another park had about a half-dozen buildings, each having the name of another country on the front of them. I never did figure that one out, though I can’t say I really tried all that hard, either.

Oh, and I ate. Lord, did I eat. I have to say that, overall, Italy was a little bit of a disappointment to me, except for the food – and with respect to the food, Italy was the greatest place that I’ve ever visited.

What did I have in Venice? Well, my last food was gelato. I thought that I had had my fill of gelato in Rome, but I was wrong. Here, the flavors that took my heart were mento chocolato and caramel. In a cone, in a cup, it didn’t matter.

I also had pizza. Pizza in Venice, like in all cities in Italy (and Argentina and the United States and etc.), is everywhere. The first thing that struck me about the pizza in Venice is that they have a pizza called Pizza USA here. It’s a pizza with french fries on top. Now, in my forty plus years in the good old USA, I’ve never seen a pizza with french fries on it, but somehow, Venetians have it in their collective head that in America, we eat french fries on our pizza. I couldn’t tell if I was more amused or insulted. I’m lying. I was insulted.

While I was in Venice, however, I did manage to have the best pizza that I’ve ever eaten. It was a spicy salami pizza at this little joint that I’ll call part of a chain because I saw two of them while I was in Venice, though it appears to be unique to Venice. The crust was super thin. To eat it in slices, you would have to cut tiny slices around the crust, but anything in the middle had to be eaten with a fork. I’m not sure what made it so good, but I got the distinct impression that there was a lot of butter between the cheese and the crust. (As I stated in my Facebook status, I couldn’t determine if the secret ingredient was love or butter, because they taste so much alike.) I counted at least three different types of salami on it and I believe that I have finally found my perfect Italian pizza. (Sadly, my pizza picture didn't come out, so here is an Italian patriotic pasta dish photo.)

I also ate a lot of pasta in Venice, but one type became my favorite. I had planned on having something different with every meal in Venice, but I had to try this dish twice. It was spaghetti carbonara. In more Americanized terms, it was spaghetti with bacon and eggs. I had seen it before, but the combination didn’t sound very tasty to me. In Venice, however, one day I walked upon this restaurant and the picture that it had of it in the menu looked appetizing, and I’m willing to try anything once as long as it includes bacon.

The egg portion of the dish was an egg-based sauce. You can definitely taste the egg, but there was more to it than that; though, don’t ask me what it was. Cream, I think. I’m not really that much of a foodie. The bacon came in tiny chunks that had a tendency to fall off the spaghetti and get saved for a few delicious mouthfuls at the end of the meal.

Okay, those are the Venice highlights. At the moment, I’m on a train to Ventmiglia (or Ventmille, if you’re in France), where I’ll switch trains on my way to Monte Carlo and Nice. See you there.