Travel is Always the Answer

Photos: Queen Bees and Wanna Bees

sarahreinertsen — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:08:00 GMT

My Scholarship entry - Understanding a Culture through Food

sarahreinertsen — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:53:00 GMT

Queen Bees and Wanna Bes: Cooking Classes in South India

After a tour of the Kerala backwaters I had the opportunity to sign up for a few cooking classes.

Leelu was a woman of large stature who had a bit of a queen bee presence about her. On checking in I casually mentioned that I was doing two courses, hers that evening and Nimmy's the following day.

The head started to wobble and the wrists started to flick as rapid fire questions came at me: how much did it cost? How long was it? What Nimmy is going to cook? Might I tell Leelu how their classes are different? Taken aback at the inquisition, I attempted diplomatically vague answers.

During the class itself, Leelu 'demonstrated' 4 recipes (which is to say her servant did the cooking and she sat on a stool telling us what he was doing).

So I cannot speak to her actual cooking ability, though I was certainly bemused by her cooking style.

The next day I took an autorickshaw to Nimmy Paul's home a few suburbs away. She and her husband ("Mr Paul") greeted me, and we had a chat in their elegant living room for 30 minutes. It quickly became apparent that in addition to being delightful Nimmy was a minor celebrity chef in India.

And her food was spectacular.

We had 14 courses over 10 hours - complete with naptime in between. Fish poached in banana leaf, traditional South Indian vegetable mix avial, sautéed okra pachadi, chicken, vegetables, dessert. Everything was seasoned perfectly with Nimmy's expert palate.

"What else are you interested in learning about?"

"Ooh! Biryani perhaps?" - she graciously sent Mr Paul off to print out her favourite recipe before taking me through her sparse notes in more detail.

But, graciousness aside, Nimmy couldn't help herself: as we were chatting over dinner she discovered I had taken Leelu's course the previous night.

What is Leelu's course like? How much does she charge? How long does it take? How are they different? What did she cook? Was it good...?

I had to smile.

Simple Food Done Well

sarahreinertsen — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:15:00 GMT

^{Plantaños frying in Guatemala}

Up until Belize, the food on our trip had been ok but nothing particularly noteworthy.

Guatemalan cuisine is certainly edible and functional - corn, rice, beans. Mom & I fought over the last of the 5 Q crispy plantaños, a perfect mid-afternoon pick-me-up (particularly if properly salted and just out of the fryer!). We had had guacamole done every which way possible and then some. The famous Guatemalan KFC rival Pollo Campero is every bit as deliciously greasy as it's billed to be.

^{Now *that's* a mandoline! Slicing plantains for the fryer in Antigua.}

But after nearly two weeks of eating variations on 4 ingredients, it was becoming a bit same-same.

Our guesthouse in Cayo District of Belize employed an amazing cook, Mel. She instinctively knew how to season, put a lot of thought into the menus yet still came up with the night's dishes on the fly, clearly loved her job and did it well. We had tasty breakfasts and dinners of both western and Kriol influences - curry, jerk chicken, fry jacks, corn fritters - and sincerely praised them all.

Mel & I had an extensive discussion one day, mostly about food and during which she gave me her fry jack recipe.

^{Belizean Breakfast of fry jacks, beans and eggs.}

You know you're talking with a good cook when they can not only rattle off the ingredients and quantities, but the instructions are simply "knead as for tortillas" and "cook it until it's done."

Mel's Fry Jacks

flour (1 pound)

baking powder (1T)

touch of oil

salt

- Knead as for tortillas
- Cut in quarters, deep fry

Fry jacks are a common Belizean breakfast and they're not going to win any heart smart awards. But as a fellow cook it's amazing to me and, dare I say, humbling: how tasty such a simple dish can be when executed well. (Likewise, how terrible it can be when done poorly.)

Another noteworthy dish in Belize is ceviche. Nearly every food culture up and down the coast of the Caribbean and Pacific has some version of this - including Guatemala, though the opportunity didn't present itself to try ceviche on that side of the border. Raw fish or seafood "cooked" in some form of acid - usually lime - and mixed with a variety of other seasonings from cilantro to onion and salt.

^{Conch ceviche - note the Marie Sharp's in the background!}

We tried a dish in Caye Caulker at one of the countless beachfront open-air cafes. This particular version was made with conch - the first time I'd had conch that I could recall. Naturally, in that kind of environment, it's best if accompanied by a piña colada or other brightly coloured fruity drink with an elaborate garnish.

In this particular case, the latter was better than the former...Luckily I had a chance to try it again with another fish, as I wasn't a huge fan of this particular conch (chewy and an unpleasant aftertaste).

^{Coconuts doesn't have his mise done: ceviche on the snorkelling trip.}

"Coconuts," one of our cheery Rastafarian sailing guides, prepared ceviche for the sundowner session on the Caribbean Sea as we made our way back to land. Reggae blared through blown out speakers as I offered to help with the mise: I couldn't help myself, it was too much to watch him prepping alone. After a few weeks away from the kitchen I was itching to get a knife back in my hand - and, after all, I had just spend 4 months learning how to chop an onion among other things.

My culinary instruction hadn't prepared me for a swaying boat, a rusty dull knife and a footstool as a prep area. (But we got it done, of course.)

Our other guide, Kevin, was responsible for the beverage service: thus, some kind of potent, fruity, brightly coloured rum punch was mixed. Though lacking in elaborate garnish, given our more rustic settings and the fact that our hosts had just taken me to snorkel with stingrays and sea turtles, I'll forgive this.

Now this was more like it - despite the rough knife cuts, the ceviche was perfect. Fresh, crisp, well seasoned and just the thing for floating on the Caribbean Sea.

And I wasn't complaining about the rum punch either.

We also dined on fresh grilled fish - the kind of place where you pick it out and then they whack it on the grill for you with minimal fuss - picnicked on Good Friday BBQ chicken with rice & beans, fit in some street food tamales from a cyclist that reckoned his were the best! - and of course consumed a brightly coloured and elaborately garnished fruity concoction.

^{Beachside spit roast. I'm not sure I'd want his job...then again, he's still in Belize and I'm not.}

The first and key characteristic of Belizean food, though, we learned almost before crossing the border. It could be found on every table in the country, right next to the salt and pepper.

The national pride of Belize is Marie Sharp's, a hot sauce made from "all natural all local" ingredients including a great number of carrots.

And even greater number of habañeros - it completely blows your head off and is indeed unlike any other hot sauce out there (despite the better efforts of the habañeros, you can, actually, taste the carrots).

^{The best street tamales on Caye Caulker? Perhaps! (I only tried the one.)}

This stuff goes on your fry jacks, the ceviche, any barbecue, grilled fish, rice, beans. Probably ice cream given the opportunity or inclination.

I also have no doubt that, in patriotic tribute, an enterprising backpacker bar has already invented a shot or 2-for-1 cocktail containing the Marie Sharp's (most likely complete with four kinds of alcohol, fruit, loud colours and an elaborate garnish).

Simple's not an insult. Is Italian food "simple"? Just ask all the people who have come back from Italy perplexed by having average tourist food ("I thought it was a foodie destination!" - Sure, it can be with research, connections, language skills and/or dumb luck, or you can try Vietnam and drastically increase your chances).

Hummus has 5 ingredients at its most basic - but cook those chickpeas wrong and your digestive system will be a bit cranky with you.

Simple, done well, is anything but. Mel at Cohune Palms in Belize knows it for sure - and despite the blunt knife, so does Coconuts.

¿¡ Have I taught you nothing ?!

sarahreinertsen — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 11:23:00 GMT

Our last day in Antigua before catching a flight to Flores and Tikal, Mom & I decided to get a touch adventurous and climb Pacaya Volcano.

In the grand tradition of Developing Countries' Dubious Safety Protocols at Major National Treasures (see: Nepal, India, China, SE Asia) - up until the previous year tourists could venture as close to the lava pools as their technical sandals would allow before melting the soles.

(And in technical sandals, that's pretty close!)

What had changed? Don't be silly, not safety regulations.

Sadly for both the villages it affected and the gringos that missed out, after a recent eruption Pacaya was simply no longer active. Still worth a day trip, though, it's an interesting hike and a bit of activity after spending hours on end having our bones jarred around as we transited the country in vans with questionable maintenance records.

The hike was about 90 minutes, mostly uphill. Mom is fitter than I am but she is 60, and I told her there was absolutely no shame in taking one of the many horses on offer in lieu of trekking the top of the volcano.

"No, I'd like to try it."

After an hour-long bone-jarring ride in a van with a questionable maintenance record, we arrive at the town at the base of Pacaya.

As with all good towns at the base of a tourist attraction, this place, too, had kids selling things - this time, large walking sticks to help you along the uncertain volcanic sands. My considerable trekking experience let me to quickly recognize that this was a good idea and I grabbed one. Just after the transaction was completed, Mom appears, proudly presenting 2 walking sticks.

As previously mentioned, by this time she had had a number of lessons in the complexity and nuance of negotiating travel and transport in a developing country, but hadn't yet been game enough to try it herself.

So I wasn't going to take this away from her - to spoil the child I offer the spare rod to another of our group. Off we go.

The dudes with the horses latch on to us immediately.

Not that I think we were special - I'm sure they say "horse? horse?" to all the girls.

^{That he was wearing a t-shirt from my alma mater still didn't sway me.}

But in Mom they did see something special. As we progressed up the path, the 4 or 5 guides that follow with their horse from the start begin to accept the fate of unrequited commerce. Yet one tenacious horse-guiding local remained. He was certain that this was his woman.

And he'd be right.

We were maybe 30 minutes from the top but Mom had had it. It just took that last, hesitant "horse?" and she paused, turned - "OK, yes, you're on."

Before I could jump in to attempt some kind of negotiation, she had jumped on - relief washing through her face as the pain of trekking was officially over.

I turn around in horror.

"Mom - how much did you agree to pay for the horse?"

"I'm not sure. I think $20. And worth every penny."

My eyes bulge and my palm hits the top of my head.

.You.

.paid.

¡¿WHAT!?

^{Mom enjoys her pony ride. Sarah facepalms.}

The rest of the hike I just shook my head in bewilderment. I was so bitterly disappointed in my protégée - it flew in the face of all my careful and patient tutelage. I thought Mom was getting the hang of developing country travel. She seemed to understand the concepts. Yet here she was - paying more for a horse to the top of the volcano than the two of us combined paid for the whole day tour.

She accepted first price!

She waited until he could have named any ridiculous figure and she'd have had to pay it!

And wasn't even the full trek! We were nearly there! A few breaks and she would have made it! And saved herself $20!

^{One of us was walking down this path, the other was taking it at more of a slow trot.}

Every once and a while I'd look back at her, smiling wryly with pursed lips, head still shaking:

"Enjoying your pony ride?"

"Yep!"

Mom just didn't subscribe to the backpacking manifesto: thou shalt forever be embarrassed to confess to fellow travellers that time you were a complete sucker.

At a point halfway down, I slipped - despite now employing 2 walking staffs to steady me - and cut my palms on loose volcanic gravel that does indeed provide for uncertain footing. I briefly reconsidered the wisdom of a pony ride.

Nah, for $20 I'd still rather trek.

New Zealand is Not Tasmania

sarahreinertsen — Mon, 5 Apr 2010 11:29:00 GMT

^{Kiwi Humour}

I lived in Australia for 10 years of my life and never ventured across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand. Given I was heading across the Pacific back to the US, I thought it was about time to meet my Kiwi neighbours properly.

The relationship between Australia and New Zealand is not dissimilar to that of the US and Canada:

New Zealanders are often mistaken for Australians (though the accent is quite distinct when you learn what to look for).
New Zealanders fight hard to maintain a separate identity (though not quite to the extent of putting an NZ flag on their travel gear...mind you that's probably because it looks exactly like the Aussie flag, except with red stars instead of white).
New Zealanders are resigned to accept and grudgingly appreciate the necessity of their Australian neighbours for national security, economic prosperity and someone interesting to play in competitive sport.

And Australians, in turn, claim most famous things from NZ as their own - Crowded House, pavlova, Russell Crowe. In fact, Aussies actually claim the entire country of New Zealand as their own in the Australian Constitution - written in 1901 and under the assumption that the country would just become the 7th state of Australia, eventually.

New Zealand said "no thanks".

Sidebar: My favourite story about cross-Tasman relations comes from the time that Russell Crowe was nominated for an Oscar - probably for Gladiator or something. Anyway, the day of the Oscars that beacon of fair and balanced journalism News Limited-owned tabloid press in Australia proudly announces:AUSTRALIAN RUSSELL CROWE UP FOR BEST ACTOR. The following day, after Russell lost, the same papers smugly declare: NEW ZEALAND-BORN RUSSELL CROWE LOSES OUT IN OSCAR RACE.

So, on arriving in Christchurch after 3 weeks in Australia, it didn't really feel like I was entering a new country.

Vegemite is sold in grocery stores. Rugby is on the TV. Autumn veggies are in season and winter is coming. Christchurch looks like a more hip and flowery version of Adelaide. Sure, they have different names for eskies (hee hee, chilly bins) and pints of beer (handles...because, see, the glass has a handle). But each state in Australia calls the swimming suit something different. And frankly I've never gotten my head around how to order a beer outside of South Australia anyway (Glass? Middie? Pot? Schooner? Pint? Imperial pint? Whatever - give me the big one.).

New Zealand, in my mind, was going to be a bigger version of Tasmania - full of that fabulous mix of lumberjacks and hippies, with lots of outdoorsy things to do and fresh produce and organic goodies to taste.

The first shock came with the money (and, 3 weeks on, as I write this, I'm still confused by it). I had been carrying around a NZ $10 note for the past year, leftover from my parents' trip to the South Island in 2008. It's blue. It's plastic. It's a pale version of the Australian $10 note. So surely all the other notes and coins are the same, right? Just a slightly paler version of the corresponding Australian denomination?

No, apparently. Get this - the $5 is brown, the $20 is green.And! The $1 coin is smaller than the $2 coin. ...The hell?

The next time it occurred to me that I was actually in a different country was when I pulled onto the shoulder of the road to take a photo. Instinctively I checked the ground for snakes before stepping into the bush to take a photo...wait a second...there are no snakes in New Zealand. And no deadly spiders, for that matter.

^{A Wellington pub tells it like it is}

And so I got these little shocks as I drove around the South Island - reminders that I was in a different country. That New Zealand is notTasmania...despite having a fabulous mix of lumberjacks & hippies, with lots of outdoorsy things to do and fresh produce and organic goodies to taste.

For one thing, the money's different. And there are no snakes or deadly spiders.

The beer's better here too.

Sticker Shock

sarahreinertsen — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:35:00 GMT

Exactly one year from departing Australia, I returned to Adelaide on an overnight flight from Singapore. It was a beautiful March day - as most March days in Adelaide are - and I was excited to bring my trip full circle, as it were. Despite my lack of sleep the night before I was chatting enthusiastically to my Eritrean taxi driver as we left the airport to go to the city.

As we left the airport, turning onto Sir Donald Bradman Drive (Adelaide's most famous son, but you wouldn't know that if you didn't follow cricket)...I nearly fainted when I caught sight of the taxi meter.

OH.

MY.

GOD

...SEVEN dollars?????

I mean, I knew Australia was expensive. I knew Asia was cheap. I had just been to Singapore and Bali which, by Asian standards, are not at all cheap.

But...SEVEN dollars?? To get OUT of the airport? That would get me nearly all the way from Bangkok airport into town! That would buy me a mid-level budget accommodation in most of SE Asia! That would buy me at least 7 very large bottles of Beerlao!

42 very large bottles of Beerlao later, I had picked up the keys from the first of many friends on whose hospitality I would impose during my time in Australia and arrived at her house to freshen up.

Forty-two.

Very large bottles of Beerlao.

I just couldn't get over the shock of the prices - especially strange considering I was back in the US for Christmas after India, which is even cheaper than SE Asia, and felt reasonably little shock about it all. Perhaps that's because I was imposing on the hospitality of my parents and bought relatively little during my time away (shopping in Nepal and India makes for cheap Christmas presents!). Perhaps it's because I knew it was temporary, that I would soon be back in the land of the $2 street meal (entree and main). Regardless, I just didn't have the same reaction a few months back that I did when I returned to Australia.

And this scene repeated itself on and off for the next week as I adjusted to western pricing.

Sarah at the pub: Eight dollars! For a beer! And it's not even 400 mls!

Sarah at the cafe: Eighteen dollars for pad thai?? Are you kidding me? And how much for rice?

Sarah at the bus stop: Screw it, I'm walking, no way I'm paying $4 to get 2 kms up the road.

The sticker shock did finally wear off and I was eventually able to look at a menu without hyperventilating (and irritating the hell out of my friends). And, it was probably a necessary reality check regarding my future income & employment status (currently: nil).

On the plus side, my hair and make up were done consistently for 3 weeks straight.

But it also made me think about how carelessly I'd spend money in the past, on my singlewomannokids professional income - mostly on stuff I didn't actually need but thought was essential at the time. I've lived for the last year out of a backpack and a carry-on - all up around 20 kilos of luggage - just fine, spending between $20 and $50 a day depending on the country and agonising over parting with $5 for some creation at a market stall. Sure, when you have your feet planted somewhere there are other things that are necessary ...furniture ...cutlery ...a Cuisinart food processor...but so much of it is just clutter and excess.

I wonder how I'll get on trying to maintain my streamlined lifestyle as I re-enter the West. Walking around the streets of Adelaide, and Sydney, it was hard not to get caught up again in the consumer-driven lifestyle of "I want" and head straight back into buying thoughtlessly. Shopping in the US is even more irresistible, with its concrete super mega ultra shopping meccas full of recession sales, bulk buying bargains, and floods of cheap merchandise from - of course - Asia.

Hopefully I can resist by remembering what I had when I sold 90% of my possessions a month before leaving on my trip...the feeling of freedom.

(And more money for very large Beerlao.)

The Killing Fields

sarahreinertsen — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:39:00 GMT

To begin to understand Cambodia you must first face its tragic, horrific, recent past.

^{Buddha near Royal Palace, Phnom Penh}

A brief and probably inadequate overview of recent Cambodian history:

Post-colonial Cambodia saw a military coup of King Sihanouk in 1970 (with 'tacit US consent'...oh yes, the hands of the US aren't clean in this story either) and Sihanouk* fled to Beijing setting up an exile government aligned with a revolutionary group known as Khmer Rouge, ostensibly to support the overthrowing of the overthrowers.

*If you can figure out this guy's chameleon-like role in Cambodian history you're a smarter person than I...he's on every side at one point or another and ends up leading the country again in the 80s and 90s.

The US and South Vietnam, meanwhile, invade eastern Cambodia and spent 4 years carpet bombing the hell out of the place, trying to flush out Viet Cong from the countryside, which of course just resulted in the VC further into the country. This combination of events led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and encouraged many Cambodian people to flee to rural areas to fight with them...indeed, many thought that by joining the Khmer Rouge they were taking up their king's call to fight against the government and the invading Vietnamese.

1975 was when it really got nasty, as the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh and almost overnight turned it into a ghost town as residents fled to family in rural villages (or were marched there). Led by Pol Pot - Brother Number 1 - the Khmer Rouge wasn't just any communist rebel group. They had a particular brand of crazy that is nothing short of sheer terror and brutality, and it was inflicted on the Cambodian people for 4 years until the Vietnamese invaded.

^{Men's and women's Khmer Rouge uniforms}

Same same but different

The closest thing to the actions of the Khmer Rouge, that I'm aware of, is probably the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The KR objective, you see, was to go back to 'year zero' and build a purely agrarian society made up of 'base people'. This necessitated, in their view, complete isolation and additionally destruction of institutions from banking and currency to medicine, religion, industry, schools and of course private ownership - destruction which was executed with incredible speed. In these respects, the Khmer Rouge was Mao's Red Guards on amphetamines - the lunacy and brutality was probably more thorough and controlled in Cambodia versus China.

Some gems from this era:

All people from the city were sent to the countryside to work as hard labourers (they had to walk, by the way). Would you know how to plant rice? I wouldn't. Widespread famine resulted.
Economic plans based nowhere in the sphere of reality were launched - to produce 3 tonnes of rice per hectare (previously 1 tonne was produced), resulting in 12 hour days of backbreaking labour, fueled by 2 bowls of watery rice porridge. Of course this goal wasn't met, either.
Hairbrained irrigation schemes were also launched - but wait! We've killed the intellectuals! Perhaps a few engineers would have come in handy.
Followers (and later everyone, in an attempt to disguise themselves as followers) dressed entirely in black, save a red scarf, and the women had the same bobbed haircut. The objective, of course, was to overcome individuality and emphasise commitment to the cause of the base people.
Children were separated from parents (thought to be 'capitalist influences') and housed in children's camps for work and re-eduction, often far away from their parents.
Families were separated for months or years as the Khmer Rouge worked to essentially destroy what is a very strong and extensive family support network. To this day many don't know exactly what happened to relatives during this period.

No revolution is complete without its enemies and essentially everyone was a potential target depending on who the local Khmer Rouge authorities thought might be tainted with wrong thinking.

Goes without saying, former government officials and anyone with connections with the outside world were immediately detained and later put to death.
All intellectuals or educated people were killed. Some were killed for being suspected of being intellectual or showing intellectual characteristics. Like...oh...wearing glasses.
Religion being banned and all, Buddhist monks and anyone practising another kind of religion were a target.
Family members could be put to death for communicating or acknowledging other family members.
And then the Khmer Rouge started to turn on itself...even being a member didn't grant you immunity from the insanity.

I toured the S-21, or Toel Sleng, prison my first day in Cambodia, which is where nearly 20,000 prisoners were kept in the late 1970s. Only 7 survived, the rest were executed at the Killing Fields 15 kilometers outside Phnom Penh. What is most shocking and horrible about these sites is the incredible brutality inflicted on victims. People were tortured to reveal information and elicit confessions (most of course were false, to stop the torture), and the implements for torture and death were common garden hoes, bamboo poles, water, electric wires.

^{The Killing Fields: "Killing Tree Against Which Executioners Beat Children"}

The Killing Fields of Phnom Penh, where there are mass graves of 17,000 people, is one site out of 70-odd throughout Cambodia which now rest as memorial to the dead. At such killing fields, the Khmer Rouge executed men, women and children using particularly brutal methods - bullets being so expensive. Many executions were completed by bludgeoning the victim with a bamboo pole or axe.

And...then there is the Killing Tree...against which children's skulls were bashed until death came, in full view of their mothers, before the parents were killed themselves.

As I listened to my Toel Sleng guide calmly show me on a wall map of Cambodia the locations where every one of her family members was killed, not only the scale of the tragedy but how recent it was really hit home and I broke into sobs.

All told, somewhere between 2 and 3 million people were killed in the 4 short years between 1975 and 1979 between the Khmer Rouge murders, famine, disease and being worked to death.

(Historians are conflicted about the exact number).

Out of a population of 7 million.

One quarter of the population.

Having been born in 1976 myself, I just kept thinking that every person my age or older in this country has lost family and experienced famine. Most have experienced torture, hard labour, loss of limbs or other disfigurement, or perhaps grown up in orphanages. The chaos didn't end with the Khmer Rouge retreat in 1979 - civil war and unrest continued for the better part of 20 years until the late 1990s.

Such destruction of society has resulted in predictable but further tragic consequences - corruption, pollution, prostitution, poverty, NGO dependence. Child sex trafficking is a particular problem, because families are so poor they are forced to send away their children (or children such as orphans are targeted). The entire society has had to be rebuilt from the ground up in the past 10 to 20 years.

^{"Please Do Not Go Backward" - A sign meant for tourists at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh}

And then there are the landmines, which to this day remain a significant problem. Around 300 deaths per year, not to mention loss of limbs, result from an unexploded ordinance or land mine. Not a day went by that I didn't see several victims of land mines begging on the street.

And justice? Pol Pot died of malaria in 1998. His cronies are gradually dying of natural causes. And nothing that can resemble a trial for war crimes and genocide has commenced for the rest of them.

Cambodia is a sad story, indeed.

The Perfect Day in Hanoi!

sarahreinertsen — Tue, 2 Feb 2010 11:44:00 GMT

^{A local transports a tree in preparation for Tet (New Years) on his motorbike.}

I knew that I'd evolved as a traveller when I arrive in Hanoi...and LOVED it. The type of situation that probably would have been overwhelming and intimidating last year seems a bit like home now. Motorcycles, traffic, chaos, people, markets, motorcycles, street food, honking, motorcycles, narrow streets, old architecture, chaos, and did I mention motorcycles?!

The morning after I arrived, I caught up once again with Stefan, who I had been running into a bit on my travels throughout the country. We decided to check out Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum later that morning, agreeing to meet at my hotel and grab a taxi from there.

Stefan arrives on a xe om - a motorbike taxi, which is essentially just some guy with a motorbike and not much to do. For $0.50 a km he'll take you where you want to go on the back of his bike, zipping through the streets of Hanoi with little more than an equestrian helmet as protection.
Something I wouldn't be caught dead doing 12 months ago.

But, oh was it fun! You experience the rhythm and the logic of the traffic and - no kidding - feel perfectly safe for the 2 kilometer ride.

^{A rare motorcyle-less shot in Hanoi, Old Quarter}

After the mausoleum (like Lenin...oh, so much like Lenin) we grab a ca phe sua (Vietnamese coffee with sweetened condensed milk) at the side of the road and head to the Temple of Literature, side tracked slightly by taking movies of the traffic at a particularly nutty intersection. After lunch, too, we spend an hour or so trying to take the perfect photo on slow shutter speed of the cumquat and blossom trees sailing past on the back of motorbikes - preparations for the upcoming new year festival Tet. I didn't quite manage a perfect one but there were some that came close.

^{Intrepid photographer Stefan stalks the elusive kumquat tree.}

Walking back through the side streets of the Old Quarter, where each has a specialty from toys to bamboo ladders to Tet decorations, we nimbly dodge the obstacles in our way - and there are many. Motorcycles rule here and that means that streets are for driving, but so are footpaths (which double as parks for the motorbikes, when they're not taken up by shops spilling their wares and conducting business in the middle of where you think you should be allowed to walk) - it's every pedestrian for themselves. But it didn't take me long to adjust to the pace and soon I was confidently maneuvering a packed intersection of moving vehicles.

Stefan & I head to dinner and confirm the lesson the smaller the stool the better the food. That is, we ate at a normal restaurant and the food was quite average - but the sights & smells of the street food vendors outside were confirming where we'd be eating the next day. And eat we did...pho, bun chua, barbeque...fresh herbs and a touch of chili, mmm.

And then, my favourite place in all of Vietnam - the intersection of Ta Hien and Luong Ngoc Quyen. It doesn't look like much, but oozes character when you realise that every corner of the intersection is a bia hoi joint selling 3000 dong glasses of fresh beer.

^{Bia Hoi corner at night}

The plastic stools and chairs spill into the street as you watch the traffic, travellers, locals and street vendors vie for position on the pavement. Simply perfect.

Up the road is a small street, Ta Hien, which again doesn't look like much by day but at night turns into bar after bar of after hours lock in joints. You see, Hanoi being in a communist country has a curfew of about 11:30 pm, by which time shops, restaurants and pubs must close.

^{3000 dong beers, or around $0.15. And these aren't tea cups.}

The no-fun police patrol around ensuring this rule is enforced, however the pubs flagrantly violate it anyway by having scouts along the roads, alerting businesses to incoming patrols.

Roller shutters go down, music quietens, people aren't allowed out.

And...they're gone! Party's on again!

I think I stumbled out of there about 2:30 in the morning and took a xe om back to my hotel - in my somewhat inebriated state thinking:

"I love this city!"

A Beginner's Guide to Cyrillic

sarahreinertsen — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:57:00 GMT

My kingdom for a secret decoder ring! The Cyrillic Alphabet

АБВГДЕФЛЖЗИЙКЛМНОПРСТУХЧХЦШЩЪЫЬЭЮЯ

абвгдежзийклнопртуфхцчшщъыьэюя

Reading Cyrillic is a bit like playing the memory card game from childhood, except instead of remembering which card is the red shovel you overturned 3 moves ago, you have to remember which letter you're reading

looks like and stands for the same as the corresponding Roman alphabet character (A, M)
looks like a Roman alphabet letter but stands for another one (B = V, H = N)
stands for another letter of the alphabet but is actually a number (3 = Z, б =B)
looks like a Roman alphabet letter but is actually a sound made by pressing teeth and tongue together to make a sound in a throat-clearing manner (Х = kha, Ш = sha)
resembles a Greek letter (П = P, Ф = F)
is backwards and/or looks like something I doodled in bank meetings (Я= ya, И = eee, Ж = zhe)

SO, when trying to navigate one's way around Russia it becomes a game of double-translation - first the Cyrillic to a Roman alphabet equivalent, whereby you can sound out the Russian word, and then from the Russian word to the equivalent English one.

To read an average-length word, mentally it goes a little something like:

"Right, ok, backwards 7 is G,
A ...is that actually A or is it another letter?...no, it's A, Pi which equals P,
...wait no, that's more like a lambda so that's an L,
backwards N with squiggle which is an 'eeee' sound, kinda,
C which is actually S, K which is K, backwards R which equals the sound 'ya',
3 which is...er...right...the Z-sound. So to sound it out that is
...wait what was the backwards N-squiggle again?"

You can see how this might be a long and tedious process.

^{A fast food menu in St Petersburg. At this point I'm not even sure if I'm in the sweet or savoury section.}

The first few days in Russia I hadn't figured out anything beyond C = S and P = R and relied on the English menus in the restaurants (which were interesting in and of itself, given I had fried under oppression with greens in plum sauce night 1 - Ringlish for 'quail' evidently).

Either that, or take the chances of getting beef tongue in aspic by playing Russian menu lucky dip "uhhhh...I'll have the 3rd one down I guess."

However, by the end of week 1 I had a few letters down and was starting to be able to sound out words in the manner one would see Bert & Ernie perform on Sesame Street, e.g.

"Kuh …......At"

"Kuh....At"

"Kuhhaaattttt"

"Kuhat"

"Cat!"

Approaching one of the many short stops on the train between Moscow ("MOCKBA") and Irkutsk ("ИPKУTCK") I decided to test my improved Cyrillic reading capabilities and sound out the name of the station:

ИHTEPHET

"Hey guys! We're at, er, yeeeeh-nnnnn-tttt-errrrrr-nnnnyyyy-ehhh----.

[pause]

"Oh. Internet."

^{One of the many stops along the Trans-Mongolian railway.}

^{I'll get back to you on whether you can check your e-mail there.}

On the restaurant car in the train I managed, with the assistance of my Lonely Planet Russian Phrasebook culinary reader section, to translate 3 items on the menu as being 'fish pie.'

Ultimately Cyrillic requires a great deal of patience in addition to highly developed abstract reasoning skills. I may score off the charts on the latter but anyone who knows me, knows I lack the former - so I give up.

I have all confidence that Mandarin will be much easier.