Farewell to Southeast Asia
January 27, 2010 | Location: Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand | 8 Comments
One hundred and forty-five days ago, Helene and I began our adventure around the world.
After a short layover in Japan, we headed down to Indonesia, to Denpasar and Ubud on the island of Bali. Relaxed but increasingly annoyed by the overgrown tourist industry of Ubud, we took the slow train across the island of Java, in the most exciting two weeks of our trip to date. We stopped in the towns and cities of Banyuwangyi, Probolinggo, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, all the way to Jakarta. From Jakarta, we flew to Singapore, where we spent an awesome two weeks with our friends Audran and Joëlle, discovering soup tulang, durian and amazing Indian food.
From Singapore, we rode the bus across Malaysia to Melaka, then to Kuala Lumpur, and from there flew to Bangkok, where we happily renewed with the city’s superb street food. We discovered our happy place in a small ocean bay to the south, then ventured forth to Vientiane, Laos, where we lost ourselves in the awesome French food. On the way back, we rediscovered the joy of traveling off the beaten path by exploring the cities of Isaan; specifically, Udon Thani and Nakhon Ratchasima made a strong impression.
After all this time, South-East Asia feels like home. In farewell to the region, here’s our very personal roundup of the high and low points of our adventures so far.
Best Street Meal: Nasi Goreng, Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia
We found this street stall not too far from the backpacker area by following our noses – no joke! The owner was so friendly and charming, I took to calling her my Indonesian auntie. The next evening, her granddaughter cooked our nasi goreng (fried rice) and soto ayam (chicken soup) in a wok over charcoal. The food was so amazing, it beat any fried rice I’ve had before – and I’ve lived three years in China.
Runner-up: The famous and fabulous noodle soup in Bangkok, Thailand
Best Upscale Meal: Yantra Restaurant, Singapore
When my friend Audran said he’d treat us to a fantastic Indian meal, he wasn’t kidding – Yantra’s menu was so exquisite, it makes my mouth water just thinking about it again! Yantra marked one of the first moments in our trip where we just knew we had to go to India next. Thanks again, Audran!
Runner-up: Le Vendôme’s superb French comfort food, in Vientiane, Laos
Best Drink: Java Joss, Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia
What happens when you take a boiling glass of sweet Javanese coffee, then dunk in a piece of glowing coal? Coffee heaven! We had to look hard to find this one, as it’s only available north of the train station after 6 PM, from a line of street stalls along the sidewalk. The caffeine kept me up all night – it was totally worth it.
Runner-up: The incredible avocado shake with chocolate syrup and condensed milk, in a flowery alley of Surabaya, Java, Indonesia
Worst Meal & Drink: Breakfast in Banyuwangyi, Java, Indonesia
After a string of amazing food in Denpasar, Bali, it came as quite a shock when we went out for the free breakfast of our local hotel in Banyuwangyi, on the Javanese side. The soto ayam (chicken soup) was barely recognizable, and filled us with sadness. Worst yet was the coffee – in an island known for its coffee beans, it’s shocking to find a cup of java that tastes like the inside of an intestine – no, really, it did.
Runner-up: Pad thai on the street in the Khaosan Road area of Bangkok, Thailand. I’ve had a better pad thai in a mall in Canada, and that says a lot.
Best Beer: Beerlao, Laos
More than just a beer, Laos’ Beerlao is a matter of national pride. You see its charmingly antiquated logo everywhere in Vientiane, making the beer near-ubiquitous in the Lao capital. It’s best enjoyed with ice, Lao-style, cooling down on a terrace.
Runner-up: Indonesia’s awesome Bintang beer
Best Accommodation: Bladok Losmen, Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia
An amazing city, super friendly and helpful staff, a pool(!!), a balcony… We could have moved into that room on the third floor of Bladok Losmen. We spent all our evenings sitting on the balcony gazing at the city and listening to the evening call to prayer (and then downing a Bintang or two), and even indulged in the fancy but entirely satisfying restaurant downstairs. At $15 USD a night, this was the absolute best value we found.
Runner-up: Souphaphone’s gorgeous rooms ($25 USD) and friendly staff, Vientiane, Laos
Worst Accommodation: Sama Sama Guesthouse, Melaka, Malaysia
I’ve never run away from a guesthouse after dark – until that night when one of us stepped on a fat cockroach in the dark of our room. Coupled with the crappy shared toilets and the flimsy bed that complained all night at my weight, we just couldn’t face another night there. In Sama Sama’s defense, though, the guy working there was an absolute gentleman about the entire thing.
Runner-up: Orchid Guesthouse and its lethargic staff, located down a burning garbage-ridden road in Surabaya, Java, Indonesia
Most Beautiful Place: Happy Place, Thailand
The sound of the ocean usually woke me up in the morning, and we spent our days strolling along the ocean front. We loved the place so much, as a matter of fact, that when I blogged about it, I didn’t dare reveal the name lest some Lonely Planet writer stumbled upon it and ‘discovered’ it. I’m still gonna keep it to myself, but feel free to ask me by email!
Runner-up: Ubud, Bali, Indonesia – touristy but genuinely gorgeous for its numerous temples, flower offerings and startling rice fields
Scariest Moment: Hit and Run in Bangkok
You get used to the way Bangkok taxi drivers hustle in traffic. Then one day you climb aboard a cab with a driver who appears to be high-strung on amphetamines – allegedly, a common problem with taxis in Bangkok given how many hours they have to work in a day to make ends meet. Our driver proceeded to drive like a madman, and when he bumped a couple riding a motorcycle to the ground, he just sped away as Helene and I yelled our heads off at him. We opened the car doors to threaten damage to his cab if he didn’t stop, but that didn’t seem to scare him as much as the prospect of facing the cops. When the traffic in a side-alley forced him to stop, we took the cue – and jumped out of the cab.
Runner-up: Driving at high speed the curvy, narrow roads of Mount Bromo, Java, Indonesia; good thing we didn’t miss a curve – and plunge to a fiery death hundreds of meters below
Friendliest Place: Probolinggo, Java, Indonesia
“Welcome to Probolinggo!” grinned a young man, shaking my hand. This type of exhuberant display of friendliness was our first real contact with Java – and we fell in love with it. People asked us to pose for pictures with them, and a group of kids yelled at us enthusiastically from the other side of the busy boulevard. Helene ended up spending a long, merry hour talking to the girls, who gave her a rock star ovation when they saw her walk by the next day. We love Probolinggo!
Runner-up: The friendly and upbeat people of Nakhon Ratchasima, Isaan region, Thailand
Coolest Fellow Travelers: Kara and Damien
Kara and Damien, two Americans on a year trip, wrote me one day to discover the secret of our Happy Place. They asked nicely, so I relented. We hooked up for a street-side meal and a few drinks, and became fast friends. We gave them our Rough Guide to Thailand, and we inherited a cozy wool sweater given to them by friends in Jordan, an Indian SIM card, and plenty of advice on India and the Middle-East. Here’s to our next encounter on the road!
Runner-up: Beatrice, a cool German woman traveling independently at 62 for the first time in her life
Worst Fellow Traveler: Papa Bill
We call him “Papa Bill”. He latched unto us in Probolinggo, and just wouldn’t let go. Loud, disrespectful, narcissic and scatterbrained, he walked around with his younger Thai wife in tow, and through sheer inspired negligence ran into trouble faster than I could blink. When we boarded the train in Probolinggo, his presence and his numerous insults to the Indonesian people – spoken at loudspeaker volume – chilled the previously friendly atmosphere in seconds. He then proceeded to take pictures of workers outside the train, yelling “Yes! Yes! Yes!” to quell their protests. When the train came into the station in Surabaya, we didn’t think twice – we ran.
Runner-up: Any of the dozens of inconsiderate and condescending tourists that give us a bad name with the locals, especially around Khaosan Road
What Now?
It’s been in the cards a long time – we’re headed to India! Whether it was the vibrant lights of Deepavali in Singapore, or the street-side delights of a South Indian restaurant in Melaka, we’ve been craving a visit to the Indian subcontinent since the very first days of our trip.
On January 29 2010, we’re boarding a flight to Kolkata, in West Bengal. A new chapter begins for the Backpack Foodie!
Southeast Asia in Blog Posts
Indonesia
Singapore
Malaysia
Thailand – Bangkok and the South
Laos – Vientiane
Thailand – Isaan Region
Thailand’s Northeast, Part 2: Udon Thani to Khorat
January 25, 2010 | Location: Thailand | 5 Comments
For the first part of this two-part series, see Thailand’s Northeast, Part 1: Vientiane to Udon Thani.
The train ride from Udon Thani to Khon Kaen was uneventful, except for the dirt that landed in my mouth.
The train’s wheels launched a dirt chip in the air, through the window in front of me, where it impacted against the seat. A small bit flew straight at me and exploded against my teeth. I spent the next ten minutes rincing my mouth with water and spitting it out the window.
Considering we were paying 85 cents for a hundred kilometer train ride, I didn’t make too much of the unexpected meal service.
The Lost Dinosaurs
I spend a lot of time talking about the places I love on this blog. I do this because I like to share positive experiences and enthusiasm for foreign cultures and food, and I don’t think much of remembering the places that let me down.
Khon Kaen was, unfortunately, in the latter category. The Rough Guide to Thailand sold it to us as a cheerful, upbeat place, with plenty of street vendors north of our chosen hotel, a vibrant student community, and an abundance of dinosaur statues, commemorating Thailand’s largest fossils on display at Phuwiang National Park, within daytripping distance of the city.
Suffice to say that we found none of these things. Whereas the residents of Udon Thani were cheerful and welcoming, and the food ranged from excellent to amazing, Khon Kaen welcomed us with drawn faces and uninteresting food. We cut our stay short, and boarded the local train to Nakhon Ratchasima, also known as Khorat.
We bid an unrepenting goodbye to Khon Kaen and its lack of dinosaur statues. The local train ride was filled with chattering students on their way home, and we stopped at every village along the way to let them off after their day of school.
I received no dirt chip in the mouth this time around; things were looking up.
The Lady of Khorat
Nakhon Ratchasima, nicknamed Khorat, is Thailand’s second-largest city after Bangkok. You’d think that would make it an impersonal metropolis, but you’d be wrong. Away from the beach and the hill treks, there are few enough tourists coming here that many people will say hello to you as you walk down the streets. It’s easy to feel welcome here: the city even smells nice, with fragrant flowers filling the air with a jasmine-like fragrance.
The moat that used to surround the old Nakhon Ratchasima is still there, but the center itself has moved immediately west of the old city walls. There, the statue of Lady Ying Mo, the Heroine of Khorat, guards the city proudly. Pilgrims come here to honor the woman who helped defeat Vientiane insurgents in 1826; when she was captured alongside other citizens of Khorat, she organized a rebellion that secured the prisoners’ escape.
Ying Mo is a true feminist icon: one who is praised for her heroic acts and leadership, qualities too often reserved for men. On the fresco below the city wall, she is depicted with her hair short on the sides, looking lithe and commanding, slashing down her prisoners with two swords at once.
Happy New Year 2553!
Khorat proved so inviting that we decided to spend the new year here. This being Thailand, we would bid farewell to the year 2552. Near Lady Ying Mo stood a stage, around which numerous food stalls popped up, offering everything from fresh fruit juice to fried grasshopper. We grabbed a pad thai and some Isaan-style grilled chicken, and enjoyed the meaningless chatter of the people on stage, as they awaited midnight.
Near the center of town, Helene got her shoes repaired at a street-side shoemaker, and we chatted away with his friend. The ten words we had in common lasted us throughout the repair and beyond.
As the countdown (in Thai) came to zero, the city exploded in a show of fireworks, some of which were fired right next to us in the crowd. As we slowly retreated to our guesthouse, we soaked in the atmosphere of Khorat one last time: its upbeat feel, its energetic, happy and friendly people.
Two days later, we boarded the train to Ayutthaya. We exited Isaan in an air-conditioned train, the dirty windows blocking both the view of the countryside, as well as potential dirt chips. I’m not sure it was such a good deal.
In Isaan, we found people of amazing energy and friendliness, and all we had to trade for them were the hotel resorts and the tourists. Isaan proved, once again, that this is a trade that I will always be willing to make, and I look forward to coming back.
Where to Go
If you’re looking for a place to stay in Khorat, check out the Ban San Sabai, a fabulous guesthouse maintained with pride by its friendly owner. We paid $18 USD for a tastefully decorated, impeccably clean en-suite room with AC and a balcony, one of the best deals we’ve found in Thailand.
There are very few proper restaurants in Khorat, but street food can be found anywhere. In particular, the area immediately south of Ying Mo turns into a fantastic and immense bazaar at night, and you’ll find amazing takes on Isaan’s cuisine staples, including pork sausage, grilled chicken, som tam (spicy papaya salad) and a wide variety of sweets
Your mileage may vary on Khon Khaen, but try as I could, I did not find much in that city to call me back. If you’ve had a different experience, I would love to hear about it!
Eating at Street Level: Tips on Enjoying Street Food
January 19, 2010 | Location: The World | 4 Comments
Deceptively simple and quick, often fiery and unpredictable, street food is the truest expression of a country’s cuisine. After you’ve sat down on a plastic bench and braved car fumes to enjoy an eye-wateringly spicy noodle soup, eating in a five-star hotel restaurant will feel as relevant to visiting a country as staring at postcards. Plus, it’s the most delicious, cheapest thing you’ll find.
But for many of us raised on the West’s overzealous hygiene standards, taking the first bite into a street dish can be a daunting experience. Here are five tips that will help ensure your meal is a positive experience.
Note: By street food, I designate both street kitchens, where the food is prepared and served literally on the street or the sidewalk, as well as tiny, no-frills restaurants where the decor is nonexistent and the seating capacity is limited.
Caveat Emptor: My experience with street food extends to North America, Western Europe, the Balkans, North Asia and Southeast Asia. It’s highly likely that this article can be generalized to the rest of the world; if you have experience that corroborates or contradicts this, please let everyone know in the comments!
Look for Packed Places
Your one and absolute rule when choosing a place to eat is whether the place is packed with locals, especially workers or employees on break. Avoid places packed with teenagers – if it’s not a KFC, it’s probably not much better. (In my experience, teens choose hangout places on a lot of other factors besides the quality of the food – I’ve got a few horror stories to back this up.)
At all costs, avoid street stalls packed with tourists. Whereas stalls in non-touristy areas depend on word of mouth and return business, tourist-oriented stalls can attract foreigners based on criteria that have little to do with food quality, such as the ability to speak English, an attractive menu, or even happy hour specials. The difference in quality between the two types of street food is usually staggering.
Trust Your Nose
Whatever place you end up choosing, don’t be afraid to leave if you have a bad feeling. Your nose and eyes can spot a lot of things that may not register in your conscious mind. Trust your instincts! You want to go somewhere where you can relax enough to enjoy a good meal.
On the other hand, keep in mind that your own definition of hygiene may be challenged here. Observe, instead, how the cook keeps things clean or not. Yeah, those eggs are sitting on the sidewalk unrefrigerated, but chances are they’re fresh from the market, and will be gone by evening. Even in perfectly clean places, non-refrigerated meat, flies, stray cats, and even the rare cockroach on the ground are par for the course. Also, some ingredients might smell offensive if you’re unaccustomed to them, such as fish sauce, shrimp paste, stinky tofu, or cheese. Try not to let unfamiliar smells deter you.
Order by Any Means Necessary
Smile. Laugh at yourself. Gesture. Point to things (but don’t touch food you’re not gonna eat, that’s disgusting!) Point to the neighbor’s food. If you don’t get what you want, accept what you get. The point here isn’t to ask for the fanciest item on the menu. You want what everyone else is having, because that’s probably this stall’s specialty.
As far as alcohol and tobacco go, try and respect the way the locals drink and smoke, if they do at all. If they’re drinking modestly and smoking very rarely, you’ll make a very bad impression by getting drunk and chain-smoking. If you really must, do it back at the expat bar.
Oh and, in the name of all of us who enjoy our dishes spicy when the local cuisine requires it: please stop asking for non-spicy food. For the real spicy dishes, the pepper will be on the side, as not all locals like their meals mouth-melting hot. The sheer number of foreigners asking for non-spicy food, though, means it’s hard for spice lovers to convince the cook, sometimes.
Soak Up the Atmosphere
Rub shoulders with the locals, accept the stares and the laughter. Sometimes you may even cause gatherings around your table, and you’ll feel like you’re a new specimen at the zoo. You know what? That just means you’re one of the first foreigners to try this food. Enjoy feeling like Marco Polo for a little while.
Part of the appeal of street food is the direct, uncensored connection you’ll make with people outside the tourist trade. This is a great opportunity to chat with people you wouldn’t usually interact with, and food is a great conversation starter. Just mention you like someone’s favorite dish, and they’ll swell with pride and affection. Soon enough, you’ll be leaving the street corner waving goodbye to new friends!
Smile and Say Thank You
Be polite! You’re representing all of us out there. If you really liked the meal, say it to the cook. He or she might not understand your words, but they’ll get the enthusiasm. Better yet, say it in the local language.
If you’ve just eaten somewhere off the beaten path, chances are you’ll be stunned by the low price. If you feel like tipping, don’t do it out of charity for the stall owner; do so only if you genuinely feel they deserve the tip. Giving money out of pity is condescending to a business owner, and you’ll do a lot more for them by being polite, thanking them, and giving them your return business. Engage them on a human level, as businesspeople worthy of your respect; that’s worth a lot more than a few extra bucks at the end of the day.
Follow these tips, and you’ll be rewarded with a unique insight into your host country’s cuisine and culture, as well as many memorable encounters and some new friends. Be warned: street food grows on you! The next time you eat in a sanitized, expensive place, you might just walk away dissatisfied, longing for your next meal at street level.
Thailand’s Northeast, Part 1: Vientiane to Udon Thani
January 13, 2010 | Location: Thailand | 2 Comments
There’s no beach. Very few bars. Foreigners are few and far between, and the locals barely speak English. The cities are big and noisy. In a lot of ways, Thailand’s northeastern region known as Isaan is the “real” Thailand, without makeup and fancy costumes.
We loved it. Of course.
Jogging by the Lake
Thailand’s poorest region still shocked us with modernity as we stepped off the bus from Laos. Bertrand, a French veteriniarian who works for ElefantAsia in Laos, described riding up the road alongside the Mekong on his way north. “You’re riding along a dirt road, and on the Thai side of the river, you see fancy SUVs going by on asphalt. It’s as unreal as a car commercial.”
Udon Thani’s friendliness surprised us next. Everywhere we walked, people smiled at us simply, eager to say hello. After the long walk to our guesthouse, we knew we were somewhere special, a Thai city where foreigners rarely ventured. One tuk-tuk driver saw us walk out of the train station one afternoon. “Welcome to Thailand!” he exclaimed with a grin. Oh, we felt welcomed alright!
Although the center of Udon Thani features the usual farang trappings of bars and foreign restaurants catering to retired expats, we found the heart of Udon in the west, near its large reservoir. In the evenings, Udon Thani residents gather there for open-air aerobics, or to jog or bike around the lake. In a superb show of business-savvy, massage stalls have popped up on the southeastern side of the artificial lake, catering to those who need a break after their run. Then, further north, a series of street stalls offer everything from fresh juices to Thai hot pot. The Thais enjoying the area seemed full of positive energy. Just strolling down the path, we felt buoyed by their spirits.
Forget Bacon!
Isaan offers a cuisine that is both Thai and Lao at once. Laos used to be part of Thailand, after all, until the French pried it from Thailand’s hands, along with Cambodia. The two countries have evolved separately ever since, Thailand prospering under the influx of foreign investment and tourism, while Laos only recently emerged from its isolation, in a bid to escape crippling poverty.
Truth be told, it was easier to experience the food shared by Isaan and Laos here than in Vientiane, given that the Thais have the means to eat out, which is unfortunately not true of a majority of Lao. Street stalls and tiny restaurants thrive in Udon Thani, and you can even share the company of Thais when you sit down on a terrace for a laap (spicy meat salad) and a drink.
The most memorable item in Isaan’s food repertoire has to be its pork sausage, spicy, fat and slightly fermented, cooked right on the street. One will set you back 20B (65 cents US), and comes with fresh chili peppers, cabbage, and sometimes pickled ginger or raw garlic. You try the sausage, savoring the juicy pork, then bite on the chili, garlic or ginger to kick it up a notch. Too intense? Chew on some cabbage to cool down. This is the real, decadent expression of pork’s goodness.
Forget bacon!
Fusion Food
With one morning to go, Helene and I headed out early to the side of the reservoir, for one more Udon Thani specialty: kai khata.
Meaning literally “oeuf au plat”, the dish consists of an egg cooked in a small pan sunny side up, and sprinkled with a generous helping of Isaan sausage. A typical Thai dish, it incorporates influences from the French by way of Vietnamese immigrants to the region, and is best enjoyed with Vietnamese-style baguette, cooked on coals.
In other words, a true fusion dish, and not a five-star chef in sight.
We ate our breakfast merrily, enjoying the sun, and sipping our sweet Thai coffees, bidding farewell to the denizens of Udon Thani. It was time to board the local train to Khon Kaen.
Where to Go
The town of Udon Thani is conveniently located on the Bangkok-Nong Khai train line, and makes a pleasant stop on a trip from Bangkok to Vientiane. The train station is central, and a number of songthaews travel through the city, a ride costing 8-10B.
The reservoir is located west of the city center, and can be reached via songthaew. There’s a number of open-air restaurants on the northeastern side of the reservoir. Evening massage stalls and street stalls are found on the southeastern side. Early in the morning, these stalls disappear in favor of a few kai khata stalls.
The Backpack Foodie’s travel through Isaan continues in Thailand’s Northeast,Part 2: Udon Thani to Khorat
Three Travel Secrets: Backpack Foodie Edition
January 12, 2010 | Location: The World | 5 Comments
There’s this meme going around where travel bloggers each spill three “secrets” they learned from traveling. The concept also involves tagging five other bloggers, but as you can imagine, at the bottom of the pyramid you run out of friends to enroll, so I’ll skip that part.
Gillian and Jason of One Giant Step kindly tagged me in their own Three Travel Secrets entry; and so, here are my own!
Local Food Is Safer than Tourist Food.
I’ve lived three years in Shanghai and ate mostly local food, the majority of which came from small, family-run places; yet the majority of times I fell sick was from eating imported food that appealed mostly to tourists and expats.
Heard about all those travelers who meticulously eat hotel food, drink only bottled water, and peel their fruits, yet fall sick because they drank one fruit juice? I’ll bet you a hundred on the dollar that the so-called safe food, not the juice, is what got them sick.
If you stick to a few simple rules – always eat in busy places, look for clean, well-lit places, eat what the locals eat, and trust your instincts – then you’ll find local, even street food, to be a perfectly safe and healthy diet choice. Plus, it’s a hell of a lot tastier than that rewarmed pizza with three week-old imported mozzarella, and it’ll save you tons of money. Finally, you’ll encourage local, often family-run businesses, instead of foreign-owned corporations.
To Find Great Places, Read a Guidebook.
Then go where they say not to go.
The mainstream guidebooks focus their energy on places that tourists will enjoy, which typically means tourist facilities, some local nightlife, and a minimum of sightseeing. If you visit a place with none of these, what you’ll discover is somewhere where the people will be genuinely curious to engage you in conversation, and where you’ll see very little of the typical harassment associated with tourist centers.
I’ve gone against the recommendations of Lonely Planet and Rough Guides a few times. Every time, I found a charming, unpretentious place where we were able to relate to the locals as human beings instead of peddlers, and where we could enjoy a slice of local life. Every time.
You Can Communicate Without a Common Language.
Don’t let the lack of a common language prevent you from engaging the people you meet! A smile and a nod go a long way. With a lot of patience and the ability to laugh at yourself, you can force your way through the language barrier.
That’s not to say it’s not a good idea to pick up a few words of the local language. As a matter of fact, knowing ‘hello’, ‘thank you’ and ‘this is delicious’ can go a long way towards endearing you to the people you meet. In a country where the local dialect differs from the official language (say, in Shanghai, where Mandarin is the official language but Shanghainese is the local dialect,) you’ll entice a few belly laughs and big grins by saying ‘thank you’ in the local lingo rather than the official language.
Seventy percent of communication is non-verbal, as the saying goes. You may not be able to hold deep philosophical conversations this way, but you can still connect with your fellow humans on a personal, fundamental level. Try it!
