I am not normally fond of meals wrapped in pastry (unless they happen to be highly meat & cheese specific, the ultimate being the famed burrito of Amexico, or the mighty kebap of the Trung-dong, or the Dong-trung, or however they call the Middle-East in Vietnamese!) When it comes to largely vegetable or roots & shoots spreads wrapped in pastry I am afraid you are going to have to count me out, as John Lennon once asserted, defiantly. It doesn't look good, it doesn't crunch good, and I am not exactly sure why. Maybe I had the odd bad experience with monjayaki in Japan, or a soggy okonomiyaki in some park somewhere beneath the cherry blossoms. My mother always used to make me soggy sandwiches with prefreezed thawed out on the kitchen sink in the morning sun white bread when I was at school, in hicksville Australia. The slices of bread would still be icy while she was buttering them up, coating them with Vegemite. However, no need to fear bad cooking here -- the Vietnamese have a knack for kicking life into the types of food which often taste bland in other countries (Vietnam style rice porridge being a prime example). So, bánh xèo may yet surprise me. Many claim it is the best food to be found in southern Vietnam, and its popularity has spread to other parts of the world. For the uninitiated, bánh xèo (literally "cake sizzling") are Vietnamese crepes stuffed with pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts. If the photos on the Internet are anything to go by, the bean sprouts sure do outnumber the bodies of shrimps of the pieces of pork, and that is what concerns me. I am disturbed by the thought of biting through pastry to discover limp vegetable matter, soggy waterlogged vegetable pastry mush... that makes me want to barf. To intensify the greens factor, bánh xèo are wrapped in vegetable leaves... for example, mustard leaf, lettuce leaves, etc. Wrapping food in leaves and then plonking the finished product into a dipping sauce is a big tradition in Vietnam...
Chefs sizzling at their wo(r)k, in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam, 2010)
Why do they give bánh xèo the fiery, explosive name that they do? Noodlepie the lonely food nerd and conqueror of Indochina says: "While the recipe itself might be a piece of piss, getting it right requires a deft hand, a frying pan as hot as the sun and a nibble touch with the batter." As if to echo my aforementioned sogginess fears, Noodlepie carries on: "Bánh xèo pancakes should be crispy on the outside and ever so slightly moist on the inside. Leaving it hanging around too long and you've got a soggy savoury crepe on your hands and you don't want that, believe me..."
I have watched a few videos of bánh xèo being cooked, and it seems the secret to its explosive crispiness lies in the way the chef swiftly swirls the batter around the hot wok. In the photo above you can see a bánh xèo chef at work on his wok, halfway through the swirl. That's how they do it, Saigon street style. In the video below, you can see how the pro's do it at home.
To my western eye, they look like Indian samosas. Others have compared them with Cornish pasties. Noodlepie, that connoisseur of Vietnamese street food, says: "You can find this anytime-of-day snack all over town. Mine came served in an ingenious little snack pocket made of crumpled up magazine advertisement pages with a bag of sweet chili dipping sauce. They cost around 5,000VD a throw (US$1 = 15,700VD). The centre is filled with lightly spiced minced pork and onions. The pastry is fried to a thin crisp giving a satisfying crunchy-munch."
Not quite Banh goi, but in the same basic ballpark (Vietnam, 2010)
The thing in the photo above is not Bánh gối. I don't know what it is called, but maybe it is on the Bánh gối bent. It is in the same basic ballpark, to my western taste buds at least. I bought it from a bread shop across the road from the Cultural Park, near a proper Bánh gối streetstall, the second last time I was in Vietnam, mid 2010. Pikelet and Pie says: "Bánh gối, or pillow cakes, seem to be the curry-less curry puff of Vietnamese cuisine. Deep fried pastry perfection encasing a texturally diverse jumble of glass noodles, minced pork, wood ear mushrooms and thin slices of lap cheong. Crisp, flaky exteriors, flavourful fillings. Dip them in the your self-adjusted sauce and alternate mouthfuls with cold vermicelli noodles and plentiful fresh herbs..."
As residents of southern California would know, Bánh mì (Vietnamese sandwiches) come packed with many different kinds of filling. They even do them with fish, as my girlfriend Nga informed me today. She was in bed in our holdout at the City Star Hotel near the Cultural Park, and had asked me to go out and buy a few kebabs at a place I had found round the corner earlier in the year, on my previous tour of duty. On the way out the door I remembered that the kebab stand opened in the evening, and it was now only lunchtime (late lunchtime). Time for a rethink: she suggested I go pick up some Bánh mì instead. "But don't get any with fish in them," she said. That was strange, I couldn't imagine Bánh mì with fish (although I have since discovered that they have them in San Francisco!) I guess Nga wasn't keen on trusting fish served on the street, she is kind of skeptical of street food in general (she reckons she can cook better.) On top of that, she says street food can make you sick. Having observed the kebab stand's meat pole standing idle out in the midday sun yesterday, hours before the stand was due to open, I can see what she means. Anyway, I went out and found a Bánh mì woman at work near Star City, opposite the Cultural Park, and ordered two sandwiches. Communicating through gestures, the Bánh mì woman asked me if I wanted the pork, and I nodded in agreement. As it turns out, pork was about all I got served. Salty, gristly, but scrumptious pork. There were a few bits of cucumber and carrots and so forth thrown into the sandwich, but it was mostly pork. The pork here came delivered either cool and warm, in forms ranging from liver pate to rolls of processed ham wrapped in red plastic, to meat sliced straight from the roasted pig, skin and crackling dripping with juice. I got the hot, roasted stuff, for two. The lady doused each Bánh mì with a salt shaker before wrapping them in newspaper and dropping them into a plastic bag. When I ripped into my roll back in the room with Nga, all that gristle and salt crunched in my mouth like sand. It might have been pork overdose heaven for me, but Nga was unimpressed.
Pork gets loaded into my baguette, in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam, 2010)
"Why isn't the bread warm?" she sniveled. As you can see from the photo above, the loaves in the stand do indeed look kind of wilted. And having stale bread is the worst offence when it comes to street Bánh mì in Ho Chi Minh City, or anywhere in the world. "This isn't fresh, and it is probably yesterday's bread," Nga declared. Which condemned it to instant fail, in her mind at least. As much of a fail as if it had contained fish! But I still enjoyed it.
Ever get the feeling that you are missing out on life, and that somewhere far away people are having the fun which should, rightfully, be yours? This was the suspicion which tormented me one steamy day last month in the vicinity of Khao San Road, Bangkok (the City of Angels, Great City of Immortals, Magnificent City of the Nine Gems), at the start of my latest Oriental adventure. I had just made it down to the Kingdom for the first time in six years, en route to episode three of tropical love in Vietnam. Tropical love with Thai girls wasn't even on my agenda for the three-day layover, I was more interested in finding a Drum'n'Bass club, and some cool places to hang out. The sky had been all torrid and theatrical as my Royal Thai Airways jetliner tore across Cambodia on the journey south, many of the clouds outside looking like elephants (some of them rearing). Underneath, rivers and rice paddies gave way to urban sprawl, then presently we were skidding into Suvarnabhumi Airport, me marveling at the futuristic terminals, the futuristic control tower, the El Al plane on the tarmac next to us a testament to the popularity of this place with Israeli tourists (French and Russians go to Vietnam, Israelis and Swedes go to Thailand -- that has been my observation these past 269 obsessive days.) I helped some English girls out in the queue for Immigration, then got hassled by a hustler as I looked for the public bus to Phra Nakhon (พระนคร) district, where I was hoping to stay. Eventually found the bus though it wasn't much cheaper than the taxi the tout was endorsing, and a lot slower. Up on board, the soundsystem was tuned into Thai radio: some kind of manic, repetitive percussive acoustic house music with a Rock edge, and the DJ's jibber-jabbering all over the top: jibber-jabber, jibber-jibber-jabber, jibber-jibber-jabber-jibber-jabber. Each song stretched for like 30 minutes. There were heaps of Australian girls convened up the back shrieking and talking loudly about their periods and other vulgar matters, dropping the "f" bomb liberally. They reminded me, poignantly, of why I fear moving home to Australia to live, despite all my recent bouts of loneliness in Japan. Aussies just have no class. Even though this was my first landing at Suvarnabhumi, cruising downtown was very much a trip down Memory Lane and I amazed myself with how much I actually knew the city, knew the landmarks -- for example the impressive Democracy Monument, the beautiful Grand Palace a vision from a dream. Elephant motifs and stupas were all over the place, this being Thailand of course! I couldn't wait to hit the pavement, find a hotel, and then dive headlong into the pub and club scene!
Elephant motifs adorn this stupa, near the MBK department store in Bangkok (Thailand, 2008)
In my dream life I wouldn't be shackled to one place and job as I am now, but would be free to circulate the globe, circumnavigate the world endlessly, like a satellite following an eccentric orbit, forever cutting against the grain. It turns out I am not the only one with elite expat dreams (of delusion, of grandeur, or illusions of grandeur?). Global Nanpa out of Germany writes:
Think about it, I am convinced that my life is much better than that of the often cited Playboy Hugh Hefner for example. I didn't realize in the past years how important health and age is, but it does matter a lot, more even than money. US college girl blondines are not my taste anyway. Sounds arrogant but I can have more girls than him, paid AND for free. Nanpa makes it possible. I also don't have to pop any pills before the magic happens LOL. My honest ratio for paid/unpaid female companionship on my recent trips was around 75% paid, 25% for free. I plan to hold it like this for the next decade, turning now 30 years-old end of September. The freebies in retroperspective were actually often the more painful memories, that's why I try to keep a balanced ratio : I don't want to inflict too much emotional pain on others and on myself. Like regular readers know, I have the idea of finding the true girl-friend experience (GFE) during my trips.
This life is so much better than being a real celebrity, because you don't have to deal with the negative side effects like getting watched carefully by the public all the time and not being able to walk around freely in public places anymore. I would never trade my life with anyone. Once your skills, looks and budget reach a certain level, you can literally live the ultimate dream life in Asia. Trust me, it's good...
Along with Nanpa, Stickman and the guy they call Mango Sauce, I will always be beguiled by Bangkok because it hosts so many happening scenes here. As Nanpa attests, Bangkok is like a miniature version of the world with everything you might need crammed inside it. To take one example: Bangkok has to my mind become the London of the East with its own Drum'n'Bass nights, resident DJ's, bars, crazy clubs -- I dig all that and I am also into Thai music as well, all the macho Thai hard metal. That shit rocks! It is a cheap place to stay (I can find adequate lodgings for under $20 a night), the food is awesome, and there are tonnes of colorful temples to be enjoyed if that is your thing. Bangkok is centrally located -- there is easy access to Ho Chi Minh City, Yangon, Kathmandu, Guangzhou, Calcutta, Jakarta, Medan, all of these places exotic as f+ck and only an hour or two plane-ride away. On top of that it is a great place to pick up budget tickets. While you are waiting for your visa to come through you can kick back with a cold Singha or Chang, watch some videos, and poke your fork into a plate of pad thai. And there are, of course, the girls. Millions, millions of beautiful, cute, sexy girls. All waiting for a piece of you! All waiting, perchance, for a piece of me!
Wat Chana Songkhram Rachawora Mahawiharn, near Khao San Road, Bangkok (Thailand, 2008)
Of course Bangkok has long had a reputation as a city of sin and on previous trips I have spotted plenty of frightening farang with the local lasses, sweaty overweight German dudes and tattooed British hooligans with their unlikely looking dates, eating noodles at MBK or climbing out of a tuk-tuk, or whatever. You watch these couples sauntering down the sois and think to yourself: Yeah right (to use the Australian vernacular)... as if! The Asian girlfriend experience is a big business, but it has never appealed to me, at least in its cruder forms. If you have to pay for it it is not a real conquest, in my opinion -- these girls you are purchasing are just like those hidden divers in Imperial China whose job it was to secretly latch fish on to the Emperor's hook, while the Emperor was out fishing. It is self delusional and a wank to think this is "real", and although some men might need the physical relief, I can go without it if necessary. For me, the idea that you could get it if the circumstances were more favorable is often more tantalizing than the actual getting of it, if you understand my reasoning. So, I am not interested in going to girly bars, hiring escorts, or getting a massage (even though my New Zealand bud Maniac High Dennis the Menace threatened to bitch slap me if I didn't get laid this trip.) I'm sorry Dennis -- I didn't get laid while I was in Thailand, but I wasn't in Thailand to get laid, I was more on a recon kind of mish, and in any case I am pretty well taken at the moment thank you very much, comfortably committed to my love in Vietnam! I was just biding my time this trip, and scoping the scene, more as an observer than an actual participant, to see the kind of potential this place offers me if I ever (touch wood) turn single again. And one of the first things I observed, after hitting the pavement on Khao San Road, was the number of hot young Thai girls with (wait for it)... normal young Western guys! The kind of guys who could get a girlfriend in their own country, if they so desired. I'd never noticed this phenomenon in the past, and it surprised me. What were these Western guys doing in Thailand? I wondered. Did they have a job here or something? The girls they were with were well fit, indeed... many of them looked like fashion models. It rubbed me somewhat, and it set me thinking: why do I slave my days away with a maniac landlord/boss in Tokyo, chanting to the gohonzon, singing on the telephone, saving my pennies for an occasional episode of tropical love in Vietnam? why am I doing all that when I could be here in the Land of Smiles, here in the City of Angels, living the dream on a daily basis, with a whole harem of hotties? Of course, there are plenty of model quality girls in Japan, but you don't often see the ultra-hot ones dating foreigners, and you certainly don't see them dating me. A full harem has always eluded me. Was I living in the wrong country, living the wrong life entirely? I asked myself. Envy arose in my soul like a poison, and impure thoughts clouded my mind. If I could have just talked to Nga on the phone, then my d(a)emons might have been kept at bay, for one night at least. But she never answers the phone, and she was also all quiet on the email front. Once again I was all on my own, to ride out the storm.
Khao San Road, Bangkok's original golden mile, in Banglamphu (Thailand, 2008)
Bangkok's original Golden Mile and backpacker Mecca, Khao San Road, has a happening party scene rammed with folk from all corners of the map. Whenever I stay here, I am pretty much guaranteed to have an adventure every time I step out of my hotel. The place swarms with freaks, of all colors and creeds. In recent years the street has also developed a seriously credible nightlife scene and last month, after a long absence, I had the chance to check it out in person, in the flesh. Within 10 minutes of leaving my hotel midway down the Golden Mile I was handed a flyer promising Drum'n'Bass and other pleasures at the Immortal Bar, just up the road. (The joint, located on the second floor of the Bayon Building (website: MySpace site here), apparently also does a pretty mean heavy metal show, although I never got the chance to witness that). You can play pool inside, or you can sit out on the balcony drinking Red Bull and vodka combinations, watching lightning lick the skies. Inside the bar, basslines thunder like a summer tempest. I sank my Red Bull and vodkas, and then a couple of Tiger beers. Apart from the music, there wasn't particularly much going on, so I eventually headed out for a while, ostensibly to explore the surrounding streets, or cross the river in the dark, I can't quite remember which. As it turns out, I didn't make it past the gates of Khao San Road. I stopped off down at the police station end, the site of my first landing in Bangkok in 1992, at an Israeli style falafel stand. Waiting for my turn, a black African man introduced himself to me. He said he was from The Sudan. He bought me a falafel, vegetarian as far as I recall, brimming with Middle Eastern textures and flavor. There were a couple of Israeli guys (former soldiers, no doubt) loitering nearby, enjoying the monsoon. I asked the black African guy what he was doing in Thailand. I didn't quite get his reply, but I think he said that business had forced him to stay in Bangkok a couple of weeks, and that he had spent every night of his stay at Khao San Road. Which kind of implied that he liked it here, but then he started confusing me, by denouncing the scene. "I don't agree with all this drinking," he said, nodding to the heaving, staggering masses, all the alcohol adverts hanging from the shophouse façades. "I don't agree with this materialism, this rudeness, all this sex. You see, the Prophet laid out guidelines of how to live, instructions for how to live. Since it was God who created us, it is only natural, that God should give us the instructions on how to use our physical vehicles. That is something you never got in the Bible, and that is something the Jews never understood either! The Qur'an is a user manual for the human being."
Mobile food court moves through the heaving masses (Thailand, 2008)
The scene around us was a hubbub -- a constant coming and going of backpackers, taxis and delivery trucks snaking their way through the scrum, locals looking for an international experience, ladies pushing carts stacked with fried chicken and noodles and corn on the cob. There were peddlers from the highlands hawking hammocks strung together from synthetic fibers, or stroking wooden frogs with small batons to make compellingly froglike croaks. One of the Israeli guys at the stand glared at us, having overheard the reference to the Qur'an. "People in the west are so materialistic now," the African was saying. "They have lost touch with the important things in life, such as following God's commandments." "Have you ever drunk alcohol?" I asked him. "Never, not once. Liquor has never so much as even passed my lips." Sometime later the subject of September 11 came up, and the Muslim boldly proclaimed: "That was an inside job carried out by Jews and Americans." It should be remembered we were standing at an Israeli falafel stand at the time, and there were former Israeli soldiers turned backpackers loitering nearby, doubtless some of them with combat experience. I was in no mood to make enemies or get into a fight, so I decided it was time to ditch this extremist. Which was kind of good timing, because he wanted to go back to his hotel anyway. He escorted me as far as the Bayon Building, where I resumed my sinful indulgences. I never got to take my night walk along the river, past the old embankments, out of the Old City. Nonetheless, it is always nice to meet someone from a farflung corner of the world... that happens a lot when I am Khao San Road. It is one neat place to hang out.
God willing, there is always something going on at the Immortal Bar (Thailand, 2008)
The next night I was back at the Immortal Bar drinking and enjoying a chaotic set when I met this Thai girl who called herself Far 2 Juicy (her real name being Phar I believe.) She was sitting on a couch with this young, blond English guy. "It is not as if he is my boyfriend or anything," she claimed at one point, but judging by the way they went home together, he most probably was. At least until something better came along, I suspected. She seemed to have eyes for me though, and once again it made me think that if I hung out more often in Bangkok in the future, I could get plenty of action here. Just a pity that I am already taken! I consoled myself. When I woke up in the morning (which was a Sunday), I was amazed to find her email address (far2_Juicy@hotmail) in my jeans' pocket, scribbled on a used paper plate. I was so drunk, I must have totally forgot that she gave me that!
I showered, shaved, gulped a quick coffee at the restaurant downstairs, and then raced over to an Internet cafe on Soi Rambuttri, just past the Wat Chana Songkhram Rachawora Mahawiharn. Excitement gripped me, and devious fantasies played themselves out in my mind: imagine having two girlfriends in south-east Asia, a girl in every port! That's how we Immortals play it, the south-East Asian style! I seated myself at a terminal, ordered a Coke or possibly a fruit juice, and opened GMail on the browser. There was a short message from N. waiting in my inbox, promising to pick me up at the airport in Ho Chi Minh City the following day after I arrived there (my flight was scheduled for Monday.) It made me feel a little hesitant about the stunt I was about to pull off, just a wee bit guilty. But I had to have something to take home to Dennis the Menace: if not the actual booty, at least the promise of booty soon to come! There was nothing wrong with just sending Phar an email, after all (even though it was "just an email" that led to my whole long distance relationship with N.!) So, I punched out an epistle to her on the keyboard, not exactly Mystery magnitude, but as seductive as I could manage with a hangover on a hot day:
Hello this is Rob I met you at the bar at the Bayon Center on Khao San Road last night.
Thanks for giving me your email address.
I was drunk last night and forgot that you had given me your address until this morning.
Then when I saw it I remembered what happened.
Did you have a good time last night?
I will be going to Khao San Road again tonight, probably to the same places I went to last night.
I am leaving Thailand tomorrow morning but I hope to be back many times in the future.
So, I hope to see you again someday.
Sincerely,
Rob.
I pushed send, and the mail flew off to meet its destiny. GMail defaulted back to its inbox folder, and I noticed right at the top, an item newly minted, manifested from the ether, titled: "Delivery Status Notification (Failure)". My heart skipped a beat as I absorbed this news. Failure? That didn't sound good, that didn't sound good at all! I clicked on the item to open it, just to make sure, and the message which appeared on my sceen made grim reading indeed:
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: far2_juicy@hotmail.com
Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable (state 14).
I slumped back and took a long sip of my Coke, perplexed. Had Phar given me the wrong email? I wondered. Had she written it down incorrectly? Was it all just a game? was she merely messing with my mind? (Actually, I was later to find out that Hotmail sometimes block emails from GMail for security reasons, so it was probably just a technical problem.) I studied her scrawl anew on the paper plate she had given me, which was still encrusted with pizza remains we evidently must have scoffed together at the pub. Her address sure looked like "far2_juicy" to me, and I had to concede it was a cool handle. If that wasn't her email address, then it most certainly should have been. So what else was up? Maybe it's just my connection that's bad? I reasoned. Maybe it's just a little hiccup with this decrepit computer!I cut and paste my original message, which was now scrambled with all the junk at the bottom of the delivery failure notification, and crafted a brand new email, free of clutter. And then I pressed send. GMail defaulted back to its inbox folder, and I noticed a new item sitting at the top, freshly minted, titled: "Delivery Status Notification (Failure)". Right on top of the previous rebuff that I had received, from the System. It seemed like I was caught in a loop going round and round, with no way out. Time for a different approach, I figured. I cast another critical look at the address on my paper plate, just to make sure I had typed it in right. I've learnt that in Thai script the character which looks like an "s" (ร), for example, is actually an "r", so you have to be careful around here with false similarities. Phar's email address was written in English, of course, but it was entirely possible that the "r" in "far" was actually an "n", according to the logic of her penmanship. That meant her email address wasn't far2_Juicy@hotmail at all, it was fan2_Juicy@hotmail! Hooray! I'd read it wrong! I reloaded a new email scavenged from the detritus of the old, and fired it away, optimistically, at fan2_Juicy@hotmail. And then I defaulted back to the inbox screen, to see if the email had gone through. It hadn't, in fact, and now I had three rejection letters in a row, sitting at the top of my folder. Return to sender. I spent the next hour at the Internet cafe, trying every variation on the email address Phar had given me, on that folded-up paper plate. I tried them all: far2juicy@hotmail.com, far2_juicy@hotmail.com, Far2-juicy@hotmail.com, Far2_juicy@hotmail.com, far2-juicy@hotmail.com, far-2-juicy@hotmail.com. Even phar2_juicy@hotmail.com, even though the address on the plate clearly started with an "f". Every single time, the email bounced back at me, leaving a failure notification in my inbox. Before too long, my folder was full of failure notifications. It began to make me feel, well, something of a failure. I just thought that this lead was so promising, that I couldn't just give it up. But there is only so long you can beat a dead horse, before the flailed, mutilated carcass starts to gross you out. At some point, I reached my gross out point. I looked at all those fail notifications, and decided that I had done enough. It was time to admit defeat, and move on. I had a fish on the line, but now that fish was gone. In any case it didn't really matter, because I already had a girlfriend. So I started walking, right out the door, and I didn't stop walking for a couple of hours at least.
I even managed to cross that bridge over the Phadung Krung Kasem (คลองผดุงกรุงเกษม), which actually has a kind of sentimental importance to me. It was on this bridge, leaving the Old City in the year 2000, that I shook off the bout of homesickness and ennui which had plagued me since I uprooted myself from my workaday life in Australia, and commenced my ceaseless wanderings. Crossing the bridge a second time, I felt like I was completing a cosmic loop. Out of nowhere my resolution rose, and I decided, defiantly: There's no way I am going back to Australia to live, no way at all. This Asian Affair has only just begun! The endless journey will go on. I kept on walking, right up to the National Library, near the banks of the Chao Phraya River. There was a computer room in there with free Internet, and I made use of it, but I refrained from sending another email to Phar. That obsession was history, I just had to let it die. I sent a message to N. instead, letting her know how much I missed her. And then went out again, one last time, to all the pubs and clubs of Khao San Road that I could find. I only got four hours sleep, before it was time to rush out to Suvarnabhumi, and board my bird for Vietnam. The next afternoon I was lying in bed at the City Star in Ho Chi Minh City, trying to shake off a wicked hangover. There was glorious sunshine outside, and Nga was pottering round the room in some regal white number, it might even have been an áo dài. We were due to return to the airport in a few hours to pick up my parents, and she was apparently getting nervous. Lying back in bed with the cool air-con blowing, Vietnamese soap operas on TV, I felt the cares of my life starting to drop away. The entire Far 2 Juicy malarkey suddenly seemed desperate and tawdry. What could have possessed me at act that way? I wondered. How could I have contemplated cheating on my girl? Let's blame it on Bangkok, I thought to myself, and nodded off to sleep.
Go to any convenience store in Bangkok and you will find them: small skewered sausages posing on the counter with the Slush puppies and other synthetic junk, gleaming brown and burgundy in their intestinal cases. I have never munched one of these mystery meat Wieners in Thailand, partly because they aren't exotic enough to warrant the time, money and stomach space, and partly because I am worried about getting sick. To put it blunt, Bangkok doesn't seem the place to be eating sausages... it seems a bit cheesy, a little bit too porky, and I'd feel a little bit too much like Homer Simpson on vacation! That said, I do enjoy stopping off regularly at the many convenience stores in this city whenever I am walking crosstown, to cool off and top up on Red Bull, my tonic of choice in the Kingdom, or hopefully to get into a conversation with any of the young female staff working there! But back to the meat: it turns out you can eat these little skewered sausages out on the street too, although again I have never actually done so. I did enjoy some squid on a stick on my last trip to Bangkok though, at food stalls right near the Democracy Monument (อนุสาวรีย์ประชาธิปไตย), on Thanon Ratchadamnoen Klang. The squid came in a takeaway plastic bag dripping with fiery sauce, and set me back 15฿. There was a Bollywood movie being filmed at the Monument at the time, filling the air with sweet and pungent Indian sounds. I noted to myself how Indian in fact the Democracy Monument looked, with its beds of vivid flowers (I could see why it would make a good backdrop for a Bollywood romance scene.)
Squid for 15 Baht a stick, and sausages on the street outside McDonald's, near the Democracy Monument (Thailand, 2008)
Wrote one Matthew Amster-Burton, back in the year 2000: "The typical Thai breakfast is rice porridge, but vendors offered plenty of atypical selections as well. One woman whose cart stood near the Democracy Monument on Thanon Ratchadamnoen Klang was pouring perfect silver-dollar, and smaller (1 baht?) pancakes onto a griddle. And one of the most beloved foods in Bangkok is ice cream. McDonald's offers a standard soft serve cone for 7B and Baskin-Robbins fights back with its "Teen Scoop", but the street vendors really get weird, piling three scoops of vanilla onto a hot dog bun and topping it with corn kernels or red bean paste. McDonalds, I should add, offers its pies in three flavors: pineapple, taro, and corn..."
Fresh fruit always goes down a treat on hot summer days (Thailand, 2008)
For more street food Bangkok style hit kyspeaks, who declared after a long expedition grazing in Bangkok: "My favorite would be the bacon stick we had at the Chatuchak weekend market. For 20 baht (around RM2), you get mini sausages wrapped with bacon on a skewer. The union of sausage and bacon was a match made in heaven as the juice and slight saltiness from bacon compliments the texture and taste of the sausage oh so well. You have to try this if you manage to find the stall!" As I said earlier, I have never eaten these Simpsonish sausages in Bangkok. The next time I am there, I might very well partake! You only live once, and there is no room for food snobbishness in this world!
A couple of days ago I found myself with a lot of hours to kill inside Hồ Chí Minh City Airport, and to pass the time I bought a little book on sale there called The Cuisine Of Viet Nam (Nourishing a Culture). A nourishing little book it turned out to be, indeed -- it got me through the layover at Tân Sơn Nhất, and provided me ample food for thought, regarding the rich world of Vietnamese cuisine. One essay in the collection, written by Nguyệt Biều, concerned the spicy relative of phở -- Bún bò Huế (otherwise known as Huế noodle soup.) I did not know this until I read this book, but Huế is the food capital of Vietnam, and represents the culinary perfection of the nation. It is to Vietnam, perhaps, what Kyoto is to Japan, or Yogyakarta is to Indonesia. It is the soul of the nation. Nguyệt writes:
If one had to pick a single food which is reminiscent of Huế, it would be rice noodle soup with beef and pork. Huế residents prefer to buy their bún bò from street vendors, rather than in restaurants. Street vendors carry soft, thin white noodles (bún) and slices of beef (bò) and pork with them in two bamboo baskets hanging from a pole balanced across their shoulders.
Consumers eat this noodle dish on the sidewalk, squatting on small stools right next to a pot of boiling broth. The intense fragrance rising from the pot is the greatest advertisement for this dish.
Most street vendors in Huế come from villages outside the city such as Thủy An, Phát Lát, and Vạn Vạn. In these villages, each household has one or two street vendors. Selling rice noodles is both a way of earning a living and of carrying on a family or village culinary tradition. In the morning vendors sell to regular customers, usually in small side streets or alleys. When lunchtime is almost over, they stop selling and shop for the ingredients for the next day.
Street vendors carry one pot of broth that they can put on a portable charcoal stove, to be heated immediately. Another pot contains additional ingredients such as stewed pig trotters, grilled ground pork, beef and pork tendon, grilled crab, pig and duck blood, and thin slices of beef. On the other side of the bamboo pole is a container of fresh rice noodles and seasonings like onions, scallions, chili peppers, fish sauce, bean sprouts, banana flowers and diced lettuce. Finally, the baskets contain bowls, spoons, chopsticks, a basin for washing, napkins, toothpicks, a tank of green ginger tea, and a few stools: truly a moveable feast.
Bún bò Huế is completely unpretentious. Its charm lies solely in its fragrance. According to the women who sell rice noodles at Bến Ngự Market, the broth must be delicious above all else: clear in colour with a balance between the salty and sweet flavours of stewed beef bones, pork bones, and chicken.
Vendors tailor each bowl to the customers' desires. In the winter, customers sit next to the red-hot stove and the boiling broth, covering their bowls with their hands, slurping the broth, skewering the noodles with their chopsticks, and biting into pieces of meat. Even food connoisseurs in Hà Nội and Hồ Chí Minh City admit to a love of bún bò Huế, especially when it is served in Huế.
Kuala Lumpur is unusual in that as well as having a large and flamboyant Chinatown, it is also blessed with a bustling Little India neighborhood to complement it. The only other city in the world that I think of which has both a Chinatown and a Little India is Singapore, an hour's flight south of KL. But while Singapore's Little India neighborhood, based around Rowell Street, has become gentrified in recent years, KL's Little India remains rugged and raw. It has an edge, and that's what gives it a charm. I won't say it's dangerous, but it's definitely edgy. It is also home to some of the finest dining experiences to be had in Malaysia, some of the most memorable odors, and plenty of shops. If you want to feel what India (particularly south India) is like but you don't have the courage to go there, visit Kuala Lumpur instead. And if you are an Indian tourist holidaying in Malaysia, it is almost compulsory for you to visit Little India KL. For Indians and non-Indians, Malaysians and non-Malaysians, the place has interest and allure by the bucketload. Before going on too much further, there is a contradiction which needs to be addressed: what exactly is Little India? and where is it? According to Adrian Logan, over the years both the Masjid India/Lebuh Ampang area and Brickfields have vied to hold the title of Little India. While Brickfields is traditionally associated with the local Indian population (and has the most personality, in my opinion), the Masjid India/Lebuh Ampang area is in the heart of Kuala Lumpur's city centre (and is thus convenient for tourists.) Both areas are a hive of activity during the traditional Hindu celebrations like Deepavali. Many argue that Brickfields should be given the honour to become "Little India", a fact acknowledged by City Hall, which intends to recognize the Masjid India/Lebuh Ampang precinct as a "Malay Street" instead. One Malaysian I encountered online, szehoong, explained it this way: "KL had 2 Little Indias. One is the area around Masjid India which is more of a fusion but then again the area next to it is purely Indian and not Indian Muslims which Masjid India is ;) Brickfields is the closest we could get to the actual Little India. The problem is that Jalan Travers is kinda wide and it separates the place into 2! :(." Another Malaysian, Argory, argues that there in fact three Little India's in KL! "And if you can't choose either," Argory says, "it's good to know that they're all connected by train. The three Little India's are:
"1. Masjid India -- Lebuh Ampang (Masjid Jamek LRT).
"2. Brickfields (KL Sentral LRT, KTM Komuter and Monorail).
"3. Klang (Klang Station KTM Komuter). The little India in Klang is about 5 minutes walk from Klang Station, so it's quite convenient if you prefer not do drive la. ;)"
But wherever Little India is (and perhaps it is deep down just a state of mind, wherever you wish to find it), one thing is sure: Brickfields is a well cool place, kind of like a desolate industrial town from the North of England in the 1800s, dropped into the middle of the jungle. I once spent a pleasant half an hour or so trudging around a temple I found on the side of the rail line (see here.) This was my dream of the perfect South Asian experience, and one fellow visitor to Brickfields, writing on her blog, apparently felt the same: "Last night, I dreamt that I was in India. My hotel room was facing this massive Hindu temple - gods and goddess in elaborate poses and colours. Looking down, I could watch the busy streetlife: the loud vendors, rushing passer-bys, the congested traffic, the noise, the smells - all were vivid. I wanted to take a couple of photos of the people but whenever I raised the camera up, I was met with angry stares.
Indian deity, as seen in Chinatown Kuala Lumpur, near where I was staying (Malaysia, 2005)
"I think my dream was influenced by the fact that I am currently staying in Brickfields for the weekend. There is a very significant proportion of Indians living here that it's become a stereotype - "you're Indian? Do you live in Brickfields?". For the Indian food lover, it's a delight although I must say that Indian food in KL so far have disappointed me."
Talking of the angry stares -- I must add that I when I spent 30 minutes traipsing through the aforementioned Brickfields Tamil temple, taking loads of photos, I did receive the odd angry glance and grimace. Perhaps Brickfields is not the best place to take happy snaps of folks. I had much more luck taking street photos in Mumbai in India proper, but that's another story.
Anyway, Little India as it is traditionally known, expands around Jalan Masjid India, its heady and hedonic heart. It basically covers the area between Jalan Bunus and Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman. One of the oldest streets in the city, Jalan Masjid India takes its name from a mosque (masjid) built in 1870. At the time tin mining was booming in Malaysia, and Indian Muslims were swarming to the region for work. Over time, they built up a community around the India Mosque.
Today, the atmosphere is still swarming. If you visit, expect to find plenty of shops selling saris, Indian silver tableware, perfumed oils, sandalwood oil, and so on, and on. Since the majority of the products on sale here are imported from India, the smells and sights are pretty much what you would expect to find in Chennai, although the air is cleaner and the traffic regulations more strictly enforced than they are in Tamil Nadu. And they don't have five foot ways in India, but they are everywhere in Kuala Lumpur. If you want to get your fortune read you can get your fortune read. Indian palmistry is a big deal here, just as it is in Singapore. I once sought the advice of an Indian palmist in Little India Singapore, and some of his predictions have already come true. He told me that I would have two wives, and one of them would always berate me, always shout at me... but would love me very much. She has already come into my life -- the prediction has been fulfilled, and that is why I respect Indian palmistry.
Tamil skyline, Brickfields (Malaysia, 2005)
A name often says so much about the history or origin of a place; Kuala Lumpur for example means "Muddy Estuary", and you can still see the mud in the Klang River today. How do you think Brickfields got its name? Yes, that's right -- they used to grow bricks there! Seriously. Old-time Brickfields' resident Kaulsalya said: "The area was the centre for brick making in the early days when the whole area was a clay pit with cows grazing everywhere. Brickfields produced the best bricks as good quality bricks is made from clay."
For those interested in spirituality and a higher meaning to life, you might just find your salvation in Brickfields. One of the streets here, Jalan Berhala, must rank as one of the great centers of Eastern religion. On Jalan Berhala you will find the Buddhist Maha Vihara Temple, the Arulmegu Sree Veera Hanuman Temple, the Sri Sakthi Vinayagar Temple, the Lutheran Church and the Three Teachings Chinese Temple. For an excellent and photo essay about the Maha Vihara Temple, click here. The temple is located at 123 Jalan Berhala (phone: (03) 2273 0150, email: bmvhara@po.jaring.my.) At nearby 2 Jalan Chan Ah Thong in Brickfields can be found a Buddhist institution called WAVE -- that's short for the Wisdom Audio Visual Exchange. WAVE has an extensive catalog of Dhamma books for free distribution, with titles by such authors as Ajaan Lee, Ajaan Chah, Mahasi Sayadaw, and many others. If you want to get in contact with them or see what they do, phone them on (03) 2274 9509 or email them at hockchai@tm.net.my. One of the great shopping institutions in Malaysia is the ubiqitious pasar malam, or night market. Naturally, there is one in Brickfields which you ought to check out if you have the chance. Usually held once a week, the pasar malam starts at about 6pm and goes right up till 11pm. This is the archetypal Asian bazaar, dominated by incredible bustle, vibrant sights and tons of interlocking scents and smells. Basically what happens is this: little vans and trucks pull up along a designated street, unload their wares and spread them across several makeshift tables. That is it. You want something on the cheap? You'll find it here, from groceries, clothing, toys, food, accessories, CDs, household items to the latest fads. Naturally, bargaining is mandatory, if you want to get the best value for your precious ringgit.
Holy pantheon, in Little India, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia, 2005)
Virtual Malaysia reports: "One of the best reasons to come here would be to savour the various Indian snacks, such as vadai, stringhoppers and appum, all freshly made on the spot. There's even a Punjabi food stall with authentic, freshly made chappati, prata and sweetmeats. Not everything at this night market is Indian, though. You can still get your Malay and Chinese food fix with delicious char kueh teow, yong tau foo, tau foo far, lol-lok and nasi lemak. For a detailed account of the Indian dining possibilities in Kuala Lumpur, click here. There are Indian eateries scattered across Kuala Lumpur, but here we are concentrating on the Indian restaurants in Little India. And the selection is:
Restoran Gopala: 59 Jalan Thambypillai, Brickfields. This is a Hare Krishna joint in the heart of Brickfields. The cooking rules are so strict here, no onion nor garlic is allowed. And while there may be items called sambal fish, mutton masala and spicy stir-fried chicken on the menu, there is no actual meat anywhere on the plate. That's right, it's all soy. This eatery is located at Jalan Thambypillai, which is one row behind the Post Office in Jalan Tun Sambanthan. Open daily from 7am to 1am.
Vidya Curry House: Brickfields. This place serves any number of authentic Indian dishes including chicken, mutton, vegetable and fish biryanis. You can also dine on chicken 65, chilly chicken, black pepper chicken, black pepper fish, cauliflower Manchurian, deep-fried chicken and fish, squid masala, prawn and egg sambal, omelette, fish head curry, chicken curry and mutton curry, and so on, and on. Lunch and dinners range from about RM4.50 to RM8 per person.
