Summer pretty much is the best
I know, I know, I've said it before. And about other places even... But this time it's for real.
NY.... I think I'm falling for you. At least your non-polar-vortex, sunny-and-not-humid beautiful self.
Posts tagged ‘food’
Aug 18
8 Comments
Autumn in NYC
This weekend was one of those ones that make you glad you live in the Northeast... I love the fall! Instead of blabbering on about my weekend, I am going to tell the story with a photo-essay
What I miss….
I have been back in the states for a little over a month now. In some ways, my life has slowed down a lot. I go to the same place for work every day, I see my old friends. I just got my car back. I do 'normal' life things -- like get my car inspected. But at the same time, I am still in flux. Still very much in transition - sleeping on an air mattress with my sleeping bag as a blanket. Still unsure of where I will go beyond July 27th. Still unsure of what I want.
May 13
Dec 25
Merry merry happy happy
If I thought saigon was crazy last night…. tonight there is wall to wall traffic and people everywhere. Lots and lots of folks taking pictures of their kid, who are all decked out in christmas wear, in front of the store displays.
interesting combo….
christmas eve, saigon style
Here are some of the highlights (or moments) of my day….
- exercising early in the morning at a nearby park — which was SO crowded. Saigon likes their exercise! there are even permanent machines in the park! people playing badminton, an aerobics class with fun music and old ladies, runners, walkers, people of all ages. it was great!
- visited the Renification Palace – which is where the tanks came through in 1975 and took over S.Vietnam and hoisted the current flag. It is pretty well preserved and pretty interesting to learn more about the conflict
- visited the war museum – which has a big exhibit on Agent Orange. It is terrible what was done to this country. There were a lot of pictures of people impacted by Agent Orange — and it is still a problem here. On display was a beautiful letter that a young girl, who is disabled by Agent Orange, wrote to President Obama asking him to think of young children everywhere who need help. The most depressing part of it, for me, was that the companies who knowingly sold and manufactured Agent Orange have barely shouldered the blame and impact. While visiting the museum, I could not help but think of Iraq and Afghanistan…..
paintings by children at the war museum
- when I came back to my guesthouse tonight, I got talking to a guy that was in the lobby. Turns out he is from long island, but lives abroad (currently in Hong kong) and is here traveling. While we had a beer and toasted christmas eve, the women who work in the hotel invited us to join them for some food — some watermelon, some fish and beef meatballs and eggs. And not just ordinary eggs — but BABY BIRD eggs…. no joke. when I said that I did not want to try it, the girl said “well, you eat big bird chickens, why not baby bird chicken?” Good question.
baby bird
This is not the first Christmas I have been away from my family, but it is the first Christmas that I am alone. I move between feeling kind of lonely and a little melancholy to not even noticing that it is Christmas, as it is hot, busy, crowded and not my culture/language/community. But, I also have been having a tough time trying to figure out what to do with my time. An old friend is joining me on the 29th, so we have been emailing back and forth to figure out where to meet and where we want to go — but I have finally decided to stay in HCMC and head to the mekong delta on the 26th. Not that there is so much to do here, but at least I can get myself all figured out and leave with a plan.
Ok — more from me later. lots of love — aurora
Dec 22
So long bangkok, i hardly knew you….
there i am at the wat arun (temple of dawn) with the grand palace in the background
Today was day 3 wandering around the city. Around every corner is another breathtaking temple (called a ‘wat’) and everywhere there is cheap, amazing street food. So, why wasn’t I loving it?
I realized tonight, it is because I don’t know it. I don’t know its stories, I don’t know its people. I don’t know its needs and wants. Now, let me say — traveling in India and Nepal for almost 4 months definitely doesn’t make me an expert – and I would never claim to be. But, over my time there and through my friends who live there, I feel that I have some understanding of that world. But here? Nope, no idea.
While I sat and ate my fresh fruit in coconut milk for the 3rd night in a row, one of the waitresses came over and commented on it (that I eat it every night). We got to talking, first about her name tag that she hates to wear (we commiserated about that and bosses that make you wear them), then her hours and the fact that she lives about 45 minutes away and then about how she is trying to work a lot so that she can make enough money to bring her daughter back. See, when the floods happened, her place wasn’t impacted because she lives on the 3rd floor, but the whole first floor was flooded, so she could not go home – so she sent her daughter to her village to live with her mom.
Ah, so now Thailand has a bit more of a face for me. A bit of a story. Now, I feel a bit of a connection.
I have spent lots of time comparing Bangkok to Nepal/India and here are some of my thoughts:
- Nepal and India – it was easy to eat vegetarian. Not so here (though I am sure you could manage). But here, seems to be easier to eat meat. It is everywhere. From the dried fish to fried chicken to grilled hot dogs. I had beef and pork for the first time in almost 4 months. And then there is the unidentifiable meat…. yeah, had some of that too.
fish market
- like india and nepal, there are temples everywhere. and i mean, everywhere. Whereas in Nepal and India, there were small ones hidden around every corner, here they are all huge and golden and ornate. How many pictures can I take of Buddha? apparently, i have yet to discover that answer
yeah, another buddha
more buddhas
- there is no honking in bangkok. seriously. it seems SO quiet to me. and there are lights and lanes and people adhere to them…. whoa….
- there are women everywhere. women shopping and cooking food and … well…. just doing the sorts of things you do when you live some place. they are working alongside men and talking to them. it is definitely a different feel.
- people dress very differently — short skirts, lots of skin (it was almost shocking at first). and the hairstyles? awesome. lots of faux-hawks and punk styles. love it. i feel so plain.
- they are use to tourists here. they don’t stare. in fact, i am kind of invisible. once in a while i get a bit of a smile — but for the most part, i am totally non-existant to them.
- the markets here sell everything. today i walked around chinatown — everything from jewelery to clothes to rebuilt engines for cars to sex toys to chinese herbs to kitchen sinks to …. really, whatever you could ever want.
- people don’t harass me on the street. no one is asking me where i am from (ok, a few of them did here and there) but for the most part it is hassle free. no tuk-tuk drivers asking you if you want to go somewhere. no sketchy dudes asking you where you are from to lure you into their shops.
HUGE reclining buddha
- the street food is safe and it is the norm. today, i had a lot of it (i kind of can’t stop myself… which might be why i am way over budget….). I had chicken noodle soup, pork noodle soup, some sort of curried stir fry with rice this morning for breakfast with an egg, a mango smoothy and fresh slices of pineapple. and there were so many other options… it is almost overwhelming… and some of it i don’t have the courage to try….
dried fish for sale
In other news… I had two big spends today. One was buying two pieces of fabric for skirts – though that was just about 9$ for each one and it is thai silk (or so I hope!). And the other big ticket item was sending the fabric home, along with a nepal guide book home (that belongs to katherine — thanks Kat!) and my india guidebook home and the two books and other material i have collected along the way. So — that _should_ arrive in the states in 2-3 months or so…. expensive, but necessary.
I want to describe my breakfast to you — I had rice with a chicken red curry and then some sort of octopus (I think? or maybe squid?) that was with green beans and spicy. SO good. and then I followed that up with an iced coffee (heavy on the carnation condensed milk) and then fresh slices of mango. All for about $$2. So, again, you ask me why i am over budget? ok…. so all the fresh fruit — how can you indulge just once a day? and then you can have fruit shakes with said fresh fruit. again – how can you do that but once? i guess it has been some time since i had fresh fruit like this…. It’s my christmas present to myself, right?! (too bad my account didn’t know we were celebrating xmas).
demon
First thing tomorrow morning, i head to the airport and by 9:15 am, I will be in HCMC. I have a reservation for the first two nights and then… not sure. I always get nervous when I travel some place new. Once I get use to it and figure out how to negotiate my new world, i am ok, but until then, I get really nervous. I will be by myself from the 23rd until some point on the 29th when I will meet up with my friend Chloe. Not sure what my plans are… i tried to make some plans, but have not heard back from any of the guest houses, so it will have to be on the fly planning! my favorite….
in any case — happy solstice to you all. much love as we start this new year. i am so thankful that you are all with me. i feel your energy, love and courage. thank you.
So fun!
I have been staying with a family since I arrived in Gurgaon on Wednesday. Meenu is the mom and she works for Disha, which is the organization that runs that Outward Bound courses for The Heritage School that I visited. Disha and Heritage partner closely, are next door to one another and staff are very connected.
Dec 10
Train Travel
So much of my recent time has been spent on trains and traveling – i thought i would share some of what i have been experiencing…
It seems that traveling by train in India is one of those adventures that everyone should have before they die. For being a massive country with a massive population, train travel here is amazingly easy, efficient and cheap. I have not had any problems getting tickets – once I discovered the foreign ticket office found at almost every railway station. The agents have been super helpful, even when I wasn’t sure which direction I wanted to head (I had a moment the other day when I _almost_ went south again!). And here is the most amazing thing — it is all done on computer, but each train has a print out of all it’s passengers. So – I can walk up to the train I am about to take and taped to the compartment is a list of all the passengers. And the conductors walk around with their lists of passengers when they check the tickets I know that does not sound that impressive, but I just think that for every train that is traveling through India at all times has a print out of every passenger – which is thousands of passengers daily. I mean – that is a whole other level of organization (and I cannot help but think that if they have this figured out why a) we can’t have it in America and b) there is such disfunction in other areas – like why I get ripped off every time i get in a taxi….)
As I have said, I _prefer_ traveling in AC — it is cleaner, you get sheets and a blanket, you have a curtain that you can close around your compartment (though not around your particular berth) and just all around nicer. But – my last couple of trains have been in sleeper — which is a bit more ‘real’, I guess you could say. Or another way to say it would be that they are noiser, dirtier and not a whole lot of privacy (not that you are going to sleep nekkid in AC – but at least you don’t have people staring at you while you are sleeping!). But, the price! I just took a sleeper from Mumbai to Ajmer – it took 20 hours and cost me just under 400 rupees — which means it costs all of 8$ to travel that distance. Yes, I agree, pretty unbelievable!
Before I took a train in India, all I could picture was scenes from Darjeeling Express or people crammed into trains – hanging off the sides, but it is not quite like that. I think what is most incredible, besides the whole train-travel-as-a-way-of-transportation (as America hasn’t done so well with that one is):
- people coming through selling everything from books to playing cards to locks/chains for your bags to repair materials for shoes
- getting a piping hot cuppa chai for 5 rupees (and this can be replenished every 15 minutes or so as the guys come through)
- being able to be well fed – with everything from the meal you can get on board (you order it and costs no more than a buck fifty) or what they sell up and down the aisles – samosas, chips, and a whole plethora of other things that I have no idea what they are — and depend on the region you are in
Almost every train i have been on has been predominantly men and mostly all Indian. yesterday was the first train that I was on that had another tourist sitting in the same compartment as me. I get lots of stares, but I am pretty much used to that now, but what I love is watching these guys start up conversations with each other and imaging what they are talking about. I love seeing them become friends on the journey – laughing together. One of my favorite scenes was from Hubli to Mumbai. The compartment I was in had a group of men that were boxers and weightlifters (if their shirts with the name of their gym hadn’t given them away – their barrel chests and tiny waists would have. Well, that and the fact that they outweighed most Indian men by a gazillion pounds (as Indian men might be the skinniest group, on a whole, of men EVER!) And it was hard to remember, seeing them, that they were Indian – as they could easily have been American gym-rats.
[Side note: I have told you how affectionate men are here, right? They hold hands, they put their arms around each other’s waists, they sit against each other with arms resting on each other’s thighs – ok, now that you remember that, read on…]
But these muscle-heads — their affectionate touch reminded me of their Indian-ness. I want you to just imagine this scene — a bunch of gym rats sitting around with their arms around each other, on each other, their hands resting on another one’s knees – and then wanting to make sure I had dinner and ready to share their dinner with me! I unfortunately had already eaten, as I would have loved to eat with them as they were so intriguing to me. Do you think that they are vegetarians (like so much of India?) Did they carbo-load? watch their protein intake? drink shakes? so many questions….
In Mumbai, I had to take a commuter line in order to get to another train station where my next train was leaving from. I read that 2.5 million people travel through the main Mumbai station every day, and I believe it! It was a pretty crazy scene at rushhour – and me there with my backpack — not so helpful to the locals. But I got myself figured out and got on my commuter train – it was leaving shortly so I hopped onto the nearest car and found myself surrounded by… women! I had to look twice, all around me, women. Wait a second… this cannot be India – the land of men! Sure enough, I had accidentally, but correctly, landed in the women’s car of the train. It was an amazing sight – all the different vibrant colors of the saris and clothes, the western dressed women, the women texting and talking on phones and resting their eyes after a long day at work. I got some smiles as I tried to deal with all my stuff — and best of all — no staring! I mean, I was staring at all of them, and some of them were watching me — but how different it felt! No cold stares, no one watching my every move, not the feeling of being so utterly watched. It was great. I smiled to myself and sat back – relaxed. Which is how so many of them must feel as they ride to and from work (otherwise, why would they ride in that compartment?).
I only have one more train to take – from Jaidpur to Delhi. It is sad to not have any more big train adventures in front of me…
Status update:
Some of you have asked how I am doing on my $30/day budget and I am happy to report that I am doing really well with this! In fact, the first three months have been under budget – which allowed me to buy a plane ticket from Buenos Aires to El Calafate (instead of taking a 30 hour bus ride) to meet up with my friend Beth to do some trekking before to big climb (or – in other words – an attempt to get in shape before the climb). And the best part of my budget is that I have not had to really work at it! I have had a few days that have been WAY over budget – but usually that is because I have been ripped off in some way – but for the most part, it has been easy to stay below. In India, my biggest cost is accomodations – but I try to keep that close to $8-10/night which is pretty easy (there is cheaper but after the bedbug fiasco cleanliness is high on my priority list).
Then for food — it would be easy to spend a lot there, but as I have mentioned, my favorite place to get food is the hole in the wall places — though that is not always feasible (it was super easy down south — not sure what it will be like up here). but, even if I go really big, which would be about $4/meal — that still leaves me with 8$ a day to do stuff. And most of the stuff that I like to eat does not cost much – so it is pretty easy to stay in budget (basically, i stay away from the western food – which is fine by me!). I definitely could be doing things cheaper – but so far my lifestyle feels pretty good.
As for the rest of things… well, some of my stuff has taken a beating — my pack is ripped in several spots, two (of my four) t-shirts have holes in them but it is my silk sleeping bag liner that is suffering the most! I have had it for 3+ years (got it for my first trip to India) so, i have definitely slept in it countless times — but it is ripping on pretty much every seam – right now there are 3 very large holes . And I have sewn it together in a bunch of spots, only to have it rip again, right next to where I repaired it (thanks to Jess for the sewing kit — i love the hot pink thread!). It will be interesting to see what kind of shape it is in by June! And yes, for those of you wondering, I am already sick of my limited wardrobe. All I can think is – thank god I packed those extra pants…
be well friends. i am sitting here in the restaurant of my guesthouse, having rice pudding and chai (after having a good masala dosa from a street cart) watching the lunar eclipse through the window.
love — aurora
