Obsessions of Asia

We are woefully behind on posting since we came back to the United States. Despite having almost constant access to computers and the Internet, we have focused our time on seeing family and friends. Even for me, it is hard to say, "Mom, I know you haven't seen me for two years, but I just have to get those Obsessions posts done..."

So, without anymore excuses, here come Asia's obsessions:

India- Spitting. An easy one. The average Indian might spit 1200 times per day. And we aren't talking about small little bits of spittle. We're talking about pieces of lung the size of a fist. Sure, lots of Indians also have a paan habit (think chewing tobacco, but different ingredients that also happen to make one's spit Kool-Aid red), but even those that don't chew still spit. And before the spitting comes a noise that sounds like the regurgitation of a cow. Wait, most Indians don't eat cow, so a goat. Like hawking up a goat.

Sri Lanka- Water tanks. What is a water tank you ask? Well, I'm going to tell you even if you didn't ask. A water tank is a man made lake. Sri Lanka has a lot of areas that are at altitude and are very wet for part of the year, but very dry for the rest of the year. So, starting a thousand years ago or more, digging giant water pits became the prerequisite for growing any large city that wasn't on the sea. And they did it with gusto. Some of the cities have dozens of lakes that are far larger than many dammed lakes in the US, and they were all dug out by hand. Or maybe with hands and a rock and maybe a chisel, but you get the point. Good job, ancient Sri Lankans!

Malaysia- Tourism posters. If all the Asian countries were elementary school students, Malaysia would get the "Tries Hardest" certificate at the end of the year. Not only are tourism posters in nearly every window of Malaysia, they are in nearly every hotel and vaguely related travel business everywhere in Asia. They must have printed millions of them. And that makes it even sadder that more people don't visit Malaysia, which really is a spectacular country.

Singapore- Rules. Singapore has rules for everything. And fines for not following most of them. The list of fines in the subway cars was as long as my arm. (We especially appreciated that one of the highest fines was for bringing the smelly durian fruit on the train.) If you like to conform, consider moving to Singapore. If you have ever voted Libertarian or are a card carrying member of the Tea Party, consider vacationing somewhere other than Singapore.

Indonesia- Cats without tails. Didn't see that one coming, did you? We saw hundreds of cats in Indonesia and every one of them had some or all of its tail missing. We can only assume that people think they should not have tails and take it upon themselves to cut off the tails with whatever sharp instrument is laying around when they see a cat with tail intact. We thought that we might see this in other countries, but it was really just Indonesia.

Thailand- 7-Eleven. Think of all the 7-Elevens you have ever seen. Multiply that number by 100. That is how many 7-Elevens are on the average block in Thailand. It used to be a joke in New York that Starbucks would often have locations right across the street from one another. 7-Eleven in Thailand might regularly have three stores on a block. I don't understand how they stay in business, especially since they are more expensive than most Thai businesses, but they all seem the thrive. Since I love Slurpees, I thank the Thai people for making cheap Slurpees available everywhere.

Burma (Myanmar)- Gold leaf. I had never heard of someone's job being to hammer gold until it was gold leaf. In Burma, that ranks as one of the most popular jobs. Where does all that gold leaf go? Buddhists in Burma buy the gold leaf and then rub it onto the Buddha statues (or anything else that they believe should be gold) at the Buddhist temples. This keeps everything bright and shiny. Oh, I should point out that only men are allowed to do this. Women aren't allowed to touch the Buddha statues, but can buy some gold leaf and have a manly man rub it onto the Buddha.

Cambodia- Angkor Wat. It seems sort of lame to be obsessed with your biggest tourist attraction, but Cambodia unquestionably is. It adorns the flag, half the stores in the country are named for it, and it inspired enough awe that even Pol Pot didn't destroy it. And Pol Pot destroyed just about everything in Cambodia.

Vietnam- Motor scooters. The average person in Vietnam has 3.2 motor scooters. Approximately. Through a quantum trick, they ride all of them simultaneously. So, while Vietnam has only 80 million people, 250 million people ply the roads on motor scooters at any given time. And most of those 250 million are going down the road that you want to cross. The streets of the large cities look like a moped convention.

Laos- Fruit shakes. I try to find something deeper than a food for country obsessions, but fruit shakes made with fruit, condensed milk, sugar, and ice are what hold the country of Laos together and makes the whole country so friendly. That's pure speculation, but locals and tourists alike can be found drinking delicious and cheap shakes all over the country, and we were certainly fans. For those who are not feeling happy enough after a regular shake, many places seem to offer "happy" shakes, which come with whatever drugs they happen to have in stock (pot in most places).

China- Crotchless pants. No, China isn't turning into 1980s New York. Any child under the age of three in China wears pants with a giant slit down the crotch and no underwear underneath. This allows them to go to the bathroom anytime and anywhere they like. And I do mean anytime and anywhere. Let's say the kid is waiting in a busy ticket line inside the train station with the parent and needs to go to the bathroom--that's what those pants are for. Number one or number two? Doesn't matter. Does the parent clean it up? No. It stays there for others to step in. While China seems likely to take over the world one day, we hope they get rid of crotchless pants prior to that.

Mongolia- Chengis Khan. Yeah, I thought it was Genghis Khan, too, but not in Mongolia. This founder of the Mongol Empire is known for uniting the nomads of Mongolia, declaring war on anything that moved, killing about a bajillion people, and creating the beginning of the largest empire the world has ever known. That, of course, makes him the hero of Mongolia. Based on our experience, I don't see the second coming of the Mongol Empire anytime soon.

There you have it: the obsessions of Asia. Disagree with us? Too bad. Write your own blog. Or leave us nasty comments about how we disparaged your country. That's why our home address isn't on the blog. Well, that and we don't have a home yet...

From Rupees to Rupiah: Financing Asia

All through our travels, people told us how cheap Asia would be...and, looking forward to bringing down our average daily budget, we hoped that they were right. Luckily, they were!

Here are the numbers by country. In case you forgot how we do this, these numbers are for two people, including visa costs and all costs on the ground (and in the air if we took internal flights). Sometimes we also include the cost of a flight into the country if that was the only way to get there.

India: $53 per day. Visas cost $74 each at the embassy in Istanbul. India is one of the cheapest countries we've been to, so staying there for five weeks did wonders for our financial (if not gastrointestinal) health. Hotel rooms ranged from $10-$25 depending on level of comfort (except in Mumbai, where it's hard to find a double for less than $50); restaurant meals could usually be had for a buck or two, and street food for pennies; and train transport in sleeper class cost less than a hotel. Not getting ripped off on cabs and tourist excursions required some negotiating.

Sri Lanka: $80 per day (including flight from Chennai, India, which costs about $120 per ticket; $53 per day without flight). No visa fees. Sri Lanka's hotels and food were a little more expensive than India's, but it made up for it with what is possibly the world's cheapest public transport on a $-per-hour basis. If you plan to visit more than two historic sites in the "Cultural Triangle" area, getting a pass can save you $25 or more.

Malaysia: $47 per day. No visas. Some travelers complain about Malaysia being pricey, but as it turns out, the only traveler item that is really expensive in (Muslim-majority) Malaysia is beer! As long as you don't drink much, the country is terrific value, especially considering how developed it is. Air-con double rooms with shared (but very clean, hot-water) bathrooms cost $10-$15, and delicious, cheap street food abounds. Transport is a little pricier than some Asian countries, but you usually get comfortable, AC buses on smooth roads. We stuck to the peninsula this time and didn't do any fancy tourist excursions, but our memories of our previous trip to Borneo are that prices were very reasonable there, too.

Singapore: $111 per day. No visas. We only spent two days in Singapore, so this is kind of skewed, but it's certainly one of the most developed and expensive countries in Southeast Asia. Most of the cheaper hotels are in the red light district, where we found a decent private room for $35 a night. Public transport, museums, and restaurants are comparable to Western prices, but taxis (which are metered, hallelujah!) and street or food court foods are relatively cheap.

Indonesia: $102 per day. One-month visas on arrival at the airport cost $25 each. Indonesia was surprisingly expensive, though that's largely because we did a lot of pricey activities like SCUBA diving, chartering a boat to Krakatau volcano, and a few other organized tours. No-frills internal flights between the islands were a pretty good deal, usually less than $50 one-way and could be booked just a day or two before. Buses and trains on the ground varied a lot in price and quality. Hotel rooms for $10-$15 could be found, but were usually pretty disgusting; if we wanted cleanliness and AC, we usually had to pay at least $25. Cheap street food could be found in most places, though not so much in touristy Bali, where we usually had to shell out for real restaurants.

Thailand: $83 per day. No visa fees. Considering how many touristy activities we did in Thailand (diving, elephant training camp, etc.), this is a great average. Hotel and transport standards are pretty high, but competition for the tourist buck keeps prices low. Markets selling cheap local food are pretty easy to find, and even fancy restaurants are probably cheaper than the Thai restaurants you find at home. Just try not to get robbed, which could certainly send your costs soaring!

Myanmar: $77 per day. Visas cost $27 each in Bangkok. This average includes flights into and out of Yangon from Bangkok ($130 each roundtrip), which accounted for one-third of our expenditures there. Once you're on the ground, Myanmar (Burma) is super cheap in all categories, though its rough roads, ancient vehicles, and power cuts often made it feel more like traveling in sub-Saharan Africa than Southeast Asia.

Cambodia: $53 per day. Visas cost $20 each at the border. Cambodia is excellent value. $11 a night got us rooms with bathroom, AC, and sat TV in both Siem Riep and Phnom Penn, the two most touristed cities in the country. Markets and restaurants offer cheap food; bus transport and tourist site admissions are pretty reasonable. If we had stayed longer, or ventured out to less touristy places, it probably would have been even cheaper, but even so, Cambodia was one of the cheapest destinations on our trip.

Vietnam: $66 per day. Visas cost $45 each in Phnom Penn, Cambodia. Vietnam's one of those countries that feels more expensive than it is, probably because people are trying to rip you off almost continuously. But we did manage to stay in some pretty nice hotel rooms and eat decent food for not a lot of money. Trains cost more than buses but are much nicer (which isn't the same as saying that they're actually nice!), especially for overnight travel. Halong Bay overnight cruises can be an especially good deal for a decently swanky experience...provided your boat doesn't sink in the night, of course.

Laos: $57 per day. Visas cost $40 each at the border. Laos is pretty poor, so the roads and buses aren't always the nicest, but hotels were quite comfortable, food was inexpensive, activities like kayaking were very reasonable, and prices overall about as cheap as could be.

China: $92 per day. Visas cost $160 each in Vientiane, Laos--the most expensive of our entire trip. (They are about $100 less expensive for non-Americans, though.) Yunnan province, in southwestern China, was incredibly inexpensive; with $10 hotel rooms and cheap bus rides, it cost no more than Laos, where we had just come from. As we moved east and to the bigger cities, things got more expensive, though you could always find cheap and tasty food, even in Beijing. In general, China didn't feel overpriced considering the good quality of rooms, trains, and food that we got, and some tourist attractions, like the Forbidden City, were surprisingly reasonable.

Mongolia: $121 per day. No visas needed for Americans, though most nationalities need one. This number is high because we spent 6 of our 8 days in the country on a private jeep tour of the Gobi. If we'd managed to find a couple of other travelers to share the tour with, costs would have been halved. Otherwise, the country's pretty budget-friendly: In Ulaan Bataar, the capital, a hostel room with breakfast, Internet, and shared bath cost $15; there were expensive restaurants and cheap local-food canteens to choose from; and the 15-hour train from the China border cost around $9 for seats, or $25 for sleeper berths.

So, Asia had a few expensive countries, but was mostly pretty cheap for us. Hope that this post was slightly helpful to you if you're planning to backpack through Asia. If you have any questions, leave a comment and we'll do our best to get back to you!

Pass the peanut sauce: Foods of Malaysia

Andy and I had our first date in a Malaysian restaurant, and we later got engaged there, so it's safe to say that Malaysian food is pretty near and dear to our hearts...and it's even better (and way cheaper) in Malaysia than in New Jersey. On the peninsula, the mix of Malay, Chinese, and Indian people in the population means that you get excellent offerings from all three of those cuisines, plus authentic fusion cuisine that's developed out of centuries of the groups' comingling. Throw in lots of peanut sauce and some crazy icy desserts and you've got a real winner of a country for eating.

Our goal as soon as we got off the plane was to find our favorite snack from our previous trip to Malaysia: roti canai. It's a South Indian-style fried flatbread served with tasty dipping sauce. The sauce can be dal-like if you get it at an Indian restaurant but is usually more coconutty or peanutty from Malay vendors. At the bus station where we got this one, they gave us a typical Malay-style sauce and a fishier sauce (ick) too. The whole thing costs about 25 cents US. I think we ate roti canai every day that we were in Malaysia!After that roti canai, I was thirsty, but didn't recognize any of the drink names on the menu. Andy encouraged me to be adventurous, so I went for a "sirap." Turns out to be very sweet, red, and rosewater-flavored. Also, note how gleamingly clean the bus station cafeteria is. Welcome to Malaysia!
Breakfast, Malay-style! On the left, nasi lemak, which is rice boiled in coconut milk, served with green veggies, peanuts, boiled egg, and, in this case, some curried chicken. On the right, a soup with chicken, fried tofu, veggies, noodles, and a coconut-milk-based broth. Nope, no corn flakes.
And after breakfast, who wouldn't like a little dessert? Like Indonesia, Malaysia has many desserts that feature some combination of shaved ice, jellies, and other random stuff. This one is a special cendol, which has molasses syrup, rosewater syrup, mango, and condensed milk on top, and jellies and corn on the bottom. You know, everyone's favorite combination.
I got to practice my Chinese with this man! OK, all I managed to say was "thank you" and "good-bye," but he understood me. Oh yeah, those Mandarin podcasts are really paying off now... Anyway, he did sell me a darn good cup of cold soy milk.

Melaka and Penang, both on Malaysia's west coast, are both known for their "Baba Nyonya" or "Straits Chinese" cuisine. Chinese people who came to Malaysia in the 15th and 16th centuries adapted their cooking to use local ingredients and, voila, delicious, fusion-y results were born. Since eating was pretty much our main activity on this trip to Malaysia, we had to visit both places.

At a Nyonya restaurant in Melaka, we ordered these "dessert" cups. They came before our main dish, and weren't really sweet, but were still really good. I can't remember what they are called, but they consist of a crunchy outer cup and are filled with shredded veggies and tasty sauces. Can anyone identify?

We also got some Nyonya mee goreng, or fried noodles. They turned out to have prawns and fishcake in them, which made them kind of fishy for us, but they weren't bad considering that.
Back to crazy desserts! There are many types of cendol--I think this was just a regular one, which means no mango, or rosewater. You can see the corn and a green jelly peeking out from underneath! This one may have had beans down bottom, too.
We went to a cook-your-own-satay restaurant in Melaka, where you choose sticks of different meats, veggies, or eggs, then cook them in a pot of oil/peanut sauce that's bubbling, fondue-style, in the middle of your table.
We chose stuff to cook by sight, so a lot more of them ended up being fishy than we anticipated, but it was excellent anyway. Here you can see some quail's eggs and some squid (as you've probably guessed, that was my plate). Andy ate a lot of sausages on sticks, and a lot of the peanut sauce with a spoon...
The best of many bus-station snacks: warm, sweet-peanut-goo-filled buns. These powered us right on down to Singapore.
Another reason to love Malaysia: They have Reese's Peanut Butter Cups!! Another excellent bus snack. Or anytime snack. (I later learned that you can also find these pretty easily in Thailand.)
Back in Malaysia after a few weeks in Indonesia...and straight to the crazy dessert vendor! Here's an ABC, which has pretty much every type of jelly and syrup you can imagine, the requisite corn and beans, and a bonus couple of scoops of ice cream on top of the shaved ice. A great welcome to Penang.In Georgetown, the main town on Penang island, we hit a Chinese restaurant for some dim sum for breakfast. Here you can see two types of pork buns, some sticky rice with various kinds of pork in it, and some pork tea. OK, it was just regular Chinese tea, but it was still a really pig-heavy breakfast for a majority-Muslim country.
Boiled peanuts, which we kind of associate with the American south, are also a popular snack in Malaysia. The nuts itself soften to the consistency of beans and are quite tasty. It may actually be boiled peanuts, not beans, that are in the icy desserts we ate in Malaysia; we're not sure.
A Chinese street vendor in Georgetown was making pancakes in little with a variety of filling choices. Shockingly, one of them was...pork! I chose that one, and was surprised when he put something the consistency of candy floss in my pancake. I can't wait to get to China and find out what other new forms pork can take...
In the Cameron Highlands, we lunched on a warming bowl of curry mee. Basically, a spicy soup with noodles, vegetables, and chicken. Good stuff.

We then went off in search of the region's strawberry farms. We quickly learned that they're all really touristy and charge exhorbitant amounts to let you pick your own berries...but they also all sell delicious, cheap popsicles made with fresh strawberries and juice and a touch of sugar. OK, a lot of sugar. We may have had two in a row each...or was it three? Ah, who remembers such piddling details?
Nips are a mix of knockoff peanut M&Ms, except that half the candies have a raisin inside instead of a peanut. We had fun trying to guess by shape which one we'd get.
Char kway teow is a fried rice noodle dish popular in Malaysia. We tried the "Cameron Highlands" version, which just means it has a lot of vegetables in it, since lots of veggies are grown in the highlands. Andy loved it, but I got one spicy pepper and had to drink a liter of water before my mouth stopped burning.
Along with our daily roti canai, we tried a strawberry roti in the highlands. Sure, it was a touristy dish, and cost three times as much as regular roti, but how often do you get a chance to eat fried, Indian-style bread with strawberries in it? It was pretty good.
Fresh strawberries were beyond our price range, but we found a package of dried strawberries we could afford. Let's hope the antioxidants survived the sulfuring-and-sugaring process.
Lots of veggies grown in the highlands = lots of deep-fried veggies available. We tried mushrooms. Not bad, but would've been better if they were hot.
Our stay in Malaysia was short, but we ate really well. There was plenty of street food, lots of good, cheap restaurant food, and tons of variety between regions and ethnic specialties, so we never got bored. Melaka was our favorite culinary destination, but Georgetown had good offerings too. And I have some great food memories from our last trip here, in which we visited Borneo and Kuala Lumpur. If you like to eat, then you ought to come eat in Malaysia.

Malaysia: A Nice Place to Visit

Our time in Malaysia was shorter than it otherwise would have been because we were in Malaysia a few years ago. If I were Tara, I would find old pictures of Kuala Lumpur and Borneo (both great), but I'm lazy, so you get what you get.

We remembered Malaysia as surprisingly well developed, and it was. Way more developed than most of the places we have visited. Here is the fancy train we took from the airport to the bus station when we arrived. You can also see the women in head scarves--Malaysia is mostly Muslim and seems more religious than Indonesia, its Muslim neighbor.
Our first stop was Melaka, or Malacca in the English spelling. This was a very important port on the Straits of Malacca, and one of what might be called the first free trade zones. The Dutch held it for a long time and built very Dutchy things like windmills and canals. Here is the town square with the Dutch City Hall in the back.
And a Dutch clock tower. Great weather while we were visiting.
The area has a mix of Chinese, Malay, and other cultures, which results in great boats like this one. This picture was taken at the exhaustive local history museum, which was great, but too much museum for even me.
We found this beetle outside the museum. What a great looking beetle! I award it first prize in the beetle beauty contest. My brother, Matt, gets second prize in the beauty contest and collects $10.
Like me, the early settlers of Malacca constantly lost the coins that they put in their pockets. So, they got these great croc coins instead. I will give you three crocodiles for a new pair of shoes!
Malacca was supposedly founded when a pirate (who is never directly referred to as such in Malacca) was sitting on a river bank and a tiny deer assaulted his dogs, kicking one into the river. He was so impressed by the little deer that he decided to stay and build a city. Here is a statue of the deer in the town center.
The oldest Chinese temple in Malaysia is also in Malacca, which I think dates back to around 1600. The best part of the temple is the angry hordes swarming out of the top.
But Tara was also a fan of the guardian dragons.
They have reconstructed the massive Dutch waterwheel that used to exist on the river. Waterwheels did not generate waterwheel cookies, though, which makes them inferior to windmills.
Doesn't this guy make you want to become Taoist? You could worship him, too! Keep your small kids away from him, though.
While walking through a mall in Malacca, we discovered an archery range. How could we pass up an opportunity to shoot arrows inside the mall? I saved Tara the embarrassment of taking a picture of both our targets at the end.
From Malacca, we went to Singapore and Indonesia, then back to Malaysia at Penang. Penang is an island, and we stayed in the main historic town of Geogetown. Tara really likes pictures of people jumping (I don't), so she ASKED to jump in this picture. It might be the last time she ever suggests a jumping picture. Notice that her tongue is actually out.
Penang is full of Chinese temples. One of them claims to be the most famous and charges a bunch of money to get in. The others all seem to look just as good in the pictures that we saw, so here are some free temple pictures of Penang.
The interiors are always impressive, but if you look around, they always seem to be using every extra space as a warehouse for goods. Must be that Chinese entrepreneurship in action.
While visiting the Fort in Penang, we saw this nice kingfisher.
This famous cannon was from around 1600, but sank in the Straits of Malacca and was recovered in the early 1800s. It supposedly floated to the top of the ocean by itself, making it a bit of a celebrity and leading to claims that infertile women could straddle the cannon to make themselves fertile. No women astride it when we visited.
To be completely touristy, we took our picture in the Fort's British costumes. Our official Valentine's Day photo.
We tried to go visit this Chinese mansion in Penang, but they wouldn't let us past the front gate. It is a bed and breakfast, but you have to have reservations to get in the door, so we took a picture and went to eat something instead.
From Penang, we went to visit the Cameron Highlands, famous for producing tea and for being cooler than the rest of Malaysia. Here is the tea on a machine that will finish drying it. Malaysia uses huge machines to harvest the tea, which seems less interesting than the hundreds of Sri Lankans that we saw harvesting by hand.
The Cameron Highlands have butterfly farms everywhere. We were too cheap to go to one, so you get this deadish butterfly that Tara found on the road. You're welcome.
Tara drank her nasty, overpriced cup of tea in this lovely tea plantation.
The Highlands are also famous for strawberries. Because it is a huge domestic and international tourism spot, strawberries cost about $200 a pint to pick. Maybe an exaggeration, but they are substantially more expensive than most places. I was reduced to eating this one that we found along the road. I always say quantity over quality when it comes to food...
That wraps up our time in Malaysia. We recommend a visit to anyone. People are friendly, transport is great, and not that many tourists go there despite a huge tourism marketing effort.