Strange foods that I have eaten.

 

Well,  my ambitions to keep a true log of all the delicious and amazing foods that I have sampled in SE Asia have come to naught. So, to at least throw all you interested foodies out there the proverbial bone, I will now share, not all the great food, but instead the much shorter list of really strange foods I have tried in my travels thus far.  Try not to judge me too harshly...

Thailand
Deep-fried Giant Water Bugs with chili sauce - the Chiang Mai night market. Crunchy and delicious! Each one was about 4 inches long by 2 inches wide.

Laos
Grilled river weed - Nam Tha National Park, from the Nam Ha River.  Basically green algae but smoky, chewy and quite tasty.
Chicken feet grilled on a skewer. Local festival in Huay Xai.  Chewy, tough, and nasty. Full of bones and cartilage. Never again.

Vietnam 

BBQ water buffalo balls on a skewer with mint. Excellent!
Pig intestine soup. Actually sweet and soft, despite intestine usually being really tough other times I've had it.
Chicken liver soup. Meh.
Green unripe mango with spicy salt and pepper. Sour and hot and sweet. Yum.
Fetal duck egg. A truly beloved culinary treat here in VN and China. Basically a duck egg that is ideally about 5 days away from hatching. Served boiled in the egg (you crack it out like a hard-boiled egg) with pickled ginger and coarse salt and pepper. Mine was actually not so bad as long as I didn't look at it. However, my friend loves these things, eating about 2 per day, and got 1 that  was a little too  "ripe" and he had to spit out a tiny beak and feathers. Ugh. Won't be taking any more chances on these little guys.

And.....drum roll please...the moment that you have all been dreading....
DOG. Yes, I went for it here in the city of Hue one night while I was couchsurfing with two Vietnamese university students. Cooked in and eaten in a greasy spicy sauce over a charcoal brazier that is set directly on the table. In big unidentifiable chunks with baguette to dip in the sauce, rice noodles on side, plus basil, mint and other greens to chew along with it.  Really greasy, tough and full of gristle. Pretty disgusting but a worthwhile experience I suppose. This dish is eaten mainly by drunk men late at night, kinda the equivalent of post-drinking Pita Pit or pizza in the U.S. I was complimented by my Viet friends for being the only westerner they met that was willing to try it.  I was doing okay until I got to the ribs, the tiny little ribs. A single tear rolled down my cheek as I thought of my first dog. (Not really...?) I was also offered "little tiger" (aka house cat) which I politely declined. Gotta save something for Cambodia!

So for some quick redemption of Vietnam in order to leave you with a pleasant taste in your mouth, here are the good things about the food here (mostly relics of French colonialism). The following are almost entirely absent from Thailand, if not prohibitively expensive.
Ca Phe Sura Nong - Dark,  strong coffee made by a single-cup slow-drip method referred to as "lazy coffee" b/c it takes so long to drip. Served with a layer of sweetened, condensed milk on the bottom. Often iced.
Baguettes!
Cheese! - extremely rare in Asia.
Wine!
Chocolate!

Places that scare you

Confess your hidden faults.
Approach what you find repulsive.
Help those you think you cannot help.
Anything you are attached to, let it go.
Go to places that scare you.

-words from Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun, that really resonate with me as I travel.

So, I made it to Hanoi in one piece and am loving this chilly, northern weather. Hanoi is a vibrant, dynamic city with a historical heart. It reminds me a lot of some of NYC's outer boroughs or maybe the east village.  The pho (noodle soup) is amazing plus the good things of French colonialism that remained ain't too bad neither, e.g. baguettes and coffee!  I have made a new travel friend, David Duong, a Vietnamese American, who takes me places that I definitely would not go otherwise. Yesterday, we went to a commune(aka village) outside of a permitted tourist zone. We had to have special permission from the Communist Party and were greeted with lunch with the local police and many shots of traditional rice whiskey, a part of any welcome feast. I got to eat pig intestine, bbq water buffalo, chicken liver soup, bamboo salad, sour melon, and much more. Vietnam is by far my favorite country in SE Asia thus far! Tomorrow, I am heading up into the northern mountains around SaPa on the Chinese border to climb the highest peak in SE Asia, Mt. Fansipan.

A little aloha spirit in Laos.

So it has been a bit since I last blogged. I have been busy tearing up Laos with an old friend  from my time working in Hawaii, Cato Cook. And when not traveling alone, you seem to find yourself with much less time to commit to the internet. Surprising I know.

"So, what have we been up to?" you might ask. Well, here is the abbrev. rundown.

-Left southern Thailand for the north after my scuba expedition. 5 hour bus ride to train station, 11 hour overnight train to Bangkok, 14 hour train Chiang Mai. Who said traveling was all fun and games?
- Linked up with Cato in Chiang Mai, the biggest city in northern Thailand and sort of its cultural capital. Spent a few days here, the best being an all-day cooking class on Sammy's Organic Farm outside the city. Can't wait to cook Thai food for the folks back home.
- 1st night in Laos, the border town of Huay Xai.  Met some French friends that took us along to a festival at a temple outside town they has heard about.  As the only foreigners, or falang, we first gawked at, then taught to dance Laos-style and given free papaya salad to complement our cold Beerlao, the national beer. Also played carnival games alongside teenage monks like throwing darts at ballons and knocking down a pyramid of cans.
- 3 day trek in Nam Tha National Park. One day kayaking along the boundary of the park; two days hiking through mostly pristine rainforest. Both nights we stayed in local hilltribe villages, one night actually in a family's home. We shared meals with villagers and the chief of one village and were able to talk (through our guide) with them about our differing cultures. All meals were delicious regional Laos dishes often with rainforest ingredients like rattan hearts and ginger and we ate with our hands off of banana leaves using sticky rice to scoop up the food. Saw some new bird and bat species (new to me, that is). The forest itself was the best part, absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, most of nothern Laos should be forested mountains but have been largely deforested for logging and rice cultivation. The US led "Secret War" that coincided with the Vietnam War  has also left the forest littered with unexploded ordinance. A good reason to stay on trail. Oh yes, and on the 2nd night of the trek at a Lanten tribe village, our guide got us drunk on local rice whiskey aka lao-lao. Cato proceeded to entertain the tribal ladies with his antics that included picking up our sleeping assistant guide Mei and carrying him around, swimming in the river, and slitting a chicken's throat with my knife to make soup at around 1 am.
- The Royal Palace, temples and historic homes of UNESCO World Heritage City, Luang Prabang.  A very interesting style of mosaic murals made of painted Japanese glass pieces is unique here. Sunset from the hilltop monastery of Phu Si. The might Mehkong River flowing along the city's western flank (actually really low right now as we approach the end of the dry season). Luang Prabang also has a lively and sprawling night market that sells everything from t-shirts to bamboo rice steamers to raw silk and hilltribe handicrafts. I bought some spring rolls.
- Vang Vieng, pretty much the only "party place" in quiet, rural Laos.  Backpackers rent tubes and float down the Nam Song River, stopping at bars along the banks. The bars have a variety of ways for drunkards to hurt themselves ranging from huge slides and trapeze swings into the water to mud volleyball to copious amounts on illegal drugs being sold openly.  Cato and I eschewed all the silliness and instead chose to contract food poisoning and spend most of our time running back and forth from our bungalow along the river to the outdoor bathroom. Fun times with a good friend! We did feel well enough to venture out to the river one afternoon for a couple hours, but mostly watched from the sidelines as trashed falang made asses of themselves with body paint, loud music, and overt displays of public affection.  Around 5 in the evening, local Lao adults and children got out of work and school and trickled down to watch the gong show going on.  As a bit of a sociologist, I was fascinated/appalled by everything going on and content to be the objective observer.  Yet I secretly yearned to be 10 years younger and not sick as a dog so that I could just throw thyself into the fray without reservations. 

Well, that's about it for now. Today, Cato left to meet up his girlfriend in Bangkok, so I am Mr. Solo Traveler again.  However, you are never really alone for long on the backpacker circuit, especially as I am sleeping in a dorm with about 30 people tongiht. It was really nice to have a good friend along for the ride, even if just for a little bit. Sometimes you get tired of just making quick friends that you say goodbye to just as you get to know them.  Deep conversations and true friends are hard to find! Cato, you'll be missed, braddah.

Tomorrow, I start the next leg of my odyssey: Vietnam. It begins with a 24 hour bus ride from the capital of Laos, Vientiane to the capital of Vietnam,  Hanoi. I at least have a sleeping berth on this huge bus that is billed as "King of Bus." Border crossing at 6am. Can't wait.

Oh, I finally got a bunch of Thailand photos loaded up on Facebook. Better late than never, I suppose! I hope to get my Laos pics up tomorrow before my bus leaves.

Hope everyone is well and looking forward to Spring back home! Oh, did we win the Olympics? Someone wins, right? Usually us, I think.