...India (Journeys)

 On a train in the Rajasthani desert

At midnight, two hours into our train journey we were informed that the train had been diverted and was now hurtling 8 hours away from our destination. We quickly consulted our map and realised we could go to Varanasi instead. This added another 12 hours onto our journey but we both knew what the other was thinking. Twelve whole extra hours to enjoy the Indian train food experience.

It started as soon as we peeled ourselves from our grimey bunks. "Chai, chai, chai". There is no better way to wake up than with a cup of sugary chai served in a terracotta cup to be smashed out the window once empty. But what to have for breakfast? I was holding out for the 'bread-omlette' wallah (seller) but the samosa wallah beat him to it and we were soon eating hot potato samosas smothered in florescent pink ketchup.    

Finn tucking into another unhealthy breakfast

Next along was the coffee wallah, followed by the monkey-nut walllah and then the cucumber-chilli wallah. The procession continued with bananas, biscuits, slices of coconut, barbecued corn-on-the-cob, tomato soup (with croutons!), ice cream... Until lunchtime when the biryani wallah came along and we filled ourselves up on the greasy rice and sachets of hot Indian pickle. On another train journey we were surprised to find a man distributing business cards for a restaurant. Some clever so-and-so has had the brilliant idea of offering a food delivery service where you call up, order some tasty morsels which are delivered to you on your train at a designated station. Wonderful!

A vegetable biryani

Buses are not exempt from the procession of gourmet wallahs. Before a night bus into the Himalayas, we filled up on vegetable momo, plump Tibetan dumplings served with a hot chilli sauce (the best I've had were fried cheese and potato ones. Unbelievable). In a 4 hour traffic jam over a high mountain pass, chaat (snack) wallahs showed ingenuity by weaving between the vehicles offering fried corn and bhel puri (puffed rice with onion and a sweet sauce). Why doesn't this happen at home?!

Chaat wallahs on a Himalayan pass

Buses always stop at dhabas too, a cheap restaurant serving rice, dhal, curry and, of course, chai. Just what you need when an 8 hour journey in the mountains turns into a two day test of endurance. After travelling on buses for 8 months, a well positioned dhaba restores the faith of a lost soul who is beginning to tire of the seemingly endless road ahead and who begins to dream of a decent pillow and proper cup of tea. Well, almost.

A welcoming dhaba at the top of the pass

And yet it would appear this journey does have an end. This part anyway. After much soul searching we are heading back to Europe. An urge to do some work is driving us back west and quite frankly, we miss Europe. We plan to work on organic farms and hope to learn how to make among other things, honey, olive oil and the best goddam bolognese sauce you ever tasted. My next entry will be coming from the land of food and wine (ah wine! Sweet, sweet wine!). I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to read my ramblings, let alone comment on them and email me! I will continue to tell anyone who will listen about what we ate but hopefully also a bit about what we made. I hope you will continue to join us as we start the last phase of our trip. That cup of tea will have to wait until Christmas. Itaaaaaly here we come!



...India (Five Cures for Homesickness)

Sun setting on the ex-British hill station town Shimla

Seven and a half months on the road begins to take its toll. So thank god for India which has the amazing ability to make one (well, me) homesick and at the same time offer 'cures' for said homesickness. Surprisingly, India is great for comfort food. When our tropical-ized bones rattled in the very British climate (i.e cold and damp) of the mountains, our bodies called for chicken curry and they were answered satisfactorily. Very satisfactorily. To the point where once again, I daydreamed about the actual number of our feathered friends I've consumed on this trip. Though they may no longer consider me a 'friend' I suppose. Where was I?

Rainy Shimla

In the ex-British hill station of Shimla, we sat on a bench eating local honey ice cream. If a food could capture an English summer's day (a rare non-rainy one that is) then this was it. It tasted of meadows, sun light breaking through trees and...hay fever. Really, it reminded me of my hay fever treatment which is akin to snorting a meadow. Still, as we sat in the damp cloud, like so many 'Britishers' before us we dreamt of 'home'.  Which was all golden and happy with an acoustic guitar soundtrack. Basically a mobile phone advert.

Another taste of home has come in the form of the utterly divine gulab jamun, a small ball of sponge cake drenched in butter and syrup. It is like treacle pudding and is at its absolute loveliness when served piping hot (sometimes I force myself to feel homesick so that I have an excuse to eat one). 

A sweet maker

While not quite a taste of home, there is one snack that I am considering exporting to Britain as it incorporates standard ingredients of British food - bread, potato and batter. To make bread pakora, take one slice of crappy white bread, cut into two triangles and fill with boiled potato. Dip into a spicy batter. Deep fry. Serve with ketchup. I had to try it, though perhaps having it for breakfast before a 13 hour bus journey wasn't one of my finest ideas.

Another unhealthy breakfast

And finally, cheese! In Rishikesh, we'd planned to do some meditation* (me with the aim of staying awake for the whole session). On an 'off day' we managed to score some cheddar cheese (one of the better legacies of the British empire). While enjoying a sandwich in our room, I looked over to the open door to see a figure. At first I assumed it was a stray dog but then I realised it was a huge bruiser of a monkey. Dear reader, I confess I shrieked! Finn assumed an ant had crawled onto my sandwich but then he too saw the beast, stood up, shrieked and fell back on the bed. I searched for something to throw and my gaze fell on the tin plate with my sandwich on. My sandwich! Could I sacrifice my cheese sandwich? No! Don't be ridiculous! By this time, undeterred by our shrieking, the monkey was eying up the room. AND MY SANDWICH! Thankfully, Finn had (unlike myself) pulled himself together and leapt up again, this time to bravely shut the door. Saved! I spent the next 5 minutes laughing and crying hysterically. I then finished my sandwich. The monkey returned later to wee on our balcony. I don't know what that means.

* In my third mediation session, I was overwhelmed by a vision so strong, it was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. A burger, to be precise, a Big Mac (I haven't eaten a Big Mac in about 20 years), came floating towards me out of the darkness. Aware that imagining a juicy beef burger in the middle of a meditation class in a Hindu ashram might not be appropriate, I tried to shake it off. But I couldn't! I could even taste the damn thing. And again, I am moved to write the sentence: I don't know what that means. Actually, what am I on about? It means I want a burger.

...India (The Importance of Food!)

The monsoon finally arriving in Varanasi

The woman on the plane next to Finn leans over "please have just one more roti", I decline once but she can see the hunger in my eyes and I greedily accept on the second offer. Finn's stomach lurches, a leftover from moving too fast these past few days but the woman won't take no for an answer. He must be fed!

In the last few months, Indian food has played an important role in the direction of our trip. Over chai and aloo paratha in an Indian cafe in Phnom Penh, we decided to cut our stay short in south east Asia and booked a flight to Calcutta. Ten days later we were eating thalis in a restaurant in Siem Reap when one of us raised the possibility of bringing our flights forward. Five days later and here we are on a plane to India. That shouldn't have happened for another two weeks.

Aloo Paratha - a spicy potato flatbread - with lime pickle for breakfast

So Indian food has a lot to answer for. And we know we've made the right decision before the plane has even touched down on Indian soil! On arrival in Calcutta we head for chai, the sweet and spicy tea India sustains itself on and the long dreamt of 'butter toast'. Munching away we get chatting to a local who invites us for dinner with his family. We meet in a park where two plates and several dishes are unpacked and soon we are devouring home made chicken curry, rice and pickles while the family watches on. Not for the first time on this trip  we have to deal with the discomfort of being invited for dinner and being the only ones to eat.

The next evening we locate the restaurant where 6 years ago we ate the most amazing tandoori chicken. Thankfully our memories haven't deceived us. It arrives with a lime and coriander dipping sauce and the chicken is as succulent as I remember, it is marinated right down to the bone! 

Tandoori Chicken

In the holy city of Varanasi, we fight through crowds of Shiva worshipers clad in orange to a restaurant that does a mean thali. A thali is the best value meal money can buy. You receive a large, metal plate with several compartments in. Though the contents varies, you usually have one or two curries, a pickle, dahl, chapatis and rice. You mix the curries and dahl into your rice and then get stuck in with your hands. There is something very satisfying about eating with your hands but there is an art to it. The curries stick the rice together which allows it to be rolled into a ball. You take the ball onto your fingertips and then push the food into your mouth with your thumb. The really great thing about thalis though is that men come round the tables refilling your plate at no extra cost. The whole thing costs about 40 pence.

A Thali

Later we meet a traveller who recounts an experience he had in Delhi. On a tour of the sights, he asks his rickshaw driver to recommend somewhere good to eat, somewhere 'alive'. The driver takes him to a bustling restaurant. The food is amazing. Thirty minutes later he is running for the toilet. Perhaps it was a little too 'alive'. Welcome to India...

Graffiti on Varanasi ghats

...Bangkok (Three Days to Eat)

The reclining Buddha in Bangkok

 Day 1
'Where's the best place for Thai food?' we eagerly ask the owner of our guesthouse. We're staying 10 minutes away from the infamous Koh San road, famed for its 18 year-old gap yearers in branded beer vests (you drink cheap foreign beer, well done you) and banana pancakes. In that respect it doesn't disappoint. There's also a surprising amount of kebab stalls. I think we've eaten enough of those in the last 6 months. The owner twists his mouth in concentration. 'Somewhere round here?' he replies unconvincingly. We press him further,  'Where do Thai people eat round here?'. His mother is summoned and after a shriek of laughter responds with 'No Thai people eat round here!'

We've been in the country 4 hours and our one meal so far has been a disappointing Pad Thai, over-sweet and undercooked. And we're desperate. After initially allowing a week to eat the delicacies of Bangkok, we reduced it to two days as we realised we didn't actually want to spend any more time in this part of the world.  After traipsing along Koh San Road we find an alleyway with a cart serving locals up bowls of noodle soup and dumplings. It's good but we've been spoilt by the fresh noodles and dense flavours of China's superior version. Two meals down. Oh dear.

Day 2
After some research and a breakfast of sweet sticky rice and mango we head for an area where a food tour goes (at $33 dollars a head we decide to do it ourselves). On the way we get distracted by the stunning 46 metre long gold, reclining Buddha. We edge our way through markets, the air perfumed with lemon grass, galangal, garlic and lime. We stop and buy sweetcorn fritters from an old lady. The tasty fritters are dense with straight-off-the-cob corn and are smothered in sweet chilli sauce. Things look promising.

Sweetcorn fritters

We walk and walk but all we pass are noodle soup stalls. Eventually we stumble into China town and land in a smiley man's restaurant where we eat rice and pork, too tired to venture further. We catch a boat back and I eat a Magnum which is quite possibly the loveliest thing I've eaten in a long time. I feel no shame.  I haven't eaten decent chocolate since a French girl produced bars of Lindt in Kashgar.

A lunch stop in China Town

In the evening we head out to a restaurant nearby that seems to offer a different menu to all the other places. I eat a rich tomatoey curry with noodles and chicken on the bone. It is delicious and I feel victorious. Finn however, has ordered a green curry which he's disappointed with. He kills the dish with our ultimate put down: 'I could've made this at home'. I'm relieved he doesn't add the final blow of 'but I wouldn't bother'. Yes, we really do care that much about food.

Day 3
I have been in touch with some ex-students of mine from Bangkok and we arrange to meet. I'm excited about seeing them because a) they are absolutely lovely and b) we've asked them to take us somewhere amazing and cheap for dinner. But first we hit the market.

Chatuchak market is, by anyone's standards, utterly huge. After the excitement of buying a tiffin carrier that exactly matches my cream and green kitchen pans, I need to catch my breath before I cry in front of everyone at its shear beauty. Soon we are scooping creamy coconut ice cream and toasted peanuts from a coconut shell. Someone has even thoughtfully left some of the coconut meat in and once again, I have to hold back the tears.

Coconut ice cream

Back to the shopping and I start to notice Finn dragging his feet. He wants lunch. We head to an area of stalls selling the usual suspects but also lots of nice looking seafood dishes. Finn has fishcakes which I have a nibble on and agree they taste quite lovely and very lemongrassy. I opt for a man with a contraption that turns boiled potatoes into spirals which are then deep-fried in oil and then dusted with paprika. Et voila, crisps on a skewer. I'm delighted with my find.

A 'potato kebab'

In the evening Boss and Meow (so-called because he is the only boy in the family and she used to cry like a cat!) lead us back to Koh San Road. Finn and I share looks ranging between confusion, disappointment and fear. But we are wrong to judge. Meow confesses she doesn't like Thai food so Boss takes control and orders us a smorgasbord of loveliness. The restaurant is famous for Tom Yam Soup. A salty, seafood soup. I try a little without the offending articles and have to admit it is delicious.

Boss dishing up Tom Yam Soup

We also eat chicken cooked in bamboo which is juicy and tender and complimented by a soy and sesame dip.  We wrestle over the bill, they win but after a quick teacherly re-cap on the difference between desert and dessert (we never stop working!), we head to a street stall for the latter. We sit on plastic stools on the pavement with mango and sticky rice, red beans in coconut milk, dyed rice flour with crushed ice and coconut milk and durian with sweet rice. Durian is a fruit so offensively pungent that one of the rules at our hotel is that you are not allowed to eat it in your room. The taste is a little less offensive but there is something a bit 'rotting' about it. I win the fight over the bill and promise to return the favour of paying for a meal when they come to London again.

Meow, Boss and dessert

We end on our overland journey on a high thanks to Boss and Meow. From the first sandwich in Brussels to the last plate of sticky rice in Bangkok, eating has (generally) been a pleasure. But eating with old and new friends is really what it's been about. It's not over though. For tomorrow we fly to India, specifically Calcutta where 6 years ago I had one of the best meals of my life. Now I just need to remember where the restaurant was.

...Cambodia (The land of the Sweet-Toothed)

Shadow puppets in Phnom Penh

So onto Cambodian food. Something we've really noticed is how sweet the food is here. On a cookery course in the capital Phnom Penh, almost every savoury dish we made involved copious amounts of palm sugar. When mixed with water it takes on a treacly taste which in the chicken curry we made, was incredibly overpowering. Perhaps too overpowering. 

The curry paste for our Khmer chicken curry (fresh turmeric, ginger, lemon grass,garlic and shallots)

The result

The other source of sweetness comes from a surprising ingredient. Condensed milk. For the ignorant, this is sweetened cow's milk with the water removed, resulting in a creamy consistency. Two brands dominate the competitive market, My Boy and Best Cows. Just as funny if you swap the words (though My Cows would get my money every time). My own direct experience of the stuff up until now has been watching my dad pour it over his bowl of cornflakes and muesli before adding hot water. So you can understand why I steer clear of it. However, it is difficult to avoid here. A breakfast in the market consisted of cups of tapioca, under-ripe bananas, jelly sweets and a generous lash of the creamy stuff. I'm glad I tried it but shan't be repeating it again (though the fact I could eat jelly sweets for breakfast was very exciting and felt like eating chocolate biscuits from the posh tin for breakfast on Christmas day). 

A tapioca breakfast in a Phnom Penh market

The gelatinous 'sweets'

Where it is welcome is in cold coffee. If you order just a coffee here, it'll be cold (if you specifically ask for a hot coffee, it'll be tepid). We have likened it to an upside down Guinness as strong coffee and ice sit on a layer of condensed milk at the bottom, allowing you to stir in as much as you like.  Attempts at making cold, milky coffee at home have never quite hit the spot. Now we know the secret of a good one. I urge you to try it (make sure the coffee is really strong).  

Aside from sweet stuff, I have been taking every opportunity to eat lok lak. This heavenly dish consists of thin slices of beef in a light tomato sauce served with rice, salad and a fried egg. Yes, I agree it does sound like something you might concoct yourself when you can't be bothered to go to Sainsbury's. But the dish is really pulled together by the dip of soy sauce, fresh lime juice and black pepper. In one place they served it with crinkle-cut chips. I had it two nights in a row. You can take the girl out of England...

Lok Lak

On a completely different note, we wandered past a restaurant with a sign promising 'You'll leave wanting more'. Our appetites insatiable, we kept walking. Amazing how such a sentence can be misinterpreted.

...Cambodia (Dining Out)

An idol enjoying a 'full-English' in Phnom Penh. Half the people don't eat this well.

After an overlong bus journey, we arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital. We hadn't eaten for 9 hours. A record!  We wandered down alleyways lined with security guards protecting the shiny 4X4s whose owners were karaoke-ing nearby. Eventually we came across a bustling Chinese restaurant (Cambodia has a large population of Chinese). The food wasn't interesting and not worth mentioning. The dining experience however, was.

First up is the 'beer lady'. This is something that popped up in Laos too. You order a beer in a restaurant and you get a 'beer lady', your own pretty lady dressed in an outfit that is of the same colours as the beer logo. Her sole reason for living is to keep your glass topped up. Now I have to say, I've never really had an issue with topping up my own glass. I'm not bragging here, I wouldn't say I'm amazing or anything but I've never found it to be a problem. A 'beer lady' brings a whole new angle to the experience. She waits out of sight and as soon as you've put your glass down she's there, topping you up. Before we knew it she'd swiftly opened a second bottle and deftly emptied half of it into our glasses. This put me on edge as I didn't want her to open the third bottle she'd snuck on the table (oh she's good! She knows what she's doing!) because quite frankly it tasted of wee. It didn't help that she kept putting massive ice cubes in our half pint glasses which watered down the offensive liquid even more than the manufacturers had clearly already done.

Next to us was a group of 8 middle-aged (i.e. old enough to know better) men having a boys' night out. They were clearly in the mood to flash their cash and sat drinking Beck's! The 'Becks ladies' were a classier breed than our lady and also kept the gents topped up with whiskey (is that classed as moonlighting?). The bottle said Johnnie Walker but it is entirely possible to 'hire' a bottle of a well-known spirit to make everyone think you can afford it while you drink the cheap and nasty stuff. I guess it would be like having a bottle of blue WKD on the table while you drink Fairy Liquid. Though you could argue the taste of the latter is preferable. After a while, the 'Beck's ladies' joined the gents, giggling at their jokes behind perfectly manicured fingernails. It is also possible to 'hire' yourself some female company. Nothing dodgy mind. There are plenty of massage parlours about for those kind of shenanigans should you so desire.

While all this was going on, beggars circled the tables. Men, women and children.  A young man waited outside and when a table emptied, would take his plastic bag and fill it with any leftovers. The amount of food wasted in that restaurant was shocking and it was refreshing to see it not being throw away (credit should go to the staff who didn't stop him). I was struck by how he did it with such dignity and without any shame. In just an hour, Cambodia was laid bare in front of us. And it was pretty ugly.

...Laos (Shakes and Steaks)

The Mekong gushing past our hut on Don Det, Four Thousand Islands

My word, I can't remember eating so healthily on this trip. We have lost our borek and kebab-induced layers that kept us warm during the cold days and have emerged as toned, bronzed and glossy beauties. Kind of.  

But Lao food is seriously doing us some good. Thanks mainly to the cheap and wonderful fruit shakes available everywhere (this is after all backpacker-central). The fruit is so abundant and amazing here and when whizzed up with ice it's better than chocolate. Having a long lunch on mattresses laid out on a bamboo platform over the river, we sipped fresh, fluffy coconut shakes.

A coconut shake by the river

Rambutan, looks a bit 'spacey', tastes like a lychee

In hammocks outside our bamboo hut, we downed a combination of watermelon, papaya, mango and banana. Our German 'neighbours', who share our addiction, worked out they had so far spent 200 euros on the blessed things. And they're only halfway through their trip. 

At least one meal a day involves a bowl of foe - rice noodles in a broth with a little meat. You receive a basket of herbs including Thai basil and fresh mint and pile it in. On the table you have a variety of bottles of different sauces . Pungent fish sauce, fluorescent chilli sauce, dark soy sauce all vie for your attention. We've learnt the best way to do it is to add a little of everything and then keep adding as you go along. 

Foe

Dinner usually involves lightly fried meat and/or vegetables in a sauce with small cylindrical baskets of sticky rice. You mould the rice into a ball and then dip it into your sauce. It is seriously filling stuff. 

Laos food does get a little monotonous and there are plenty of 'backpacker cafes' offering standard fare. We haven't succumbed as we know it will only end in disappointment. However, on a stop over in Vientiane (officially the most boring capital in the world), we came across the most French French-bistro you can imagine. We gorged on beautifully cooked, plump, rare steaks with roquefort sauce and mustard and quaffed a carafe of red wine. We may be backpacking but you'll be pleased to hear that in a tangle of drunk, white people in vests eating 'happy pizzas'*, we have not let our standards slip. 

* a pizza topped with marijuana