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Out of the Rain, Into the Jungle

Published by jess on October 5, 2007 in Travel Journal. 0 Comments

Remember that scene in “Independence Day” where Air Force One is taking off and all of Washington D.C. is blowing up just in its wake? Well, substitute in the dinky Vietnam Airlines plane for Air Force One and the city of Da Nang for D.C. and thunderous, ridiculous, pounding rain for alien-induced explosion and you pretty much have what our flight out of the central coast was like last Tuesday, the 2nd of October. Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but as several concerned friends and family members have written to us, they did end up having to evacuate something like 400,000 people because of Typhoon Lekima and it also apparently killed 12 people. Yikes. We just missed the truly bad brunt of it (all the flights were canceled the day after we left Da Nang), but we did spend two rain-soaked days in Hoi An, which was otherwise a charming place to be. The streets flooded up to our knees. I was constantly donning the H.O.T. smurf-blue poncho. Really the rain was just amazing and we were unsure if it was really safe to be flying in all that. Even more amazing was that when we got to Nha Trang, just a forty-five minute flight down the coast, the weather was just fine.

In fact, it was quite beautiful. So beautiful we decided to book it out of the busy, tout-clogged, neon-lit streets of Nha Trang for a remote, hippie-dippie-type resort called Jungle Beach, run by a Canadian who, as far as I could tell, never wears anything but boxer shorts. We stayed in the “beach-front suite,” which was a true bungalow — three walls and a mattress on a platform, covered in mosquito netting. I totally roughed it. There was little electricity and barely running water. We could literally see the beach through the “window” (read: square-shaped hole) in our bamboo and straw hut. There was really nothing to do but sit around on the totally isolated beach and stare at the horizon. Which is why we were out of touch for some time, and not dutifully posting on the blogs.

We were also fed three meals a day by the super friendly madame of the house, who cooked up tasty, authentic, family-style Vietnamese food. This also meant we had to share a table with the various Germans, Israelis, Brits and others at Jungle Beach, but I was able to put my American xenophobia on hold, pull out the friendly face for a few days and make the typical travel small talk. So where have you been in Vietnam? Ah, all the typical places. And how long are you traveling? Oh, only two weeks… And where are you from? Oh, America…

You get the picture. And I’ll hopefully be posting pictures of Jungle Beach real soon. It was something else.

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Banh My, Oh My

Published by jess on September 30, 2007 in Travel Journal. 1 Comment

One of the treats I was looking forward to seeking out in Vietnam was banh mi, Vietnamese sandwiches that are available in several tasty places in New York. Banh mi are something of a WSJ Fun Club tradition and also are one of my favorite foods of all time. So I was naturally psyched to be going to what I assumed would be the Banh Mi Mother Ship.

But my book didn’t include banh mi in its list of classic Vietnamese dishes. And there didn’t seem to be any banh mi for sale in Hanoi. I looked on restaurant menus — nothing. That was to be somewhat expected, as banh mi are supposedly sold street-side from carts, much like Pho. But I looked quite vigilantly, and nothing.

On our way out of Hanoi, I asked our guide Minh whether he had ever heard of banh mi. I described them and did my best with the pronunciation (”baaaan - meeee”?) but he had no clue what I was talking about.

This didn’t bode well. Were banh mi, in fact, an American creation that I would simply have to wait for until my return to the States? Would I in fact be unable to enjoy a Vietnamese sandwich in Vietnam?

Finally, on our sixth day in Vietnam, I found and had a banh mi cart in the local market. Here in the beautiful and charming riverside fishing village of Hoi An, where we’ll be for a few days, banh mi carts are plentiful. Only it’s spelled “banh my” and there don’t seem to be the same variations on the sandwich as I’ve seen in the U.S. My banh my cost 10,000 dong, which is roughly equivalent to 62 cents. That’s what I’m talking about.

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Halong Bay

Published by jess on September 28, 2007 in Travel Journal. 0 Comments

We’re actually in Hue now (more to come on that in a bit), but we did make it to Halong Bay for a day trip on Thursday. It was beautiful and I was sad to have to leave so soon. Here’s our boat:

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And here’s a pretty good shot from Taylor, though none of our photos seem to really encapsulate the gorgeousness of the place:

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Hanoi: Traffic Gone Wild

Published by jess on September 25, 2007 in Travel Journal. 1 Comment

It’s raining in Hanoi. Hence the need for me to wear this H.O.T. outfit:

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When we first arrived in Hanoi it was overcast and rained on and off throughout the day. As soon as we arrived at the hotel, we had a message waiting saying that our Halong Bay boat trip for the following day might be canceled. Indeed, it was. The weather gods have thus far not been on our side in Vietnam. We’re currently scheduled to go on a day tour of Halong Bay tomorrow, so everyone out there please pray for sunshine and calm waters.

Despite missing out on a night aboard a romantic Halong Bay cruise, this does mean we’ll get to spend an extra day in Hanoi. And Hanoi is really something.

It’s the polar opposite of Singapore. It’s illegal to j-walk in Singapore (though plenty of people did in certain neighborhoods). In Hanoi, j-walking is the only option as there are basically no traffic lights.

We were told that Hanoi’s street traffic is something to write home about, but nothing can really prepare you for this. Not even New York’s crazed intersections have anything on what’s going on outside this Internet cafe as I write. Motorbikes and bicycles fill the streets — and I mean droves and droves and droves of them. It’s unclear to me which streets are one-way and which are two-way. When you cross the street, you simply have to step slowly and allow the cars and bikes to make their way around you. It feels like navigating a busy American freeway. But there’s a weird logic to it, as well, and now that we’ve adjusted to it, I almost enjoy crossing the street. It’s like a living game of Frogger.

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Like Disney World, but Hotter

Published by jess on September 25, 2007 in Travel Journal. 0 Comments

Our three days in Singapore were jam-packed with sightseeing and eating. The weather was oppressively hot and humid and I felt jet-lagged for much of it, but we managed to see most of what we wanted in the city. The streets were, as promised, squeaky clean. The metro was efficient. The people were a fascinating mix of Indian, Chinese, Malay and so on. The Night Safari was good, clean, family fun — like Disney World.

In fact, much of Singapore felt like Disney World. Organized and polished. Locals would probably say that the real Singapore lies beneath that clean and classy veneer, but the only glimpses we were afforded of that underbelly were in a few of the temples and mosques and at the hawker centres:

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This is a Buddhist temple in Chinatown, which we happened upon just in the middle of a big offering of gifts to Buddha.

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This is the smallish hawker centre by the Esplanade. It’s actually run by Singapore’s food guru guy, who I mentioned in my earlier post.

Speaking of which, though we managed to see most of the sights in Singapore, I only made it about half-way through my list of dishes to try. I successfully tasted and thoroughly enjoyed:

Fried oyster omelet
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Kaya toast, Malay-style teh
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Lobster laksa
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Char kway teoh
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Chicken rice
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Fish-head curry
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Plain prata with onion
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Stomach, Meet Singapore

Published by jess on September 21, 2007 in Travel Journal. 1 Comment

Well, here we are, safe and sound in Singapore. The flight out here was long, but passed fairly quickly. I did a crossword puzzle, read a book, watched Pirates 3 and ate about five meals. On Singapore Air, they have purple seats and they feed you, oh, every hour or so. My kind of airline.

On the subject of food, I don’t know about you, but eating is pretty important to me. Now, I understand that getting the necessary nutrients to survive is important for, well, all humans. But for some of us, food is a serious priority. I don’t particularly like the term “foodie” — to me, it connotes being a snob about food and being obsessed with eating out, which is entirely different than what I am talking about, which is being obsessive about food no matter what it is and where it comes from — but I guess that’s what I am.

Good food makes me happy. Conversely, I get annoyed / frustrated / and in general pissy when not fully satisfied with a meal. Food makes or breaks my day. And it can definitely make or break a vacation.

Yet I don’t think I was fully conscious of the food element when I picked Singapore as our first destination on this adventure. It must have been lurking in the back of my mind. There was something about this place, which, as every travel article or guidebook will tell you, is a) sort of boring and b) known for caning gum-chewers. Something about this place made me want to go there. It wasn’t the caning. Of course it was the food.

So I set out to plan a three-day sampling of the best that Singapore eateries have to offer, both at restaurants and from the city’s famous hawkers — street vendors who tend to specialize in one particular dish and serve them up in government-run (and thus spotless and sanitary) centers. It seemed that, with proper planning and guidance, this would be a reasonable undertaking. My Lonely Planet guidebook didn’t seem to disagree with me. Then I read Calvin Trillin’s recent New Yorker article about his few days spent eating in Singapore and I realized I had no idea what I was getting myself — and my stomach — into.

What most intrigues me about Singapore’s food culture is its focus on individual dishes, versus styles or categories of food. Most vendors — or at least the truly good ones, it seems — devote their entire lives to a single dish. That just thrills me. It must thrill Trillin, too, for he wrote a whole article about it and based his Singapore itinerary around sampling nine chosen dishes. Apparently, Trillin’s guide — The Expert on Singapore street food — felt this list was insufficient and added so many dishes that, despite eating their way through much of it, the list at the end of the trip was about as long as when he first landed.

Now Trillin is around 72 years old today. So I think that despite weighing in at 98 pounds, I could almost go dish-for-dish with him at the hawker center table. But he had Singapore’s street-food guru jetting him around to all the best spots. I do not have that. Plus, Taylor is a non-foodie who doesn’t eat fish. While excited by some of Singapore’s culinary possibilities (NOT the fish-head curry or fish-ball noodles), he isn’t going to obsess about it and will want to do other things. So my lineup will not quite rival the Trillin list, though it does borrow heavily from it. Here is what I’ve ended up with; I hope to post updates as I go.

Chili crab
Fish-head curry
Char kway teow
Laksa
Roti prata
Rojak
Carrot cake

City of the Lion

Published by jess on September 20, 2007 in Travel Journal. 1 Comment

I tried to read up a bit on Singapore before leaving and collect a good bundle of interesting facts. I definitely plan to be one of those annoying tourists loudly spouting off factoids while gesturing obnoxiously and getting in the way of all the locals. Since I know my colleagues at WFC love their trivia, I’ll share a few of the things I found most titillating:

  • So what’s the weather like over there?

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Currently, 89 degrees Fahrenheit with a chance of rain and 77% humidity. Get this: It hasn’t dipped below 66 degrees in Singapore since they started recording temperatures. Dude.

  • Are you totally going to be eating Singapore Mei fun noodles All The Time?

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In fact, Singapore Mei fun noodles, which can be found at nearly any Chinese restaurant in New York, cannot be found in Singapore. Like Chow mein and the burrito, they are an American creation. I can’t Wait to try all of the food that Is available in Singapore, however, because it’s pretty much going to be Awesome. There are about 12,000 food stands in Singapore, known as hawker stands. In the 1970s, the government brought the hawkers off the street and into centers with proper sanitation, refrigeration and running water. All in the name of tidiness. But, see, it also makes trying lots of dishes at once much easier to tackle. Enough on this for now, though, because I’m going to write about hawker food in detail later.

  • You’re going to a place where they cane people for chewing gum. Really?

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To set the record straight: they don’t cane people for chewing gum. They do cane for some nonviolent offenses, such as vandalism, overstaying one’s visa or illegal immigration. There are fines for chewing gum, though there are certain forms of sugarless gum that are now legal with a prescription from one’s doctor. Wikipedia says that judicial caning was introduced to Singapore by the British when they controlled Singapore as part of their colonial empire. So really, it’s all the Brits’ fault.

  • Indeed, Singapore is a place where the rule of law is hard and strong. Naturally, there’s some pretty interesting history behind that:

    • Singapore had a ton of problems on the eve of its independence in 1965. Most people thought it wouldn’t last on its own. The country’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, took aim at vice — his own father had been an inveterate gambler. He banned casinos, put high taxes on tobacco and alcohol, and targeted drug traffickers. And it worked — maybe too well. Lee’s eldest son is now prime minister and, under him, Singapore is trying to reshape its image, embrace the arts and lure more tourists.

    So I won’t be bringing my Trident Watermelon Twist with me, but Singapore is changing rapidly. Bars are open until 4am. Bar-top dancing and bungee jumping are no longer prohibited. I love places in transition, and I hope to be able to witness that in the City of the Lion.

  • So why is it called the City of the Lion, or the Lion City?

    • The name “Singapura” is derived from the Malay words singa (lion) and pura (city), Wikipedia says. According to the Malay Annals, this name was given by a 14th century Sumatran Malay prince named Sang Nila Utama, who, on alighting the island after a thunderstorm, spotted an auspicious beast on shore that his chief minister identified as a lion (Asiatic Lion). However, recent studies of Singapore indicate that lions have never lived there, and the beast seen by Sang Nila Utama was likely a tiger.

Here We Go

Published by jess on September 20, 2007 in Travel Journal. 0 Comments

Tonight Taylor and I depart for Singapore. To get there, we’ll be taking a nearly 22-hour flight. I’m fairly accustomed to moderately long flights — seven to nine hours, or so. But 22? That’s like taking the JFK-to-SFO flight and quadrupling it. That’s an entire season of Alias. That’s like 3 full shifts at work, back-to-back. I could go to 14 yoga classes. It’s, well, almost an entire day. Needless to say, I’m a little nervous.

Fortunately, I’ll be in the hands of Singapore Air, which is the world’s most profitable carrier and has been ranked the best airline in the world by Conde Nast Traveler 18 of the past 19 years. Also, we have an hourlong stopover in Frankfurt to refuel — which separates the trip into two more manageable segments and perhaps gives us the opportunity to tour some of Rhein-Main-Flughafen (aka the Frankfurt airport) — Ausgezeichnet! But Taylor says my plan to run off the plane in search of Wienerschnitzel is silly. We shall see about that.

Here’s our itinerary, for those who wish to keep track (my Mom; Taylor’s Mom; Abby):

Sept. 20 — Depart New York for Singapore
Singapore Airlines flight SQ 25.

Sept. 22-24 — Singapore
New 7th Story Hotel

Sept. 25 — Depart Singapore for Hanoi, Vietnam
Singapore Airlines flight SQ 176

Sept. 25-26 — Hanoi
Sunway Hanoi Hotel

Sept. 26-27 — Halong Bay

Sept. 27-28 — Back in Hanoi at the Sunway

Sept. 28 — Depart Hanoi for Danang
Vietnam Airline flight VN 315

Sept. 28 - Oct. 4 — Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang

Oct. 5-6 - Saigon
Spring Hotel

Oct. 6 - Depart HoChiMinh City (Saigon)
Singapore Airlines flight SQ 173
Singapore Airlines flight SQ 26

Oct. 7 - Arrive New York JFK airport at 10:50AM