#4 - Food

(#4 is the food… and damn, was the food great!)

I am extremely glad that I will literally eat anything – you name it, I’ll try it, and I’ll even eat it if I have no idea what the hell it is.  Several people in my life have been amused by this.  When I lived in Chile, my host mother made it her mission to find something I wouldn’t eat.

She never succeeded.

I delighted in all of the treats – kelp, different fish and shellfish, alcoholic drinks with raw eggs, pig and sheep innards, fresh sheep’s blood, and more.  So, when I went to Asia, I was excited to see what this continent could offer me in ways of new food.  I wasn’t disappointed.

(And yes, to answer the un-asked question: I did get sick quite a few times, even violently ill once.  While I do love telling those tales, I'll save your stomachs for now.)

Below are some of my favorites, names and locations (if I can remember them), and even some reactions and random memories.  Hellooo food porn.

(Left) Breakfast, with roti, vegetables, and egg with chilis and onions. (Bandarban, Bangladesh)

(Right) Lunch, with chicken, vegetables, salad, rice and daal, and a big fat lime slice. (Srimangal, Bangladesh)

Limes were all the rage in southern Asia.  It was impossible to find anything resembling a lemon.

(Left) Fresh lime juice and a sugar rim. (Bandarban, Bangladesh)

(Right) Fresh lime juice and iced tea. (Langkawi, Malaysia)

Ahhh, mishti!  All kinds of sweets graced us.  My favorites were the big fat brown kalo jams and the crumbly cham chams (left).  Most were made from cheese or milk, with lots of sugar.  (Chittagong, Bangladesh)

The sweets were different in each region and country, though.  Some had custard, nuts, fruits, or other ingredients I could never name.

(Left) Pomegranate studded delicacies. (New Delhi, India)

(Right) What I affectionately dubbed mishti tacos. (Jaipur, India)

Cotton candy now, really?  I couldn't resist a special treat on my birthday, which was also a significant holiday in Bangladesh - National Mother Language Day, dedicated to student martyrs and the fight to make Bangla the national language when Bangladesh was under Pakistani rule. (Chittagong, Bangladesh)

Ahhh, phuchka.  A popular street snack throughout southern Asia, made from chickpeas, potato, onions, chilis, and spices, stuffed inside a paper-thin fried shell.  One variety is served with spiced water to pour over the phuchka, but the other variety - doi phuchka - comes with sweet yogurt. (Top, Chittagong, Bangladesh; Bottom, Dhaka, Bangladesh)

Random memory: there are other varieties out there, which I didn't know for awhile.  When I was in Pokhara, Nepal, Bikash took me to a stand that sold what I assumed was just regular phuchka.  Imagine my surprise when I popped one in my mouth and (a lot of!) spicy water poured out, with very little chickpea/potato filling.  These were panipuri, a variant more commonly found in Nepal and India.

Momos.  What can I possibly say about momos?  They are now one of my favorite foods in the world.  A delicious little dumpling filled with your meat of choice (mine is buffalo), onions, garlic, some spices, and served with some type of dipping sauce. (Both, Kathmandu, Nepal)

(Left) I ate a lot of coconut milk-based curries and soups for the perfect balance between sweet and spicy. (Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand)

(Right) The ever-popular barbequed chicken and papaya salad. (Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand)

I ate a lot of new foods in Cambodia.

(Left) Vegetable amok, a curry with coconut gravy. (Siem Reap, Cambodia)

(Right) Spicy frog meat with tomatoes. (Siem Reap, Cambodia)

(Left) I also ate durian, the fruit that smells so bad it isn't allowed in public places.  It tasted sweet and mellow, with the texture of avocado. (Kampong Cham, Cambodia)

(Right) And itty bitty snails, fished straight from the Mekong River. (Kampong Cham, Cambodia)

 

I am also eternally grateful for my students' hospitality.  In Cambodia, Ayla and I stayed at Samouy's house with all of the undergraduates and experienced amazing home cooking while they worked on their summer project.  I will always remember the Khmer noodles (and Samouy's mother laughing at me!). (Kampong Cham, Cambodia)

 

During my second time in Nepal, Ayla, Karin, and I were invited to our student Dipa's house for lunch and a tour of the surrounding area.  Dipa and her mom made us a lot of great Nepali/Newari dishes  - rice and daal, curry, spicy buffalo, and more.  I wish I could remember the names for everything! (Kathmandu, Nepal)

(Top left) Fried pork in Kampong Cham, Cambodia; (Top middle) Sweet lassi yogurt with nuts and raisins in Kathmandu, Nepal; (Top right) Fried chicken lok lak in Siem Reap, Cambodia

(Bottom left) Pad thai in Ko Pha Ngnan, Thailand; (Bottom middle) Deer meat and chilis in Bangkok, Thailand; (Bottom right) Spinach with chilis and garlic, eggplant, cucumbers, rice, and yogurt in Chittagong, Bangladesh

(Top left) Clams and onions in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; (Top middle) Fish, vegetables, daal, and curried eggs in Chittagong, Bangladesh; (Top right) Sweet dish of custard, rice glass noodles, raisins, and pomegranate seeds in Dhaka, Bangladesh

(Bottom left) Chicken parts and potatoes in Dhaka, Bangladesh; (Bottom middle) McDonald's in Jaipur, India; (Bottom right) Kashmiri tea in Khajuraho, India

(Top left) Colorful styrofoamy poppy thingies outside of Jaisalmer, India; (Top middle) Aloo paratha in Khajuraho, India; (Top right) Sugary fried thingy that was like hard king cake in Kathmandu, Nepal

(Bottom left) Thali (assorted dishes) in Varanasi, India; (Bottom middle) Chicken satay with rice, cucumbers, onions and peanut sauce in Langkawi, Malaysia; (Bottom right) Black noodles in Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

*Again, a gazillion photos courtesy of Jessi Hinz!  (And a couple from Karin Johnson, too!)

#5 - Sites

(#5 is the sites… my words cannot do justice to describe the sheer beauty and power of these places…)

Hello, my name is Kristen, and I’m a site-seeing addict.

Really, it is the ancient and cultural sites that I crave to see, and I will pay whatever, go wherever, and do whatever to see them.  Get up at 5:00 AM and stand in two lines to see the Taj Mahal?  No problem.  Drag Ayla around for three days to see the Angkor Wat temples?  Done.  Climb a mountain to see a Buddhist peace pagoda even though I’m sick as a dog?  Pffft.  Get into a car with a man I barely know to see a significant Islamic complex?  Hahaha… of course.

I don’t know where this craving comes from.  I view it as part of my worldly education – to learn more and understand more the foreign cultures that I keep stepping into, and also to understand where we’ve come from as human beings.  It’s amazing to see all of this art and architecture and realize that real humans made all of this, without modern technology.  Seriously, we’re capable of amazing things.

I also hope that the money I spend getting there, staying there, and touring goes to benefit the preservation of these sites and the livelihood of the local people.  I do not want to lose these cultural icons.  And we’re in danger of losing some of them, through bad preservation, mismanagement of funds, and encroaching urbanism.

Each place probably merits its own blog post, but I will have to crunch them into one.  I’ve included a sample of the sites I’ve seen – beware, there are a lot of pictures – and I hope that others are as lucky and privileged as I am and can visit them one day.

Shrine of Shah Jalal in Sylhet, Bangladesh - a mosque and complex dedicated to a significant Muslim missionary from the 1300s.

The National Monument in Dhaka and the martyrs monument in Chittagong, Bangladesh - both places dedicated to the fight for independence from Pakistan, and the mother language of Bangla.

The funerary ghats in Varanasi, India - a very holy Hindu place on the Ganges river where people go to die.

Khajuraho Temple Complexes in Khajuraho, India - a collection of medieval Hindu (and some Jain) temples, one famous for its erotic sculptures.

Taj Mahal in Agra, India - a mausoleum built by Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal; it is one of the finest examples of Mughal architecture.

Jaisalmer Fort in Jaisalmer and the Bada Bagh Cenotaphs outside of Jaisalmer, India - a modern living fort and a cemetery, both examples of fine sandstone architecture in the Thar Desert.

Swayambhu and Boudhanath stupas in Kathmandu, Nepal - two large Buddhist stupas that serve as religious focal points and tourist sites in the Nepali capital.

Patan Durbar Square in Kathmandu and the World Peace Pagoda in Pokhara, Nepal - a sprawling urban complex of temples and palaces in the capital, and a modern Buddhist pagoda.

Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and Banteay Srei, near Siem Reap, Cambodia - all fine examples of carving and architecture from the ancient Angkor kingdom.

*Again, so many thanks for the photos courtesy of Jessi Hinz!