#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!)

#6 - Clothes

(#6 is clothes... and yes, I will admit that I had just the teeniest, tiniest - read: gigantic - obsession with the clothes in southern Asia.)

I warn you, this post will hold plenty of gratuitous narcissism.

It was a long-running joke among some of the volunteers that I was a shopaholic, which may come as a surprise to my friends and family in the States. I'm usually a horrible penny pincher, but jee, something sure snapped in me.

I was absolutely fascinated by the clothing in Bangladesh - the meters and meters of luxurious fabrics, the stunning embroidery, the multitudes of ribbons and mirrors and beads. The magpie inside of me went "oooh, shiny!!!" at every turn.

It was hard to resist. Part of me reasoned it all by saying hey, this top or piece of fabric would cost x amount more in the States, so it won't hurt to buy it... or hey, I didn't have an outfit in that color quite yet... or man, this was a very unique design/texture/whatever. Safe to say, I probably amassed a good $1000, give or take, in clothing alone. Oops.

Sadly, what follows is barely even half of what I bought and owned over the course of my time in Bangladesh. Looking back, a part of me is ashamed that I spent all this money on clothing... but I can't help but adore all the pretty things I now own.

In Khajuraho, India, Jessi and I happened upon a shop owned by a Kashmiri man who went by the name of "Super Mario."  He was quite the character, and a very good salesman, I might add.  We were bloated on delicious Kashmiri tea, draped in sumptuous Pashmina scarves, and slowly swindled out of a couple thousand rupees.  Wherever you went, you had to bargain hard, or otherwise people would take advantage of your foreign-ness (which we found especially true in India and Thailand). 

Hands down, my favorite store in Bangladesh was Aarong, which was owned and operated by BRAC, the world's largest NGO.  Remember how when you were little, your mom would promise you a trip to the toy store if you were good?  Yeah, that's what going to Aarong was like for me.  I invested plenty in tunic tops - just a shirt, sometimes simple, sometimes elaborately stitched.

I also bought several shalwar kameez at Aarong.  The shalwar kameez was the full outfit set that included the scarf (dupatta), tunic (kameez), and pants (shalwar).  When you went into the store, they were just lined up on the walls, arranged by color and price.  Sadly, the majority of employees recognized me by the end of the year... haha.

Another favorite place to shop was Deshal, affectionately dubbed the "newspaper store" because the walls were papered with a newspaper print.  They had cheaper, basic cotton shalwar kameez and tunics for sale.  They were so comfortable that one became my standard travel outfit for whenever I took a bus or plane.

 

You could also buy fabrics, either one at a time or as a three piece set.  Then you took them to a tailor, got measured, and usually had them finished in a week.  I bought several of them in different corners of Bangladesh, Nepal, and India.  They remain some of my favorites.

Above, you can see how a standard three-piece might look like: usually plainer fabric for the pants, a large stretch of material for the top, and either a finished or unfinished scarf.  On the right, I'm accompanied by two of my lovely Nepali students, Archana and Dipa, during the university conference in Dhaka.  The students owned clothes that were easily equally or even more stunning than what I could find. 

I only purchased a couple saris, but they were fantastic investments.  The red and white one was a heavy Indian silk from downtown Chittagong, and the orange and green hand-embroidered one was from a random shop in Udaipur, India.  It took quite a long time to get the hang of putting on a sari, but it was well worth it.  I miss wearing them.

 I also bought quite a few clothes in Thailand.  Their dress is definitely not as conservative there, and we could get away with baring quite a bit of skin.  I even broke one of my personal rules and lent/borrowed clothing from Ayla, such as the green dress above.

 And all those clothes required a lot of upkeep.  I handwashed almost every single kameez and tunic, to make sure our beast of a washer didn't destroy the delicate stitching.  Everything usually hung to dry in our living room, or from the ties of my mosquito net.  Handy, eh?  I also was able to mix and match various purchases with some of my American clothes, such as my favorite yellow shirt from Banana Republic.

So, call me a greedy glutton of fabric, but damn did I love all the clothing in southern Asia.  If only people wouldn't stare at me funny when I wore it here in the States.  It's so odd to be used to one manner of dress, and then have to revert back to my old manner.  When I returned to the States, I was shocked and definitely found my old clothing to be restrictive and revealing.  What I wouldn't give to be back in the breezy, cottony freedom of a shalwar kameez.

*A lot of these pictures are courtesy of the awesome Jessi Hinz!