These boots were made for trekking

Counting down my days in Nepal, teaching yoga, editing and warding off re-entry panic, spring warmed the days and the snow capped mountains appeared through the fog around the rim of Kathmandu Valley.  In the capital of the country that boasts the Himalayas, the dust and heavy sky of the city is oppressive.  There is no outside life, apart from pot plant rimmed roof tops that vie for sunshine, if not blue sky, as they reach skyward.  One rickety building level placed on the previous, scaffolded with bamboo, like houses made of cards.

Every morning at breakfast, fledgling trekkers descended on the breakfast buffet, as if this was their last supper.  Sparkly new backpack mountains, spiked together with trekking poles teetered in the doorway.  The owners, who were never going to carry them – instead most would soon schlep them off to porters – formed a human parade of advertising banners for North Face and Black Diamond or Black Yak.  By 9.30am they’ve evacuated to the airport for the first leg of their base camp expedition.

As trite and sanitised as these pre packaged tourist trails have become, I still felt the pull to put my boots at some altitude.  A serendipitous breakfast companion pushed me off the starting block and I found myself headed for the Mustang Region of Annapurna Conservation Area – the last forbidden or forgotten kingdom of Nepal, and Buddhist enclave of annexed Tibet.  On Google Maps it all looks close and small, and flat, and my planned trek was only 30 kilometres, plus add-ons to make about 40 kilometres in total.

Since I was going by myself, I was pretty keen to lock in transport and some accommodation.  Also permits and entry fees - Trekkers’ Information Management System (TIMS) Registration Card for Individual Trekkers, and National Trust for Nature Conservation, Annapurna Conservation Area (ACA) Entry Permit – were required.  My expectations of acquiring these with any ease were not high as I took a trip to the Tourism Board in Kathmandu.  Payment of USD 20 and NR 2000 respectively and I was in and out within half an hour.  The longest part of the transaction was the impromptu survey the girls at the desk were conducting, on the day Lindsay Lohan posted the ‘Is it white and gold, or blue and black?’ dress on her web site.

The morning of my departure.

“The airport is closed.  A Turkish Airways plane crashed yesterday.”

You’re kidding me.  Is it April Fools’ Day?

“Domestic flights are still leaving, but there will be some delays.”

Of course there will!

At check in, “Do you mind going on a small plane, madam?”

Sure.  But how much smaller than the usual Kathmandu to Pokhara plane.  “Mountain Flight sized plane?”  These are the one seat either side of the aisle size.

“Yes.  They only need short takeoff runway.”  Avoiding the Turkish jet lying sideways and nose down, and creating a beautiful silhouette looming out of the early morning haze as I’d approached the airport.

Taxiing past the jet on takeoff was interesting, but landing back in Kathmandu a week later, was disconcerting, as the one up from smallest sized plane rocked side to side and really didn’t appear to have visual alignment.  But I am writing the story, so ...

Back to the beginning and my taxi driver to Beni met me at Pokhara Airport and off we went for one of those 60 kilometre, 3 hour drives that I love so much.  The plan was to take a shared jeep from Beni to Lete, another 50 kilometres but about now I completely abandoned the plan.  It was Holi and it was late, and “No jeeps for you, madam!” as the drivers of both jeeps and local taxis lounged lizard like against their idle vehicles.  A quick recalculation and I was looking around the dust hole that it is Beni (today I even read that it was the focus of a Maoist terrorist attack and massacre just a few year ago) and wondering about a place to stay for the night.  My Pokhara driver proved somewhat of a chivalrous knight and cajoled and convinced both me and the local bus driver, that I was going further up the Mustang Valley to Tatopani for the night.  Holy Crap!  A compressed bus ride along a mule track and two hours later, I was deposited half way from Beni to Lete, feeling like I was between nowhere and the unknown, with the reassuring instructions, “Just go up that way, madam.”

With no idea of what to expect or how much to pay, I walked into the most likely looking guesthouse, that is the one in the sunshine, and secured a NR 200 a night room with an inside bathroom, hot water unclear, at Dhauligiri Guesthouse.  When in Nepal, it’s dal bhat for dinner, and really you just should.  Rice, dal, vegetable dish and pickle (achar), with as many top ups as you can eat, for less than NR 500.  A torch, a book and a sleeping bag.  A room and a bed.  It’s all good.  Breakfast Nepali style means Tibetan bread or Nepali bread.  The former deep fried scone mixture, and the latter buckwheat pancakes.  Good stick to your ribs fare for trekking.

Back down to the road for the local bus the rest of the way to Lete.  With no seats to be had, I ended up in the jump seat, wedged between the driver and the conductor, affording me an uninterrupted view of the road, or more usually the ravine we tilted precariously into.  Inhale and consider that unlike the Indian Hindus, the Nepali seem to have a healthy regard for this life, and therefore are not keen to topple a bus load of locals and one white woman into the river below.  These wiry Nepali bus drivers are awesome!  I was nonetheless still happy to alight in Lete with a Namaste and Namaskar prayer hands, two hours and 30 kilometres later.  Wandering along for the first tiny part of my trek, I found my next overnight stop, Kalopani Guesthouse.

During the afternoon the temperature plummeted and the Annapurna peaks stood their icy ground against a spring snow, as I huddled inside with endless cups of tea.  The next morning for my first proper day of walking, the sky was boundless blue.  Steam wafted from lofty slopes as the sun edged across the surface of the centuries old frozen landscape.  And I set off for Naurikot.

Now Naurikot doesn’t appear on any maps.  It’s a small mountain village on a ridge above Larjung.  What could be hard about that?  Well, you can’t actually see it from down in the river village of Larjung.  The sign just points away from the river, and the local English speaking helper indicated up, and 25 minutes.  Okay!  With plenty of sun and daylight, all I had to lose was ... time.  I zigzagged up the ever increasing gradient of the path, crunching through ice and encountering Swiss cow bell adorned fluffy Himalayan cows.  Just as I was really beginning to wonder, a jeep loomed between the pines and the mud house village of Naurikot appeared.  Unable to make a low key entrance, and unsure even if I was in the right place, where or how I’d find my home stay, I went with the confidence that everyone would know Poonam’s House, and there I was.  Tea and introductions.  My little room up the rock climbing stairs.  A view of yaks grazing on the vertical slopes of Dhauligiri.  Two nights of living, cooking and being part of real Nepal today, tomorrow and yesterday.  Dal bhat, cauliflower, potatoes and beans, cel roti, pancakes, homemade lapsi (hog plum) jam and local honey.  Yak and mutton hanging for drying in the kitchen about the wood fire stove.  Coals in a brazier in the middle of the kitchen floor, where we sat warming and eating.  The rhythm of village life is the growing, preparing, cooking and eating of food.  Life plays out in dark windowless kitchens waiting for the faint flow of one electric light bulb when and if the load shedding is favourable.  However no one really notices or minds, with the glow of the fire and the call of blankets and bed as the cold night sets the roof water drips to icicles, and the silence closes the day.

Poonam’s husband, Manoz, is the village lama, and the custodian of the Bon Monastery next door.  Drum beats and chanting softly infiltrate the dream state of morning, and an invitation to see inside the monastery is a living archaeological quest amongst the pre Buddhist prayer wheel and Shiva icons, mixed with gaudily printed nylon blankets, cause even lamas get cold.

Another limitless blue sky day for trekking in the Himalayas and I joined with a young German couple to walk in the river bed looking for fossils ... and found some.  Carrying rocks in my backpack was not really an option, so a photograph in situ it was.  As the river meandered, so did we until the next village of Tukuche, where the apple menus began.  Apple pie, apple crumble, chocolate apple crumble, apple pancakes, apple cake, apple brandy.  You get the idea.  With a late spring, the apple trees were not yet even budding for this year’s crop, but the last of last season’s apples were being cooked up in a frenzy.  Not quite knowing what to expect, I ordered apple pie, and was surprised with a deep dish pancake, piled high with grated apple and cooked frittata fashion ... maybe.  The older Nepali couple who run the guesthouse with the sunny courtyard restaurant, replete with a satellite dish at least 2 metres across, bearing a saucepan of potatoes boiling in the centre, were happy to see us wander in.  Late snow and the subsequent closure of the main pass of Annapurna Circuit and villages higher up, had left Mustang Valley devoid of the usual early season trekkers.

Further along Gali Kandaki River to Marpha and my next stop, Neeru Guesthouse.  It was rocking with people when I arrived, although they were only a lunch group and by later in the afternoon it was just me, tea and apple crumble, then my German friends showed up.  Add two Japanese boys and a couple of Spanish girls, and the seven of us huddled around the table for dinner.  Brazier underneath, dal bhat on top.  Monastery, meditation, stupas, Tibetan community, and pretty in that higher altitude barren moonscape kind of way, Marpha lulls you into timelessness, melting away the days, if not the ice.

From various vantage points in Marpha I could see, high on a hill towards Jomsom, a Buddhist Gompa; a big gompa, stark against the sky and mountain backdrop.  With only 5 kilometres to walk direct to Jomsom and my next morning flight out, it was obvious to me that I had to climb this peak – if only for the yoga picture.  My highest Himalayan summit was here at Hutsapternga Monastery.  Jomsom is at 2800m and I’d like to think I made it to about 3500m on the top of the ridge, dancing in the wind striking yoga pose.  Down the other side and past Dhumba Lake, follow the red and white markers to Thini village, a collection of mud dwellings not unlike caves plastered to the lower slopes of Nilgiri Himal, then skirt around and down into the back of Jomsom, and on to Xanadu Guesthouse – because how could you not stay at a place with that name.

With a panoramic view of mountains, sky, snow, and the airport, I was content to sit on the bed and just be humbled by the enormity, majesty and total silence.  It felt like Day 4 of Vipasana when all the mind noise ceases, and there is just now and stillness.  I wanted to soak it all in; not lose a moment of being in this landscape, that reaches up in the same limitless way my erstwhile ocean life reaches out.

Although it was calm in Jomsom, the Mustang Valley spring winds prevailed and no planes landed in the morning.  The alternative of an 8 hour jeep ride to Pokhara was a long and winding road, to an unscheduled night in the lake town that is a launching place for Annapurna treks.  The highlight was the rear view of Machhapuchhre, the mystical Fishtail mountain, after which everything in Pokhara is named.  I’d been in Pokhara before and failed to see the resemblance, but a setting sun on the sheer western slopes revealed a shimmering mermaid tail of ice scales, flipping up above the clouds.

Breakfasting by the misty lake the next morning, I tried to imprint the mountains on my memory, before flying away, maybe for the last time.

*             *             *

And now the end is near.

I never thought it would end like this.  In fact I probably never really thought about the end at all.  Going to live overseas for an extended period of time was just that – open ended.  I packed up my house and left behind everything that was familiar, for the chance to make the yogi pilgrimage to India.  Heat, dust and visas later I am ending my travelling in Nepal.  I have my ticket home, and with just a few weeks to go time feels at once sped up towards the end and at the same time sluggish to wade through the hours of the days til I cross back to the southern hemisphere.

The next week will find me trekking in Annapurna National Park, stopping at guesthouses and homestays, putting my hiking boots, backpack and sleeping bag to some proper use in the Himalayas.  One really can’t come to Nepal without getting the badge for having walked in the mountains.  Apart from that I am preparing for re-entry into my world.  The things to be done – hairdresser, dentist, pedicure.  Not to downplay girlfriends.

If there is one thing I would say has defined my travelling, it’s the absence of conversation and proximity of my women friends.  Thank goodness for email, messaging and Skype, because otherwise I would have gone mad.  When your social and intellectual interaction is narrowed to the one person or sometimes to your own thoughts, it’s claustrophobic.  And I’m a communicator, so I’ve struggled to find space for ease of conversation and being.

I find myself consuming disposable fiction.  As long as it’s Australian, I’ll read it.  TLC and FoxLife, free to air television stations, have a reasonable percentage of Australian cooking programmes, and I’m over familiar with Luke Nguyen and Maeve O’Mara in all iterations of their SBS productions.  Even the Australian tourism advertisements catch my eye with their white sandy beaches and blue skies forever vistas, as I tune into their catchy theme music.

On the rare occasion I meet another Australian, it’s such a relief there are almost tears.  Then there’s that ease that comes with instant association, shared stuff and self deprecating openness.  For example, I contacted the best known Kathmandu yoga studio to do some teaching, and joy of joys, the administrator was an Australian lady from Sydney, via Canberra.

    How do you come to be here?

    It’s about a boy.  She tells me.

    It’s always about a boy.

Her partner came to my class and of course we all went out for pizza and beer afterwards.

So what am I looking forward to most about coming home?  Grilled salmon with rocket salad and a glass of sauvignon blanc.  Baking.  Walking to the beach, at the beach.  Running ditto.  Cycling much the same.  Above all doing all of these things with those special women friends, and enjoying the conversations along the way.

It's Jockey or Nothing!

So goes the line from the Indian TV ad for Jockey men’s underwear.

I know Jockey is an iconic American brand and seek it out in Australia as a viable option to the cheap made in China underwear which is all that’s now available. Even Bonds has thrown in the towel. The brand promoters always maintain that it’s all about production cost, and quality is not compromised but I’m not so sure.

So when the time came to take advantage of really low cost underwear in India I headed to Big Bazaar and snapped up some AFL branded briefs. Must admit I thought this was a pretty cool purchase as I imagined flashing the brand icon to the locals as I watched the Sydney Swans play at the MCG, the home of AFL in Australia. Dream on, as I was the less than happy recipient of the two for the price of three bargain that can only take place in India. I’ve written about this experience on a prior blog.

In need of a reality check I bit the bullet and picked up three pairs of medium sized Jockey briefs, all beautifully boxed and ready to go. No worries I thought, made in India but to a US standard must be what’s going on here. I paid about eight bucks a pair so they weren’t cheap.

Couple of weeks later the Jockey or Nothing tag line has turned into a bit of a joke as all of these mighty purchases have developed little holes. I mean lots of little holes. Checked for bugs, moths, mosquitoes, put out the camphor blocks all to no avail. Maybe it's the production quality? A local lass offers that maybe they were old stock. Interesting explanation?

Fast forward to a week before departure from Manipal and the clothes sorting has been done and dusted. Three pairs of less holey Jockeys are retained, the AFL’s cast aside with other hand me downs for the ”poor people”. I’m rushing to get ready to attend as a judge for the finals of a marketing competition at Manipal University Department of Commerce and searching for a pair of clean Jockeys. Shit they’re all in the washing machine. Shit, what to do?

Well it’s Jockey or Nothing as they say. Mmmm. Memories of Kramer swinging free in that crazy Seinfeld episode. Tight jeans, not sure I can do it. Rummage through the poor box and find the best pair of discarded AFL’s. These black ones will do, quickly slip them on and zip up. Shit, ants in the pants … reverse the process quickly. It’s then that I discover the ants have been making a bee line for the washing line and been feasting on my Jockeys as they dry, hence the holes. Mystery solved but it’s still Jockey or Nothing.

Sabineyoga: TombRaider

I have to admit to never having seen TombRaider, but of course one can’t help but know about it – Angelina Jolie, computer game, action hero.  Another admission is my lack of fore knowledge about Siem Reap, Cambodia.  That’s where Angkor Wat is.  For anyone who’s not making the connection here, let me elaborate.

Angkor Wat was first a Hindu, then later a Buddhist, temple built in the early 12th century by the Khmer King Suryavarman II – as in Surya Namaskar, he of salute to the sun – and it’s the largest religious monument in the world.  In the 16th century it was abandoned to the jungle until being rediscovered and restored as an important archaeological, architectural and artistic site, in the 20th century.  It’s not really just about one temple, but rather a whole collection of temples and buildings, laced with moats and pathways, decorating the jungle just 5 kilometres outside of Siem Reap.

And it is spectacular, for all the trappings of tourism, but take a walk in Angelina’s footsteps and you will be at La Prohm – the TombRaider temple.  This is the one with great boulders scattered around the grounds.  Centuries old trees, with roots lifting structures out of their earthbound foundations, as their branches scale huge heights into the sky.  The energetic presence of history oozes from every crack.

Travelling around South East Asia, it’s easy to become complacent about yet another wat, and the idea of a day visiting all of these was ominous.  First stop in the beating sun was Angkor.  Traffic banked up.  Photograph for entrance ticket.  Dropped off at the main entrance.  Walk across the stone slab bridge to the impending majesty of this iconic silhouette.  The challenge for me is always getting those pictures that make it look untouched by human hands; no wires, plumbing, signs or people.  And even with the mass of people there on that Sunday in January, it was still possible.  It’s impossible to describe the grandeur, or even see it all.  Rather it’s one of those places maybe best for a less is more experience: the stone wall carvings along the breezeways, the devas flanking the stairs to the harem wing, even just the stairs.  So many yoga pose opportunities.

Wandering back out along the causeway, it’s hard not to feel something – small, awed.  But wait, there’s more.  Another temple before lunch.

As established, I had no preconceptions about La Promh.  My only thinking was to find a spot to do a suitable superhero pose, worthy of Lara Croft.  I’d even picked out the as yet untested asana.  The entrance to La Prohm is through a stone arch; an elephant access sized stone arch.  From here it is quite a walk along a sandy path through semi jungle until the boulders strewn haphazardly around begin to pile themselves into forms and then structures, leading to the compound of this truly ancient but living temple.  Step off the well trodden path of the swarming Korean and Chinese tour groups and be blessed by a tiny hunched Buddhist nun.  Find a wall on an outbuilding and strike a pose.  Walk back through the avenue of trees and be serenaded by the music of a Khmer Traditional Mahori Band, the syncopated rhythms matching footsteps historic and present.

After a tourist lunch – Argh!  There was one more temple; Bayon Temple the most tumble down.  I was by this time templed out and chose yoga on the grass out the front instead.  For me this was an authentic temple experience, and I no doubt have appeared in the background of many Facebook photos.  And you can see my Temple Yoga Goddess day on Instragram:  sabineyoga

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Dharma, Karma ... Damn

Once upon a time there was a Gold Coast Goddess whose heart was captured by a Peaceful Warrior and she fled to India. Like Tripitaka on the road to enlightenment, she followed her brave monkey to the foreign land, her will fuelled by incense, tadasana and the search for extra hot flat white soy (no froth). The idealistic and mystic expectations of the East incinerated by the summer heat, relentless natives and perpetual dust, she found her solace in yoga, Skype and WhatsApp, keeping her sanity intact despite the lack of female sanitary products, raw food and kitchen apparati.

After many long months, escape from India was near, but the gods of postage transpired to prevent a graceful exit, by losing, keeping or withholding crucial Australian yoga wear packages.  Being Yoga, Bonds, and Rockwear are now on some terrorist watch list.  She didn’t exhale until the plane was out of Indian airspace and the DHL demons could be discarded.

The sub continent relegated to somewhere west, all was calm in Cambodia, until the iPhone thieves struck and life was thrown into chaos.  Like having one’s life support severed, the loss was devastating; not just the actual phone and personal violation, but the information, access and flow over effects of digital identity and security.  Rescued by the Boy’s old iPhone 4S – the horror of it – our heroine picked herself up and re-established her equilibrium ... well almost.

The time for heading west arrived, and in the absence of a returning visa, the goddess and the warrior were to part at Mumbai airport.  The check in at Ho Chi Minh Airport was confused and protracted.  The plight of the pilot who also was having problems checking in was of no comfort.  Ho Chi Minh to Bangkok, Bangkok to Mumbai and goodbye as they were pushed in opposite directions by terminal staff.  Welcome to India!

With no boarding pass to her final destination of Kathmandu, the goddess sat in the transit hall at the mercy of a dozen counter staff, who declared there were no seats on the plane – despite her luggage having been checked through.  Water was leaking through the roof of the new international airport.  It had showered her as she walked to the counter.  Attendants scurried with buckets and vacuum cleaners, while a stream could be heard rushing down the adjacent lift well, making it more of a well.  

In the middle of the night, in a multi story building, back in India of all places, she feared she’d become just another unidentified foreigner killed in the collapse of the poorly constructed terminal.

After an arbitrary period of time, purely at the whim of the counter staff, the missing boarding pass was produced with a flourish, in front of other unhappy travellers.  Obviously in a performance to demonstrate how fabulous Indian systems are – not!  The final escape beckoned and not even a 6 hour wait for a delayed flight was going to stop her.

Able to breathe again, she watched as the sun glanced off the Himalayas and Nepal greeted the morning.  But India had one last treat.  JetAirways had whimsically decided to offload her luggage, checked through from Ho Chi Minh City to Kathmandu, at Mumbai.  This meant the luggage would be on some undisclosed future flight.  Of course none of this was clear in the Kathmandu luggage belt crush, where on that same day every arriving flight was using just two of four belts, and as luggage failed to appear, anxious people continued to wait.  The log jam of people, unfortunately not luggage, was unable to be negotiated.  The line for the Lost Baggage counter was more like a snake with competing heads.

In tears, she gave up after five hours with no answers and little hope.  For the next two days, the newspapers reported and JetAirways confirmed ‘The Worst Day for Kathmandu Airport’.  One tonne of luggage on her flight alone had been left on the tarmac in Mumbai.  One the third day she was advised to return to the airport and her luggage would be there.  With trepidation and no security checks, she walked straight in the exit, located both her bags and walked out without question!  The tags indicated the luggage now had more passport stamps than she did.

Somewhat settled and booking a ticket home to Australia, the goddess perused the alternatives.  Kathmandu Mumbai Singapore Brisbane was the cheapest; JetAirways and India.  No thanks.  Silk Airways looks good.

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Cooking with Toot

Me:  'I've booked us in for a cooking class on New Year's Eve.'

The Boy:  Pretending not to hear as if that would make it not real.

The tuk tuk collected and deposited us at Nary's Kitchen in Battambang, that’s Cambodia, just before 4pm. A French Canadian couple were already there. Another couple, him a quiet Dutch man and she a reserved New Yorker arrived. We all sat studying our recipe books then it was off to the market with Toot!

That’s with Toot, not for toot; as if it were some bizarre Khmer ingredient.  Toot is the chef and while he is super friendly, knowledgeable and funny, as always the Boy’s ironic sense of humour is lost in translation.  The markets are a revelation through him.  The snake fish the most memorable.  Specimens leaping out of baskets in a last bid for freedom before being deftly sliced, diced and chopped by cleaver and scissor bearing assassins.  The thud of hitting the wet concrete footpath, gills clutching the air, slithering for survival, before being scooped back to death row.

But our snake fish had already been procured and awaited us back at the kitchen, fully prepped.  Our market visit purchases were not of the sentient type and included unique Asian ingredients: lemon grass, fresh pressed coconut milk, Thai mint and basil.  We also bought eggs, chicken not duck, which are always brown by the way.  Egg custard maybe?  No turned out it was just for a fried egg – as a side.  The ash encrusted century eggs - that are really only preserved for several weeks to months, for the yolks to attain a dark green to grey colour, with a creamy consistency and an odour of sulphur and ammonia, with the white becoming a salty, dark brown transparent jelly – were easy to leave behind.

Back at the kitchen we were allocated aprons.  The Boy got a strawberry one!  Maybe his irony wasn’t lost on Toot after all?  What followed was a super organised and very precise lesson.  It was really less about learning than it was about measured instructions, but I don’t really think anyone expected to be training as a cordon bleu chef that night.  In fact I struggle to recall what we cooked but I think the menu went: spring rolls, fish amok, marinated tofu in spicy sauce, fried egg, there must have been rice, and then banana custards.  Each pair of us cooked our own dishes - we were Team Banana Leaf when the fish amok went into the steamer.  And also when it was due to come out of the steamer, but Toot had not turned on the gas.  Planned or not, he busied us with the deep frying and the eating of the spring rolls.  The Boy was in his element.

Some more prepping and presentation, frying and dipping, then it was out into the restaurant for the eating and beer.  The restaurant is really just the small front section of Toot and Nary’s house, with maybe 6 tables and 28 seats; full house would be cosy.  Highly entertaining and tasty, as well as great value at $10 USD each, the whole event was over by 9.30pm, and remember it was New Year’s Eve.

Cast out to wander back to our hotel, we threaded our was through a kind of mardi gras carnival alongside the river with the aim of a bar for a drink – preferably champagne.  The neon light atop the hotel next door to ours beckoned with the promise of a rooftop ‘SkyBar’.  Stepping inside, we were hardly acknowledged by the already sleepy concierge and security officer.  Defaulting to charades, the Boy pointed up with one hand, while drinking from an imaginary glass with the other, and we did a counter clockwise lap of the foyer to arrive back near the door, at the external wall lift.

The Boy:  “This is ritzy.  Wonder how they clean the glass on the inside?”

The answer was soon apparent.  They didn’t.  A notice on the inside wall of the lift proudly announced the opening of the SkyBar from 1 December, open 6 til 11.30pm every night.  And remember it’s New Year’s Eve.

As the lift rose our expectations lowered, the rate of progress of the first slow enough for us to speculate on the state of the decor when we reached the top.  Our expectations, which had lowered at a greater rate, were duly met, when the doors opened to what appeared to be the bar storeroom, complete with cartons, old but operational drinks fridge, and a stack of dirty dishes on the counter.  There was a plant, but it may have been plastic.

For want of any signage, we chose left and startled the staff, who seemed genuinely surprised that a bar would attract patrons.  Remember it’s New Year’s Eve, and they can see the party going on across the river.  Did they have champagne?  Did they have a wine list?  Did they have snacks?  The common denominator here was, No.  Ever persistent, the Boy somehow ascertained they did have spirits.  Okay we can do this.

Me:  “Gin and tonic?”

Bartender:  “Yes!”

Me:  “Can I see the tonic?”  I’ve been caught before with sugar water drinks masquerading as plain or 100% juice.

Out to the drinks fridge and sure enough Schweppe’s Tonic Water; cold and in Cambodia.  The Boy settled on some other aperitif, I think the equivalent to either a 1970s sweet sherry or French Cinzano, actually Dubonnet!  The real bonus came when the drinks were delivered to our table, followed by a bowl of only slightly spicy masala nuts.  One or two drinks later and still well before closing time we were done and on our way.  Remember it’s New Year’s Eve.

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Throw another frog on the barbie

Watching repeats of Luke Nguyen’ Vietnam and Greater Mekong, in which he catches, cooks and eats everything from mice and bats to grubs, and even frogs caught in rice paddies, could never have prepared me for the frogs as food market experience in Cai Be on the Mekong Delta.  But first let’s go back a few weeks prior to event, to Don Konh one of the 4000 Islands in the southern Laos stretch of the Mekong.

As established, I knew that the further we travelled in South East Asia, the food was going to get scary.  Not having always been a vegetarian, and even now admitting to a penchant for grilled salmon with steamed spring vegetables and a beurre blanc sauce, accompanied by a glass of sauvignon blanc, I’m not too weird about meat, as long as I don’t have to eat it.  The Boy on the other hand is a bit of an enigma.  I present as evidence, his favourite T-shirt, ‘Meat is Murder:  Tasty Tasty Murder’.

On Don Konh there is lying in hammocks, walking and eating, all with the backdrop of river life, so I coerced the Boy from the verandah hammock we found ourselves tracing the path to the Khone Falls.  I can happily go from breakfast to dinner at full speed, without a thought for lunch, but this isn’t the case for him, especially when interesting local delicacies present.  After taking the obligatory photographs, water falls for him and yoga photos for me, we wandered back through the trinket sellers and restaurant shacks, stopping for a fresh green coconut.  A once a day must when they’re available.  Why don’t we have these in Australia?  We have coconuts palms?

Waiting for the young girl to lop the top off the coconuts, the Boy spots his quarry –skewers of frogs, ten to the stick, being barbecued over hot coals, unattended.  While I am oblivious and focus on my coconut, he loiters at the cooker and catches the frog lady’s attention.  A conversation followed regarding cost and the Laos up sell; Do you want roasted sweet potato with that?  He retreated to the coconut hut for contemplation.  Urged on by a assorted crowd of local men, all with interesting dental work, no doubt from many years of betel nut chewing, or maybe frog eating, the Boy made his final approach.

Some further discussion, skewer selection, exchange for money and he was ready to eat.  At this stage, I’ll point out that he fancies himself as a cross between a Buddhist monk and Andrew Zimmern, a TV Chef who hosts and eats his way through his own Weirdest Foods show.  This means all weird foods must be photographed and rated on a Likert Scale.  I prepared for the documenting but before I could even get the camera ready, he had the first one in his mouth.

“I can’t believe you didn’t even hesitate.  Just straight in.”

"Yeah.  I didn’t want to think about it ... just do it.”  As he went for another one.

“What do they taste like?  Chicken?”

“Sort of like a fishy beef jerky.”  By now he is half way through the - What do you call a group of frogs? – army of frogs.  Although these weren’t marching anywhere except very quickly to his stomach.

“That’s why I chose these smaller ones, because they were cooked to well done.  I knew if I got the juicier ones, I’d have trouble.”

For the rest of the day I had to endure a barrage of frog in my throat jokes.  The frogs didn’t seem to affect his delicate constitution, and they’d stayed down, if not forgotten.

*

Forward to the Cai Be markets, and we stepped off our river boat onto the wharf in the centre of nose to tail produce.  Stepping around buckets and baskets a testament to the mantra ‘If it moves eat it’; where was the vegetable aisle?  I spotted green leaves and struck off with single vision.  The Boy as always wandered off in his desire to “engage with the locals”, and when I turned to find him, he was standing aghast at a quivering pile of shiny flesh.  Live frogs, skinned and still hopping, at least they would have been if they weren’t tied a leg each, in clutches of five or six.  I didn’t check.  That was it for me.  The fish paste factory in Battambang had really been a challenge, but this was too much.

“Why do they skin them alive?”

“They weigh less to buy.”

No photographs please.

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