My Bali eats (don’t judge!)
Category Archives: Travel
Christmas in the Bukit
On Christmas Eve, I was sitting in the breeze of the Kirana eating my breakfast of croissants, chicken bruschetta sandwich, and yogurt, fruit, and granola. I’m not going to lie – it was extremely pleasant (and caloric). I was waffling (not food-wise but mentally) about whether I should hole up and be alone or spend Christmas with three other groups – Jay and the nomads, John and his Singapore/HK crew, or with Jake in the Bukit.
Ever since the summer, I have been wondering if I should see Jake again. I met him 5 years ago in Bali. He’s a surfer who’s been living between Bali, Hawaii, and CA for the past 20 years and a good friend, though things can certainly be strained and odd between us for whatever reason…probably many reasons. He invited me to come stay at his place for the duration of my stay in Bali. He’s always so warm and welcoming, but our worlds could not be more different. His friends seem to all have past criminal records, have served prison time, and do bong rips before surfing in the ocean. The only thing I really want right now is to be taken to a nice fine dining Italian dinner. We have our basic human kindness in common and care for each other deeply even though we seem to barely speak the same language. Continue reading Christmas in the Bukit
Back to Bali, Canggu
My worlds are converging in Bali. I was scootering by in the beach town of Canggu a few days ago, stupidly helmetless and wearing my colorful shortie jumpsuit frock when I hear my name being low-screeched from my left on the street. I slowed down and heard it again. I turn around to see my friend John from NYC cackling on the street.
Culture trekking in Sa Pa
About 300 km northwest of Hanoi is a town called Sa Pa, a lush and gorgeous area in the Hoàng Liên Son Mountains. Trekking from village to village visiting the hill tribes and crossing the terraced rice fields of the Muong Hoa Valley is the main attraction. Normally, it looks like this:
I happened to arrive at a moment when it was very cold and enshrouded in fog.
H 2 the H: Hanoi to Halong Bay
I hopped on a $40 Jetstar flight way up north to Hanoi (Ha Noi was basically a flood zone due to rain, so I decided to skip this much-loved destination). My friend Mark (aka “Marky Mark”) would meet me up there in a few days.
I didn’t see much of Hanoi. I stayed in the Old Quarter, and as my Uber traveled through the labyrinthine streets to my hotel, Essence Palace Hotel, I thought mostly about my fatigue. The hotel itself was lovely. The staff could not be friendlier. I explained that I wanted to book a Halong Bay cruise and get overnight train tickets to Sapa following my cruise, and it was all taken care of. I didn’t care about paying a premium for anything. I went to my room, turned on HBO, stared at the screen blankly. Then I proceeded to eat every item in the mini-bar. Pringles, Oreos, cashews, two bags of M&Ms, Ritz crackers. The list goes on. I was going on tilt. And then I crashed and slept. It felt so good to not do anything. Continue reading H 2 the H: Hanoi to Halong Bay
Saigon, day 3 – wiped!
The day was spent grazing, gymming, and then at a startup event.
Some eats (minus the massive amounts of summer rolls from street vendors):
I ended the day in a co-working space, at an event hosted by 500 Startups and the Canadian government. The panel discussion was interesting, but it left me wondering about how this startup scene was going to be fueled in Vietnam and what it would actually end up looking like. The chit chat networking session after the event made me realize I need to craft a better story about what I’m doing with my life. Explaining that I’m a nomad without an agenda doesn’t really go over very well. Blank stares. I could see the thought bubble over peoples’ heads, “Oh, you’re not important…or are you? I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Silence. “Excuse me. I’m going to have a beer.” Dismissed.
Cu chi tour
My second day is Saigon was spent mostly out of Saigon. We embarked early in the morning on a motorcycle tour with the tour company OneTrip. It was a well-curated day led by our student guides. One of them, Long, had just finished a year of Survivor style (well, maybe a bit less dramatic and more manageable) trekking around Vietnam.
The day began whizzing around the streets of Saigon with the rain drizzling on us. Surprisingly, it was not as bothersome as I would have thought. It was a Sunday, and I was grateful that traffic was more muted than it would have been on a weekday.
We stopped for a misty breakfast. Our guides pulled out Vietnamese bahn mi sandwiches, giving us the option to have pork or egg. We opted for pork (ah, the vegan life was temporarily over). First, we were served a shot of iced green tea, as is customary. We watched our Vietnamese coffees drip into their vessels, and I drank mine black as the rest dumped some milkiness into the fresh brew.
Continue reading Cu chi tour
Oh my Saigon! Day one
Ho Chi Minh City, more familiarly known as Saigon, is the crazy bustling commercial capital of Vietnam. Crossing the street is a leap of faith. Little street eateries dot the streets with people cooking next to tiny tables and stools for their patrons. It is a loud, dirty, crazy, and active city. A bit of a shock to the system after weeks of island life and retreats. The first thing that happened to me was getting ripped off, but happily, things improved from there.
Crossing the border
The hardest thing about being a nomad without a real end date is figuring out where you’re going next, if anywhere at all. I’ve spent a fair amount of time at this point sitting around the morning I need to check out of a place looking at flight and bus itineraries as well as other hotel and AirBNB options close by.
So…no, life isn’t hard at all. But there is certainly some stability to having structure. On days when I haven’t slept and I’m on the go, I can spend a good 5 hours or more just contemplating the question of what to do next.
As my time in Cambodia was winding down, I decided to go across the border to Vietnam. I remember being in high school and looking at the brochure for a summer exchange program, and that’s when Vietnam first captured my imagination. The Mekong Delta, the treks. Later on in college when one of my great known joys was to order the mountainous appetizer platter from Saigon Grill and go to town on some Bun Xao noodles and a mild stir-fried chicken curry, the food component entered the equation. After college, I met a social scientist and researcher who spent a lot of time working in Vietnam, and all he could do was rave about the culture, the scenery, and the food. It was cemented. Earlier this summer, I found myself booking, canceling, and rebooking flight itineraries to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Continue reading Crossing the border
Haunting Phnom Penh
If you want to be crushed and reminded of how much humanity and humans suck, go to Phnom Penh. The capital city itself is wild and crazy, a sort of older and crustier Bangkok on steroids. There are imaginary mental lines of driving lanes that people and animals seem tacitly to agree on. The amount of dust floating overhead from the dirt and pollution piling up cannot possibly be healthy. Every once in a while, you can glimpse a Starbucks or some chain that made my heart pitter-patter and momentarily think, “The city! The mothership! A language I can understand (i.e., American hegemony and all the wonderful cookie-cutter corporate commercial food and beverage predictability that entails). Somehow I managed to avoid McDonalds.
There is an omnipresent juxtaposition between modern-day Phnom Penh and its tragic history. Continue reading Haunting Phnom Penh
Sihanoukville, Cambodia
Sihanoukville is a province in southeastern Cambodia, named in 1964 after the ruling prince of Cambodia. As far as Cambodian destinations and attractions go, it is a bit far from Siem Reap (accessible by night bus or flight) and Phnom Penh. Unless you are really dying to go to the beach, I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to return to this area unless I was stitching together a southern itinerary to visit Kampot and the islands.
During my week in Sihanoukville, I witnessed a ton of construction. Megaroads were built where there had just been dirt roads. Tons of signage in Chinese and Korean were indicators of where the investment was coming from. In a few years time, what was once a sleepy little hamlet will be a (very modest) Vegas, a cluster of mid-range casinos catering to Chinese clientele.
Snapshots Walking
Driving in rural Cambodia
Nomad blues
The other day, I was sitting in a shed of sorts playing the guitar and learning the blues. It seems to have carried over through the days. This morning, I woke up at 3am, wide awake. I laid in semi-consciousness as day started to break. Then I found myself on my yoga mat at 7am feeling a bit blue and displaced. Of course these moments are expected, and I’m lucky not to have them too frequently anymore. They have been there all along.
There I was horizontal on my yoga mat. A block was propped underneath my spine. My chest and arms were sprawled out. My mind was almost empty. And then there were flickers of thought. I won’t get into the vagaries of my mind and what Ekhart Tolle would call the “pain-body.”
I contemplated the dirt all around me. I think there is sand sticking to every part of my body. Do I have bed bugs or are these all mosquito bites? I’ve never seen my hair this matted against my face. My body has had enough carbs to last a lifetime. I haven’t eaten meat in at least a week but basically now for almost 6 weeks. I gave up coffee about a month ago. I don’t drink alcohol anymore. I am tired of saying hello and goodbye to people. Who is this person? And why is she so sanitized and so unproductive? Continue reading Nomad blues
Hippie commune Vagabond Temple
The prop plane fluttered upward, and I was on to my second stop in Cambodia, Sihanoukville. I had booked a 7-night retreat at a place called Vagabond Temple. I didn’t know quite what to expect, but the schedule of yoga and meditation appealed to me as a way to deepen my program of spiritual nothingness and going to zero.
The delayering was continuing as I decided to take a pause on some of my consulting projects. My mind was racing from the emptiness and just trying to grasp at something tangible. I settled on eating a cookies and cream ice cream cup at the airport. And then a mango ice cream cup. And then a panini.
Arriving at “The Temple”
The plane landed in Sihanoukville, and my tuk-tuk driver was waiting for me. We embarked on our 45-minute journey to “The Temple” as it would be referred to. We arrived at a rusty blue gate in darkness. My luggage and I shuffled in to a haven of voices, candles, and dinnertime chatter. It was basically pitch black. Wow, this is some seriously spiritual shit, I thought to myself. Eating in the dark! It reminded me very much of coop living at Brown University, where I used to visit my friend Eliza during my college days. It turned out to be a power outage. K, that made more sense… Continue reading Hippie commune Vagabond Temple
48 hours in Siem Reap
Siem Reap is a real and yet constructed kind of a city. I mean that both in the best of ways. The Cambodian history is rich and ever-present, from the temples of Angkor Wat to village life and the killing fields that lurk in the background. I arrived on a brisk night, the wind whipping into the tuk-tuk. I was exhilarated seeing the new Siem Reap built up around us while the low-key craziness and hub-bub of southeast Asian city life encircled it all at low levels on the street. I loved it all.
Continue reading 48 hours in Siem Reap