After spending so much time in the tailor shop, I am thinking what did we see of Hoi An: half a day at the Cua Dai beach, not very crowded, and with many terraces and restaurants with fresh, swimming seafood. The beach was beautiful, with white fine sand, and there were still some round fishermen's boats, with red flags for some reason, ideological or otherwise. A man was putting tar on an upturned boat, and it seemed to be made of wickerwork.
The lantern festival of the Full Moon. The main streets of the old town were lined and covered with colourful lanterns every night, and next time (hopefully) I should go and photograph them at sunset when the photos come out better than night-time ones. The tailor gave us two lanterns as presents to remember Hoi An, dark pink and light blue.
The river front and the market. The Japanese Bridge at night. The Chinese temple, with beautiful dwarf gnarled trees in blue ceramic pots outside, and yellow-robed monks inside, burning incense sticks, and goggle-eyed gods or heroes maid of brightly painted wood.
The food was also lovely. Crispy ban xeo pancake, with pork, prawns and bean sprouts, rolled in rice paper with herbs and salad; banana pancakes; cao lau noodles; "white rose" open dim sum; banana leaf parcels, grilled, filled with meat and herbs, especially chives; wonton soup; pho for early lunch but really their breakfast food - we had this even at the airport in Da Nang.
We ate in tourist-aimed restaurants, but the locals eat at tiny side-road low tables and stools, served from a stall. I suggeted that to Jay, but he said he didn't want dysintery.
The fruit seller was a highlight. She had a conical hat and a libra-style balancing load on the shoulder. I took a photo of her and she gave me her load to carry and her hat to wear. The stick was made of wood and the load really heavy. Of course, I found out later that they all do that, but it's still a fun memory.
Wednesday 14 March 2012
Friday 2 March 2012
2012 Vietnam - Hoi An Tailors
Yesterday was a stressful day at the tailor shop. We got there about 2pm, after a long mid-morning nap. I must have been tired after the flight. It was a bit hot and they didn;t have the materials I wanted and kept saying they don't exist even in the other shops. I was expecting them to take me to a warehouse.
Then I got hungry and we went to the riverside cafe, Friendshio Cafe or Huu Nghi. We had the local speciality, cao lao noodls, and grilled banana leaf parcel of pork with aromatic herbs. This was such a good choice that we returned today for dinner. Right now Jay is watching football over my shoulder while I watch a group of Vietnamese men singing vietnamese music under colourful silk lanterns behind the yellow chrisanthemums of the restaurant. One of them has a guitar and another some sort of small guitar like an ukulele. It's mellow, their song, the song of a warm mellow night. I tune out the motorbikes that pass us by. A girl is getting off a motorbike and is changing intoo high heels, helmet still on.
So yesterday after lunch, as Jay had another well-deserved beer, I went for a stroll on the river-front. I walked into a tailor shop and asked about a suit of pink wool. They had no pink wool there, but the woman called up another few women, and one of them took me to the cloth market. Very close, she said. So we walked, past souvenir sellers, laquer sellers, T-shirts with brand logos, fruit sellers, noodle sellers, fresh curled up noodles in various sizes and colours, pungent fish, fresh aromatic herbs, mint, basil, lemongrass, chives. We finally turned two more alleys, increasingly narrow, and I was starting to worry about Jay waiting for me while I get kidnapped by an old Vietnamese woman with a har that isn't even conical. So we got to the cloth market. A cackle of women gathered around talking Vietnamese. It felt very strange. At last one emerged that could speak English, and she produced a couple of materials I was happy with.
Later we went back to the tailor shop, and the owner, a lady around 40-50, was there. Things got easier as she was more helpful and probably more persuasive. I ordered a few things and chose some materials. Then she sent me with another shop-girl in a taxi to cloth-shops, and we saw about six, cris-crossing a busy street with noisy motorbikes. We did eventually find one good colour.
Airplane to Hanoi, day 11.
Finally leaving Hoi An, after a couple of very tough days. I thought making clothes was fun, but man, my back is killing me after two days of standing up trying on clothes and debating over wrinklles and stitches. I hope I have made the right choice of colours, cloths and styles. Too late to change anything now anyway.
She had four tailors working on my clothes. A man making the trousers. An older woman with a group of young girls or women, shall we say. This one kept getting a bit irritated every time I pointed to the wrinkles, bumps and imperfections. But she was the one who seemed to know the solution to all the hard wrinkles that the others were debating for 10-15 min per wrinkle while I was standing up modelling. Then there was the big house with a large flat-screen TV in the living room where four tailor women were working on the porch. We wento this one on the motorbike.
I feel sorry I didn't visit the historic merchants house in Hoi An, but I got the experience of riding the motorbike behind the very diligent shop girl who took me to the tailors. Her body was so slim and minute it felt like holding on to a bamboo reed.
She did irritate me. She kept saying every time how perfect the clothes were, and how they were going to be smoothed out by ironing. "Jus iron!" I did manage to keep calm and speak slowly all the time, and after insisting a few times she would explain my complaint to the tailors, who never argued. They knew my complaints had a basis every time, and corrected it. Of course, it took a long time.
Yesterday night we left the tailor shop at 11, their whole house dark and asleep, and this morning we had more fittings from 8.30 until 11.30 when we got the taxi to the airport. I had hoped to get at least one hours' break to visit Hoi An in day-time, but what with all the adjustments, it was just not possible.
I have to say I do like the new clothes, they fit really well in all the places where shop-bought clothes don't.
Then I got hungry and we went to the riverside cafe, Friendshio Cafe or Huu Nghi. We had the local speciality, cao lao noodls, and grilled banana leaf parcel of pork with aromatic herbs. This was such a good choice that we returned today for dinner. Right now Jay is watching football over my shoulder while I watch a group of Vietnamese men singing vietnamese music under colourful silk lanterns behind the yellow chrisanthemums of the restaurant. One of them has a guitar and another some sort of small guitar like an ukulele. It's mellow, their song, the song of a warm mellow night. I tune out the motorbikes that pass us by. A girl is getting off a motorbike and is changing intoo high heels, helmet still on.
So yesterday after lunch, as Jay had another well-deserved beer, I went for a stroll on the river-front. I walked into a tailor shop and asked about a suit of pink wool. They had no pink wool there, but the woman called up another few women, and one of them took me to the cloth market. Very close, she said. So we walked, past souvenir sellers, laquer sellers, T-shirts with brand logos, fruit sellers, noodle sellers, fresh curled up noodles in various sizes and colours, pungent fish, fresh aromatic herbs, mint, basil, lemongrass, chives. We finally turned two more alleys, increasingly narrow, and I was starting to worry about Jay waiting for me while I get kidnapped by an old Vietnamese woman with a har that isn't even conical. So we got to the cloth market. A cackle of women gathered around talking Vietnamese. It felt very strange. At last one emerged that could speak English, and she produced a couple of materials I was happy with.
Later we went back to the tailor shop, and the owner, a lady around 40-50, was there. Things got easier as she was more helpful and probably more persuasive. I ordered a few things and chose some materials. Then she sent me with another shop-girl in a taxi to cloth-shops, and we saw about six, cris-crossing a busy street with noisy motorbikes. We did eventually find one good colour.
Airplane to Hanoi, day 11.
Finally leaving Hoi An, after a couple of very tough days. I thought making clothes was fun, but man, my back is killing me after two days of standing up trying on clothes and debating over wrinklles and stitches. I hope I have made the right choice of colours, cloths and styles. Too late to change anything now anyway.
She had four tailors working on my clothes. A man making the trousers. An older woman with a group of young girls or women, shall we say. This one kept getting a bit irritated every time I pointed to the wrinkles, bumps and imperfections. But she was the one who seemed to know the solution to all the hard wrinkles that the others were debating for 10-15 min per wrinkle while I was standing up modelling. Then there was the big house with a large flat-screen TV in the living room where four tailor women were working on the porch. We wento this one on the motorbike.
I feel sorry I didn't visit the historic merchants house in Hoi An, but I got the experience of riding the motorbike behind the very diligent shop girl who took me to the tailors. Her body was so slim and minute it felt like holding on to a bamboo reed.
She did irritate me. She kept saying every time how perfect the clothes were, and how they were going to be smoothed out by ironing. "Jus iron!" I did manage to keep calm and speak slowly all the time, and after insisting a few times she would explain my complaint to the tailors, who never argued. They knew my complaints had a basis every time, and corrected it. Of course, it took a long time.
Yesterday night we left the tailor shop at 11, their whole house dark and asleep, and this morning we had more fittings from 8.30 until 11.30 when we got the taxi to the airport. I had hoped to get at least one hours' break to visit Hoi An in day-time, but what with all the adjustments, it was just not possible.
I have to say I do like the new clothes, they fit really well in all the places where shop-bought clothes don't.
Thursday 1 March 2012
2012 Cambodia - Siem Reap, Floating Village
After lunch on our last day we went to see the floating village that all our tuk-tuk drivers tried hard to sell to us. We bargained for the ticket, from $25 to $20. This reminds me of a friend saying in Africa you can even bargain for an airplane ticket.
The floating village is a dump and a rip-off. I will discourage people to go. Unless you're into slum visits and you enjoy feeling rich when you see poor people. We didn't ask to go there but the driver took us there anyway, then we got to the check-point and I said I just wanted to see it and not take the boat. This was not possbile. The driver persuaded us to pay then, because we said we'll come back at sunset. What sold it for me was that they said you would also see a mangrove forest.
We took an old rickety wooden boat, just for the two of us, despite the fact it had many seats. The boat driver didn't speak English. We passed the Gendarmerie, a newly refurbished house on tall stilts, and the same for the house of the Cambodian People Party. We then drove slowly into the village. A jumble of rather large shaks on wooden stilts, tall and dark as the sun was behind them. Made of corrugated iron planks and maybe some sort of dry bark or leaves, I'm not sure. There were platforms downstairs close to the water with firewood. There were also floating patforms with pigs inside.
The boat took us to a floating restaurant and a young woman came out and spoke to us in English. She said we had to pay $4 more to change into a smaller boat to go into the mangrove forest because our boat was too big. Nobody had told us that in advance so I said I', not happy about that because I already paid in advance. The woman kept saying "It's up to you". I will write a a review about this on the net, I said. They didn't seem to care.
We then drove through the mangrove forest, just on the main channel, which was beautiful. I felt relieved because I had felt afraid in the village with my big camera just the two of us on the boat. The forest was a short stretch and then we got to the open waters of the lake. We still had 1h to go of our 2h boat ride, the sun was up and had another hour to sunset, and our boat was wobbling quite dramatically. The water was muddy ochre, there was nothing on the horison but water and some submerged trees. Jay was the first to complain about the sea-sick movement of the boat. After another few waves I had had enough and asked to go back.
On the way back the village had come to life: children were going up and down the tall stairs to the houses, mothers were paddling the poats around, a girl was throwing water from the river onto the pigs in a floating cage, a mother was doing the same with her toddler. The woman from the restaurant was washing the dishes in the river.
The floating village is a dump and a rip-off. I will discourage people to go. Unless you're into slum visits and you enjoy feeling rich when you see poor people. We didn't ask to go there but the driver took us there anyway, then we got to the check-point and I said I just wanted to see it and not take the boat. This was not possbile. The driver persuaded us to pay then, because we said we'll come back at sunset. What sold it for me was that they said you would also see a mangrove forest.
We took an old rickety wooden boat, just for the two of us, despite the fact it had many seats. The boat driver didn't speak English. We passed the Gendarmerie, a newly refurbished house on tall stilts, and the same for the house of the Cambodian People Party. We then drove slowly into the village. A jumble of rather large shaks on wooden stilts, tall and dark as the sun was behind them. Made of corrugated iron planks and maybe some sort of dry bark or leaves, I'm not sure. There were platforms downstairs close to the water with firewood. There were also floating patforms with pigs inside.
The boat took us to a floating restaurant and a young woman came out and spoke to us in English. She said we had to pay $4 more to change into a smaller boat to go into the mangrove forest because our boat was too big. Nobody had told us that in advance so I said I', not happy about that because I already paid in advance. The woman kept saying "It's up to you". I will write a a review about this on the net, I said. They didn't seem to care.
We then drove through the mangrove forest, just on the main channel, which was beautiful. I felt relieved because I had felt afraid in the village with my big camera just the two of us on the boat. The forest was a short stretch and then we got to the open waters of the lake. We still had 1h to go of our 2h boat ride, the sun was up and had another hour to sunset, and our boat was wobbling quite dramatically. The water was muddy ochre, there was nothing on the horison but water and some submerged trees. Jay was the first to complain about the sea-sick movement of the boat. After another few waves I had had enough and asked to go back.
On the way back the village had come to life: children were going up and down the tall stairs to the houses, mothers were paddling the poats around, a girl was throwing water from the river onto the pigs in a floating cage, a mother was doing the same with her toddler. The woman from the restaurant was washing the dishes in the river.
2012 Cambodia - Siem Reap, Kbal Spean Waterfalls & Banteai Srei, "Temple of Women"
The waterfall at Kbal Spean was a highlight of this trip. We hiked through a rocky path in the jungle among many different trees, carefully labeled in English, Latin and the deocrative Cambodian script. It was a hike of 1800m, signposted with the distance to destination every 200m. There were carvings of gods in the bedrocks, reclining Buddhas, and lingas, the symbols of sexual organs and also of power. So beautiful, nature, religion and art together.
The temple of Banteai Srei is nearby, the only Hindu temple, the "Temple of Women". I didn't see that many women there. The guide told us that there used to be a matriarchy in the 11C AD, but they still had a king and "the wife was very important". He then proceeded to tell us stories of male gods killing demons and each other. He couldn't really elaborate on the subject. Very delicate, small and intricate carvings in pink sandstone.
Yesterday we woke up at 4.30 to go to the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Not that colourful today. There were many reliefs of Apsara dancers, very beautiful, their breasts shiny from so many tourists' hands. This level of delicate detail in carving reminds me of Alhambra. The entrances have statues of guarding lions, sinuous and almost sensual.
Today we went to see the sunrise again, it feels easy to wake up at 4 when you have a good afternoon nap for a couple of hours.
We then went to see the temples in Roluos, where there were adjacent buddhist temples with orange-robed monks, some of them as young as 7. Loley was one of them, Bakong another. Loley is smaller but you can wander around and see how the monks live. There were fish, fish heads and rice lied out to dry in the sun, flies buzzing around and calfs running past to the field, the tourist toilet at 10m. At Bakong it's a tall, terraced temple and the monks are on the side, I photographed one chatting to a pretty young tourist girl. Spiritual chat I'm sure.
The temple of Banteai Srei is nearby, the only Hindu temple, the "Temple of Women". I didn't see that many women there. The guide told us that there used to be a matriarchy in the 11C AD, but they still had a king and "the wife was very important". He then proceeded to tell us stories of male gods killing demons and each other. He couldn't really elaborate on the subject. Very delicate, small and intricate carvings in pink sandstone.
Yesterday we woke up at 4.30 to go to the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Not that colourful today. There were many reliefs of Apsara dancers, very beautiful, their breasts shiny from so many tourists' hands. This level of delicate detail in carving reminds me of Alhambra. The entrances have statues of guarding lions, sinuous and almost sensual.
Today we went to see the sunrise again, it feels easy to wake up at 4 when you have a good afternoon nap for a couple of hours.
We then went to see the temples in Roluos, where there were adjacent buddhist temples with orange-robed monks, some of them as young as 7. Loley was one of them, Bakong another. Loley is smaller but you can wander around and see how the monks live. There were fish, fish heads and rice lied out to dry in the sun, flies buzzing around and calfs running past to the field, the tourist toilet at 10m. At Bakong it's a tall, terraced temple and the monks are on the side, I photographed one chatting to a pretty young tourist girl. Spiritual chat I'm sure.
Thursday 23 February 2012
2012 Vietnam - Cu Chi Tunnels, Ho Chi Minh City
We hired a car and a guide ($106 for 2 people) from the hotel travel agent. the whole visit took about 4.5h, from 1pm to 5.30 with a stop at a laquer workshop.
The drive takes us through a forested suburb of Saigon, with houses that have wide doors, more than half of the facade, which they keep open and live and play in front of them and inside. There were brown cows with down-turned horns and school children in white shirts and red Communist ties riding bycicles among rubber tree plantations, where the trees all lined up and tilted in the same direction.
The tunnels. The Vietnamese resisted the Americans by retreating in underground tunnels. The Americans were vicious, and apart from your normal bombs (!) they used chemical weapons. The tunnels went down three layers. First layer - bunkers, meeting rooms. This was 3m below ground. Next layer - kitchens and anti-bomb rooms, pyramid-shaped, for old people, women and children. Ventilation was ingenious, through bamboo sticks that went up to the surface from every level. Cooking was done at night and early mornings, and the smoke channelled out elsewhere, away from the kitchen. They wore black clothes and rubber sandals whole soles pointed backwards to confuse the enemy.
They had booby-traps, primitive but vicious. Pins made from exploded bomb shards, stuck to windows, rotating logs, all designed to trap and pierce the Americans, which cobra poison on the tips.
We went inside the tunnels. We had the option to go 20, 50 or 100m, and we came out after 20m. Lame. They were very low, even though they were enlarged especially for Western tourists, even I had to go on all fours. Yes, we had a picture taken. And another at the entrance to the tunnels, small square holes only big enough to fit a slim body (or a petite Vietnamese person), with a lid camouflaged with leaves, that you would lift with both hands above your head as you went in. My knees were sore very quickly after entering the tunnel, and the scenery of Jay's behind in a tunnel, however appealing, got repetitive after a while.
The drive takes us through a forested suburb of Saigon, with houses that have wide doors, more than half of the facade, which they keep open and live and play in front of them and inside. There were brown cows with down-turned horns and school children in white shirts and red Communist ties riding bycicles among rubber tree plantations, where the trees all lined up and tilted in the same direction.
The tunnels. The Vietnamese resisted the Americans by retreating in underground tunnels. The Americans were vicious, and apart from your normal bombs (!) they used chemical weapons. The tunnels went down three layers. First layer - bunkers, meeting rooms. This was 3m below ground. Next layer - kitchens and anti-bomb rooms, pyramid-shaped, for old people, women and children. Ventilation was ingenious, through bamboo sticks that went up to the surface from every level. Cooking was done at night and early mornings, and the smoke channelled out elsewhere, away from the kitchen. They wore black clothes and rubber sandals whole soles pointed backwards to confuse the enemy.
They had booby-traps, primitive but vicious. Pins made from exploded bomb shards, stuck to windows, rotating logs, all designed to trap and pierce the Americans, which cobra poison on the tips.
We went inside the tunnels. We had the option to go 20, 50 or 100m, and we came out after 20m. Lame. They were very low, even though they were enlarged especially for Western tourists, even I had to go on all fours. Yes, we had a picture taken. And another at the entrance to the tunnels, small square holes only big enough to fit a slim body (or a petite Vietnamese person), with a lid camouflaged with leaves, that you would lift with both hands above your head as you went in. My knees were sore very quickly after entering the tunnel, and the scenery of Jay's behind in a tunnel, however appealing, got repetitive after a while.
2012 Cambodia - Siem Reap
Siem Reap, day 3
We are having dinner in the Khmer Kitchen on Pub Street in Siem Reap. It's very touristy, but at least the food and crafts on sale in the market are mostly Cambodian. We had lunch at Chivit Thai restaurant and Jay would be happy to go there for Tom Yum soup every day. We overate, at $3 a dish and $1.5 for fresh guava and watermelon juice it was hard not to.
There is so much pleasure to be had. The air is sweet and warm, breezy in the evenings and bearable, if a bit sleepy, mid-day. I feel so at peace. Even the traffic seems to be at peace. You have to cross like the Holy Cow, slowsly but moving along like you don't care, and motorbikes will just weave around you gently. Evebn the haggling at the market is gentle.
Their faces are so beautiful. Wide set almond shaped eyes, high cheekbones, thick black slanted eyebrows. I even took a photo with a woman in the market, she was so beautiful. I'll probably also go buy from her altough ugly sellers also deserve a chance to live, right?!
I had a foot massage at the Baray Spa at the back of the Angkor Night market for $3 (60 min). Jay lay next to me and had cocktails (at $3, $10 for drinks for both). A perfect moment, drinking watermelon juice, having foot masage, looking at the colourful silk stalls, and listening to "Camisa Negra" with candles in the night.
A book seller has just been chatting to Jay here at the restaurant.
"I'm not a fast reader". (Jay)
"You know why you don't read fast? Because you don't have this book!"
Siem Reap, Day 4
I am sitting down on a warm lava-rock at Pre-Rup temple. We had a long day, waking up at 5.30 because I couldn't sleep anymore, so I read on the iPad about where to go to see Apsara dancers sculptures. So I came across a blog about waterfalls near the Banteai Srei temple, where there are lingas carved in the bedrock, as well as gods.
So this morning we had breakfast with noodles and fresh fruit on the lovely terrace of the hotel. The tuk-tuk driver and the guide picked us up - $25 each for the day, $7 extra to go to the waterfall.
We drove with the morning breeze in our hair through the beautiful countryside. There were houses on stilts, mostly made of wood, with people working or playing underneath. There were chicken running around, long-necked tall chicken that looked like a stretched-out version of their European counterpart.
A little girl came to sell us toys at the petrol station. I tried to chat to her. She said she was 9 years old and goes to school, has no brothers or sisters and lives with her grandparents. Every time she didn't know a word she would take a step back. The guide helped her.
There were shrines on sale and the guide told us the people still have an animist religion, they worship their ancestors. So in China and Vietnam they sacrifice fruit on the family shrine and keep it there for 3 days. In Cambodia the shrine is at the gate, in front of the house, and they keep the fruit there for 15 min, then they eat it. This is every month at full moon, as they use the lunar calendar.
The rice fields, those that are not dry, are incredible. They shine with a fresh, bright green, and the soil is red like bricks. The cows are thin, the buffaloes plumps and muddy black.
Siem Reap, day 5.
We are in a restaurant on Pub Street. An older lady (about 50) who takes our order has a long white hair hanging from her chin, 5 cm long. Lizards, small and almost translucent, run wiggling on the ceiling, chasing each other. A cat is prowling among the legs of the customers at our restaurant, then crosses the road to the restaurant next door - across the path, finds two rubbish sack and has a shit next to them. Then sits nearby, satisfied. My beer has a fishy after-taste.
I had a full body massage for $4 in the market spa, Baray. The masseuse spent a long time massaging my legs in various positions and stretches, using her arms and sometimes her feet. Then she ran out of time for the back.
We are having dinner in the Khmer Kitchen on Pub Street in Siem Reap. It's very touristy, but at least the food and crafts on sale in the market are mostly Cambodian. We had lunch at Chivit Thai restaurant and Jay would be happy to go there for Tom Yum soup every day. We overate, at $3 a dish and $1.5 for fresh guava and watermelon juice it was hard not to.
There is so much pleasure to be had. The air is sweet and warm, breezy in the evenings and bearable, if a bit sleepy, mid-day. I feel so at peace. Even the traffic seems to be at peace. You have to cross like the Holy Cow, slowsly but moving along like you don't care, and motorbikes will just weave around you gently. Evebn the haggling at the market is gentle.
Their faces are so beautiful. Wide set almond shaped eyes, high cheekbones, thick black slanted eyebrows. I even took a photo with a woman in the market, she was so beautiful. I'll probably also go buy from her altough ugly sellers also deserve a chance to live, right?!
I had a foot massage at the Baray Spa at the back of the Angkor Night market for $3 (60 min). Jay lay next to me and had cocktails (at $3, $10 for drinks for both). A perfect moment, drinking watermelon juice, having foot masage, looking at the colourful silk stalls, and listening to "Camisa Negra" with candles in the night.
A book seller has just been chatting to Jay here at the restaurant.
"I'm not a fast reader". (Jay)
"You know why you don't read fast? Because you don't have this book!"
Siem Reap, Day 4
I am sitting down on a warm lava-rock at Pre-Rup temple. We had a long day, waking up at 5.30 because I couldn't sleep anymore, so I read on the iPad about where to go to see Apsara dancers sculptures. So I came across a blog about waterfalls near the Banteai Srei temple, where there are lingas carved in the bedrock, as well as gods.
So this morning we had breakfast with noodles and fresh fruit on the lovely terrace of the hotel. The tuk-tuk driver and the guide picked us up - $25 each for the day, $7 extra to go to the waterfall.
We drove with the morning breeze in our hair through the beautiful countryside. There were houses on stilts, mostly made of wood, with people working or playing underneath. There were chicken running around, long-necked tall chicken that looked like a stretched-out version of their European counterpart.
A little girl came to sell us toys at the petrol station. I tried to chat to her. She said she was 9 years old and goes to school, has no brothers or sisters and lives with her grandparents. Every time she didn't know a word she would take a step back. The guide helped her.
There were shrines on sale and the guide told us the people still have an animist religion, they worship their ancestors. So in China and Vietnam they sacrifice fruit on the family shrine and keep it there for 3 days. In Cambodia the shrine is at the gate, in front of the house, and they keep the fruit there for 15 min, then they eat it. This is every month at full moon, as they use the lunar calendar.
The rice fields, those that are not dry, are incredible. They shine with a fresh, bright green, and the soil is red like bricks. The cows are thin, the buffaloes plumps and muddy black.
Siem Reap, day 5.
We are in a restaurant on Pub Street. An older lady (about 50) who takes our order has a long white hair hanging from her chin, 5 cm long. Lizards, small and almost translucent, run wiggling on the ceiling, chasing each other. A cat is prowling among the legs of the customers at our restaurant, then crosses the road to the restaurant next door - across the path, finds two rubbish sack and has a shit next to them. Then sits nearby, satisfied. My beer has a fishy after-taste.
I had a full body massage for $4 in the market spa, Baray. The masseuse spent a long time massaging my legs in various positions and stretches, using her arms and sometimes her feet. Then she ran out of time for the back.
Friday 17 February 2012
2012 Vietnam - Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City
Saigon, Day 1
We justy landed this morning at 7.30 after a 12h flight in which I didn't sleep much and Jay not at all. The time difference is 7h. The hotel room is not ready until 2pm so we came out for a walk.
The first impression at the airport is that it's lovely. The air is warm and moist and smells of strange sweet flowers. It must be pink flowers, these were in the hedges at the airports.
The first photo I wanted to take was the tree of yellow flowers, decorated for the Chinese / Lunar New Year at the entrance of many buildings. Or pots of little yellow chrisanthemums.
The second was the piles of little red spiky rambutan fruit. And then the fuchsia pink and green scales of the dragon fruit. Outside Benh Tranh Market there were fruit sellers with neat piles of strange fruit, and Jay told me their names: jackfruit, guava, custard apple.
We then went inside the market. Fresh shellfish, crabs stacked like library cards, scallops, snails, prawns moving around, a large fish still moving being peeled with a large knife by a no-nonsense woman, another fish being washed by a large splash of water from a plastic bowl by a swarthy woman sitting open-legged.
Hairclips with crystal colours, silk handbags, cotton pyjamas for petite women. I bargained for a pair of sunglasses, got them at 90k or £3, 2/3 of our taxi ride. I'm sure the man was not losing money as he said. Laquers, carved and painted shoe soles made of wood, smelly pickled fish, prawns and fish paste. A cobra with a scorpio in its mouth in a bottle of yellow something, and Jay looking very tired in the picture.
We then went to a clean looking restaurant, Pho 24, to have the breakfast that the market traders were having delivered to their stalls: pho, aromatic noodle soup with fresh herbs. Light, refreshing, satisfying. And a fresh ice-cold coconut, with a straw to drink and a spoon to eat the flesh. The best drink I ever had - except perhaps for watermelon juice.
I talked to a woman on the plane. She was from England, coming to Vietnam on holiday. But then she told me more. She was half American, half Vietnamese, her father was American and she had Vietnamese brothers that she didn't know very well. Because she was adopted. She had been adopted by an English family and it was the best thing that could have happened to her. So the history is real and I met someone who was a cirect product of it. Strange how remote and unreal does history seem when you haven't yet met someone like this.
The conical hats are also real. An the street hawkers carrying two balancing loads on a stick across the shoulders. People wear the conical hats on the street, to go shopping, or riding about their business on bicycles or motorbikes. It isn't just a postcard, they really do. It's not like the wrinkled criollas in Havana, wearing flowers in their turbans and cigars in their mouths just for photos for tourists.
Talking about Havana, I was thinking of it when landing. Saigon looks much cleaner from the airplane, and so far from the street as well. Not many derelict, grey buildings here. For me, it's a sign of prosperity. this communism with a market economy seems to be doing something. Let's see.
I am so tired. I really need to sleep. Jay has gone to the War Remnants Museum, reluctantly as he is also tired. I refused to see it, despite the hype. There is something indecent about exposing the horrors of war and wanting to see them. What good does it do, seeing all that violence and cruelty that man is capable of? Does it prevent it in another place? Does it really? Do people have a choice, when they are sent to fight? Under authority they commit more violence. Violence porn.
Saigon, Day 2.
I slept really well with no tablets, but I had a hard time waking up.
We had to organise our re-entry visa first, and after about half an hour of explaining to the travel agency girl at reception we gave up and applied online. Hoping for the best.
Then I had a passport photo taken by a careful photographer with a serious round face who arranged my head position and my clothes. She even picked up a hair off my clothes, as if it mattered.
We then went to the market to buy some silk bags I liked yesterday. She told me yesterday she'll sell them cheap, $2, and gave me her card. So here I am, back for the cheap silk bags. She quotes me $12. Then $10 because I came back. I offer $3 and remind her it was $2 yesterday. She says that price is for low quality bags, which she shows me. My handbags are silk, washable, embroidered on both sides, high quality, she says. I I'll think about it and make to walk away. She grabs me by the arm. (She is not the first one to do this. Another woman grabbed me at the airport, quite nicely: we got between her and her friend in the queue, and we insisted she goes in front to join her friend. She wouldn't have it, and she reinforced that by holding on to my arm to keep me in place.) So back to my handbag woman. She then shows me the cheaper handbags, embroidered just on one side. They store them ingeniously in the ceiling of the stall, above a griddle they remove by getting on a ladder.
I only want the ones I have chosen. There are others, in many colours, with delivate embroidery on silk, and I know how much I crave these in London, and how much they cost. I offer her a price, last price, $4 each. She gives me a bit more. I say I'll go for a walk and think about it. she then says OK, $5 each. We are both happy. She tells Jay I'm very clever. I wonder what ranking this is. The jewlry seller in Morocco said the same thing, also to Jay. I feel good, she also feels good. This always makes me feel suspicious. But I like my bags and they will make me and mabe Sarah happy.
Next, we catch a taxi to the Emperor Jade Pagoda. Jay pronounces it like them, to make the taxi driver undertand: "pakora". We carry the bags and 3 guavas with us. Jay wouldn't leave without guavas.
The Pagoda is extremely busy, shrowded in te smoke of the burning incense sticks, and no, it is not made of jade. We don't go inside, there are too many people and we don't have a lot of time. We need to go to the Cu Chi tunnels. I take two pictures and Jay tells me people are giving me dirty looks and to stop.
We justy landed this morning at 7.30 after a 12h flight in which I didn't sleep much and Jay not at all. The time difference is 7h. The hotel room is not ready until 2pm so we came out for a walk.
The first impression at the airport is that it's lovely. The air is warm and moist and smells of strange sweet flowers. It must be pink flowers, these were in the hedges at the airports.
The first photo I wanted to take was the tree of yellow flowers, decorated for the Chinese / Lunar New Year at the entrance of many buildings. Or pots of little yellow chrisanthemums.
The second was the piles of little red spiky rambutan fruit. And then the fuchsia pink and green scales of the dragon fruit. Outside Benh Tranh Market there were fruit sellers with neat piles of strange fruit, and Jay told me their names: jackfruit, guava, custard apple.
We then went inside the market. Fresh shellfish, crabs stacked like library cards, scallops, snails, prawns moving around, a large fish still moving being peeled with a large knife by a no-nonsense woman, another fish being washed by a large splash of water from a plastic bowl by a swarthy woman sitting open-legged.
Hairclips with crystal colours, silk handbags, cotton pyjamas for petite women. I bargained for a pair of sunglasses, got them at 90k or £3, 2/3 of our taxi ride. I'm sure the man was not losing money as he said. Laquers, carved and painted shoe soles made of wood, smelly pickled fish, prawns and fish paste. A cobra with a scorpio in its mouth in a bottle of yellow something, and Jay looking very tired in the picture.
We then went to a clean looking restaurant, Pho 24, to have the breakfast that the market traders were having delivered to their stalls: pho, aromatic noodle soup with fresh herbs. Light, refreshing, satisfying. And a fresh ice-cold coconut, with a straw to drink and a spoon to eat the flesh. The best drink I ever had - except perhaps for watermelon juice.
I talked to a woman on the plane. She was from England, coming to Vietnam on holiday. But then she told me more. She was half American, half Vietnamese, her father was American and she had Vietnamese brothers that she didn't know very well. Because she was adopted. She had been adopted by an English family and it was the best thing that could have happened to her. So the history is real and I met someone who was a cirect product of it. Strange how remote and unreal does history seem when you haven't yet met someone like this.
The conical hats are also real. An the street hawkers carrying two balancing loads on a stick across the shoulders. People wear the conical hats on the street, to go shopping, or riding about their business on bicycles or motorbikes. It isn't just a postcard, they really do. It's not like the wrinkled criollas in Havana, wearing flowers in their turbans and cigars in their mouths just for photos for tourists.
Talking about Havana, I was thinking of it when landing. Saigon looks much cleaner from the airplane, and so far from the street as well. Not many derelict, grey buildings here. For me, it's a sign of prosperity. this communism with a market economy seems to be doing something. Let's see.
I am so tired. I really need to sleep. Jay has gone to the War Remnants Museum, reluctantly as he is also tired. I refused to see it, despite the hype. There is something indecent about exposing the horrors of war and wanting to see them. What good does it do, seeing all that violence and cruelty that man is capable of? Does it prevent it in another place? Does it really? Do people have a choice, when they are sent to fight? Under authority they commit more violence. Violence porn.
Saigon, Day 2.
I slept really well with no tablets, but I had a hard time waking up.
We had to organise our re-entry visa first, and after about half an hour of explaining to the travel agency girl at reception we gave up and applied online. Hoping for the best.
Then I had a passport photo taken by a careful photographer with a serious round face who arranged my head position and my clothes. She even picked up a hair off my clothes, as if it mattered.
We then went to the market to buy some silk bags I liked yesterday. She told me yesterday she'll sell them cheap, $2, and gave me her card. So here I am, back for the cheap silk bags. She quotes me $12. Then $10 because I came back. I offer $3 and remind her it was $2 yesterday. She says that price is for low quality bags, which she shows me. My handbags are silk, washable, embroidered on both sides, high quality, she says. I I'll think about it and make to walk away. She grabs me by the arm. (She is not the first one to do this. Another woman grabbed me at the airport, quite nicely: we got between her and her friend in the queue, and we insisted she goes in front to join her friend. She wouldn't have it, and she reinforced that by holding on to my arm to keep me in place.) So back to my handbag woman. She then shows me the cheaper handbags, embroidered just on one side. They store them ingeniously in the ceiling of the stall, above a griddle they remove by getting on a ladder.
I only want the ones I have chosen. There are others, in many colours, with delivate embroidery on silk, and I know how much I crave these in London, and how much they cost. I offer her a price, last price, $4 each. She gives me a bit more. I say I'll go for a walk and think about it. she then says OK, $5 each. We are both happy. She tells Jay I'm very clever. I wonder what ranking this is. The jewlry seller in Morocco said the same thing, also to Jay. I feel good, she also feels good. This always makes me feel suspicious. But I like my bags and they will make me and mabe Sarah happy.
Next, we catch a taxi to the Emperor Jade Pagoda. Jay pronounces it like them, to make the taxi driver undertand: "pakora". We carry the bags and 3 guavas with us. Jay wouldn't leave without guavas.
The Pagoda is extremely busy, shrowded in te smoke of the burning incense sticks, and no, it is not made of jade. We don't go inside, there are too many people and we don't have a lot of time. We need to go to the Cu Chi tunnels. I take two pictures and Jay tells me people are giving me dirty looks and to stop.
Wednesday 15 February 2012
2011 Andalucia - Granada
The next day we are off to Granada early. I watch Heartbreaker in Spanish on the train, then decide to start writing this at last. The olive trees are polka-dotting the landscape, which becomes more hilly.
We have our hotel in the grounds of the Alhambra, Hotel America. The bus from the city centre to the Alhambra is tiny and narrow, made to squeeze in the narrow winding streets up the hill. We pass a series of houses, all with names of "Carmen del Mirador", "Carmen del Morisco". I read somewhere that a "carmen" is a house with an inner patio.
Hotel America is small and pretty, a boutique hotel with a beautiful collection of art objects, paintings and ceramics. Our room has wooden beamed ceiling and a stained glass door to the bathroom, but the water is brown and the shower suddenly gets cold and you have to turn it up more. The window overlooks the ochre flowery patio which is full of people having lunch. There are a couple of water streams, fountains, in the patio, that murmur together with the sound of conversations. Thankfully this is quiet at night.
We have some time before the night visit to the Alhambra, so we go back into town. I've seen enough cathedrals, this one is baroque and not that exciting. The Capilla Real boasts a Boticelli so we go in. The Boticelli turns out to be a little painting with sleeping shepherds who I could have painter, too , no gorgeous Madonna. However, we see a collection of paintings of Queen Isabel I, La Catolica, whose chapel this is, and they all show more or less the same unflattering face. So they were a true likeness, after all. I have always wondered.
We then walk around the old town looking for a Servicaixa cash machine to pick up our tickets to the Alhambra, and we get lost. The normal town looks like any other town, only sunnier. Eventually the receptionist of a hotel points us to the right place, and also to the place with teashops where I went with Anisa ten years ago. It's called Elvira, and it's full of souvenir shops with Indian stuff and so-called Morroccan tea-hops. One of them lures me in, it's empty and has a suitable number of orange silk curtains - probably also from the Indian shops. I have an aphrodisiac tea at a premium price, and apart from breaking the glass top of a table by mistake, it doesn't have any other effect. We leave and I can't resist and buy a fridge magnet with a red Flamenco dancer. It will remind me of the colourful Kazbah Elvira.
We have no idea where to eat and enter a random touristy restaurant full of Germans. The tapas bar is actually at the back, so we leave the table for a bar place. Even better, they serve a tapas free with your drink. It turns out to have been a good and well priced choice.
I am terrily alergic - hayfever. I can't breathe most of the time and my eyes itch, despite taking the tablets.
We go back to the Alhambra and visit the Nasrid Palace. I only bought tickets for the night show, and it's special. The decorations are spot-lit and the remains of colour show through. It's cooler at night, it shows we are close to the Sierra Nevada mountains which are still covered with snow.
Jay likes the ornate golden ceilings and the pool reflecting the arched entrance. There is an exhibition about the fountain of the 12 lions, which has just been renovated. The script around it is a poem about how the water of the pool is simply a cloud. Jay is telling me how much this reminds him of the Taj Mahal. Same people made them, according to the same ideals, so far apart in the world.
Back at the hotel, it's very late and there is nobody but the receptionsit, but he still can offer us drinks in the artistic lobby. A quiet moment of beauty for me and Rioja for Jay.
The following morning we have tea at the hotel, check out and go to see the Generalife gardens. It's spring and there are fewer flowers, but the orange trees save the day. There's the garden where the Sultana was meeting in secret with her lover. Were there no guards, or were they just well paid off?
The Escalera Del Agua, the water stairwell is still charming but, remembering how awed I was with it ten years ago, I can't stop thinking now it needs a fresh coat of paint. Is it my allergy, or am I getting older? Or is everything too perfect in the UK, too perfectly restored with no feel for the old and derelict?
Back to the hotel for directions, we get the worst map and directions ever. It's photocopied and the girl can't find the street so she just draws a random line where it should be. For an expensive hotel visited by the Queen of Spain, they could really do better.
The bus driver thankfully knows where we are going and the Albaicin is on its route. When we are almost there, there is a traffic jam. After a few minutes we realise we are not moving and somebody says the driver has gone and left us all in there. After the map incident I am getting a little disenchanted with the Spanish. Finally, when the driver lady returns, I find my newly discovered fluency and ask her to open the door. We walk past the cause of the jam - someone parked a van diagonally on the narrow street and left.
We sit down for lunch, there are terraces in the sunshine on the river bank with the Alhambra above us on the hill and guitarists take turns to play. There are four restaurants and one has squid ink paella, or paella negra, so we sit there - "Casa 1899". Filling, but touristy, decent price. We miss the food of Seville.
The bus back to the Alhambra takes us through Sacromonte, the Flamenco district, whitewashed, lively and steep. Looks like another place to go back for photographs. Taxi to coack EUR10. The taxi driver taking us to the coach station in Granada told us the tap water in Granada is the purest and nicest water to drink, as it comes directly from mountain springs.
We take the coach back to Malaga, the hill scenery is beautiful and dotted with patterns of olive trees. No oranges or lemons this way.
At Malaga, our perfectly located hotel, EGH Eliseos, is on a direct bus route to the airport and also near the beach and groovy or historic center. We walk along the beach until it gets dark and vow to go to the beach more often from London.
We then make a bee-line to the Teteria through the orange-blossom park. I can breathe properly now and savour it to the full. It's open until 1pm at night, so I relish the almond milkshake and rose tea once again. The crepes are nice too, a walnut, chocolate and banana works well for me, and the tea liquor for Jay.
We then launch on to a tapas bar crawl, having one or two tapas, tostitos or pinchos in each of a few bars. Pea y Pepe seems the cheapest and one of the most popular, altough a bit dirty. It's fun and interesting, a gastronomic journey for Jay, altough he comes away most impressed by a falafel in a mediterranean tapas bar called Pitta Bar. Of all things Spanish.
Back to the hotel we squeeze and roll our clothes to close the small suitcases. The receptionist knows nothing, about the hour change, about the bus to the airport, or the price of taxi. I get him to search it on the internet but he finds us a complex bus route with an interchange. I am giving up on receptionists too. I remember "I know nothing, I'm from Barcelona". Accurate.
We have our hotel in the grounds of the Alhambra, Hotel America. The bus from the city centre to the Alhambra is tiny and narrow, made to squeeze in the narrow winding streets up the hill. We pass a series of houses, all with names of "Carmen del Mirador", "Carmen del Morisco". I read somewhere that a "carmen" is a house with an inner patio.
Hotel America is small and pretty, a boutique hotel with a beautiful collection of art objects, paintings and ceramics. Our room has wooden beamed ceiling and a stained glass door to the bathroom, but the water is brown and the shower suddenly gets cold and you have to turn it up more. The window overlooks the ochre flowery patio which is full of people having lunch. There are a couple of water streams, fountains, in the patio, that murmur together with the sound of conversations. Thankfully this is quiet at night.
We have some time before the night visit to the Alhambra, so we go back into town. I've seen enough cathedrals, this one is baroque and not that exciting. The Capilla Real boasts a Boticelli so we go in. The Boticelli turns out to be a little painting with sleeping shepherds who I could have painter, too , no gorgeous Madonna. However, we see a collection of paintings of Queen Isabel I, La Catolica, whose chapel this is, and they all show more or less the same unflattering face. So they were a true likeness, after all. I have always wondered.
We then walk around the old town looking for a Servicaixa cash machine to pick up our tickets to the Alhambra, and we get lost. The normal town looks like any other town, only sunnier. Eventually the receptionist of a hotel points us to the right place, and also to the place with teashops where I went with Anisa ten years ago. It's called Elvira, and it's full of souvenir shops with Indian stuff and so-called Morroccan tea-hops. One of them lures me in, it's empty and has a suitable number of orange silk curtains - probably also from the Indian shops. I have an aphrodisiac tea at a premium price, and apart from breaking the glass top of a table by mistake, it doesn't have any other effect. We leave and I can't resist and buy a fridge magnet with a red Flamenco dancer. It will remind me of the colourful Kazbah Elvira.
We have no idea where to eat and enter a random touristy restaurant full of Germans. The tapas bar is actually at the back, so we leave the table for a bar place. Even better, they serve a tapas free with your drink. It turns out to have been a good and well priced choice.
I am terrily alergic - hayfever. I can't breathe most of the time and my eyes itch, despite taking the tablets.
We go back to the Alhambra and visit the Nasrid Palace. I only bought tickets for the night show, and it's special. The decorations are spot-lit and the remains of colour show through. It's cooler at night, it shows we are close to the Sierra Nevada mountains which are still covered with snow.
Jay likes the ornate golden ceilings and the pool reflecting the arched entrance. There is an exhibition about the fountain of the 12 lions, which has just been renovated. The script around it is a poem about how the water of the pool is simply a cloud. Jay is telling me how much this reminds him of the Taj Mahal. Same people made them, according to the same ideals, so far apart in the world.
Back at the hotel, it's very late and there is nobody but the receptionsit, but he still can offer us drinks in the artistic lobby. A quiet moment of beauty for me and Rioja for Jay.
The following morning we have tea at the hotel, check out and go to see the Generalife gardens. It's spring and there are fewer flowers, but the orange trees save the day. There's the garden where the Sultana was meeting in secret with her lover. Were there no guards, or were they just well paid off?
The Escalera Del Agua, the water stairwell is still charming but, remembering how awed I was with it ten years ago, I can't stop thinking now it needs a fresh coat of paint. Is it my allergy, or am I getting older? Or is everything too perfect in the UK, too perfectly restored with no feel for the old and derelict?
Back to the hotel for directions, we get the worst map and directions ever. It's photocopied and the girl can't find the street so she just draws a random line where it should be. For an expensive hotel visited by the Queen of Spain, they could really do better.
The bus driver thankfully knows where we are going and the Albaicin is on its route. When we are almost there, there is a traffic jam. After a few minutes we realise we are not moving and somebody says the driver has gone and left us all in there. After the map incident I am getting a little disenchanted with the Spanish. Finally, when the driver lady returns, I find my newly discovered fluency and ask her to open the door. We walk past the cause of the jam - someone parked a van diagonally on the narrow street and left.
We sit down for lunch, there are terraces in the sunshine on the river bank with the Alhambra above us on the hill and guitarists take turns to play. There are four restaurants and one has squid ink paella, or paella negra, so we sit there - "Casa 1899". Filling, but touristy, decent price. We miss the food of Seville.
The bus back to the Alhambra takes us through Sacromonte, the Flamenco district, whitewashed, lively and steep. Looks like another place to go back for photographs. Taxi to coack EUR10. The taxi driver taking us to the coach station in Granada told us the tap water in Granada is the purest and nicest water to drink, as it comes directly from mountain springs.
We take the coach back to Malaga, the hill scenery is beautiful and dotted with patterns of olive trees. No oranges or lemons this way.
At Malaga, our perfectly located hotel, EGH Eliseos, is on a direct bus route to the airport and also near the beach and groovy or historic center. We walk along the beach until it gets dark and vow to go to the beach more often from London.
We then make a bee-line to the Teteria through the orange-blossom park. I can breathe properly now and savour it to the full. It's open until 1pm at night, so I relish the almond milkshake and rose tea once again. The crepes are nice too, a walnut, chocolate and banana works well for me, and the tea liquor for Jay.
We then launch on to a tapas bar crawl, having one or two tapas, tostitos or pinchos in each of a few bars. Pea y Pepe seems the cheapest and one of the most popular, altough a bit dirty. It's fun and interesting, a gastronomic journey for Jay, altough he comes away most impressed by a falafel in a mediterranean tapas bar called Pitta Bar. Of all things Spanish.
Back to the hotel we squeeze and roll our clothes to close the small suitcases. The receptionist knows nothing, about the hour change, about the bus to the airport, or the price of taxi. I get him to search it on the internet but he finds us a complex bus route with an interchange. I am giving up on receptionists too. I remember "I know nothing, I'm from Barcelona". Accurate.
2011 Andalucia - Cordoba
On to Cordoba on the impeccable train with the EUR1 Rioja. The journey is only 45min so we get off almost as soon as we got on.
Our hotel in Cordoba is far, and doesn't have a double non-smoking room. We take a twin grudgingly, and have a rest and a snack on the supermarket jamon, manchego and anchovy olives. When we wake up it's already dark so we chill in the bar with tea, sangria and a boca caramel, a sweet delicious liquour Jay spies at another table. A man comes over to talk to Jay about the drink, and tells us about himself. He is called Pepe Aguilar, is a jeweller, is flying tomorrow to Zurich and has studied in England in the 70's. He asks us if we feel we are British, or neither this nor that. The latter, is the general conclusion. He recommends us the Churrasco restaurant.
The next day we take the bus into Cordoba, which leaves us outside the old town. We have tea, fresh orange juice and churros, deep fried, a large portion for a small price. I'll never have churros again, there's more oil than dough.
We then go into the Juderia, the old town. We soon find the Mesquita, its tower is visible from everywhere. Inside, the double arches in white and red stripes are not only striking but overwhelming in number. It's a very large cathedral, an old mosque that still keeps its Mihrab, the Mecca-facing shrine. The audio guide tells us the Moorish king bought a chapel to convert it to a Mosque. It then grew organically with succesive Arab and Spanish kings.
We then stop for drinks and we try gazpacho and salmorejo at a restaurant near the Mezquita. Cold tomato soups, I don't like any. Maybe we didn't come across a good restaurant.
We then visit the Alcazar, the fortress with beautiful gardens and pools. It's warm, we are in short sleeves and bask in the sunshine.
We then look for the Museo Taurino, where there should be the tomb of a toreador and the hide of the bull who killed him, but it's closed for repairs.
We find the Synagogue and the St Bartholomew's Capilla, and a picturesque square with geraniums. the flowerpots say "Cordoba capital de la Cultura 2016". We then find the Callejon de Flores, with geraniums and a view of the Mesquita tower. We sit there for a while, it's a tourist trap but gets quiet, and has a fountain and an orange tree, and soft music from the souvenir shop. Cheesy, says Jay. I like it. I think it's only cheesy when you know it, but I don't.
We then head off to the Pza de la Corredera, a large market square which at 6pm has no stalls left but lots of tables with people having a drink and a chat. Children play and old couples walk by arm in arm.
We ask the ladies next to us for a restaurant and they recomend La Cazuela. At 8.30 when it opens we discover it was a very good choice. Jay is beaming. The grilled calamari and rabo de toro are delicious. The Pastel de Cordoba is awful and by now I've given up on Spanish sweets and pastries.
Our hotel in Cordoba is far, and doesn't have a double non-smoking room. We take a twin grudgingly, and have a rest and a snack on the supermarket jamon, manchego and anchovy olives. When we wake up it's already dark so we chill in the bar with tea, sangria and a boca caramel, a sweet delicious liquour Jay spies at another table. A man comes over to talk to Jay about the drink, and tells us about himself. He is called Pepe Aguilar, is a jeweller, is flying tomorrow to Zurich and has studied in England in the 70's. He asks us if we feel we are British, or neither this nor that. The latter, is the general conclusion. He recommends us the Churrasco restaurant.
The next day we take the bus into Cordoba, which leaves us outside the old town. We have tea, fresh orange juice and churros, deep fried, a large portion for a small price. I'll never have churros again, there's more oil than dough.
We then go into the Juderia, the old town. We soon find the Mesquita, its tower is visible from everywhere. Inside, the double arches in white and red stripes are not only striking but overwhelming in number. It's a very large cathedral, an old mosque that still keeps its Mihrab, the Mecca-facing shrine. The audio guide tells us the Moorish king bought a chapel to convert it to a Mosque. It then grew organically with succesive Arab and Spanish kings.
We then stop for drinks and we try gazpacho and salmorejo at a restaurant near the Mezquita. Cold tomato soups, I don't like any. Maybe we didn't come across a good restaurant.
We then visit the Alcazar, the fortress with beautiful gardens and pools. It's warm, we are in short sleeves and bask in the sunshine.
We then look for the Museo Taurino, where there should be the tomb of a toreador and the hide of the bull who killed him, but it's closed for repairs.
We find the Synagogue and the St Bartholomew's Capilla, and a picturesque square with geraniums. the flowerpots say "Cordoba capital de la Cultura 2016". We then find the Callejon de Flores, with geraniums and a view of the Mesquita tower. We sit there for a while, it's a tourist trap but gets quiet, and has a fountain and an orange tree, and soft music from the souvenir shop. Cheesy, says Jay. I like it. I think it's only cheesy when you know it, but I don't.
We then head off to the Pza de la Corredera, a large market square which at 6pm has no stalls left but lots of tables with people having a drink and a chat. Children play and old couples walk by arm in arm.
We ask the ladies next to us for a restaurant and they recomend La Cazuela. At 8.30 when it opens we discover it was a very good choice. Jay is beaming. The grilled calamari and rabo de toro are delicious. The Pastel de Cordoba is awful and by now I've given up on Spanish sweets and pastries.
2011 Andalucia - Seville
Seville
Our hotel is gorgeous, Hotel Don Juan, with a patio with azulejos blue and flowerpots. We check in and then go straight to El Rinconcillo, the picturesque little bar that we passed coming from the bus in Pza Ponce de Leon. It's charming. I can't stop taking pictures. An old man hands me a poem on a napkin, and I get very, very shy. It's beautiful and simple. He later hands another to a group of girls at the bar who give him a dismissive look - "dirty old man". I still think it's beautiful, I wonder why he does it.
We stroll into town down a street lined with orange trees in bloom, the scent is heavenly. I can't believe just how lovely it is. The best thingsw in life are free. And all the orange trees have oranges in them I wonder why nobody picks them. A waste?
We stop in a little square with children playing, people sitting at cafes talking, life happening. It's 22C and pleasant. I take some sepia photos and we move on. Shops with flamenco shoes, red with white dots, frilly flamenco dresses in all possible colours, jewelry, clothes. I stop and buy a purple cardigan that I end up wearing for the whole trip, forgetting the three jumpers in my bag. Too warm. We end up in the shopping district, Calle Sierpes and Cuna, and I buy the colourful bedsheets that I meet again, the same as in Malaga's train station. We go back to the hotel, and the receptionist tells us it's Monday, so we shouldn't eat fish because fishermen don't go fishing on Sunday, so there's no fresh fish.
We eat tapas at the local tapas bar, at a bar table where it's cheaper. Grilled goat's cheese with blackberry jam is my favourite.
I sleep badly, nothing seems to soothe my allergy. So much for spring being my favourite.
The next morning we have freshly squeezed orange juice at a local cafe in Pza Ponce de Leon, which seems to be populated by local pensioners. I read a beauty magasine in Spanish, an interview with Banderas who likes saying he's 50. I'm proud I understand so much and by now I order everything in Spanish. I love to see how I can make myself understood in another language.
We then stop by at the supermarket for some more supplies, including the newly discovered Manzanilla, white dry port famous because Carmen sings about it - "Pres des remparts de Seville"...
We go on to visit the Cathedral and the Alcazar des Reyes Catolicos. The Cathedral is sprawling and decorated with flying arches inside and outside. I am pleased to get a few good photos of orange trees and gothic lacy stonework. Gypsy women offer us sprigs of rosemary outsidfe the cathedral for some reason. The Alcazar is the first Moorish palace we vist, and its detail is astounding. The entrance is a hall with a wall opposite the door and a side entrance towards the inner palace - to make it harder to attack by someone entering face-on. The ceiling of the Ambassadors hall is golden and exquisite, and the gardens blossom all over. There are some peacocks still, left over since the king's time?
We lunch at Casa La Viula near Calle Sierpes and Plaza Nueva, the food is excellent and we order at the bar like the locals. There are jamon legs hanging from the ceiling, large round and thick tortillas and fresh whitebait in ice in a box on the bar. The rape frito, fried monkfish, is delicious. Three old ladies lunch on croquettes behind us, dressed up with pearl earrings.
We walk in the old town around the walls of the Alcazar and stop by in a picture perfect square with a church, orange trees and a cafe with tables out in the sun. The waitress gives patient directions in slow Spanish. She directs us to Calle del Agua, a place the guidebook says has picturesque flowery patios you can peek in. We take the required photo but then discover a delightful shop full of rainbow-coloured pottery, my dream come true. We leave with two dishes, tightly packed, hoping they'll fit in the small hand luggage.
We then head off to the Museum of Flamenco, where the Tourist Office reccomended us the cheapest (EUR15) and earliest (7pm) show in town. We stop for some tapas beforehand in a small empty bar with azulejos. The flamenco show is beautiful, the music melodious and the pictures I get excellent. It restores my faith in flamenco, after the dismal, painfully screechy music we heard in Sadler's Well in London.
...We are sitting right now at a terrace at the foot of the Alhambra in Albaicin. the sun is shining warm and the guitar players take turns to play. The river flows along the promenade in front of the terrace.
...Back in Seville, after Flamenco we go to our hotel and have Manzanilla on the balcony, an old lady with red died hair and her dog watching from the balcony opposite. Jay searches for youtube videos on his iPad touch until he finds the Carmen song about Manzanilla, "Pres des Remparts de Seville".
We go for more tapas at El Rinconcillo - the fried fish is delicious, we have it standing at the bar, elbow to elbow with lots of other locals. One lady tells Jay to have Robera instead of Rioja, it's always better. We then walk around for a while in the orange-blossom fragrant night, away from the centre. We end up in a little local bar called Eme, where the walls display an incredibly vast collection of photos of Jesus and Maria in tears, side by side with gin and wine botles. An elderly woman sits by herself at the bar chatting to the elderly owner - barman.
The last day in Seville we have the whole morning for a leisurely good-bye, so we stroll to a random square with a church with blue azulejos and orange trees. We stop to soak in the sun, the sangria and the fresh orange juice. We then tour the center again, looking for the statue of Carmen. We eventually find it forgotten among the trees on the river bank in front of the bull ring, a very understated apparition. Another time I will look for the church of the Macarena where there is a painting painted by a woman painter of the 17th century. The poem of my elderly admirer said I'm beautiful like her. Another time I will also bring my swimsuit to go to the Banos Arabes, like I was advised by my friend who lived here.
But now we only have time for lunch at the Casa La Viula again, with fresh fried fish and paella, which apparently is not local to Andalucia, but to the North.
Our hotel is gorgeous, Hotel Don Juan, with a patio with azulejos blue and flowerpots. We check in and then go straight to El Rinconcillo, the picturesque little bar that we passed coming from the bus in Pza Ponce de Leon. It's charming. I can't stop taking pictures. An old man hands me a poem on a napkin, and I get very, very shy. It's beautiful and simple. He later hands another to a group of girls at the bar who give him a dismissive look - "dirty old man". I still think it's beautiful, I wonder why he does it.
We stroll into town down a street lined with orange trees in bloom, the scent is heavenly. I can't believe just how lovely it is. The best thingsw in life are free. And all the orange trees have oranges in them I wonder why nobody picks them. A waste?
We stop in a little square with children playing, people sitting at cafes talking, life happening. It's 22C and pleasant. I take some sepia photos and we move on. Shops with flamenco shoes, red with white dots, frilly flamenco dresses in all possible colours, jewelry, clothes. I stop and buy a purple cardigan that I end up wearing for the whole trip, forgetting the three jumpers in my bag. Too warm. We end up in the shopping district, Calle Sierpes and Cuna, and I buy the colourful bedsheets that I meet again, the same as in Malaga's train station. We go back to the hotel, and the receptionist tells us it's Monday, so we shouldn't eat fish because fishermen don't go fishing on Sunday, so there's no fresh fish.
We eat tapas at the local tapas bar, at a bar table where it's cheaper. Grilled goat's cheese with blackberry jam is my favourite.
I sleep badly, nothing seems to soothe my allergy. So much for spring being my favourite.
The next morning we have freshly squeezed orange juice at a local cafe in Pza Ponce de Leon, which seems to be populated by local pensioners. I read a beauty magasine in Spanish, an interview with Banderas who likes saying he's 50. I'm proud I understand so much and by now I order everything in Spanish. I love to see how I can make myself understood in another language.
We then stop by at the supermarket for some more supplies, including the newly discovered Manzanilla, white dry port famous because Carmen sings about it - "Pres des remparts de Seville"...
We go on to visit the Cathedral and the Alcazar des Reyes Catolicos. The Cathedral is sprawling and decorated with flying arches inside and outside. I am pleased to get a few good photos of orange trees and gothic lacy stonework. Gypsy women offer us sprigs of rosemary outsidfe the cathedral for some reason. The Alcazar is the first Moorish palace we vist, and its detail is astounding. The entrance is a hall with a wall opposite the door and a side entrance towards the inner palace - to make it harder to attack by someone entering face-on. The ceiling of the Ambassadors hall is golden and exquisite, and the gardens blossom all over. There are some peacocks still, left over since the king's time?
We lunch at Casa La Viula near Calle Sierpes and Plaza Nueva, the food is excellent and we order at the bar like the locals. There are jamon legs hanging from the ceiling, large round and thick tortillas and fresh whitebait in ice in a box on the bar. The rape frito, fried monkfish, is delicious. Three old ladies lunch on croquettes behind us, dressed up with pearl earrings.
We walk in the old town around the walls of the Alcazar and stop by in a picture perfect square with a church, orange trees and a cafe with tables out in the sun. The waitress gives patient directions in slow Spanish. She directs us to Calle del Agua, a place the guidebook says has picturesque flowery patios you can peek in. We take the required photo but then discover a delightful shop full of rainbow-coloured pottery, my dream come true. We leave with two dishes, tightly packed, hoping they'll fit in the small hand luggage.
We then head off to the Museum of Flamenco, where the Tourist Office reccomended us the cheapest (EUR15) and earliest (7pm) show in town. We stop for some tapas beforehand in a small empty bar with azulejos. The flamenco show is beautiful, the music melodious and the pictures I get excellent. It restores my faith in flamenco, after the dismal, painfully screechy music we heard in Sadler's Well in London.
...We are sitting right now at a terrace at the foot of the Alhambra in Albaicin. the sun is shining warm and the guitar players take turns to play. The river flows along the promenade in front of the terrace.
...Back in Seville, after Flamenco we go to our hotel and have Manzanilla on the balcony, an old lady with red died hair and her dog watching from the balcony opposite. Jay searches for youtube videos on his iPad touch until he finds the Carmen song about Manzanilla, "Pres des Remparts de Seville".
We go for more tapas at El Rinconcillo - the fried fish is delicious, we have it standing at the bar, elbow to elbow with lots of other locals. One lady tells Jay to have Robera instead of Rioja, it's always better. We then walk around for a while in the orange-blossom fragrant night, away from the centre. We end up in a little local bar called Eme, where the walls display an incredibly vast collection of photos of Jesus and Maria in tears, side by side with gin and wine botles. An elderly woman sits by herself at the bar chatting to the elderly owner - barman.
The last day in Seville we have the whole morning for a leisurely good-bye, so we stroll to a random square with a church with blue azulejos and orange trees. We stop to soak in the sun, the sangria and the fresh orange juice. We then tour the center again, looking for the statue of Carmen. We eventually find it forgotten among the trees on the river bank in front of the bull ring, a very understated apparition. Another time I will look for the church of the Macarena where there is a painting painted by a woman painter of the 17th century. The poem of my elderly admirer said I'm beautiful like her. Another time I will also bring my swimsuit to go to the Banos Arabes, like I was advised by my friend who lived here.
But now we only have time for lunch at the Casa La Viula again, with fresh fried fish and paella, which apparently is not local to Andalucia, but to the North.
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