Hampi

We're in India now, online hiding from the heat of the day as we await the departure of our train bound for Bangalore (from which we'll transfer to Udupi by bus).

Hampi, a small town smack in the middle of breathtaking ruins from the capital of Vijayanagara (c. 1500 AD, plus/minus a few hundred years in each direction), is a place I could take or leave. It's got all the amenities - internet, travel booking, money changing, guesthouses - everything a traveler needs. It's got some really friendly people; our guesthouse was run by a good, honest family who gave us a fair exchange rate to change money and gave us the low-down on fair prices. The three small restaurants where we chose to eat most of our meals are all run by lovely people. If you look beyond the backpacker cafes, it's got some good food.

But every other business exists to serve backpackers, and there are hordes of them. Fisherman's Pants Wearing Hordes. They wear inappropriate clothing (the men looking like poor farmers or worse, brahmin priests who really need to do a load of laundry, the women wearing shorts and tank tops). They eat crappy backpacker food in India - India, the land of absolutely delicious food - and they walk around at 21 or 22 pretending to be enlightened.

So, ahh, despite meeting some lovely locals, I could take or leave the town.

The place where we ate dinner most nights makes all food fresh and the owner put on the Inaugural address for us:



The ruins, however, are spectacular. Worth suffering the Om t-shirts and peasant pants, the muesli and banana pancakes.

Rather than rave about how amazing the ruins of Vijayanagara are, I'll show you some photos and let the images speak for themselves.

Hemakuta Hill

the Hanuman Temple

Temple carving

Temple activities

The Queen's Bath


Giant Nandi and other structures at the far end of Hampi Bazaar


Ruined gopuram

Salvaged Statue

The Underground Temple

Brahmins washing dhotis

Confused About The Process

The Time: Our first day in Bangalore

The scene: The very friendly, helpful and on-the-level offices of Worldview Kerala Dot Com (Manipal Centre, MG/Dickenson Road) booking accommodation for Kerala. We don't want to have to lug our bags around in each town looking at hotels.

People are coming in and going out. The phone is ringing. Someone is helping us find accommodation in our price range in various places - they do a very good job of this and I highly recommend them, by the way. One hotel in Ernakulam is found, then the proprietor comes in and says he can find a better hotel for a steal, in Fort Cochin (he can and did). We've already paid for the first hotel, they're 'alternating' the money (?) and the phone rings.

Then some other people come in, and the phone rings, and then the other guy is talking to the first guy.

Brendan: "This is great, but I'm a bit confused about the process."
Me: "That, right there, needs to be India's next tourism campaign slogan, my dear."

India: This is Great, but I'm a Bit Confused About the Process

What do you think? I think it's perfect, personally. Sums up the country beautifully.

This is great.

But we're a bit confused about the process.

Greetings from Singapore!

Without the ability to upload photos on this clunky airport computer (hey, at least it's free) I figure I'll keep this short and write a better post later with illustrations.

Brendan and I have just landed in Singapore and spent the day in transit.

I wuuuuuuv Singapore. I know it has its detractors, people who call it SingaBore and that it's quite fashionable to hate the place. Sorry, though, I love it.

I love the hot weather - Singapore boasts my ideal climate. Hot in the winter and hotter in the summer. I can fly home to upstate NY if I really want to be cold.

I love the mezcla of cultures - it helps that I can speak two of the four official languages and have a rudimentary knowledge of the other two (Tamil more than Malay, but I know a little Bahasa Indonesia/Malaysia from my time in Sumatra). I love that Lee Kiew Trading Co. is in a shophouse right next to Krishna Emporium. I love the Chinese temples, Malaysian/Indonesian food and Bollywood soundtrack.

I love the food, of course. Every meal is good. You have to actively try to eat a bad meal in Singapore and even then what you get might well be fantastic.

People say it's too clean - I think it's got its grit (Little India and Chinatown are not 'spotless' by any standard) and the clean part is refreshing. I don't get people who don't like cleanliness.

I do get hating Orchard Road. I've never walked down it, but we took a taxi down it today. Yucky. If you've never been past that strip of consumerist horror, I can understand hating Singapore.

The last time we were here we wandered Little India, Chinatown, the colonial area, Clarke Quay, Boat Quay and Esplanade at night after a Lau Pa Sat dinner, and enjoyed ourselves a lot.

This time we took the usual spin around Little India for an idli-dosa-vadai-kappi breakfast (romba nalla irukku!) and then the cable car up to Mt. Faber - overrated. We are happy we did it so now we can say we've done it, but won't be rushing back. There is almost no view due to the trees and the harbor is nice, but not worth the combined S$25.00 it took to get up there and back. We then headed to the National Botanical Gardens and enjoyed the orchids and the giant pond - although the craziest orchids were not in bloom, it was still lovely and romantic on a sunny tropical day.

Next stop: Bangalore!

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

Just to let y'all know, it'll be quiet around here for the next six weeks or so. We're taking a long-awaited and well-deserved vacaaaaaaaaaation!

On Saturday we head to Singapore, and spend most of Sunday there before flying to Bangalore, where we'll see my good friend Hemant and his wife for the first time in years (actually I've never met his wife, but I know her - long story).

We'll then ramble around southern India hitting Hampi, Hassan and surrounding temples, Mangalore, Udupi, Kannur and surrounding villages, Calicut, Wayanad (Tholpetty Wildlife Sanctuary), Cochin and the Kerala backwaters, hopefully in the most eco-friendly way possible.

Then we'll take a 26 hour train up the Konkan coast to Bombay - yes, Bombay - where we'll meet more friends and go sightseeing before boarding a plane to...

...Cairo! We'll spend 4 days in Cairo and around before heading down the tourist circuit to Aswan, where we'll spend a few days relaxing by the Nile and a day in Luxor to hit a few ancient temples (after Hampi and the Pyramids we figure we don't need to see more than a day's worth of temples) before heading back to Cairo to transfer to New York.

Then I'll head up to my parents' house and visit relatives for a week while Brendan does the same in Maine. We'll meet again in New York and head down to DC for a few days to visit friends before returning to Taipei on one looooong trans-Pacific flight.

Brendan's excited because he's never been to India before (so am I, even though I've already been to about 50% of our itinerary - we're hitting the main sights because he's never been), and I'm excited because I've never been to Egypt before. Our flights will circle the globe - heading across the Indian Ocean to Africa before hitting the Atlantic and the USA, then crossing back over the other way. It'll be my second round-the-world and Brendan's first.

I'll still be around on here, posting the occasional update from the road - but it'll be March before you get any more Taiwan blogging out of me.

Happy New Year - Xinnian Kuai Le and Gong Qi Fa Cai!*

*again too lazy to type in Chinese

Mother Goose Goose Meat (and other Taiwanese treats)

I love the name.

E Mama E Rou has terrific goosemeat - succulent and fresh, lilting and savory.

You can locate it at Jingmei Night Market - take Jingmei MRT Exit 1 and when you exit, turn away from Roosevelt Road, instead heading left along the lane that takes you to the night market. Across from Cafe 85 is another lane that bisects Jingmei Street (the night market main drag) which is laden with good options. The "stuff on sticks" guy to the right is also quite good.

Anyway, walk in a bit, and it's right near the little shrine on the left. It's a basic Taiwanese 'joint' - not a restaurant, not an eatery, not a cafe, but a joint - where you get goosemeat, white or dark. it comes with bones and skin, sliced onto a plate with two dipping sauces the way cold chicken does (but the sauces are different). You can order noodles to go with it, made with a velvety goose broth, as well as xiao chi and seasonal vegetables.

It's really, really good. They do an excellent job with high-quality meat, the way any little joint should.

Sorry that I'm lazy about typing in Chinese; I would really prefer Pinyin input - sorry, I know, evil Communist Pinyin - and it takes too long to do the bopomofo. I am practicing though. I'm trying to do more reviews of Taiwanese restaurants as opposed to foreign food. It is easy to get reviews of foreign food in Taipei online (I subscribe to Hungry Girl, so I know) but really hard to get info on the little places - the joints - that serve the best local food and snacks.

Someday I'll write an epic post on the myriad kinds of onion pancake and where to get the best ones, I swear.

Yuma

Zhongxiao E. Road Section 4 (near Zhongxiao Dunhua MRT) Lane #216, Alley 11 #21

Go here.

It's a new foreign-owned Tex Mex restaurant and it's fabulous. The food isn't "Mexican" (as in, no corn tortillas and delicious tamales from the back of a van by the side of the road outside Houston, which is my fondest memory of true Mexican fare) but it is legitimately "Tex Mex" (the American spawn of Mexican + Southwestern) and is legitimately good.

I know there's a good Mexican place up in Danshui, but dude, that's Danshui. An hour on the MRT? I know La Casita has a good reputation for food, but their reputation for friendly service is lacking. Tequila Sunrise on Xinsheng S. Road does Tex Mex tailored to Taiwanese tastes - that is, entirely too mild. Jake's is alriiiight but a bit greasy, and I do think Tianmu is inconvenient.

This place is the real deal, and in a convenient location, too. We came at 4:45 and were still allowed to order off the lunch menu (ends at 5). Service was excellent and friendly, and the staff speaks fluent English as well as Chinese, which is good because I have no idea how to order Mexican food in Chinese unless it involves Chinese-ifying words like 'tortilla' into 'tou ti la' and 'salsa' into 'sa lu sa' or some such.

The food was great. The nachos...were really...nachos! REAL NACHOS, people. I haven't had those in awhile. Real cheese, real melting, real toppings. Not just microwaved Doritos with a few sad strips of plastic cheddar. Real salsa, not glorified ketchup. Real. Sour. Cream.

Emily said the rice was too mild, but I am sure a kitchen request could fix that. She had effusive compliments for her ribs, though, which "were so tender they were just falling apart. I'm used to having to saw ribs apart to get any meat." Our sandwiches were fantastic, with lots of spicy jalapenos, tender chicken and other good stuff, and came with generous corn chips and salsa. They were also huge, and on the lunch menu, less than $200 NT each.

I do wish the dinner menu contained more options for those of us who like our Tex Mex food pre-wrapped in tortillas - the only fajitas are steak fajitas, and otherwise it's either nachos, half-chickens, ribs, shrimp, etc.

They had flan with vanilla ice cream, but we were too full for dessert. The margaritas (only a few on the menu but all looked good, not foofy or frilly) looked fine, but I'm on meds for bronchitis so no drinkies for me. We only went there in the first place because I am sick and craving Western goodies. I always want pasta, Tex Mex or some such when I'm ill.

A generous meal for 3 came to $1170 and there was no service charge! We tipped, because we liked it. Good deal for tasty foreign food, I'd say.

The service was spectacular - friendly staff, helpful but not intrusive, and honestly trying to please. The waitress confirmed the order and the waiter who spilled a few of my chips on the table brought a bowl of fresh ones.

Bonus - the decor wasn't tacky, froofy or embarrassing. It was minimalist, with a southwestern feel. No plastic cacti or sombreros with poofballs on walls or all those other things that make me avoid Tex Mex restaurants.

It was nearly empty at 5pm on a Friday night, and that just ain't right - though it seemed they were setting up for a party downstairs.

So. Um. Go here!

Racist Toothpaste

For those of you who are already familiar with Darlie (which used to be labeled with something much more offensive, differing from "Darlie" by just one letter), you must know that the label in Chinese has not been changed. In Chinese, it's still "Black Man Toothpaste".

Seems offensive enough already, right?

Now pair that with the travel toothpaste you get in many hotels, which conveniently has an English label on one side...

...

...

...wait for it...



...and yes, the backside of the smaller tube says "White Man" in Chinese.

I believe "guffaw" is the correct reaction here.