The Magical Fruits of Southeast Asia

While in Vietnam and Cambodia, we ran into some amazing fruit. Many were familiar, but with extra pizzazz, while others were completely new to us. So, this blog post is about the fruits we encountered at the dawn of summer.

Dragon Fruit

Ubiquitous in Vietnam. It was available at every breakfast buffet and in every fruit plate. It grows on a vine and has a gorgeous fuchsia exterior and a foamy white interior with small black, kiwi-like seeds. Our previous experience with dragon fruit was the imported variety in the US and was definitely lacking. The taste and texture was more akin to styrofoam than a tropical fruit. In Vietnam, we had the pleasure to try "excellent" examples of dragon fruit. They were much better than the US version, with a certain vibrancy and their own flavor. Unfortunately, it wasn't all that different from a light squirt of meyer lemon on a near-sugarless meringue filled with poppy seeds. In other words, not much different than a bland and slightly acidic kiwi. So it was different, but still, not worth searching out unless you are really into different textures.

Mango

So many varieties. So many choices. We tried about half a dozen different varieties (of the dozens that actually grow where we traveled). Some green ones, you eat the rind too, while others you just scoop out the deliciousness. The best one actually dropped from the sky. I was swimming in the pool at the hotel in Siem Reap, when plop. Right in front of me is a small green mango about two inches long. It came from the tree overhanging the pool and since it just dropped, we figured it was ripe, so we ate it. It had a vibrancy that made you want to belt a trill.

Durian

The love it or hate it fruit. Some say it smells like hell and tastes like heaven. We thought it was just pure hell when we tried it in Hoi An. The smell is so strong and gag inducing that you're not allowed to eat it indoors. Really people should know better that something the size and and weight of your head, covered in spikes, that falls from a tree, shouldn't be trifled with. No more durian for me.

Chocolate Pudding Fruit

This was an interesting fruit. On the outside, it looked like a brown, soft mango, but you open it up and inside is a gushy pulp that does actually taste kind of like chocolate pudding. We saw it in the markets both in Hoi An and Siem Reap.

Watermelon

The third leg of the fruit triumvirate while we were there that included mango and dragon fruit. It was on every fruit plate and available by the mound in every market. Basically the same as the north american red version.

Bananas

Available everywhere. Many different varieties. Some long. Some short. Some green. Some yellow. Most of them very tasty ranging from a hint of apple blossoms all the way to the cavendish bannaishness that we are used to. There were also a lot of banana flower salads to eat.

Pineapple

We saw a lot of pineapple and pretty much all of it was a just more delicious example of the dole variety found in supermarkets and bodegas throughout the US.

Jackfruit

Definitely one of the gems of the trip. We tried it cooked, freeze dried and fresh. Cooked and freeze dried, it takes on a consistent flavour that's enjoyable, but it's nothing like fresh. You usually buy fresh in little, plastic wrapped packages because a jackfruit is an extra large, non-spiky version of Durian that nobody could eat before it went bad. The taste is like a party in your mouth. It starts vibrant and acidic and then moves towards sweetness, only to taper off into a tropical, floral medley. This flavour symphony takes a good 30 seconds to progress, so savour every bite. 

Custard Apple

A fist-sized green fruit made of scalloped wedges. You pull apart the wedges with your hands and inside each wedge is a big black seen surrounded by a white, custardy pulp that sort of tastes like apples, but it's a stretch. I enjoyed it, but Catherine wasn't a fan.

Green Orange

Some of the oranges have green rinds. They are ripe, but the pulp is orange and can look very alien to our eyes. Still tastes like an orange though, although the extra sweet, mandarin-like flavours were fairly common.

Rambutan

Very much like a lychee but looks fuzzier. It tastes like a lychee too, but with a milder flavour. I could even eat it. Contrast that to longan, which has an extra strong flavour that I can't stand after the unfortunate mistake of buying a kilo in Hawaii and then sitting down to eat it all in one sitting.

Mangosteen

We tried mangosteen twice. The first time was a purple, unripe mangosteen in Hoi An. The lady at the market warned me not to buy it (which begs the question why it was being sold in the first place), but she was right. It took a pocket knife to saw through the hard outer shell and inside was a fruit that tastes like a raspberry, but with the acidity cranked up to 11. It was in edible. We also tried a ripe, white mangosteen at Cuisine Wat Damnak in Siem Reap. This specimen was amazing and did sort of taste like a tropical raspberry but with a more complex flavour profile.

Tang Fruit

Ok, so I don't remember the real name of this fruit. It was served to us at the end of the meal at Cusine Wat Damnak in Siem Reap. It's a two inch pod filled with about 20 seeds, each surrounded by a neon orange pulp. The pulp tasted like orange tang, except without the chemically aftertaste. It grows wild in the Cambodian rainforest.

Sunny Soon Dong Cave

Hang En Camp

The trek through Hang En and Soon Dong cave was pretty bloody mind blowing. You would think these caves, which are the work of monsoon rivers gushing through very pure limestone, were the source of inspiration for Jules Verne (minus the Molemen). However, Soon Dong was only discovered in 1990 and not officially mapped out/explored until 2009. To put the cart before the horse a little bit, the picture album is up.

We arrived in Phong Na (sp) midday via a flight on a small plane to Dong Hoi. After getting our hotel room for the night, we went over to Oxalis, the outfitter, for our trip briefing and for dinner. There, we met our fellow trekkers: Jeff and Lauren from Maryland, Alex from the UK San Francisco, Audrius from Lithuania via Belgium, Giang from Vietnam via Singapore and Dao, Vu and Hoang, all from Ho Chi Minh City. We also met our head guide Binh as well as the two British cavers who were coming along: Dick and Adam. Adam was part of the 2009 expedition to explore Soon Dong and Dick has been coming to Vietnam since the early 90s for caving expeditions. Adam gave the briefing, which included useful information like packing list, expected timelines and so on. For the record, this trip is definitely glamping as there were 20 porters for 10 guests so that all we needed to carry was some water and a camera. That’s not normally our MO, but this is the only way to get into Soon Dong right now as Oxalis is the only operator that the government lets into the cave and they just started tours last year. That being said, there were definitely places where it would have been very tricky with an extra 50lbs on my back. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Exiting Hang En Cave

The next day, we set our after breakfast into the national park. The hike started around noon. Temperature was a balmy 35 degrees Celsius with 80%+ humidity. Perfect conditions to go tromping through the jungle. The hike start with a 40min descent down a fairly steep hillside and then we stopped in the only village in the park for tea. People are very poor in the village and are basically subsistence farmers with a little bit of extra money from Oxalis for keeping the trail in shape. Oxalis also runs a foundation that helps to educate children from the village as well as other minority groups in the country.

Formation made by water dripping on the sand.
It will be erased in the wet season as the river rises.

After the village, we walked out into the open sun and walked along the river bed until we reached the entrance to Hang En cave (about 10km total walking). Approaching the cave, you can see a big entrance up the side of the mountain, but it’s easier to actually enter by walking along river off to the side and then up over some boulders to get a view of the Hang En camp. It’s a breathtaking sight with a sandy floor at the bottom of a monstrous cavern and two pools of water: one blue-green of cold water that comes from underground and the other brow water of the river flow past. Entering the cavern, we immediately heard a cacophony of chirping and you could see a few of what looked like bats. They are actually little birds called swifts that come back to the cave at night to sleep up in  the ceiling. The local people actually have strung up a number of vines up the side of the cave in order to climb up to the birds and catch them, but they don’t do that anymore because it’s too dangerous being about 100m off the ground for a half mouthful of meat.

Catherine entering Soon Dong cave.
Dick is perched on the left to help with clipping in to the ropes.

After dropping our stuff, we freshened up after the very hot walk by swimming and showering in the cave water. Dinner was probably the best camping dinner I’ve ever had (if you don’t include the other nights of the trip). The chefs prepared a smorgasbord of vietnamese dishes and a few american ones. There were about 15 different dishes including fried chicken, french fries, green mango salad, braised tofu in tomatoes and peppers, sautéed morning glory, etc. They bring in frozen meat for the whole trip in styrofoam containers to keep it fresh, which worked amazingly well. Unfortunately, due to some communication issues and a change of policy, there was no rice wine for after dinner socializing so we just chatted and got to know each other better. Some of us stayed up a little late because around 10pm, the full moon came across the opening of the cave to case moonbeams across a small portion of the camp.

Fording the river in the cave.

The next day, we popped out the other side of Hang En and trekked following the river to the Soon Dong lunch camp. There, we had lunch and donned some harnesses that we would need to safely pick our way down the 80m drop in to Soon Dong. The camp is actually always manned by at least one porter because the local people kept stealing the ropes. Entering the cave took a while because we are not experienced cavers and the portions were a little technical so Dick, Adam and Binh were being very conservative moving people along so that everybody was safe and felt comfortable. 

Stalagmite that's about 80m tall.
Light from Doline 1 is in the background.

The rest of the hike for the day was walking through/across a dark wonderland of crystalline formations, razor sharp rocks and large boulders. We stopped a number of times to take pictures and once to shower up because there is no source of water to swim in at camp 1. Camp 1 is right before the first doline, which is an area where the roof of the cave has collapsed, letting in sunlight. It's created by an eddy in the river slowly swirling around and cutting up until the ceiling is too weak and it collapses. So there is a large mountain of boulders underneath the hole and we camped just to the side of that mountain.

Adam standing atop Hand of Dog formation in the distance.

The next day, went up into the first doline to stand on ginormous stalagmites and then made our way down the other side. There, we had lunch and waited for the sun to go overhead in order to capture some sunbeams streaming into the primitive green wonderland. Most of the vegetation is fairly small because the hole up top isn't that big, so it has the feeling of being near the time when life first evolved. For example, there are many square meters of this rare formation of spikes that reach towards the light. They are created by algae growing on the rock and then bacteria eating the algae and secreting acid. That acid then breaks down the rock very slowly. The doline also appears to breath as a fog with roll in and then clear out in cycles that were lasting about 10min. Apparently later in the summer, the cycles speed up.

Standing atop the formation in doline 1

After lunch, we made our way to the second doline. The light for it is actually visible from where we stopped for lunch, but this opening created a very different landscape. First, coming into the light are perfect terraces holding small ferns and other plants that are tilted in order to catch the most light. As we climbed up doline 2's rock mountain, the vegetation got denser and turned into a full fledged jungle supported by the larger opening above. Apparently there's actually species in the jungle (and elsewhere in the cave) that are new to science, but we didn't see any.

View back into doline 1.
If you look very closely, you can
see one of the guides atop the
formation to the left of the sunbeam.

Unfortunately, on the way down into camp 2, Catherine twisted her ankle so she was done for the day and had to hang out at camp while the rest of us kept going deeper into the cave. After climbing down from camp two, the cave flattened out into a sandy path, which was about the biggest contrast possible with the rest of the cave we had seen thus far. No more boulder scrambling.

In the end of the cave, we took some pictures of some interesting formations and stopped at the cave pearls. These are another very rare formation that's created one drop at a time as crystals are deposited, forming perfectly round spheres. Then, we continued on to the great wall of Vietnam. Depending on the water level, you either take an inflatable boat, or you trudge through a mud trench. It was the trench for us, with the mud up to the knee in the places. After a long 500m, we then climbed a mud hill in order to see the wall which is about 50m tall and has a waterfall formed from the river flowing over it into the mud trench. There is another opening to the cave above it, which we could see from the light when we turned off our headlamps, however we didn't go up. Instead, Binh challenged us to surf down one of the mud slopes while staying on our feet and then try to get back up. Given how slippery the mud was, hilarity ensued. After becoming thoroughly dirty, we made our way back to camp for dinner and a nice sleep. 

Formation reaching towards the light.
It's made by bacteria eating algae and secreting acid.

The next day was a long trek from camp 2 all the way back to Hang En cave. However we didn't really stop to take pictures this time since we had been on most of the terrain before. The hardest part was Catherine's ankle, which was still very painful, especially if it landed on uneven terrain. As you can image, bouldering tends not to be flat, but she trooped on like a champ with some help from me and the guides.

Terrace of ferns entering in doline 2.

Back in Hang En, there was a film crew sharing the camp setting up for a live shoot in a few days. We were actually warned this would happen 24 hrs before our trip, when we were forced to sign an all encompassing NDA or not go on our trip. A little bit of a hostage situation that set the tone unfortunately. So, the film crew was there, which wouldn't necessarily that big a deal because it's a very large campsite but we were told that they would not interfere with our trip (and vice versa I bet). However,  they were running their generators (including a 6am wakeup call) and there was only one table, so they were trying to work on it and we were trying to eat/hang out. So it was an awkward situation that got on everybody's nerves. Furthermore, hardly anybody tried to make nice with the other group, which didn't help things.

Inside doline 2.

The next day, we trekked out of Hang En in the morning. The film crew had a helicopter dropping off supplies as we were leaving. Apparently this is fairly common and it's also common for tours/Oxalis folks to hitch a ride out on the (now empty) helicopter going the other direction. So, the Oxalis people talked to the pilots and we boarded. However, the film crew was not happy about this because the chopper was contracted to them and felt that we had been rude the night before. Apparently, they were willing to let us hitch a ride if we were willing to pony up $20,000, but shy of that it wasn't going to happen. So a little bit of a sour note at the end of a truly mesmerizing trip. I didn't really mind the hike back out since it just gave me time to mediate over the amazing sights I had just seen.

Cave pearls

One of the caverns past camp 2

Here’s the GPS track for the trek (or at least the outside parts).

Hunting Through Hanoi for Some Delicious Eats

We arrived in Hanoi late last night after a long travel day (19 hours). We crashed almost as soon as we got to the hotel because of a) jet lag and b) we had a street food tour booked for the morning. So, we got up early enough to meet our tour guide Mark and a dutch couple to explore the street food scene. Mark is an expat Australian who's lived in Hanoi for just over 10 years and has a blog that turned into a tour business called Street Eats Hanoi.

For more pictures in Vietnam, see the album.

Street food is an institution in Hanoi, just like many Asian cities. Vendors often make only one or two dishes and keep selling until they run out. Then they pack up shop and go home for the day. They are masters of their dish, so it's one of the best places to eat. When you order, you usually sit down on a small blue plastic chairs and are expected to eat relatively quickly so that somebody else can sit down.

All the main ingredients for Vietnamese
cooking.

Our first stop was for a traditional vietnamese breakfast of noodle soup. Not the ubiquitous pho, because Mark wanted to dig a little deeper than that dish for the purposes of the tour. This was a chicken soup made with a broth so rich that your taste buds will melt and chicken so tender and juicy that it flakes apart at the first touch. The soup comes well balanced, but if you want more heat or acid, you can add some chili paste, dried chiles, garlic vinegar, or lime juice. This is a typical approach in Hanoi where people can customize to their own tastes. The vendor also served the same chicken over sticky rice with a soy-based sauce and a side of pickled carrots and papaya.

Now that we had some breakfast in our bellies, it was time for a morning coffee. In this case, Mark took us to a place that specializes in egg coffee. Egg coffee is made by first beating up a frothy cream of eggs, sugar and a touch of condensed milk. Then, you pour in lukewarm coffee like you would with a cappuccino. You use lukewarm coffee for two reasons. First, it won't cook the egg and second, it's Hanoi and it's bloody hot out! The cafe we went to is perched above a luggage shop that you reach by going into the back of the shop and climbing the stairs. The room itself was packed wall to wall with young people enjoying their coffees. It was dark, with some creaky fans and peeling paint that reminded me of an Ernest Hemingway scene.

Not squeamish

After the egg coffee, we headed north through the streets to grab a glimpse of the various street markets to our next stop: square imperial rolls. We tried both the crab and straight pork varieties, which were paired with a healthy pile of fresh herbs and some of the standard dipping sauce. That sauce is made with fish sauce, water, garlic and rice vinegar. This was one of Catherine's favorite treats.

After the crab rolls, we popped across the street to have a snack of fried rice balls. They came in either sweet (filled with coconut and bean paste) or savoury (filled with a pork mixture). They were good enough that even Catherine, who normally hates the gooey glutenous rice texture, loved them. It's probably because they were super fresh, straight out of the fryer, and thus so crispy they sounded like firecrackers in your mouth.

After fried rice balls, we tried another fried snack: shrimp fritters. They are rice fritters topped with whole shrimp so they stare out at you from the wok that they are fried in. They are fried twice to make sure that they are extra crispy and you can eat just by chomping down.

Shrimp fritters frying away

The last stop on the tour was for pho tiu, a rice noodle dish toped with slices of pork, peanuts, herbs and fried shallots, topped with a light sauce. We were totally stuffed by this point, but somehow found space to fit in just a little bit more because it tasted so good.

By this point, it's only about 1pm, so we still had the afternoon to waddle around Hanoi. We tried going to the ethnography museum but it's Monday, so they were closed. So, instead, we walked over to the Hall of Literature where students used to come to because masters of Confucian philosophy. It's a small, but pretty set of gardens with shrines.

Next, we walked back towards the turtle lake in Hanoi through the French quarter. This part of town is more wide open compared to the Old Quarter where the street food tour was. As a result, there is more traffic whizzing by. Oh, and a note on traffic. Saying it's chaotic is an understatement. You have to walk on the streets because the sidewalks are covered in parked motor bikes, street stalls, or whatever else. Also, you cross the street wherever you want. Traffic won't stop, so you just have to start walking in a predictable pace and trust that people will avoid you.

Catherine at the Hall of Literature

Around turtle lake, we had an expensive fruit drink and watched people passing by. It was quite picturesque. At the other end of the lake, there's a beautiful little temple on an island. The shrine has a 150lbs stuffed turtle that apparently used to live in the lake. Hard to believe.

For dinner, we took a recommendation from Mark and took a taxi out to Quan Kien. There we sat at a low table and had some of the house specialities after a little confusion with the waiters to get food that Catherine could eat. They make their own liquor, so we tried the plum and kumquat. We also had the sticky rice fried in chicken fat and dipped in salty peanuts. It's surprising tasty. The other dishes we tried were the pomelo salad, these little clams cooked in their shells with oil, scallions and dipped in a wasabe soy sauce and finally, some ant lavae hash served on large rice crackers. Insects are a common thing to eat in Vietnam, although they are very seasonal. The ant lavae were probably the easiest dish on the menu to get a hold of, but it's possible to get things as varied as fried grasshoppers or sautéed bees.

Ant Lavae Hash

Crooning for Kowloon

For more pictures, see the album of the trip.

The last stop on our trip: another day long layover in Hong Kong. Our flight got in around 9am, so we were hungry and decided to have breakfast at the airport before hopping on the train into town. We went to Crystal Jade. I had a soup of hand-pulled noodles made on premises and Xiao Long Bao (dumplings filled with soup)while Catherine had some congee. It was a very impressive meal for being in the airport and a great start to the day.

For this layover, we took the opportunity to explore Kowloon, across the bay from Hong Kong Central. It's a much more down to Earth area of the city: filled with open air markets instead of the high end shopping malls of Hong Kong Central. Most of our day was spent exploring those markets. We started with the jade market. It's a city block filled with all things jade from figurines, to earings, to necklaces. You can get everything from fake, plastic jade for a couple of dollars all the way up to high quality natural jade for thousands. There's also a multitude of colors including purple, orange, black and of course, green jade. Catherine found herself some pretty earrings and had fun negotiating with the vendors to get them for a very reasonable price.

After the jade market, we found a BBQ place on the main street for lunch.  We had a plate full of goose, chicken, BBQ pork, crackling pork and sausage. It delicious, but was way more than we could eat, so some had to go to waste.

Our afternoon was spent working our way north through the markets. The first one was mostly a food market. It started with produce where there were a lot of fresh options including jackfruit and this little red fruit that was the size of a pear, but looked like a trumpet flower that had curled in at the end right before it falls of its stem. On a side street from the produce area is the seafood market and it is not for the squeamish. In order to show that everything is fresh, most of it is alive, or just recently killed. For example, we saw fish heads that were still breathing. We also saw an eel, where somebody only wanted part of it, so it was chopped in half and the front half was just thrown in a bucket, bleeding and alive, ready for the next customer who wanted it. On the less gruesome side, there was an amazing variety of mollusks and shellfish from prawns, to razor clams that are skinny and long like a straw, to $80US geoducks, the largest clam species in the world and comes from North America.

Moving on from the food section, we found the pet fish market. You can buy little fish for a dollar or two, all the way up to large, deformed goldfish that sell for hundreds of dollars. Beside the pet market, there is a flower market, which contained a plethora of flower shops. Some of them were very specialized, like one which only sells a specific subtype of orchid. Catherine found a shallow dish for forcing bulbs that we decided bring back with us.

By this time, the sun was starting to set and so we walked up to the pet bird market. Unfortunately, it was mostly closed by this time, so there wasn't much to see except for a very talkative parrot in the one open shop. From there, we started to head back to the southern edge of Kowloon. On the way, we walked through the famous night market. It only opens at night and is full of random, cheap things. It's mostly useless crap, but it was very colorful and fun to walk through.

For dinner, Catherine's parents treated us to an experience at Spoon, Alain Ducasse's restaurant in the Intercontinental. It's right on the water, so it has an incredible view of the Hong Kong skyline to complement some exceptional food. We started with two appetizers. Catherine had a jaw dropping baked egg with a rich, creamy, crayfish broth. The white of the egg was whipped, so that it was almost a meringue consistency. I had a solid dish of marinated and smoked mackerel belly served with quinoa. Then, we shared a scallop dish with pork belly and a pumpkin sauce. It was ok, but the scallops weren't seared hard enough and they were missing some of that delicious scallop caramelization you get if they are done properly.  For our next course, we had a beef tournedos served with a celeriac raisin sauce and for me, a tortellini and parmesan crisp. We paired that course with our first glass of good red wine for three weeks. It was very satisfying. For desert, Catherine had a chestnut-pear vacherin, which is a meringue crust filled with chantilly creme. The chestnut, pear combination, made it an epic dish. I had the baba, which is a sweet, chewy cake doused with fresh armagnac and topped with rich vanilla creme. Overall, it was a very special meal to put an exclamation point on the end of our fantastic trip. 

Mysore. It's not an Eye Sore

For more pictures, see the album.

Actually, it's the most beautiful city we've seen in India. It's known as the "garden city" because of its tree lined streets. We arrived around noon in Mysore at Ranjani's family homestead. There, we had an impromptu lunch and met her family in the midst of the chaos of party preparations. The meal finished with our introduction to Mysore Pak, which is a sweet made of chickpea flour, sugar and lots of ghee. Hunting down the best would become one of our goals in Mysore.

After lunch we dropped our stuff off at the university guesthouse, where Ranjani's family were graciously putting us up, and then went shopping. Catherine wanted Ranjani's help so we went kurta shopping. Kurtas are a kind of Indian tunic and Catherine wanted a nice one that she could wear to the birthday party on Sunday and then wear as a dress back in the US. After examining many pre made kurtas, and finding them all having too much embroidery, or crazy styling or too loose, she was directed upstairs to the fabric department. There, after much discussion with a tailor, Catherine decided to custom tailor two dresses, one a simple peacock green affair and the other a more complicated red and gold one. All for less than $100.

We then visited the government run memorabilia shop called the Cavery where we picked up some Mysore silk scarves and ties to use as gifts. Then it was dinner at Nalpak, a local chain where we had our first taste of Mysore masala dosa, which was fluffier than previous dosas we had had and filled with a tasty potato filling.

The next morning, we decided to change accommodations. Unfortunately, the people running the university guesthouse had been getting lazy and hadn't maintained it well so it was dirty and the plumbing had some serious issues. After checking into the new hotel, we went for our cooking class at Anu's Bamboo Hut. Anu runs a lunch only restaurant that caters to the local yoga student crowd. Mysore is a big center for learning Yoga because the master of Ashtanga Yoga made his home in Mysore. Up to 2009, you could come to learn with him, but since his passing, his kids have taken up the mantle. To come and train, you need to commit to a number of months of study and come in on a student visa, not a visitor's visa. Also, if you want to be a true Ashtanga teacher you have to commit to coming back for another session with the masters ever year or two. It's a lot of dedication.

As for our cooking class, it was a packed class with about 20 other yoga students. We asked Anu for a gluten free class, which meant learning how to make Mysore masala dosa. Apparently that piqued the interest of many of the yoga students. Anu was a great teacher and we learned some great tips like finding out that Indians always put mustard seed in the oil at the beginning of a curry, or to add ginger later in the cooking process so that the flavor stays fresher. We also learned that dosas require real planning. To make the batter, you have to soak the rice, gram dal and chana dal for at least 8 hours before blending. The batter then needs to ferment for another 8 hours depending on the temperature. You basically have to commit to a 24 hour process. However, the wait is worth it, the dosas were excellent: nice crispy bottom and fluffy tops. Anyway, Anu's recipe are posted separately on the blog.

After the cooking class, we went to check out the Mysore Palace. It's probably the biggest tourist draw in Mysore and it's really easy to see why. In the 1800s, the old palace was burned in a fire and so the King at the time requisitioned a palace to be built with no expenses spared. It was designed by a British architect so it's a fascinating combination Victorian, Indian and Muslim architecture. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to bring in cameras so I don't have pictures of the inside. There are some amazing stained class roofs made in Scotland that were incredibly memorable.

40ft tall golden Buddah's anybody?

After the palace, we made a brief stop in the ancient bazaar. It's a great open market with colorful piles of festival color powders, bales of banana leaves, tons of fresh veggies and even cows roaming the aisles. After the fun time in the market, we went back to the dress store for a fitting and I did some shopping for some casual long sleeved shirts and pants. Then, we went back to our hotel for dinner and to turn in for the evening.

In the morning, we drove out to Bylakuppe, which is a Tibetan refugee camp a few hours from Mysore. The Tibetans have settled in quite well and it's an impressive little town. First, crossing the line, all of a sudden, everything is much cleaner, there is very little trash on the ground and there are monks everywhere. The highlight is definitely the temples, which include three, 40 foot tall golden Buddah statues. Along with the main statues, there are many colorful paintings of deities, teachers and other important Buddhist figures. It was definitely worth the trip.

After the temple, we had lunch at one of the random tibetan restaurants (instead of McDonalds where our driver tried to direct us), mostly to have the opportunity to try some tibetan food. There was some confusion, mostly because of the language barrier, so the meal could have been better, but we had some tasty stir fried veggies and steamed bread that were unique.

For our next stop, we went to the bird sanctuary near Mysore. It's a dinky place, but most importantly, it there are a number of islands that have been left for birds to roost on or to act as a stop on a migration. You can take a little rowboat ride around the islands or just walk along the shore and watch the plethora of birds hooting and hollering. It was worth the visit to see all the different birds, although you can't really spend more than 45 min there.

Back in town, we picked up Catherine's dress and then got dressed for the birthday party. The party itself was a charming little event for Ranjani's parents. We were touched to be a part of it. It had a great turnout. Most of her Dad's students from over the years even showed up. It's hard for some of us to imagine going to our advisor's 70th birthday party. The food at the event was also very spicy. We had been thinking that overall, we were surprised how little spiciness we had encountered on the trip, but the reception food definitely showed that the cooks along the way had done a deliberate job of toning down the heat for western palates.

In the morning, we had breakfast with Ranjani and said our goodbyes before visiting a couple of last sights in Mysore. First, we hit the silk factory. It was an awesome stop. There's no real "tour" per se, but they let you just walk through the factory. It's largely automated and they do everything from boiling the silk cocoons to folding the finished saris. As you wander through the factory the workers are really helpful. When we looked lost, they pointed us where to go and some even showed us more in detail what they were doing. One weaver even let us feel the fabric as the loom was clacking away. There was definitely no safety precautions for guests beyond your common sense.

After the silk factory, we made a quick stop at the charming little railway museum before hitting the road for the Bangalore airport. On our way out of India, we flew from Bangalore to Mumbai before connecting with our late night flight to Hong Kong. We thought that a 4 hour layover time in Mumbai would be plenty, but wow, were we wrong. The domestic terminal at the Mumbai airport is on the side of the runway from the international terminal. You have to take a shuttle bus between the terminals, but because you don't have tickets for the international flight yet, they route the bus (via a U-turn), right into the mess of taxis that are dropping people off in the front of the terminal. Then, you need to wait in line to go through security to get into the airport. All of this happens before you can check in. The process took us 2.5 hours and we had to bribe three of the porters to skip the line and get into the airport in time to have our bags checked. It was a very unfortunate and stressful last experience in India.

Anu's Dosa Recipes

While in Mysore, we took a Dosa making class at Anu's Bamboo Hut. It was a blast and Anu was a charm, as well as a great teacher. Here's her recipes. If you have the patience to make real dosas, they are completely worth it.

Dosa

Ingredients

Serves 4 to 6.

Parboiled rice	¾ cup
White/brown rice, raw	2 cups
Urad daal	½ cup
Chana daal	¼ cup
Fenugreek or methi seeds	¼ cup
Salt	to taste
Cooking oil
Butter (optional)

Soaking

The best time to begin the process of making dosas is around noon the day before serving.

Wash and soak the dosa rice and parboiled rice together in plenty of water.  Wash and soak the daals and fenugreek seeds together in plenty of water.  Let both soak for between 6 and 8 hours.

Grinding

After soaking, drain off the water and blend the soaked rice with enough fresh water to facilitate blending into a smooth, thick paste.  Similarly blend the soaked daals, fenugreek seeds, and salt with the required quantity of water to make a smooth paste.  Mix both pastes along with salt into a homogenous batter.  The consistency of dosa batter should be as thick as that of pancake batter.  Choose a tall container to ferment the batter in and cover it with a tight lid.  Allow batter to ferment for at least 8 hours or overnight.  The ideal temperature range for fermentation is 22 °C (71.6 °F).

Pour Out Your Dosa Batter

Lightly mix the batter.  The texture should appear fluffy.  If the batter is flat even after 8 hours of fermentation (possibly resulting from climatic conditions), add 1 tsp of cooking soda to the batter and mix thoroughly.  Wait for 10 minutes for the mixture to ferment and lighten.

Heat a nonstick pan and pour a small quantity of the batter onto the centre.  Spread it evenly and outward with a flat-bottomed steel cup or a deep ladle in a circular motion.

Add a few drops of oil on the dosa and around the edges.  When it roasts to a golden brown, fill the center with potato palya, fold one half over the other, and remove from the pan.

Plain dosa is served with chutney.

Set dosas are poured thicker and smaller, just like pancakes.  They are flipped over and browned slightly on the other side, and served soft.  They may be served with curries, honey, chutney or anything that attracts your imagination.  Three or four set dosas are served together in a plate.

To roast your dosa crisp, add some butter to the dosa when on the griddle.

Note
If the batter does not ferment or rise owing to cold weather, leave it covered tightly, for 6 to 8 hours in a warmer room where the temperature is controlled, like your bedroom – no kidding!

Potato Palya

Ingredients

Serves 4 to 6.

Potatoes, boiled and semi mashed	4 large
Cooking oil	4 Tbsp
Mustard seeds	½ tsp
Cumin seeds	½ tsp
Curry leaves	2 sprigs
Green chillies, slit in the middle	4
Chana daal	1 tsp
Onions, finely sliced	2 cups
Turmeric powder	¼ tsp
Water	½ cup
Ginger, freshly grated	1 tsp
Coriander leaves, finely chopped	garnish
Salt	to taste

Method

Heat oil in a pan.  Add the mustard seeds and heat until they pop or sputter.  Add cumin seeds, curry leaves, chana daal and chillies and fry until chillies are sautéed and the daal turns golden.  Add onions and fry for about 2 minutes.  Add turmeric powder and fry for a few seconds.  Add ½ cup of water and salt to the frying mixture and cook for about 2 minutes.  Add ginger and mashed potatoes and mix well.  Leave on the stove for a couple of minutes.  Garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves and serve with dosas, chapattis, and poories.  You may even use the potato palya to make excellent grilled sandwiches.

Coconut Chutney

Ingredients

Makes approximately 4 to 6 servings.

Fresh grated coconut	1 cup
Fried gram	½ cup (or more)
Green chilli	2 or per taste
Garlic (optional)	2 cloves
Ginger	½ inch piece
Tamarind paste (optional)	½ Tbsp
Curry leaves (optional)	from a sprig
Coriander leaves	1 small bunch
Mint leaves	handful
Salt	to taste
Water for blending

Method

Blend all the ingredients together with the required quantity of water in a blender (remember not to make a very smooth paste).

Note:

Add coriander and mint leaves at the end instead of blending them together with the other ingredients. Blend for about 5 to 8 seconds only.  This will leave specks of green coriander and mint in the chutney rather than making it look a uniform green.  

Mint Chutney or Dip

Ingredients

Makes approximately 4 to 6 servings.

Green mint leaves with tender stems, fresh	1 cup
Coriander leaves, fresh	1 cup
Green chilli, fresh	2 or per taste
Coconut, fresh or dry	1 cup
Tamarind paste	1 Tbs
Cumin seeds	1 tsp
Garlic	2 to 4 cloves, or per taste
Salt	¾ tsp or to taste
Sugar	1 tsp
Water for grinding

Method

Blend all the ingredients into a fine paste using minimal water.  Serve as a dip with parathas, samosas, bhajias, or pakodas.

Note

Mint chutney sandwiches are popular at parties and picnics.  Lightly butter one slice of bread and apply mint chutney to another slice.  Serve plain or use cucumber and tomato slices as the sandwich filling.  Substitute mustard and ketchup with mint chutney in veggie burgers and enjoy a new exquisite taste!

Peanut Chutney

Ingredients

Makes approximately 4 to 6 servings.

Roasted peanuts	2 cups
Fresh grated coconut (optional)	½ cup
Green chilli or dried red chilli	2 or per taste
Mint leaves	2 sprigs
Tamarind paste	1½ Tbsp
Onion, chopped (optional)	1 small
Garlic (optional)	2 cloves
Coriander leaves	1 small bunch
Salt	to taste
Water for grinding

Method

Sauté mint leaves and chillies for a couple of minutes with two to three drops of oil.  You can also skip sautéing the mint and chilies, and instead add raw mint and chillies to the mixture.  Blend this with peanuts, coconut, tamarind, garlic and salt, with enough water to make a rough paste.  Add onion (optional), and coriander leaves and grind for just five more seconds.  Serve with items such as idli, dosa, chapattis, upma.

Multipurpose Powder

Multipurpose powder may be used in preparations like sambaar, rasam*, tomato chutney, and a variety of dry vegetable dishes.

Ingredients

Makes approximately 300 grams or 1 cup of powder.

Byadgi chillies	50 grams or 10 to 15 pieces
Fresh curry leaves	2 to 3 sprigs
Chana daal	25 grams or 1 Tbsp
Urad daal	25 grams or 1 Tbsp
Toor daal	25 grams or 1 Tbsp
Moong daal	25 grams or 1 Tbsp
Coriander seeds	75 grams or 5 Tbsp
Mustard seeds	25 grams or 1 Tbsp
Fenugreek seeds	25 grams or 1 Tbsp
Cumin seeds	25 grams or 1 Tbsp
Black peppercorns	25 grams or 1 Tbsp
Oil	2 drops
Asafoetida	1/4 tsp

Method

Dry roasting should be done separately as there are many ingredients with varying moisture contents and textures.

Dry roast (constantly stirring) or dry in the hot sun the chillies and curry leaves until they turn crisp.  Put them in a dry bowl and then continue adding the other ingredients to the bowl as you dry roast them.

Dry roast the daals together, stirring constantly until they change color slightly.

Dry roast the corainder, mustard, fenugreek, and cumin seeds and black peppercorns together until they lose their moisture and begin to give off their aromas.  Cool this mixture to room temperature and add to the bowl.

Add asafoetida and blend all of the ingredients into a fine powder.  Do not open the blender immediately, as the fumes from the powder are strong and may irritate your eyes and nose.  Cool and store in an airtight container.

Note

Dry red chillies have some moisture and will not blend into a fine powder unless they are sun dried for 3 to 4 hours, or lightly dry roasted in a wok while constantly stirring, for about 5 to 7 minutes.  Use a medium-low flame to prevent the chillies from changing color.

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* Rasam is a spicy watery soup, usually made with tomatoes or tamarind water. It is served piping hot with rice and ghee. Rasam with rice is one of the many courses served at a traditional South Indian meal.

Onion–Potato Sambaar for Idlis

Ingredients

Serves 4 to 6.

Toor daal	1 cup
Baby potatoes washed and scrubbed OR     Regular potatoes diced	12 OR     3 medium
Water	4 cups
Baby onions, peeled OR     Regular pink or white onions, diced	1 cup
Oil	3 Tbsp
Mustard seeds	½ tsp
Curry leaves	2 sprigs
Asafoetida	2 pinches
Turmeric powder	¼ tsp
Tamarind paste or juice	1 Tbsp or ¼ cup
Jaggery	1 inch cube OR     1 Tbsp crushed
Multipurpose masala powder	2 tsp
Freshly grated coconut	¼ cup
Salt	to taste
Coriander leaves, finely chopped	2 Tbsp
Ghee (optional)	2 Tbsp

Method

Blend multipurpose masala powder and coconut with some water and set aside.
Pressure cook the toor daal and potatoes with water and set aside.
Heat a deep pan or pot and add the oil.  When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds and heat until they pop or sputter.  Add the curry leaves, followed by the asafoetida and onions, and stir-fry for 2 to 3 minutes.  Add turmeric powder and stir-fry for 15 seconds.  Add half a cup of water and cook with the lid on for 3 minutes or until onions are half cooked.  Add tamarind paste or juice, jaggery, and salt and boil for a minute.  Add the ground masala and stir well.  Simmer for about 2 minutes.  Add the cooked daal and potatoes and bring to a boil.  Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and ghee (optional), and serve hot with idlis, dosas, medhu vadas, rice and chapattis.

Note
You may ignore the fresh coconut if not available.  Sambaar tastes good even without it.