Category Archives: travel rules

Friday Wednesday o’clock : Bali Edition

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If you followed any of my social internets as of late, it should be no surprise that Bali was not my favorite stop on this world tour. The reasons are many and have no place sullying this lovely cocktail post. Whatever its faults, Bali did, however, provide easy access to mangosteens AND drove us to kill a bottle of Knob Creek we picked up at duty free on the way in. Add in a little palm sugar, and you have a super easy and delicious Balinese old-fashioned that anyone can make – just follow these simple steps.

Step 1: Spend ample time in Muslim countries, with high booze tax and shitty beer, such that you are chomping at the bit for something tasty.

Step 2: Search through each of the duty free shops at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, hoping to find a better bourbon than Jack Daniels* or Jim Beam. Successfully locate a bottle of Knob Creek. Rejoice.

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Step 3: Arrive in Ubud, realize you’ve made a huge mistake in your choice of destinations, and urgently seek out mangosteens, because at least you KNOW you love them.

Step 4: Enter the Ubud market, politely demur offers to purchase batiks, junky bracelets, and penis-shaped wooden bottle openers, and make your way to the old lady selling mangosteens.

Step 5: Ask how much, wait until she pulls out 40,000 Indonesian rupiah (about $4 USD/kilo). Playfully scoff, because you know this is the tourist price, and locals pay closer to 20,000-25,000/kilo. Offer 25,000. Accept her counter-offer of 30,000. Also accept the 2 tiny bananas and 3 rambutans she stuffs into your bag with the mangosteens, likely as a peace offering for charging you so much…. relatively speaking.

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Step 6: Walk along the streets of Ubud, searching for sugar while politely declining the constant offers for a taxi ride from the men lining the street. Keep your eyes on the ground, because the sidewalks are often broken, and lead straight down into a deep cement gutter.

Step 7: Locate a tiny stall selling spices, AND PALM SUGAR!! Spot a teeny tiny puck of palm sugar, smaller than an actual hockey puck. Have your husband handle this negotiation. She says it is 30,000 ($3 USD). Insanity. Husband counter-offers with 10,000 which is still far too much, but you NEED that sugar, and she accepts.

Step 8: Realize you need ice.

Step 9: Realize the closest ice would require a 15-minute walk down the street, the same street with the taxi touts and crumbling sidewalk, and that you are already drenched with sweat.

Step 10: Remember that you have your bourbon chilling in the hotel room fridge, and decide that cocktails are good even without ice.

Step 11: Make up the recipe. ***

Step 12: Sip joyfully and plan your return to Malaysia.

*yes, I know Jack Daniel’s is technically Tennessee whiskey, not bourbon. Duty free shops, however, do not recognize this distinction.

**lest you believe we are penny-pinchers, bargaining is expected here, as in most parts of SE Asia.

*** Balinese Mangosteen Old Fashioned.
Serves 2

+ 4 oz bourbon

+ teaspoon sized chunk of palm sugar (can sub in regular sugar but it will in no way be as delicious)

+ 2 spoonfuls of water

+ 1 mangosteen

Dissolve palm sugar chunk in water in glass. Stir until it mostly dissolves.

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Plop mangosteen segments into second glass. Smush around with a spoon.

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Divide mangosteen pulp and palm sugar water evenly into two glasses.

Add 2 oz bourbon to each glass. Top up with a bit of water to dilute slightly (or add ice instead if you’ve got it.)

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Enjoy!

Into the crevasse

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Since embarking on the self-employed track three years ago, I’ve never really had a great sense of “time” or “days” or “dates.” That feeling is amplified when you’re traveling around from city to city, and country to country. So unsurprisingly, Steve and I had no idea that we had been traveling for over a month until our friends Pete and Kimra came out to join us for part of our Japan leg.

It simultaneously feels like we’ve been gone forever, and that we just left last week. Vietnam seems like a distant memory, and we were there 12 days ago.

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Long-term travel is overall exciting, but transitioning from vacation-mode to traveler/worker mode has proved challenging. When you go on vacation, you make your plans ahead of time, and simply go full-force and soak it all up. Long-term travel means remaining flexible, and making travel plans several times a week. Booking a hotel, booking a flight, booking a train, and deciding where to go next all take time. More time than we anticipated.

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Which is a big reason why I haven’t been doing as much arty work as I intended …. yet. I’ve been gathering inspiration everywhere. We’re slowly trying to get into a schedule as much as possible and I hope to be posting some artwork (and other tidbits) soon.

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In our first month, we’ve acquired a lot more travel rules, and one of them is to simply stay put for a while. Not only does that let us really experience a city, but we also get to relax a bit. Rushing around from city to city, packing and re-packing, taking new transportation, and figuring out a new place can get exhausting. But I’m not an idiot, and I know how fortunate we are, rushing and stress included.

So for now, we are holed up in Fukuoka, a city in Kyushu, the southern-most main island of Japan. (And a mere hop, skip, and a jump away from South Korea, so all this North Korea business is very exciting. hrmmmm.) We’re spending 10 days here, which every Japanese person we’ve spoken to thinks is hilarious. But it is a great city, with convenient shopping and INSANE food. (This is no surprise if you’re following me on Instagram. Sorry if there is drool on your iPhone). It is ground zero for ramen, specifically tonkotsu ramen — that milky white pork bone broth affair that is the King of Ramen Broths (TM pending). We have been absolutely spoiled by the food here, and I don’t think I’ll enjoy a bowl of ramen in the US in quite the same way again.

After we’ve had our fill of ramen, gyoza, and nihonshu, we’re off to Penang for further food adventures. Stay tuned.

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travel rule: follow the smell of grilling meat

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After a few short days in Bangkok, we have made our way to Saigon, Vietnam. We’re still getting finding our footing with this new lifestyle, but even less than a week into our journey, we’ve started developing some of our own “travel rules.”

The first came about the other night. After spending a day on a pretty great food tour, complete with breakfast pho, market meanderings, and street food galore, we were pretty exhausted. After a siesta and a shower, we were eventually ready for dinner but didn’t really want to wander too far. There was a somewhat chi-chi restaurant only blocks away, which had garnered rave reviews both on TripAdvisor and from our new favorite Vietnamese chef, Luke Nguyen. It was expensive (for Vietnam) at least, but promised cocktails and a setting in a former opium distribution center. So, we set off.

Minutes later, we walked into a long hallway, dimly lit and lined with elephant statues, with a set of stairs at the end. A sign indicated that Temple Club was on the second floor, and there was another restaurant on the third floor. As we ambled up the stairs, we heard an increasing cacophony of voices, and a delicious aroma of grilling meat. We reached the landing with our intended restaurant to find a quiet, gorgeous looking restaurant. But the smell and voices were clearly coming from farther up. What the hell…. let’s check it out.

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And boy am I glad we did. Within moments, the aggressive, but lovely hostess, clad in a San Miguel dress motioned for 4 staff members to carry over a plastic table and two chairs. Before we knew what we were in for, we were seated with enormous beers in our hands. The restaurant was a Vietnamese BBQ joint, on the rooftop of the building. We were there early, around 6:30, and the place was nearly full, mostly from two enormous parties of already drunk revelers. The music was booming and we really had no idea what was going on. Our table had a hot plate-type thing in the middle, and we quickly saw that it was a grill-your-own type place. We glanced around and placed our order.

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The food was ridiculous — bo lo lat (ground beef wrapped in betel leaves and caul fat), lemongrass beef, banana flower salad and our standard order of rau muong (morning glory). But the night was awesome mostly from the atmosphere. At one point it started drizzling ever so lightly, and the the giant galvanized metal roof started gliding into place after customers started yelling and pointing. The staff was so incredibly well-oiled; no one in the restuarnt waited for anything, and there was constant scurrying.

And then there was the birthday celebration. The two large party tables were celebrating someone’s birthday. There were raucous cheers every few minutes, with shots of rice wine, beer, and whiskey being downed. About halfway through our meal, the staff started handing out sparklers to the two tables. The lights turned off. Soon after, “Happy Birthday” – in English – was blaring from the speakers. Sparklers were lit.

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Two cakes appeared (the birthday boy was turning 28), and then another server came by and put overturned bowls on everyone’s food,and turned off our gas burners. Ummm.. what? About 20 seconds later, all of the staff (about 30 people) ringed themselves around the party tables, and timed precisely with the conclusion of “Happy Birthday”, popped confetti poppers into the air, streaming shiny confetti on everything.

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Smart move with those bowls… After a quick cheer, Gangnam Style started. Lots of dancing as you might imagine, even from the adorable 4 year old boy at the family table. Cross cultural madness.

So maybe we would have had better food at Temple Club (though I don’t know how), and definitely would have had a more relaxing evening. But for us, following the smell of grilling meats and the sound of loud happy voices proved to make a most memorable evening. Thus, a new travel rule was born.

Follow the smell of grilling meat and loud voices.