Paris (France)

Since Rich was going to be working outside of Paris for some time, I decided to tag along so I could actually see my husband and some more of the city. This was my third trip to the City of Light, and let me say straight out (and hope not to earn your eternal ire): Sorry, folks, I'm still not quite feelin' it. Maybe it is because there are so many expectations from films and literature and pop culture, it would be impossible to live up to. The architecture is impressive but not really my style. People rave about strolling along the bridges on the Seine, but my attempts to capture this romantic interlude have been more gray Paris than gay Paris. And while I am sure that dining in the hallowed halls is everything I would dream it could be, for most meals, it seemed to my mind (and budget) that you had to pay dearly for it... But maybe also, Barcelona has spoiled me - give me Catalan modernisme, eternally sunny beaches, and affordable gastronomy by chefs named Jordi!

That is not to say that I found nothing of interest in Paris. Indeed, we were so dazzled by one place that we went twice. E. Dehillerin is a dark, unassuming spot in the 1st arrondissement (as neighborhoods in Paris are called). Inside, what looks like a dusty hardware store is, upon closer inspection, a veritable treasure trove. For a chef, it would be easy to believe this place has everything your heart desires. The ceiling-high warren of shelving holds every conceivable size and shape of pans (bundt pans the size of a half dollar!) and utensils for which you could only hazard a guess at their purpose. Should your preference run to copper, cast iron, or stainless steel, E. Dehillerin is like a fine armory from which to choose your gleaming weapons. The styles and options are myriad, but for the uniquely French cook, there were such specialized items as soft-bristled croissant brushes (they look like something you should groom a horse with) and escargot dishes (not unlike those dented platters for devilled eggs). To add to the temptation, none of the wares are marked with prices. Each shelf or container has a coded number that you look up in one of the three binders in the store, and one of the aproned old men will wrap up your selections in brown butcher paper. We managed to tear ourselves away with a particularly fine chef's knife, fierce-looking shears, and a French rolling pin.

The other reason for visiting Paris, for me, is the art. I had been to the Louvre (overwhelming) and the Musée d'Orsay (wonderful) previously, but this time, I wanted to try to make it to some of the other 204 (!) art museums in the city. The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Petit Palais had some nice, free permanent collections of modern and fine art, respectively. The Musée de l'Orangerie is small but superb for contemplating Monet's series in water lilies. Again, I have to admit the artistic high point reveals my slight Catalan bias. The Centre Georges Pompidou had a phenomenal Salvador Dalí exhibit occupying almost the entire expanse of the sixth floor. We were a little concerned that having waited for 1.5 hours in line and having been to his museum in Figueres, we'd be disappointed. How wrong we were! With some ridiculous number like 400 of his works on display, there was plenty to amaze, astonish, and just plain be weirded out by. Although I may not always understand it, I am always fascinated... and as a much bigger fan, Rich, who gave up the chance to sleep before his next shift, thought it was totally worth it!

Paris (France)

The fast train that goes under the English Channel can get you from London to Paris in a scant 2 hours and 15 minutes. High walls obstruct your views of a lot of the English countryside, but the ride was very smooth, and the security obligations were much less onerous than any airport.

In another railway station, the beautiful Musee d'Orsay houses mid-1800 to early-1900 art. The Impressionists and post- artists (Monet, Degas, Renoir, Van Gogh, etc.) were out in full force, and though the place was still fairly humming with visitors, I prefer the atmosphere and artwork here than at Paris's most famous museum. The Louvre, aka home of the Mona Lisa, is simply overwhelming. The place is a 12th century palace with all the ostentation one might expect of housing royalty for 500 or so years, and that's just the architecture! Once you pry your eyes away from the ornate ceilings, gallery after gallery holds the roughly 35,000 objects on exhibit everyday. Even with an art student leading another guy and us on a 3 hour crash course tour, we barely saw all the headliners.

For a country so renown for food, we had quite a few so-so and subpar meals, including some truly awful crepes (pre-cooked with underdone eggs and canned mushrooms). This was entirely our fault. Strolling in the crowds along the chestnut-lined Champs-Élysées and realizing suddenly you are all hungry is a deck stacked against you. Our two best meals were from proper planning and spontaneity, respectively, and above all, following the cardinal rule of eating in regular neighborhoods - or arrondissements as they're known - away from the tourist sites.

Luckily, our plans included a safeguard for Parisian patisseries. We took cooking classes! For 3 hours, we labored in the high art of croissant-making. Our floury, handwritten notes and diagrams covered both sides of the recipe sheet. Hint: The dough requires not a pat, but what could only be described as a whole frickin' tile of butter! The results were golden crisp on the outside and flaky soft on the inside. Besides your plain ol' croissants, we also made them with fillings of chocolate (the ever-luscious pain au chocolat) and almond (the divine croissant aux amandes). Another day and another cooking class saw us preparing our own Cafe Gourmand, which is a fanciful way of saying dessert tasting menu. We had fun with the blowtorch, making our tiny dishes of crème brûlée, and got messy coating chocolate onto our madeleines. The shell-shaped Proust favorite is actually a little cake, not a cookie as many Americans might think.

With so much butter and cream in our system, it's a blessing that Paris is a lovely city to walk. Magnificent churches like Notre Dame and Sante-Chapelle rise with glorious stained-glass windows, and the beautiful basilica of Sacre Couer towers over Montmarte, which fans of Amélie will recognize from the film. Of course, most visitors to Paris will want to check out that most dominant feature of the  skyline - the Eiffel Tower. But for a different look, the Tuilleries Gardens are a fantastic greenspace and sculpture park along the Seine, and if that doesn't do it for you, surely you'll find at least one of the 37 bridges over the river picturesque. 

Udaipur (India)

Udaipur has been called the "most romantic city in India" because of a beautiful palace sitting in the middle of Lake Pichola (also seen in the James Bond film, Octopussy). Unfortunately, the lake in question is currently so low that donkeys play on the grass underneath the walking bridge, and the debris is pretty noticeable along the ghats. On the plus side, it still looks charming in the rain of the monsoon, and Udaipur is by far the most relaxing Indian city we have visited yet with the least aggressive touts.

The City Palace is the residence of the Mewars of Udaipur, the longest serving dynasty in the world at 76 generations, and houses a museum. Besides exhibits on weaponry and the days of the British Raj, the palace contains many rooms lined with intricate murals in the Rajasthani miniature painting style or covered in elaborate glass tile mosaics. Apparently, if a fairytale wedding is what you really desire, you can even book the courtyards with beautiful fountains for the big event!

We also visited Jagdish Temple, which is supposed to be one of the largest temples to the Hindu god Vishnu. The structures are elaborately carved, and at night, our dinner restaurant gave us a great view of the multicolored lights illuminating the temple... and the poor man in charge of ringing the bell continuously throughout the long service (he had to keep switching arms).

For my ongoing "anthropological studies," I had a fantastic ayurvedic massage from an Indian matron in a red sari and apron. The head massage portion involved a substantial quantity of fragrant oil poured in my hair and her scratching my head for about 15 minutes, which I could see would be great for anyone with dry scalp issues. This is also the first time someone else has wiped out my belly button, which was a little on the awkward side!

Finally, a note on Indian food... we noticed we have been paying handsomely for lackluster and sometimes downright disappointing meals in India, and we have several theories: 1) we were extraordinarily spoiled with the abundance and quality of Indian cuisine in Cary and surrounding areas; 2) we are too much on the Tourist Trail, and these places are accustomed to catering to Westerners who only ask for butter chicken and other non-spicy dishes; or 3) perhaps, as in Morocco, the best food is at home (cooked by the ladies) and not in restaurants (cooked by the men), which would explain why the best restaurants we ate in were in Delhi, where, presumably, urbanites do not cook as much. It is probably a combination of all of them, but our cooking course instructor seemed to favor theory #3.

Shashi is an admirable Brahmin woman who started teaching cooking classes after struggling to raise her two sons when her husband died. The class took place in her 2-room apartment with another couple of students. Over the 6 hours, we made masala chai (Indian spiced tea with milk); 4 kinds of pakora (fried snacks... cheese, onion, potato, and mixed veg), 2 kinds of chutney (mango and cilantro); vegetable pulao (rice dish); aloo mutter (potato and pea curry); and 5 kinds of bread (chapati; plain, potato, and sweet parathas; and my personal favorite - garlic cheese and tomato naan). Shashi was full of suggestions for variations on the recipes and also explained how to go about making curd (yogurt) and paneer (fresh cheese) at home. Unfortunately, we lost our heads a little with the fried goodness that were the pakoras with chutneys so we could not each much of the rest of the dishes. However, Shashi insisted we at least take the breads for breakfast the next morning, and they went well - even cold! - with a nice pot of masala chai.

Chiang Mai (Thailand)

Most of our time in Chiang Mai was devoted to cooking or in markets. We did 3 days of cooking courses at the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. In our opinion, these were the best cooking classes we have ever been to. Each dish was first demonstrated by the staff, and each student then cooked their own version at their own prep station and gas burner after sampling the pro's. They also provided suggestions for altering the taste of a dish as well as how to select and store ingredients. The best morning activity was preparing curry paste, which involved enough mortar and pestle time to make our arms sore, but the results were already better than anything we have ever made at home. The cookery school is an efficient machine, considering we got through 6 dishes in as many hours. Towards the end, we were getting cocky with our technique so then we played around with our garnishes and plating. Richard's best effort was making a smiley face in his soup using straw mushroom and coriander/cilantro stalks, and mine was a palm tree in my red curry out of fresh bamboo shoot and the top of a basil. Some of our favorite dishes included:
- penang curry with pork
- hot and sour prawn soup
- fried fish cakes with a chili-cucumber sauce
- spicy papaya salad eaten with a "scoop" made from a ball of sticky rice
- banana coconut cake steamed in a banana leaf

Chiang Mai also has fantastic markets. The Sunday Walking Market, which we went to twice, was a major thoroughfare with anything for sale, buskers, and amazing street food that tops any street festival in the States (even the one in Chicago before we left). One of the best things about the street food in Thailand is that it comes in snack sizes... even tiny omelets, each made out of a single quail egg. Our interesting finds included:
- Black gelatin shaved from a giant block and topped with ice and heaps of brown sugar, which tasted like sweet tea jello
- A crepe-like thing with coconut cream, shaved coconut, sugar, and cheese
- A giant deep-fried ball of rice, which we thought would be safe, until the seller broke it up, mixed it with vegetables and spices and almost (until we stopped her) what looked like uncooked ground pork... she dropped it, but still used the same hand to mix
- Finally, a decent sausage in Asia! Pork with chilli and lemongrass... so good we went for seconds

My other interesting experience in Chiang Mai was yet another massage (is there such a career as a massage anthropologist? Because if so, sign me up!). It was given by a cute girl with a smile and a bow in her hair... and knuckle tatoos! The women's prison in Chiang Mai has a program for the inmates to learn massage skills, and the money goes into an account for them to use when they get released. She seemed like such a nice girl, and I was dying to know what her crime was... but "so, what are you in for?" is not exactly the sort of conversation you want to have while in a vulnerable position like having your elbows pinned down with her knees. In Thailand, a full body massage seems to also mean their full body as well, since most of the time, it looks like the two of you are wrestling (case in point, sitting cross-legged with her grabbing under your armpits as she swings your upper body to crack your back). Rehabilitation for her and for me.

Final Thoughts on Cambodia

We spent a scant 5 days in Cambodia, and almost all of it in Siem Reap. Here are some mostly non-temple-related observations:

- Siem Reap is big tourism. The least aggressive tout is the adult male drivers ("Tuk-tuk, sir?") on the street corners. This is minor compared to the children ("Sir, you buy postcard necklace I give you good price 10 for 1 dollar") who descend upon your table inside the restaurant in mass. However, the most annoying has got to be the adult females of the species, who cry in a sort of nasal sing-song pitch, "SIIIIIRRRR, you buy cold DRIINNNKK? I remember you, you buy from MEEEEEEEE," continuously from the moment your tuk-tuk slows down, throughout the walk around the site, and as you are driving away from the temple. In all fairness, the majority of the big ticket price for the Temples pass goes to some big corporation so buying from the touts is one way to add some money into the actual local economy.

- Khmer cuisine is pretty good. We were big fans of the Cambodian dish amok (fish, shredded cabbage, onions in a creamy coconut sauce, sometimes with egg, and always in a bowl made from a banana leaf)... not so much into the lok lak (lukewarm tomato-y beef on a bed of onion, tomato, and cucumber slices with a black pepper sauce). Because of the huge tourist influx, eating options (and many other hospitality services) vary wildly from cheap, fantastic plates at the street stalls to Western prices (ridiculously expensive by Southeast Asian standards) for what seems like mediocre Western food. The dollar menu at the street stalls - a heaping pile of fried rice or noodles with recognizable vegetables AND shrimp! - puts McDonald's to shame.

- Sure, it's a gimmick, but we could not resist trying out the fish massage. You put your feet into what is essentially a blow-up kiddie pool on the sidewalk with tiny little fish that are supposed to nibble the dead skin off your toes. It is really more akin to that scraper they use in a pedicure for your calluses than an actual massage. The sensation tickles at first, which is why people getting the massage are laughing their heads off, and later, if there are a lot of fish nibbling, feels like one of those vibrating Brookstone or Sharper Image massagers or, as Richard more succinctly puts it, like getting pins and needles. For good measure, I also tried out the traditional Khmer full body massage, which was the best one yet.

- Getting back in touch with entomology, we also visited a silk worm farm as part of a visit to the Artisans of Angkor workshop. Cambodian silk is naturally yellow in color, and they do the dyeing, weaving, and embroidery there as well. Silk is one of the traditional crafts they teach (also wood and soapstone carving, lacquering, and silver-plating), and their pieces are really beautiful (although pricey because it is fair trade).

- Small world moment: In a bakery/cafe with awesome ice cream (we tried four-spice, caramel and cashew, Khmer fruits, and jackfruit flavors) and an even more awesome white-on-white minimalist lounge, Richard randomly ran into one of his college floormates who he has not seen in 10 years. Crazy!

Final Thoughts on Vietnam

Wish we could have spent more time in Vietnam, but as the blog says, we need to get a move on, so here are some final thoughts...

Regrets:
- Not visiting Dalat, a mountain town where many Vietnamese go for their honeymoon
- Not finding Rich's soup made from rice paddy crabs (bun rieu cua) on any menu
- On the night train, buying what we thought were chips, but actually was a bun with possibly strips of cheese or butter and a filling that can only be described as fur! We found out later the "fur" is actually "pork floss," and I am sorry, call us close-minded, but pork should not be unrefrigerated and above all, should NOT BE FLOSSED!

Previously unmentioned highlights:
- Pho, the breakfast - or really any meal - of champions!
- A pretty decent steak and chips (steak frites, heavy on the garlic, from the French influence), which we never would have ordered except it was a popular choice at the street stall
- Walking through someone's living room with grandma and kids watching cartoons to get to the restaurant's "upstairs outdoor seating" on the balcony
- Hoi An crispy country pancakes (banh xeo)
- Being able to watch World Cup matches anywhere - from being with the family at the homestay in a mountain village to with hundreds of Vietnamese fans at a giant outdoor screen in Hoi An

Danang, Hoi An, and Cua Dai (Vietnam)

Hanoi to Danang wins hands down as the sketchiest train ride we have been on so far. Starting off with having to buy black market tickets due to availability, the only bit of luck we had was they were soft sleeper (4-person berth) instead of the expected hard sleeper (6-person berth), and we did not have to change berths in the middle of the night as suggested. However, this time there were visible cockroaches (German cockroaches - even though I tried hard not to notice them), which I suspect were encouraged by the waste basket under the table and probably not helped by the hygiene of our cabin mates, a backpacker couple of the hard-partying hippie stereotype (greasy clothes, dirty feet, and drinking grain alcohol chased with valium). The train also would periodically jolt to a brief stop, and we suspected at least one of these times, it must have hit something or someone.

Danang is a big city in central Vietnam, but we were really only there to catch a taxi to Hoi An, which Rich did for a respectable price with A/C.

Hoi An is a picturesque river town, and we happened to catch it on one of the Full Moon Nights. The streets of the Old Town (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) are closed to motorized traffic, and all the restaurants and shops are lit with candles and Chinese-style lanterns. Everyone is out walking around, and the street vendors are selling candles in paper lanterns that you can buy and send floating down the river. It looks very pretty, but I did not want to buy partly because it is such a tourist trap and partly because it was essentially littering (and Vietnam, although not as bad as some places, already has its fair share). We did buy a patty that ladies were grilling over charcoal on the sidewalk (sweet potato, coconut, and ginger - a little on the dry side).

Rich got into the real business of Hoi An: tailoring. That's right, he's "Mr. Couture" now. Shop after shop in Hoi An is filled with custom tailors where you choose your fabrics, pick your designs, and new clothes can be ready in as little as 24 hours. Rich got a suit and three shirts made. The shirts were a good deal since, even at the first fitting, you could tell they already fit better than anything he has ever gotten in the store without also paying for alterations. The suit was probably because we were getting a little carried away, but a man needs more than one suit, especially if he expects to get a real job some day. With additional fittings, the entire process took about 48 hours. He looks pretty sharp!

The Old Town in Hoi An also has several ancient buildings you can visit with the same pass. A couple included a guide who gave a brief tour (nice) but who then made it a point to try to sell you some specific trinket (not so nice). The handicrafts museum had artisans demonstrating how they make the Chinese lanterns, wood carvings, and embroidery. We also managed to catch an exhibition of traditional Vietnamese songs and dances. One of which involved ladies passing out what looked liked fans in the audience. We were not going to be tricked into buying that one, that's for sure! Unfortunately, the joke was on us, since, during the following piece, the singers were calling out the written characters on the "fans," and the fans were actually more like tickets for a free door prize. One of the winners even received a Chinese lantern, which we had been hoping to buy anyway!

One day we rented a pair of cheap but rickety bikes from a lady who made me hold her baby while she unlocked them. Cua Dai beach is about 5 km down the road in the gauntlet that is Vietnam traffic (although in all fairness, traffic in Hoi An is laughable compared to the death-defying trek it is in Hanoi). Seafood restaurants line the beach and will rent out chairs under umbrellas to you. Our section of the beach was pretty quiet, and the water was very calm if not quite as warm as it had been in Halong Bay. Unfortunately, we were not able to have the big seafood blowout we were hoping to for lunch since the prices were extortionate. I made the mistake of ordering what I thought would be fish spring rolls. Instead, a whole fish (very fishy-tasting and boney) and the rice paper to wrap it came to our table. We are fairly at ease now with wrapping our own rolls, but it is challenging when you are taking apart a whole fish with only chopsticks and also trying not to let the rice paper blow away in the wind!

Other regional specialties we have sampled included white rose (shrimp steamed in rice paper), cau lau (fried noodles with pork, bean sprouts, and cracklin' croutons over salad greens), and crab fried with tamarind (which I have to admit was pretty good despite my usually strict standards of not ruining crab by mixing it with anything else). Bonus: the crab had eggs in it - Yummy!

Hanoi (Vietnam)

Finally, we said our goodbyes to Hanoi. Forces seemed to be conspiring to keep us in the city, including lost luggage and our inability to book the trains or tours we wanted. All told we were there about 7 days and 4 nights. Our last night we ate on the street, at a place that was doing brisk business with probably seventy customers at any one time crouching at line after line of little plastic tables. Thanks to the kindness of the young Vietnamese couple sitting opposite us, we managed to get a copy of the English menu and our order actually delivered. I ordered what looked like one of the most popular dishes, roast pigeon (tasted like chicken, but greasy and not much meat on the bones). Rich went for the frog legs in a sweet and sour sauce (tasted like fishy chicken, but sticky and again, a lot of bones for the meat).

We had such a pleasant experience that Rich wanted to push our luck more so we stopped at the corner bia hoi (local fresh beer) place. There seems to be one on almost every corner in Hanoi. It tasted like Miller Light. Then we got charged the stupid foreigner price, which we thought was high but did not realize until later, it was 10x more. The guy even had the audacity to ask for an additional big tip, which we did not give. Rich is still fuming about it on principle. I would like to think that, of all the possible ways one can get ripped off in Asia, I am ok with a loss of what amounts to 2.50 USD, or the price of the odd PBR in the States.

Lao Cai, Sapa, and Ban Den (Vietnam)

The overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Cai was an adventure. About 10 minutes after we left the station, the train lost power, and we got to sit in the blistering heat and humidity for almost 2 hours until they tried to fix it and then finally just replaced the whole engine car. We kept ourselves amused by trying to figure out what was going on in the train parked next to us, which looked like it could have been a train robbing or just a casual pick-out-your-cargo-from-the-freight-car-free-for-all with smoke breaks.

Lao Cai is the last station before the Chinese border filled with neon lights and coach buses as well as the drop-off point to catch a mini-bus to the real destination, Sapa.

Sapa is a bustling mountain town with a big backpacker (and therefore, tout) presence. We made a newbie mistake in our choice of hotel by being distracted by the beautiful view and cheap price and not catching the moldy ceilings and damp bedding until later. I got a massage from a girl who was more of the slap, pummel, and poke style than to my liking, but really, for 70 minutes at 8.50 USD, can you really complain? We also took a cooking class at a hotel restaurant, which was more demonstration than the billed as "hands-on," which really was fine, until the owner/manager lady came over and berated the nice pair instructing us. I think we would have preferred it to remain demo rather than having an angry woman standing over you yelling, "YOU! YOU COOK THE PORK NOW!" We were hoping she was just having a bad day and not normally such a jerk to be around.

The real draw for coming up to the mountains is for hiking and visiting the villages of the various minority tribes in the area. Sho, a Black Hmong girl who can be quite chatty at times, was our guide for a slightly less touristy trek and homestay in the area with Hmong, Red Zao, and Zay people. The first day was a 15 km trek up and down steep mountain sides - the longest, most technical, and hottest hike I have ever been on. At times we were walking along ridges of rice paddies and doing more of a controlled falling than actual walking. The first third we were followed by three Hmong women trying to sell us their jewelry and pillow cases. Although it was annoying they would not accept we were not going to buy, when we got to the rough areas (sinking mud, steep inclines, and more often than not, both at the same time), there were times that two of them were forcibly holding me up or catching my fall. It is pretty humbling to have some 4 ft tall grandma in wellies and a young mother in sandals with a freakin' baby strapped to her back (!) be the people who are actively keeping you from pitching head first down a mountain or into a huge pile of water buffalo cow pie. Anyway, it worked out to their favor since we ended up giving them a little something anyway for saving my life a couple of times. Rich, carrying our pack, was much more graceful and nimble on his feet. Of course! The rest of the day was also challenging but with less of a mud factor. We finally made it to the homestay in Ban Den with nothing wrong with us except for some shaky-tired legs and mud-covered shoes. Dinner made by the family was a fair spread and capped with shots of the local rice wine moonshine. We also managed to catch a good amount of the Germany vs. Serbia match before dinner, too!