Coromandel

I've found Cornwall on the other side of the world. Well, a tropical Cornwall with a lot of what looks like jungle, but still... A peninsula whose industry is largely tourism now, but has in the past been based on fishing and mining.
It's beautiful...

View from our terrace (!)

Clean Cities #1

Singapore gives the impression that somebody went around Asia collecting all the best bits, gave them a polish and then assembled them in the most likely Asian climate (++humidity).

The airport is extremely quiet and tranquil. This may not be notable in itself to most people, but having lived in Hanoi, quiet and tranquil stand out in this part of the world.

I'd booked a hotel in Little India, for a few reasons; the main ones being that I was a little nostalgic about my time in Big India, I wanted to be somewhere that still felt like SE Asia, not only in terms of the weather, but somewhere less sterile than other parts of the city, and also I was desperate to have a masala dosa and some chai for breakfast. I made the right choice, as I got all those things over the four days I was there.

Window view

We were denied access to our hotel room for an hour (we did arrive before check-in, bedraggled and jet-lagged) so went in search of sustenance and found it in the form of a street-side collection of counter-eateries with plastic tables and chairs that provided us with mixed meat and noodle soup and a Tiger beer (made here, don'tcha know). That was the moment, sat there in a humid cloud with noodley-broth on the side of a busy, busy street that I realised how much I missed SE Asia. I was happy to be back.

The next few days, which went by far too quickly, were spent catching up with friends, eating as much as possible - Gluttons' Bay, China Town, Japanese, Indian (of course)- and seeing as many sights as possible.

Modern Singapore 

The contrast was amazing between the bustle and colour of Little India, with market stalls, the sweet smell of mangoes* and flowers as they make the gajra, ever-present incense and the little electric music boxes with tinny renditions of Hindi classics, vibrant fabrics, genuine smiles, chaotic shopping malls, and multi-coloured temples and the very shiny and ordered part of town by the waterfront and quays.

On the recommendation a friend, we went to a free musical light show in Gardens by the Bay, which was pretty surreal and lots of fun.

And then found a way to get up to the top of Marina Bay Sands Hotel** to look down on the next light show from high, high above:

Not suitable for vertigo sufferers!

A visit to Chinatown was compulsory and included food. There is a street in the middle that is set up for eating and has pretty much anything you may want to eat from a range of Chinese cuisines. We went for grilled chicken and pork with rice, veg and broth. And a Tiger (beer, not wild cat).

The evening market was fun, if a bit touristy, and the main street was decorated with lanterns so that you couldn't forget which district you were in:

A very fast few days, and I definitely need to return. My main ambition for Singapore was to eat a lot, which I managed, but I'd still like to see the zoo, the night safari and a bit more of the Botanical Gardens.

Next stop, dose of Jet-lag and clean city: Auckland.

*How I miss the orange mangoes!

** You know, the iconic three towers-one

Valenciando

So there's rice.

And then there's meat (a lot of meat). Actually, because it has been over a year since I was in this fair Iberian land, and the last time I was here I was technically a vegetarian (although I was starting to stray a little at that point, I have to admit), I have done my utmost to catch up. This means that I have not only consumed a fair quantity of embutidos, morcilla, jamón y chorizo, but also managed to eat chuletillas de cordero and chuletón (ya era hora).

Fish: ventresca de atún, which was amazingly good, emperador and seafood, not counting the tapas and montaditos whose creators mixed everything and served it in ideal quantities.
Pizza and lentejas de la madre, which are, of course, always the best.

Turrón, horchata con fartones, chocolates...That's the sweet tooth occupied. I can heartily recommend el Daniel for a merienda of Horchata and sweet things.

And then there are the wines, many and variable as the other half has had quite a different wine education to me, so finding something that we both like can sometimes be a struggle. As it turns out, we actually have similar tastes, which was discovered thanks to Ramón, the owner of El Olmo who listened to the "she's more in favour of Riojas, I'm more in favour of Ribera del Duero" and produced a perfect Crianza (Ribera del Duero) called Lambuena, which stands out as the star of the trip.

Entering somebody's life for a week can be challenging (for both), but with the stomach full, the tastebuds occupied and the senses slightly numbed by a caña or a good copa de vino, it is more do-able; combined with the sensation of being back in a land that I called home for six years, it's a pleasure.

I'm stuffed and ready to return home with my mini-paellera, my maxi-cafetera and a bag full of jamón, queso, turrones and a load of other goods bought from the market and good ol' Mercadona.

Oh, and we managed a little homemade Patxarán too, to remember the North.

Hasta la próxima, España.

Beyond Empires

I'm in a gateway and it feels that way.

Istanbul is enormous in every direction, currently the most notable direction is inwards. Profoundly so.

First stop: breakfast.
Turkish breakfast consists of a vast quantity of peynir (cheese), olives, tomatoes, cucumber, bread, jam, bal (honey) a very boiled egg, chay (guess) and an extra - in my case omelette. All happily consumed looking out at the sea (yes, that's right: the sea and definitely not the river).

This creates a certain sensation of doymak (fullness, possibly, my Turkish pretty dreadful) so a walk along the promenade was welcome afterwards to aid Much-Cheese-Digestion.

A few cat-conversations (Turkish cats seem to understand me better than Turkish humans) and some drizzly weather later, I embarked upon a tour of The Istanbul Boğazı, which gave an inkling into the geographical vastness. The boat took us down the European side and back up the Asian side, taking in the bridges, mosques, places and schools that line the way and the towns that make up the sprawl starting in Haliç, and passing Beşiktaş, Ortaköy and Bebek in Europe and Beykoz, and Üsküdar on the Asian side. This probably means nothing if you've never been here (I'm still a little overwhelmed and I am here..) so here's the route. Seagulls accompany you and catch bread thrown to them in mid air. Really, Casillas, you could learn something here.

Boats in Bebek

Did you know that Istanbul has the second oldest underground railway in the world (after London)? Me neither! Well, I went on it - five minutes of funicular fun* which bought us to Taksim, and Istakal: the shopping district. There are lots of little book and gift shops, cafés, chain stores, backstreets filled with markets and fish stalls.. pretty much everything you could actually want (except, perhaps a peaceful walk).

At the end of Istakal, it was decided that some kind of sustenance was now required (breakfast had finally worn off) and baklava and khave seemed like a perfect option. We went into a place called Hafiz Mustafa" and ordered a mixed plate of Baklava and turkish coffee. The baklava arrived and was phenomenally good. I mean, phenomenally, phenomenally good. You may think you have had good baklava, and I'm sure you have, but I am certain that it was nothing like this.

(I was impressed)

I casually tried out my Turkish on my companion with a joking "kahve nerede?"** to which he called over the waiter and told him that I had something to say. I spluttered a bit, because I'm English and being forced to be rude at short notice is entirely alien, but went ahead and said it. He didn't hear first time due to my not really wanting to be heard, so I repeated. He apologised profusely of the lack of kahve and went to fetch it.
We got extra Turkish Delight. I recovered and was told that in Turkish that wasn't actually rude. I'm still unsure about that, but I'll not lose sleep over it...

Then a trip to Besiktas and a tour of the markets there was quickly rained off so we took up residence in a pub. This then prompted dinner plans involving meze, fish and rakı. Dinner plans were enacted and I returned, very well fed indeed to the hotel.

Next day was history day, after the required kilo of cheese and bread that is breakfast up at the Sultanahmet.
The day included The Topkapı Palace, The Ayasofya and the Blue Mosque, all of which were too impressive for me to be able to do justice here. I suggest you go there.
I am reading My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk, which is set at the time of the Sultans and walking around the palace really let me imagine what it was like then.
The Ayasofya was huge and moving, but unfortunately scaffolded, which I think it has been for over ten years. Still, you get a sense of how important the building is and what it represents is fairly important in East-West history.

The Blue Mosque was the first Mosque I have ever actually entered. I can't quite describe how it made me feel, but I spent a while being still inside. Not dissimilar to the feeling of being in a huge cathedral in Spain, a temple in Vietnam or any other reverent place of worship I have visited. Tranquil, safe, peaceful. My companion took me through the prayer rituals of the day and patiently answered my many questions. I understand the world a little better now.

Dinner broke my pescatarian stretch of two years as I gave way and ate kebab - köfte, shish and tavuk (chicken), washed down with ayran. It took me ages to eat, but it was good.

There will be the Grand Bazaar and other delights tomorrow, but for now I need to sleep.

Iyi geceler.

*used purely for poetic purposes

** where's the coffee?

Things to Do in London When You're Me.

Well the thing I most commonly do when I'm here on my own is eat random cuisines that I don't get the chance to at home.
When I say random, I mean a cuisine that can transport me back to somewhere I've been before in a semi-nostalgic fashion.
And I do this when I'm alone, because it's really comforting. It also provides a great escape from English, particularly when one is concentrating really really hard on the language and how best to impart it to others in the most meaningful way possible all day long. Sometimes the only way to stop this brain -jam is to go into an environment where English is not the native language and you'll most probably find people speaking something else, be it the language of the food's home country or the language of the table-staff (very seldom English*).

Generally speaking, the cuisine of choice for this culinary trip down memory lane/escapesville is Vietnamese. I can't eat Vietnamese food at home, I love Vietnamese food and I love it in London because I'll almost certainly be able to get a veggie-version.
If the chef is Vietnamese and the venerable old chap who brings bowls of stuff  up to the open kitchen is Vietnamese then that's enough for me. If the people who sit at the next table are also Vietnamese so I can sit and listen to their mild soft-squawks (that is what the language sounds like, I'm sorry...) and remember being surrounded by this on busy roads while I burrow into my Bún, then I'm so very happy.

Even the addition of the waiting staff all being Spanish and, as such, communicating in that language gave an extra level of relaxation to the whole experience. I asked for the bill in Spanish as I had nobody to ask for it from in Tieng Viet (I was still quite chuffed with myself for being able to remember).

Basically I got to switch off, eat great food and do nothing ELT related for 40 minutes. Brilliant.

*this is commentary, not judgement; for all you reactionists.

Comfort Zones and How to Avoid Them

I've come to the conclusion that one of the main reasons I spent most of the last ten years moving from place to place was to keep me on the edge of my comfort zone, and pushing that edge just a little bit further; regularly jumping out of it just to see what happened and gradually losing the ability to be freaked out by bugs, hard work, interesting plumbing arrangements or the need to bathe in one jugful of water while keeping half an eye on whatever creature had ambled in that morning...

Which means that what happens when I stay still and settle is that I decide to go and climb big and scary mountains that really should only be attempted by the fit and able, and not by, well, me.

And that's what happened. But all in the name of charity and not alone (I would be dead now if I had been) and it formed part of a very pleasant and much needed weekend in The Lakes getting back in touch with nature, and away from the city, wifi, running water and electricity.

The Mountain was Hellvellyn and yes, we did go along, up and down Striding Edge which was the terrifying bit that caused a serious wibble on my part. I really should investigate things a bit more before I agree to do them. But where would the fun in that be?

Luckily, my two companions were patient and very experienced mountaineers and they guided me down the seemingly impossible rock face. I stopped to hug a sizeable boulder at one point just to reassure me that it was there.

It was beautiful, really really beautiful. The sense of achievement was also pretty awesome*.
The walk back down was great until it started getting dark and we realised we'd gone the wrong way. We also saw a very clean carcass that was split perfectly in two. I've seen American Werewolf in London. I didn't lag behind the other two at all after that. We made it back to the deserted car park without being eaten.

We stayed in the most wonderful old house where the showering system was basically a glass, the water-butt and hoping the alpacas didn't mind. The candles and log fire were lovely after the day's adventures and the river running past was refreshing in the morning.

And we raised 215 pounds for a school project in Senegal. It isn't an enormous amount, but it helps and did actually make the pain and fear more worthwhile.

My next leap out of comfort is an intellectual and time management one known as the DELTA. No experienced mountaineers are going to help me with that one...

*If you'll forgive the hyperbole 

Make a list of things to achieve: fail; achieve better things instead.

Now that I've managed to put a distance of time between my somewhat sullen departure from the subcontinent, my overall feeling of "meh" has, with perspective, transformed into something a tad more positive.

By the end of my five and a half months in Goa - not India, but Goa, which is a completely different beast - I was practically running to the airport to get away. This was sad in some ways, but not entirely unexpected in others.

Fortunately, I can now look back and see that things were actually worth it and those five and a half months contained a lot of everything. Many experiences, hundreds of new people, language, animals, sea, questions, so much growth I didn't even notice it at the time, new understanding...... wow. No wonder I was dying to get out and basically incapable of travelling more than 3 km while I was there, I experienced more standing still than I ever expected or could realise in the moment.

I was disappointed for a short while about how little I'd moved around, what I hadn't seen, how little I'd achieved in terms of what I had planned (I should know better by now about that whole "planning" thing), how something I'd really believed in had turned to ash in my mouth. This in itself was an experience as I thought I'd stopped being disappointed - it's good to be humbly reminded that you're still human.

But now, and only now, I've been able to say "Hang on a minute, what about....?"

....the fact that I lived in what is essentially Brighton (socially speaking) in a much better climate and did not conform to that very easy ex-pat-ish lifestyle?

I worked in a yoga shala and stopped doing yoga.* I took a step away from it and questioned it - something I hadn't done before. This is good: it means I'm likely to come back to it later but with my eyes open.

I was surrounded by people from all over the world, and I sought refuge in a nook of India-ness and spent time in that warm place. I learned some Hindi, and even some dialect.
I managed to communicate enough with a Nepali who spoke about three words of English to become his friend. I gave him some coloured pencils when he drew me a picture in pens so that he would draw more; he did. I think they are still up in the kitchen despite his departure in January. He was nineteen, married with a child and looking to go and work in Myanmar. His life gave me incredible insight into how different things could be in other people's normality. He used to sit next to me when I worked on the computer and watch, learning, fascinated. We'd listen to music - some of mine, some of his, some of the other kitchen staff's. It was a pleasant exchange. I gave him a hug when he left. He was like family.
I taught his slightly senior cook, from the Himalayas, some more English as he helped me with my faltering Hindi. We got there, somehow being at the same level, but filling in the other's gaps. He sadly left when his brother died, too quickly to say goodbye.

I adopted one of the long-term workers as my little brother, and he gladly took me on as his bade bhen (big sister). We got on ridiculously well**, but in very much a sibling manner. We still do, in fact, as he tells me about his girlfriend troubles (multiple) and I tease him in a way I never had the opportunity to do, being the younger sibling in my family.

I became very close friends with the head chef (surprise?) which was also across a severe language barrier. But there was a mutual understanding there that probably came out of a deep appreciation of food and flavours. And trust, which developed when he first shyly asked me what something was. It turned out to be a dried apricot, but I only got that through eating it. He'd asked me by giving me the packet. It took a few days for the penny to drop that he couldn't read. So it became my project to start teaching him to read and write, gently, discreetly and respectfully. He was illiterate and innumerate because, basically, he hadn't been to school - not uncommon in the slightest in India. When I discovered this my understanding of the world changed for the better: I was enawed by his mind, which was, although uneducated, amazing. Not being able to read or write meant that he had to keep everything he knew in his head. And he knew a lot - about food, flavours, herbs, plants, flowers ayurveda, hot foods, cold foods.. as well as having 4 languages that he spoke fluently and enough English to communicate sufficiently well in short bursts with everybody. He learned quite quickly, although we didn't get much time to have proper lessons.
The first time I sat down with him to go through the first half of the alphabet was spontaneous, but immediately became ceremony, I realised after. That was back in December when my Nepali and Himalayan friends were still working there. I sat down with Head Chef, a piece of paper and a pencil.
"Now, we learn the letters," I announced. And we, logically, began with A.
"The sound is /a/. Tell me a fruit that starts with the sound /a/," I teachered on.
Himalayan and Nepali had sat down behind Head Chef and were craning to see whilst trying really hard not to be too obtrusive. Doctor (who was a carpenter, but also acted as a doctor when required) was having chai at the end of the table and pretending not to be interested. I saw Himalayan raise his hand slightly. I ignored it to give Head Chef his chance. He had taught me how to make masala chai, afterall.
"Apple?" He replied, looking pleased and earnest at the same time. Everyone at the table relaxed visably, as if a serious hurdle had been cleared. "Yes!" I encouraged and wrote "apple" under "A" and drew an apple. That was why I had spent ten years learning this profession.***
We continued. The others sometimes getting vocal when HC struggled to find a word, I only once sharply stopped Himalayan and he apologised profusely - he only wanted to show what he knew, but this was not his lesson.
We finished at J. Everyone stood up and went back to work thoughtfully. Another day I gave him the rest of the alphabet with a picture for each letter and quickly went through it with him. I saw him once or twice take the sheets out of his pocket and write things down very carefully. Sometimes he would spell something out for me while he was chopping and I was working on the computer.
By the time he left he could write "Dinner, please write name" on the blackboard outside the kitchen all on his own, which I saw as an achievement. I hope he is still using it.

I saw some wonderful sunsets (and it's time for a photo).

Sunset light.

I somehow earned the respect and intrigue of an Indian wandering philosophy teacher. He wore a lunghi and had a beard and spent time meditating in the mountains. He had a wicked and quite silly sense of humour and loved the shala dog as much as I did. We never really got onto anything too deep, but we did brush around some potentially endless philosophical discussions. Only once in the kitchen did we sit about with chai and the shala owner, the three of us discussing dogma, people, beliefs, politics and the like for a good hour or so. We shared a thali once and talked about banalities. A surface was not really scratched. I'm sure we'll meet again in the most unexpected of places and sit and chat properly about things of a metaphysical nature.

I spent a lot of time talking to animals.

I learned about ayurveda, I understood food more, I connected things more. Reiki treatments I gave got great feedback, and results: some a lot more tangible than others. That, at least, showed some development.

I can now make chapatis (two types!), poori and paratha. I understand flavours and dhal and curd. I know what a balanced meal actually consists of. I cannot look at turmeric for a little while, but I'll get over that.

I know what to do with aloe vera.

I met a Transylvanian Beekeeper who harvests the most expensive honey in the world, a Swiss Product Designer who seems to work on really obscure and fascinating projects, a Belgian Lunatic, an Australian Monty Python & Douglas Adams Fan, a Very Gentle Israeli ex-Roadie with more tattoos than I have ever seen on one person and other folk from far and wide whose thing in common was backpain.

I discovered that I really do like cake and coffee whilst looking at the sea.

I became even more reflective on what one should use one's voice for and what not.

I listened to a virtual stranger pour his heart out about his forced marriage and subsequent unhappiness, before his liberation and time in meditation. He thanked me, he told me I was an old and understanding soul, who knew the world and had a gift for listening. He's probably partly right.

I was not once mistreated. I would occasionally get unwelcome attention when I sat alone at sunset, but generally speaking they would go away if I asked them to. Or would be apologetic when I got up and left.

In conclusion, I did not improve my backbends or my sun salutation but I can do that in Italy with my favourite yoga teacher; I did, however, learn so much that I couldn't even see it until I got away from it and those lessons are definitely the best. There is a lot of "I" in this post, which is egocentric and not something I generally approve of, but I grew and am still growing on the back of what I experienced there in that small village in South Goa.

I may pop back for chai one day. Or, I may not.



* This could just be my inner rebel doing its thing...
**He was also a Libran and a snake (12 years my junior).
*** I say this with no irony.