Liz and Richard's 2007 Adventures

Hong Kong - more theme streets - Herbal Medicines, Dried/smoked Fish and Meat

The herbal markets (ginseng, reindeer antler, etc) merge into the dried fish markets (shark's fin, dried scallops, etc) which blends into the smoked/preserved meat markets.

The upscale ginseng emporia are the most impressive - glass fronted, bank like establishments with comfy chairs and consulting rooms where you can develop your customized regimen.....presuming you can afford it - the prices are numbing.

The dried fish stores are a tour de force of colours, shapes and packaging.  If it ever swam, floated, crawled or burrowed in the ocean it's here in preserved form.  The stores are immaculate, with geometric displays reminiscent of the jars of peppers in a Montreal deli.  Sharks fin, dried fish stomach, sea cucumbers, a hundred grades of scallops, squid, octopus, sea horses, little fish, parts of bigger fish and a lot of things we didn't recognize!

By the preserved meat neighbourhood, medicine has clearly evolved into food.  Our favourite was whole smoked geese (bills still on)

Eating in Hong Kong - 1

We were very excited about eating in Hong Kong - Liz had reams of recommendations and we had only 6 potential occasions (we extreme dine only once a day on holidays....usually trying to eat one of everything on the menu).

Day One - tired after 26 hours of travel and in the wrong time zone we ate at a nearby restaurant (behind the YMCA on Ashley Road) that was incredibly busy, filled with students and served good basic food.  Our assumption is that it is hard to find bad food in Hong Kong.

Sea bass and vegetables, stir fried shrimp and an exceptionally flavourful Yong Chow rice

Day Two - into Liz's list.  We love Sichuan and she had a recommendation - the Yellow Door.  Good things are often hard to find.  The Yellow Door is a sign over an obscure doorway, then down a dark hallway and you enter an elevator that should have been long ago condemned and lurch up to the 6th floor

All was well.  A charming dining room, welcoming staff and a fish eye view of the density that is Hong Kong - including (below) an overhead shot of "the escalator" (more about it later)......plus some wonderful, incredibly flavourful food.......here's the view and the escalator

Onto the food - deep fried stuffed eggplant with sour/spicy sauce cleared the sinuses in a very flavourful way!

Fried cod fillet with mushrooms in spicy sauce - perfectly done fish in a very aggressive sauce 

Then stir fried chicken with pickled chilies (below).  Again, wonderful flavours but we'll never get used to how the chinese macro chop  chicken.  The french fillet method that deletes backbones and cartilage is far more dental friendly!

We liked Yellow Door so much (and were fascinated by what the people at the next table were having) we went back again.....and to another restaurant owned by the same people......following is Round 2 at Yellow Door.

Exquisite dumplings in chili sauce.  We are big dumpling fans.  Not a complex dish, but one that defines a chef.  These were ethereal wrappings made of air, a succulent filling and a hot sauce that crept up on you and kept on creeping.

Sauteed garlic stems with shredded pork.  A new form of garlic could not be denied.  We loved it.  Where do all the North American garlic stems go???......we want them

Then deep fried fish with chili bean paste.  Crispy skin, moist flesh all bathed in a sauce that combined heat and depth of flavour.  The fish was great, but they should bottle and sell the sauce! 

And then the killer - a dish to make grown men weep....from every pore.  Richard consumed a box of kleenex mopping the sweat from his bald head:

"Boiled Pork in Chili Soup"

and they aren't kidding about the chilis - all those red things are sichuan chilis.  Great flavours and incredible heat - a dish to remember.

We had to try the owner's other restaurant - Kin's Kitchen...............see Eating in Hong Kong - 2

Eating in Hong Kong - 2

We went to Kin's Kitchen in the Causeway Bay area - far more sophisticated and upscale, serving Cantonese food in an emerging SoHo like neighbourhood.  The owner sat with us for much of the meal.  She and her husband (an art critic) entertained alot and friends urged her to open a restaurant.  Not a usual story, but in this case she actually did open not one, but two locations - both of which are prospering.

We opened with Smoked Chicken - wonderful flavour and skin to die for ... but we dislike eating fowl backbones......but this flavour on a french filletted bird would be incredible.

Then, meaty spareribs in sweet and sour sauce.  Fall off the bone meat and subtle layers of flavour....

Followed up with steamed fish and vegetables - a deceptively simple dish that highlights the chef's fine touch.  Perfectly done fish with very subtle flavours that let the fish shine through. 

The finale was one of the great dishes of our lives - stuffed roasted duck.  Skin that shattered and exploded with flavour when you bit in; moist, buttery flesh permeated with exotic flavours - all wrapped around a stuffing that we need desperately to replicte - except our charming host was annoyingly vague about just what was in the stuffing!

Overall we had much fun at Kin's Kitchen and highly recommend both it and the Yellow Door.

Now - something simpler.

We believe that the basic foods define a cuisine.  For Chinese, a basic is noodles and broth.  In Hong Kong there is a street of noodle bars and the one that wins Hong Kong's awards is Mak's Noodles.  It's Ben's Deli (in Montreal) revisited.  Been here a hundred years, glaring fluorescent lights, uncomfortable seating, a staff that turns tables over at blazing speed and delightful food.

A bowl of noodles, plump shrimp wontons, stir fried greens and a side of melt in your mouth brisket flavoured with tangerine and star anise.  We could get cravings for this food

One day we took a ferry to a local fishing village - Cheung Chau - on one of the outer islands in the Hong Kong Harbour.  No cars - rustic and touristy.  Enjoyed a basic meal of sauteed shrimps, lobster in black bean sauce and deep fried port at La Baccarat.  Following photos - the meal, the view and us becoming part of some film crew's commercial or documentary - no releases were offered or signed!

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

One of the things we love about traveling is signs; some well intentioned but semantically mangled, others just symptoms of cultural differences.  Here are a few to date.

Hong Kong is very clean - not much litter, no cigarette butts on the streets, etc.  Below are two reasons why ...... and they aren't kidding.  Perhaps we should consider such draconian measures in an increasingly littered Toronto:

The following sign on a beach in the Hong Kong harbour may be our all time favourite sign.....depending on how you define "Inconvenience":

One of those charming verbal juxtapositions:

This sign brings new meaning to the threat of PMS:

Just in case you didn't know, carrying a gun when you come to visit the Thai King is discouraged.  The NRA must be appalled.

The following is self explanatory ......... sort of:

One is expected to remove one's shoes on entering a Thai temple.  They provide racks at the larger sites.  The Thais are incredibly polite, so we were perplexed to find separate Thai and Foreigner shoe racks.   Our guide explained that the intent was to make clear that any thefts of Foreigner shoes was due to other foreigners, and not the Thais:

We're always on the look out for more - will add them as we collect them!

You Eat well at the YMCA!

Some quick food shots of just part of the amazing dinner buffet at the Hong Kong Y.  We call it "putting on the feedbag" with its panoply of Asian and Western dishes (about $28 CDN per person - very reasonable for HK)

The Incredible Hong Kong Escalator

Hong Kong is very hilly and very densely populated.  To solve the problem of moving people they built a series of outdoor over head escalators....like of system of pedestrian "el trains".  It's over 800m long and if you just ride it (no walking) it takes 20 minutes from the bottom to the top.  Interestingly, in the morning rush hour they reverse the direction of the escalator so it goes down the hill!

It's fast, convenient and an idea other cities could learn from (it was opened in 1993 so clearly retrofitted into the hillside).  It's also a great way to spot interesting restaurants and neighbourhoods as you are carried along:

Closing Thoughts on Hong Kong

We loved Hong Kong - the ferries, the food, the people, the shops, the busy harbour, the constant construction, incredible population density, and the contrast of soaring architecture, colonial remnants and old neighbourhoods.

We always felt safe, and around every corner was a new adventure.  Following are some general views of a city we loved......including the smog that makes for Monet like colours and tough breathing.

The building below is on the south side of Hong Kong island in Repulse Bay:

And a picture of Liz in Stanley, the beach community on the south side of the island

Hong Kong Travel Details

This is a placeholder page - this year I'm going to summarize all the travel details for each destination, such as hotel and restaurant addresses/web pages and additional details that will be of interest to people planning a trip to this destination.....not necessarily an interesting read otherwise though!

Details to follow

Liz

Angkor, Siem Reap and Where is Michael Caine in his dusty white suit?

Siem Reap (pronounced "re-ap" we learned) is the destination town for travelers visiting the ancient cities of Angkor.  It's a town in rapid transition (reportedly 1.5 million visitors last year versus 750K only a few years ago).  Large hotels are springing up on the outskirts and there's a wonderful hum of money, opportunity and corruption.

But in the core of the town the open air markets still flourish amidst the mouldering old french colonial buildings (rapidly converting to guest houses), the stacato coughing of tuk tuk cabs and a cast of characters out of a Peter Lorre spy movie of a time between wars.  We know Michael Caine was somewhere, lounging in a sleazy bar in his dusty white suit.  It was a great place to wander amidst the many ghosts of Cambodia's bloody past. 

Unfortunately with all the new hotels and tour groups, many visitors never even see the town - they just return to their hotel each evening after touring the ruins.....and they miss some great restaurants.

Beeby's Travel Rule #86 is "Anywhere the French have been for more than 10 minutes is a good place to eat".  The Gauls colonized Indochina for over a 100 years and there are quite a few expats still there.  It is a very good place to eat (we'll do temples and archeology and the intellectual stuff later).

We started at the "Red Piano" - claimed to be Angelina Jolie's favourite bar when she was filming Tomb Raider.....and a good bar it is.  Food and liquor are incredibly cheap in Cambodia, so only quality matters.  Below some highlights from a number of visits, including very good frites

Then, a meal at the highly recommended (and extraordinarily cheap) Khmer Kitchen.  A table load of spicy dishes and conversation with "Jerry" - a 56 year old social worker from Wales who was biking alone from Hanoi to Phnom Penh.  A brave man, but he assured us the villagers were incredibly friendly and helpful.  He was having a great time but his wife back in Wales was worried.  Following photos - first Jerry and then one of our favourite dishes ever "Pork with basil" - it was to die for (and $2.50) and other selections

Then off to the recommended Abacus with an ultra charming French owner who had just received some fresh sea fish (as opposed to the local freshwater) - we had much fun and dined well -

- Grilled Sea Bream on beans
- Fish Amok - a regional specialty using coconut milk
- and a tasty warm shrimp and scallop salad

Not bad for the middle of Cambodia - note the prices are in US dollars - the Cambodian currency is the Real but the economy runs on dollars

Sticking with the French expats we savoured a delicious meal at Carnets d'Asie in a particularly lovely courtyard setting with water lily ponds and tasteful appointments.  The services, as it seems to be everywhere in SE Asia, was welcoming - we had

- a selection of fried and fresh rolls
- a green pork curry
- a very good red duck curry

We rounded off our Cambodian culinary experience with lunch at a fisherman's home (more later) and a "we're tired" lie in bed and eat room service evening.

One closing food note - the breakfast buffet at our hotel (Angkor Holiday Hotel - highly recommended and owned by Cambodians - one of the few) is one of the best we've ever seen - range or fruits, cereals, cooked meats, exotic asian dishes (including made to order noodle soup) dim sum, omelet bar, bread, juices etc.....we just don't take pictures that early in the morning!

The Temples - Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat is the best known of the many Khmer temples.  There are hundreds in various stages of disrepair, restoration or outright pillaged.

The general structure of a temple (with many exceptions) is a central building in tiers (much like a low, broad wedding cake) designed to simulate the sacred mountain.  Around the temple was often a wall with spectacular gates and then the ancient Khmers would often dig a large moat around the whole complex so it would be sitting on an island in the middle of an artificial lake.  Bridges were appropriately decorative.

The religion was a mix of Hinduism and Buddhism with a leavening of indigenous Animism.  Prominence of Hindu versus Buddhist symbols and figures depended on the predilection of the King at that time, with previous symbols being defaced or modified.  There are some wonderful examples of how the Hindu kings designed a simple, few chisel strokes method for transforming stone images of the Buddha into the Hindu hermit image!

The temples are amazing.  The stairs are incredibly steep so you have to literally crawl up (going down is often terrifying - modern wooden stairs are often overlaid for safety) and door lintels are low so you have to bow.  The stonework is lovely, especially in the soft light of dawn or dusk.  The most haunting pictures are where the jungle is inexorably reclaiming the temples.

Angkor Wat is the largest of the temple complexes.  Estimates are that it was the centre of a population of over a million in 1,000 AD, making it the largest city in the world at that time.  The many wooden palaces and homes have long been reclaimed by the jungle.

Angkor Wat rises out of the jungle like a vision from a Kipling novel.  It is inherently mysterious and haunting....we tried to visit at night but not on the agenda.

Closing in you can see the galleries/cloisters that ring the structure - more later about the wall carvings

Angkor is a repetition of images - one being the multi-headed snake (3, 5 and 7 head versions)  - this one, with 7 heads, is very eroded

The other repeated figures are the "Apsaras" - the temple dancers.  They occur in numerous lovely variants and still appear in modern Indochinese imagery:

Throughout, the temples are intricately carved, but sadly many carvings have been pillaged and are now gracing the penthouse of a wealthy collector:

It is the wall carvings in the cloisters that are most impressive.  Hundreds of feet long, they depict tales from religious legend and the victories of living kings.  The shallow carvings are things of light, changing with the movement of the sun.  They are ephemerally beautiful.

We had an excellent guide - Dara - who greatly enriched our experience.

Something as simple as a window becomes a design achievement for the Khmers

We mentioned the steep stairs...some photos to prove the point.  You crawl up....edge carefully down....unless they are overlain with new flights

You can take a balloon flight to see Angkor from the air.  We took a pass....perhaps a mistake

Angkor Wat is lovely and a must for any life list.  We close with the Guardian Lion, who  - though battered - still mans his post