Bamboo Odyssey » Uzbekistan | Bamboo Odyssey

Myanmar food?

Jules — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 10:27:41 +0000

Myanmar food? Exciting ….yes….. unique…… yes…. frightening… Absolutely, yes. Our first meal at a road side stall after we sidestepped rubbish and the odd sickly rat, mangy dogs….the food looked delicious, smelt scrumptious and spicy….and was served into our take away plastic bags…by hand. We survived half expected food poisoning in Uzbekistan, but here…..each morning we were to wake slightly nervous and then relived to find we are still very much….. well. After a week in the country my one and only bout of nausea, followed by the runs and vomiting hit me quickly after lunch and only lasted a few unpleasant hours. At first I had thought it was the sun…the beer….which I also thought was so very odd!
We have watched cats climb on plates and bowls to sneak away dried fish, watched flies buzz, drown in the oily slick, dogs, yet more commonly, people, sleeping on the food preparation surfaces……none of which stop the hungry cyclist from eating…..or the tired bus traveler……..food is always part of the adventure.
We drink tea from cups in the centre of tables, cups placed upside down in bowls of water to assume there cleanliness. Much of the time the water has evaporated or if not it is brown. We have also not said no to offers of drinks from communal cups, water in ceramic pots that adorn temples, the roadside, tea shops. We have no idea of the origination of this water. When not in company we sterilise water from taps with the UV light of our steripen.
Everyday, everywhere, cities, villages, farms….people cart water from wells and even the wealthy can not avoid the black outs, the frequent absence of electricity. Thus, much of the food, in this climate, makes sense.
Burmese food food has proved generally salty and oily, prepared and left to sit throughout the day, more often than not it has sat and it has sat and it is served cold. My eyes take in the sights, my nose the pleasant smells and my mind…. notes the hours allowed for bacteria to set in. Fortunately the oil does seam to preserve the food so that we avoided multiple bouts of food poisoning.
We learnt quickly that the food can be delicious, small amounts of curry and sauces mixed with lots of rice to take in the otherwise overpowering flavours. We had thought it rude not to finish the never ending bowls of food that appear each time one bowl is almost finished. It is not rude and not wise to consume an otherwise never ending banquet. Fortunately all sit down meals even in the most basic of tea shops in the smallest of villages comes with a brothy palette cleansing and thirst quenching soup….this can also be never ending….topped up in a blink of the eye. The locals also spoon this into the curry, rice concoctions which makes the heaviness of dishes somewhat more appealing.
What would have been rude was not accepting my gift of soup when we stopped for soft drink in the middle of the furnace, somewhere in the middle of Myanmar. Oh dear….I saw it coming…it was so hot that day and I was not at all hungry. OH DEAR! As I looked down at my offering….striped fowls feet, intestines, whole liver and ….All eyes upon me….I tasted the broth….not bad…. I gave Li the liver before I “enjoyed” the other bits and pieces….half gone…..all smiles…..the bowl again topped up! Well it did go down well with my first ever experience of palm wine. I was excited by what I expected was coconut or sugarcane juice in an old plastic bottle…..so the surprise at first taste was horrifying….and then refreshing and very quaffable…..and I never did finish my second bowl of guts soup!
Burmese food can be refreshing and more to our liking. Tomato salad with shallots, crushed peanuts and sesame seeds. Ginger salads with the glorious crunch of a dried and toasted assortments of beans. Fermented and tangy tea leaf salads. There can be a lot of tantalising texture.
We started seeking bastardised Chinese,Thai and Indian food which is readily available when in larger places, because it usually wasn’t swimming in oil and cooked fresh. For this reason I was looking forward to visiting Inle Lake in Shan State. Yet rather than avoid the food of Myanmar it was here that we discovered Shan Food. We had been searching for wine in the local stores when a tourist overheard us and said the wine we were looking for was available in a restaurant where he had just eaten. We asked about the food? …his eyes lit up and he literally sparkled. We headed straight to Sin Yaw for our first taste of Shan cuisine…..and we adored it.!Sun cured pork and spring onion tempura with tamarind sauce. Golden yellow crispy tofu with punchy coriander and lime sauce. White, local, seaweed salad. We returned to try more delicacies, always light, cooked fresh and immediate, and bursting with flavour.
Incidentally, near Inle we just had to cycle to both of the only wine producing vineyards in Myanmar, tasting 11 wines in total. The vintners are aiming at the local market and unfortunately getting your hands on a bottle outside of Myanmar would be difficult. Quality wine, of all shades including frizzante for the price at around $10 per bottle.
Oh…how could I forget the “donuts”. Guilt free because of our mode of travel. Many street vendors provide fried delights, samosas with hints of star anise, corn filled spring rolls, caramelised crunchy battered bananas, rings of batter with crisp palm sugared hard caramel….and our favourite, golden, soft centred donuts filled with fresh coconut and sugar. These were also a perfect gift…. along with tamarind and sticky rice flavoured cheroots, when we were granted the floor of a temple to spend the night…..our legs, nor the donuts were enough to propel us to the next town with a designated foreigner guest house where we could legitimately, legally, spend the night.
The best food comes with drama….a performance….and in this aspect the food of Myanmar is not lacking. The first time I placed my order, a young boy screamed this translated into Myanmar to a colleague….or perhaps his mum? As the order was being screamed down the line, starting a yelling match of banter back and forth….Li placed her order…..followed by the orders of our new found friends….no note pads or memory required….just a very loud cacophony of sound running through and over, and back and forth. This form of taking orders when sitting down at restaurants never ceased to delight and amuse me.
During meals and refreshment we also managed to provide entertainment. On several treasured occasions women merrily applied tanaka to our faces. Tanaka is worn by all genders but primarily the women and it is used as both make up and for sun protection. On a large stone the tree stump, (tanaka) is ground with water to make a smooth paste….and applied to the face ……”beautiful”!

Uzbekistan into Kazakhstan

Jules — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 13:39:14 +0000

Uzbekistan to Kazakstan. We entered at the pedestrian only crossing 25km past Tashkent. Maybe we would never have crossed the border had it not been for the guards clearing a passage for us through the surging crowds. The guards were not so gentle, at one point grabbing a man by the scruff of his shirt, yanking him as he moved in front of me. 2 women actually climbed over Li and her bike before I angled my bike and extended both arms as a barrier. The crowds were insistent in their forward motion, one woman fighting with a soldier toting a machine gun. She continued to yell, arm holding a stringed box as she strained towards Kazakstan. The man with the machine gun held strong to the string so they were at a stand still, her box in between. The soldier was young, the woman old and determined, both unpredictable, but I would not have wanted to go up against that woman, even with a gun.
With aid of the guards we were squeezed through, not a second thought of queue jumping as there was no queue.
Border control did not request to see our multiple slips of paper, registration slips and the reason we had decided not to ride large sections of Uzbekistan. Only hotels catering to foreigners will register you and there could be 400….500 kilometres between hotels. However riding to the border, we came to another of the hundreds of police check points across Uzbekistan. We were stopped…..passports……registration papers……they scrutinised every slip, counting and re counting the dates to make sure they added up. Our passports returned…..mine requested again, the police wanted to look at the Kangaroo on the coat of arms before we were sent our way.
Apart from travel blogs, there was very little up to date information about travel trough Uzbekistan. Even the Lonely Planet guides are 3 years old and out of date….but what information we could find warned of the dangers of the police, corruption, bribes, stealing passports, money, equipment not correctly declared on forms difficult to discipher. Were we carrying legal medication? We were somewhat scared,…..fears strengthened as we witnessed locals paying bribes to police on many occasions.
Fortunately we had no problems, passports checked only once during a bus journey despite constant stopping at road blocks.
Our equipment was x-rayed upon exit and with a friendly wave from the soldiers were moved on.

To Tashkent

Jules — Sat, 30 Nov 2013 02:52:47 +0000

It’s rained overnight, the second time in Uzbekistan. I was half expecting snow after a day of cold and mist which was not unwelcome adding to the mystery of Samarkand as we sought out ancient ruins rather than the majestic restorations that adorn the city.
We will likely get snow soon enough and know Almaty our final destination for this section of our journey is already under a carpet of treacherous white powder.
But today we head to the bus station. Hopefully our last bout of motorised transport before entering Kazakstan and resuming our journey from the saddle.
A short 6km ride to the station. Unlike our dilemma in Kiva and then Bukhara…..we know where the bus station is…..no matter that bus stations do not look like I would expect a bus station to appear. We arrive directly……not passing several times searching in growing exasperation. All busses from here go to Tashkent. We are no longer rushed and know the process…..no longer quickly agreeing a price, being rushed on board and sitting waiting hours for the bus to depart with a filling bladder. We go to the loo, purchase food, decline the first bus as are not happy with the expensive fair. We are feeling happy and relaxed. We have previously paid the same price as a seat for each bike placed in the hold.
The next bus asks a fair price for our seats only and makes room for bikes and luggage. We expect a 6-7 hour journey, and miraculously arrive in Tashkent in 3.5 hours…..still daylight. Everything is going smoothly.
We have been told Tashkent authorities have banned the riding of bicycles. On line we try and find information…….mysteriously we can not open any of the pages referring to the police crack down. The Internet is censored. We will ride our bicycles. In daylight we pedal 25km of this sprawling city in search of a hotel.
In Uzbekistan everyone is a taxi. It’s a fantastic form of car pooling……unless you are riding in Tashkent on a bicycle. Where usually in London, New York…..anywhere, marked taxis are a hindrance to all other road users, stopping suddenly, illegal turns…..obstacles to moving forward, in Tashkent, every car…..a taxi, stops to collect a fair…..hundreds of vehicles, suddenly stopping, or attempting to pull out….blocking not one, two…..up to 5 lanes of traffic. It is chaos, police are everywhere…..but pay no attention to us or our bicycles as we stop start, weave our way through, get lost in the old town and eventually, in the dark, arrive at a hotel.

Uzbekistan

Jules — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 05:44:22 +0000

Our mood has continued to flow like the bleak landscape, rays of sunshine and warmth followed by ice cold gusts and grey drabness. But this is not Uzbekistan.
It is cold here…..not so, so cold, and the desert has continued for a thousand kilometres. Not much between our journey, train, bus and flour truck to places of hotel registration.
But out of the desert evolve the Uzbeks. A kind, warm, smiling, gentle and accepting people…..also a fighting, strong people. Paying the police at every road block, stopped by unmarked police cars, constant reminders of the continued battles do not diminish the outward appearances of these people’s strength. For a thousand kilometres there is nothing, and everything……more than just the police. Ancient cities of the Silk Road surrounded by sand, rubble and people going about their daily lives. Harder lives than our struggle to negotiate without language, transport, transport for our bikes, ourselves, no maps, no signs, no fresh food, arrivals in darkness, no street lights…..intermittent electricity, water, hot water.
We are reliant on these kind people and their help to find everything. Even food shops, bus stations are void of signage…..one must open a door, go in and explore or enquire and hope for a person’s patience.
One moment this is exciting, the next……tiring, frustrating and acceptance of our dependence upon strangers.
The bikes were our independence.
And out of the desert are the cities of history…..poetic, beautiful, emotional…..cities that have inspired the imagination for centuries…..Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand. Restored to varying degrees, it is all breathtaking and we are lucky sharing these magical colourful tiled cities rising out of the dust, sharing with no one but the local inhabitants and a very few Uzbek tourists.
We are given bread, food…..food we are warned not to eat…..everyone gets sick in Uzbekistan. So far we are not sick. The food is simple….lacking vegetables, but satisfying and often shared with us full of kindness.
We have stayed in a “hotel”…..a room with a table that is our bed and packages of old shoes…..unfortunately no registration. The squat loos can be filthy, but the people always meticulously trying to be clean. Never in the western world have I seen a bus load of men after peeing, share around a bottle of water in which to wash their hands.
In Bukhara we are gestured to please visit a woman, residing above our hotel room. After many attempts to keep the conversation of few words going I am instructed to take off my clothes. It is not often I am so pliant. Dressed and wrapped like a parcel. Wearing an Asian dress, headscarf and makeup…..complete with over the top painted eyebrows ridiculous for my hair colouring. I seldom wear dresses. We have fun, laugh and this is all the language required.
We eat sunflower seeds…..everyone eats sunflower seeds….I am slowly improving in the technique…..but sometimes impatient, I eat them husks and all. They are quite addictive.
I have also learnt to lie. Finally my husband and child have given me additional freedom. No more tutting, or disappointment, no more feeling sorry for my childless predicament. Hopefully, no more male advances, “Julia……Julia….Julia…….no boyfriend…..Julia…..I love you”……I have a husband and a daughter….she is 16….and am proud of my new ability to lie in advancement of my survival, or at least my sanity.
I will not remember Uzbekistan for my new skill to alter the truth but the countries and experiences leading up to my need to lie. I will remember Uzbekistan is difficult…..but also a country of colour, people, dreaming, history and a future. Next stop, Tashkent, the capital.