Ceylon Off World's End

Against everything we've learnt and against our instincts we travelled by train to Nuwara Eliya in second class. The issue here was not that we weren't in first class but the fact that we weren't in third. First is full of wanks, second full of nervous, needy "travellers" and third is locals.

At least in third the locals are used to being in confined spaces and work together accordingly. In second, everyone is used to having one seat for their bag and another for themselves and expect a level of service and space in line with a $160 ticket, not a $1.60 one. After a couple of hours of standing we finally secured the open doorway and everything was good, away from the adventurers.

The first morning in Nuwara Eliya we were out the door by 5am headed for Horton Plains, an undulating plateau 2000m above sea level that's covered in wild grasses and patches of thick forest including the mystique inducing 'cloud forest'.

An overzealous driver and husband meant we were the first on the trail and we had a few minutes of the main event's precursor - Mini World's End - to ourselves.

It also meant we had the main event to ourselves - Greater World's End - where we managed to find a track leading away from the main platform and could take in the spectacular vistas unencumbered by tourists whose soul intent was to take away from the peace and serenity of the place. The sheer 880m drop off forced more than one, "Please be careful."

The trek continued with a stop by Baker's Waterfall and wildlife sightings that included samba deer, yellow eared bulbul, three red-backed woodpeckers and a mongoose. A v productive morning.

The following day's adventure was a trip to Pedro Tea Estate packed so tightly into a bus that sardines would have scoffed. The ticket collector played human tetris at each stop directing where people should squeeze in to. I spent most of the journey with a breast pressed against my face.

We did a quick tour of the working tea factory decked out in groovy hair nets and aprons.

At least this time we could sneak a quick whiff of the dried tea leaves. And again, you know it, we finished with a cup of tea.

After that fan-tea-stic tour we went for a stroll through the tea fields ending up at Lovers' Leap waterfall.

It was then time to get back in the sardine can.

The food entry for this post is not so much a what but a how. We've fumbled our way through eating with our hands in countries like Morocco and Laos but Sri Lanka has upped the ante. The various Sri Lankan rices we've encountered have been light and fluffy and beautiful but exhibit no ability to bind like couscous or sticky rice. Chuck a couple of wet curries on top and eating with your hands becomes an exercise in shovelling and hoping, and covering yourself from fingertips to elbows.

After our first pathetic attempt and thinking surely we must be doing it wrong we went home and Googled it which offered hardly any assistance other than a few 'rules'. So next time we just kept an eye on other people eating and gladly discovered that whilst those rules are loosely followed, covering your hands and face in curry and rice are just how it's done. To show you an illustrated example of the shovelling act in full force I'd taken a selection of flattering photos of Nix. I was however strongly advised not to show those photos and to only show this one. You get the point...

Kandy, Kandy, Kandy I Can't Let You Go

You know you've arrived in Sri Lanka when you walk into the arrival hall of the airport and every man and his son are sat around a TV watching the cricket. After an obligatory score check we were on a bus to Kandy, crammed in with the rest of Sri Lanka.

An 8.8% Sri Lankan stout in a dingy locals' bar was in order to wash away three days of travel and two nights in airports.

We hung around in Kandy for a few nights coming to terms with a part of Asia that we haven't ventured into before. SE Asia feels like home now but this was a whole new kettle of fish. Super smiley friendly people, delicious food and animals running around everywhere meant we were pretty happy with our surroundings.

Kandy is positioned around a beautiful lake that's teeming with wildlife despite its proximity to traffic and its fumes and tourists and their selfie sticks.

Tortoises, monitor lizards, funky birds, fruit bats, spotted catfish things... Hours of viewing pleasure.

You can also find moneys down at the lake. The friends of those monkeys could be found running amok near our guesthouse. A common theme throughout this trip has been me being woken up to Nicola fretting that something was in our room. Not once has anything actually entered our room. (Note from Nicola - this statement is not true) (Note from me - maybe we've had the odd giant gecko, skink, massive spider, strange insect, cat, dog, mouse, hermit crab in our room)

This time however we both woke to a bang on the roof and then Nix saw our curtain billow and in a daze sat up and looked to the floor to see a monkey staring back with a look of shock that mirrored hers. "Oh no... Brim! There's a f*cking monkey in the room!!" Once I'd been called to action Nix hid under the blanket whilst I waved my arms and did my meanest kkkkssssss to get him out. He bolted out the window and grabbed some rubbish from the bin on the way out as as a keep sake. These particular monkeys have a geeky looking centre part that managed to make the ordeal even more comical than it already was. Funny little bastards...

Keeping on with the wildlife/nature theme we hopped on a bus to the Royal Botanic Gardens which are famed throughout not just Sri Lanka but the region. They were OK. The palm lined boulevards were nice,

the cannonball tree was a cool new discovery,

and I finally got to continue my love affair with sleeping in parks but the highlight was the fruit bats. Tree upon tree filled with thousands of bats that were very active given it was three in the afternoon. We'd read that Sri Lanka was going to be wild - it was living up to its billing.

The following day we had a Tea-rrific time at the Ceylon Tea Museum. Seeing the machinery and learning about withering and drying and such. Wow, what a roller coaster of emotions.

The tour culminated in, you guessed it, a cup of tea. 

In all honesty it was a decent tour and provided a good platform for a month of drinking the stuff by the gallon and actually learning how you go from leaf to cup. 

Food and drink - you didn't think you were getting away that easily did you?

Faluda (a super sweet rose syrup/vanilla icecream dessert) and buffalo curd with treacle (buffalOMG - he knows who he is).

Woodapple juice (like a fizzy tamarind juice with off blue cheese blended through it - actually really good).

Red rice with curry.

And so much other stuff that we shoved down too quickly to get photos of. Hoppers, string hoppers and simple things like dhal curry and sambols have us falling head over heels for Sri Lankan cuisine.

We're off to a cracking start, we really hope this place keeps it up.

The Bantayan Diet

Sometimes a place is appreciated just that little bit more when getting there involves a life threatening leap from one boat to another in seas that are hardly fit for a big boat let alone the little vessel that came out to transfer us to the shore of 'main land' Cebu. 

I watched in horror from a couple of people deep as Nicola dangled over the edge of the big boat, hesitated and then jumped across to the small boat as it shifted out of reach. She hovered for an age between the boats and I think we both thought she was going for a swim. Sh*t Nix, the tablet's on your back for god's sake. She managed to walk on water and made it on.

I can confirm that she squealed. Naturally it was my fault as I wasn't there to offer any "words of wisdom". Apparently I have those.

Anyway, Bantayan, that death defying leap plus two other boat trips, a bus and a cyclo took us 40 kilometres as the crow flies to land on our next island paradise. This one even better than the last. 

But what about the Bantayan Diet I hear you ask?

Forget the Paleo diet, vegan, vego, Atkins, I Quit Sugar*, South Beach, whatever. No, no, no, this is no fad diet. The Bantayan Diet (as certified by myself, Dr Brimson) is the one for you. Coconuts, mangoes, roast pork and 1L San Mig's are the four cornerstones of my diet. 

Not only will you look great down the beach, it also tastes great and is scientifically proven to contain no calories, and is sugar, fat and alcohol free.

I mean look at the guy, don't you want to look like that?

When you do drag yourself away from your cottage's view, hanging out with Coconut Joe and really committing to that diet...

...you get to laze about on a blinding white beach like this (that's your exercise component).

Check out this endorsement from Nicola Brimson.

Another satisfied customer...

*take note Corinne, you've been doing it wrong

Leaving Vietnam, so Hanoi-ing

Hanoi is a love it or hate it kind of city. We met people along the way that couldn't think of anything worse than another minute in the place. It's fast paced, intimidating and doesn't wait for anyone. We fell in love at first bite (and first bia hoi).

Bia hoi. Oh my what a beverage. The direct translation to English is 'fresh beer' as it's beer that's brewed the night before and served fresh the following morning. During that time it reaches a strength of 3-4% and at just 45 cents for the branded bia hoi (you truly taste the difference from the cheap stuff sold in the tourist area) it's impossible to walk past a bia hoi joint and not stop for a couple, which in Hanoi is a bookable offence anyway. 

You don't even have to use the excuse 'it's five somewhere in the world' to have one with most places having a cluster of regulars draining the freshest kegs from early in the morning. We've visited many places with strong beer cultures but Hanoi's just about takes the cake. There's no pub squash or pre-mixes here it's beer all the way and you down it like there's no tomorrow. If you need an extra kick you call over the communal bamboo tobacco bong or order a bottle of Viet vodka.

Of course no post on Vietnam would be complete without a mouthwatering set of food photos.

There were these.

Bun Ca - crispy river fish soup

Bun Moc - a clean pork broth with pork balls

Duck Hotpot - shared with a sewer rat by our feet

Bun Bo Nam Bo - beef noodles in a sweet peanutty sauce

Hahn Cuon - super delicate rice flour wontons with pork

And then there were these.

Dau Phu - deep fried tofu that's beyond crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside

Bun Cha - a classic Hanoi dish of pork served in a sweet oily broth that you then add your noodles and greens to and dunk your crispy spring rolls in

Pho Ga - served from a simple little street kitchen on Hang Dieu with more pots on the go than stools. This is the benchmark by which all chicken pho should be measured and all chicken soups, broths, anything for that matter. This pho was dinner three out of five nights in Hanoi

Tang Yuan - glutinous rice balls filled with black sesame or mung bean paste that swim in a potent sweet ginger soup. Only a hundred metres up from the pho ga lady, sat in a semi circle around the serving pot, you would get presented with the night's encore 

In between bia hoi, ca phe and food stops we'd just swan around the city taking in the sights and the smells, the weirdness and the intensity, and what is by far the best Asian city we've been to and possibly the best city we've been to period. 

Coffee, beer, food and weird. All four boxes get emphatically ticked. Most of all it's the people and their no bullsh*t approach to life that we love getting swept into. 

Normally we're ready to leave a city and country in search of the next adventure. However leaving Hanoi and Vietnam has us feeling very hollow. Nicola shed a couple of tears the night before we left, such is the love we have for Vietnam. And that's a first for a woman that's the dry eye in the house when there's not a dry eye left in the house.

When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro. in Hanoi

More on Hanoi soon but firstly let's get down to what makes its food scene truly unique - it gets weird, real weird.

Dog meat is a special occasion dish, cat is the healthy option, semi developed duck foetuses are a breakfast item and pigeon,

frog

and eel soup are comparatively quite normal.

Snail soup is a much loved breakfast choice.

And snails fished out of their shells, using a pointy little metal implement, get dunked in a fish sauce, kumquat, chilli, ginger and kaffir lime concoction for a tasty pre-dinner snack.

Even drinks get a bit weird. Take a raw egg, whip it and pour it over the top of your coffee for a ca phe trung - a speciality of Hanoi.

But that's not the half of it. Over a thousand years ago a man rescued the king's daughter from a king cobra and rejected the king's offer of half of his land instead requesting that his village be recognised as the snake village of Vietnam, given snakes were the village's bread and butter. To this day snakes are still the village's bread and butter with 80% of it still involved in the farming, capturing and serving of the reptilian delicacy.

After reading too many articles and watching episode upon episode about the experience that awaits you in Le Mat village it was the one key goal of our time in Hanoi. We arrived at The Hung Snake Restaurant for lunch and what ensued was one hell of a strange affair.

Thuy met us out the front of the restaurant and immediately pointed out the finger his dad had lost to a cobra bite. His dad then promptly fished out a cobra from one of their little hidey holes whilst Nicola did the calculations as to whether a dash up the stairs or just streaking down the road was her best method of escape.

Thuy then took us upstairs to watch our selected cobra meet it's fate. First the still beating heart was cut out, its blood poured into a cup and off came the head (still snapping and writhing around in the bucket). Then the stomach was expertly extracted and the bile drained into a bottle of rice wine. What was left of our little pal was then taken out into the kitchen.

WARNING: the video is a wee bit graphic (but that's why you should want to watch it)

It was then time for a couple of pre-lunch aperitifs. As the man, the still quivering heart was all mine. Make me strong.

Then it was a shot each of the blood mixed with rice wine and then about four shots of the bile with rice wine. Better than they sound but really that's not hard is it.

Then came course after course of snake-centric dishes.

In no particular order or preference was egg and snake soup, snake congee, boiled snake, grilled snake, sauteed snake, crushed snake bones with rice crackers, snake spring rolls, snake bits wrapped in la-lot leaves, snake offal with pineapple and sticky rice infused with snake fat. The bones and offal were the picks of the bunch.

Shots of rice wine aged with an entire king cobra (venom and all) and some sort of root kept the weirdness going.

After lunch we went down into the kitchen to play with a bamboo snake and marvel at how normal fishing a snake out of a bag of thirty was to Thuy. 

It was an experience for the ages and one the grand kids will be sure to hear about. Hopefully we'll be back for a king cobra one day. Until then we'll feast on some pretty bizarre, sort of twisted memories.

At least we didn't have dog meat hey mums...

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