Fullboy - Laid back in Laos

Our first experience of a real sleeper bus complete with bed was a fun one as we headed towards southern Laos. We actually got quite a good nights sleep and we arrived in Pakse feeling positively refreshed. Everywhere was very quiet as it was only around 6am so we jumped on the nearest tuk-tuk and got a lift to the centre of town. We found a large, Chinese owned hotel that had a simple restaurant on the ground floor serving some yummy looking noodle soup. After dropping our bags off in the room, we decided to go and get a coffee and some breakfast. We both ordered the beef noodle soup, a delicate, light, fragrant broth with rice noodles and thin slivers of lean, tender beef. An old lady sitting next to us took it upon herself to show us how to season our soups and we had to politely stop her adding the sweet chilli sauce, not that we don't like a bit of spice but the soup was too nice to be overpowered by bottled sauce. We've watched the locals season their soups and in our opinion, they just put too much of everything in. We're not of course saying the locals are wrong, although I'm sure they'd think we were!! It's all a matter of personal taste and what the broth tastes like to begin with.
















We had a leisurely day strolling around the small town and happened to stumble across a temple that was home to lots and lots of kittens. Melissa of course was in cat heaven and spent lots of time making friends with all of the cats. One of the kittens was a bit skinny and had weepy eyes and a German tourist told us that he thought it should be put out of its misery, much to the disgust of Melissa who gave him a stern scowl. We finally said goodbye to the cats and went to find some dinner.


The choices were limited in Pakse, the menus were very similar in the few restaurants on the main road so we went for a little wonder up and down the side roads to see if we could find something a little bit more exciting. We found the food market which would usually excite us but in this case, it was not busy at all and the food looked like it had been sitting out for a while. Running out of options, we decided to eat at a decent looking restaurant we had passed earlier and ordered some fresh spring rolls, some fried chicken breasts and a mango salad. The four large spring rolls looked very appetising and came with the obligatory fish dipping sauce. The three chicken breasts on a bed of salad looked golden and delicious. The crispy, shredded mango salad, spicy, sweet and sour was a perfect accompaniment to the plain tasting chicken and spring rolls. Our giant plates of food had unfortunately attracted the attention of the local tramp. He looked a bit worse for wear and under the influence of alcohol but we did have way too much food so I decided to be the good samaritan and I gave him one of the fresh spring rolls. At first he refused and pointed to the chicken instead... cheeky git!! Melissa was losing her patience and obviously wanted rid of the drunk, dirty tramp that was hovering over our food. He finally took the spring roll but instead of going away, he brazenly dipped it in our dipping sauce and made a mess all over the table. He did this not once but twice, sauce dripping off his unshaven chin!! Even the tramps follow the strict local laws of how to eat your food!! I had to firmly tell him to go away before he ate all of our food and got a telling off from Melissa for attracting crazy people, something I seem to be good at. After our eventful evening, we went back to our hotel to get a good nights sleep because all the lights in this uneventful town seemed to switch off at 9pm.


















We woke early the next morning to catch transport to the Bolaven Plateau, a wonderful hilly area where all of the amazing coffee grows. We caught a bus to Tad-Lo, a beautiful, rustic, waterfront village with lots of bamboo huts. Cows and pigs were roaming around freely and children were playing in the river. An old lady found us and beckoned us to her basic huts right by the river. We paid the equivalent of £2 for the hut and found it to be one of the most romantic spots we had stayed in, sipping a beer Lao on the balcony of our bamboo hut overlooking the Mekong river on a gloriously sunny day without a care in the world. The food was good and the steamed fish in banana leaf that we had to order at lunch time to be ready for the evening was definitely an unusual dish. It arrived wrapped in the banana leaf but instead of being a whole fish it was minced and mashed with egg and noodles in a sort of block. Not what I expected but very tasty nevertheless. We also had a really good curried vegetable soup, loads of roughly chopped veggies in a light curry broth, it reminded me of old fashioned curry powder taste. We ended our wonderful day with another Beer Lao and called it a night.





























Our next stop was Paksong, a small town in the Bolaven Plateau and a good base to explore the coffee plantations and waterfalls in the area. It was a real mission to get there as the roads were still in the process of being built and we ended up flagging down anything going up the road in the hope of getting to where we wanted to go. After a number of rickshaws, tuk-tuks and a nice bus, we finally ended up in Paksong, a rather quiet looking one street town with not an awful lot going on. A short distance away however was the most amazing waterfall we have ever seen and we were lucky enough to have a really sunny day and be able to swim in the pool below. After our nice swim we explored the coffee plantations and bought some freshly ground Laos coffee to send back to our family in England, we also had a sample ourselves, strong stuff!! Unfortunately, my tranquillity was about to be rudely interrupted by an extremely violent stomach upset. Who knows the culprit (probably that strange block of fish!!) but I was off my food for a number of days after this so unfortunately nothing exciting to write about food-wise :-(

































We arrived back in Pakse after our lovely excursion into the hills and caught another bus further south to a small town called Champasak. We were waiting an age for the bus to leave as the driver wanted more passengers and we had to amuse ourselves in the 40 degree heat by drinking lots of 7-Up and watching rogue cows eat scraps from wicker basket bins. The buses were more like pick up trucks with benches in the back and were extremely hot when not moving. Eventually we got another few passengers and we set off. We had to board a makeshift car ferry as we reached the Mekong river and noticed a woman on a floating platform selling some really nice looking fresh spring rolls. My tummy felt right enough to try a little bit and they were fantastic, the rice paper was very fresh and soft and the filling crunchy and tasty. We watched a team of ladies surrounded by baskets of fresh ingredients making them from scratch and passing the finished rolls to a young girl who would hand them to the hungry customers. We munched them up, handed back the plate to the young girl and waved goodbye as our car ferry crossed the river.



































After a night in Champasak exploring a temple at night time and a close encounter with a snake, we caught a bus and long boat to our next destination, the 4000 islands. This was to be without the doubt the most relaxed, laid back place we had visited and we spent a week relaxing in a bamboo hut by the river, swaying in our hammocks and being very lazy!! We tried an interesting lentil dish, similar in texture to an Indian dal but flavoured with lemongrass and lime leaves, a great variation in flavour. Along with this we ordered a pumpkin sandwich that arrived as toasted pieces of bread with mashed up pumpkin patties, cucumber and tomato on top, again very tasty. We weren't sure if the pumpkin was a local delicacy or just something to appease the palate of the large number of backpackers in the area but it was a tasty change from noodle soup nevertheless. We found another tasty snack whilst wondering the small dusty paths of the main path running through the island (there are no roads!!) in the form of samosas. Again, not quite sure if they are Laos delicacies but the little girl selling them was so cute and they were so cheap and delicious that we made many return visits.

































Alas, it was time to say goodbye to Laos. We had purposefully stayed over the allotted 30 days on our tourist visa thinking that it was only a $2 a day fine but then realised it was $10 a day so thought we better get a move on to Cambodia. The immigration officer in typical laid back Laos fashion never noticed that we had overstayed our visa by two days, or maybe he just didn't care.

Fullboy - Thailand - Korat - Fried Eggs, Sausages and Strange Soup

It was finally time to say goodbye to Brynley, a giant amongst men! (Thanks for another great time!!). We also had to say goodbye to Ayutthaya as we travelled on to Khao Yai Rainforest. As with Khao Sok rainforest, the food here was unspectacular. We actually ended up visiting a Tesco and buying a crusty loaf of bread with some German meats and Philadelphia cheese which was probably the food highlight of this area. The menu at our guesthouse stretched as far as fried rice, banana pancake and sweet and sour pork, nothing wrong with any of it but just not worth writing about.

After coming face to face (nearly!!) with wild elephants in the rainforest, we moved on to a fairly large city called Korat. We were only stopping over briefly here as we gradually wormed our way up the country. There was some interesting food to be had and I was excited to see lots of sausages being cooked at the street food stands. Supposedly the area is famous for sausages and I got stuck in straight away. The sausages looked similar to a Toulouse sausage and tasted quite salty and garlicky. We checked out the night market later on and found lots more sausages and other tasty snacks such as crunchy, fried chicken skin, very similar to pork scratchings and very delicious, especially the intermingling deep fried lime leaves. As we only snacked at the market I was still a little bit hungry so upon returning to our hotel, we stopped off at a busy little restaurant next door. Melissa ordered an intriguing fried egg salad (the first time either of us had seen this on a menu) and I opted for the innards soup, as it seemed to be their speciality. I’m a big fan of offal since living in Korea and have no aversion to eating strange bits of animal. In this case I think there was liver, kidney, brain, heart, intestine, tripe and other stuff in this rich, robust, meaty, and very manly soup. Melissa’s fried egg salad was a perfect blend of crispy fried egg that was cut into small pieces and mixed with fresh, crunchy salad leaves, sliced onion, tomato and finely chopped chilli. All in all we were very impressed with our food during our flying visit to Korat.

Fullboy - Thailand - Ayutthaya - Fun in the night market

Melissa, Brynley and I arrived in Ayutthaya exhausted from our long nights in Bangkok and wandered aimlessly around the streets hoping for a hotel to find us and reel us in. I had a specific hotel in mind but our collective willpower at this point was low and to have to look at maps and follow directions involved way too much effort so we decided after a short period of time that we’d done enough walking and settled for the nearest hotel. Relieved to have rid ourselves of our backpacks, we had a simple lunch, had a rest and headed out to the local night market for some dinner. With Ayutthaya being a fairly small town, we weren’t expecting much of a market. We had to walk quite a way from the centre of town to find the place, asking several local people for directions along the way until finally we could see a glimmer of lights at the end of a long dark road. The road seemed to be a favourite hangout for the stray dogs of the town and you never quite knew what they were going to do when you walked past them. Some were lazy and wouldn’t bat an eyelid, others would growl and grumble, one decided that he’d confront us and barked and snarled viciously as we crossed his path. We all just continued to walk, albeit a lot faster and with hearts and mouths, hoping that this vicious doggy wouldn’t attack us. Fortunately it turned out he was all bark and no bite and we all made it to the market in one piece. There was a narrow path with stalls lined up on either side for as far as the eye could see. Hungry from our walk we checked out some of the stalls at the start and immediately I was in heaven as I had found the holy grail of beer snacks, pork scratchings!!! What a find!! We grabbed a table immediately, bought a bag English style pork scratchings and a bag of the quaver looking pork scratchings which I guess are the more American style ones. All we needed now was a few beers… alas the stall didn’t sell them. Me and Brynley had to run the gauntlet past the stray dogs again to a nearby shop, bought some beers and Sangsom, and ran back, eager to get stuck into our snack. What a combination!! Ice cold beer followed by a salty crunch of skin all brought together by the porky tasting fat that envelops the inside of your mouth. Heaven!! However, we didn’t want to spoil an evening of eating so we saved some scratchings for later and went on the hunt for some more tasty treats.

















The stalls went on and on and the food on offer looked great. Our plan of action was to walk to the point where the stalls ended, keeping an eye open for anything that took our fancy, and then walk back and buy the food. This seemed to work in theory but we couldn’t resist sampling some of the snacks along the way. Brynley set the ball rolling with some devilish coconut cakes.
Then we were lured to another stand selling some sort of herbal, medicinal whiskey which we downed with aplomb and followed it up by eating a sour fruit dipped in salt that looked very similar to a chickpea. Next were some very strange looking eggs, similar in style to a scotch egg except the outer layer was fried, minced fish as opposed to sausage. There were two types of egg, one of them being of the standard yellow yoked variety, the other having a frankly disturbing looking black yolk. Still, as disturbing as the black yolk looked, my curiosity got the better of me and I just had to try the eggs. The eggs were chopped up into pieces , dressed with chopped up spring onions and a dash of spicy sauce. They tasted good, the black yoked egg tasting a lot richer and eggier than the yellow yoked egg. I later learnt that black yoked eggs were a Chinese delicacy called century eggs, eggs that are coated in a mixture of mud, rice and clay, buried in the ground for up to three years, and allowed to go through a chemical cycle that makes them edible again. My dad informed me this type of egg was recently eaten by a ‘celebrity’ on “I’m a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here!”. Supposedly the ‘celebrity’ said it was the worst food she’d ever eaten. I told my dad I must have only eaten a half century egg then because the egg I ate tasted very similar to a normal egg. I’m sure a lot of the negativity surrounding the taste has to do with the colour of the yolk as black yolk is usually associated with rotten eggs. Also, the area surrounding the yolk is slightly gelatinous so the texture is different to a normal egg. It’s all mind over matter!!












The snacking continued deep into the night as we munched on pancakes, sausages, and spring rolls. Melissa was snacked out and had to go to bed but Brynley and I decided to take our big bellies and herbal whiskey to investigate the second food market. We arrived and it was a far more formal affair than the first market with more areas to sit down alongside the river. I decided to try frog with green peppercorns, mainly because I was drunk and I’d never tried frog before. The plate of food arrived and the frog was predictably full of bones, crunchy and tasted like chicken. There was an overwhelming number of green peppercorns, hundreds of them! They were in clusters of around twenty to thirty, like bunches of mini green grapes. Eating them caused a peppery explosion inside the mouth and there were far too many to finish. If eaten carefully, peppercorn by peppercorn, they had a pleasant, almost floral taste. Brynley and I were finally defeated and we decided to call it a night.

















The following evening, after an excellent day cycling around ancient temples, we all went back to the first night market because it was just so good and we decided to have a bit more of an informal sit down meal as opposed to gorging on snacks. We started with an eggy radish cake, similar to the one we had in Melaka, one lady cooking up plates of what looked like messy omelettes to the hungry queue of expectant customers.
We had to wait a good few minutes as she was so busy which is always a good sign. The eggy mess mixed with spring onions was comforting and enjoyable and after finishing this we went back to the start of the market for our main course, only to find that the man had sold all of his salt crusted fish!! We managed to find another lady selling fish and we bought some pancakes and a stuffed banana leaf to accompany. The fish and pancake were good but there was a surprise as I opened the banana leaf. I assumed it would be filled with rice, as I have had before, but you should never assume anything with a stuffed banana leaf. After unravelling the layers a pink, very raw looking piece of meat appeared before me. I wasn’t really sure what to do with it…. Should I eat it? Are you meant to take it home and cook it? The locals sitting next to me seemed to be giving me assurance that it was fine to eat. I tentatively took a little nibble and found the taste to be not so bad, similar to a salty Parma ham. Brynley and Melissa cautiously picked off a little and again, they didn’t find it to be too bad. But… there was just that ever present doubt in the back of all of our minds that we were eating raw bacon and this just wasn’t something we were used to. I left a little of the meat, it was very salty and rich tasting and the oniony looking pieces running through the meat were actually chewy pieces of rind. We managed to find some yummy, multi flavoured cream filled cakes (chocolate, coconut, vanilla, strawberry, etc) and a bag of coke (the sweet sugary type) to wash the saltiness away. If there was one thing we learnt from our feast it was to be wary of the stuffed banana leaf, because just like a bag of Revels, you might end up with the coffee one!

Fullboy - Street eats in Thailand - Phang Nga and Bangkok

Phang Nga

It felt reassuring to be on the mainland. The islands were fairly touristy when it came to eating and you saw the same things on the limited menus in many of the restaurants. It began to remind me of ordering food from a Chinese Takeaway in that I would look over and over at the menu and then just stick with something which I know I’d enjoy. I was excited at the prospect of visiting some of Thailand’s local food markets and sampling some authentic regional food.

Our first mainland destination was Phang Nga and although still surrounded by sea, this was our first experience of a real town in Thailand. Although small in size with a population of around 8000 people, the town had a day and night market. We were lucky to arrive on a night that hosted a special market in which traffic was closed off on the road in order to allow people to gather to eat, drink and watch live music performances. The atmosphere was great and the food on show looked amazing. We found a table with a couple of plastic chairs and sat down amongst the few hundred other happy diners. The food that tempted our taste buds was a fish that appeared to be covered in a salt crust being cooked slowly over hot coals on a barbeque. Melissa went to get some beers and I went to get the food. I ordered one of the big salt crusted fish and one fish that resembled a mackerel. We sat down and were given a tray of fresh herbs and leaves to accompany the fish. The lady at the food stand slowly peeled back the salt crust of the fish to expose the mouth wateringly moist, succulent meat. Herbs, lime leaves and lemongrass stuffed inside the fish infused the meat with a gentle aromatic flavour. Fishy delishy!! It made up for the time when I tried (and failed miserably) to bake a fish in a salt crust! I just managed to get salt all over the fish so that when we tried to eat it you ended up with big mouthfuls of salt in your mouth, one for the bin! I blame the terrible electric oven anyway, could never get it hot enough. The mackerel type fish was good but totally outshone by its larger cousin. The sweet basil, mint and coriander were an interesting accompaniment and refreshed the palate nicely.

















Bangkok

The name of the city alone conjures wildly differing visions from person to person, some love it, some hate it. I couldn’t wait to make my own mind up as to what Bangkok was all about. After our relatively peaceful last week sailing around islands, exploring caves and trekking through the Khao Sok rainforest, it was time to hit the bright lights of the big city. We decided to kill some time and make some distance up by getting a VIP night bus (complete with stewardess!) from Khao Sok to Bangkok which took around 10 hours. We closed our eyes to get some sleep in our fancy bus with big comfy chairs and opened them again in Bangkok. It was about 5am when we arrived but the city was already pulsating with a vibrant energy. We stepped off the bus having been woken from a deep sleep by our stewardess with a paper cup of hot, milky, sweet coffee and our senses adjusted from tranquil rainforest mode to capital city mode. We got off the bus and followed the smell of hot BBQ roast duck to a small Chinese restaurant where we sat and had another coffee to complete the process of waking up. We had arrived!!

After a day of rest, our first night in Bangkok was going to be made extra fun by the arrival of our good friend Brynley. We met him on Khao San road, let him put his bags away and immediately proceeded to drink bucket after bucket of strong mixed alcohol and catch up on lost time, What happened next was definitely a result of too much alcohol, we decided it would be a good idea to eat…. BUGS!! We shouldn’t turn our noses up really, many people in Asia see bugs as a nutritional, protein filled snack. They’re probably a lot healthier than your average pack of cheese and onion Walkers crisps, whether or not they’d be as tasty was another matter. The lady selling the bugs had a wide range on offer; scorpions, grasshoppers, beetles, crickets, grubs, etc etc. I decided the black scorpions looked the scariest and most impressive and paid the bug lady about 20p for the pleasure of eating one. Filled with Dutch courage I put the whole scorpion in my mouth and crunched away. They weren’t bad at all!! I think the fact they were fried obviously helped with the taste as all I could really taste was the oil they were cooked in. So successful was my first taste of bugs that I was eager to try another one. This time I chose a grasshopper that was as long as my middle finger, paid the bug lady some more money, put the whole thing in my mouth and crunched away for a second time. After my initial grimace, it started to taste pretty similar to the scorpion, although I do say on the video that it tasted of grass which I think was more of a drunken observation. I got it into my head that grasshoppers ate grass, therefore they should taste like grass. I don’t really know what grasshoppers eat, I’ll wiki it. Brynley joined in with the fun and munched away on a grasshopper, thoroughly enjoying it and Melissa, who is squeamish at the best of times, gobbled up a scorpion!! We even started eating the grubs, not out of bravado but because we were hungry and enjoying a little bite to eat. I couldn’t pull Melissa away from the grubs, she still insists they taste like French fries! Still, if someone offered us a bag of crisps or a bag of bugs, I think we’d go with the crisps. Check out the videos of our drunken, bug eating fun in Bangkok.

click here to see me and Brynley munch on a scorpion and a grasshopper
click here to see Melissa devour a scorpion

(p.s. after googling ‘what does a grasshopper taste like‘, many others have reached the conclusion that they do in fact taste like….grass. This has taught me to trust my drunken observations)




















The next day, our heads were predictably hazy but we still managed to get our sightseeing done, although we were very happy when we were finished and sitting down for some lunch. We stopped at a little street stand opposite where we were staying that displayed an English sign that read ‘Chicken gravy‘. We were in the ‘anything will do’ mood and weren’t really expecting much but what arrived were succulent pieces of chicken smothered with a wonderful, aromatic, thick gravy that had notes of cinnamon, star anise and peppercorn with a side portion of steamed rice. It again goes to show that if you trust the look of a street food stand, you generally cannot go wrong with the food and more often than not, the food tastes far better than what you would eat in a restaurant.
















After an atomic afternoon nap we were ready for night out number two. We met up with Brynley and decided to venture out into the historic Chinatown district in search of a delicious dinner. Our tuk-tuk ride there was an adventure in itself, swerving in and out of the traffic and watching the busy world go by whilst being mesmerised by the flashing lights fitted inside the carriage The driver dropped us off in the heart of Chinatown, colourful neon flashing all around and we walked down the busy street in search of some tasty food. We meandered down side roads and narrow alleys, occasionally stopping to chug back a few strong Chang beers until eventually we decided to stop and eat some food at a busy looking roadside street stall. After parking our rears onto small blue plastic stools our job of ordering was made easier by the fact the stall only served one thing so we ordered three of their soups and three large Chang beers. My eyes were drawn to the ‘kitchen’ area and the scrumptious looking pile of pork with its golden brown, crunchy layer of skin. A portly Chinese man with a big medallion hanging around his neck was flattening and slicing the pork belly with his butchers cleaver in a perfectly timed mechanical motion. Our soup arrived and unlike the usual noodle soups we have become so accustomed to, this soup contained thick tube like noodles that slightly resembled penne pasta. The meaty broth had a wonderful peppery taste and was filled with chopped up pieces of pork belly and cabbage. The pork skin still retained a wonderful crunchiness and was so yummy that we managed to translate to the waiter that we wanted a whole bowl of the crispy pork belly pieces to munch on whilst we finished our beers. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!! Happy!!!
















On somewhat of a meat high and slightly intoxicated, we continued our journey around Chinatown’s exciting, buzzing streets. We passed many weird and wonderful shops selling all manner of dried foods, teas and Chinese medicines and plenty more restaurants and street food stalls, all with their own unique smells and sights. We decided to eat again at a restaurant we had walked past earlier that had all manners of pre-cooked foods displayed on metal plates. Even more intoxicated with ‘Sangsom’ whiskey and beer, we were slightly confused as to how we ordered and a waiter who spoke a little English explained to us to just choose a few of the dishes that we wanted. I was left with the task of choosing for everyone and tried to pick a nice balance of fish, meat and vegetables so I chose what looked like pigs liver with bean sprouts, some Chinese sausage, chicken in sauce, fish in sauce and sautéed spinach. We were given two generous bowls of hot steamed rice to accompany our food. Everything tasted pretty good but….. .. it was all cold, not something our foreign palates are really accustomed to. For a start you wonder how long the food has been sitting around, particularly the chicken, and secondly, eating semi cooked pigs liver, stone cold is just not as nice as eating it hot. However, hunger prevailed and we polished off pretty much everything with ease. Out of curiosity I asked the man who helped us with ordering why everything was cold, his reply was “if you wanted it hot you should have said”. You live and learn!!
















We returned to the Khao San Road area after our Chinatown adventure and partied into the early hours. Our third day and night was largely spent recovering from our two previous nights. Feeling a little jaded and exhausted, we were all looking forward to our escape from the city into the quieter, more peaceful confines of Ayutthaya, temple capital of Thailand. We all had a ball in Bangkok though and it’s a great, fun, safe and exciting city. The food was delicious and I felt like I was starting to get a taste of the real Thailand. We boarded our train to Ayutthaya, I bought a stick of dried squids from an old lady to munch on and off we went. Goodbye Bangkok!!

Fullboy - Singapore - Sticky nights and Christmas lights

A sling in Singapore was next on the agenda and we arrived to our windowless, prison cell of a room at the Drop Inn (memories of Drop Inn, Manchester flooding back). We didn’t have any reason or desire to stay in our room so we set off for a walk in search of some food.

After our long bus journey which involved getting on and off a few times at the border for immigration procedures, we didn’t really feel like walking too far so after doing a few circles around the immediate vicinity, we decided to eat at an exciting looking hawker centre called the Lavender Food Centre. There were up to 30 different food stalls selling a range of exciting foods from eminent frog porridge to simple spring rolls. We put a pack of tissues on a table because supposedly this is how you reserve your seat, and went for a look around the stalls. Our tired heads weren’t really working properly and we sat down again, still unsure of what we wanted so we settled for the stall nearest our table which was called ‘Starlit Homemade Curry’, sounded good to me. We chose a mutton curry, rice and bread to share, with a Tiger beer to wash it down. The mutton was chunky, tender and strong tasting and the curry sauce was delicious with a fairly soupy consistency and a meaty, spicy, definite Indian flavour. The bread was disappointingly just a few slices of crusty baguette, I was expecting Roti or Nan Bread, but it still served its purpose of mopping up the leftover sauce. This was enough for the night and we went back to our dungeon for an uncomfortable nights sleep.















The next day we got up early and set about seeing some of the sights of Singapore. To be honest, in two days and with a limited budget, there wasn’t much for us to do. We were paying so much for our room (in backpacker terms!!) at £24 a night that we even had to compromise on the food and drink. Our breakfast consisted of going to a Kopitam, where we had a lovely coffee and some soft boiled eggs. Melissa proceeded to shell the eggs and the insides just slopped out onto a little saucer. They were the runniest soft boiled eggs I’ve ever seen. Melissa didn’t like them at all so I was left to mop up what I could with the few slices of toast I had. After looking very clumsy trying to balance egg slop on my toast, trying in vain to use my little spoon only to see the egg slide off, and even ungraciously slurping some of the egg off the saucer, I eventually just gave up with the runny mess and we set off on our day.

After visiting a fairly boring art gallery, even Melissa found it a bit dull, I was in desperate need for some more substantial food than runny eggs. We were also a bit disappointed that the famous Singapore Sling cocktail that was invented here at the very grand Raffles Hotel was premixed!! Priorities were prioritised and we started to look for a vegetarian Indian restaurant that I had read about that prided itself on huge portions of food, sounded good. About two minutes after we had sat down in the very basic but clean looking restaurant, the heavens opened and I was even more happy than usual to be sitting in a restaurant, watching people desperately trying to open their umbrellas as the torrential rain cut through the muggy air. Melissa ordered a rice dinner and I ordered the special of the day which was a Masala Thosa, more commonly known as a dosa in India. The food arrived at the table and the portions did not disappoint, they were humongous!! I already knew that there was no way that Melissa was going to eat all of hers, which meant more for me, but then I looked at my monstrosity of Indian bread and wondered if I was going to finish all of mine. The bread itself had a consistency that was similar to Staffordshire oatcakes. It was stuffed with what looked like meat but being as we were in a Vegetarian restaurant with anti meat signs on the walls, it must have been some sort of substitute, maybe soy mince or lentils. Melissa’s rice dinner had no fewer than 10 dipping accompaniments, the highlights being the delicious tangy and spicy lime chutney, the unusual coconut dip and the green sludge looking substance that we assumed was spinach. Each dip had a totally unique flavour but there was so much food on the table that we had to leave some behind, something that we rarely do.
















Wondering around Singapore at night was a pleasant experience, the city is safe, well maintained and very tourist friendly. However, if you feel like having a drink in a bar you will find that a pint costs at least £6 which to us backpackers is just a crime! That’s a nights accommodation! This is where hawker centres come to the rescue. The great thing about these partly open air food centres is that there is a great range of food to choose from and you can just buy your beers from a shop at shop prices and take them to your table. We chose that night to eat at the Maxwell Road Hawker Centre, an established spot that we read was home to some of Singapore’s finest local cuisine. We did a lap of the giant food hall and disappointingly, many of the stalls were closed, maybe because of the time in the evening or day of the week, we weren’t too sure. There were still however many stalls to choose from and the usual hawker centre confusion crept over us… Imagine having forty different restaurants all around you with forty different menus serving many more different foods and hundreds of tables. It’s hard enough with one menu!! First things first, find a table, get a bottle of beer. It doesn’t matter where you sit, you don’t have to give your allegiance to one stall, you can order food from different stalls. I liked the look of the hanging crispy roast ducks and Melissa chose a beef kway teow noodle soup which is a famous local Singaporean dish. We set off to our different stalls and met back at our table with food in hand. My sliced crispy duck over rice was nothing special, it certainly didn’t look as good as the red, shiny, mouth-watering ducks that were hanging at the stall. I suppose the meat on my plate came from one of the ducks but the portion was meagre, there were lots of bones and not much meat and it just didn’t do the duck justice. Melissa’s noodle soup turned out to be noodles in a very thick, gravy like sauce. The noodles were thick, soft and ribbon like, and the sauce was slightly gelatinous, dark and delicious. The bowl was finished with a sprinkling of spring onions, peanuts and sesame seeds. Joy Feast!! Bellies full, legs worn out, our night was over.















Singapore’s modern, cosmopolitan vibe means that it’s not only great Singaporean food you can find. Our final day we went wondering towards the Arab Quarter and found a nice spot amongst the palm lined streets of this pleasant neighbourhood. We ordered a mint tea, hummus (again!) and tabouleh. The extremely hot, refreshing tea was a perfect tonic to an even hotter Singapore day, the hummus was wonderful, the tabouleh was fresh, healthy and wholesome and the flat breads were thick, hot and fluffy. Many bars and restaurants had shisha pipes and comfortable seating and the whole area was very laid back and friendly.





















With a strong, lingering garlicky taste in my mouth, we set off to the Singapore National Museum, a huge, old building home to a maze of facts and history about Singapore. The museum inside was a lot more modern than the outside and we were given these little computer guide things that we put around our necks, we looked like the Ghostbusters! After being pummelled with Singapore’s history we were in desperate need of some coffee. Fortunately for us, we happened to stumble across a coffee shop that sold us probably the best coffee I have ever tasted. The shop was called Nanyang Old Coffee and we each had a small cup of coffee, served to us in an old fashioned little cup and saucer. The coffee was incredibly fresh, strong and thick. The dollop of condensed milk that had settled in the bottom of the cup, something of which I’m becoming a big fan of, gave the mouth a sweet wash after the bitter assault of the coffee, or in other words it helps to get rid of coffee breath!
















Our brief stay in Singapore was nearly over. There was one last thing we decided to do which was to take an open top bus tour of the city that took you past all of the Christmas lights, mainly because it was free! We drove past a snow machine blasting Singaporean children with snow, something which they’ve never seen before, lots of lights, lots of shopping malls and some more lights. It was a strange way to end our time in Singapore. Somehow, even with all of the Christmas lights and music, it’s difficult for it to feel like Christmas when it’s 28°C outside at night!!

Fullboy - Not all airplane food is bad!

I’ve flown with Emirates before, two years ago when I left England to go and teach in Korea and one thing I remember about the flight is of course, the food. This is because the food was actually pretty good and if you’ve flown economy class on any other airline before, you will know that this is not usually the case. So, with expectations high and belly grumbling, I was ready for the first meal of my travels. I can’t remember the exact wording of the rather glamorous menu because I forgot to take one with me but the starter was a good old fashioned prawn cocktail with a piece of smoked salmon. This was gone in seconds because I was so hungry and it was only a small portion but from what I tasted, it was good,. The prawns were fairly big and juicy and the marie rose sauce wasn’t too overpowering. The main course was a lamb and spinach curry with saffron rice and butterbeans, coconut and ginger. It was a generous portion of lamb and the chunks were large, tender and very tasty. The sauce was rich, thick and aromatic and all in all, it was a really good airplane meal.

It wasn’t long before I was hungry again and I decided that I wanted more food in Dubai airport. Melissa was gently trying to dissuade me from eating as we were going to be fed on the next plane to Kuala Lumpur but, as on so many previous occasions, my belly won. In fact, I already had my mind set on eating at the airport because the last time I was there, I ashamedly have to admit that I went to McDonalds, which wasn’t that great. The only reason I went to McDonalds is because they had a burger called a ‘McArabia’, which was in essence a pitta bread stuffed with three hamburger patties, lettuce, tomatoes and a mystery Arabian sauce. I just had to try the ‘McArabia’, my stomach regretted it later though.

This time we tried to look for something a little more local. This proved to be harder than we thought as we walked past the ubiquitous chains such as Starbucks, McDonalds (still serving the McArabia), Costa Coffee, etc, etc. We needed a drink so we stopped a little café called Cozi. Scouring the menu looking for anything remotely local we decided to settle on hummus as this was the most authentically Arabian thing we could find on the menu.

I had 30 United Arab Emirate dirhams leftover from my last trip to Dubai airport (around a fiver), and the hummus came to 15 dirhams which meant I could afford a large coke as well… yeah! Eating hummus is a favourite past-time of mine and Melissa’s and this meal took us back to our student days in Manchester where I would buy a crusty baguette from Sainsbury’s and a tub of hummus from the deli and we would sit in front of the TV and watch nonsense. We always associate hummus with the first series of ‘Big Brother’, oh… the lazy student days of bliss. Anyway… back to the real hummus.

When you’ve eaten real hummus, you realise that the stuff you eat from your the supermarket is not real hummus. A generous tub of hummus arrived at our table with a few whole chickpeas resting on top and a lovely puddle of light green olive oil waiting to be mixed in with the mass of pureed chickpeas. It was lightly flavoured with cumin and garnished with olive oil. The flatbreads were light, warm and perfect for dipping and both Melissa and I fully enjoyed our pre-plane snack.