Daisann McLane's Real Travel

The Meandering Real Traveller

daisann — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:13:00 GMT

Every year I try to give myself the gift of a few weeks to go off the grid, and travel alone without a plan or itinerary. Southeast Asia is a great place to be a meandering traveller. The logistics here are so easy. Guesthouses and hotels are cheap and plentiful, you never need to worry about finding a place to sleep even if you don't have a reservation. Transport is no sweat--there are good connections by air, rail, bus and boat.

And best of all, you will never, ever find yourself far from delicious food.

Last month I bought a round trip ticket from Hong Kong to Bangkok for about $200. I wasn't sure where I'd go from there, but there were a lot of options and I packed for every possibility. I brought some salwar kameez outfits, in case I ended up in India (there's an Air India Express flight from BKK to Calcutta that costs around $200 r/t). I brought assorted light cotton blouses and sarongs for Thailand's islands. I dug in my drawer and found some Thai bhat, Malaysian ringgit and Indonesian rupiah from previous trips, and stuck them in my wallet, just in case. (The ringgit is the official currency of the meandering traveler..check out the design...)

And, as always, I brought a flashlight, a stack of good books, a package of detergent, and some plastic twine. Because, as you will read in a forthcoming Real Travel column, it isn't a real trip, unless I am doing my laundry.

stay tuned....more to come.

Global Spam (and Skippy, too)

daisann — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:43:00 GMT

a jar of genuine American Skippy peanut butter sells for $58.60 (about $8) in Hong Kong!

A couple of years ago, a fellow American expat told me about a little-known basement-level supermarket here in Hong Kong called Gateway, that sells nothing but brand-name American supermarket staples, and junk food, to homesick expats.

I tucked that information away in case I ever woke up in Hong Kong with a craving for Cocoa Puffs or Kraft's Macaroni and Cheese. But it hasn't happened. In fact, I spend an unhealthy amount of time wandering the aisles of Hong Kong's giant gourmet emporium, CitySuper, where you can find amazing foodstuffs from all over Europe and Asia.

Talk about choices! It sometimes takes me more than an hour to work my way past the jars of Taiwanese garlic and chili flavored dipping sauces for hot pot feasts, the eight different kinds of Japanese soba noodles, each made from a different grain, the fully stocked sake section. Who needs Joy or Dove to wash your dishes when you can choose between Hong Kong's own Axion, Japan's LiOn, and Britain's Waitrose?

Me, I've become a huge fan of the Hokkaido milk that CitySuper imports from Japan's northernmost island--the milk is said to be sweeter because of the climate and the Japanese cows that "grow in Nature at ease."

Come to think of it, Hokkaido milk would probably be fantastic over a bowl of Rice Krispies...

In my January Real Travel column, I wrote about how visiting supermarkets in a foreign place is great way to get a quick immersion into local culture. Many of you wrote in to agree--and to share your stories about the unusual gifts and inexpensive treasures you were able to pick up in foreign aisles.

Given the amazing variety of super supermarket stuff available in Hong Kong, I couldn't imagine at first what would draw customers to Gateway, a badly lit basement--sort of a mini Sam's Club-- filled with corrugated boxes of Pringles, Kool-aid and jumbo-sized boxes of Tide.

I scouted around to see who was shopping. Three customers were in Gateway when I was there, an Indian couple and a Chinese housewife. The checkout staff and the manager were all Chinese.

It suddenly occurred to me that the all-American supermarket staples offered by Gateway might be as thrilling as a Taiwanese garlic chili sauce to someone who hadn't grown up in a Land o' Lakes and Birds Eye frozen vegetables. Thousands of miles overseas, my nation's supermarket staples are exotic transmitters of a "sense of place" far away from their familiar surroundings.

And maybe more than that. I secretly hope that the Indian customers are adding their crumbled Pringles into their Channa Chat snacks, Filipina cooks are dicing up SPAM to toss into their pancit, and that Hong Kong housewives have discovered that Skippy makes the most perfectly smooth peanut sauce for Sichuan cold noodles.

In The Tunnels

daisann — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:37:00 GMT

The other day, on a beautiful morning in Hong Kong, I decided to go and have a walk and a late breakfast in Kowloon City, an old neighborhood of low-rise buildings across the harbor from where I live. As I mentioned in my Real Travel column in this month's National Geographic Traveler, I'm big on walking as a way to really get to know a place.

Kowloon City is well worth exploring, for it has a fascinating history. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it was the site of a lawless, walled state-less enclave within the British Colony, where gangsters ruled, and criminals took hiding. (You can read more about the old Kowloon Walled City in Martin Booth's wonderful childhood memoir, Gweilo.) The Walled City was torn down in 1993, but the surrounding area still has lots of terrific old Art Deco architecture, a thriving Thai immigrant community, and lots of the great little Hong Kong lunch counters we call cha chaan tengs.

The other reason why Kowloon City has such a wonderful sense of place is that it happens to be located in the flight path of Hong Kong's old Kai Tak airport. Huge planes used to swoop low and terrifyingly over its rooftops (check out this great video) on their way to a Kai Tak landing. For safety reasons, the government banned the construction of tall buildings in the area. And so, Kowloon City remained relatively untouched by the intensive urban development that has changed Hong Kong's landscape so dramatically in the last fifteen years.

Since Kai Tak airport closed in 1999, the developers have been circling, and high-rises are going up--along with new highways and overpasses that create a more modern kind of wall around Kowloon City. When I got off at the nearest bus stop and started walking towards the center of the neighborhood, the first landscape I encountered had zero sense of place--was I in Sofia, Bulgaria, Seoul or London?

My Saturday morning slog through this grim pedestrian walkway came to mind today when I read this letter from a reader responding to something I wrote in my Real Travel column. I'd mentioned how a friend and I had found it impossible to escape on foot from her new Hong Kong hotel, which had been built isolated from the nearby neighborhood, surrounded by ramps and highways. My reader took issue:

Hong Kong is one of the most walkable cities in the world! Downtown or Central has miles of overhead walkways that connect all major government, office and shopping centers. [...] The walkways pass directly into and through shopping areas, also even the post-office and many major hotels. On Kowloon there are literally miles of underground walkways....

He's right--Hong Kong is a lot more accessible to walkers than many cities. Overhead pedestrian bridges and underground subways make it possible to cross busy Hong Kong highways on foot, which is admittedly a lot more than you'll find in big American car culture cities like Los Angeles. The network of raised catwalks and connections between Hong Kong's downtown shopping malls and offices is a unique urban landscape, a real Vertical City.

Yet, as I make my way around Hong Kong on foot, I often find my mood turns frustrated and irritible. Yes, I can get across the six lane highway, but the bridge that allows me to do so requires me to take a senseless three block detour. On a sunny, beautiful day, I must abandon the comfort of huge banyan trees to plunge into a dark, tunnel. The walkways bear the mark of the planner's drafting pencil, included as an afterthought to segregate pedestrians from the all-powerful and potent highway drivers. Fences and gates make sure I won't be wandering off from the "approved" path.

Part of the pleasure of foot travel is that it is spontaneous. When I travel, I walk with the expectation I will discover something I wasn't looking for. I walk with the secret hope that I will get lost.

What makes a city a great walking city? Accessibility is only half the equation. The parts of Hong Kong that I love to walk around have the life and chaos of a streetscape that developed organically from the ground up--the bustle of people on foot, tending to their storefront businesses, hauling things in their pushcarts.

In streets like these, with a little imagination, a traveler can wander back into another time.

But in a pedestrian subway, I know I'm not going to encounter any epiphanies, or any surprises (at least not the pleasant kind!). They are just a means to an end, put there as an afterthought to the freeways.

Fortunately, in Kowloon City as elsewhere in Hong Kong, there's almost always light (or, even better, a cha chaan teng) at the end of these tunnels!

mmmm! my favorite steamed pork bun.

The Piranha Pedicure

daisann — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:24:00 GMT

Penang, Malaysia

When Eric, the manager of the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion guesthouse in Penang, invited me to go with him to the Penang fish salon, I didn't hesitate a beat. We drove there--the salon is located, of course, in a shopping mall--parked in the lot, and headed to the salon. It looked a lot like a sushi bar inside, with raised wooden decks and smooth pebble paths.

I'd heard about these pedicures by "doctor fish", (their biological name is garrarufa) that feast on dead human skin, leaving your toes and soles clean and soft. (The technique has allegedly has been used for centuries as a cure for psoriasis and ezcema.) Eric swears by it, and says that fish salons are huge in Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. Lately they've also been popping up on the U.S. spa circuit. But they're controversial--fish salons have been banned by health departments in Texas and Washington.

The fish girl attendants giggle as they take my sandals away and hand me a small towel. "You feel soo good when you finish," they tell me, as I walk, barefoot, into the back room to wash my feet first.

Then I take a seat on one of the wooden platforms, next to Eric. He already has both feet in the cool water, and a cluster of fat black fish, about the size of hot dogs, is munching away on his toes. He smiles serenely, as they do their thing. Or have dim sum. Or whatever it is that garrarufa fish do.

I watch for a few seconds, then slip my toes tentatively into the cool water. At once, the fish abandon Eric and swarm my way in a frenzy, until my feet look like two shivering black porcupines. I can feel the itch of a hundred mouths chomping on me. Worse, I can hear the relentless crunch, crunch, crunch of their tiny teeth against my soles.

Aaaaaaaighhhh!

Three seconds later, I've pulled my feet out of the water. Eric, across the pool, is laughing like crazy.

After a few tries, I finally manage to keep my feet still under the water without dissolving into a ticklish convulsion. Just when I have started to get used to my new role as a parasite host, the attendants decide it's time to move me to a different pool that has smaller, slippery fish, the size of my finger. They are fickle and easily scared--if I don't keep my feet entirely still, they run away. But if I let them come, their slithering feels like a million feathers. I bite my lip, hold my breath, and try not to look down.

Gradually, the fish become sated, lose their taste for my toes, and swim away. Soon, the attendants proclaim me "done", and hand me a little earthenware cup of strong Chinese tea on a platter.

I'm not sure what "done" is supposed to be--picked clean? My feet, however, do feel somewhat smoother, and they're tingling. I slip on my sandals and leave the salon feeling strangely hungry.

No problem there--in Penang, Malaysia, you are never more than a stone's throw from a hawker stall (for more on this terrific city, where the architecture is almost as fabulous as the food, stay tuned for my article about Penang in next month's National Geographic Traveler).

Five minutes later, I'm sitting at a folding table with Eric before a bowl of Curry Fish Head soup. Chopsticks poised, I'm ready to re-assert my superior position in the food chain.

In Paradise, the Cats Don't Make You Sneeze

daisann — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:49:36 GMT

Langkawi, Malaysia

I've been allergic to cats for as long as I can remember, which is probably why I've never liked them much. But last month, during a stolen weekend on the island of Langkawi I got completely blindsided by a new, unexpected relationship.

This is "my" cottage at Langkawi's Bon Ton Resort. Actually it belongs to the little guy in the lower right hand corner. He's one of about a hundred cats on the property who've been rescued by the Bon Ton's animal loving Australian owner, Narelle McMurtrie.

In addition to her resort and restaurant, Narelle runs and funds an animal rescue center nearby. (Guests are invited to donate--or, even better, volunteer--during their stay). It's the only such facility on the island. She takes in homeless cats and dogs, sometimes injured ones. I was greeted one day at breakfast by a cheerfully barking little guy who maneuvered his way towards me strapped into a kind of wheelchair. Four years ago this dog had been left for dead, paralyzed by a hit-and-run driver, but Narelle scooped him off the road and nursed him back to health--and had the wheeled device shipped in from the U.S. so he could get around.

It's almost a cliche that you go to an island resort to get away from it all, to reacquaint yourself with the feel of the sun, the smell of the sea and the warm wind. But what I discovered during my weekend at Bon Ton was another forgotten pleasure--non-human companionship. At Bon Ton, rescued cats and dogs loll everywhere, and as a guest you move, in a St. Francis-like rapture, through a garden of contented creatures.

The eight cottages at Bon Ton are abandoned wooden Malay village houses that Narelle dis-assembled, shipped to Langkawi, rebuilt and repaired. Raised on stilts and open with slatted windows on all sides to the warm breeze, they have extraordinary ventilation, which made it possible for this allergy-ridden cat-avoider to move from a two dimensional love for "Hello Kitty" into a real-life fur and whiskers relationship.

I spent most of the weekend stretched out on a Planter's chair, reading mystery novels, with the cat curled and purring in my lap.

Yeah, I know that this cat will be just as cozy with the next tenant of the cottage. I wasn't expecting monogamy. I just hope she still remembers me when I return to Langkawi.