Angkor

The famed Angkor Wat

Our time in Siem Reap, Cambodia was pretty much exclusively dedicated to the temples of Angkor. We only had part of two days there, as we arrived on February 22 and left on February 23. Consequently, our time there was jam packed with sight seeing and I'm actually really glad we didn't spend much time looking around town because the ancient monuments were worth it.

Since I was too busy moving to blog about this sooner, I have unfortunately forgot much in the last month. I do remember seeing Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, and Angkor Thom. As my memory is poor, I resort to sharing some photos. Really, words and photos cannot accurately describe what it's like to see these wonders anyway.

Kem: Ice Cream in Vietnam

At Công Trường

So I haven't posted about it much, but the fact is I am an ice cream monster. Matt likes to joke about my "ice cream stomach," which is how I find room for ice cream even though I am otherwise full (the best part of being a grown up is that I don't have to finish my dinner to get dessert!). Naturally, before going to Vietnam I did a little research on ice cream and sweets. Most of what I read suggested that the Vietnamese don't really do dessert the way we do here, or that they usually have fruit for dessert. That may be true, but it was not hard to find sweets there. I learned to spot kem, the Vietnamese word for ice cream, very quickly.

In Hanoi, we went to Kem Tràng Tiền, which we read described as a "motorbike drive-in." I can honestly think of no better way to describe it.

Teenagers dig this joint, based on what we saw. Many of them seemed to be on dates. It was really quite cute. They apparently do sell cones, but they were out. We tried their popsicles instead, and honestly, I found the flavor to be just okay and the texture to be grainy and completely disappointing. At least the atmosphere was good.

Kem NZ was a place I read about quite a bit before our trip. As near as I can tell, it's a New Zealand chain, so I wasn't planning on trying it because it wasn't actually Vietnamese. However, our hotel in Hue had a Kem NZ at the hotel, so we had some. I tried the sticky rice flavor, which was interesting. I don't remember what Matt had, but I remember his dad had the durian flavor so I tried a bite and learned that WOW, durian is not for me (his dad loved it though; durian is nothing if not polarizing). Overall though, the ice cream was pretty good, with an atmosphere more like what I would expect to see in the States (bright colors, trendy design).

Note the sign is even in English

On our second night in Hue we had some really good sorbet at the restaurant where we had dinner. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the place but the "lemon" sorbet was wonderfully refreshing with an intense flavor. Notably, everywhere we went in Vietnam limes were referred to as lemons. I don't remember if we ever saw what I would call a lemon there. So it was really lime sorbet. I need to try to make lime sorbet sometime, because I do love it.

In Ho Chi Minh City, it was hot so Matt and I shared a scoop from a street vendor selling cones from the back of his bicycle. As with many of our street food experiences, we just held up a finger (as we were just getting one) and took whatever they guy gave us. It appeared to be chocolate, which I tried to stay away from, because I'm sorry but Vietnam just doesn't seem to have quality chocolate. When I tasted it, I was glad we only ordered one cone because it was chocolate with durian swirl. Fortunately, Matt likes durian.

Moments before discovering the flavor.

The best ice cream we had though, and my favorite eating experience in all of Vietnam, was at Công Trường. In researching places to eat, I discovered the Gastronomer, who has a food blog that was incredibly useful for our trip. Based on her reviews of San Diego restaurants, I felt pretty confident she was a reliable source so we took her advice on a few dishes and places. One such place was Công Trường. I found nothing about it anywhere else, but after reading her review I made Matt hunt it down with me. It was not near our hotel but we walked to find it. We ordered the kem dua, which was recommended by the Gastronomer. It's coconut ice cream, served in a coconut, with the juice on the side, and with bits of fruit and nuts on top. It is amazing.

The consistency of the ice cream itself was wonderfully smooth; the addition of the nuts and dried fruit and the fresh coconut from the bowl adds a textural element that complements the ice cream perfectly. The flavor was intense and sweet. The whole experience was made better by the hot weather, which made the ice cream doubly refreshing. I recommend checking out the Gastronomer's post for a better description, as she puts the experience into words very well.

Flushed from walking in the heat but happy.

City Snapshot: Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Ho Chi Minh City was our final stop in Vietnam. We were told in advance it would be the most Western, and I can definitely see where it gets that reputation. The French style of architecture is more prevalent here, a lot of the streets seem very modern. You can sort of see that in the photo, which was from the roof of the Rex Hotel. War buffs will recall that the hotel was the host of many a press conference during the American-Vietnam war.

By the time we reached this city we had been traveling incessantly, I was still dehydrated from a brief illness, and we were confronted with the hot and humid weather that we had expected but somehow had avoided in the northern and central regions. For these reasons, I wasn't as on top of pictures here as I was during the early part of our trip, which is a shame because this city is a fabulous place to observe the contrast of capitalism and communism. Walking down the street, we passed department stores and plenty of Western name-brand places (the kind I can't afford). We also continued to see the colorful, blocky propaganda posters that undoubtedly address about each person's important place as part of the whole, and also undoubtedly reference good ol' Uncle Ho.

We went into a department store that had its own food court and bowling alley. We went to a restaurant so trendy that we had to dine in the lounge area because we didn't have reservations. Matt and I had drinks on the roof of the Rex Hotel and my mojito cost seven dollars. Sitting on the roof, surrounded by old white people and looking out at the view in the photo above, I almost forgot I was in Vietnam.

However, the city streets still share much with the country's northern capital. We found street food (we ate banh mi here) and a crowded, bustling market indistinguishable from those we saw earlier on our trip. Ribbons of incense smoke twisted out of temples and assaulted our noses. We saw a barbershop set up on a street, the entirety of the shop being a mirror hanging on a fence, a chair in front of it, and the barber with a bag of supplies.

If I ever have an opportunity to return to Vietnam, I hope to make Ho Chi Minh City the primary destination.

Missing Dairy and Learning to Like Fish

Breakfast pho

So, I enjoy the occasional bowl of phở, but my taste buds are wired for Western food. I love cereal with milk for breakfast, I'm used to corn as a major grain (I live in the US, after all), and I come from a very steak and potatoes kind of family. As a (soon to be former) San Diegan, Mexican food is pretty much just "food" to me. Growing up, the only fish I ate was tuna, and while I have expanded my seafood appreciation to include ceviche and the occasional sushi dinner, I am not a seafood person.


I knew going into our trip to Vietnam that it would be a long two weeks for my tongue and stomach, and used our breakfasts at the hotels as a reprieve from Vietnamese food. At the same time, we wanted to try as many legit places (the kind with Vietnamese patrons) as possible while also trying some famous dishes, because sometimes things make it into every guidebook for a reason, right? I could fill a lengthy tome describing our culinary experiences, but I'm going to limit it to a few of my favorite dishes.


In Hanoi, we decided that regardless of my feelings for fish, we had to try the famed cha ca. It's a dish of bite-size pieces of monkfish that has been marinaded in galangal, turmeric and some other stuff, and then it's cooked at your table with dill and other herbs and served with rice noodles. There are a number of restaurants that serve it; in fact, there's a whole street called Cha Ca that you can visit to get your fill. For our first dinner in Hanoi, we chose Cha Ca La Vong, a generations-old family business that claims to be the origin of the dish and where the only menu item is cha ca.

They are prepared for tourists.

It was a-mazing. For me, it was all about the dill. The turmeric marinade was delicious as well. I got seconds. OF FISH. That never happens. Probably the second favorite thing I ate in the country (the favorite will be divulged in another post).

Just before entering our bellies.

In Hội An, in addition to our fantastic and tasty cooking class, Matt and I ventured into the market for food and drink. During an afternoon walk we stopped for some extremely delicious fresh juice, which I later realized was an extremely big mistake on my part. I ordered lime juice, which was almost certainly watered down with tap water to make the tartness palatable. I am nearly positive that this is what lead to me getting "holiday tummy," which was the only tolerable euphemism I can find to describe it.

My cursed lime juice and Matt's smart choice of carrot juice.

We had better luck that day for dinner, when we decided to try Hội An's most famous dish, cao lầu. Our meal wasn't obtained without a little searching though, because while we had visited several local markets at that point, we still weren't what you'd call savvy so we didn't realize how early many of the vendors close shop. Fortunately, we could never take too many steps in Vietnam without being solicited to try food or buy wares, so a pair women welcomed us as their last customer's of the day.

I could never find it again in a million years.

The legend about this dish is that the noodles are made with water drawn from a secret Cham well. I'm not sure I buy it, but it's a nice story. We watched them plate our food (as we did nearly everywhere), starting with the noodles, then adding greens, marinated pork, and at last, the delicious crispy toppings (some sources tell me it's fried dough, some say pig skin). Were the noodles good? Yes. But I enjoyed the tender pork and delicious mystery crisps far more.

The noodles.

"Tourist Pork," according to our cooking instructor,
is the lean pork that the Vietnamese don't want.

The masterpiece.

In Ho Chi Minh City (you may know it as Saigon), the standout dish was our first meal there. Our flight was late and so we arrived in the first sweltering hot city on our itinerary with an empty stomach. While our traveling companions headed off to find air conditioning, we found a street vendor selling banh mi (complete with dodgy mayonnaise).

Stumbling distance from our hotel.

This is probably the one Vietnamese dish I'd tried the most before my visit, and probably the single best thing to come out of French occupation of Vietnam. The French contributed the tasty, crusty bread, and the Vietnamese contributed the delicious fillings. In the US, I usually order BBQ pork, and it's served with cucumber, carrot, jicama, cilantro, jalapenos, and mayo. In HCMC, we took two of whatever they were making, which included like three different meats/meat products (including one pate) and all of the usual veggies except the jalapeno. Instead, it was smothered with hot sauce. We took our sandwiches to the park across the street and ate what turned out to be one of my favorite meals.

<3

Whew, okay, so despite my intentions this turned out to be quite lengthy. But honestly, the food was like, 50% of my experience there so it's hard not to gush about it!

City Snapshot: Hoi An

After Hue, we traveled through Đà Nẵng to Hội An by van. Hội An is an old town, and it is quaint and charming to the point of feeling contrived. It seems like the public face of small towns in Vietnam, where all the women wear áo dàis and everyone puts on a happy face for tourists, which are everywhere in town. I didn't like that it felt like an act.

But it's hard not to fall for the ivy covered buildings, the wooden boats, the glow of the paper lanterns in the evening. Contrived or not, it's a beautiful place. Much to my delight, pedestrians dominate the streets. There are motorbikes and even a few cars, but they are far fewer than in any other city we visited. It made our time in Hội An feel slower and more relaxed, and allowed us to drop our guard a bit while walking to better take in our surroundings. Hội An has a nearby beach, which Matt and I did not visit, but we did make use of one of the many cooking classes offered around town, which included a market tour and several incredible dishes that we got to make and eat.

We also found time to drink fresh beer, try the famed cao lầu noodles and enjoy a walk in a less touristed area with riverside homes, roaming chickens, and children that chirped hellos to us as we passed.

Cars and Bicycles and Motorbikes, Oh My!

Hi friends, here comes another post about our trip to Vietnam. This one is about traffic, which is probably the singular most striking thing about my visit there. There are more motorbikes than cars (I mean a lot more), and far fewer traffic lights than you find in the United States, but really, it's the lack of order and regulation that stands out. The drivers purposefully maneuver their vehicles with a startling lack of regard for road safety.

I took this short video while we drank fresh beer in the Old Quarter. It's not a very busy corner but you can get a sense of the variety of conveyances and the traffic patterns. You can also see Matt's video, which is a little longer and features me eating a donut, here.

We arrived in Vietnam at 10 pm and our guide and driver for our time in Hanoi picked us up at the airport. It was dark, traffic was light, and we were exhausted, but we still noticed a motorbike piled high with flowers, the driver on the way to a nighttime wholesale market.

photo by Matt

Our guide seemed accustomed to the awe we expressed and she explained that the following day, she would teach us how to cross the street. Her instructions: don't run, don't stop, keep a steady pace and they vehicles will go around you.

Motorbikes!

Let me tell you, I don't even like jay-walking in San Diego. But that is the only option here. Even if you find a rare street light, chances are, people turning (either direction) will just go right through the red light. Vehicles will use both sides and the middle of the road, and motorbikes will use the sidewalks, for both driving and parking. You would think this kind of chaos would deter pedestrians and bicyclists, but people have to get around, and they do so in any way that they can. I would be terrified to ride a bike there. I was on edge most of the time because the sidewalks are so crowded we often found ourselves walking in the street.

photo by Matt

And I'm not sure there are limits to what the people there will put on motorbikes. In addition to flowers, we saw cases of beer with nothing tying them down, trees, a bicycle, and of course, children of all ages--on the back of the bike, standing on the foot rest of a scooter, and sandwiched between other riders.

Family car

The crazy thing is, even though the drivers all have to be really aggressive (they'd never get anywhere if they weren't), drivers seem to be more aware of the other vehicles and movement around them, and the average speed seems to be significantly slower. As a result, we only saw one accident the entire time we were there. It was on our last day in Ho Chi Minh City, a girl was heading straight for a car and lost control of her scooter, which slid. Fortunately, she was able to pick herself up, and she seemed to generally be okay.

City Snapshot: Hue

Tomb of Tu Duc

The city of Hue has a very different feel than Hanoi. Much of that is due to small size and the lush foliage just outside the city limits. It also feels more touristed, in a resort sort of way. The town is pretty small, but it was the seat of the Nguyen Dynasty (of which the last ruler was Bao Dai) so it has much history. With its famed Citadel enclosing the Imperial City, and the numerous tombs in the surrounding area, there's no cause to wonder why Hue draws tourists.

While our first sightseeing destination, the tomb of Khai Dinh, was a spectacular display of beauty and opulence, my favorite experience in Hue was our visit to the tomb of Tu Duc. Here was a guy with an aesthetic I can appreciate. In contrast to Khai Dinh's tomb, which, while nestled on a hillside, is a massive structure of stone and concrete, nature has a distinct presence in Tu Duc's resting place.

The image above is not of his tomb, but of another structure he used during his retreats from the palace. During his day, the man-made lake was stocked with fish and he used the island on the right, also man-made, for hunting (this according to our guide).

I'm on a boat!

Vietnam has a lot of water: 3,444 km of coastline, over 30 rivers (two boasting fertile deltas), and there's no shortage of lakes either, particularly not in Hanoi. So it's only natural that part of our time in Vietnam should be spent on water-faring vessels.


Our first experience was an expedition from Hanoi to take a day cruise around the famed Ha Long Bay:

In Hue, we had the quintessential tourist experience with a short dragon boat ride on the Hue River:

Our last boat ride was by far my favorite: a leisurely mid-morning to afternoon glide around the Mekong Delta near Cái Bè. It was warmer in the south, but the gentle breeze on the water kept us comfortable. It is a contender for my favorite experience during the trip:

Video from Matt

City Snapshot: Hanoi

A street in Hanoi (Mã Mây, maybe?)

On February 10th Matt and I departed for our first visit to Vietnam, and my first trip outside of North America. En route, we met up with Matt's dad and his dad's wife, who you could call our hosts since they planned the trip. We all arrived late on the night of the 11th and were welcomed with the sight of an overburdened motorbike on the dark road into Hanoi, a perfect way to begin our two week adventure.

We stayed near the Old Quarter, a place with such hustle and bustle that it's impossible to really describe with words since everything is a flurry of color and sound and smell. The picture above is deceptively calm, but you can catch a glimpse of the uneven sidewalks crowded with motorbikes, the narrow buildings leaning up against each other, the wires in strange and hazardous clusters, mingling with the paper banners strung across the street (leftover from Tết, perhaps?), and the ever present fluttering flag of Vietnam.

What the photo doesn't show are the street vendors selling produce, meat, clothes, flowers, paper, shoes, food, and just about anything else you can think of on the sidewalks. Sometimes they are store fronts or restaurants that spill out onto the sidewalk with merchandise or, in the case of restaurants, with stools, tables, and usually the kitchen. Sometimes the sidewalk is the entirety of shop, with the shopkeeper squatting next to his or her merchandise, which has been laid out on the sidewalk, right next to the gutter. Sometimes the shops are mobile, carried on a bicycle or a bamboo pole over the shoulders of a woman in the quintessential conical farmer hat.

What the photo can't show is the ever-present cacophony of honking cars and motorbikes. It can't show the mouth-watering smell of noodle soups and grilled meat, or how that smell unfortunately mingles with the odor of sewage. It can't show the subtle taste of the clear broth of phở for breakfast or of the cold lagers (Bia Hơi--fresh beer) you can find at beer corner.


But until we get smell-o-vision and taste-tv, you'll have to settle with this photo and these words, which together serve as a snapshot of my impression of Hanoi.

Pennsylvania Part 3: Confluence

Matt and I spent Friday, August 6th through Monday, August 9th with 14 of his extended family members in Confluence, PA. A sign in the town bore the slogan, "Where mountains meet rivers." It's a quaint town situated on the Great Allegheny Passage, a bike trail connecting Cumberland, MD (which is connected to DC by the C & O Canal) with Pittsburgh. It's a beautiful area, although we did pass a beer distributor with a Confederate flag on the porch and a resident near where we stayed had a "He's not my president" sign. So, not a place I'd settle down in, but great for a weekend trip.

Our first stop on arriving in Confluence was Confluence Cyclery, where Matt and I rented a couple of hybrid bikes since we couldn't exactly bring ours from California. Then we headed to our accommodations at the Parker House, which Matt's mom had reserved in its entirety. There, I met Matt's cousins and their families, and Matt's aunt and her husband. It was a little overwhelming because there were several new people but everyone was very nice to me, which may seem like a trite thing to say but nice is really the right word here, and niceness is sometimes underrated. Also, the family had organized a birthday celebration for him (his birthday was a little more than a week prior) including two beautiful tarts made by his mom's husband, some poems, and a couple of photo albums. Even though the event was all about Matt, it illuminated the personalities of those involved for me.

The only thing better than their looks is their taste.

I am not an athlete but I did enjoy the bike rides we took. I rode over 20 miles (Matt rode about 50), which is probably not much for some people but it was a lot for me. The trail is a beautiful one, and reasonably easy as well. It's mostly shady glimpses and occasional good views of the surrounding rivers.

I didn't even need training wheels!

We also checked out two Frank Lloyd Wright houses in the area: Kentuck Knob and the legendary Fallingwater. Maybe it's because we went to Kentuck Knob first, but I enjoyed it more than its more famous predecessor. While Fallingwater is bigger and perhaps prettier, the experience felt more corporate. Additionally, Kentuck Knob has a sculpture garden, and we had a really fantastic tour guide there (Matt's cousin concisely described her as perky without being annoying).

This makes Fallingwater appear

deceptively quiet.

Our whole Pennsylvania trip was really fabulous but our stay in Confluence pleasantly punctuated our vacation.

Pennsylvania Part 2: Pittsburgh

Continuing our the chronicles of our trip to Pennsylvania, after leaving the Poconos, we arrived back in Pittsburgh late Tuesday afternoon, after one slight mishap in which I got confused about East and West because THE OCEAN IS TOTALLY ON THE WRONG SIDE OVER THERE.

Anyway, we drove straight to the house of his mom and her husband, where we had a small snack before heading to the Mattress Factory on the North Side. The Mattress Factory is a museum that focuses on installation pieces. Personally, I am not as into Modern or contemporary art as I am into more traditional paintings and sculptures. However, I do really enjoy installation art, because it usually involves some level of interaction on the part of the viewer. The Mattress Factory had a lot of okay pieces and a lot of neat pieces. My favorites were all part of the permanent collection: the works of Yayoi Kusama, Greer Lankton, and James Turrell.

On our way to the Mattress Factory we also discovered Randyland, a collection of unique and colorful buildings on the corner of Jacksonia and Arch. It was a strange sight, so after our visit to the Mattress Factory we walked over to inspect the oddity. Every surface is painted in a bright color, and decorated with odds and ends that seem to be scavenged from all manner of sources. Curious, I looked for information about this eclectic corner online and found a Post-Gazette article that lead me to a Today show segment (which I'm only really linking to because it has good views of the building and uses Explosions in the Sky for some of the background music). Both describe the Randy behind it all, so if you're interested follow one of the links.

We needed to drop off the rental car, and Matt's brother Mike was kind enough to pick us up from the airport and join us for a trip the ballpark. I'm told by the Ruben boys that PNC Park is arguably the prettiest ballpark in the country, and while I have only been to three in my adult life (I went to a Dodger game once as a kid but was so bored I blocked it out), I can see that it really is a beautiful park. I was treated to a rain delay, which is so rare in San Diego that it felt like a fitting event to welcome me to town, so to round out this authentic Pittsburgh experience Matt and I purchased a Primanti Brothers capicola sandwich and shared it, standing over a trash can, huddled under a covered walkway with the rest of the crowd. The crowd was small, but the size was welcome given that there's only so many places to get out of the rain. We sipped beers and enjoyed the drizzle. The Pirates defeated the Reds that night, but since it got a late start and we hadn't actually had a proper dinner, we didn't stay for the whole game. Mike took us to the nearby Six Penn, where we had drinks in the bar and shared a few appetizers. Mike dropped us off at their mom's place, where we were staying.

Something you don't see much in San Diego.

Wednesday called for sleeping in because we were, after all, on vacation. We took a lengthy walk via Beechwood from our hosts' home near Point Breeze to Matt's old stomping ground in Squirrel Hill. We ducked into the library, bought a smiley cookie from Eat N' Park, and I saw a fraction of Frick Park, where Matt's mom Sue and her husband Peter picked us up for lunch. We ordered sandwiches at Kubideh Kitchen, the first and current incarnation of the Conflict Kitchen, an art project/take-out restaurant that features one menu item at a time inspired by the cuisine of a country the US is in some way in conflict with. The item/country in question changes every four months. We had a completely delicioius Iranian wrap style sandwich served in an informative wrapper, but by next month the kitchen will be serving an item from Afganistan. The intention is provoke thought, but they also happen to serve an extremely tasty sandwich of beef, basil, mint and onion wrapped in flat-bread. It may have been the best thing we ate this trip.

After lunch Matt borrowed the car, and we went to the somewhat newly reincarnated Penn Brewing. The trouble with travel, is that so much of what I want to do in any given city involves consumption. I do not have a huge appetite, but by sharing a single Kubideh sandwich Matt and I managed to save room for a shared bowl of saurkraut soup and a potato pancake each. We washed them down with a couple of beers and enjoyed the atmosphere of the place, which was nice although quiet since it was a weekday afternoon.

We then went for a walk around Carnegie Mellon University, and checked out the Carnegie Library before a thunderstorm interrupted what would have been a longer walk. We stopped by East End Brewing for some free(!) tasters and to fill Matt's mom's growler for our then upcoming weekend trip to the country. The East End employee was very friendly, their beers were good, and thanks to their Illustration Ale, we learned about the Toonseum, which I'll describe in a few paragraphs.

Because Diners, Drive-ins and Dives has featured a number of Pittsburgh establishments, we would have been remiss not to check one out. For dinner Wednesday we ate at Big Jim's in the Run. It was fun, about what I expected: large portions of decent food served by a waitress that calls you "hun."

Meatball sandwich at Big Jim's.

Thursday was our big day. We walked all around downtown, beginning with a farmer's market with free food sponsored by Toyota. Then we got some hot dogs from Franktuary (a hot dog joint in the basement of a church) and ate them at the August Wilson Center, where they were having a line dancing event on the patio. We also checked out the exhibit there, and saw some very nice photos by Charles "Teenie" Harris. Across from the Wilson Center is the Toonseum, a modest but totally awesome museum/gallery focused on cartoons of every variety, from animation and comic strips to comic books and graphic novels. Their current exhibit featured dogs, including Snoopy, Scooby, and many others.

The August Wilson Center

Cool statues at the building next to the Toonseum.

Then we crossed one of the many bridges to the North Side, where we climbed into the lap of the Mr. Rogers statue (Fred Rogers was born in Latrobe, essentially Pittsburgh, and when my boyfriend was a kid they attended the same church!), and then had beers at Rivertowne, where they had a handful of San Diego beers on tap, and oddly enough, none of them were Stone. Then we walked back to town and just meandered about until we eventually met up with the family for dinner at Yo Rita on the South Side. It was strange eating tacos in Pittsburgh, and they weren't "authentic" tacos, but they were seriously tasty. The folks the run the place are creative and clearly consider the season in developing their menu. I had the watermelon habenero gazpacho and a summer squash taco, with a blood orange margarita to drink. Even though I was pretty full, we ended up borrowing the car again to make sure I got my ice cream fix from Dave & Andy's. Out of the ice cream in options in Pittsburgh, I picked Dave & Andy's because it seems to be an institution. The ice cream was good, not great, but it was ice cream so of course I liked it.

I will totally be your neighbor.

And that's it for Pittsburgh. Friday, we had a lazy morning before departing on the next leg of our journey: Confluence, PA.