Prohibition Days

Dec. 31 

We wandered into a few prohibition zones yesterday--no meat at one place, no alcohol at another. 

And not one person was a Californian or a Methodist. Close, maybe, but not exactly. 

Larry is leaving Singapore Tuesday afternoon, so he joined us for his last afternoon and evening in town. We had planned to try lunch at the Maxwell Road hawker center, but there were lines for everything and no space at the tables. 

If you walk out the main entrance of the center onto South Bridge Road, you see the Buddha Tooth temple almost directly across the street. This gives Harry an idea. “I’ve read that there is a vegetarian restaurant somewhere in the building.” 

OK, so we go ask, and find that it’s in basement 1. There are four basements and maybe five upper floors, all accessible by a lift. They speak Brit English here, and the word is a lot shorter than “elevator.” 

The temple is a very new building, a dozen years old or so. The relic around which the temple was built came to Singapore within the past 20 years. There are purported relics of the cremated remains of Siddhartha Gautama in many places around the East. There are only two tooth relics. The other is at a temple in Sri Lanka. 

Anyhow, this is a new building and doesn’t pretend to be old. Hence, four basements and a bank of elevators (or lifts). 

The restaurant has steam trays with various dishes. Joanna and I ate at the restaurant in the monastery on Lantau Island, and it served some of the tastiest vegetarian food I ever had. 

Among the three of us, we tried everything. I thought it was great. Joanna had to pass on a couple of dishes because they were chilied up a bit. There was seaweed soup, stews of mushroom, and green beans. Other stuff too but I lost track. Beer would have gone very well with it. But there was no beer. 

The restaurant also seems to serve as the canteen for the monks. A couple of them came in and ordered veggie selections over rice. 

In Thailand, the monks aren’t supposed to eat after noon until the next morning. The dietary laws must differ from place to place. I also noticed that the monks ordering food wore shoes. they go barefoot in Chiang Mai.

After lunch, we got Larry to admit that the food was OK. 

Joanna and I decided to go to the fourth floor to see the tooth. Larry went across the street to the hawker center for a quick beer. 

The relic is in a glass-enclosed chamber dressed and paved in gold. You enter a large anteroom with its own shrines, and then make your way around to the window where you can see the relic on display. 

I wasn’t sure what I was seeing until I found a photo of the relic up close. It looks like an aged piece of ivory or calcium bound in a large finger ring with a gem. It seems too large to be a human tooth, but I’m no dentist and can’t be sure. 

One of the features of the antechamber is a place where pilgrims can kneel for prayer with a monk. Joanna asked if I wanted to try it for the benefit of my feet, but I declined. 

It was maybe two in the afternoon, and all the bars on Mosque Street had yet to open, so we shared a large bottle of Tiger outside the Szechuan restaurant at the Dragon Court. 

We wandered in the direction of the laundry shop, and stopped at Perfecto for a couple of beers. The ladies who work at this restaurant were our guides to the laundry on Friday. In fact, one of them recognized us as we walked through the plaza and came out to wave. 

We brought the stuff back to the Dragon Court and then cabbed to Bali Lane. 

Now, we were back in Larry’s territory. He had come here in the morning to a tattoo parlor called Hounds of the Baskervilles, which also has a thriving business of giving shaves and haircuts. Very popular. The customers were lined up outside. 

The Beerhouse, despite the name, was disappointing. The beer selection was no wider than you’d find at the average restaurant--Tiger, Asahi, Heineken, the syrupy-sweet locally made Guinness, and Stella Artois. 

Anywhere I have gone in Asia, good, healthy ales are few and far between. 

Don’t recall what I drank at the Beerhouse. 

We strolled through Haji Lane, which is lined with small shops selling clothes and  accessories. According to one website, it is “a fashionista’s paradise” in the Muslim Quarter. Larry took a shot of Joanna and me with Haji Lane in the background. 

There was a place on the sidewalk with benches. The wall behind them declared it an alcohol-free zone. 

We saw a sign for “ordinary-looking baby squid but still delicious anyway.” Can’t pass that up, so we went inside to try some. They were, in fact, very tasty, and so were the sweet potato fingers. Don’t recall the beer here either, probably Tiger. That’s about the best you can do in most places here. I can drink it, but it’s still too reminiscent of American Budweiser for my taste. 

It tasted much better with the food than without. 

We were looking for a place where Joanna could eat, but the area was all curry shops. She told us not to worry.  “No, I can at least eat the bread.” So we wound up at a Halal restaurant across the street from the neighborhood mosque. 

I was a big intersection. One of the roads was called Arab Street. Traffic was flowing in all directions. At least half the ladies were wearing head scarves. 

We went in because the place was offering venison. We ordered that and mutton biryani. The biryani was too hot for Joanna, but the prata (a buttery unleavened bread) and the venison were fine for her. 

The venison was diced with onion and served cooked inside a thin wrapper of bread. 

The side dishes were a spicy masala for the venison and dahl (similar to a thick lentil soup) for the biryani. Biryani and dahl are one of my favorite combinations. 

The only thing missing was beer. There were signs all over the place saying that pets and alcohol were forbidden. Most of the women eating there had head scarves. 

After dinner we went back go Bali Lane. The food may have been Halal at the restaurant, but the restroom was hardly Kosher, and we needed to use the facilities somewhere. Anywhere. 

At the first bar we came to on Bali Lane, a guy came out to ask for our business. “Do you have a restroom?” “Do you want to buy a drink?” “If you have a restroom, we’ll buy a drink.” Done deal. 

It was remarkably clean. 

I think the bar was called Pure Blonde and I think we shared a pitcher of the house brew called Pure Blonde. And it was an appropriate name. It was OK, but not out of the ordinary. It had an inoffensive flavor and was hoppy enough, but it was still Pure Blonde. 

The coolest thing about the experience for me is that we’re sitting drinking beer and listening to the amplified prayers being chanted at the mosque two blocks away. Harry was pretty sure then that he was someplace else. 

That was it for me in the Casbah. It was a short cab ride back to Mosque Street and a short time before I was out. Joanna, of course, was doing just fine. 

The photo of the day is a poor shot of the Sultan Mosque, across from the Halal restaurant. The light on the tower changes color, but I caught it in Moslem green. I believe evening prayers were in progress, amplified across the neighborhood. I fancied that I could make out “Allah akbar,” but can’t be sure. 

Happy new year to everyone, and to everyone good night. 

Dec. 31 

Assuming this matters, Grasshopper and friends:

Beer at Beerhouse: San Miguel on draft.

Beer with the baby squid: Estrella de Galicia (from northwest Spain).

The three-quarters side view of a very ugly face,  further ruining a not very good picture: me.

You also neglected to mention that I actually got a haircut and straight razor shave earlier in the day at that very funky-cool, hipster barbershop/tattoo parlor, which was how I found that area.

Great seeing you and Joanna and have a happy new year in Singapore. 

Hopefully, you'll be somewhere where they serve alcohol. 

Larry 

Marrow Through a Straw

Dec. 28

OK. After a good night’s drunken sleep at the Dragon Court, I am back at the Porcelain, freshly showered and sitting on the bed to use the computer.

My feet are even better today, and I didn’t even attend a religious service of any kind yesterday. I just drank lots of beer.

I worked at the Porcelain in the afternoon yesterday, and Joanna went out for a walk in the neighborhood. Larry was coming to meet us at the Dragon Court around 4.

About 3:30, Joanna and I were so hungry, not having eaten anything since the congee at breakfast, that we went to the Szechuan restaurant on the first floor and sat on the terrace.

We were polishing off a dish of pork kidney with fungus, bamboo shoots, and some really sharp ginger when Larry showed up.

We stopped at a purported backpacker bar near the hotel. It was filled with people who apparently are regulars and not a backpacker in sight. In fact, everybody seemed a little perplexed that strangers were coming through the door.

Karaoke is the big thing there, it seems, and it was cranked up. Nobody was performing, but they had recorded a few amateurs. I really don’t know what Justin Bieber sounds like, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have an Asian accent. If I remember right, Andy Gibb doesn’t have a Mandarin accent or a high, nasal voice.

We put down a couple of short Tigers and moved on.

We cabbed to Little India and went to another backpacker bar that Larry had visited once before and where they greeted him like a regular.

The music wasn’t as loud, and maybe some of the other people in the place were indeed backpackers. I could have asked: “Hey, did you get here in a backpack?” but decided that was too intrusive a question to ask of an utter stranger.

They had a lager on tap and an ale called Speight’s, so Larry and I tried each one and got into our unending discussion of high-alcohol top-fermented altbiers (Harry’s preference) and the crisp Pilsners that Larry favors. I find Pilsners OK now and then, and they always are good breakfast beers. But usually if I am craving the crisp, sharp flavor that Larry describes, I am going to bypass lager and Pilsner and go all the way to an India pale ale, sharply carbonated and fully loaded with hops. Hooray.

I forget how may years ago we started this debate.

From the backpacker bar, we took another cab through what we were told is a much-subdued Little India. Singapore’s first riot in 40 years occurred in the neighborhood a couple of weeks ago.

An Indian guest laborer was hit and killed by a bus. Other laborers rioted. They burned several vehicles. The police had the situation under control in about an hour. Several dozen workers are being deported and a smaller number are facing charges that could lead to jail time or being hit with a stick.

The riot took place on a Sunday, when the streets are usually full of migrant workers, because it’s their one day off. According to the cab driver, sale of alcohol has been curbed since the riot and there are restrictions against drinking it in parks and on the street. Even though the streets were full of people spilling over from the sidewalks, it was nothing like a usual Sunday night, he said.

This ride took us to the Newton food hawker center. The place is bigger, more open, and busier than the Maxwell Road center near our hotel. Also unlike the Maxwell Road center, you place an order at a stall, and they will deliver it to your table.

A guy met us as we were coming in and led us to a vacant table conveniently near his stall. He showed us the dishes he was delivering each time he passed our table.

We ordered some food from him--mustard greens, cockles in the shell, and rice.

Larry had brought us here especially for one dish. The plate arrived with lamb shanks in indelible red gravy. Very sloppy but also very tasty. You sip the marrow out of the bone with a straw. Rich and delicious.

Beer also showed up in big bottles.

Another distinction of the Newton center is the men’s room. I noticed that it is an official “Happy Toilet,” a designation granted by the Singapore Health Department or some such agency. I think it means that the facilities passed inspection with high marks.

We stopped at another open-air bar to kill a pitcher of Carlsberg. At the far end of the place, a rat lives under the slates of the walk. It would pop out from time to time to scavenge crumbs and then would duck into a crevice to disappear. I may have come under the spell of the Buddhists, I fear, because that rat was just the cutest thing, sort of like watching a squirrel or a cat.  Another interesting glimpse was of two motorcycles going by on Geylang Road. The bikes and the drivers too were covered in neon. Kind of a relative mix of flamboyance and traffic safety.

I also remember the strange glitter of light in the beer glass as I tilted it. It seemed so profound and thought-provoking. That always means time to go home.

Joanna and I were back at Maxwell Road for breakfast on Monday for more strong coffee. Well, I was there for coffee.

I believe the stuff may not need a cup to stand. It is so thick it puts a black ring around the spoon. We got some fresh papaya and pineapple and some Western-style muffins to go with it. Joanna doesn’t drink caffeine, so she had a glass of sugar cane juice. They squeeze the cane in a machine while you wait.

(I think there’s a video on the blog of one of those machines squeezing cane. It was in Macao in October 2012, posted in November.)

Today’s photo is Harry drinking 23-(or is it 24?)herb tea. Joanna caught me during one of our visits to the kwai leng guo shop. If I keep this up, I could be healthy some day. Or at least bright-eyed.

Be well, all, and eat your porridge.

Suite Dreams

Dec. 29

The plane was a little late getting to the gate at Bali, but it made up some time during the flight. We got back to Singapore around two Saturday morning.

We went through immigration and customs with no problem. We got a cab right away and made it to the Porcelain around three.

The Porcelain looks classy. Its portico is freshly painted white and there are little round blue signs in front. Inside everything is new, black, and shiny. Very hip.

As I was dragging toward the elevator, I heard the lady at the desk say something to Joanna about the room. It may be too small, but we can get an upgrade.

Everything had been going swimmingly. I was too tired, though, to read that as a warning.

We got to the room, a “queen-size standard,” they call it.  It wasn’t a room at all, but a compartment. The bed is queen size, and it touches three walls of the room. The rest of the room consists of a shiny black bathroom with a toilet, sink, and a showerhead next to the sink. The remaining floor space can’t hold four bags and two people. We had to shove the bags under the bed to fit into the room.

 The only place to open bags is on the bed. There isn’t room for a chair or table. There’s no closet, just a peg on the wall for a couple of hangers.

Standard, my ass. This is substandard by all measures of the Third World. I paid $19 U.S. a night in Chiang Mai for digs three times this size. Prague, Hong Kong, Montmartre, even The Orchid in Singapore were palatial compared to this.

I figured it was a scam and they would want double for something that passed for a room, but I looked at the upgrade in the morning. The difference is $10 Singapore a day. I think the bathroom may be bigger, but there still isn’t space on both sides of the bed, no space to let bags stand on the floor, no chair. Not an improvement.

Once my outrage wore off, I realized that the place was full, and I was the only guy who seemed put out by all this. The staff seemed confused. Everybody else seemed OK. Well, there was an Indian family in a few rooms on our floor who spent most of the early morning hours shouting, but they seemed to be shouting at each other.

For $150 Singapore a night, I don’t expect a three-star hotel. I don’t even want one. But I do expect something close to what I get for 50 bucks a night at a Super Eight in Kentucky.

So I booked us into another hotel down the street. This time I looked at the pictures on the hotel’s website first. Yes, I could see a chair next to the bed in the twin room. So I took it.

On its website the Dragon Court Hotel bills itself as “a brand new hotel just opened in 2013.” I guess for the past 50 or 60 years it operated under a different name and then it reopened with no changes this year. It’s old and decrepit, in fact. But there is space. There’s room for bags, and even a chair and desk.

There is a public sitting room outside the private room.

We went to McDonald’s for breakfast because that was the only place we were sure would have brewed coffee. We found a cleaner for my laundry, and that was lucky. The stuff will be ready by 5 on Monday.

On the way back, we stopped and had a dish of a dark jelly with diced peach in a milky-looking broth, which was slightly sweet and very refreshing. We also drank a dark herbal tea that reminded me a little of root beer and was supposed to cure acne and make my eyes brighter.

We stopped at the Porcelain for a nap.

Larry took the train from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. He was due at his hotel around six, so just for the hell of it, I booted up the computer and used Skype to call his hotel. I expected to leave a message, or maybe be connected to his room.

Get this: Larry had just checked in and was still in the lobby. They handed him the phone.

We arranged to meet for dinner at a place called Geylang Clay Pot Rice. Larry later told me that he had learned about the place from reading Anthony Bourdain.

It’s in the open, on a corner of Geylang Road under a colonnade. The food is possibly the best we’ve had so far on this trip. Larry called ahead to arrange for the clay pot at seven. We ordered soft-shell crabs and a leafy green vegetable, maybe gai lan, too.

The clay pot is just that: an earthenware bowl with a handle. It comes filled with rice and chicken in a savory sauce. It’s delicious. Watch out for the bones. The crabs had just a little bit of chili. I had that with a few Tigers, the local beer.

After dinner, my feet were starting to hurt, but the rest of me didn’t want to quit just yet. We walked down Geylang Road to find a bar that Larry remembered. We passed what appeared to be a brothel (Geylang is Singapore’s Red Light District) and came to a Buddhist temple where a ceremony was in progress.

We looked through the door, but weren’t sure if it was OK to go in. A lady saw us and came out to invite us. The ceremony was led by a group of monks from Tibet. They used bells, a drum, and the long, deep-bass horns, as well as voices. The chanting continued almost without pause for several minutes at a stretch. There wasn’t a discernible pause to stop for breath.

At one point the lady who had invited us, handed us a kind of pasty substance with the consistency of Play-Doh. We were to roll it in our hands and I especially was to tap the butt end on the stuff against my feet. It would ease the pain.

OK, so I did that.

We were sitting on cushions on the floor. I stayed there for a while, but then my knees and my back started to rebel. As I said, the gout kills my sense of balance, so getting back up was a comedy of errors. I managed it, but nearly knocked a votive lamp off its shelf.

We did find a bar, but not the one Larry was looking for. This one might have been even better. I was supposed to drink only water after my foot treatment. Well, there is lots of water in beer, so I guessed it would be OK.

Larry recognized some bottles displayed on the wall. They were craft brews from Italy. I think the bran is Beer 32. Anyhow, there was a big “32” on each label.  So that’s what we had. First a strong pale ale, which was made with a little bit of citrus, and then a red ale, which also had a fruit flavor, but that may have been an overtone of the malt or the hops.

The bottles had conventional caps and corks under the caps. The lady who served us made keychains out of the corks. She gave the pale ale cork to Joanna and the red ale to Larry.

We cabbed back go Mosque Street and enjoyed the new space.

Woke up late Sunday morning, around eight or so. We walked to the Maxwell Road hawker center for breakfast. This is the center where we had eaten the chicken rice before we went to Bali.

I don’t know if it was the Buddhist ritual, the craft beer, or both, but my feet were so much better this morning that I actually forgot to take my stick with me when I walked out of the room. I went back and got it just to be safe.

On the way to breakfast, we passed the big Hindu Temple, Sri Mariamman, where we heard drums, but didn’t go in. We’ll take our shoes off to visit there later.

They sell very strong coffee indeed at the hawker center, so we won’t have to go back to McDonald’s on this trip.

Joanna found a stall selling congee, the thick rice soup, which she ordered with pork and century egg. Century egg is a regular egg, from a duck or a chicken, which has been aged until the white turns black. I have eaten the duck egg by itself, and that was a little too gamy for me. Broken up in the porridge, however, the eggs are very tasty. Pork is always delicious.

I bought some egg tarts and a pieces of sponge cake, so we had those too.

The wifi at the Dragon Court is too weak to work properly in the room, but that’s all right. The Dragon Court is at 18 Mosque Street and the Porcelain is at 48. I walked back to the Porcelain to take a shower this morning in the shiny bathroom and to use the Internet access in the room.

I guess I have a suite now. It’s just that the rooms are separated by half a block.

Be well and have fun, everyone.

Dec. 28  

Hi Harry,  

Great seeing you last night. 

I hope the Buddhist incantations helped your foot. Man, that looks painful!  So, let's see how little walking we can do today!

Please be hungry! Lots of lamb marrow and seafood to eat. I also think we will be able to get some Baron's beer.  See you this afternoon.  

Larry  

Dec. 28  

Sensei,  I don't know whether it was the prayers or the Italian craft beer, but my feet are feeling so much better that I actually walked out of the room this morning without the stick and had to go back to get it.

When I walk during the day, my feet normally swell. I guess everyone does that. The gout just makes them bigger. It also fucks up my sense of balance.  Figuring that the beer is what gave me the improvement, I'm surely hoping we do luck into some Baron's or some strong ale later.

Bone marrow sounds great, too.  

We'll wait for you at the Dragon Court, if not in the restaurant on the sidewalk, then in the lobby.  We'll try to be there around 3:45. If we're not downstairs when you arrive, the desk people may be able to come to our room to alert us. There is no phone in the room there.  See you later.  

Grasshopper  

Sometimes You Need a Kilt

 Dec. 27

I can’t remember the last time this happened to me. Maybe never. I was denied access to a place because I was underdressed.

We got up early on Boxing Day, and the sun was still bright. Maybe Bali’s rainy season is over. We stayed in the villa all morning. I had some work to do on a feature and spent a couple of hours on it. I agreed to work a little during this trip because I ran out of vacation days. So technically I am working while traveling for a few days. I have some interviews set up with Singapore officials who are involved in the country’s push to establish itself as Southeast Asia’s premier venue for research and development. I know. Too much information.

Anyhow, we decided to go for a walk to a Hindu temple called Pura Petitenget, which according to a guide to local sights, is about 500 meters from the villa.

Christmas Day on the elephant was balmy, so we figured a walk would be easy. Not so.

The heat turned on that afternoon with a vengeance. I was wearing a cotton shirt over a T-shirt. No jacket. Just a hat against the sun. That was the longest half-klick I ever hiked.

A lady at the villa had wisely written the name of the temple on a piece of paper for us. Just to make sure we weren’t about to waste any energy, we stopped three times on the way and showed people the paper.

We had to drag around three sides of the temple before we found the way in. The gate was open at the head of some steps so old they had been weathered and worn uneven. We had the temple courtyard to ourselves, except for a short-legged dog looking for a shady place to sleep.

There were some colorful parasols sticking up in a separate section, behind a wall.

This may have been the inner courtyard, which I have read is sometimes restricted. We went up the steps to an open door.

There was a man in a Nehru hat who vaguely resembled Mohandas Gandhi standing inside the inner courtyard of the temple. He was all in white. He pointed at my legs and then pointed down.

I didn’t even get it at first. He was wearing sandals, so I guessed my bucks were all right. He had a hat on, and so did I. Besides, he wasn’t pointing at my head or his own.

After three tries, I finally caught on. He was shaking the hem of his sarong. I wasn’t allowed into church because I wasn’t wearing a kilt. Fantastic. It was the high point of my time in Seminyak.

The temple is next to a beach, which according to a sign, is sacred to Hindus so swimming is restricted. It didn’t seem to inhibit anyone. There were food vendors lined up to feed the bathers, so I guess sacred or not, the beach is pretty much open most of the time.

We stood on the edge of the beach holding our hats in the wind for a minute or so, and then I had enough beach.

The street and the bar on the corner are also named Petitenget. So I guess I had another beer at a bar named for a church.

We stopped at a convenience store for more beer and finally got back to the villa abut 10 pounds lighter than we left. I had one more beer and passed out on the couch.

We ordered room service for dinner. The Kunja doesn’t have a restaurant but instead has menus from several local places. You call the desk and they deliver it to your door. We were in the mood for some comfort food. Joanna had linguine with clams and I had a pizza Margherita.

That was it for the day.

Friday morning here (still Boxing Day for everybody back in the States) I was finishing my editing of the feature and sent it to New York. Next step is that Jeff reads it for sense before I send it back to the author.

We checked out at noon and the hotel gave us a lift to Seminyak Square, the section of town we explored a few days ago.

The heat was strong, but not as strong as the day before. I was dressed to go back to Singapore, so I had a jacket on. I carried it over my shoulder for a time, but also was able to wear it for a while.

We stopped in a surf shop to take advantage of the air conditioning. We walked a little more, and then turned back. We stopped in at the same surf shop to get some fruit juice they were selling. We were desperately craving fruit juice. Or at least, I was. We had cocoanut juice with slices of lime.

This break strengthened us enough to get to a restaurant where we had more fruit juice and some chicken and noodles. Mine had aloe, pineapple, other stuff, and bits of fruit. We also polished off a pint of water.

We took a cab back to the Kunja, which let us use a room for a couple hours rest during the heat of the day before we left for the airport.

I am waiting for the plane to start boarding right now. It may be tomorrow morning before I get to send this.

Our plane is delayed. It was due in Singapore a minute before midnight. I’ve already e-mailed the hotel to tell them we will arrive late and to hold the room.

I’m glad I came to Bali, and I’m glad to leave.

The Kunja is gorgeous. You have privacy open to the sky and a sanctum where you sleep in a mosquito tent. There’s a huge rotunda, maybe 30 feet, maybe a hundred, with fans that keep you cool and the mosquitoes away if you sit out at night.

Somebody from the staff comes to cook breakfast for you on your patio. You want anything, including a ride, they get it for you. People come to spray your room and prepare the mosquito netting around 9 each night.

The beach is the big thing in southern Bali. But I’m not much of a beach person.

I am told that there are other things to see in Bali, but as we learned from the two-hour drive that covered less than 30 miles, everything is hard to reach.

A temple full of monkeys is still on my to-do list.

In the meantime, we will be going back to Singapore for a week. I’m eager for that.

Be well, all.