If you've been slogging down the Irrawaddy River with me, you deserve a break. The only thing I can do for you is to tell you about this salad we ate several times at an open air but very nice (white tablecloths!) restaurant at the edge of town.
But first, a little background on Bagan: a flat plain stretching for miles in north central Myanmar. In sixteen square miles, over two thousands temples were built between the 9th and 13th Centuries AD. Most are standing, some are heaps of old brick, some of them four storeys tall, elaborate stonework; think their version of Europe's gothic cathedrals. (No matter who you worship, it all goes to the same place, you know.)
But to get around to see these ancient sites, some of which are still in use, walking was not sensible. And there was no bus. And our budget did not allow for car and driver or a dawn balloon ride. So we rented bikes. This was not my first choice, but in the end it was the only choice. I spent a lot of time muttering oops and falling gracefully onto the sand.
At the end of the day we'd go back to the hotel, fix drinks and take them out to the overlook above the river where chairs were arranged. Nice way to spend an hour or two. Hunger always got us moving and we lucked into this place a short bike ride away, just past some old pillars that flanked the road. The restaurant had a brick floor, soaring beams (coconut palm wood, I think, but maybe teak), and a heavily thatched roof, all sheltering a 50' square space. The simple salad was delicious.
On a bed of lettuce, arrange sliced red tomatoes. Sprinkle over diagonally cut green onions, and several tablespoons of finely chopped peanuts. I use dry roasted hot peanuts. Pass a vinaigrette heavy on the lime juice: 1/4 c neutral (not olive) oil; 1/4 c fresh lime juice; 1 tbsp (or more) fish sauce, 1/2 tsp each salt, dark brown sugar, black pepper and chili pepper. Whisk vigorously. Don't bother with this if you can't get fresh limes, it's just not worth it. Ditto the tomatoes; those pink hockey pucks? Yech. I've tried this with yellow tomatoes, and red (more acidic) is better. The chopped peanuts really are necessary, too.
Enjoy.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Saturday, April 13, 2013
MENU MOZZARELLA BOOBOOS
My personal first-impression of a good restaurant usually is, unless you're standing in front of a street vendor in Southeast Asia, what it looks like. Secondly, what it smells like. Next, who's smiling at you. But these aspects are, at the end of the experience, not terribly important. I can deal with a not-smiling maitre or maitresse. I can deal with a bare floor, formica tables, and paper napkins (you have to if you want to eat Vietnamese, right?). Dirt, of course, does not please me, unless the place has a dirt floor. But, of course, a clean dirt floor. That Bali beach restaurant, for example...
But what I have a little bit of trouble with is a crappy menu. I'm not talking about a finger-spotted, ripped plastic-wrapped thing, bad though that is. Nor am I raving about over-described ingredients. (I am so over crunchy, aromatic, succulent and pungent...just gimme the nouns, please, and gimme my food. Better yet, lose 50% of the nouns, and just gimme the food.)
No, I'm talking about a restaurant that totally misnames a dish.
But what I have a little bit of trouble with is a crappy menu. I'm not talking about a finger-spotted, ripped plastic-wrapped thing, bad though that is. Nor am I raving about over-described ingredients. (I am so over crunchy, aromatic, succulent and pungent...just gimme the nouns, please, and gimme my food. Better yet, lose 50% of the nouns, and just gimme the food.)
No, I'm talking about a restaurant that totally misnames a dish.
LOOKING FOR CALAMARI
The Great Dim Sum Quest is on hold for a while. Not much point to it on the Gulf Coast of Florida (but if you have a fave around the Tampa Bay area, I'm open to suggestions). (Come to think of it, a fave around the South China Sea wouldn't be rejected, either)
However, there is more to life than dim sum, so I happily go on to the next obsession. You would think that, after my "Not a Pretty Post" on Feb. 22, I'd be totally off calamari. Puh-leeze! I am always looking for calamari, I just am a bit cautious around a dish full of perfectly formed ones.
The question to be asked is not only are they all perfectly round and taste a little odd, but: how do you want them prepared? I had thought, until recently, that a perfectly breaded (light, keep it light) and perfectly fried (crisp but not immolated) says it all. Served, of course, with lots of lemon, and will you for godsakes stop with the paper-thin slices and give me real wedges?
The other might at Da Sesto Italiano in Pinellas Park, I continued the quest and again ordered calamari, the fried version. Nice and light, cooked 95% perfect. A tiny touch of flour taste marred the overall taste. But how did this happen? The breading was not at all heavy. Was it that the fat wasn't quite hot enough? Another ten seconds would've been good? Beats me. See photo at right: the usual presentation was okay, not much you can do with the things, is there? The two sauces was a nice touch, but something with some real punch would've been sensational. Overall, I'd try it again.
However, there is more to life than dim sum, so I happily go on to the next obsession. You would think that, after my "Not a Pretty Post" on Feb. 22, I'd be totally off calamari. Puh-leeze! I am always looking for calamari, I just am a bit cautious around a dish full of perfectly formed ones.
The question to be asked is not only are they all perfectly round and taste a little odd, but: how do you want them prepared? I had thought, until recently, that a perfectly breaded (light, keep it light) and perfectly fried (crisp but not immolated) says it all. Served, of course, with lots of lemon, and will you for godsakes stop with the paper-thin slices and give me real wedges?
Then I ordered calamari at Pia's Trattoria in Gulfport, Florida. And what did I get? An entire beast! What a rush! A photo will follow afer my next visit to Pia's. The thing came on a large platter in a very sharp (in fact, borderline waay sharp) lemon sauce, and lots of parsley. It was excellent: tender, cooked to perfection and (best of all for my increasing pant size) not fried. You know how tough calamari can be when cooked improperly? Not at Pia's. This was done to perfection. A repeatable dish.
The other might at Da Sesto Italiano in Pinellas Park, I continued the quest and again ordered calamari, the fried version. Nice and light, cooked 95% perfect. A tiny touch of flour taste marred the overall taste. But how did this happen? The breading was not at all heavy. Was it that the fat wasn't quite hot enough? Another ten seconds would've been good? Beats me. See photo at right: the usual presentation was okay, not much you can do with the things, is there? The two sauces was a nice touch, but something with some real punch would've been sensational. Overall, I'd try it again.
But I'm still looking.
Stay tuned!
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
SLOW BOAT TO BAGAN, PART TWO
Well, there we were, on an open-air river ferry in a pre-dawn tropical downpour, the only First Class passengers on the entire ship. We had the upper deck to ourselves. I wondered if those people huddled on the two decks below us had got the better deal: warmth, companionship, shared food, shelter from the storm, and access to an endless card game. Too late to change our minds, the two pale-skinned women were in windswept upper deck purdah for the duration.
And that was another thing: how long was the duration? We had no idea. We'd imagined four or five hours. As there apeared to be no food available for purchase, it was a good thing we had a couple of bottles of water and a battered emergency stash of Lance's peanut butter crackers. But six crackers (not six packets) wouldn't last long. And then what?
As dawn came, the rain fled, and we could see the far bank of the Irrawady slipping past: low hills dark with vegetation and heavily sprinkled with the spires and domes of countless whitewashed temples. The near bank, and the tag end of cement block Mandalay, vanished in the mosit air and clutches of temples almost glowed in the moist air. It was an enthralling sight, at least for the first two hours. Then it began to appear as if, judging from the view, we hadn't moved.
In late morning the ship's bell clanged and the horn hooted. The rumble of the engines changed pitch again and we slowly veered toward shore. The banks were low and greyish with ages of upstream who-knows-what. A mob of people had gathered, and formed a chain. A plank flopped out of the lower deck into the mud. People, bags, boxes, rolls of stuff, going in two direcitons. An impromptu flea market, including hands of bananas and large melons, sprang up. We watched from our balcony. By the time we'd identified some packages as containing food, and decided to give it a go, the gangplank had vanished and the ship was again making its way upstream.
Same thing an hour later, without the food market. Could we bargain for bananas? Would we have to give up our flipflops or sunscreen or...no, not our paperbacks. Kindle had many years before appearing in our world so we had each a half dozen paperbacks in lieu of too many tee shirts or an extra pair of shoes.
By mid-afternoon, we were both pretty cranky. When the usual mob standing ankle deep in mud came into view, Lea was ready to move. There were a hundred or more people at this landing. Pooling our change, I gave her my personal food instructions.
"Buy anything that doesn't have eight kicking legs."
She returned a half hour later with a string bag of fruits, sticky rice, and some oddly-colored jellyish stuff that, after long discussion, we both thought the better of eating.
And so the day went: reading, picking at sticky rice, peeling bananas, dodging little rain squalls from our elegant first class seating, and wondering when the hell Bagan would show up. The sunset was gorgeous, long streamers of luscious sherbert colors flung like banners across the purpling sky, all reflected on the pale surfaces of the scores of temples and the tarnished silver of the river surface. A delicious moment, marred only by our belly rumblings. I'd bet they heard us up in the wheelhouse. To make matters worse, someone on the boat was cooking something absolutely sensational.
It was pitch black when lights began to appear on shore. A few at first, then more and more. Faint noises came to us across the water: a motorcycle, someone shouting, kids laughing. Laughing kids sound the same the world over.
Then the ship slowed. We could hear a lot of commotion on the lower decks. The horn hooted, long and low, echoing back and forth across the inky water.
Where were we?
Then our tour guide popped out of the stairway housing, motioning frantically to us.
"Bagan! Bagan! Come, come quick! Bagan!"
We galloped down the stairs and fetched up in a shoving mob. A tiny baby stared at me from its wrapping on its mother's back. The tour guide had vanished. I asked the nearest person if this was Bagan but my voice was lost in the general uproar.
The mob quickly filtered away. The horn hooted impatiently. The gangplank, ten inches wide, was empty. It stretched into the darkness. I couldn't see the end of it. A searchlight clicked on. Someone shouted.
"Go! Go! Bagan!"
We went. The gangplank bounced and swayed and we ran down. No point walking gracefully, this wasn't the QE2. I stepped off the wood and into the river mud. Immediately sank to my ankles. I had strap-on shoes; anything else would still be there.
We looked up. The searchlight illuminated the bluff: fifteen feet up. A line of passengers struggled through the (let's call it) mud, their belongings held above their heads. They left deep pockmarks angling across the mud. There was no pier, no walkway, no planks, no nuthin.
Where were our backpacks?
The tour guide, busy pulling away the gangplank, must have read our minds. He waved his hands, pointed to the top of the bluff.
Up there. Was it a bluff? Or were our worldly goods still on board the disappearing boat? We lifted our feet - they slurped out of the mud - and slogged upward. An older woman paused in her struggles, put her hand under my arm, tried to help me. How humiliating. She must've been in her eighties, but I think I'd still be there is she hadn't almost bodily hoisted me upward.
Out of breath, confused, happy to be on solid, dry land at the top of the bank, we looked around. No luggage. No luggage office. No luggage handler. In the scrum of the arriving people and welcoming friends and relatives, amid scores of motorbikes, a dozen battered trucks, tiny taxis and push carts, there was complete chaos. Tiny lights had been strung in an enormous tree that all vehicles swung around and around. Another Merchant Ivory moment. It was cool, a light breeze plucked at my hair.
Gradually, people met and mingled, got on bikes or into carts or taxis, and went away. We stood, silent, watching. We spoke not a single word of Burmese. The food stalls began to close up. We hadn't noticed them while the mob was there. They were on the far side of the circle and the lights winked out before we could get ourselves moving. Somewhere motorbikes kicked to life and roared away. Silence. The only light came from the tiny ones in the trees. I asked the question torturing me.
"Is this really Bagan?"
A tiny truck wheezed into the circle, navigated around the tree, stopped. Its headlights lit up two battered backpacks. We ran for them, checked them out. They were ours. I'd never open a present on Christmas morning with any more glee. A small, skinny man got out of the truck, walked over.
"Hotel Bagan," he said with a smile as he bent to hoist up our backpacks. "Welcome."
We were home.
And that was another thing: how long was the duration? We had no idea. We'd imagined four or five hours. As there apeared to be no food available for purchase, it was a good thing we had a couple of bottles of water and a battered emergency stash of Lance's peanut butter crackers. But six crackers (not six packets) wouldn't last long. And then what?
As dawn came, the rain fled, and we could see the far bank of the Irrawady slipping past: low hills dark with vegetation and heavily sprinkled with the spires and domes of countless whitewashed temples. The near bank, and the tag end of cement block Mandalay, vanished in the mosit air and clutches of temples almost glowed in the moist air. It was an enthralling sight, at least for the first two hours. Then it began to appear as if, judging from the view, we hadn't moved.
Same thing an hour later, without the food market. Could we bargain for bananas? Would we have to give up our flipflops or sunscreen or...no, not our paperbacks. Kindle had many years before appearing in our world so we had each a half dozen paperbacks in lieu of too many tee shirts or an extra pair of shoes.
By mid-afternoon, we were both pretty cranky. When the usual mob standing ankle deep in mud came into view, Lea was ready to move. There were a hundred or more people at this landing. Pooling our change, I gave her my personal food instructions.
"Buy anything that doesn't have eight kicking legs."
She returned a half hour later with a string bag of fruits, sticky rice, and some oddly-colored jellyish stuff that, after long discussion, we both thought the better of eating.
And so the day went: reading, picking at sticky rice, peeling bananas, dodging little rain squalls from our elegant first class seating, and wondering when the hell Bagan would show up. The sunset was gorgeous, long streamers of luscious sherbert colors flung like banners across the purpling sky, all reflected on the pale surfaces of the scores of temples and the tarnished silver of the river surface. A delicious moment, marred only by our belly rumblings. I'd bet they heard us up in the wheelhouse. To make matters worse, someone on the boat was cooking something absolutely sensational.
It was pitch black when lights began to appear on shore. A few at first, then more and more. Faint noises came to us across the water: a motorcycle, someone shouting, kids laughing. Laughing kids sound the same the world over.
Then the ship slowed. We could hear a lot of commotion on the lower decks. The horn hooted, long and low, echoing back and forth across the inky water.
Where were we?
Then our tour guide popped out of the stairway housing, motioning frantically to us.
"Bagan! Bagan! Come, come quick! Bagan!"
We galloped down the stairs and fetched up in a shoving mob. A tiny baby stared at me from its wrapping on its mother's back. The tour guide had vanished. I asked the nearest person if this was Bagan but my voice was lost in the general uproar.
The mob quickly filtered away. The horn hooted impatiently. The gangplank, ten inches wide, was empty. It stretched into the darkness. I couldn't see the end of it. A searchlight clicked on. Someone shouted.
"Go! Go! Bagan!"
We went. The gangplank bounced and swayed and we ran down. No point walking gracefully, this wasn't the QE2. I stepped off the wood and into the river mud. Immediately sank to my ankles. I had strap-on shoes; anything else would still be there.
We looked up. The searchlight illuminated the bluff: fifteen feet up. A line of passengers struggled through the (let's call it) mud, their belongings held above their heads. They left deep pockmarks angling across the mud. There was no pier, no walkway, no planks, no nuthin.
Where were our backpacks?
The tour guide, busy pulling away the gangplank, must have read our minds. He waved his hands, pointed to the top of the bluff.
Up there. Was it a bluff? Or were our worldly goods still on board the disappearing boat? We lifted our feet - they slurped out of the mud - and slogged upward. An older woman paused in her struggles, put her hand under my arm, tried to help me. How humiliating. She must've been in her eighties, but I think I'd still be there is she hadn't almost bodily hoisted me upward.
Out of breath, confused, happy to be on solid, dry land at the top of the bank, we looked around. No luggage. No luggage office. No luggage handler. In the scrum of the arriving people and welcoming friends and relatives, amid scores of motorbikes, a dozen battered trucks, tiny taxis and push carts, there was complete chaos. Tiny lights had been strung in an enormous tree that all vehicles swung around and around. Another Merchant Ivory moment. It was cool, a light breeze plucked at my hair.
Gradually, people met and mingled, got on bikes or into carts or taxis, and went away. We stood, silent, watching. We spoke not a single word of Burmese. The food stalls began to close up. We hadn't noticed them while the mob was there. They were on the far side of the circle and the lights winked out before we could get ourselves moving. Somewhere motorbikes kicked to life and roared away. Silence. The only light came from the tiny ones in the trees. I asked the question torturing me.
"Is this really Bagan?"
A tiny truck wheezed into the circle, navigated around the tree, stopped. Its headlights lit up two battered backpacks. We ran for them, checked them out. They were ours. I'd never open a present on Christmas morning with any more glee. A small, skinny man got out of the truck, walked over.
"Hotel Bagan," he said with a smile as he bent to hoist up our backpacks. "Welcome."
We were home.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
SLOW BOAT TO BAGAN, Part One
This happened a while back. We'd gone to Mandalay, in Burma (Myanmar), to take a boat up the Irrawady River to Bagan. We'd overnighted at an almost-empty hotel the night before, as the boat left at dawn. In the middle of the night a humongous storm broke, the rain so heavy it woke us up.
We were scheduled to be picked up at 5:30AM but the driver apparently preferred to stay warm and dry. The night manager of the hotel managed to find us a taxi but it was 5:45AM and a 20 minute ride to the ferry dock and the ferry left at 6:00AM. The rain still bucketed down, dawn was nowhere to be seen (probably sleeping in). The taxi driver may have been trying out for a Grand Prix team. We got to the river right at 6:00AM. We were in the only car. The driver blew his horn.
It was scene from a Merchant-Ivory film: pitch dark and deserted, with two tiny lights at the top of the bluff overlooking the river, silvery streams of water dripping off the trees, the lights, the archway that led to the boat which we could barely see in the gloom. Frenetic activity somewhere below us. Nobody up top except the two of us peering out of the dry taxi. But the ferry appeared to still be there.
A man rushed into view, coming up stairs of some sort, and beckoned us forward. He must've been an official: he had a shirt on. We got out into the rain and followed him through pouring, ankle-deep water to the edge of the bluff. We looked down. And down some more. A twenty-foot wide set of stone stairs led to the water. We started to edge our way down, water cascading around us. We began at the same level as the boat's wheelhouse. It seemed to take forever on those mossy steps.
The boat, what could be seen in the darkness, was three levels plus the wheelhouse, and appeared to have open sides. It was painted, where it was painted, dark green. Thick groups of people with large bundles crammed the lowest level. Workers shifted and loaded things, clanging and thumping.
We got down to the gangplank. Literally, a plank, one single narrow, sagging stretch of water-slicked wood. Below it, down in the darkness, I could just see the dirty white swirl of the Irrawady. One by one, we crossed, stood facing the packed wall of people already aboard. Everybody was still standing.
"We've got first-class seats," I said to myself. "Where's the seating?"
We were scheduled to be picked up at 5:30AM but the driver apparently preferred to stay warm and dry. The night manager of the hotel managed to find us a taxi but it was 5:45AM and a 20 minute ride to the ferry dock and the ferry left at 6:00AM. The rain still bucketed down, dawn was nowhere to be seen (probably sleeping in). The taxi driver may have been trying out for a Grand Prix team. We got to the river right at 6:00AM. We were in the only car. The driver blew his horn.
It was scene from a Merchant-Ivory film: pitch dark and deserted, with two tiny lights at the top of the bluff overlooking the river, silvery streams of water dripping off the trees, the lights, the archway that led to the boat which we could barely see in the gloom. Frenetic activity somewhere below us. Nobody up top except the two of us peering out of the dry taxi. But the ferry appeared to still be there.
A man rushed into view, coming up stairs of some sort, and beckoned us forward. He must've been an official: he had a shirt on. We got out into the rain and followed him through pouring, ankle-deep water to the edge of the bluff. We looked down. And down some more. A twenty-foot wide set of stone stairs led to the water. We started to edge our way down, water cascading around us. We began at the same level as the boat's wheelhouse. It seemed to take forever on those mossy steps.
The boat, what could be seen in the darkness, was three levels plus the wheelhouse, and appeared to have open sides. It was painted, where it was painted, dark green. Thick groups of people with large bundles crammed the lowest level. Workers shifted and loaded things, clanging and thumping.
We got down to the gangplank. Literally, a plank, one single narrow, sagging stretch of water-slicked wood. Below it, down in the darkness, I could just see the dirty white swirl of the Irrawady. One by one, we crossed, stood facing the packed wall of people already aboard. Everybody was still standing.
 |
| Sketch, second level, Bagan ferry |
The man who'd told us to go aboard, who'd taken our small suitcases, waved from a doorway and shouted something. The crowd opened a narrow pathway. The man led us up a dimly-lit stairwell to the next floor: again chock full of people and their bagged belongings, most of them sitting, some of them sprawled out in sleep. Babies fretted, mothers stared blankly at the rain dripping off the open fretwork, a group of young men played a card game under one of the few lamps.
The man said, "First class up," and we followed. And then we were in first class. We stared. Dawn had finally arrived, or at least a lightening of the sky so that outlines were just barely visible. We could see the shoreline, almost eye level, almost visible in the still-falling rain. We could see trees, and a group of men carrying huge boxes on their heads, descending the stairs in ankle-deep water. We could hear and smell the river as it slapped past the hull.
And we could see an almost-empty deck, open, with rain drifting in. The rusting metal deck, three feet in from the railing, was puddled. A gust blew more rain into the puddles. There were four once-white plastic lawn chairs, available at any garage sale for a buck each. One chair was broken and tilted toward shore. I was beginning to feel the same way. The man went over to the chairs, tipped the water out of them and moved them a bit farther away from the rail. He pulled a rag from a pocket, wiped the chairs, then wiped his nose and put the rag away.
"First class," he said, pointing at the chairs. "Tickets?"
"Where's our suitcases," we asked, handing over the papers. It was chilly and we wore light clothes.
"Bagan," he replied as he pulled our tickets apart. "You get Bagan."
"When do we get to Bagan?" In time for lunch, hopefully?
"Tonight."
"Tonight?" We hadn't eaten breakfast; the hotel kitchen had been closed, as had every food shop we'd passed. "Is there a restaurant on board?"
He stared at us, as if he'd never seen Americans before. He probably hadn't, not on board this ferry in the rain and the slowly-paling darkness. He grinned and shook his head, waved one hand toward the prow of the boat. Upstream.
The boat's horn tooted, the sound echoing off the bluff. The faint rumble that had been under our feet grew stronger. Clatters and shouts from the region of the gangway sounded. Then the bluff, and the stairs, slid away and the ferry glided away from Mandalay.
"Bagan," the man said. "Tonight."
Thursday, March 21, 2013
BOLOGNA, ITALY
In October 2011, my friend Lea and I met in Rome and, after a week trying to live and sightsee on a seriously restricted budget, picked up a car (at Roma's Termini rail station in the city's heart, but that's another hair-raising tale) and, after a couple of hours of wandering in the wilderness of the beltway(s), headed east.
We visited a lot of places which few Americans get to see, including the Adriatic Coast where I had this romantic vision of pristine beaches with the mountains of the eastern shore barely visible. What a delusion! It was mile-high condominiums and not a single sight of the beach for all the solid-fenced concessions. Don't let anyone tell you America's all about money unless you point out Italy's Adriatic Coast; makes Ft. Lauderdale's Galt Ocean Mile look pretty good.
So...a couple of weeks into the trip, staying in youth hostels and no-star hotels as is our habit, we made a reservation through an internet hotel booking company that touted this 4-star place as on the edge of Bologna. We passed it three times on our search, fetching up in an industrial park that had seen waay better days, and at last found the hotel - at 4PM - behind a defunct stripper bar. It was cold and overcast, and the hotel did not show its better face (but how could it with old newspapers blowing across the weedy pavement, and cement trucks crashing past on the near-by road?).
By a miracle of kindness, the hotel staff agreed we should not stay there. But where would we stay? Our internet search (in the despised hotel's lobby) led us to - gasp! - the Hilton Hotel Bologna.
"No, no, no, a thousand times no," I said. "I will not stay in an American hotel while I am in Italy."
"Oh, so you wanna stay here," my friend Lea asked, looking around the empty lobby. "Besides, the Hilton's only 50 Euros a night."
So, we drove another 45 mintues south, asked directions at five or six places, and got to the Hilton when it was just getting dark. The recently-cleaned glass walls gleamed. The building was new, low slung, the immaculate parking lot filled with late-model cars. I was, literally, on the verge of tears. How humiliating! What a come-down! Staying in an American chain hotel!
Parking was free, unlike other places where we'd had to run out every four hours and move the car to an impossible-to-find blue zone (a Euro per hour on the meters, by the way). In charming Treviso, for example, much though we enjoyed the center-city hostel and all the fabulous sights around it, our car wound up stashed twenty minutes away behind a dumpster.
Inside the Bologna Hilton, however, all was polished marble and fresh flowers and faux-rosewood and multi-lingual uniformed staff, and a happy hour with nibbles at the bar. We checked in, trundled our battered rollaboards down the endless carpeted (well-lit! silent! clean! carpet not ravelling!) halls. Two lefts and a right and we were there. The key card (silent! efficient!) opened the heavy rosewood (faux, but who cares?) door and there it was: America, transplanted to central Italy.
Two huge beds with four plump pillows on each. A tiled bathroom with walk-in shower the size of our last no-star hotel breakfast room. Thick towels, white as snow, on the heated towel rack. Refrigerator. TV. Phone, of course. Table with two chairs. Business center en suite. Hangers in the closet. A trouser press. Down the hall, a laundry. And out front, the public bus to whisk us into the heart of Bologna in only twenty minutes.
Welcome to America. We loved every minute of it. Next time I'm in Bologna, that's where I'm staying. If you can get in it, you should too.
We visited a lot of places which few Americans get to see, including the Adriatic Coast where I had this romantic vision of pristine beaches with the mountains of the eastern shore barely visible. What a delusion! It was mile-high condominiums and not a single sight of the beach for all the solid-fenced concessions. Don't let anyone tell you America's all about money unless you point out Italy's Adriatic Coast; makes Ft. Lauderdale's Galt Ocean Mile look pretty good.
So...a couple of weeks into the trip, staying in youth hostels and no-star hotels as is our habit, we made a reservation through an internet hotel booking company that touted this 4-star place as on the edge of Bologna. We passed it three times on our search, fetching up in an industrial park that had seen waay better days, and at last found the hotel - at 4PM - behind a defunct stripper bar. It was cold and overcast, and the hotel did not show its better face (but how could it with old newspapers blowing across the weedy pavement, and cement trucks crashing past on the near-by road?).
By a miracle of kindness, the hotel staff agreed we should not stay there. But where would we stay? Our internet search (in the despised hotel's lobby) led us to - gasp! - the Hilton Hotel Bologna.
"No, no, no, a thousand times no," I said. "I will not stay in an American hotel while I am in Italy."
"Oh, so you wanna stay here," my friend Lea asked, looking around the empty lobby. "Besides, the Hilton's only 50 Euros a night."
So, we drove another 45 mintues south, asked directions at five or six places, and got to the Hilton when it was just getting dark. The recently-cleaned glass walls gleamed. The building was new, low slung, the immaculate parking lot filled with late-model cars. I was, literally, on the verge of tears. How humiliating! What a come-down! Staying in an American chain hotel!
Parking was free, unlike other places where we'd had to run out every four hours and move the car to an impossible-to-find blue zone (a Euro per hour on the meters, by the way). In charming Treviso, for example, much though we enjoyed the center-city hostel and all the fabulous sights around it, our car wound up stashed twenty minutes away behind a dumpster.
Inside the Bologna Hilton, however, all was polished marble and fresh flowers and faux-rosewood and multi-lingual uniformed staff, and a happy hour with nibbles at the bar. We checked in, trundled our battered rollaboards down the endless carpeted (well-lit! silent! clean! carpet not ravelling!) halls. Two lefts and a right and we were there. The key card (silent! efficient!) opened the heavy rosewood (faux, but who cares?) door and there it was: America, transplanted to central Italy.
Two huge beds with four plump pillows on each. A tiled bathroom with walk-in shower the size of our last no-star hotel breakfast room. Thick towels, white as snow, on the heated towel rack. Refrigerator. TV. Phone, of course. Table with two chairs. Business center en suite. Hangers in the closet. A trouser press. Down the hall, a laundry. And out front, the public bus to whisk us into the heart of Bologna in only twenty minutes.
Welcome to America. We loved every minute of it. Next time I'm in Bologna, that's where I'm staying. If you can get in it, you should too.
COMING SOON!
If your idea of soon is 90 days, we're on the same page. Ninety days from now I'll be on the western edge of the Ring of Fire: Indonesia, Malaysia, perhaps Borneo, little-visited places like that. My first stop will be the spider-shaped island of Sulawesi, whose central core is five active volcanoes. Unlike previous trips (Italy in the fall of 2011, for examaple, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa), I will be keeping you up to date on food, sights, food, sounds, food, smells (especially food), and how difficult it is to get to Torajaland. Among other places.
Other places? Singapore! Home of the famous hawker food stalls and of a cuture that lives to eat (my kind of culture). Much has been written about these open-air stalls, but not by me. It's the only reason I'm going there: the food. As Singapore re-invents itself every five years or so, there's not much history there except in the food. An amalgam of Nonya, Chinese, Indian, and every other cuisine of the immigrants who bilt this economic powerhouse.
Then off to Viet Nam, where in the north the incredible karst formations jut out of the placid waters of HaLong Bay (no doubt you've seen photos, they're on the wall of every Vietnamese restaurant in the country) and, in the central coast region, the ancient Imperial city of Hue (on the Perfume River, just gives me chills to think of it) will whisk us into the distant past.
And finally north and east to Japan, where I'll spend a lot of time in ancient Kyoto, and especially at a sushi bar I've heard of there.
Get ready for a lot of up-close-and-personal: sights, historic and modern; food, from street stalls to sit-down-with-tablecloths; natural beauty (under the water as well as above); indigenous cutltures and their arts and crafts. And who knows what else?
Stay tuned! Meanwhile, there's a new story about a day on the Italian trip you might get a chuckle out of.
Thanks for reading.
Other places? Singapore! Home of the famous hawker food stalls and of a cuture that lives to eat (my kind of culture). Much has been written about these open-air stalls, but not by me. It's the only reason I'm going there: the food. As Singapore re-invents itself every five years or so, there's not much history there except in the food. An amalgam of Nonya, Chinese, Indian, and every other cuisine of the immigrants who bilt this economic powerhouse.
Then off to Viet Nam, where in the north the incredible karst formations jut out of the placid waters of HaLong Bay (no doubt you've seen photos, they're on the wall of every Vietnamese restaurant in the country) and, in the central coast region, the ancient Imperial city of Hue (on the Perfume River, just gives me chills to think of it) will whisk us into the distant past.
And finally north and east to Japan, where I'll spend a lot of time in ancient Kyoto, and especially at a sushi bar I've heard of there.
Get ready for a lot of up-close-and-personal: sights, historic and modern; food, from street stalls to sit-down-with-tablecloths; natural beauty (under the water as well as above); indigenous cutltures and their arts and crafts. And who knows what else?
Stay tuned! Meanwhile, there's a new story about a day on the Italian trip you might get a chuckle out of.
Thanks for reading.
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