A Rewarding Trip to China

Recently I went all the way to China … The impetus for the trip was the news that my last book Grow Cook Nourish had been shortlisted for a World Gourmand Cookbook award. It was up against stiff competition including Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden Companion and Oprah Winfrey’s Food, Health and Happiness… I reckoned that my tome urging people to take back control over their food, grow some of their own and cook it, wouldn’t have a chance.

Nonetheless it was an excuse to spend a few days doing some edible research in China and surprise, surprise, Grow Cook Nourish WON a special award  - Best World Gourmand Cookbook 2017 -
and my publisher Kyle Cathie received the Publisher of the Year Award so that was definitely the ‘icing on the cake’ …

On this trip we took in Beijing, Datong, Pingyao and Yantai where
the awards were hosted.

Yes, I walked on the Great Wall of China, visited the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, The Summer Garden and the totally awesome Hanging Temples near Mount Hengshan in the Shanxi Province but in this piece, I’ll concentrate on the food and the many good things we tasted.

The pace of change, in virtually all Chinese cities is just jaw
dropping, most of the traditional single or double storey houses have been demolished to make way for gigantic skyscrapers 28-30 stories tall, the horizon is dotted with the tallest cranes I’ve ever seen.

Peking duck is the great speciality of Beijing. Of course there are a
myriad of restaurants who serve it, Mongolian hot pot too, but if you have a craving for McDonald’s or KFC they are there aplenty,
however I’m always on a mission to taste the local street foods and so far, they are still a part of everyday life, even in Beijing where it
seems there is a huge push towards all things Western. A wander
through a local vegetable market is also an illuminating window into local culture and eating habits. One of Beijing’s most fascinating is the Sanyvanli Market, opens at 6am and has stall after stall of beautiful super fresh vegetables and exotic fruit, mangosteen, durian, lychees, pomelo, also ripe mangoes and huge hard scary grapes, some round, others pointy. All the fruit and vegetables were beautifully presented and packed including, boxes of spanking fresh waxberries (myrica rubra) also called Chinese bayberry, all juicy and delicious.Stalls were piled high with fish and shellfish, scallops, sea urchins, crabs, lobsters, crayfish, much of it still alive.

Butcher shops selling freshly slaughtered meat, black and white
skinned poultry and tons of offal. A wild mushroom stall with a mind-blowing selection of fungi including cauliflower mushrooms the size of a baby’s head. Two little bakeries, making Chinese flat breads,were nestled among the stalls. I loved watching them rolling huge rounds of dough – 2 feet in diameter and cooking it on a hot griddle, sometimes plain but often with chopped scallions or garlic chives incorporated. I took a little video so I can experiment, it was so delicious, I hope I can manage to recreate this popular breakfast bread at home.

The night markets are also a must, there are many but we visited the one just off Wangfujing Street, Beijing’s posh shopping street where all the luxury brand shops cluster. This area really comes to life after sun down.

Here I ate scorpion kebabs and crispy silk worms, surprisingly
delicious once you grit your teeth and decide to be adventurous. Lots of offal, squid and dumplings, chicken feet and gizzards and tiny toffee apples- a Beijing speciality. Lamb kebabs were also delicious but a roast goat (kid) leg with cumin and chilli was the best of all. This market was fun but a bit touristy.

Street food vendors are still a vital part of everyday life in China.
Dough stacks, youtiao, snacks like scallion pancakes, Jianbing . Sweet potatoes roasted in old cooking oil drums are also delectable.
Don’t leave China without attending a tea ceremony, a wonderful
ritual after which tea will never be the same again. We tasted ginseng, jasmine and gunpowder tea and puer, exquisite but sadly the teas I bought having been assured that they were identical quality were anything but – sadly a frequent occurrence in China, from taxis to restaurants. Follow the guidebooks advice, insist on using the taxi meter and check your bill meticulously…..otherwise a brilliant and delicious experience.

Visiting The Golden Triangle - Rajasthan

I’m driving through rural Rajasthan, a world apart from well-known Golden Triangle of Jodpur, Jaipur and Udaipur. The fields are a patchwork of crops: wheat, sesame, mustard grown for both oil and seeds…

 Here and there, bananas and tamarind trees and occasionally a huge banyan tree. Shepherds with long walking sticks, tend their flocks of sheep and goats, now and then a camel cart laden with anything from fodder to huge slabs of sandstone from the local quarries. 

Women in bright saris are working in the fields, pulling weeds or harvesting and occasionally by the roadside carrying broken rocks in tin bowls on their heads, men supervise...

There’s virtually never a time when there aren’t people in sight. Lots of little villages bustling with life, a ramshackle and mesmerising mix of stark new build cement cubes and crumbling traditional houses, often a mixture of both. 

The electricity is a mélange of wiring that would put the heart 'cross wise' in a health and safety officer, yet it all seems to work. Lots of tiny shops, selling everything and anything. Street carts piled high with fruit and vegetables. Others sitting on the roadside with just a few little chillies, aubergines, maybe a few beans to sell. 

Little hardware shops selling all kinds of pots and pans, grinding stones, coconut graters, coir ropes, handmade brushes, rat traps, tin utensils…  open-fronted shops with dressmakers, cobblers and tailors, sewing on old fashioned treadle machines, barbers and shavers who lather up people’s chins with old fashioned shaving brushes by the roadside. Every service is provided bicycle mending, woodwork, basket making, even ironing with huge heavy metal irons  relegated to museums over here.

In the tin area, craftsmen are turning out huge metal trunks for dowries.  Virtually all the signs are in Hindu, cows nonchalantly ramble through the streets confident that no one will harm them,  the cow is sacred and revered in India. 

In the little villages everywhere the children wave and cheer when they see us ‘take my photo’, ‘take my photo’. I’ve never known an area where people were more welcoming or friendlier, no one asks for rupees or a peno!

Men, sip tea in the Chai shops, katori, bright orange jalabas and samosas are piled high for sale in open air dhaba’s . There are sweetmeat shops, Indians have an incredibly sweet tooth and also love their snacks. So lots of shops sell just bags of crisps, namkeen and lotto tickets.

Hairy, scrawny pigs and chickens snuffle amid the garbage and there are lots of stray dogs. Out in the countryside the bird-life is astonishing, white egrets and mina birds walk along the buffalo’s back picking off ticks. Cow pats dry on walls and rooftops, fuel for the little clay or outdoor stoves over which most people cook their food. A totally holistic and sustainable system. 

Here in rural Rajasthan many women, partially cover their faces with their saris, older men still wear a colourful turban  and sport an impressive moustache. The houses are colour washed, blue, ochre, pink or plain. There are a few jeeps gaily painted, colourful lorries, lots of richly decorated homemade tractors with no cab or cover on the engine (something to do with tax) and of course countless bikes and motorbikes with three and often four people riding on top including a sari clad lady sitting side saddle.

We’re on our way to Ramathra Fort in the Karauli district – it’s a four hour drive from Jaipur airport along a mixture of roads, tiny bursts of motorway an occasional dual carriageway but mostly potholed roads, dirt tracks with numerous ramps. After 4½ hours we turn up a steep stony roadway and at last we are there...... This gives new meaning to the words ‘off the beaten track’. It’s an endurance test to get here but what an oasis…

A 17th century fort still owned  by descendants of the original Maharaja of Karauli who built the structure in the 1700’s and the family have been here for over a 1,000 years. Rajasthan was never conquered by the British. It has now been restored and opened as a heritage hotel by the Thakur Brijendra Raj Pal family with just 6 suites and 6 luxury Rajasthani tents.  There's a 365 degree view over Rajasthan from the 80 ft ramparts. Below us the Kalisil Lake and dam and the forts, organic gardens owned by Brijendra Rajpal who invested the hard earned profits from her carpet business in Jaipur into restoring the fort from an advanced state of dereliction.

The food is delicious here. Virtually everything is produced on the farm or in the local area. They grow and mill the wheat for the chapatti, paratha and poori . The mustard oil is made from mustard grown in their own fields, the yoghurt from the milk of the buffaloes whose manure is used to activate the compost to enrich the soil for the organic gardens.

No swimming pool but an unheated Jacuzzi on one of the turrets with a staggering view of the local countryside, possibly the best in the whole of India. The fort has been restored using traditional building techniques and local craftsmen. We had a memorable boat trip on Kalisil Lake before sunset. It’s on the fly path to Bharapter, a rich feeding ground for ducks, storks, cormorants, kingfishers, sarus, cranes, stilts and herons. The lake was formed over 50 years ago when the Kalisil river was damned for an irrigation scheme that now benefits local farmers in Rawathara and neighbouring villages along the canal. The lake is fed by monsoon rains and when full spreads over 17 km,  all the way to the Holy City of Kailaden.

A walk through the local village, Ramathra was quite simply enchanting, the villagers are so friendly and welcoming and curious. They welcomed us into their houses and invited me to dance with them to celebrate a recent wedding. 

In the local school, the teaches were eager to show us around and one me an impromptu Hindu lesson.

The big bonus for me was the food. It was particularly delicious here and guests can learn how to prepare any of the dishes on the menu. I had two cooking classes with the owner Geetanguli and her shy and brilliant chef.  At Ramathra Fort they make all their own chutneys and pickles and the best lime pickle I have ever eaten. He showed me how to make this fascinating smoked Ramathra chicken curry and raita, home made paneer, several Indian flat breads, paratta  and particular fascinating local bread called Batia.  Ovens are rare in Indian homes, even in the more affluent homes of people so in villages all cooking is done over an open fire on a clay or in more affluent homes in the urban kitchens on gas rings. For over 60% of people in India, the fuel of choice is still dried ‘cow pats’  and despite our understandable initial surprise it doesn’t smell and is totally sustainable. Ramatha Fort is quite a find – particularly for the more adventurous traveller – I long to return…

A Burmese Adventure

Recently I spent a couple of weeks in Burma - now Myanmar - and was enchanted. Despite what they have endured, the people are warm, welcoming and courageous and now so full of hope. 

The countryside is dotted with pagodas, stupas and monasteries. Buddhist monks and nuns in flowing wine and pink robes are everywhere, an estimated 20,000 in Burma. At dawn, they walk through the streets with their alms bowls, collecting rice and offerings, a moving sight...

The women decorate their faces with a white paste made from the bark of the thanaka tree and many men wear the longhi, a long, skirt-like garment. 



Our adventure began in in the former capital, Yangon originally Rangoon. It’s now a bustling city of crazy contrasts as Myanmar takes its first tentative steps towards democracy.

Burmese food is an intriguing but unique melange of influences from neighbouring China, India and Thailand and some dishes that date back to British rule.

In my experience street food is where one gets the authentic taste of a country. And Yangon is ‘street food paradise’. The Burmese seem to snack all day long. Little street stalls offer a mesmerizing selection of kebabs, dumplings, pakoras, samosas, noodle and tofu dishes and beautifully prepared tropical fruits, ready to eat. 

Traditional Burmese teashops are very much part of the scene and provide more than a caffeinated kick, a variety of snacks as well as strong, sweet and sometimes spicy Burmese tea usually made with condensed milk. I particularly loved mohinga, a thick fish and shallot based soup with round rice noodles often eaten for breakfast and Shan noodles in a spicy tomato based stew. 



The Burmese salads are sensational, tomato, aubergine, green mango, bean, tamarind leaf, even fish cakes and samosas are chopped into salads, and a there's a fermented tea leaf salad with crunchy beans called laphet often served at the end of a meal, totally irresistible.  I ate them at every opportunity and everyone's version seemed to be different but delicious. 

People and there are millions of them, sit on tiny bright plastic stools, about a foot high, around equally tiny low tables, on the pavement, tucking into little snacks. Several stalls, we saw had a shallow bowl of broth in the centre surrounded by little bamboo skewers of pig offal, ear, snout, liver, tail, trotters... five or six customers sat around helping themselves to whatever choice pieces they fancied and were billed according to the number of empty skewers. 

In the late afternoon, we took a ‘sunset cruise’ on the Rangoon River, we were on quite a posh boat but there were lots of little timber skiffs drawing in their nets or ferrying people across to the other side. You could buy baskets of chickpea fritters to feed the seagulls somersaulting in the air to catch the treats.

Yangon’s most sacred and awe inspiring site is the incredible gold Shwedagon Temple that dominates the city skyline and attracts pilgrims from all over the world. Numerous Buddhas in different manifestations, many now with neon lights emanating from their heads – a rather disconcerting sight which the Burmese apparently love; nonetheless a visit in the early morning or late afternoon is a must...

Chinatown and 19th Street at night are another unforgettable experience. Millions of people eating all kinds of unmentionable and unrecognizable things in restaurants and on street stalls. 



Steaming bowls of dumplings and exotic Chinese delicacies including toasted grasshoppers. Durian are in season, a fruit that looks a bit like a dinosaur, smells utterly putrid but tastes sublime. There were also jackfruit and tons of water and honeydew melons, dragon fruit, cherimoya, mangosteen, rambutans, huge avocados and a fruit from Thailand I've never seen before with a scaly skin called snake fruit.

Our visit to Heho, coincided with the five day market so called because the market alternates between different towns every five days. The roads were crammed with covered wagons with frisky ponies, ancient tractors, homemade lorries with no cabs, motorbikes, tricycles and tuc tucs delivering both customers and produce. 

Lots of unfamiliar foods, vats of fermented fish gave a distinctly pungent smell, opium cakes, red rice and bean cakes and piles of tropical vegetables and fruit. I tasted several delicious little snacks, flakey pakoras and pennyworth tempura with a tamarind dip, and a couple of sticky rice confections. All this plus lots of complimentary green tea for a couple of kyats (the Myanmar currency).

Butchers selling every imaginable (and unimaginable) cut of meat and intestines, super fresh chicken and I mean super fresh, you choose your live chicken, they chop the head off there and then, pluck it, eviscerate and chop it up, hey presto, you choose what bits you want or take it all, no wonder it's so tough in most restaurants... 

We drove down the mountain through stunning countryside to Nyaungshwe and hopped onto a long tail boat to explore Lake Inle where the ethnic Intha people live in a totally sustainable way. They fish from flat bottomed skiffs with traditional conical nets and propel the boats with their leg wrapped around the oar in the distinctive leg rowing stance of the Intha people.

 In the 18th century, their ancestors fled from persecution in Thailand but the local Shan chief refused to grant them land rights so they built their houses on stilts on the edge of the lake and created ingenious floating gardens anchored to the lake bed with bamboo poles where they grow tons of tomatoes, gourds, cucumbers, squash, beans... The impressive fertility is maintained by composting and adding weed from the lake.

An excellent cooking class and lunch at the Heritage Restaurant on an island on the edge of Inle Lake, the food much of which came directly from their organic gardens was really good, I tasted the red tree ants, a local delicacy, very nutritious and delicious with a distinct lemony flavor.

 

The local Mingalar market in Nyaungshwe and others around the country give a glimpse that no guide book can, into local life. Apart from the artistically arranged produce there were lots of tiny hardware stalls with vernacular pots and pans and implements made from recycled tin, bamboo baskets and beautifully crafted handmade knives and tools from one of the Intha villages.

Here too, I found many unfamiliar foods, chickpea greens, squash tendrils, Burmese pennyworth, pigeon peas and  best of all, barbecued rice paddi rats which our guide told us are delicious with a beer or a glass of rice toddy...

Next, we were on the road to Mandalay, not quite as romantic and exotic a city as Rudyard Kipling’s poem conjured up but nonetheless, an exotic history. 

We took a boat up the river and from there we were brought to the site on ramshackle pony and carts, along a horrendously potholed road but it was worth it to see the extraordinary Bagaya Kyaung, a pagoda made of 1,000 teak trees and the 60 ft leaning Nan Myin Tower part of Bagyidaw’s now vanished palace complex.

Driving through the countryside is endlessly fascinating, oxen and here and there, a small tractor ploughing the fields.  Women with little conical bamboo hats winnowing or planting rice in the paddies, pigs and chickens snuffling for food by the roadside, ponds full of lilies and lotus flowers, water buffalos, stalls selling sugar cane juice, brightly coloured snacks, freshly picked vegetables, pan wrapped in betel leaves and lotto tickets. Watermelons piled high on the side of the road, lush tropical vegetation,  bamboo weaving workshops...

One of the highlights of our trip to Burma was a cruise on the Irrawaddy River. We boarded the beautiful teak Paukan boat from Sagaing.  

Exquisitely relaxing, just cruising along by the riverbank at a nice gentle pace, watching local farmers, tending their crops of peanuts, sesame and corn, the odd bullock cart laden with grass, fisherman in tiny timber boats fishing as their ancestors must have done in that area for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. 

Lots of little villages tucked in between the palm trees along the riverbank. Here too, the timber and bamboo houses are on stilts, the river floods every year covering the bank with rich silt that enhances the fertility of the soil so they can grow a variety of catch crops. We moored and clambered up the muddy bank to visit a little village where virtually everyone was involved in making clay water pots. 

Finally the temple town of Bagan, one of Burma’s most wondrous sites. Over 2,000 temples, shrines and stupas scattered over a 42 square km area. If you choose one special treat during your trip, take a balloon ride at dawn over the archeological site. It is totally magical and I don’t use that word lightly. Even for well-seasoned travellers, floating over the 11th and 12th century pagodas in the misty morning light is an unforgettable experience.  

There’s so much more to see in Burma now Myanmar. Go soon, some change is inevitable, I'm totally smitten and long to return.

It's hot in Siem Riep!

It's hot. 34 degrees today. Were staying in a lovely timber clad hotel overlooking the river in the centre of Siem Reap, the main reason why tourists come here in their thousands is the UNESCO heritage site of Angkor Wat closeby.

Cambodia had 2.1 million visitors last year and over half came here! Eleven years ago there were neither traffic lights or Tarmac roads in the area, now there are a whole bunch of fancy hotels, two golf courses and lots of foreign investment. There's also an emphasis on green tourism all be it in it's infancy but the intention is there.

On Wednesday morning we started off in one of the bustling local markets, beautiful fresh produce, lots of unrecognisable greens, fish and shellfish in every shape and form, salted, dried, smoked, pickled... Women butchers perched cross-legged on raised benches chopping all sorts of unmentionable bits of freshly slaughtered meat.

The traditional clay and tin cooking utensils are quickly giving way to brightly coloured plastic from China. Thousands of people work in the market and they are all busy, busy, busy, selling, delivering, chopping, wrapping, grating coconut, juicing fruit, grinding spices... Later we drove out into the countryside to see one of the floating villages. Fascinating as ever driving through the rural areas and little villages.We stopped to buy bamboo rice from a little stall on the roadside, the rice is literally cooked with a few black beans in a piece of hollow bamboo and cooked slowly over a little fire, moist, sticky and delicious.

We took a boat right out into the lake to see the houses floating on rafts, again thousands of people live from fishing and all the associated activities, salting, drying, selling.....

Everyone was super friendly and good humoured even when our boat broke down and we had to hitch a lift back on another boat.

In the evening we had delicious Cambodian food at a restaurant called Sugar Palm.

We've an early start this morning, 5.30 am to get to Angkor Wat for Sunrise. Haven't been able to sleep, too hot, so I've been practicing my typing instead!

A letter from Luang Prabang

The airport in Luang Prabang is still tiny, although it seems not for long, they are frantically building a huge international airport closeby which will bring huge numbers of people to this enchanting little city, already over loaded with visitors. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995.

We were staying in a new hotel about 15 mins outside the town, it was lovely really except that it was like the Marie Celeste, not another guest in sight, everyone seemed to vanish into town and not return until late at night.

The service was like Fawlty Towers with a long series of misunderstandings partly because virtually none of the staff spoke or even understood English. They had no map of the town ,no newspapers, they didn't seem to know where things were or what tour options there were available . On the way to the airport today ,we discovered from the handling company that the hotel is in fact owned by a Thai businessman and virtually all the staff are Thai, so it wasn't our imagination, they didn't actually know anything about Luang Prabang!

On the first evening,we got a tuc tuc (our favourite mode of transport) into town. A brand new one with brightly coloured stripes arrived driven by a super cool young guy with spiky hair and sneakers with bright red laces to match the tuc tuc. He took us to the night Market, this is a collection of close to a hundred stalls that set up along the main street at night by local tribal people selling all kinds of textiles, souvenirs, and handcrafts supposedly from Laos but much of it seems to be coming in from China now. Here and there are some lovely things so Tim whisked me out of there pretty smartly with lots of muttering about enough clutter!

We had a very good dinner on the veranda of a little restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet called Tamarind, lots of Lao dishes including crisps made from river weed which we saw being harvested next morning when we took a day trip in a covered flat bottomed boat along the Mekong.

There are lots of tiny vegetable gardens on the rich alluvial soil all along the river banks, higher up above the flood mark (between 20 and 30ft) there are little thatched bamboo and timber houses on stilts with verandas over looking the river.

The local river people fish and collect river weed off the stones along the rivers edge, it is washed and sundried and then made into a kind of crisp sprinkled with sesame seeds which they use to scoop up a variety of dips one of which includes buffalo skin, they seem frightfully keen on that, I saw lots for sale in the market.

There's a backdrop of hills and mountainous forest, here and there are temples half hidden by the trees and glimpses of the Buddhist monks in their saffron robes. Some of the temples are super ornate, beautifully gilded and decorative, others are very simple, accessed only by rickety bamboo bridges.

Our boat had really comfy seats with lots of distressed cushions unlike some of the boats that have recycled car seats and we've just passed a petrol station on a large barge. Around noon there were lots of children down by the rivers edge washing their buffalo and splashing in the rock pools. Later there are young Buddhist monks climbing trees and bathing in their robes, giggling and having fun like any young lads of their age... there are great photo ops everywhere!

On Thursday I decided to take a cooking class in a little school called Tamnak Lao that Rory recommended from his trip a couple of years ago. It started at 10 am with a Market tour, we arrived back to the school after 11 am with the ingredients.There were just four of us in the class, Tim had opted out so he could really chill if such a thing is possible in 30+ degrees!

Then the two teachers demonstrated a couple of dishes which we then cooked for lunch ,one was a Lao version of our Traditional salad with roasted peanuts and minced pork, the other a sticky rice noodles with vegetables and chicken called Feu Khua.

After a leisurely lunch we had another short demo, this time five dishes from which we could choose three each to cook, I totally loved a sticky aubergine dish with pork, Khua Maak Kheua Gap Moo and a banana flower salad. We cooked in pairs, I was paired up with a very nice German chap from Munich called Gunter. Overall it was a very worthwhile day, and I should be able to reproduce several of the recipes easily.

Afterwards, I went back to the Marie Celeste for a swim , then back into town for dinner, we had a terrifically good meal at a restaurant away from the madding crowds in a hotel called Aspara overlooking the Khan-Luang Prabang river, a tributary of the Mekong. It was so good that we went back again today for lunch, last night we ate on the front porch but today we had a little table overlooking the river.

We had two absolutely delicious salads: prawn and green papaya salad with chilli and coconut dressing and dried beef salad with mint, coriander and lemongrass (I think it was buffalo). A third one with aubergine roasted cashew nuts, tomatoes, and tons of crispy garlic, was less successful.

We met the owner Ivan Scholtz from London and told him how much we loved his food and asked him for the recipe for the lentil soup... and the Massaman Curry from the night before! Guess what,  he gave them to me! It's always worth asking, the worse that can happen is they can say no! If I return to Luang I'll definitely stay there, it's a lovely chic hotel with staff who speak great English!

Leaving Sri Lanka.....

We're now on our way to Colombo Airport. It's difficult to tear oneself away from the Dutch House, it's such a tranquil place, just four beautiful bedrooms, a gracious drawing room and a veranda around three sides of a square.

Our afternoon tea expedition yesterday was great success, we took a tuc tuc and were met by Gabriele Francis, another ex-pat using her initiative to earn a few bob from the tourists. We walked along a tiny path through the rice paddies to a 'paddi island' across a little bridge. Lots of palm trees, hibiscus, frangipan, bougainvilla, jasmine and lush foliage, and suddenly there was a little kind of summerhouse in the middle with a beautifully laid table, pretty china cups and saucers, freshly cut cucumber and egg sandwiches, lavender biscuits, shortbread still warm from the oven,a gorgeous crumbly carrot cake, a boiled fruit and nut cake and a chocolate cake to die for!

Afterwards we piled into a bullock cart all decorated with bunting, and trundled along the road and up the hill to the local Buddhist Temple to watch the sunset and give thanks, there were about a million steps up to the top, a welcome opportunity to burn off some calories- we had to taste everything!

The whole experience was lovely.

Later we had dinner with Geoffrey at his newest acquisition - Mamas in Galle Fort, work to be done there, he's waiting to take it over so it can have a good shake up!

Today we just relaxed at the Dutch House, we took a tuc tuc out to the beach Cafe at Wajiya Beach for a fishy lunch and then I came back into Galle to go to the Green Market and potter around the little shops, I bought beautiful sweet cinnamon, the only spice indigenous to Sri Lanka and lots of funny tin cooking utensils that I certainly don't need, lovely Henri will post them home for me.

Our flight to Bangkok leaves at 1.30 am and arrives in at 6.30 so we should arrive just in time for breakfast, were staying at the Mandarin Oriental where I stayed years ago on an earlier trip to Asia.

Jetlagged in Sri Lanka.....

We arrived in Colombo shortly after 4am on Monday and eventually got on our way to Galle after we'd arranged visas which we now know could have been done on line. Beautiful drive, through the waking city at first but then along bumpy country roads and eventually on a slick new motorway which chops an hour off the original journey to Galle.

Lush foliage, bananas trees, mangoes, guavas and seemingly over grown tea plantations in full bloom on either side of the road rising out of the mist and then a most beautiful rosy dawn. When we arrived at the Dutch House, owner Geoffrey Dobbs came to welcome us back and we sat down to breakfast on the veranda as though we had never left. The table was strewn with jasmine flowers and we ordered our favourite things, a plate of beautiful ripe fruit, freshly made curd (yoghurt) and treacle, (jaggery) toast and lime marmalade, pineapple juice, Ceylon tea, everything freshly cut and freshly squeezed.

There was a kingfisher on one of the branches, a cute little monkey swinging in the trees and a mongoose ambling in and out under the shrubs, the temperature is about 28 C.....nice!

Then I had a little swim in the pool and a snooze in the hammock. Bliss!

We had a delicious dinner in the restaurant at the Sun House just across the road and an early night. Today was also nice and relaxed, we went down to the Fort to have a little bite of lunch in the new Heritage Cafe everyone is talking about but it was pretty grim.

Afterwards Henri,(short for Henrietta), the larger than life manager, talked me into having a pedicure and having my nails painted, it took forever (wish I'd taken a book), now I'm all poshed up and could be mistaken for a ex- pat of which there are a million here all finding ingenious ways to earn a few bob including the latter.

This evening we took a tuc tuc to Wijawa beach and watched the sunset from the veranda of the Cafe, a gorgeous sandy beach with great waves, and stick fishermen fishing precariously around the Frog Rock.
Pizzas from a wood burning oven, crab curry and lobster and chips all fresh and delicious and very cheap.

Must go to bed soon, I've got an early start tomorrow morning, I'm going cycling at 8.30 am.

Stick fishermen fishing precariously around Frog Rock at sunset.