Here it is nearly the end of February, and nearly the end of my time in Southeast Asia. I catch a plane Tuesday morning in Chiang Mai, change in Bangkok, then Hong Kong, and from there it’s over the pole to Toronto. Amazing.
This week was originally going to be a time to consolidate and reflect on what I learned in Burma on my last trip, to see friends, and generally to enjoy Chiang Mai. But a Toronto friend turned up, a friend with a long connection to Burma and pro-democracy-in-Burma advocacy, who had been refused a visa by the Burmese embassy in Bangkok. No fun. So I proposed that we try taking a little trip north to Kengtung, also known as Chiang Tung. It’s one of the old Tai city states, the capital of the Eastern Shan State, and lies directly north of Mae Sai and the so-called Golden Triangle area.
The thing is, even though it’s in Burma, the Burmese government treats it separately for the purposes of tourism. You can go in to that area by leaving your passport at the border and agreeing to take a “guide” with you. It feels restrictive, yes, but better than not going. There’s no cross-checking of information, so we made it in, no problem.
Kengtung the town is about four hours by car from the border. At the moment foreigners aren’t allowed to go any farther north; the next major town after Kengtung is Mengla, near the Yunnanese border, a town known for its wild-west casinos and drug smuggling, etc.
Kengtung is charming, set up in the mountians, surrounded by mountains and built on rolling hills around a manmade lake. The streets bend and undulate with the landscape, and everything is low-rise and human scale.
The people are mostly not Burman but predominantly either Shan (Tai Yai) or Tai Koen, speaking a language like the northern Tai spoken in Chiang Mai. There are also hill people, Akha and Lahu, living in town and in villages nearby. We had all kinds of encounters, in tea shops and at markets, as well as in temples and out on the street; we learned a lot and wallked a lot!
It felt like time travel to be there, as if we were in Thailand about forty years ago. There were motorcycles but few cars, and no electric lighting except by generators in individual houses, so the place was pretty dark and quiet by 9.30 every night. A small market by the guest house we stayed at came to life every morning at dawn and was finished before 9 am. Women there sold prepared foods as well as vegetables, including dishes I had never seen before. I was thrilled. And even better was that the women were very helpful, ready to explain how a partcular dish was made, or what a vegetable or herb was used for.
I loved the fresh rice noodles, called kao swe there (what in Thailand would be called guay tio). They’re eaten in a broth with blanched pea tendrils and a meat sauce, and lots of condiments, just as they are in northern Laos and in southern Yunnan. The regional cross-connections are thrilling. But in Kengtung there was also a kind of steamed rice crepe that was made using a noodle batter and flavourings. I can’t wait to try it at home, for it’s a delicious and inventive dish, a great addition to my Burma v=book, I’m thinking!
At the market the women gave me samples of everything to taste, from head cheese (wonderful) to silken tofu with ginger-sugar syrup to pickled greens to fermented bean paste (an essential and delicious flavouring, great for vegetarians). They were so generous.
These are people who live on very little, who make and grow their own food and their own luck, dare I say it. And they do it with warmth and grace. Once again, there’s that lesson of travel: travel teaches me a lot, and it’s not about the food as much as it is about the way people live day to day.
After a six hour bus ride back to the border and after paying off our guide, it was great to get our passports back and cross into Thailand. Getting back a full sense of autonomy, after being constrained by rules and checkpoints and a slight anxiety about transgressing unknown rules was a reminder that people living in Burma live with constraints much more binding and onerous than the ones we’d wilfully accepted when we’d chosen to travel to Kengtung.
....
There was a stack of letters in my inbox when I finally checked my mail once back in Chiang Mai (internet is slow to non-existant in Kengtung). Among them was a note from my cousin Psyche, a wonderful woman, telling me that our aunt, Wendy, my mother’s identical twin sister, who lives in British Columbia, had fallen and broken her pelvis. She has a ninetieth birthday coming up in August, but there’s a strong feeling in the family that she won’t live that long.
Last spring she broke her hip when the horse she was grooming moved over and she lost her balance and fell. In other words, she’s been very much a going concern until recently. The hip healed fine and she moved back into her house in the summer.
When I spoke to her in January, before leaving to come here, she sounded clear, a little frailer, but with energy and decisiveness still, and of course an uncanny echo of my mother, who died over thirty years ago. I’ve had a slightly difficult time with that since my mother died, getting reminded of my loss, of who is gone and who survived.
But now the last trace of that reminder, that echo, may vanish before I have a chance to see her again. I don’t want her to suffer endlessly, so it’s selfish for me to want her to recover from this. She’s been in her own house until now, thanks to support from her son who lives nearby, and from friends. But even if she recovers it seems as if she won’t be able to live on her own...
And what will that be like for her, living in a facility of some kind? Not what she wants. Not what any of us wants.
None of these questions are easy, none of these situations lend themselves to comfortable solutions. And the descent into less-than-autonomous living conditions lies ahead for most of us. What to do?
Perhaps my aunt will be able to let herself go. On the other hand there’s a toughness in her, a toughness inherited from both her parents, my grandparents, so I wouldn’t put money on her just lying back and letting go. Maybe instead she’ll manage to will herself to be gone...
I’ll keep you posted.
Showing posts with label Shan food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shan food. Show all posts
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Saturday, January 30, 2010
ENGAGING WITH THE NOW AS THE DAY EVOLVES
I woke this morning just at dawn to see the whole Chiang Mai valley aglow. There are mountains in all directions, but they are often invisible in haze of various kinds. Not this morning though, when their finely etched blue outlines carved shapes against the pink radiance of morning. Thrilling. And as I was marvelling, suddenly the orange ball of the sun emerged from behind the eastern ridges, brilliantly aglow.
The lovely impermanence of dawn, its reliability (in my lifetime so far, despite Hume’s leaving us room for doubt) and yet its evanescence, are daily reminders, when I’m up in time, of the imperative to tune in and engage in the present. If I get distracted by a thought or an errand, only for thirty seconds, I risk missing the fine glow of light or the arrival of the sun or whatever else is briefly on offer to my wondering eye. This morning felt like a special treat, laid on as part of the general full moon beauty of the last few days.
Today is a recovery day, a time to breathe and clean up and take stock. The immersethrough tour ended with a delicious leisurely cooking and eating and drinking session last night. Everyone experimented with new ingredients or combinations, and we also made some Issaan (northeast Thai) classics: laap gai Issaan, in two versions (one with pla ra - fermented fish paste, known as padaek in Issaan - and one without); som tam (green papaya salad) in three versions, one northern, one Issaan, and one more to foreigners’ taste, with no crab and no pla ra; and moo nam toke, Issaan-style (grilled pork cut up and dressed with lime juice, fish sauce roasted rice powder, etc.
We also experimented with gin-based cocktails. I know, I know, you purists, we should have been working with lao khao (local rice liquor), but instead we infused a little gin with lime leaves and lemongrass and another small glass of it with chiles, then added spoonfuls of each to plain gin to see how things worked together. There were some delish combos...
Jacob it was who came up with the definitive one, which we agree should be named Chiang Mai Cosmo. This town is inclusive, very cosmopolitan, fun, and classy too, and the cocktail reflects that.
The drink is far from the cranberry, Cointreau, vodka, and lime juice in a martini glass classic Cosmopolitan. It uses about a tablespoon of gin infused with dried red chile (one broken up dried cayenne in a quarter cup of gin, infused for ten minutes or more) and two scant tablespoons of gin infused with wild lime leaf and lemongrass (two stalks of smashed lemongrass and several lime leaves cut in chiffonade, then muddled with about a half-cup of gin). Make a gin and tonic in a chilled glass with plain gin plus the infused flavours, pouring it over ice, stir, then add a splash of blended whiskey. (To keep the flavours clean and clear, remove the ice after a minute or less.) That’s it, a mild whiskey entry followed by aromatics and then the intensities of tonic, gin, and chile heat.
Now I am already missing the group, the energy of all of us together as well as the personality of each person. I guess people who do regular tours learn to hold back and not engage as intensely. But I do this only once a year (though I’d like to try to do two sessions next Jan-Feb) with a small group of like-minded people who come to Chiang Mai and north to Fang because they want to be immersed. And so it’s hard not to get intensely involved in squeezing the most fun and information and experience out of each day.
No wonder I’m feeling a little tired and languid today!
Tomorrow I have a flight directly to Yangon/Rangoon, a new service twice a week operated by Air Bagan. “My bags are packed, I’m ready to go” says the song, but in fact I still have a little sorting to do. I want to have only one small pack as well as my backpack-style camera bag. The temperatures this coming week in Mandalay drop to 11 Centigrade with highs of 30, so I’ll be working with layers! The lows are even lower in Hspipaw and other more hilly places further north.
I hope to be in Burma for three weeks, mostly in the Northern Shan States is my plan right now, returning February 21.
I’m pleased to be able to go back. We made some delicious clean-tasting Shan dishes up north at Fern’s farm in the Fang area this week. And we also figured out, with lots of help, how to make tua nao the disks of fermented soybeans that provide the flavour base for much Shan cooking, as well as some northern Thai dishes. Of course we had to experiment with different flavourings, pounding them into the soybean mash. The flattened sun-dried disks that we made were delicious, and interesting too because tua nao are a vegetarian source of deep umame flavour. I’m hoping to learn more about Shan cooking, in all its lovely variety, on this trip. And as with earlier trips, I’m asking you to wish me luck!
POSTSCRIPT: It was impossible to post here last fall when I was in Burma, and I assume there will be the same problems with internet access this trip, so I will probably not be posting again until Febrary 22 or so...
The lovely impermanence of dawn, its reliability (in my lifetime so far, despite Hume’s leaving us room for doubt) and yet its evanescence, are daily reminders, when I’m up in time, of the imperative to tune in and engage in the present. If I get distracted by a thought or an errand, only for thirty seconds, I risk missing the fine glow of light or the arrival of the sun or whatever else is briefly on offer to my wondering eye. This morning felt like a special treat, laid on as part of the general full moon beauty of the last few days.
Today is a recovery day, a time to breathe and clean up and take stock. The immersethrough tour ended with a delicious leisurely cooking and eating and drinking session last night. Everyone experimented with new ingredients or combinations, and we also made some Issaan (northeast Thai) classics: laap gai Issaan, in two versions (one with pla ra - fermented fish paste, known as padaek in Issaan - and one without); som tam (green papaya salad) in three versions, one northern, one Issaan, and one more to foreigners’ taste, with no crab and no pla ra; and moo nam toke, Issaan-style (grilled pork cut up and dressed with lime juice, fish sauce roasted rice powder, etc.
We also experimented with gin-based cocktails. I know, I know, you purists, we should have been working with lao khao (local rice liquor), but instead we infused a little gin with lime leaves and lemongrass and another small glass of it with chiles, then added spoonfuls of each to plain gin to see how things worked together. There were some delish combos...
Jacob it was who came up with the definitive one, which we agree should be named Chiang Mai Cosmo. This town is inclusive, very cosmopolitan, fun, and classy too, and the cocktail reflects that.
The drink is far from the cranberry, Cointreau, vodka, and lime juice in a martini glass classic Cosmopolitan. It uses about a tablespoon of gin infused with dried red chile (one broken up dried cayenne in a quarter cup of gin, infused for ten minutes or more) and two scant tablespoons of gin infused with wild lime leaf and lemongrass (two stalks of smashed lemongrass and several lime leaves cut in chiffonade, then muddled with about a half-cup of gin). Make a gin and tonic in a chilled glass with plain gin plus the infused flavours, pouring it over ice, stir, then add a splash of blended whiskey. (To keep the flavours clean and clear, remove the ice after a minute or less.) That’s it, a mild whiskey entry followed by aromatics and then the intensities of tonic, gin, and chile heat.
Now I am already missing the group, the energy of all of us together as well as the personality of each person. I guess people who do regular tours learn to hold back and not engage as intensely. But I do this only once a year (though I’d like to try to do two sessions next Jan-Feb) with a small group of like-minded people who come to Chiang Mai and north to Fang because they want to be immersed. And so it’s hard not to get intensely involved in squeezing the most fun and information and experience out of each day.
No wonder I’m feeling a little tired and languid today!
Tomorrow I have a flight directly to Yangon/Rangoon, a new service twice a week operated by Air Bagan. “My bags are packed, I’m ready to go” says the song, but in fact I still have a little sorting to do. I want to have only one small pack as well as my backpack-style camera bag. The temperatures this coming week in Mandalay drop to 11 Centigrade with highs of 30, so I’ll be working with layers! The lows are even lower in Hspipaw and other more hilly places further north.
I hope to be in Burma for three weeks, mostly in the Northern Shan States is my plan right now, returning February 21.
I’m pleased to be able to go back. We made some delicious clean-tasting Shan dishes up north at Fern’s farm in the Fang area this week. And we also figured out, with lots of help, how to make tua nao the disks of fermented soybeans that provide the flavour base for much Shan cooking, as well as some northern Thai dishes. Of course we had to experiment with different flavourings, pounding them into the soybean mash. The flattened sun-dried disks that we made were delicious, and interesting too because tua nao are a vegetarian source of deep umame flavour. I’m hoping to learn more about Shan cooking, in all its lovely variety, on this trip. And as with earlier trips, I’m asking you to wish me luck!
POSTSCRIPT: It was impossible to post here last fall when I was in Burma, and I assume there will be the same problems with internet access this trip, so I will probably not be posting again until Febrary 22 or so...
Friday, March 13, 2009
MARKET CONTINUITIES
Another Friday the thirteenth to enjoy!
This will probably be my last blogpost from southeast Asia this season. I am due to fly home on March 17th, in good time to enjoy the equinox in a nothern latitude. I know, I know, it doesn't mean the weather will get warm anytime soon, but that deep thrill of the sun returning, of the light being longer than the dark for six months, is a precious touchstone each year, don't you think?
This morning I went off to the weekly Haw market here in Chiang Mai. It sets up in a parking lot across from the mosque, just a block from Thapae Road. It's been there for years, but I only discovered it a few years ago, so tucked away is its location.
The word 'Haw" is used generally here to refer to a variety of people who are from Yunnan, many of them muslim. The market is most like the market in Mae Sai, the town at the northernmost tip of Thailand, in the so-called Golden Triangle at the Burma boder. There are Shan people, and hilltribe people, and Yunnanese of various kinds, and Burmese too. The food on offer feels like jungle food, wild roots and tubers, greens that are more common in Yunnan than here, and also lots of pickles, Beyond The Great Wall-people-style pickles. There's more than a hint of sour in the air, in fact!
To offset that there are unusual sweets, like black sticky rice disks that are then grilled over charcoal and brushed with a blend of melted palm sugar and sesame (what could be bad?), and "doughnuts" made of cooked black sticky rice shaped into rings and then deep-fried... Yum! I bought some grilled banana and sticky rice, wrapped in little banana leaf packets slightly blackened from the grill, then ended up giving several to a woman who was begging in front of the mosque, her injured foot out before her. (Food feels more constructive than money to me, so when I have the choice that's what I give.)
There are at the market several places where you can sit and eat breakfast. One place has Shan noodle combos, and that's where I ate with some of the people who came to our immersethrough session, last time I was at the market, more than a month ago. This time I went to the other corner, for a different kind of noodle dish.
Fresh back from Burma, I had one of those "duh!!" moments, for the soup over fine rice noodles was a version of mohinga, the Burmese rice noodle soup breakfast. This one was different, for there was no banana stem in it, just tender cooked whole shallots, very like one version I tasted a week ago in Myitkyina. The soup came with a crispy deep-fried chickpea-studded sort of round cracker about four inches in diameter, like but not the same as, the equivalent in Rangoon or Myitkyina. It was delicious, the soup, especially with extra lime squeezed into it, and the crispy disk crumbled on top to give extra texture.
As I walked out of the market with my small purchases (a bag of roasted chestnuts and some cheroots to give to a friend for his birthday this evening; and some black rice doughnuts, why not?), past some hilltribe people selling organic brown rice from huge beautiful baskets, I was reminded that I'm leaving town for awhile, and felt a little downcast. But then I bounced back with the thought that this amazing market, this coming-together of so many people whose origins lie across often-difficult borders, will keep on happening every Friday, in all its wonderful and puzzling variety.
And I have to confess that part of me is already impatient to be back for another breakfast at the Haw market, another immersion in the endless intriguing cultural mysteries of this region.
This will probably be my last blogpost from southeast Asia this season. I am due to fly home on March 17th, in good time to enjoy the equinox in a nothern latitude. I know, I know, it doesn't mean the weather will get warm anytime soon, but that deep thrill of the sun returning, of the light being longer than the dark for six months, is a precious touchstone each year, don't you think?
This morning I went off to the weekly Haw market here in Chiang Mai. It sets up in a parking lot across from the mosque, just a block from Thapae Road. It's been there for years, but I only discovered it a few years ago, so tucked away is its location.
The word 'Haw" is used generally here to refer to a variety of people who are from Yunnan, many of them muslim. The market is most like the market in Mae Sai, the town at the northernmost tip of Thailand, in the so-called Golden Triangle at the Burma boder. There are Shan people, and hilltribe people, and Yunnanese of various kinds, and Burmese too. The food on offer feels like jungle food, wild roots and tubers, greens that are more common in Yunnan than here, and also lots of pickles, Beyond The Great Wall-people-style pickles. There's more than a hint of sour in the air, in fact!
To offset that there are unusual sweets, like black sticky rice disks that are then grilled over charcoal and brushed with a blend of melted palm sugar and sesame (what could be bad?), and "doughnuts" made of cooked black sticky rice shaped into rings and then deep-fried... Yum! I bought some grilled banana and sticky rice, wrapped in little banana leaf packets slightly blackened from the grill, then ended up giving several to a woman who was begging in front of the mosque, her injured foot out before her. (Food feels more constructive than money to me, so when I have the choice that's what I give.)
There are at the market several places where you can sit and eat breakfast. One place has Shan noodle combos, and that's where I ate with some of the people who came to our immersethrough session, last time I was at the market, more than a month ago. This time I went to the other corner, for a different kind of noodle dish.
Fresh back from Burma, I had one of those "duh!!" moments, for the soup over fine rice noodles was a version of mohinga, the Burmese rice noodle soup breakfast. This one was different, for there was no banana stem in it, just tender cooked whole shallots, very like one version I tasted a week ago in Myitkyina. The soup came with a crispy deep-fried chickpea-studded sort of round cracker about four inches in diameter, like but not the same as, the equivalent in Rangoon or Myitkyina. It was delicious, the soup, especially with extra lime squeezed into it, and the crispy disk crumbled on top to give extra texture.
As I walked out of the market with my small purchases (a bag of roasted chestnuts and some cheroots to give to a friend for his birthday this evening; and some black rice doughnuts, why not?), past some hilltribe people selling organic brown rice from huge beautiful baskets, I was reminded that I'm leaving town for awhile, and felt a little downcast. But then I bounced back with the thought that this amazing market, this coming-together of so many people whose origins lie across often-difficult borders, will keep on happening every Friday, in all its wonderful and puzzling variety.
And I have to confess that part of me is already impatient to be back for another breakfast at the Haw market, another immersion in the endless intriguing cultural mysteries of this region.
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