Why Wellington is cool

Walking to the Sunday market, a circle of Falun Gong followers were seated on the grass in Aro Park doing their meditative exercises as plangent music played from a portable sound system. Beside them, in the Aro Valley community hall, the wonderful uplifting singing of an African evangelical church group rose to the heavens. A few steps on, at the fence of the play centre a young (non-Chinese) boy called ‘ni hao’, greeting a friend, a (Chinese) girl already playing inside.

After the market, where middle-aged Pakeha like me are a definite minority, we called into Le Moulin, the French-style bakery run by Cambodian migrants, for an oven-warm baguette and almond croissants.

The sun was shining, and I thought to myself, “isn’t Wellington an amazing city”. The monolingual, monocultural world of my childhood has long gone, the new New Zealand is a different place, and it’s almost possible to believe that Wellington really is the coolest little capital in the world!

You couldn’t fake it

In Bangkok, wondering where to eat. A Google search found Thai Tatler’s restaurant reviews, preferred location & favoured cuisine narrowed the field to a few options. And, in the end, we chose Harmonique.

And that turned out to be a very good choice. My sort of restaurant in many ways. Not undiscovered by farang, indeed almost entirely a farang clientele, spread in three different spaces over a couple (or more) of old houses off a small soi on Charoen Krung. The guiding genius seemed to be an elderly Thai Chinese woman, more 80 than 70 I’d say, judging by the laboured, flat-footed walk, who was in a pale pink trouser outfit and had her hair, quite youthfully, pulled back in a pony tail. All the staff seemed to be short young Thai Chinese women, in bright pink tops, racing around with great efficiency.

Anyway, the place seemed to exude the personality of its owner … strands of fake flowers strung above; wooden parrots on swings; pottery roosters … kitsch perhaps, but natural, uncontrived. You couldn’t fake the personality of the place.

And the food … well, very, very good. Perhaps the highlight was the fish kebabs … never had that before, but the fish so wonderfully moist, and the peanut sauce so light. Delicious. But all good. The deep fried fish in lemon grass sauce, the tom yum kung, the crab curry … that last a little sweet, but with a mousse-like quality … I guess they whisk egg whites through the sauce and quickly place it under a grill. If the dishes came out a little slowly for my taste, that’s a reflection of the busy-ness of the night … what really impressed me in all the dishes was the way the fish – and the prawns in the soup – were not overcooked.

So, all in all, a most happy choice.

Moving back to the ‘centre’

Philip Glazebrook, in his rather wonderful travel book, Journey to Kars, made the point that if you come to a capital through its surrounding provinces, the contrast allows you to appreciate its qualities in a way that flying from one capital city to another doesn’t. So, flying from London to Sofia you might think Sofia a provincial bore, but arriving in Sofia after travels in rural Bulgaria, it becomes a dazzling hub of civilisation. And so it was for me, arriving in Fiji from Kiribati.

I hadn’t planned to leave the airport in Nadi, despite a 7 hour transit, but the way the airport works I wasn’t allowed to stay in transit, had to enter the country. Happily I know my way around a little, so went out to the main road and grabbed a local bus to Lautoka. Far preferable to tourist-town-Nadi. It felt bustling and vibrant and commercial after the lassitude of urban Tarawa.

First stop, lunch. And I was NOT going to have fish! Great delight when the blackboard street sign outside the first restaurant I paused in front of said, Today’s Special – Duck Curry. They must have known I was coming. And it was such a pleasant change from fish & rice, fish & chips. A small stainless steel bowl of duck curry, the duck no more bone-y than you’d expect, three small soft roti, a poppadum, side dishes of potato & lentil dahl (I think! I don’t really know much about Indian food) … anyway, it was well-flavoured – I want to say ‘authentic’ – and much appreciated.

Then, for a bit of exercise before heading back to the airport, I wandered the streets a little, my main destination the market, which has delighted before, and did again today. My eyes drawn to the fresh produce, especially the fruit – papaya, pineapples, water melon, mangoes … The small sweet bananas of Butaritari are all very well, but variety in all things, even fruit, I reckon. So, even though I didn’t buy anything, not very practical & after a filling lunch no real appetite anyway, I was pleased to find at least water melon & papaya on offer in the Koru lounge after I checked in. Plus kiwifruit. Surely not locally produced, but maybe it’s a branding thing. Whatever. I ate it.

Eating in Kiribati

Flying into Kiribati is still a delight, and the surf-fringed, green crescents of the coral atolls in the vast ocean remain a thing of beauty. But on the ground on Tarawa, the ‘capital’ island, much has changed since I first arrived 24 years ago. It’s over-crowded, and very polluted. Still, if you squint you can look past that and still see the beauty!

On this visit I stayed at Mary’s Motel, the preferred accommodation for many visiting consultants (and the place is crawling with them!), but even there it pays not to have particularly high expectations. For the first few days the fresh fish, my choice morikoi pan-fried in butter & garlic, served with either rice or chips and a dollop of coleslaw, is welcome, but after a while, even when occasionally varied with tuna, the diet does start to pall.

But at least the fish is fresh. There’s not much else available that’s fresh. One of the consequences of the over-crowding is that there’s great competition for land, and I’m guessing that any fresh produce is jealously guarded. About all that’s available are fresh bananas, imported from the northern island of Butaritari, and sold at the roadside. At AUD3 a kilo they’re probably out of reach of many i-Kiribati, at least on a regular basis, which is a real shame. But for me, of course, not a problem, and so I ended up keeping a supply in my room, taking a couple to breakfast to slice into my (slightly stale) cornflakes  at breakfast, or over the (rather good) pancakes I also sometimes chose.

An odd thing, though, that Mary’s never seemed to have bananas in the kitchen. Except one day, and that evening I was determined to treat myself to banana fritters & ice cream. Imagining fritters as flattish & brown, picture my surprise when they came out whole and coated in a virulent GREEN batter. Most of which I scraped off, as it tasted nasty & artificial. Maybe the green batter was somebody’s invention in a home economics class … it should have stayed there!

But, in case all this sounds like a long complaint, let me say that I ENJOYED this visit. Much better than my last, five or six years ago, my first since I left after living in Kiribati for two years. Then, I found it a very dispiriting experience. This time I was prepared for the changes, was working with & meeting good people, and had, I guess, realistic expectations. It was all good, all fine. But, let’s face it, Kiribati is never going to be up there as a tourist destination!

Airline food (poisoning)

There was a day of travel. Early departure, as they all seem to be, to my great displeasure. Waiting at airports. And eating only airline food. Then that evening, trying to sleep before ANOTHER early departure the following day, out of Sydney, that feeling in my gut. Oh dear. Thanks, Qantas. I blame it on you, on that Mongolian lamb dish. It wasn’t even a very good meal. Tough, and not very tasty. Maybe I should have opted for the chicken? Or perhaps it wasn’t the lamb, perhaps it was the half-melted ice cream you provided for dessert? Whatever. I was NOT a happy chappy for the next three days.

I’m flying again tomorrow. Thank goodness it’s Air New Zealand. I’m not ready for another Qantas flight just yet!

Potatoes & development

Just a little footnote to my last post. After 3 weeks at the Discovery Inn, I asked why dishes came served with a scant five potato wedges. Would it be possible to have a few more? Yes, at additional cost. Our potatoes come from Australia. Why? One can buy perfectly good stacks of potatoes for USD 1 in the market!

And the other morning, when I asked (very nicely!) why there was no fruit at breakfast when there was heaps in the market … too far, too far! I suppose Australia’s closer?

Fruit & development

Still in Dili. This hotel, the Discovery Inn, has a good restaurant (one of the best in town, apparently; where we go when we want to act like grown-ups, one long-term foreign resident said), but no matter how good a restaurant and a menu may be, repeated exposure jades appetite. So we have broadened our eating horizons a little. The other night, at One More Bar with its expansive sea views, I ordered a fresh fruit crepe. The crepe was fine, but imagine my surprise to find the fresh fruit consisted largely of chopped IMPORTED apple. It’s the same thing at breakfast at the hotel – apples, pears, oranges feature. Usually a hand of local bananas, and some chopped pawpaw. But really, it’s absurd. And wrong. There is so much fresh fruit available locally – mangoes, pineapples, and much more. Why don’t they use it? I remember years ago a doco in the film festival, revealing the parasitical nature of tourism in the West Indies. Foreign owned businesses, repatriating profits, buying from offshore, using large amounts of local resources, like fresh water. There are lots of signs around Dili – buy local, build Timor Leste – it would be a small thing to start with fresh fruit.

Breakfast, verging on the surreal

We received a message. We were summoned to breakfast by the ambassador of, shall we say, a friendly but sensitive nation. The summons set my temporary employers atwitter. What was this about? Had we transgressed? Who was going to escort us, for clearly an escort was necessary? Oh, the questions, the decisions!!

Saturday morning at 8 we drove up to the gates of the diplomatic residence. The gates rolled back, The Ambassador flung the door open to greet us, ushered us through empty – and I mean bare, devoid of all furniture, furnishings – reception rooms to a simply laid dining table. We sat. Maids appeared. Freshly squeezed orange juice was poured, bowls of papaya slices, rings of banana, mango were proffered in turn. Maids hovered silently. Plates cleared. Toasted rolls were presented, followed by freshly brewed coffee. And for an hour The Ambassador talked. Informatively, about aspects of their work relevant to ours. No diplomatic incident loomed.

A little after 9 The Ambassador rose, escorted us back through the lifeless reception rooms. He jumped into his four wheel drive, with bodyguard, and was driven off in a flurry of gravel. We followed, more sedately. And the maids were left in possession of the ambassadorial residence. An abandoned set awaiting the players in the next one-scene drama.

Away from Dili

Had a rather wonderful day out in the countryside around Dili on the Sunday. A very different world, of course, and the influence of the city doesn’t extend very far beyond urban limits. It’s a rural, agricultural world. In some parts rice paddies, which I hadn’t expected. Lots of goats & chickens on & beside the roads, sometimes cattle in a field, occasionally a pig wearing a board under its chin (designed to stop them roaming too far, apparently). A chicken formed part of our lunch – we stopped at the sole restaurant in Gleno and were served rice and a piece of chicken, spinach & a bowl of clear, possibly squash, soup. Not a culinary triumph, the chicken a little tough, the rice a little hard, and the spinach definitely overcooked, but adequate enough. And, after all, they weren’t claiming any Michelin stars!

But perhaps the highlight of our day out, for me, anyway, was the market we stopped at. Lots of produce for sale, including beautiful pale purple eggplants, long and thin. And strings of betel nut, looking like dried shellfish with a woody texture. Not tempted to try, mind you.

Most of the fresh produce, though, goes to Dili. We gave a man a lift on our return; he was taking bags of small red tomatoes, and bundles of greens, to the town market. Don’t suppose it earns him much, but maybe something towards sugar, rice, school fees …

Timor Leste

After three pre-dawn starts over the past few days, it was a relief to arrive in Dili & know that I could settle for a while (and have a sleep-in tomorrow!). Flying in this morning, with white mist still clinging to the forested mountains, it looked green, lush, and there were fields of maize and bananas close to the airport. The land seemed to say, there’s no need to starve here. And, here in Dili, that’s certainly the case if you’re an expatriate. I guess this has been a UN town for years now, and no doubt all the infrastructure’s in place to supply the needs (wants?) of well-paid foreigners. I don’t think I could have been more surprised though than I was when, walking around the corner from the hotel, I came across a Turkish bakery. With strings of garlic and onions and chillies hanging above the counter, and the female staff (all of whom I’m sure were Timorese, and probably Catholic) wearing Turkish head scarves! But anyway, it certainly looked authentic and I couldn’t resist a feta and spinach filled bread, a pide I think. Even if probably made of 100% imported ingredients. I must say, though, I haven’t come across much that seems to be indigenous cuisine in my wanderings today. Early days of course, and I except the two sweet, ripe bananas I had at breakfast upon arrival. They were pretty good.