a visa run around

There was a plan and it was good. Then there was a most unexpected incident and the itinerary went spiralling into oblivion, washed away by my tears. I had to dig very deep to accept the reality of the present and release my attachment to the outcome I had envisaged. Our highly anticipated trip to Yunnan province in China was foiled by a single sentence from the smiling immigration secretary at the Chinese embassy in Jakarta.

Do you have your KITAS? (a working visa for Indonesia). 

With a surprised stare we answered no. No KITAS, no Chinese visa. Next please.

The embassy had recently changed the rule, and we were going by the email I had received earlier when a passport and driver's license was all one required. No visa, no China, do not pass go…

In shock, we laughed, I cried and we regrouped with a strong coffee and discussed our options. We had to leave Indonesia the following day as our visa stipulated, so would take the booked flight to Kuala Lumpur. From there we had no plan.

Our Air Asia flights to China were non-rerouteable and non-refundable, a generous donation to their profit, and to book a last minute flight from KL to Bali was cost prohibitive. We are both averse to cities, traffic and noise - the very essence of our time in Jakarta - so were not about to immerse ourselves in the agony of central KL. I had visited Melaka, in the south-west of Malaysia, as a backpacker in 1997 and remembered it fondly. The old town has been UNESCO World Heritage Listed,and with a direct bus link from the airport, we had ourselves a destination.  With a large Chinese population, traditional shophouse architecture and green tea, we could squint and pretend we were in Yunnan, minus the mountains, yaks and snow, but with the added bonus of authentic and ridiculously cheap Indian food. 

One week after leaving our island home we were back, our unused thermals still in the bottom of the bag. We both picked up a horrid flu from excessive exposure to open mouthed coughs and snorts on every mode of transport. My birthday was spent in bed rather than at the foot of a glacier in a Tibetan home stay, and my surprise dinner postponed. Aquaman took it all in his gentle stride, proving he is just that little bit more enlightened than most (or at least me).

Yunnan, you will keep. I have a well thought out itinerary for anyone interested. Wherever you go, there you are.

market report

Number of tomatoes per heap increases each week, price steady at 50c/pile

Leafy greens are plentiful, with lettuce a hot favourite among the expats, but too expensive for the locals at 50c a bundle. Early season watermelons are expensive, lack flavour and are seedier than the back streets of Bangkok. Pumpkins on their way out, carrots just arrived, coming in at a costly 

$1 per bunch.

Hand harvested sea salt virtually free. 

Beans in abundance, but how many beans can one eat per week? Only 50c/bucket.

Small red chilli only for those with tolerant, or dead, tastebuds.

Spices by the cup or in painfully small packages, shrivelled ginger and balls of fresh tamarind, 

20-50c each. Bugger it, just get the MSG it's cheaper. 

Cold donuts with rank margarine and sprinkles, or deep fried dough balls with fluorescent sugar frosting, all going out at a bargain 5c each. 

Triangles of tasteless glue and seaweed, useful for fixing surfboard dings or illuminating the dark, 

5c each.

Organic shallots for the patient cook who can be bothered skinning and chopping them, $1/tin.

Unidentified balls of boiled dead animal on a stick, price unknown. Limes steady at 4 for 50c, while bunches of kankung persist as the best value green, 50c/bunch.

season of plenty

The middle of the dry season is the peak time for produce. Carrots have arrived, tomatoes are in abundance, cauliflower make a brief appearance, cucumbers are sweet, and lettuce thrives in the cooler temperature. Kan kung (water spinach) is always plentiful and very cheap (top photo), and it provides the green in our green smoothie; the fuel for fearless paddling and blogging.  The local tofu is firm, delicious and versatile - scrambled, steamed, marinated, blended with cacao...I'll prepare it any way except fried.  The fridge is fully stocked this week for the arrival of Aquaman's parents, and we called upon our friendly neighbours to deliver the bounty in their ute. This called for morning tea, followed by the great veggie wash-up and a market day feast for the goats. There goes another simple morning. 

pomelo

Certain things appear at the markets one week and the next they are gone, so we don't get too attached to a new fruit or vegetable, thinking that it will be a staple every week. One such arrival was this giant pomelo. They are big fellas with thick skin and hard seeds. It's grapefruit like flavour provided an extra zing and colour to our salad. 

tomato relish farm style

The markets are sporting tomatoes by the bucket full at a very low price, so I called upon my pioneering spirit and the Country Women's Association bible of cookery and household hints to make an old fashioned tomato relish. The aroma taps into my olfactory memory of delivering dad a packed lunch or dinner during seeding and harvest on the farm. Cheese, corned beef and tomato relish eaten beside the tractor; the  moist ground freshly tilled or a cloud of wheat dust hanging in the hot air.

Tomato Relish (No 2)

from page 318, 42nd Edition of CWA Cookbook

1 1/2 kilo ripe tomatoes

1 tablespoon sea salt

250 g raw sugar

500 g onions

1 tablespoon mustard

2 tablespoons plain flour

1 1/2 tablespooons curry powder

brown vinegar

Cut up tomatoes and onions finely and sprinkle with salt. Leave for 6 hours or overnight then drain well. 

Put into saucepan, add sugar and enough vinegar to just cover.  Boil for 5 minutes.

Mix flour, mustard and curry to a paste with a little vinegar.  Add to pan and stir well.

Simmer for 1 hour, or until desired thickness is reached. 

If  you like a sweeter pickle, simply add more sugar. 

Allow to cool, then bottle in clean jars. Refrigerate after opening.

moving to a different beet

You are seeing the first ever beetroot to appear at our weekly market. The seeds were given to a local lady by a keen expat gardener, and we are reaping the rewards in our lunch. I made a simple salad with grated beetroot and carrot, lemon juice and cumin seeds.  I would normally add juicy raisins, but alas the cupboard is bare and the closest shop stocking such exotic imports is a day's travel away.

Swell has picked up and there are double over head sets pushing through.  For those of you far more interested in barrels than beetroot, I will hopefully have some action shots to share in the next couple of days. That is providing Aquaman and his mates put on a decent show. I don't shoot kooks.

green for go

It hasn't rained for over five weeks, and with the cooler, dry weather the leafy greens have flourished.  Lettuce has made a welcome appearance, and watercress is an unexpected bonus. It makes a spicy pesto, and is delicious tossed with orange and walnuts.  Our adopted goat, Bo Diddley, and her grown-up baby, are never far away to take receipt of their daily feed.  Greens in one end, fertiliser for the garden out the other.

when life gives you lemons

Apart from some lengths of rope, the shredded blinds were beyond salvage and met a fiery end.  The replacements are hung, and providing us with excellent wind, sun and privacy control. A simple solution to open walled living.  

The first few days I was making meals I would never dream of in Australia, where the stunning array of ingredients sends my raw vegan self into spins of joy. Mung bean curry with red rice. Bok choi marinated in orange juice. Fibrous leafy greens tossed with fresh air. 

We are on the tail end of lean times at the weekly market.  Fungus and waterlogging are the enemies of a vegetable garden, but the deluge of rain has produced a bumper crop of rice. Leafy greens are always available and we can't keep up with the home delivered papayas.  Lemons are juicy, tempeh and tofu are cheap following the soya bean harvest, and legumes are fresh and weevil free.  Carrots are yet to appear and tomatoes are frightfully expensive and scarce.  Avocados and mangoes have finished and the sesame crop was flattened by the cyclone.  

After a summer of indulging our gustatory senses we were looking forward to returning to a simpler way of eating. Less about stimulation, more about sustenance.  Raw nutrition; light, organic, fresh and nourishing. Green smoothies in the morning and evening,  papaya, bananas and a meal somewhere in the day.  I call it "high-tea", but Aquaman says high-tea is meant to have cake. Coffee is still sneaking its addictive nose in and Sunday's are an almond milk smoothie fest. You would be right in thinking our life revolves around the blender and our outdoor dining table with ocean views. We sure aren't here for the shopping.

paris of the east

The capital of East Nusa Tengarra is not even remotely like Paris, unless perhaps you are on acid and imagining Europe during the bombing raids.  It is a noisy, grotty, weathered city, and unavoidable on our journey home.  The irony of the enforced overnight stay is that it goes a way toward keeping our island home that little bit further from the world of Bintang singlets.

The taxi driver is not impressed with the extra stop at cargo to pick up our blinds, but another folded blue note lifts his spirits.  Waiting for the Garuda flight to arrive, we have a lunch of rice, green beans and iced tea.  In four hours I've gone from a soy latte and sourdough toast at Sea Circus, to a warung in a tin shed surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Mine is nothing less than a life of contrasts.

There is the odd expat male that likes the city, and I'll be frank here, it does have cheap women, cold beer and fresh seafood.  I dread arriving and anticipate leaving, spending most of the time in a slightly detached state of being, trying not to analyze too much, look too closely, or dream of Paris.  Cracked tiled walls, sheetless beds with rugs that have a questionable washing history, and mustard polyester curtains do little for a fragile female libido, and in ten years, the hit rate of success in a Kupang hotel is zero.  

The city's main redeeming feature and a must-do on every visit, is dinner at the night markets.  They are the heart any south-east Asian experience, where you pull up a plastic stool under a cold fluorescent light and devour a plate of gado-gado, or grilled tempeh with rice and firey chilli for less than $1.

The shopping strip hits fever pitch on sundown, and music thumps from the bemos as they lap the streets competing for coolest wagon on the beat. This is a mostly Christian city, and it is ironic that it is the Muslim women peddling underwear on the footpath. While Tom fancied the Superman jocks, we passed by in search of a battery charger and part for the blender.