So Clean!

I just broke a ten day water fast with a magnificent fresh juice blend--papaya, mango, apple, kiwi, passion and guava. And a little packet of powdered intestinal flora! I feel so clean!

I’m a big fan of fasting--I did it as a teenager and then got talked out of it for 30 years. People said it screwed up your metabolism, was dangerous, whatever. I believed all that drivel about eating small meals throughout the day--grazing. In addition to making you into a complete pain in the ass, it never gives your digestive system a chance to rest. Maybe it’s good for those in training for competitions, but it’s not a smart choice for living, at least not for me. Plus, I always ate the dinner too, it’s my social meal--I love having dinner with my friends.

Water fasting is right up my alley. I do them about once a year now and a smaller one a few months later. But I will likely increase this. This fast was extremely difficult emotionally for 4-5 days but other than that it was completely fine. I didn’t even get dizzy. I will put some fasting links at the bottom of the page.

The emotional stuff, old patterns, all the psychological garbage, is difficult to get rid of, even fasting; the body clings to it for some reason. But the body, given a chance to rest from constant digestion, can expel all kinds of crap, which is disgusting, but better than having it inside.

My skin is so soft! My eyes are clear, the bloat is gone, nerve pain gone. It’s astounding, But I’m not writing to crow about it. I want to share what I’ve been doing during the fast to care for my skin and all that.

In addition to drinking plenty of water I’ve been using all my natural skincare that I make here. Since I live in Salalah, I have ample opportunity to make everything for myself; we don’t have any good quality skin care to speak of less than two plane rides away. Khallas, I don’t mind.

I made two cleansers--one for the face with just chamomile and oatmeal and the one for the body with just sage and oatmeal. Totally simple. The chamomile is a spectacularly aromatic one from Lebanon and the sage is from here. Just grind them to powder and mix. Seriously, my skin feels like I’m twelve. And I look fabulous. Just use good herbs and when you find one that’s great, fresh and powerful, get it and use it.

For face moisturizing, I make a nighttime oil. I’m not doing lotions here. Just, in jojoba, some of my favorite essential oils, and always my own frankincense and myrrh (I do have a tiny private stash of Enfleurage distilled myrrh oil.) The other oils this time were a tad of rose absolute, helichrysum, german chamomile, neroli, and lavender. So simple. I know essential oils are my best friends (along with dogs of course.) It changes every time I make it. But it’s so beautiful and even helps me relax and get to sleep.

I did no hydrosols except rose this fast--last time I drank frankincense hydrosol. I can’t really tell if there was a difference between the two. Both fasts were different. But something I noticed was that the day I broke this one I had an unpleasant exchange with my friend and it made me really mad and sick. It’s something to notice just how anger and frustration and sadness manifest themselves physically. I was really ill from it. No wonder bad stress causes so many health problems. Harmony is important, and very difficult to find sometimes.

I also had so much time for once--no need to shop, prepare, eat, clean or eliminate. So I super cleaned my house, the closets, the kitchen, the office, etc, and used essential oils the whole time. I find I tend to use the same ones regularly for cleaning.

So what are my top ten essential oils in general these days? It changes of course, but this is now:

1. Frankincense and Myrrh. I know I’m already cheating by having two. But I don’t use Myrrh on its own, just with frankincense in my facial blend, and I only use my own myrrh, so it’s going to piggyback here. Frankincense of course, is my blood these days. Sometimes I use it even after I’ve distilled which is seriously addictive behavior since anyone entering the distillery gets whacked with the fumes, and whenever I distill I reek for hours. I use frankincense in my own skin care and the stuff I make for visitors. I carry around a couple of bottles, of course, and if I’m somewhere like the bank, I might take it out and pour it into someones hands and they can enjoy it and get wiggly with me. This is Salalah after all.

2. Rose. Obviously.

3. German Chamomile. I’m loyal to this sweet hay like blue oil that everyone says doesn’t smell as good as Roman. I say the hell it doesn’t! I love that deep chamazulene blue. It’s the blue of the sky in the Cȏte D’Azur. Azure blue. It’s a great skin care oil. I love it. I always want it.

4. Eucalyptus. Yup. I use an insane one. It’s the Corsican one we have at Enfleurage. Distilled from young leaves only. Organic. The works. You can’t get away from the a/c here in Oman. Don’t even try. And I fly a lot. Sometimes I just put a few drops on the sheets to help me navigate through sleep while still breathing.

5. Lavender. Why didn’t lavender go higher on the list? Cause lavender always tops people’s essential oil lists. No need to always be the popular one. But I do use it constantly. I love our French one. All my oils are Enfleurage oils, needless to say, or soon to be.

6. Mandarin. And Bergamot. Yeah, I put them together. We are about to get both Green and Yellow Sicilian Mandarin oils and you will see why if you get a chance to come in and try them. The Bergamot we already have--it’s a small Calabrian producer. These citruses are just addictive as anything, but without the downsides! I even use them in one of our ice cream blends. And in my personal perfume (along with the first two of course.)

7. Jasmine (both sambac and grandiflorum). I know I am being a total cheater putting two together again, but they are different. I use the grandiflorum for some of our ice cream. And in the skincare I make here for other people. I also use it in one of my perfumes that I wear a lot. And Sambac? You need to ask?

8. Sandalwood. Private stash. Pure thrill.

9. Cinnamon Bark. I love cinnamon and I am cheating here too because I do use the oil--whether Seychelles or Vietnam. I think we have them both at the store. But I also use pieces of that royal Lao bark and also have some already powdered. I use a ton of it. For cleaning too. And before you dismiss an oil because it’s used in cleaning, just remember that when you make a spray for your countertops, not only are you making a great disinfectant, but you are scenting the kitchen magnificently. Likewise when you use it in any other room. I don’t use it on my face, of course. But I do cook with it. It goes in ice cream, naturally, and in many of them. And also in this African style stew I make with coconut and vanilla.

10. Lemon Myrtle. This oil belongs here solely for its cleaning use! I use it constantly, in the bathroom, the kitchen, the distillery even. I love the smell so much and its a powerhouse of microbe killing.

11. Tea tree. How can I leave it out?



Living in Salalah has made me more self reliant for certain things; skin care, food, and remedies are better made in my kitchen than bought somewhere. Just like I make my own pizza, enchilada and marinara sauces and keep them frozen, I find that I can make nearly anything just from what’s in my pantry. I never did like pre-made foods anyway, and here also I grow my own greens and tomatoes. It’s satisfying to make everything from scratch. And it's nothing I would do in New York. I make my own goat cheese too. And coconut cream. And pizza dough, pies, cookies, and of course, ice cream. I even make my own hummus (using dried chickpeas) although not all the time. There is a big bottle of chamomile extract in the kitchen, almost ready. And I regularly use vodka for infusions, extracts, and as a perfume base. You don’t realize what you can do until you have no choice. There is no Whole Foods down the street, no exotic vegan salads in a cool restaurant waiting for customers, not even any place that makes french fries out of fresh potatoes.
So here in Salalah, food and skin wise: you want it? Make it yourself.

And while pharmaceuticals are cheap and easily prescribed, if you choose something different, you’ll do better to have your own tea tree and eucalyptus on hand.

All this is to my huge benefit, of course. I would never had this opportunity if I wasn’t here. And fasting is also easy here--someone offers tea and you just say no you’re fasting and they apologize and stop offering it. There are no lectures about how you shouldn’t do it, or any other blather. And plenty of fresh air to breathe. And an ocean to enjoy too.

I know this post is a little rambling; to me it’s all related! Food for your inside and food for your outside. It’s very interesting to me to break the addictions too. I didn’t have that many, but I had more than I thought. After these two or three days on juice I’m going to eat solid food and what am I craving? Wild rice, a few beans and some green vegetables. I have no craving for butter, milk, sugar, caffeine, nicotine, none of it. It doesn’t even sound like food at the moment. That will change soon enough, but it’s a wild and glorious feeling while it lasts. My energy level is very high, and I look absolutely fabulous.

I like water fasting better than juice fasting cause I think water fasting does way more. I’m doing juice now and there is a big difference. I think the psychological, emotional and spiritual effects are different and that bigger changes probably come with water only. It was transformation for me, just like it was last year.

falcon blanco

fasting forum

Natural Hygiene Society

Seduction by Lebanon

I was only back in Salalah a few days when it was already time to leave again--this time for Lebanon.

I can’t say all my life, but certainly since I’ve been a cognizent being, aware of places I wanted to go, there were two (three if you count Sudan): Oman and Lebanon. Look what happened with Oman! It caught me! It was a straight seduction.

Lebanon, on the other hand, is more complex. Being a certain age, I grew up with Lebanon on the nightly news, war, bombs, invasions, hijackings, kidnappings, shootings, snipers, etc. The very name Beirut was synonymous with violence and shell riddled buildings, massacres, guerillas....Yet at the same time I’ve always known Lebanese people. Without exception they have been warm, friendly, generous, family oriented, food loving, sophisticated people, easy to make friends with, fun to hang out with, lively....you get the idea. I’m sure you know several, whoever you are wherever you live.

You can find Lebanese everywhere in the world, even in places where there are no Chinese! They say Lebanon is a rich country, and that the wealth comes from the creativity, energy and driving force of the Lebanese people. I would have to agree. If you are interested in reading about Lebanon’s history, I suggest Pity the Nation by Robert Fisk.

The edge of Al Chouf Cedar Reserve

I’m not sure what I was expecting before I came, other than a bustling, interesting, metropolis in Beirut and beautiful countryside. I actually came for the orange blossom harvest. My friend and I decided to make a holiday of it. All the wild ideas and vivid images and high expectations I had of Lebanon were met but also they were far exceeded.

We just wanted to walk around the city, sit in coffee shops, people watch, eat great food, interact with people......it’s so easy to do in Beirut! But it’s gonna cost you. Lebanon is not cheap, at least not if you come from a place with a low cost of living like Salalah.

Wednesday was the day we decided to go off for the orange blossom harvest. I usually used to have some sort of contact in the countries I was going to visit, if I was going to visit suppliers. But in the past few years I’ve managed to meet new ones as I’ve been away. Before the internet it took a lot of research to find distilleries and with the internet making so much available to everyone, even though it’s technically easier to find suppliers but maybe harder to find good ones. Now many essential oil suppliers have an online presence and so I go looking for myself, as I’m not usually interested in buying from the same suppliers as other people. It’s worked out well since so many great distillers don’t push their products online and they remain out there in the world, hidden, selling their oils to a local broker or what have you.

Sidon, background, Ain Al Hilweh refugee camp in front

This distillation hunt is a little more difficult when you have a short harvest like orange blossom. While the rose harvest is usually about 3 weeks, the Lebanese orange blossom (neroli) harvest maxes out about that, and can be as little as 5 days!! It’s hard to hit it right, even if you have someone on the ground to tell you when, if you’re coming from another country and have to arrange things. And I didn’t have anyone! Also, Lebanon, and South Lebanon in particular and Maghdouché in extreme particular are famous for orange flower water, not the oil. Lebanese pastries are where most of the orange flower water goes. There isn’t much of a neroli oil industry since the oil yield is very low and adding a couple of drops back to the water bottle can make the water smell better. And the short season and impatience of the flowers means it’s time to distill as quickly as possible. I don’t know the particulars of neroli distillation but I do know that distilling for oil versus distilling for hydrosol (water) is very different and distilling for hydrosol is a lot easier and  probably takes less time. If your harvest is 10 days, then you better work in shifts, drink lots of coffee, and keep that still bubbling!


The Neroli water here is not cheap. It costs nearly what we sell rosewater for at Enfleurage. I wanted to understand a few things: Why is orange flower water, the one for sale in supermarkets in Oman and the US, so cheap? It smells and tastes pretty good; bright and happy, but not very deep. It’s nice and very very pretty but can be a bit vapid.....? Am I being cruel? It can’t be synthetic. Can it? I don’t know. I don’t think so. It can’t be just water to which flavor has been added. Can it? And whenever I buy neroli hydrosol for the store, I hate it. Once or twice we’ve had some nice ones, but usually it smells like wet wool and down the drain it eventually goes. I have thrown out thousands of dollars of hydrosols over the years and this is why we only carry rose and lavender, and frankincense and myrrh. And those last two only because I know where they’ve been.

So what’s the deal with orange blossom water, neroli hydrosol or Mazafra?

Well, I still don’t know. But at least I have an idea now. The people I met had a couple of bottles left and I bought them both. The water is magnificent and there is a little oil in there too. It’s not synthetic, it’s not an extract added. But it also doesn’t smell anything like the stuff in the supermarket or the wet wool hydrosol. It’s fresh and intense and very very beautiful. It’s a huge personality in a little glass bottle, like Lebanon is a huge personality in a little Mediterranean country. It’s perfect. By this time next year I hope to know more. It’s fresh, it’s real, it’s beautiful. And we are going to be eating it as long as it lasts!

It can be a long process with these oils and their friends. That’s why it sometimes takes years for a wonderful oil to make its home at Enfleurage. It’s not a question of clicking on someone’s website, listening to their spiel and placing an order. Anyone can do that. And many do! We’ve got our contacts now, and they don’t use email. And they are delightful people! Their stills are copper by the way, not steel. And the orange flowers are done in small batches, by hand, of course. Slow Aroma.

After hanging out for some time with our Mazafra people, we went up a hill with Elias to see the cave he is building into the side of the hill. What started out as a play cave for his kids grew and grew until now it’s three separate cave-villas. He is building a swimming pool outside and plenty of fruit trees are going in. The driveway and front area will be paved with tiles. He only downside, he laughingly told us, is that from the air it can look like some kind of ammunition bunker, if that’s what you’re looking for. The last time the Israelis flew around the area, he quickly put bright umbrellas and balloons outside and fled. No one dared go up for two weeks. But still intact as I write this! He had to build his own road, and even bought a bulldozer, and sunk his own well, very very deep. And I guess he’ll have to bring up his own electricity too. We take things for granted in Oman and the USA don’t we? And we don’t have the ever present threat of air attack either!

 Later we drove back down to Sidon. It’s as far as I could go, with an American passport. I was told I’d have to get a special security pass stating I wasn’t a spy to go further south. And really, by what criteria could they judge? It didn’t seem likely I would have more orange flower luck south of Sidon so we visited the lovely Sidon Soap Museum instead. If you’re in South Lebanon, you might as well stop in here. It’s really pretty, and explains the local lebanese tradition of olive oil soap--they use laurel essential oil for scent. Sorry, but I don’t get it.

This was a quick trip and we spent the first couple of days just walking around Beirut. So this was our big zipadeedodah out of town and we drove up to Beiteddine for lunch. I can’t say too much abut the town--it’s beautiful, in the mountains, and there’s a big castle and stuff but the interesting thing to me is that we stopped at a restaurant at the edge of town called Saj al Amira I think, and they brought us wild mountain food! I felt like a forest nymph. It was freezing cold (for people who live in Salalah,) and what appeared at our table but a very very thin bread, almost the thickness of a cracker, with heaps of thyme, oregano and other herbs and a tiny amount of tomato mince steaming on it. I think there was also some of those bright pink strange radish pickles you find, very finely chopped. That and the very strong labneh cheese with walnuts, olive oil and herbs were delicious. And fresh wild blackberry juice! Who in the hell serves stuff like this?

The next day we wandered into downtown, to what was once Martyr’s Square and is now what basically looks like a Bleecker Street meets the Champs Elyseés without tons of people. Martyrs square is now dominated by a Virgin Megastore and all that other designer crap that took over Bleecker. But never mind. There were some nice restaurants and shisha bars and probably a few Arab or maybe even Lebanese stores too, here and there. Anyway, we wound up in a neighborhood named Mar Mikhael and one of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten at--Italian and the name is Toto. My pasta was fresh capellini with asparagus and white truffle oil. They made their own bread, and have their own olive oil. Americans in New York or California will wonder what the fuss is all about but I can assure you that if you live in Salalah, there can be no greater wonder. I even ate Pain Perdu for dessert. My friend spent some considerable time that evening trolling google for recipes.

And we ended the evening at Hamra Café. It’s on Hamra Street, in the center of Beirut. They serve nachos as well as mezze, and pizzas, and shisha also. The music alternated between the Mama’s and the Papa’s and Feirouz. God the cafe and restaurant scene is lively! It’s just fantastic, and everything appears to go. They served beer and wine at Hamra Café and hardly anyone was drinking--I never saw a drunk the whole time. There’s more proof that if you restrict something you make it more desirable. No need to say more.

I should also mention a fast food restaurant. It’s called Abu Arab and there are quite a few of them. Their bread is like an oval, with a hollow on one end and covered in sesame. It’s large and thin. They open it and fill it with a little of your choice--different cheeses, butter, meat, etc. Not a lot, just a shmear. Then it goes in the oven. It comes out crispy and chewy with just enough of the filling to make it moist and delicious. Holy crap!

You can see the distinctive bread in the front window.

The people in Beirut speak a friendly and outgoing mix of Arabic and English, with French a distant third. I was expecting the opposite between English and French. But I got to use Arabic much more than I do in Salalah. And it’s real Arabic they speak, not “same same” language. I was delighted to constantly have my mind engaged and interest sparked.

I stopped in a small art store and bought a poster from a photographer named Fouad Elkoury. I am very interested in documentation of wartime. Not in a bang bang Hollywood way, but in a more personal and thoughtful way, and more from the people who live through occupation or bombardment and have the time and inclination to internalize the situation and take it where they will, relating their experiences through art. Anyway, what I mean is that there have a been a few artists I’ve really liked from different places. About 15 years ago you could still find incredible paintings in Hanoi depicting the American war and the bombing campaigns, peasants dancing around the bonfire, wild celebrations and life in the forest. People retreated into basements and painted.

Fouad Elkoury would walk around Beirut with two cameras, one color and one black and white, and take pictures of the same subject, a few seconds or a minute apart. I bought a picture of the interior of the Grande Théatre, which was left standing throughout the wars because it was a brothel servicing both Christian and Muslim fighters from two separate entrances. All weapons were checked at the door. Both (or all) sides made love with the same women. 

The store I walked into, in Mar Mikael, is called Plan Bey and there is a link for it below. Tony is very knowledgeable and will tell you about anything in the place, including the stories behind all the Fouad Elkoury prints etc. It’s one of those stores you don’t find too easily any more in New York, the kind that used to make neighborhoods interesting. The kind that specializes in something interesting and local, the owner works there, and they probably opened the store in the first place because they loved whatever it is they have and they know all about it and are always learning new things. Like Enfleurage. Hard to find in the US now, and I’ve never seen one in Oman. Anyway, check out Plan Bey. They have two partner spaces as well, in Berlin and Copenhagen.

Another thing I loved about Beirut is the Grandmothers. Somehow, there are Grandmothers cooking everywhere. It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. And the Lebanese know just how cool that is and they advertise it. People will give you the lowdown on the Grandma restaurant  a few blocks away. There is one restaurant, whose name I can’t remember, but they have a different Grandma come in from a village every week and make all the local specialties. How insane is that? Another restaurant I passed (after eating at a different one) had one table. There were 6 people gathered around it, eating something delicious and all excited and talking about something interesting I have no doubt. The entire restaurant, with its one table, is in the middle of the kitchen, and the side was open to the street. It was tiny. How could the food not be spectacular? This is the shit, people.

Fresh, Wild Zaatar, by a grandmother

Beirut, and Lebanon, has an enormous personality, especially for its size. It’s oozing energy! Maybe it’s because of Lebanon’s unfortunate history that makes people live every moment to the fullest. Because the security situation is ok now, but it’s fluid, of course. It’s the kind of place where there is always something going on in every corner, wherever you look. But a good description is still elusive. I miss it already, having come to Dubai, which is in many ways an antithesis, in sly ways as well as obvious ones.

But I did come for something nice here. In addition to buying a few things, I came to see KD, Krishna Das. We had a kirtan hoedown in Jumeira! KD came with Arjuna, the tabla player and they were fantastic. But there crowd was surely a lot different than that Sweet Creature is used to. I’ve been to 100 kirtans with him in the US and people are really self-expressive. Lots of singing and dancing and jumping around--in the US, nearly anything goes. While here.........it’s the Gulf! I didn’t fully realize how formal and self-censored people are here until last night. The audience was all Indians and Westerners, of course, but still. We had places, actual seats, and even though the Sweet Creature told people they should move as the feeling takes them, it took some time before the audience even sang back. Except me of course. I have been told that I am a very loud singer. Well, not loud enough last night, but I did still have a great time. And the audience loved him.


Fouad Elkoury

Plan Bey Gallery

Krishna Das

Here is just a nice blog about local bread bakers in Beirut

Random Thoughts, kind of

Well then, Zanzibar was absolutely fabulous. It would be hard to find a place more exquisite. Think Omani (Arabic) architecture, with African colors, Indian spices, and Persian Art, in an unbelievably beautiful natural setting. Then rock it with a laid back smile and throw a few absurdly exotic and picturesque dhows sailing by in front of the magnificent sunset. Sip a great local beer (or ginger beer,) order some coconut curry and just lay back and smell the jasmine.

The people were friendly, serene and seemed happy. And Swahili must be one of the most fun languages ever. It uses the latin alphabet and is pronounced exactly how it’s written, like Spanish. It rolls and sings and everything is a pleasure to say. I felt like a brilliantly technicolor songbird endlessly chirping back what anyone said, just cause it was so fun, and easy to pronounce too!

But unfortunately I took my Ipad, not my trusty laptop, and so had issues posting photos. If you are in the Indian Ocean area, Zanzibar is spicy, soft, sweet and sexy. It made me want to come back and spend some time on the mainland. That’s Tanzania.

If you are going to Zanzibar though, take care you research your hotel. Security can be an issue, and “out of season” is meant to be taken literally. The streets of Stone Town are deserted by 9pm!

I didn’t make it to Pemba island, which is where the clove distillery is. It’s not clove season anyway, or so they say, and I opted for a clove and cinnamon body scrub at Cinnamon Spa in Shangani to make up for it. You’ll find their link at the end of this post.


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I arrived home, after a few days of pleasant surprises in Muscat, to find horror. My power had been off for two weeks I guess. Blown fuse.
I didn’t know dairy was capable of such things.

Needless to say, every perishable thing perished, and many non perishables too. I can’t even stomach the thought of making ice cream at the moment, but should be producing like crazy, like usual, in a couple of weeks.
It’s good it happened, even though I took 8 large garbage bags out to the trash. You couldn’t show anyone something like this, and there is no point in trying to describe it. But dairy is a bit nerve wracking anyway, for me, and I am hyper careful about the ice cream. In retrospect, it’s good to know what exactly it can do. But I never want to see (or smell) that again. We are in the hot season in Salalah. My house baked.  Anyway, enough said.


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Even though i didn’t make it to the clove distillery, I stocked up on fine Pemba cloves and seriously scored fresh Comoran vanilla pods. I’ll be playing with my vodka bottle later.

Here in Oman, most foreigners (meaning westerners) seem to drink a lot of alcohol. There is a permit based system where you register with the police and have a monthly ration you can spend in the liquor store. You decide your own ration amount. I don’t really drink very much so I don’t have one. My personal needs are easily met by the occasional Sauternes splurge at Duty Free. However, I do buy vodka whenever I’m coming home, as it’s my only easy alcohol base for perfumes, room sprays, bathroom cleaner, etc. I make all that stuff myself. And the irony is that, because I actually am buying it for perfume and household use, and not to drink, I always want to hide it! Like I’m sneaking it in! I’m guilty! My bathroom reeks of lemon myrtle and cinnamon, the kitchen of the same plus savory and tea tree, my car of gardenia, my bedroom of whatever I concoct at the moment, and I even spray my plants with something similar to kill the aphids. I spray the wardrobe with lavender and bergamot, the living room with frangipani and oud, and my linens with patchouli and ylang ylang. Thank heavens I have enough vodka! You never realize what you had until it’s gone!

I just discovered something I probably should have known for years. My friend made me  coffee the other day, Nescafé (of course) and a Lipton tea bag! Add plenty of sugar and milk, naturally. It was good! Coffee and tea together. I was astonished--this never occurred to me. He looked at me like I had four heads: “It’s a Salalah thing” he sniffed. And no, I don’t usually go in for the chips breakfast sandwich. (Californians will want to skip to the next paragraph here.) For those of you who don’t know this, and I apologize if I’ve written this before, can’t remember, here in Salalah, an acceptable breakfast is a Paratha (Desi bread) stuffed with La Vache qui Rit Cheese, Louisiana hot sauce and crumbled Chips Oman. Or egg and green chile. For Californians, New Yorkers, and other health food aficionados and “foodies” who don’t know about this world famous cheese, I am posting a link to La Vache qui Rit at the end of the blog.

I’ve got another trip planned, and don’t want to jinx it, but let’s just say it’s about time.....Hint: orange blossoms.

As I was writing this, a friend sent a video about food in India.
It’s delightful, and here it is.










Here are those links I promised:

CInnamon Spa, Shangani, Zanzibar

La Vache Qui Rit Cheese

Zanzibar

 Love it. 

I was a bit leery of coming back to Africa. Every time I've been here I've lost an organ.....but maybe three times is a charm. The Seychelles was lovely but marred by my burst appendix.  

So here I am in Zanzibar. 

Zanzibar is a group of islands off the coast of Tanzania in east Africa. The main island is called Unguja, or Zanzibar, and there are a few other islands nearby, the most famous of which is Pemba. That's where the clove distillery is. 

Zanzibar is famous for spices, mostly clove, and they also grow cinnamon, vanilla, lemongrass, basil, ylang ylang, nutmeg, ginger, turmeric, and white, black, green and red pepper. 

This whole Indian Ocean area is magnificent in terms of spice as well as natural beauty, and it's perfectly normal to find yourself in a completely absurd natural setting. 

Here in Zanzibar the people are laid back and friendly, the cuisine is all coconut-banana-fish-cinnamon-chilie ridiculousness. I'm taking a cooking class tomorrow, inshallah. The music is lively and the architecture magnificent. 

Today I went with my friend to a spice plantation, and the guide was extremely knowledgeable. 

Now, we all know that nutmeg is a hallucinogenic, due to its myristic acid content. But I didn't realize that it was nutmeg that caused the women here to glaze over into trances and dance with wild abandon for hours. Nutmeg is considered an aphrodisiac for women, of course, with cinnamon being considered an aphrodisiac for men. 

Of course, those of us who are essential oil enthusiasts attribute aphrodisiac properties to plenty of spices, and flowers and woods, etc, so nothing surprising there. 

Zanzibar was under Omani control beginning in 1698, and the Omani Sultan moved his capital to Zanzibar from Muscat in the early 1840s and it remained a large slave and ivory trading center until the British arrived in the late 19th century. You can read about the history of Zanzibar in the link at the end.

But it's interesting to be in a place that's not Oman and yet to have Omanis around. The only other place to see a lot of Omanis is Thailand and that's a different situation. Here I have to assume the Omanis are all Zanzibari-Omani. So they have family ties here. If I ask someone for advice for a restaurant and tell them I live in Salalah it's a big deal and very fun. 

If you are considering visiting Zanzibar, I can heartily recommend it. From the Gulf, it's close, of course, and there are direct flights from Muscat on Omanair. There are plenty of Italians here, of course. No surprise with a romantic atmosphere, great food and splendid natural beauty and architecture. Surprisingly there are lots of young American women here too. I think it's a nice break after volunteering in neighboring countries. My point is it's a fantastic destination, and pretty safe too. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanzibar yet to have Omanis around. The only other place to see a lot of Omanis is Thailand and that's a different situation. Here I have to assume the Omanis are all Zanzibari-Omani. So they have family ties here. If I ask someone for advice for a restaurant and tell them I live in Salalah it's a big deal and very fun. 

If you are considering visiting Zanzibar, I can heartily recommend it. From the Gulf, it's close, of course, and there are direct flights from Muscat on Omanair. There are plenty of Italians here, of course. No surprise with a romantic atmosphere, great food and splendid natural beauty and architecture. Surprisingly there are lots of young American women here too. I think it's a nice break after volunteering in neighboring countries. My point is it's a fantastic destination, and pretty safe too. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanzibar

A Disgrace

I live in a country where complaining is not received well. Even the minutest, most tactful criticism is not acceptable. And I come from New York; complaining is our national sport. Sometimes I talk for hours on the phone with people there, just to complain. We complain about everything. And we’re happy doing it. Bitch bitch bitch. And we are usually laughing all the way through, because we are so irritated all the time. That’s New York.

So here I am in Salalah. We don’t have the same irritations here, thank heavens. So it’s easier to just find those rose-colored glasses and put them back on, even if they have a scratch or two. But I’m not here to bitch about anyplace. I want to bitch about something else.

I know I am probably the last person in the world, at least in the aromatic world, to feel cheated like this, but hey, I still feel it. And I’m not writing to argue about the effectiveness, need or validity of IFRA, although you can probably guess my opinion.

Scent is the shortcut to memory, right? It’s the instigator, the tour guide, and the entry gate to nostalgia, dreams, and the fond (or not so fond) recollections of childhood idylls, n’est pas?

Long ago I was a perfume enthusiast, long ago. Since I’ve been up to my nose in essential oils, I haven’t spent too much time with actual perfumes. Sure, I have smelled, and liked, and even loved a few. But these are all modern scents, and usually from small houses. They have no history with me. I just like ‘em.

Since I’ve lived here in Oman, I’ve encountered lots of perfume. Everyone wears it, and I’m usually covered in frankincense and oudh. But lately, I don’t know why, I’ve been craving some of these oldies, perfumes my mother wore, scents I wore as a teenager, my father’s cologne. So I’ve started going in to the duty free, whenever I’m passing, and going for a hit, hoping for a rush of remembrance. Chanel no 5, Opium, Chloe, Fahrenheit, Tuscany.....and guess what? They don’t do it.

Why? They’ve been reformulated! At least I think they have. Samsara, Shalimar, Joy, even Chanel Cristalle, none of them smell the same. Have they really all been reformulated? Or is it just my imagination? It seems there’s lots of them!

It took quite a while before my indignancy rose to consciousness to outright outrage and annoyance. I kept after that Chanel no 5 for months, hoping my reaction would change, hoping to smell the same smell my mother wore. But it’s unrecognizable. I mean, I suppose that technically you can smell the similarity, but really, who cares?  I wanted a memory, I wanted a feeling. But all those memories are gone. And who knows what they even were?

With scent you get the express train to the past. With these new ones it’s like finding yourself in a cul de sac with no outlet and the GPS says turn here but there is no here. It’s all way over there and no way to get to it! It’s a second rate dance of molecules, the ones they’re allowed to use. They are trying to make it smell like how it did, but using lesser ingredients. Like someone wanting a cheap substitute for jasmine, but cloaked in a holy robe of insincerity! There is no cheap substitute for jasmine! Any substitute is always going to be second rate! And there is no substitute for oakmoss in those perfumes, either, damnit! And you can insist until the sambac blossoms close that bergamot smells the same without its bergaptene, but it’s not true! You’ve castrated it. It’s a shadow of it’s former self, and you know it. What did these perfume houses to? They cut the balls off their perfumes.

No wonder humans are more lost than ever! It’s not enough that the world looks entirely different for every generation now; retaining almost nothing from our early years--this is the same for everyone. And now our memories are stolen as well! We can’t access them unbidden! Memories have to be consciously sought? That’s ridiculous. What a world! How can you seek a specific memory? It’s a madhouse!

Yes, I know, cooking smells, ambient smells like new grass and gasoline, whatever. Yeah, they can do it too, but those old perfumes took you to a different place. How about the perfume you wore the first time you went out with that special guy, or when your father read to you at night? What about how your grandmother smelled (along with her cigarettes) when you curled up in her lap? All gone. The bastards.

And how many other smells have we lost? Agree shampoo jumps to mind. And I can’t list the others because I don’t have the smells to prompt them! Oh the poverty of our modern age! Oh this dubious science at work!

Even without this shameful theft there are so many scents, and memories lost! Textbooks, a playground, old appliances, shag carpeting! Wasn’t that enough to lose? The world already looks entirely different in every respect!

At the very least, instead of reformulating, and allowing these impostors into the sheep’s clothing of the past, why not retire those old friends in good grace? Why not allow them to reside in posterity? But the damage was done--and by the time people became aware of it, they were changed. Some people undoubtedly had the foresight to buy the old perfumes in bulk and I see them listed for sale on the internet still.

It’s a disgrace!

It’s bad enough for me, and I’m whining and bitching and moaning about it. But what about people with a really thin tether to the past? What about Alzheimer's patients? What about the mentally ill? Sweet memories of the past, comfort and security can no longer be theirs. Apple pie and chocolate chip cookies can’t do it all, for Gods sake.

If you are reading this and don’t know why this idiocy was done, it’s because certain (usually natural) oils do not conform to new ridiculous guidelines and can cause allergic reactions in some people. Much better, they say, to make synthetics instead. It's a con! It’s too stupid. Making a gray world safe for all......


I’m too annoyed to go on. For more information you can read these


Scentbound--the Death of Chanel no 5 

Scentbound-Perfume reformulation

Road Trip--Southern Laos: Coffee

Day 4

Southern Laos is just full of Vietnamese, and where there’s Vietnamese, there’s coffee. Vietnamese coffee is one of my favorites, but remembering the roasting plant of the night before, I happily settled on 3 in one nescafe and a cup of tea dregs at a roadside stall.

Laos is now covered with young backpackers and one of the things they do is ride their motorbikes in a tour of the south, around the Bolaven plateau, a major coffee and tea growing area.

We stopped at one of the local coffee shops, where they roast their own beans and serve a great and very serious cup of rich dark coffee. The entry was a small dirt turn off and little lane, which looked to me like a passage for livestock though some dry coffee plantings, but at the end of it was the most adorable little coffee shop I’ve ever seen. They also sell local textiles and have a home stay.

I couldn’t believe how many kids rode up on their motorbikes looking as cool as possible: Swiss, French, Japanese, British...to me they looked barely out of infancy and I realized I used to look like that, and thought myself so cool and fierce and open, ambling around India or Guatemala. And the whole time I just looked like a kid! That explains a lot of reactions so long ago, why so many decent people took me home with them. I mean that in a nice way--I must have reminded them of their daughters at college, like some innocent child wandering way out of my depth, alone and unprotected in the far corners of the globe. They must have been worried! I stared at them, apple cheeked, braids, the beginnings of a beard.

Eventually we left and made our way to almost the end, Em’s coffee roasting shop in a hot, dusty, nameless town near a small waterfall, Tat Lo. The town has no name. It was full of European backpackers, many of whom looked like they lived there. No idea why. My room was nice as usual, balanced over a small stream, no screens but a mosquito net. The following morning I watched Em roast coffee and that was about that!

The next day we set off at the crack of noon, and arrived in Pakse early enough for me to claim a room at the relatively famous Pakxe Hotel.

Main Highway in Northern Laos in 2004

It was a pretty fun and informative trip, all I can deal with every 5 years or so with Mr. Sompat. I don’t know if there will be another. In 5 years what will the Lao forest look like? A small park? A postcard? And what new entity will need to be thrown into the maw of the world’s appetite for timber? Previously untouched forest continues to be riddled with logging roads, and once the roads exist, it becomes easy to take all the timber out. New villages spring up along the road, more people come, they need land to live and grow food, smaller roads are cut from the big ones, further encroachment.....it goes on and on. What is the answer? I have no idea. I wonder if there is one. At this point, I doubt it. The presence of agarwood is not enough to save the Lao forest.

Road Trip--Southern Laos

Day 3

There wasn’t a lot more to say about agarwood and its current condition in Laos. I needed to process my already collected information first. I got a lot. Mr. Sompat does tend to go on about it, like I was never listening and even reading back my notes served as only a temporary plug to his steady stream of information. He showed me something else very interesting, that you needn’t necessarily kill the agarwood tree to make the infection. I don’t know how viable it is, and there would have to be reasonable chance at making something nice if people were to actually try it, but it seems like coppicing them works well, at least in terms of growth. Whether they will make a good and copious amount of resin I don’t know. But probably someone does.....Maybe that’s why so many groves in India were twins.

Off we roared, me obsessed by the Lao Beignets, and a coffee. We drove to the Tham Kong Lo Cave, in Central Laos. This cave runs 7 km through a mountain and was used to transport tobacco up until the year before I think. Tobacco was picked on one side and loaded onto little boats, and driven through the cool breezy interior of earth to waiting trucks on the other side. This was before the road went around the mountain.

You hire a small boat and walk down to the entrance, put on your life jacket and off you go. At one point you stop and get out and walk through a brilliantly lit passage, the only one. The rest of the trip is through cool darkened halls. I was worried for a second I’d get claustrophobia--never been in a cave like that before. But far from it; it was like a recharge from darkness and something related to the moon I guess, no idea but it was wonderful. Once you emerge on the other side and putter through some spectacular green scenery, you get off and wander around coffee stands. I ate Tom Yam instant noodles for breakfast and it was pretty good.

After a quiet and pleasant morning at the cave we set out back on the road, continuing south in the direction of Savannakhet. We stopped for sausage and rice crackers, bananas and corn. He tied the sausages to the bar at the bed of the truck, so they’d dry as we drove. We had to drop off the 500 kilos of coffee to a Chinese coffee roaster in the Lao style. Meaning it’s roasted in the Lao way, with butter and sugar, and these Chinese guys owned it. It didn’t sound promising. Trust me.

We arrived in the dusk and I did take photos but they don’t do the place justice. For one, the pictures make it look light. And the vermin fled from the flash. Charcoal and cockroaches, burned coffee beans and filthy machinery. Trash and chickens. Their beds  throughout. Butter? Sugar? i didn’t ask. Piles of lumbar and steaming pots. A bicycle. But they bought our coffee and we blazed out. The police stopped us on the way out of town. Plainclothes police. Or at least someone who said he was police. Aggressively he parked his bike in front of us and demanded Mr. Sompat show him the rosewood, which was, stupidly, nice side up at that moment. Once he realized it wasn’t the haul he thought it was, he went back to his bike and rode off, apologizing in a minor way. We didn’t stay in Savannakhet.

About 70 km south of Savannakhet there is a small town with guest houses all over and a small road leading off it and about a kilometre up that is another guest house, away form the road noise, or so Mr. Sompat said. It was clean enough but I think it was, if not a brothel, a place to bring your hooker, and the sign inside telling you not to seems proof to me....But I had a clean bed, a shower, some a/c, and that was good enough for me.

My dinner was another Tom Yum instant noodles bowl, just like in the morning. It was good!

Road Trip--Southern Laos

Lao Rosewood--bleeds when cut

Day 2

Mr. Sompat came early in the morning for me and off we went, heading inland and bypassing Pakading. Pakading is one of those places most people have never heard of. Pakading is the Hojai of Laos; it’s the agarwood nerve center, much like that other one in India, Hojai, the nerve center of Ajmal. Pakading was once home to about 30 agarwood distilleries and now to about 8. Indian and even some Arab dealers used to come to buy directly from the source. The few tiny restaurants served Indian food with chutney! I do not know the current state of Pakading as we went up into the mountains, formerly remote and covered with dense forest.

Pakading--2004

The presence of Chinese and Vietnamese companies is everywhere, along the roads they are building through the forests they (and the Lao) are logging. It goes something like this: a company is granted a concession, builds a road, logs everything along it, and then builds smaller arteries, which are then logged in their turn. At the same time, Lao settlements pop up along the road, in cleared forest, as people try to make a living in these new villages. I have been asked not to write about the specifies and cannot confirm them anyway, regarding which company and what deal, and the like.

This land is being cleared for rice

We stopped in one of these new, nameless villages, and unloaded our spare engine. We passed every checkpoint, despite the back of our truck filled with huge coffee sacks and wood. There was nothing technically illegal about the rosewood we carried. Rosewood is not CITES for some reason, but it is valuable, slow growing and over harvested. It’s also aromatic and gorgeous. It’s Pterocarpus pedatus and it bleeds when cut. Carrying something valuable, though, is dangerous enough, as police, officials, and the like will ask for taxes or fees (bribes) just because they can. However, our pieces were end pieces and not so great in quality so no one bothered us.



It might not look as though there is much fun food in Laos, but that changes when you keep a sharp eye out. A Lao type of Beignet, deep fried and filled some sweet yellow bean paste became my favorite immediately and I looked for them everywhere. Mr. Sompat of course speaks fluent Lao and knows all the good spots, the small stands where they might make great rice crackers, corn on the cob, or sausage.

We puttered along the main North-South highway, averaging 60-80 Kph, through villages, and great stretches of open road. Parts of the road are eaten away and potholes appear, African style, needing quick reflexes.

Still we passed sad agarwood plantations, along with healthier, happier rubber trees and even teak. Eventually we arrived at our goal: a small dirt track leading off into the forest--the distillery.

Mr. Sompat cheerfully told me to decide what I needed as we had a walk of some kilometers ahead, in the sun, crossing a couple of rivers, walking with the luggage! The days of traveling with my trusty backpack are long behind me. Now I schlep my computer, a good camera, chargers, etc. and a small suitcase on wheels. This was something I used to mock as a teenager and here I was, faced with carrying it over backpack terrain.

We managed to drive in through most of it, it turned out, to a river too wide for the truck,  and we parked and I took all the things I didn’t want to leave parked in an unknown remote space and we piled it all into a small canoe and poled our way across the river. Reaching the other side, we gathered our things and marched off--I was very slow as my overnight bag was heavy and banging my legs, and I also had my camera, purse, a litre of water and 2 big bags of fruit! But I did manage to walk to the distillery, longing for a cold shower and air conditioned room, but made do with the smoke from the boilers and a tree stump in the shade. As everywhere in Laos, plenty of nice pups soothed and smoothed the scene.

This distillery is technically inside a National Park, which, as we would understand it, means it’s a protected area. But here there was not only a distillery but also a plantation of agarwood trees, many of which were in various stages of infection by inoculation. Mr. Sompat is using this grove as an experimental one, with different mixtures and different processes, to see what might make a good infection.

Agarwood is still a sought after product, even more now that plantations cover the countryside. But by “agarwood” or “oud,” I mean naturally occurring (not man-made) infection in wild trees, meaning old (probably) trees. And if not that exactly, something that smells as close to that as possible, and Mr. Sompat is trying to find something close, but he’s not trying too hard. It’s more chance, and something nice that might happen; you can’t rely on it. It can take any amount of time or never occur. Then you have the harvesting, soaking and the distillation to manage well. Farmed and inoculated oud is too unsure and costly to base a business on. Boyah is still in demand but not really worth it either unless you already have good customers who are willing to pay. And there are not too many Boyah buyers. Most of the Indian companies, who make oud for the Arabs, make their own Boyah anyway. In this sense, Mr. Sompat is still in the game; he’s one of the few.

Back inside the distillery, we ate a small lunch of rice and some river fish while the smoke swirled around us. Agarwood, in this case Boyah, is soaked as long as possible, even a month or two, then distilled 5 days, running the hydrosol back into the still throughout, and then taken out and soaked another month or two, then distilled another 5 days. It’s ridiculous. The amount of time and fuel required are immense, and to recoup those costs you need something more valuable than Boyah. Currently Boyah sells for less than a fifth of oud. Still expensive, compared to other essential oils, but a poor and crude cousin indeed to oud. Incidently, Boyah is completely different chemically, from oud and it’s still covered by the CITES regulations anyway.

I know people are going to ask if this farm/distillery conforms to CITES, if it has the paperwork and the answer is: of course not. But of course it does. Both. It can buy the certificate if needed. The whole CITES thing is a farce, sorry to say.

In the end, we decided not to stay the night and left in the back of a little cart, crossing the river in a slow spray of water, and slowly drove out of the park, stopping en route to say hi to some guys cutting down rosewood, chain saws screaming. Forestry trucks parked a short way away, their occupants out somewhere.

There was now not enough time to get to the cave Mr. Sompat wanted to show me, and so we spent the night in Nahin, or so he says. I can’t read Lao.

There is a sweet little guesthouse down by the river--it’s a small riverlet actually, and moves briskly thanks to energy turbines upstream. The restaurant sits on a huge wooden balcony perched over the river, which swirled and undulated in the full moon. We ate a huge dinner: Steamed river fish with herbs, one of my favorite Lao dishes, sautéed morning glory vine, and another fish dish I couldn’t identify but scraped the plate of. I retired to my bungalow and slept like a dead person.