Time to Go?

Unfortunately, it seems to be. I am finishing whatever it is I’m doing here in Muscat. I’m just glad Muscat is here because to go from Salalah to New York would probably give anyone a stroke. Muscat is a huge help just being here. It’s probably a nice little city but it’s huge and bustling and exciting and fast fast fast after Salalah. All those lanes of traffic! So many different kinds of food!

I spent my last few days in Salalah much like the first few days, and all the days in between, but without taking any more photos because I destroyed my camera.

I ate local bananas and papayas with honey for breakfast, and kebsa rice with fish or ful for lunch, and maybe Yemeni bread and tea for evening meal. Simple and good diet, you can’t beat it, with all your fancy supplements and designer mushrooms. I am convinced that it was that same simple diet in Africa last year that let my gall bladder deal for as long as it did. Once that infection set in, any false move would have brought on an attack. Not only was I blissfully unaware of it, but my diet was stringently limited by location and money. As soon as I got to India and a plate of ghee and panir it was bang off to the hospital. Not that I can compare Salalah to Mauritania but actually, I can. It has everything: cow milk, fish, fruit and vegetables. You just have to import your rice and olive oil.

The diet took a little getting used to, simple, uncomplicated and basic as it is, but like a Monkee, now I’m a believer. Muscat has cheese. Lebanese food at every junction. It’s crazy. Last night I went to an Indian restaurant that served alcohol. No lie. And tonight I’m going out with some friends, I can’t even imagine where we’re going. One gets used to the simplicity and then even choosing something off a small menu is a big deal.

I bought what I could in Salalah and hope it will be shipped as planned. There are some things you leave in the hand of fate. It would have been cheaper to pack them up, put the boxes on the bus to Muscat and collect them the next day, then schlep them to a Muscat shipping agent. But I know my limits and they are on this side of that. But I can’t get frustrated. I like that stuff like this is difficult. It should be.

Since I’ve been here in the capital I’ve really done very little. Sit in the café with friends. Go to the Muttrah Souk and look for the odd aromatic request. Continue my copper search. Drive around old Muscat and look at the Palace. This place is entirely magnificent, in every respect.

Something shifted this trip, and I think I’ve created a little niche of my own. Am certainly not a tourist. Obviously not an Omani. Nothing close to an expat. I’m just Sahar, doing my own little thing in my own little way and I think it’s going to be great. And I think people here are open to it. In Salalah I think I am almost a local character—uncovered hair, in my thobe, writing in the coffee shop, pestering the frankincense merchant, sitting for hours at restaurants with different people until the wee hours. Many people greet me like a fixture now. But it’s ok. In this secretive culture, I have adopted only some of it. Anonymity is not generally something I attract. I feel like I belong, just a bit, in my little niche that didn’t exist before.

I’ve got some excellent plans here. And other people, who I respect, seem to be enthusiastic. That’s very nice and will be something to remember when others call my project or me crazy or delusional or whatever, as they will for sure, in the US. But those people are less and less prevalent. One of the joys of getting older is that you hear those voices less and less. No one can tell me I can’t do what I’m doing, or I shouldn’t do what I’m doing, for I’ve already done it, and keep doing it, and it gets better all the time, and any naysayer or critic comes across as sour grapes. It’s luxurious to bask in this.

I’m off for my last walk on the beach, and to smell these seaside frangipani trees, and then tonight I’m off on the new giant A-380 Emirates plane to New York. Alhamdulilah.

A Storm

We had the top edge of a cyclone I believe, and it churned up a mess between Somalia and Yemen, even as it weakened into a tropical storm. Yemeni provinces of Hadramaut and Mahara are disasters. The ancient towering mud city of Shibam in Wadi Hadramaut is still in danger of collapse I think. Here in Salalah we had flooding, and a couple of road wash-outs which are already being repaired. One of those floodings though, was at the entry to the grove of old lady (my name) frankincense trees. It looks like the entire wadi was washed through, and lost about 2 metres of soil and plants. Would have been intense; the huge torrents thundering through the crevasses, carrying mountains and earth in tumbling stone.

Fortunately the trees appear to have escaped harm. But they are now set back far from the road. It was a bit of a drive in before, and questionable if doable at times in a saloon car, and then involved a little walk, which was more than enough, as the heat in that wadi is considerable. Now there is no question of driving in, probably not even in a 4 x 4. I’m just glad I already know the trees are there. I had lunch with them the other day, sat and petted them, asked a few questions, did a little writing, smelled their knobbly joints.

These are the most important trees for me, I think. I also think these are female trees. The Omanis prefer the male trees; the clean and pretty Howjary Luban of Hasik and it certainly is delicious, but someone explained to me the other day, that this “black” frankincense, this one I find so oily, delicious and wonderful, this one from the humid area (which someone else once told me were from female trees,) and is not well liked, because of the appearance and consistency—but it smells very good. Well, fine by me. I love dark and sticky. It just required a reworking of my internal frankincense grading system and hierarchy.

As for the storm, at first it was deafening--the first night I could barely sleep; I thought the air conditioner was going to come right out of the wall. By the third night we were out playing in it at 3 am, driving through puddles.

I started buying my Luban for New York. Here I was, feeling like I knew a little bit, trusting my guys, and I thought, since there was no Omani gum at the place I shop, in the quality I wanted, that I could find it elsewhere. Off I went with my friend Mohammed, (who, hilariously, was given bags of gum as a present for bringing me in! I was the one who drove the car and dragged him around, he was sick, tired and muttering, but no one seemed to notice that and gave “my driver” a tip. He was embarrassed but I was laughing.)

One of my main faults is my lack of patience. And here it was gloriously illustrated for me. I had waited 10 days already for the guy I knew to return from Yemen and suddenly I just couldn’t wait any longer. Of course I found plenty of this Salalah gum in the quality I was seeking from other vendors in the marketplace. I bought plenty too, and followed my niggling intuition, taking it back to Anwar’s to weigh it properly as the bags seemed small and also to have their in-house Luban expert verify it was from Salalah.

Naturally, I found that not only were all of the bags (yes, all of them) short, weighing between 700 and 800 grams, but none of the frankincense was local; it was all Somali. Boy did I feel smart. We were all laughing. I took 2 “kilos” back immediately, not to get nasty but to request an extra 700 gram bag to bring the weight up to what it was supposed to be. But she had hurriedly closed the shop and fled—“What else can you expect?” Everyone clucked, “She’s not from here.” By the time, a few minutes later I discovered that the other bags were also short and Somali, the market was deserted.

I had thought I could tell the difference between Somali and Omani gum and sometimes I can, but not in the grade I was courting, The delightful and helpful Luban expert, Jihad, took pity and showed me some obvious (in hindsight) distinctions between Omani and Somali.

And the entire episode would have been avoided had I waited another day as Anwar returned and sent for some Salalah Luban for me and so I bought plenty of this one was well, for our oil. It’s not that the Somali is inferior, it’s actually very nice, and somehow personifies the sun. The Omani is different, and distinctive, and personifies exactly the well groomed dignity of the people here.

Looks like we’ll have a harvest towards the end of the year but I’ve been told so many things by so many people over the years that I just have to see it with my own eyes first.

And more rain is expected next week.

This is Where Our Frankincense Comes from

I woke up at 4 in the morning to use the bathroom. It’s a squat toilet, with a low tap on the right side, for filling up the little cup you wash with. I guess I was a bit out of it, sleepy, but imagine my horror and surprise when the entire plumbing unit came out of the wall in a piece, releasing a big and uncontrollable gush of water across the bathroom. I tried to reattach the broken pipe, in vain of course, and had to go wake up my housemate to deal with it. I don’t think he was even annoyed.

I was planning to go to Yemen after Oman, but am probably going to skip it this time. The Omanis always caution against it, and now all voices are raised in unison. The only person who says everything in Yemen is fine is my poor friend who owns a tour company there. I think the problem comes from a new attitude in tribal negociations. The tribes used to kidnap foreign tourists to gain leverage with the government. This worked for some time, but the tribes hospitality became well known. It wasn’t much of a deterrence against travel there because you knew, if you were to be kidnapped, you would be hosted well, and cared for as a valued guest. Many foreigners, once released, simply continued on their journey around Yemen. Basically, people got wise to them. Apparently these tribes have now decided that they will be fiercer and have more clout if they just kill the tourists. I don’t know if this will help them, but it’s too bad, because Yemen is a very nice country.

I was talking to someone in a cargo place the other day, an Indian guy. He said Salalah was “probably 2 years behind Kerala.” I can believe it, and I certainly don’t mean it pejoratively. I have a friend here who has never heard of Times Square or Yoga. Never heard either of these things. First time. Now that’s refreshing and delightful!

There are so many flowers, and delightful trees, I’m in danger of posting another Up-With-Oman blog but will try to refrain. It’s been really fun to bring my New York distilled Frankincense here. It’s from local resin, and people love it. Its clean and crisp sparkle, friendly floral tendrils and lovely loving symphony are unmistakably Dhofari. We’ll be doing a lot more of this.

I’ve been shopping for……bottles. There are bottles here that are apparently specially made for Salalah, very ornate and glitzy. I’ve also been frankincense shopping—the market here is overwhelmed with Somali gum—there is not too much local resin at the moment, but there is some.

I am not really sure where my days go, but go they do, and fast. I’m living in a flat in the middle of the garden district, among coconut, banana and papaya trees, somehow wedged between the sea, the mountains and the desert. Salalah has this strip of garden, about a kilometer deep, that runs for most of the town, people keep cows there, grow other crops in the middle of the fruit trees, and roadside stalls sell green coconuts and sweet tiny Salalah bananas.

There is no starbucks here. No macdonalds. There is a little pizza hut, and a fedex office. A shell station. But that’s about it. No other chains. I believe you can buy western food like European cheese and whatever, but am not sure where that store is. For the most part we eat some local produce, lentils, hummus, rice, fish, Danish feta cheese. I got some olive oil from Lebanon. It’s a very healthy diet, similar to what I ate in Africa last year. Lots of coffee and tea but in lots of little glasses, which probably all add up to one new york size coffee. Most people don’t seem to drink soda either. Fruit “cocktail” juice is quite popular. There are plenty of supermarkets, at least 5. Families shop together in the evenings.

We have a few restaurants, mostly serving fish and rice, or meat and rice, but there are some Lebanese ones, a couple of Indian, even two or three Chinese. No sushi, no portobello anything. No Italian. No Thai. No Moroccan even.

There are bars at the two 5 star hotels, and one in the free zone, if you feel the need to drink alcohol, or carouse, but it is not generally available. I think there is (or was) a movie theatre but the movies are in Indian languages for the guest workers—there is not an Arabic (or American) one. We have one coffee shop with wi-fi, where I am sitting as I type this.

There are no designer boutiques! In fact, there is not really any ladies ready-to-wear to speak of, except thobes, the Dhofari dress. Plenty of tailors will stitch your dishdaha (if you’re a man) and abaya shops line As-Salam street, sequins glittering.
Omani women are totally covered, except the eyes. But I’ve come to appreciate the seductiveness of this, and have even begun wondering how anyone can think a miniskirt is sexier than some of this Islamic dress. Here it’s all about the silouette, the posture, the gait, the voice, and most important, the eyes. Without a huge competitive variety in clothing it becomes more about what people say and how they say it rather than how they look and never mind what they’re saying. I wear the thobe, which is long and flowing, but I don’t cover my hair. I hate not feeling the wind or the sun on my face and so I wind up looking more utilitarian than provocative. I think. It’s been a strange turn of attitude.

Another thing I’m starting to realize is that people actually listen to what each other say. Someone tells you something; you’re expected to remember it. This is unfortunate for me, with my sieve like brain and pathetic concentration. I don’t know how everyone seems to remember every little detail—but I’m betting it has something to do with not being so bombarded with stuff. There is not one telescreen on the street here. And the major pastime is conversation. It means you have to stop and listen, and give your full attention. Very difficult for me.

And you are expected to be pretty much on your best behavior all the time. You must not shout, insult, put down, or act snarky or arrogant. You should always speak of lovely things, if possible, and not dwell on unpleasant ones, or gossip, although I know people must.

Privacy is the order of the day, with most people reluctant to discuss what they do for a living or where they live. Female family members are not discussed with anyone. And of course, most women have never been seen in public, their faces never viewed (by Omani men anyway.) All homes are walled, and the windows are mirrored and tinted against the sun. People stay out really late--there is still a daily siesta here, from 2ish to 5ish, so there might be more traffic at 3 in the morning than 3 in the afternoon. Most nightlife centers on shisha restaurants, which are always outdoors, and most of the time they are huge gravel filled lots, poorly lit, with tables at least 30 feet apart so you can talk in private. If you want more privacy you can just go out to the space along the Ittin road, and sit out there with your friends. Bring chairs, or a mat, some food, maybe a barbeque, and guaranteed no one will disturb you. Never. People sit other places too, along the tree lined roads, in the roundabouts, the beach, wherever, talking late into the night. You will never see a police car going to check anything out. No one would put up with it.

The weekend officially begins Thursday afternoon and Friday morning nothing is open. There are many beautiful mosques and a new Sultan Qaboos Mosque is in construction. It’s not unusual to see roads listed as “private” at roundabouts and each roundabout has a theme. For example, the Horse roundabout (with statues of racing Arabians) is at the Royal cavalry, and waterfalls, goat dioramas, frankincense trees, roses, giant coffee pots, mammoth incense burners, or Omani ships decorate others.

Driving is pretty relaxed but there are a few rules, like no running red lights. This is punishable by three months in jail. So to be fair, a green light will flash green before turning yellow, and then, after red, flash yellow and red before turning green again. And only one direction of cars goes at once, always clockwise. But you needn’t always keep to the road.

Since everyone knows everyone, or their cousin, in this country of only 2 million (250,00 in all of Dhofar,) crime is mimimal. The frankincense trees are not fenced off, but you cannot take resin that does not belong to you. You can take pictures though. And you can pet the trees and sit under them. Many people are farmers, keep cows, grow something, or have goats or camels. And without much sense of hierarchy, anyone can speak with anyone freely. Someone holding a high place in the government will sit at a public coffee shop, and everyone will greet him happily and maybe come to pay their respects. Every person wears perfume. There is even a special tassel at the dishdasha neck for this.

Arabic has both a masculine and feminine form of the pronoun “you.” When Sultan Qaboos addresses his people he uses both of these forms together, not just the masculine; I think this is the only country where this happens.

Oman has a fantastic history of navigation, craftsmanship, and, of course, frankincense. Some of these are not playing such a large part in modern Oman, but hopefully we can change that.

Never Assume

I was trying to post for days—could read my blog but not post to it. After a few days I realized it was the Blogger site, not my computer, and did some investigating. Blogger was blocked in Oman, and so was gmail. Now that seems very un-Omani to me. Porno sites are, for sure, blocked all over the Gulf, but Blogger? I mean really. I thought it has to be a mistake!

It’s really easy to immediately go into an Orwellian tailspin, and I flickered in and out a few times—this place that I love so much, blocking Blogger? It was depressing. Did I really not know Oman at all? I had to complain about it. I asked a few people and finally called my friend in Muscat--he tried it and said sure, the site was blocked all right, but there was no big notice, no error message like you usually get when a site is actually, officially blocked. And so why not complain to Omantel? Not that I could expect a response. It’s worth noting that the Oman-based blogs I found were screaming bloody murder about it, having managed to post via proxy servers.

Assuming it was all a mistake, I wrote immediately to Omantel. They replied in about an hour, saying they’d look into it. And three hours later the Blogger site was back up!

Whether it was a coincidence, or just the last of many complaints, or whatever, there you are. Never assume, whether it’s Middle Eastern policies or that another person understands what you’ve just said.

One of the dumbest things we (humans) say to each is “Are you following me?” or “do we understand each other?” How in the hell are you supposed to know? Think about it. Just imagine all the fiascos that have occurred because of this. I think I get you. What? Sometimes you had better explain yourself, and not assume it’s just understood. Actually, it’s more than sometimes, it’s usually.

I was talking (on the phone) to a friend in Yemen a couple of days ago, Yes, I’ll come to Sana’a on such and such a day, and you’ll be there? Ah yes, no problem, we can do this together, and that. And after I hung up I thought about what I understood from this conversation and I just know that over in Sana’a, there is a completely different idea of it. What did I just agree to?

I’m in Salalah and this time it’s a bit different that the last. Not to say better or worse, because it’s both, but it certainly is odd. I’m staying with a friend, and I’m completely mystified by the situation. I’m sure I’m not the only one either; we’re like a cat and a cantaloupe. I’m not sure which is which. But who knows what the cantaloupe thinks? And the cat just walks off to look at some birds.

Yet, I’m usually up for things; especially if I have no reason not to be; most of the time everything is just fine. So I’m in. Why not? I just don't really ever understand the situation, and if I assume something is one way, then I get clobbered immediately. It’s quite zen-like actually. I need to keep that same mind-set that serves one so well in India—I call it the “Ah yes?” attitude. It’s fine as long as you’re skating on surface of something.

People talk about your “comfort zone,” in little pep talks exhorting you to step outside it every once in a while to expand your horizons. Right. I think the last time I was in my “comfort zone” was 1973!

My car died the day before yesterday, suddenly and completely dead, the battery. This was at home. Minutes later someone came along, and I showed him the problem, thinking perhaps he could give me a jump. But no, he opened the hood, peered in, grabbed a big rock, and hit the battery with it. Perfect solution. I never would have thought of it. The car started immediately.

I’ve been to visit most of my favourite trees—no gum is being tapped at the moment. But the trees are all happy and many are sprouting new soft bright green leaves. Mostly I’m waiting to see what happens next in regard to everything.

Yes, I understand patience is a virtue. You certainly need it here in Oman. As a friend once said, there is no sense of urgency here. If you just sit around long enough, something will happen, and maybe start something, in some direction, maybe something useful.

In other words, I don’t know what’s going on, what’s happening, and I certainly can’t guess what might happen next.

All I know is there’s lots of fish here. And sometimes some frankincense. And if your car doesn’t start you might try hitting it with a rock.

The personification, if you like, of life and death

I made a scurrilous trip south and northwest. First to Nizwa, to find ceramic and copper, my new obsession. But I found nothing, no how, no way—this former crafts center is now churning out tourist schlock.

Then back through Muscat and up the Batinah coast to Sohar, mother of all ports, and the birthplace of Sindbad the Sailor. Again, I didn’t find much in the way of copper. I was hoping to find some grizzled old coppersmiths, but instead I found myself in a pretty hotel that would have been great at a third the price. And being a major stop on the Dubai road, there’s plenty of alcohol, so the energy was completely different than the usual lovely Omani energy. I had just fallen in Love with the most ridiculous night blooming Jasmine. I tried to spend some time smelling the flowers but was followed and pestered and eventually just went to my room to be left alone.

But they still smell during the day. I don’t know who they are, what their name is, but I say “they” because there are both white and red blossoms, both of which smell of delicious, narcotic heavy sweet jasmine. I had smelled these once, near Nizwa—I went to someone’s house, I don’t know exactly where—it was February 2007 I think. I had never been to Nizwa and the situation was odd, it was late at night, and no one knew the names of these flowers. But I remember the village was stone and date palms everywhere, and so warm and wonderful, and these insane jasmines bursting out of every pot. It was floral madness.

I had forgotten about those luscious lovelies until the other night, when I saw the flowers, noticed they were pretty enough, and quite interesting, being 2 different colors even out of the same sprig, but when I went out to eat dinner, forget about it. They had opened themselves, and the fine fragrance flowed in heavy waves—I was lost in it.

This morning I went out to take some pictures of these exquisite bold jasmines. I would love to plant them somewhere but I think they need plenty of heat. I saw them in Nizwa and Sohar. That tells you something.

Then I decided to go find an old abandoned copper mine on the Buraimi road. Or off the Buraimi road I should say. I need to explain perhaps that I am suddenly obsessed with copper. It’s why I went up to Sohar in the first place. I am trying to find a copper mine, coppersmiths, a copper market, copper streaks in the mountains, anything and everything to do with Omani copper.

I had some vague directions from a guide, to find a road parallel to the main road after a copper smelter, and then to follow it through this wadi, over those hills, across that wadi, up another hill, and soon enough I saw what looked like a giant canyon looming in the rocks.

The whole area felt a little strange, a little quiet, a little apocalyptic I suppose. There didn’t seems to be much life around and so I parked the little car, walked a bit to survey the area, drove a little further, walked a little more, and found myself at the brink.

I’m not really sure what I stood on the edge of—but I think it was the Lusail Copper Mine, abandoned now. The area has been heavily mined for copper for over 4000 years—Omani copper apparently has a high level of nickel. Copper is still evidently mined, as they were smelting near the main road, but this pit appears to be no longer in use.

Some birds took off from the side of the rocks near the bottom, with an odd clacking rush, and no cries. Otherwise there appeared to be no life. Some tires sat at the bottom, in a greenish pool. The water, or whatever you want to call it, is an unusual color-red with an orange edge. I would assume it’s poisonous. But I can’t tell what it is. It didn’t smell like sulphur. Maybe it’s full of iron? In which case, interestingly, it would taste like blood, which is of course exactly what it resembles.

There are plenty of beautiful colors to be seen in the striations through the rocks, and it looked to me as it there was still copper. But I am way out of my element here. The silence was deafening. I walked around as much of this pit as I could—falling in would have been death for sure, the 100 metre fall, the deadly water, the pitiless sun, the certainty that no one would come. So before going near the edges at all, I made sure that the edge was not a precipitous drop, or worse, a small outcropping ready to cave away. I remembered those bits of earth in Western Sahara jutting out over the ocean, only a foot thick perhaps. Who knows if they can hold a person?

Consequently, I did not climb around very much of it. Only one end had a flat area on the escarpment, and I walked across this gingerly. The ground was spongy and sick feeling, like an abscess. Yellow growths mushroomed up. The cracks were a bit alarming—it looked and felt as if the entire area would calve off. I was relieved to get off that part, and didn’t get too close to the edge there either.

All in all, this looked and felt like a bleeding wound, the opposite of the joyous jasmine but ironically, if you replaced the bloodlike reds and oranges with blues and greens, the setting would be delightful.

Thailand does have very pleasant hospitals

I got just about everything done I came here to do; it just all got crammed into a couple of days at the end. I even managed to get to the agarwood market. I like to go and see what’s coming out of the forests these days. Or not coming out. There is not much real agarwood in the market at all, and no real oil that I’ve ever seen. Actually, I do think there is now a little real oil, but it’s from cultivated trees, and mixed. It’s different. Smells okay, but it’s not my thing.

I attacked my shopping list at the big market early yesterday morning and by 5 pm I was 100% done, completely and utterly. To call the Chatuchak weekend market “hot,” “exhausting” or “strength sapping” would be only a start. But it was great, nonetheless, and my only regret is that I don’t have 10 days to explore that market in greater depth.

Unfortunately for me, however, I had a small wound on the front of my body, in the chest area. No big deal, I had it from New York, and had thought it was healing. But the tropical climate won, and with the help of my clothing rubbing all day, I woke up with a big and ugly abscess. So it was off to the hospital today for some antibiotics, but somehow I found myself in a surgeon’s office and before I knew it, I was watching his reflection in the overhead light as he ripped into the thing with a scalpel! It was horrible, pus filled, and painful, so I wasn’t taken completely by surprise.

Even though the incision is not too large, it still feels like I got whacked. I’ve noticed that the first feeling after surgery, no matter how small, is feeling so cold. And stoned. That’s those endorphins coming out in a big confused mess. The last thing I wanted to do was go out into Bangkok, into the maelstrom. I wandered around the hospital for a while, it’s very pretty, and even went to a starbucks coffeeshop despite that I consider starbucks the personification of evil. I had to sit quietly and have something warm. That’s another feeling being cut with a scalpel brings out: feeling sad. So sad! It was quite satisfying really, to wander along the wet Bangkok alleys in a trance, feeling so dramatically morose, my dressings soaking up the blood, rain and tears trickling down my face. All I wanted was to be cozy and quiet, loved and petted. Three out of four isn’t bad though.

I found the Urban Retreat Spa, right at the Phrom Phong bts station, and the most delightful and intuitive therapist named, appropriately, “Pet” gave me 90 minutes of heaven. Forget trying to describe, she’s one of the best petters I’ve ever met. It was exactly what I needed to get out of my post-op funk.

As my friend the hedgehog said: Pain is the edge that plows your heart so that new love may be sown.

And now I’m here in my sweet little apartment, about to pack and head out to the airport for my flight to the Gulf. I have had the most fantastic stay at the Abloom Serviced Apartments. For anyone coming to Bangkok, and wants something between Khao San Road and the Oriental, I highly recommend it.

And always a surprise, speaking of this. I felt weird as I typed this last part and idly wondered if it was the pain killer the surgeon, laughing, gave me. All I noticed was acetaminophen, not realizing the other ingredient, tramadol, is a narcotic, opiate! Actually, a couple of hours have passed since I noticed it.

It’s surreal, this evening. I sit, trying to type, and not nod off, while waiting to leave for the airport, my mind tweaked with some morphine like twister, watching Al Jazeera report the global financial crisis, which is evidently much more serious than US media is reporting as markets and banks around Europe and Asia fail. And off I stagger to the Gulf.

AlJazeera news in English

Abloom Serviced Apartments in Bangkok

Urban Retreat Spa in Bangkok

What's up, Chatuchak?

I was not having much luck with what I’d come here to do and so went off to the 24 hour wholesale flower market a couple of nights ago. Well! For about 70 cents I got a dozen long-stemmed pink lotuses, a big bag of champaka blossoms, and delicious smaller jasmine sambac bouquets. As always, I love wandering around these wholesale flower markets. I was with my Omani friend, the one I met by chance the other night, and I certainly needed both of us to carry all my flowers. We got a huge bag of mushrooms, the round ones you see in Tom Yum soup, and I asked the lady making Pad Thai to please make me one with these!

I decided to attend a course on Thai cooking so a couple of mornings ago I presented myself at the Silom Thai Cooking School. It’s a pretty informal set-up, perfectly suitable for Thai food, which is so often served in inpromptu settings, on the street, and made to order. The proprieter is Nusi Mareh and the school is basically set up in a part of his house, with little stoves and woks lining the second floor balcony.

First it was off to the market, shopping for ingredients, Nusi explaining this and that, like the different types of ginger, unsuspecting vegetables, like the ultimately tiny pea eggplants, and the parts of herbs you might not think to use, like kaffir lime leaves or cilantro root for the green curry.

Then we took our purchases home. We made Tom Yum Soup, Pad Thai noodles, shrimp salad with sticky rice, green curry and a very weird, fun and tasty dessert of fresh water chestnuts soaked in “sapa” syrup til rubylike, then dipped in tapioca, boiled, cooled and dressed in sweet coconut milk.

I was startled at how easy Thai food is to make. Everyone says their cuisines are simple and easy but Thai really is. And I loved the kitchen basketry—baskets for straining, baskets for steaming the sticky rice, and even those large wide shallow baskets I always thought were just for shucking grains or hulling rice, to hold the washed and ready vegetables. There is way too much stuff to buy here.

And speaking of way too much stuff to buy, seldom have I had my ass so thoroughly kicked as it was today at the weekend market at Chatuchak. I was already feeling weird, have for a couple of days—probably a reaction to flying to the other side of the planet, not drinking enough water for the overwhelming humidity, and an abrupt change in diet. But I’ve been achy, dizzy, nauseous and very tired. Nonetheless, I’ve been managing ok.

So off I went to this massive market—I knew it was big. But I’ve cut my teeth in Cairo’s Khan al Khalili, in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, in Mexico City’s Zona Rosa! I’ve stayed for weeks in Old Hanoi, in Hong Kong’s Nathan Road, in India for Gods sake. I’ve been to Shanghai. I’ve been to Wal-mart. And I live in New York. Never mind that I don’t really like shopping. I actually do like shopping if I’m not looking at the same old crap, designer knock-offs, cheap Chinese trinkets, the typical tired wares of a New York city street fair, or the corporate designer boutiques that have metastasized all over my city. Put me someplace interesting, where someone still makes stuff, and I’m all over it.

As the skytrain pulled into the station I could see the rooftops of this market stretching along, throngs of people everywhere. It looked crowded and I was a little irritated to tell the truth. I figured I’d be in a swamp of rolex-louis vuitton. As usual I was wrong.

Within a few minutes of descending into the mayhem I was entranced with each stall. I guess I wandered in to the right area. Within the first 2 hours I was hooked, every shop was completely different, each one was interesting, I wanted to buy everything. It wasn’t cheap though, unfortunately. But it was really unbelievable. Eventually the labyrinth caught up with me and I was wandering, over what was probably one tiny corner of this giant market, looking for some sort of guide, and not finding anything. It was way too crowded for me, and it took me half the day to figure out I needed to buy some water. I kept making notes on places to come back to and eventually I realized that I no longer had any idea of where I was. There was food for sale, but nowhere to eat it out of the crowds. People people people, my god.
I bought a couple of small things and made my way out, hours later, unsteady on my feet and not sure how to approach it tomorrow. It kicked my butt completely, I was disoriented, exhausted and entirely overwhelmed.

Now I look at a guide book and it says to go on Saturday, as Sunday is “even more crowded.” This is something beyond my imagination.

link to Silom Cooking School

What a Mess!! I forgot to post this!!

That first distillation must have been beginners luck. The second was maybe beginners luck for Hassan. Or perhaps it was the false sense of security the universe seems to love lulling us with.

I guess I filled the still with too much water, for once the action began, I noticed there was a lot of liquid in the hydrosol but it was cloudy, like chocolate milk.

The bubbling gummy mess had risen like bubbles out of a washing machine overstuffed with soap, except this was a viscous, sticky, gummy hellish mess. Chunks of resin were actually stuck throughout the hose, meaning that they had traveled the entire condenser coil. Steam and long sticky gummy oozes bubbled out of every joint and connection.

I turned the heat down, and set about clearing the hoses and any clogs I could fine. I had no idea what to do, and so went intuitively. I turned the heat off, took off the gooseneck, and ladled out two big bowlfuls of sludge. I think that basically fixed it but by this time it was already a cleaning disaster and sticky ooze and tacky tar like goop was everywhere.

Frankincense is a textural nightmare. Even handling the gum dry can be a sticky enough experience, albeit a fine smelling one. But once water comes in, then frankincense turns into its evil twin. The color and many excellent constituents leach out into the water, leaving behind the troubled ones, the problem ones. These smell great, and when completely dry, are hard and relatively easy to scrape up from a smooth, flat and clean surface. When actually boiling, they transform into horrible pliable nearly liquid clumps that instantly seize any object they touch and it’s only then that their essential sticky nature reveals itself. Get it in your hair? You’ll be cutting your hair off, no question. If you get any object in the way of this fragrant tarpit, you’ll throw that item away unless it’s very very important. It’s just usually not worth the effort it’s going to take to clean it. I managed to get a little on my teeth…I had sucked on the hose to see if the coil was entirely, solidly blocked.

I distilled this frankincense for only an hour or so, and then started the long cleaning. After emptying the still, I ran a plain water distillation, so the high pressure steam could work it’s magic through the interior parts. In all, I cleaned for about 6 hours, not including myself. I believe the still is reasonably workable now.

We did get some essential oil, surprisingly, although no hydrosol. I tried to filter the coffee colored liquid and it wasn’t having any of it. The oil smells really nice though.

And just to show that otherwise rational, intelligent people can become blubbering idiots in the presence of frankincense, here is what I did next:

I had wondered if there was a use for the liquid sludge and brought it to the store to try and persuade people to take it home and use it. I wanted to know the effects on the skin. Reasonable enough I think.

But after this distilling fiasco, you’d think I’d had enough sticky mess. Instead, the following night, I gave Andra a big bowl of it to use in the bathtub. Predictibly, the tub is now covered in goop, and we had to scrub her with baking soda to get the sticky film off. But otherwise her skin feels nice! I think from now on we’ll stick with essential oil and hydrosol and leave the sludge for cleaning the sidewalk. Live and learn!

Imagine this

I had no idea the world would turn out like this. Or let me put it differently: I had no idea my life would turn out like this (not that I ever imagined how it could turn out at all.) But that doesn’t make it anything less of a surprise.

I used to travel for long periods of time, months and months together, with my luggage on my back, and wandering aimlessly, leaving everything up to fate and the gods of the road. Every new place I was in made me explode in exclamation points and every place was a new place.

Today, as usual, I have no idea what people on the street are saying. I don’t speak Thai. All I get is “Kaa” and “kaap” and the odd number, or the word for “rice” or “chile” or “fish.” This is pretty normal for me. Nowadays I don’t even understand what I hear in American streets, due to either too much loud music, or self defense, I don’t know.

I’ve managed to combine traveling and aromatics in a way I can barely describe now, let alone have described as a goal in the past. This is exactly what I would have wanted, had I been able to figure it out and explain it. All I could come up with was a vague feeling, but that vague feeling seemed to work really well. So let’s hear it for vagueness.

When I was about 14 my parents got me some glasses—my vision was not so great. Then they tried to make me wear them. Forget about it. I thought I looked dorky and that was not something I could tolerate but it wasn’t just that. I would put those glasses on and everything sharpened, I saw every detail. When I took them off my vision sank into blur and I felt I really needed those glasses to see. But my eyes would adjust back, not to some perfect sharp vision, but to a comfortable vagueness. I found I preferred to see the world as a comfortable blur…..In time, of course, my eyes adjusted just fine and are nowhere near as bad as they would be if I’d been weakening them with glasses all these years.

I’ve got a few places I go to, a few cities; Bangkok is among them. Asia has changed so much in the past 20 years, it makes a week in Bangkok an easy transition, from one big city to another. There is no more feeling of going off the edge of the world, the way one might still feel in Mauritania for example. I got myself a lovely furnished apartment here, right at a skytrain station. Banks are everywhere, and credit cards easily accepted if I need to. So looking for things for Enfleurage becomes easier, with less of the hurdles I used to take for granted. I calmly arrived in Bangkok, took a cab to my new apartment, got situated, bathed, ate and slept and the next day I was serenely out in the city, to the amulet market, the traditional medicine market, the agarwood market, like I’d been here for months.

Except that as usual the food in Thailand just blows me away. We have such limited little menus at Thai restaurants in the US! Just walk around any market here, and just look at what’s available right there, from coconuts. Just how many ways can you eat coconut meat? I can’t even explain them. But I ate 5 of those little steamed/fried coconut cakes with the jiggly insides and crispy outsides. How about bananas? I ate them flattened and roasted, saturated with some honey-like palm sweet syrup, on a stick. I didn’t yet eat the banana fritters, the steamed in banana leaves ones, the roasted ones, the fried with coconut cream ones, etc etc etc. I was trying to shop for some little inhalers and getting sidetracked: “Hello Auntie! I’ll have one of those please!” And soon I was carrying plenty of little baggies. I found a woman with fried tofu squares—She cut up a few and put them a bag with crushed peanuts and chilies and I trotted off like a little pup with a stolen treat, off to nibble it under the frangipani tree.

A couple of weird things have happened, of course. I went for the foot massage at a place I really liked and the guy was really good. He was so good in fact, that I booked a Thai massage with him right afterward. I am not usually one to accept a male massage therapist, but in this case it seemed ok—you aren’t naked for Thai massage. I was wrong, not about the naked part, but about being ok with a male therapist. It wasn’t. And it was even weirder because I wasn’t sure if he wanted sex or if it was some kind of business proposition. So whether he was very unprofessional or very professional I don’t know. I think it was the latter. But it was really weird, and icky. Yucky even. I don’t know why anyone would want something like that. It actually made me nauseated.

Later I went out to the agarwood market, in the Arab quarter. Everyone was closed for Eid. Oh well. The day was a fizzle as far as shopping was concerned. My smart little metal inhalers are only available in ugly plastic bottles, and there was no agarwood to be found. I was wandering down the soi in the drizzle and heard my name called and sure enough, an old friend from Salalah stood, astounded, in a puddle. So we went off to a tiny and amazingly delicious African Thai restaurant, for fish and fried morning glory vine.