The King of Fruits

Over the weekend Eric and I joined our friends Paulette and Jeff on an epic Penang adventure. Our mission was to try Durian, the king of fruits.  For most westerners, durian is a stinky, spiny tropical fruit that smells up elevators and torments small children and pregnant women.  Locals are crazy for durian and there is a month long festival to celebrate the king of fruits.  Durian is an acquired taste for most westerners.  Eric and I are convinced that whether or not you enjoy durian is genetic.  We have yet to meet an expat that openly enjoys eating it.

Durian is an attack on the senses.  The smell is pungent and can be best described as a rotting mango that has been left in the sun for days.  The smell lingers long after the fruit is gone and is noticeable to anyone who has ever come in contact with it.  When we first arrived, 11 months ago, the smell was nauseating.  I could hardly ride the elevator without dry heaving if someone had brought a durian home. Now, the smell doesn't bother us and we find it to be rather sweet and not as repulsive. 

 

The outside of this fruit is very spiny and could cause some damage if it fell out of a tree and hit you in the head.  It is also deceptively heavy.  Our small durian weighed at least 1kg. 

The inside of the fruit is a complete juxtaposition to the outside, soft gooey flesh that is swaddled and protected by the hard outside shell. 

The texture of the fruit is sticky and gooey, while being meaty and chewy.  It's pretty gross.

Not only is the texture bad the taste is worse. Just thinking about how to describe the taste is making my stomach sour and my toes curl.  We've spent the last few days trying to describe the taste and here are a few of our favorites: 

Durian Tastes Like

Caca or another 4 letter word
Rotten fermented onions

A rotten peach that was eaten out of a sweaty armpit

Jeff was the champion eater at our table, managing to eat his entire piece of durian.  Eric took one bite and almost puked.  Paulette swallowed her bite and was finished.  I gave in after two bites.  All in all, durian may be the worst thing we have ever eaten. 

To wash down our durian and get the awful taste out of our mouths, we sampled the Queen of fruits, the mangosteen.  We love mangosteens, they are sweet and delicious and are the complete opposite of durian.  Yummy!

The Queen of fruits

We capped off our fruit exploration with some rambutans, another fleshy and sweet fruit that was so much better then the king.

Bangkok!

Ok, so we have a travel list. It's a long list of all of the places we want to visit while we are in SE Asia.  There are the places that "we must" visit and others that we will visit if we have time and money.  At this rate, our list is a bit ambitious but we are making a large dent in it.  Last weekend, Eric had (another) long weekend and we decided that a visit to Bangkok was in order.  Bangkok is one of a few direct flights from Penang and perfect for a long weekend visit.  A short hour and a half flight and we were in one of SE Asia's biggest cities.  Perfect.

We were warned by friends that traffic in Bangkok is unbelievable and to avoid getting into any automobile.  Luckily, the city has done a fantastic job with their public transportation system and getting around is a breeze, not to mentioned air conditioned, cheap and fast! We managed to move around the city on the Metro, Sky Train and Water Taxis without any problems and only took one taxi (which we ended up getting out of and walking to our destination because it was faster).

Our two big goals for our trip were visiting Temples and Shopping.  We visited Wat Pho and the largest Reclining Buddha in the world.  This was one of our biggest draws to Bangkok after seeing Todd English's visit to this temple on PBS.  It was awesome and less touristy then other temples we had been to.  

We took a water Taxi across the river to Wat Arun, a stunning pagoda where you are able to climb the steps of the very intricate and detailed temple. 

Young Monks joined us on our river taxi to Wat Arun

Beautiful Wat Arun

The steep steps to the top

After experiencing Bangkok's temple scene and hot temps, we settled in for some good Chang beer and fried rice.  Eric made friends with our waitress...

We spent an entire day shopping.  Bangkok is known for it's markets and malls and let me just say, they do not disappoint.  While, shopping is not our "thing" we did check out the famous Chatuchak Markets and Siam Paragon Mall.  We left with a few finds but nothing overwhelming.  We had a nice lunch at the Paragon Mall and were witness to a young couple's proposal and engagement.  It was very sweet.  We also ventured to the famous backpacker haven, Koh San Road, where we determined that we are officially old.  We had an early dinner and took a taxi back to our hotel on the river. 

Here are a few more Bangkok pictures:

This is what happens when you are hungry and over templed

If you look close enough you will see that I am only smiling to hide my heat rash

Thai engineering at it's best.  I wonder how many homes and business this powers...

An American engineer pondering all of the code violations...

When cars die, their engines' become boat motors...

Final Thoughts: I'm glad we visited Bangkok and can say that we have been there.  It's a big Asian city that is modernizing while holding on to and honoring the old ways of life.  I don't think we will go back to visit but it's a worthy stop if you are in SE Asia.  I will say that Bangkok during the day is much much different than Bangkok at night.  The sex trade and oppression of women is very much alive and well in Bangkok.  Please keep that in mind when traveling here.  As a social worker, the exploitation is overt and a hard pill to swallow; but it's life and the truth of thousands of women here. All in all a good weekend, a good city with excellent transportation, people and food!

How to Swim Backstroke without Burning your Retinas

I've been coaching/teaching A LOT of swimming these past few months!  I started my own, very small, off-season training program with the kids at Dalat and have been teaching private lessons at our pool almost daily.  It has been fun and rewarding and I have a great tan!

Last week, I planned on teaching a backstroke clinic to my swimmers.  Unfortunately, the sun decided that it needed to give us all our monthly dose of Vitamin D instead.  It was so bright out that it was borderline blinding. 

We tried to swim the practice as planned, the majority of the sets had the swimmers on their backs starring right into the fireball in the sky.  After doing a few demos and realizing that the kids complaints about their eyes burning were actually justified, I attempted to engineer a "sun shade" that would shield the sun and allow them to work on their backstroke.  I tried sticking hand paddles under swim caps or tying them to goggles, just for some relief from the sun.  Nothing seemed to work...until I looked over at our youngest swimmer who had borrowed her mom's sunglasses and was happily swimming backstroke down the pool sporting large bug eyes and a wide mouth smile!

 Problem solved.  When the sun is too bright, find some sun glasses and tuck them into your cap and off you go!!  I will be adding sunglasses to next year's gear list.

Five Years

Five years ago today, Eric and I were married in front of our family and friends in Ann Arbor.  It is hard to believe it's been that long ago. Wow! Happy Anniversary Eric.  I love you.

Dear Langkawi...We LOVE you!

Last weekend we made our 3rd trip in 10 months to our favorite quick and easy island vacation spot.   Now, I bet I know what you are thinking, why are Jenn & Eric going to Langkawi again?  Don't they live on an island and isn't there several thousand other islands they could explore?  Here is our response: 1. Our visits to Langkawi are fun, memorable and we discover something new each time we visit.  2. When I was a kid, our family had a cabin "up north" in Michigan, which we would visit nearly every month.  I think it's fair to say that Langkawi is our "up north" in Malaysia.  3.  Langkawi is a duty free island, meaning you can have $1 Tiger beer and stock the liquor cabinet.  4.  The beaches are clean and the resorts are very nice.  5.  The island has not been ruined by tourism and still remains connected to nature.  6. You can fly from Penang to Langkawi direct in 25 minutes.  I could go on and on, but instead I'll tell you about how awesome our weekend was.

We joined Nikki & Leon and Lou, Mia & Eric for a weekend away.  Our friends share our love for Langkawi and we all could use some downtime at the pool after a busy couple of weeks.  Eric and I decided to stay at a different resort than our friends, as we were celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary (a weekend early). When we checked into our resort, we were immediately upgraded from Temple Tree to the more private and intimate Bon Ton resort next door.  We loved our stay at Bon Ton.  We felt pampered in our traditional Malay house on stilts, that was complete with an air conditioner, two person wood bathtub (!!), ceiling shower that drained through the floor, great breakfast, complementary wine tasting, a surprise anniversary cake and french pressed coffee!  So good!!

Our traditional Malay house at Bon Ton

Check out our bathtub! 

The view that accompanied our breakfast

We also went on an excellent mangrove tour.  We were able to see an abundance of wildlife and we had a very knowledgeable guide.  At the end of our day, we each planted a new mangrove tree, which was a great touch to the eco-friendly tour.

Gorgeous Mangroves

Viper

Can you see the snake?

Yellow King Fisher waiting for the right moment for lunch

Sea Eagle

A large monitor lizard that we almost hit with our boat

Spitting Fish

Apart from our tour, we took it easy for the rest of the weekend, spending time at the pool and eating great meals with our friends.

After this trip to Langkawi, I have decided that the connection that I feel to this island is what I thought I would find in Bali.

Who knew that our Bali, would be so close.  Peaceful, beautiful and a place for us to connect with each other and with nature.  Langkawi, we will be back...probably next month!

Cinco de Mayo, Buddha's Birthday and a Super Moon

We had a very busy May 5th!  Not only was it Cinco do Mayo but it was also Wesek Day -- the celebration of Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death.  To top the day off, we also experienced a "super moon" which was the biggest and brightest moon of the year and was 14% larger than an average full moon!  To celebrate this auspicious conglomeration of multicultural holidays and events, we hosted a drinks and tapas party/potluck.  Eric and I spent most (all) of Saturday prepping for festivities which included making a mountain of quesadillas, a vat 'o pico de gallo, mixing margaritas, stocking our coolers with good beer, finding good Mexican/Latin music and lighting candles for Buddha. 

We had over 50 people join us for the festivities. 

 There were A LOT of shoes at our front door

Some of us, young and old ventured down to watch the Wesek Day parade near our house.

Can you identify the instruments these kids are playing?

The floats were pulled by people...

and followed by their generators...

Those who did not make their way down to the parade, watched from our back balcony.

Can you see them??

After the sunset, it was time for the super moon to take center stage.  Unfortunately, it was a cloudy evening.  We were able to catch a quick glimpse of the moon as it rose over the bay.

We wrapped up the night with good friends, good food and good drinks!  Our first party was a success!  Both balconies were used, our house was full and people left happy!

I wonder when the next Hartner get together will be....