nomad4ever

As mentioned earlier – people around the world love and crave Asian food. I’m not talking about your standard Chinese Restaurant. There is more to experience and taste out there. Let’s start to introduce some of the many delicious dishes you can find around this vast region.

Where to begin?

As I’m currently residing in Bali, Indonesia – naturally I have to start with food from Indonesia. Indonesia has a wide variety of tribes, religions, cultures and cuisines. The most dominant food you can find at almost every corner, street or restaurant is Javanese food – originally from Java – and for good reasons:

written by Chris

Our friend Anthony Bourdain is surely a unique character. He is an honest and down-to earth guy – fully respectful of other cultures or traditions – yet he speaks out his mind if something is horrible or brackish.

They don’t call him “Rogue Chef” for nothing.

And he is practically a living Nomad. He enjoys to travel around the world, trying out new foods and shooting a travel show, compared to standing in a kitchen 14 hours a day, 110 degrees, making 300 meals.

Simpatico!

written by Chris

Asia is a melting pot of different cultures, religions and values. Ever since Marco Polo made his way to this part of the world, people had their own ideas, misconceptions or prejudices without even knowing some basic facts first hand.

Some of those prevail even today, especially about mixed relationships.

With this I mean relationships between Asian and Caucasian women or men.

Everyone heard those kind of stories of bald, old, fat foreign men flocking to Asia and soon be seen hand-in-hand with an exotic beauty. Sooner than later they will buy a house and a pickup truck for their ‘new-found family’. A bit later they are back were they were before – just stripped of their money and other belongings. Need an example?

written by Chris

Volcanoes are a fascinating species. They are usually huge and quiet and suddenly can become very grumpy. That’s when they start to spit out smoke and ashes. But when they really are in a bad mood – all hell can break lose.

There were plenty of Volcano warnings recently in Indonesia, with Mount Kelut on Java getting the most media attention. He is in a densely populated area and the latest breakout was only as recent as 1990. Over the years Mount Kelut has claimed more than 15.000 lifes. Just yesterday when the Volcano Alert Status for Mount Kelut was downgraded from ‘breaking out any time’ to ‘breakout likely’; another Volcano spoke out once again with a big roar:

written by Chris

I wanted to take the chance to hand out a bit of link love and introduce the sites of 2 Bloggers in Bali, who I know personally:

Hileud is a young and talented Sundanese woman, who writes in both English and Bahasa Indonesia. She is very good at using WordPress and besides her great content is constantly updating and fine-tuning her site.

Too bad that my Indonesian isn’t that good yet; because there are persistent rumors that plenty of young Indonesian males were falling in love with Hileud just by reading her own poems and thoughts on her site. Isn’t that truly magic?

written by Chris

Some people dream of flying to the Moon. Others dream to retire early. Other humans would give an arm and a leg, if they could fulfill their dream of Swimming with wild Dolphins.

While at least the first dream is quite unlikely, if you are not happen to be Charles Simonyi, or any other Billionaire Employee or Entrepreneur – or live and breathe rocket fuel and work for NASA, ESA or the Russian Space Agency – the other mentioned Dreams are easier to fulfill:

If you happen to be in Indonesia, there are interesting locations to spot Dolphins in their natural habitat or even swim with them in a salt-water pool.

written by Chris

While I know funny kind of signs aka “Don’t pee in the elevator – Fine 2.000$!” from Singapore; I wasn’t aware that other countries are worried about their citizen’s hygienic toilet behaviors as well.

It came a bit as a surprise to see a similar sign at Bali’s beautiful Water Temple – Pura Ulun Danu – near the small town of Bedugul at Lake Bratan (“Holy Mountain Lake”). Bedugul is most famous for it’s Strawberry Fields, which provide a fresh, red harvest almost all-year-round due to the higher and cooler climate…

written by Chris

One day a rich Westerner who had made sqillions from speculating on the stock market was strolling along the beach and saw the fisherman pulling in his boat with his meager catch.

The rich Westerner stopped and remarked “not much of a catch today”. The fisherman replied “yes not much” but explained that his small catch was enough for him and his family.

The rich Westerner asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

written by Chris