One of the great things about traveling is to sample the regional cuisine, and then, for a bit of fun, (and a bit of a hit or miss affair) occasionally sample the local take on another cultures food. With that in mind I was taken to one of the best Muslim restaurants in Bombay, the Delhi Durval, just opposite the Leopold’s Café. Apart from having a great menu, its also culturally interesting – entire Muslim families, old men with beards dyed bright orange, and where you get to see how a woman clad from head to toe in hijab, gets to eat. All that aside, the quality of the local menu is superb – plenty of lamb of course, but no pork and no alcohol. Feeling adventurous, we tucked into the sheep brains masala (the brains were creamy and tasted a little like cottage cheese) and the lamb’s trotters. Thinking about the latter, as little trotters were served in a delicious, tangy sauce with tomato and coriander, this must be a dish for the wealthy. Lambs grow up into sheep, and are productive in wool and dairy products, eating them therefore is the height of decadence. There’s not much meat on a lamb’s trotter, mainly a bit of skin and gelatine (which is fine) but the delight is saved for last – the age old ritual of bone marrow sucking. It all felt rather Biblical, and I’m sure tales of marrow munching occur in the Koran as well. Abraham would have recognized the ritual. Then, full of Islamic sheep, I spotted the restaurants alternative menu – and it was Chinese. I took a good look to ascertain the authenticity, and actually, the internationally traveled “vegetable spring rolls” were all present and correct, as were “Sliced Chicken in Schezwan Sauce”, “Chicken Lung Fung Soup” and Vegetable, Mushroom and Bamboo Shoots”. But even these, apparently standard Chinese dishes reveal both the complexity of China, and of China’s perception by the rest of the world, and old habits die hard. Chinese restaurants will note “Sichuan” Sauce, not “Schezwan”, the latter being based on the Wade-Giles system of romanization of Chinese characters invented in 1892, pre-dating the current pinyin system which was actually adopted by the Chinese government in 1952. Overseas Chinese restaurants still often (and charmingly in my view) use the Wade-Giles system, demonstrating that old habits die hard – it is more than 50 years out of date, and demonstrates just how old the Chinese overseas diaspora – most of whom still use Wade-Giles – is. Then, “Lung Fung” is Cantonese, from Hong Kong, basically translating as “Wind of Dragon”. Quite what effect that would have as a soup on ones digestive system I cannot imagine. The menu goes on to specify “Vegetable Hakka Chow Mein” – with the Hakka being a Southern Chinese people, inhabiting the coasts of Fujian and Guangdong, and “Chicken Manchow” – a reference to the Manchu, who were the ruling class in China until 1912. The Chinese menu therefore, has become a sort of time capsule in which both language and food have been handed down as they were from 50 —100 years ago. That’s quite impressive, and makes the menu itself rather enjoyable.

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Today (May 8th) is my birthday, so what better subject to provide to recognize that than a bottle of French wine? No ordinary wine either – I discovered it at the ridiculous price of USD8 in a local store in Beijing, which pleased me no end, and noticed the “Depuis 1531” slogan on it. Since 1531? Wow. Interest piqued and taste buds at the ready, I both opened the bottle – it’s certainly a productive cork that zooms out – and imbibed. Pears, mainly, but creamy and naturally sparkling. Definitely worth eight bucks. It turns out that Bulle de Blanquette has been made in the region of Limoux in Central France since 1531, with the Monks of St. Hilaire being responsible. They invented the process, some 150 years before Champagne was recorded. It’s also interesting to note that Dom Perignon, an esteemed Monk himself, stayed in the region before leaving to travel to Epernay and begin making methode champenoise there. It was the St. Hilaire Monks who first tied corks to the bottles to prevent the bubbles exploding, and they still follow tradition and bottle at the time of the full moon in March ready for the warmer weather to start the secondary fermentation that produces les bulles (the bubbles). All the grapes for Blanquette have to be harvested by hand into small boxes to prevent bruising, and the regulations also limit the yield to ensure a quality product. Growers who can produce and market Blanquette are limited to a set area of 41 villages around the 2000 year old town of Limoux.
Many producers follow an organic code for growing the Blanquette grape which is also known as Mauzac.

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Back to Beijing, and a beautiful Spring. With the Olympics restraints on traffic and pollution still in place, the city now has more blue skies, and can be revealed for what it used to look like many years ago – big skies, especially around Tiananmen Square, which has been spared the onset of High-rise development that has appeared in the East. No building here is more than three stories high, and from Tiananmen Gate, where Mao proclaimed the “standing up” of the Chinese people in 1949, one can see again, large blue vistas which betray the cities Mongolian origins.

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One of the great pleasures about traveling around Greater India (over the past twelve months I have visited India eight times, Sri Lanka twice, and Nepal and the Maldives once) are the gem dealers that set up shop everywhere and are so prevalent. Highly knowledgeable they are too, often being family businesses that have remained so for several generations. They vary from the wooden stores and wizened Muslim dealers in Katmandu, to the efficient, well-meaning and dynamic Sri Lankan traders, many with their own mines, to the grand, such as the gem dealer in the Taj in Bombay. Experts all, they have prices for all budgets, so one doesn’t need to be alarmed by the prospect of entering. All I have found genuinely helpful and educational.   

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Weekends in Bombay are always fun, the city connects with its coast much better than Shanghai or other coastal Chinese cities do. In fact, often flying out of Pudong and heading south, the coastline of eastern China is intensively dotted with scattered islands…sailing around those – if it were allowed – would be great. But the Taiwan issue and a fear of lots of Chinese people getting out of their depth on lilo’s has put the kibosh on that. Bombay, however, is an archaic, but charming maritime paradise. The cities wealthy and elite all have yachts, and have vessels of different shapes and sizes, or at least know someone who does. My office building landlord is a case in point. Having served as a skipper in the merchant navy for many years, he set up his own tug boat operation in Bombay and that did well. Retiring a few years ago, yet not wanting to give up his nautical freedoms for a medium sized apartment with walls, he purchased a 1980’s Dutch trawler. As one generally does when faced with retirement.

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Weekend sailing in Mumbai. You don’t get this in Pudong.

I’ve been in Mumbai the past ten days having flown in from Shanghai,  and the contrast is almost immediately apparent. Mumbai’s new international arrivals terminal deposits you at the taxi queue after just 20 minutes, and although the drive to Colaba is still a pain, it’s no worse than doing the Pudong trek to Puxi. While Shanghai – a city I lived in for five years and always enjoy visiting – was good, it remains relatively quiet. Expats have been leaving, and locals are not shopping as much. It’s hardly a surprise, China’s exports account for 40% of its GDP, so people are bound to be suffering, and the Governments stimulus plan isn’t geared at residents of cities like Shanghai. The city is ticking over, but it’s lost the dynamic entrepreneurial can-do attitude it took over from Hong Kong back in 1996.

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The Royal Bengal Tiger has been spotted for the first time in twenty years in North Bengal’s Dooar forests. Two Tigers were spotted, in a sign that mating may be occurring in the region. Tigers are solitary animals, who only come together, now during the spring, and occasionally in the late autumn to mate. Less than 3,000 Royal Bengal Tigers are left in the wild, down from 40,000 at the beginning of the last century. The species is known to have four markedly different sub-species, veering from the classic gold and black striped animal of the jungles, to almost pure white in the Himalayan regions of India.

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Przewalksi’s Wild Horses

I’ve been speaking at a United Nations Development Program event in Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia. It’s a city I know well (I wrote a best selling guidebook about traveling throughout Mongolia two years ago) and I’m pleased to be back, old friends to see, and some catching up to do. The conference is fine and goes off well. Mongolia is a beautiful country, and although I know the weather is going to be chilly, I’ve tacked on an extra four days to go see the Mongolian wild Pzrewalski’s Horses in Hustaai, to the west of UB, and then to take a quick trip south into the Gobi. The horses are endemic to Mongolia, and are quite different from domesticated horses. They also very nearly became extinct – the world population was down to just 17 animals (3 stallions) in the 1970’s. Still very rare, there are about 350 of them in the Hustaai reserve.

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Unawattuna

It’s only a short hop from Chennai, on India’s south-east coast to Colombo in Sri Lanka, and the home of my good friend, Simon and his wife Pauline. Retired now from positions in both Kenya and China, Simon lives in Kandy, Sri Lanka’s central city, and is slowly building for himself on about 10 acres of land at Nuala a ranch from which he can pontificate upon life, the comings and goings of the local wild elephant, the remarkable plumage of the Indian Pita, and all while downing a chilled pink gin. Lucky bugger. However, I don’t have the time to catch the train to Kandy, and am instead to meet with him in Colombo, but not before I’ve taken a five day rest in the wonderfully named Unawattuna resort in the far south of the island, a little further on from Fort Galle.

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Mumbai Recovers

After the media frenzy of my published comments on China Briefing concerning the unintentional leaking of the Chinese governments RMB/US exchange rate position, February was spent mainly in India assessing our local market position and reflecting on business confidence, particularly in Mumbai following the November terrorist attacks on the city. My firm has been investing in India – we have five (albeit small) offices there, and the global financial crisis, coupled with the Mumbai attacks, had lead to questions over how much progress we would be able to make during 2009. Happily, I found Mumbai in a resilient mood, albeit one that was still showing off its scars. The Taj Hotel, wish had been the scene of much bloodshed, has reopened, and Leopold’s café, a popular haunt amongst locals and tourists alike, was packed, even with bullet holes in the pillars, plate glass windows and holes in the floor where grenades had gone off. The attitude was a mix of defiance, and of fatalism. Still, it was sobering as I knocked back a lime soda to think of what had happened to the people directly in the firing line of the bullets. 

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