By popular demand: FOOD photos, including gudeg, cendol, and snake fruit

Today, a strictly food and drink post with photos of new foods we have had from Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. I begin with something unusual, a food that I did not like. In Jakarta, I ordered a rice dish that came with a salted egg. I learned that I am not a fan of the white part of this hard-boiled egg. Salted eggs are served with a noticeable number of dishes but are usually an add-on. I won't be adding it on! The yolk tasted like grainy aged cheese, but the white part was totally grainy, chalky and too salty. 

We usually have snacks and this is a display of the snacks we bought in Cirebon. Two kinds of peanuts (different seasonings) and cassava chips. More cassava chips to be found than potato chips, but the flavor is very similar. I bought these cassava chips because they were truffle flavored.

In Yogyakarta, we had a buffet dinner of traditional Indonesian food as part of our Ramayana Ballet experience. For the first time, I ate snake fruit. I had seen it on the breakfast buffet at our hotels but did not know what it was. I asked a waiter at the buffet, and he showed me how to peel it and eat it. The three sections that came from a snake fruit are on the plate with some papaya and pineapple. The snake fruit sections look like jackfruit sections, same color and large seed, and taste a bit like jackfruit, but are not nearly as good. I would eat snake fruit again, but I won't search for it like I do for jackfruit.

The next plate includes some of the main items from the Ballet buffet. Satay (meat on a stick), acar (the sliced veggies in the middle, a kind of relish), rice wrapped in a banana leaf (the dark green triangle on left), sauteed vegetables, fried tofu (the light brown chunk), and an egg roll with spicy sauce. Some of the sauces are truly spicy and some are flavorful spicy. Since I don't know Indonesian, it is always a roll of the dice whether any sauce I get is truly spicy or just flavorful!

This is gudeg, a common breakfast food specifically popular in Yogyakarta. At our hotel, a staff member was on hand at the breakfast buffet to show non-locals how to prepare the gudeg and what the ingredients are. Rice is the base. Curry chicken (bone-in), cooked coconut meat, a brown egg (soy sauce colored, much better than salt egg), tempeh (a soybean product just to the right of the brown egg half), and the main ingredient, stewed unripe jackfruit (the brown stuff that looks, and tastes, like pulled pork). I liked it and had it for breakfast several times at our Yogyakarta hotel.

I ate Pandang chicken in Yogyakarta. The chicken was tasty, but I was wary of the red sauce in the bowl. It was not tomato soup. It was a spicy sauce that I was able to eat with rice to tone down the spiciness. And that is a Balihai beer in the upper left corner of the photo.

In Singapore, we ate dinner in Chinatown one day. In the same vendor area as the chicken feet restaurant, we selected a stall restaurant that already had local people eating there. This is a portion of the menu board we used to select our meal. 

Phillip chose #43 sweet and sour pork (it was just like USA sweet and sour pork) and I chose #2, garlic water spinach and #26, twice cooked pork. The menu picture did not show that my pork would have vegetables, and I do like sauteed water spinach. When served, my dish did have vegetables, so I had plenty to eat and could not finish the portions. 

One of our earlier hotel's reception areas had a purple juice as a welcome drink for the guests. Our hotel in Malacca had that delicious purple juice every day for breakfast! It is butterfly pea lemonade. The butterfly pea is a popular creeper plant whose flowers are harvested to color rice and made drinks, usually tea or lemonade.

I had my first serving of cendol (pronounced chen-doll), a traditional SE Asian dessert. I will be having more of these! Not too sweet because of the coconut milk flavored with pandan leaves. The key ingredient in cendol is the green jelly (looks like green worms or green beans in the photo), made with rice flour, pandan juice, and other ingredients. You can't see them, but my order also had red beans. Shaved ice in the bottom of the bowl. And extra to a regular cendol order, I had mine with ice cream.

At the same time, both from a vendor on the Dutch Square in Malacca, Phillip ordered a Wells family favorite, a mango shake. His also had ice cream added as an extra ingredient. One of the best mango shakes he's had, he said. Almost every mango shake he has is the best one ever! 

And the final food picture to catch up on our gastronomical adventures, my dinner last night in Kuala Lumpur, maggi goreng ayam. I am learning some of the food-related words... ayam is chicken, goreng means fried, nasi is rice and maggi is a particular instant noodle (kinda like Ramen noodles). 

On the right side of the above plate is a calamansi, a small citrus fruit that has been on our plates from the Philippines to here, squeezed just like a lemon wedge would be at home to add citrusy zing to foods. Now you've seen some of the food we have eaten and drinks we have drunk! Tomorrow, we have a Malaysian cooking class. 

Final Singapore Photos and Travel to Malaysia

Chinatown and Little India in Singapore, but we skipped the chicken feet

After the disappointing Chinatown in Jakarta, we had high hopes for the Chinatown area of Singapore. We were not disappointed. Singapore’s Chinatown area was clean, well-organized and easy to navigate. Well, as easy as crowded rows of venders can be navigated! Immediately after surfacing from the Chinatown subway stop, we found fruit vendors.

Colorful fruit, but I had my eye on the fresh jackfruit, which I bought and we snacked on then and later in our hotel room. The vendors were selling quite a lot of durian, but it stinks! Some say it smells like a corpse. Our hotel has signs everywhere prohibiting durian anywhere in the hotel. 

Durian is very popular in Singapore and Malaysia

Red was the dominant color as we walked thru the vendors. 

This was a less crowded street. I couldn’t take a photo in the crowded streets because it would have just been of someone’s back. 

We noticed a pedestrian walkway above the busy street, so we went up to cross and found a delightful little seating area with a pagoda-type cover. Phillip rested while I took photos.

Walking down the staircase on the other side of the street, we entered a very crowded food vendor area. 

One of the first vendors sold exclusively chicken feet. Garlic chicken feet anyone? Spicy chicken feet? Only $6 (about $4.80 US) per box! If they’d sold it by the foot, I might have tried one, but I didn’t want an entire box. I ate chicken tails in Hanoi and didn’t like the texture, too fatty. 

We walked to the Little India neighborhood on Sunday. That was a truly crowded area with people jostling each other and blocking the narrow sidewalk. Lots of jewelry stores and clothing vendors. The area had an Indian Heritage Center where two women performed traditional dances on the steps. Their hands are blurred in the photo because they were moving too fast for my camera setting. 

We did not stay long in Little India. I photographed a church, but the significant part of the picture is not the church, but the people in front of it. I thought they were waiting to go into the church. Nope, they were waiting for the crosswalk signal. An equal number of people exchanged sides with them… and the sidewalk was maybe four feet wide, with people stopping because vendors were also set up on these sidewalks. We found the subway entrance before we found food vendors, so we headed back to our hotel.  

We traveled by bus from Singapore into Malaysia, with no problem crossing the border. Off the bus to go thru Singapore immigration, on the bus for about 2/10 of a mile, then off the bus for Malaysian immigration. For both, it was placing our passports in the reader which also had a camera. No passport stamps these days. 

Into Malaysia with two nights in Malacca

We had about three hours of Malaysian countryside to see before we came to Malacca. During that trip, we noticed hundreds of acres of palm trees, planted in rows. Because of the spacing, we knew they were not natural palm groves. Google came thru and we learned that Malaysia is the 2nd largest producer of palm oil (after Indonesia). These particular palms were brought from Africa in the early 1800s by the British who established palm plantations to harvest the oil. No coconuts, these are small nuts that grow in clusters and are a big business. 15% of the land in Malaysia is now dedicated to these palm plantations. 

Our first stop in Malaysia was Malacca, a UNESCO World Heritage city. We loved our hotel room at the Rosa Malacca Hotel; it was such an improvement over the room in Singapore. Singapore was nice, but it is known for small hotel rooms. Our room there, with a balcony even, was smaller than an inside cruise cabin. I knew what I had booked for Malacca, but Phillip didn't. As we walked the hall to our room, he thought we were walking the cellblock to our cell! Rosa Malacca was decorated in an award-winning industrial chic style. He was impressed when he saw the room, about four times the size of our Singapore room.

Concrete and brick walls, metal and wood furniture.

We had just one full day to see Malacca. Its UNESCO designation is for intangible culture. It was a port city during the 1500-1800s and a place where the Dutch and Portuguese traders both left significant impact.  The Dutch were in control longer so more of the buildings and artifacts are of Dutch origin. While walking toward the historic Dutch Square, we passed a park with military exhibits, quite incongruous with the city's culture!

The Malacca River flows into the waterway between Malasia and Sumatra and runs right thru the center of town. 

Along the riverfront, we found the Maritime Museum, and replica of an 1800s sailing vessel.

Before entering the 3-story museum, I had to remove my shoes. 

The most fascinating exhibit was the collection of models of the different trading ships that frequented Malacca over the centuries. 

After the museum, we made it to Durch Square, decorated with three of these painted cows. Note the windmill in the background.

Malacca is also famous for its trishaws, decorated bicycle carts that can take two people each around the historic area of the city. We did not take a trishaw ride, even though they were only 40-50 RM (about $10-12 US) per hour as it was just too hot. Lots of Hello Kity decorated trishaws as well as these Minions and My Little Pony decorations. 

Jonker Street is Malacca's famous vendor row, but it is only full in the evenings. 

entrance to Jonker Street

We walked thru this entrance and around a bit before returning to our hotel and preparing for the next day's (today's) bus ride to Kuala Lumpur. 

Yogyakarta zoo and on to Singapore's attractions

We had an uncommitted day in Yogyakarta, so we went to the zoo! We made a zoo visit in Hanoi a few years ago, and the on-line reviews of this Jogja zoo were positive, with admission only about $4 US each. A 20-minute Grab ride from our hotel and we joined lots of kids at the zoo. 

We did find the animals all appeared well cared for. No scrawny animals, every one had shade and water.

We were impressed with how many interactive activities the zoo had. Kids could get carrots and veggies to feed the huge turtles. 

Owls watched the children warily from their perches.

Several bird enclosures allow zoo patrons to get into enclosures with them, using these hanging plastic-coated chains at the doors. 

This handsome blue guy in that bird enclosure followed us around, mistaking us for a zoo attendant with food. The zoo worker did arrive while we were inside, so it was lunchtime!

This is an Indonesian native, a Sumatran tiger. Sumatra is an island northeast of Java, which is the Indonesian island we are on.  Like all cats, they sleep alot.

The zoo had several different kinds of monkeys, including loud howler monkeys who were screaming at people. This guy was not a howler and just looked pensive chewing the grass.

They didn't have monkey enclosures for patrons to enter. We wouldn't have gone in one of those anyway as we had close encounters with thieving monkeys in the Philippines and Cambodia. The zoo did have an enclosure with lemurs. This ring-tailed lemur walked around us and didn't try to steal. Cute guys!

We walked the entire zoo, but crowds had really thinned out by the time we got to the kangaroos and wallabies as just before that area, the free trams had a stop. Groups of kids and adults bailed out at that time and headed back because of the heat and humidity. 

wallaby, not kangaroo

At the very end, to get to the gate we had entered, the zoo had a very welcome "travelator," an uphill moving sidewalk.

We ended our time in Indonesia with a one-hour drive to the Yogyakarta international airport on Wednesday morning, May 6. It was quite a distance but the traffic, slow in town, was nothing like the Jakarta traffic had been when we arrived in Indonesia. An uneventful flight on Scoot Airlines and a Grab ride to our hotel and we were settled in Singapore. 

Yesterday, we visited the UNESCO-recognized Singapore Botanic Garden. Founded in 1859, this is the only tropical botanic garden listed as a World Heritage site. I had wanted to see it when we were here before, but we ran out of time, so it was our first stop in Singapore. We walked for several hours, going thru most, but not all, of the Garden.

Phillip almost stepped on a lizard on the first side trail we took

lots of trees with varieties of bromeliads

look like mangrove trees, but they aren't

swan on Swan Lake

An area of the Garden was called the "Ginger Garden." It had a huge variety of plants in the ginger family, more than just the ginger we eat.

spiral growth pattern

Walk of Giants was the name of an elevated boardwalk in the Botanic Garden. This is a view of it from a lower platform near a pond. This section of the boardwalk was covered with flowering vines.

In addition to lizards, we saw small squirrels throughout the Garden. 

The main area of the Botanic Garden was free to enter, but its Orchid Garden did require an admission fee. We've been to orchid gardens and nurseries in several other countries, so we didn't go in, but I did take a picture at the entrance of some orchids. 

The Botanic Garden had some landscaped, grassy areas, like this one near the bandshell where symphony concerts are held. 

The bandshell pool had lily pads that resembled platters.

We also saw a lizard trying very hard to tear into a fence surrounding new water plant growth. We think the fence was there specifically for him!

On survival shows, we hear about needles on tropical trees, probably like these wicked looking ones.

Robot mowers were used on the grassy areas to keep them trimmed. Each lawn area one had a couple of these rolling around, quietly mowing. 

Today, we rode the MRT (Singapore's wonderful subway) to the Gardens by the Bay. On our last trip to Singapore, we were only able to visit about 2/3 of the area, so we walked to side we hadn't seen yet. First, a reminder of the Garden's Supertrees.

So many plants and walkways...

And pools and lagoons (contributing to the 90% humidity!)

Fun items are in the Gardens as well. Here's a topiary dinosaur...

These birds walk on the lily pads as they search for bugs.

Another pool with the Marina Bay Sands Hotel visible thru the trees.

This is a different view of the hotel than what we saw during our previous trip.

We made our way back thru the Gardens by the Bay and into the Sands Hotel. Passing thru the hotel, we ended up on the top floor of the adjacent mall.

The mall's lowest level had a pool with gondola rides. (You can see it in the high-floor photo.) The gondola ride was very short and for $15 pp, we didn't think it was worth it.

And finally, a picture of Singapore's Merlion, the city's mascot, part lion, part fish. During our last visit, it was covered for reconstruction. Looking at it from across the Bay now, however, it seems that they let it chew tobacco or something. Not sure what the dark stain is. 

We will be in Singapore until Monday, the 11th, when we travel to Malaysia by bus, so we'll have more Singaporean activities to post.