The Hotpot Incident

Having wasted most of our second day in China due to the antics of the night before, we decided to head out that night to try our first taste of authentic Chinese cuisine. Wandering aimlessly around the vicinity of the hostel, we ended up in the first place we saw that didn't look too expensive, but didn't look too dodgy hygiene wise either.

As soon as we entered the door heads turned, but we were used to that from India. What we weren't used to was the massive language barrier we now faced. No one in the restaurant had a word of English, and likewise none of us have a word of Mandarin, a fact that triggered incredulous laughter from the staff when they realised.



A paper menu with just Mandarin and checkboxes was placed in front of us. We were preparing to just pick things at random, when the waitress grabbed my Mandarin phrasebook (god bless it) off me. She then showed extremely commendable patience in going through the menu reader section, pointing out things to us which were on the menu, at which point we'd nod and smile or shake our heads. It was a slow ordering system, but it worked.



Sichuan province is famous throughout China (and the world they claim) for it's fiery cuisine, and the most famous Sichuan cuisine of all is huguo, or hotpot. This dining experience involves a big gas-heated cooking pot in the middle of the table, which is filled with a cooking oil of your choice (and plenty of hot chillies) and then into which you place your food to cook it. We had unwittingly walked into a hotpot restaurant, which I slowly realised as I watched our waitress pour in the oil and turn on the gas.



Relieved that we had overcome the initial ordering challenge, we now got ready for the next one: chopsticks. John and I had never used them before, ever, and Gearóid's experience was limited at best. After our first batch of food had stewed over in the pot long enough, we tried to retrieve it, with huge difficulty. Still hungover from the night before, my brain was wondering what the hell was going on. It felt so alien, eating with them. Still, we all just about managed, though there was some mess on the table towards the end of the meal.

Feeling proud of myself that I had almost survived my first restaurant experience in China, and hotpot at that, I gleefully picked away at what was left over in the pot. Accidentally eating one of the red hot chillies, I instinctively grabbed some of the lettuce that was still sitting on the tray of ordered food by our table to cool my mouth down.

After a bad night's sleep due to an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, the next morning I had to pull out of the trip to the Panda Breeding Centre – I was bound to the toilet for the second time on this trip. The moral of the story is: when having hotpot, absolutely everything must be cooked in the pot – even the fucking lettuce.

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

I'd previously mentioned that Lakeside in Pokhara is very Westernised. Western food is promised all along the strip. There are even a couple of Italian restaurants, and a few steakhouses. A lot of effort has been put in to making Westerners feel more comfortable. Some of the food is really good, tasting as good as you'll get back home. One night I had a proper thin crust Italian pizza, which was made by Nepalese hands but was the best pizza I had eaten in a good while. There are hundreds of Nepalese employed here in the art of imitating Western cuisine.

And it's not just food, music is replicated too. On a walk down the main street our first night we heard bloody U2 being blared out from Club Amsterdam café by an all Nepalese cover band. There are a handful of coverbands here, who rotate between a few different venues, playing Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen, Jimi Hendirx, U2 and plenty other covers. And as cover bands go, they're not bad. Seeing a pony tailed Nepalese rocker pull off a Hendrix guitar solo is definitely one sight I didn't expect in Nepal. Maybe they should put that image on the Lonely Planet cover.



On probably our best night in Pokhara we even discovered a Jazz bar. We had a fun few drinks with a Canadian and two Israeli girls we met inside who were volunteering at a local orphanage. They were the only other people inside the place. But despite this lack of an audience, and to my complete surprise, four Nepalese guys took to the stage and started banging out some decent sounding jazz.



The drummer in particular was exceptional. Encourage by our enthusiastic applause, they played on past last call, and had to be asked to stop playing, at which stage we were thrown out. At this stage I'd forgotten where I was (and it wasn't just because of the beers).

It Had to Happen Some Time

I was delighted to get through India without once suffering the dreaded Delhi belly. I was under the impression that once I got past there then the food would be cleaner and safer. I'm not sure where I got this impression from, because it was completely wrong. Nepal is even worse than India for food hygiene.

I'm sorry to say I have first hand experience. My time in Pokhara was ruined by illness. This really grated me, because when you have such a fantastic place outside your room door, it's incredibly frustrating to be stuck behind it. I spent a lot of time pointlessly pondering what had caused my uncomfortable state, but it really could have been anything. Poor Gearóid had a bad case of it too.

I hadn't felt well ever since the bus journey to Pokhara. The first night I just felt under the weather, the second day I felt the same. I even felt a little better after a relaxing kayaking session out on the lake. But the third day it was full on keep close to the bathroom sickness. By that stage I was sick of being sick. I had picked up some Indian strength prescription only pills over the counter (!) in Delhi (I had heard that Ireland doesn't have anything strong enough). They worked. Be careful what you eat in Nepal.

Is food hygiene as dodgy in China?.

Rice Break

Arriving in Pokhara a few kilometres outside Lakeside, the backpacker hub, on the advice of Lonely Planet we lied to our taxi driver and told him we had a place booked already. This worked, he took us straight to where we wanted to go, and left without a fuss and without trying to bring us to somewhere where he'd make commission.

The area around the bus stop was in old Pokhara, which looked quite similar to a lot of other Nepalese towns we'd passed through. Lakeside however was very Westernised, the long main street lined with eateries offering steak and pizza, with numerous small roads off the main street containing a cluster of hostels. It was also amazingly quiet and clean. After three weeks of India, seeing a street almost clear of people and rubbish was a refreshing sight.

Lakeside gets it's name, amazingly enough, from being located along the southern bank of Phera Lake, giving the place an idyllic atmosphere. Pokhara was once a big stop on the hippie trail, and I could see why. The place still had a chilled out vibe, left over since those hedonistic days. I liked it immediately.



I know I mentioned how much I loved the food in India in a previous post (John and Gearóid loved it too), but I really really needed a break from bloody rice. And Pokhara was the place for it. After finding ourselves a place to stay, our empty stomachs were filled with pizza (me) and steak (the other two). The pizza wasn't great, but with not a rice grain in sight, I was satisfied (as were the other two). One Western splurge is acceptable, we told ourselves.

Food for Thought

Those of you that know me well will know that when it comes to food I tend not to be the most adventurous. Italian, Mexican, some Chinese and of course traditional Irish – that's been my palette, no more, no less, for the past six years or so (before that the range was even smaller). People had been telling me how jealous they were that I'd get to eat real Indian food, but Indian food never agreed with my taste buds. Pizza was my staple diet. I still ate like a student before I left.

All that had to change with this trip. I would have to try new foods, or else starve. For a while I considered starving, then decided that this had too many drawbacks. Strange foreign food it was.

A week in, and I'm very proud of myself. You can get pizzas and such in a lot of places, but I've stuck to Indian. I've tried everything on the menu, and liked a lot of it. A lot. It's delicious, healthy, cheap and filling. Even the (spoiler alert) campfire-cooked meal in the desert was outstanding. Perfect backpacking food. And not a Delhi belly in sight.



I might venture to the Indian restaurants a little more often once this jaunt is over. More gastronomic musings when we hit Nepal.