Tickets have been purchased.
Tentative routing:
Cairo->Bangkok
Bangkok -> Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai->Hanoi
Hanoi->Hoi An
Hoi An->Nha Trang
Nha Trang->Saigon
Saigon->Mekong Delta
Delta->Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh->Siem Reap
Siem Reap->Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpir->Manila
Manila->Seattle
Man, I got tired just typing that out.
My karma paid off in truck loads today. Santa delivered. Whatever metaphor you want, I scored today, and I scored BIG.
I don’t know what I have done to deserve, but I am gonna take it.
Today was the Annual European Christmas Bazaar. It is held in early December every year here in Cairo. All the embassies and development agencies and NGOs and companies that work in Cairo get together and rent out the tennis courts and surrounding area at the Nile Hilton.
They set up tables and sell Christmas-y type items that are indicative of their respective countries. They also sell other, non-christmas related items that typify the country in question.
We didn’t know about this affair last year. Some friends were talking about it this year and we decided to go. Kaddee wanted to go shopping for some small christmas items, and I had heard that they had imported beer and wine.
I figured, I would sit in the beer garden and drink what I could get my hands on.
Now, if you have read the blog, you know that I am kind of a beer guy. We spent 2 weeks in Belgium, the sole purpose of which was to drink beer. You can read my trip report starting here.
Anyway, I had figured if I was lucky I would get a couple of German lagers. Maybe a darker christmas ale. Hoo boy, was I wrong. And I gotta say, I have never been happier to be wrong than I was today.
First off, I almost didn’t even go. It has been a late night weekend for us and we haven’t gotten a lot of sleep. Combine that with Kaddee’s usual end of the semester cramming-everything-in-at-the-last-minute, and we were both tired.
We were supposed to meet people outside our apartment building at 9am.
I rolled over and looked at the clock and it was 8:45. Uh-oh. We gotta get moving. Maybe I’ll just stay in bed. I decided to get up.
Jump up, do the college shower (brush teeth and hair, quick swipe with the deodorant, baseball cap and good to go).
We take a taxi to the Hilton and the traffic is all screwed up. Morning traffic usually isn’t this bad. Well the traffic was screwed up because of the BUSES of people going to this Bazaar.
Many of the ex-pats, and almost all ex-pats with children, live in a part of Cairo called Ma’adi. Which is, on a quiet traffic day, at least a 1/2 hour drive from downtown. So many of the various organizations, embassies and companies, rented buses to transport people.
We get into the Hilton and I buy my ticket to get in and I am handed a ticket and a slip of paper with the rules for purchasing alcohol.
It said that purchases were limited to:
Now I wasn’t really awake yet, and I was very confused by this. I looked at one of our friends who told us about it and asked “What do they mean ‘2 boxes'”. She replied, I guess that means 2 cases.
My knees felt week.
My mouth dried up.
It got very warm.
I stood in place and tried to parse this information.
I asked, “you mean they are selling european beer and wine TO GO?”.
Her response was
DUH.
To quote my good friend ChrisD, “Why was I not informed.”
There was a lot of “I thought you knew” and “well yeah, why do you think all these little old ladies have wheeling suitcases.”
Guh!
So in we go. Kaddee and I split up to locate beer.
She found it first.
At the Belgium table.
She called me on my phone to summons me.
I arrived at the table and they had 6-packs of Duvel, Leffe and cases of Hoegarten.
My knees got weak again.
In comic book fashion, my jaw dropped to the ground, my eyes bugged out, my hat jumped off my head.
And the really unbelievable part: I was speechless.
I really was having cognitive difficulties.
I could turn around and see the Egyptian Museum. And then turn back and see Belgian beer.
I could look down the crowd of people, and see women wearing headscarves. And then I could look back and see Belgian beer.
I could look at another table and see hand painted ornaments with santa riding a camel. And then I could look back and see Belgian beer.
I think I stood there for what seemed like forever trying to process all this.
Finally, the brain engaged and I got traction.
“How much [at this point I am pretty sure my voice cracked and I sounded like an underage youth trying to convince the nice man at the liquor store that I was of age] can I buy.”
The nice man said 2 boxes per person. A box being a case of 24 bottles.
I had no way to carry the beer. The nice man said, that’s ok and waved over one the Hilton porters.
I bought 3 cases of Duvel which took all the cash we had and was as much as the porter and I could carry.
I hightailed it outside, got in a taxi and went back to the apartment.
Put the beer away, grabbed a rolling suitcase and headed back for my last case.
They were sold out of the Leffe and Hoegarten [which is ok with me really.] So I bought another case of Duvel.
And some Hungarian sausage.
And some Italian sausage.
We celebrated with some nice cheese croissants and an Irish coffee.
Kaddee and the women folk went off to another sale at a pottery shop.
I went home to hoard my gold^H^H^H^Hbeer like a dwarf in a mine shaft.
It is going to be a VERY Merry Christmas, this year.
[Edit: I forgot to link to some photos.]
So we trained down from Mechelen to Brussels for one more night. We picked up our luggage that we had left at the Marriott when we swung through Brussels at the start of our trip.
We began our last day of beer tourism trying to get to 3 places we didn’t make it to on our first pass through Brussels (Mort Subite, t’ Spinnekopke and Bier Circus) as well as one place we did visit and we wanted to visit again, Delirium Cafe.
We started at Mort Subite. It is a place of faded glory. All the beer tourists, plus many non-beer tourists, have this place on their tours. It is worth going for the architecture and to see professional snotty wait staff at work. Though they were nice to us.
We had
We then went to t’ Spinnekopke. It is a local’s place, but is well regarded within the beer community. It was here that we really needed our “beer to order while reading the menu” AND our “backup beer”. They were out of our first choice, so we had to go with the backup beers:
We spent a lovely hour or so sitting outdoors in a little square in a quiet residential neighborhood full of young women wearing headscarves chasing their rugrats. Reminded me of Cairo.
Except for the good beer part.
And the quiet part.
And the women in Cairo don’t chase their rugrats so much as let them run around and occasionally yell at them part.
But other than that, it reminded me of Cairo.
From there we were off to Bier Circus. Another great place with a fantastic beer list. According to Kaddee’s notes, we ate there and really enjoyed the food. [shrug]. We drank:
And we managed one more beer at Delirium Cafe. We had:
Then it was off to our hotel room for a bottle of Malheur 12. A beer bottled and finished like a champagne. Not bad, but we both prefer Deus.
Sleep.
[Edit: A couple of crappy photos here]
We spent 3 nights in Mechelen at the Hotel Carolus. It is attached to and part of Het Anker brewery.
Our hotel room looked right out over the brewery yard. There is a lovely pub and restaurant attached to the brewery. We drank a few pints of what they had.
We had:
We had multiple rounds of these, both at the brewery and elsewhere in town over the 3 nights.
One of the nice things for me about staying at the hotel was the smell of the wort. Anyone who has brewed beer, or been around beer being made, knows the smell of wort. (It is basically unfermented beer). The smell is sweet and heady. A great smell if you love beer. It was a constant background smell at the hotel.
In town itself, we started at der Akker. This is a student and “artsy folk” kind of pub. (ie: cheap). Mechelen is a university town. We drank more Carolus.
From there we went to t Ankenjte where we drank more Carolus. Kind of a one beer town.
Then we wandered over to d’Afspraak and drank La Choufee and Postel Tripple – slightly malty and floral. BIG flavor and nose.
There seems to be a style of pub in Mechelen (and maybe other parts of Belgium) that are referred to as “Praat”. You will see a pub listed as Food and Praat. Some place are listed as Art and Praat. One place was listed as Piano, Mon,Wed,Fri, and “Praat” the rest of the week.
The best I could figure out from context and seeing the word in other contexts is that praat means it is a “chatting” pub. A place where one goes to chat with friends. In other words, no loud music. Some places has “praat gardens” that were quieter than inside the pub. A neat concept.
From there we went to the last “must see” place on my list. The “Den Stille Genieter”.
I don’t know how to describe this place, or the owner. It is a dark place, PILED high with old newspapers, and holiday decorations from Christmas, and Halloween, from who knows what year. The gentleman that owns the place is rather taciturn. I ordered 2 beers and when he brought them, he held them up and shrugged his shoulders as if to say “which beer goes where?”. Rather OCD/aspergers/autistic.
In addition to this, the man casts an odd spell of his bar, none of my pictures came out worth a damn. But I did find a reference to the place online. But enough of the ambiance! What did we drink?
Welllll,
And when I paid the bill, the total was 12.25Euro. That is RIDICULOUSLY cheap. Ahh. I could live in Mechelen.
All kidding aside, it would not be a bad place to live. It is a smallish town, on the quiet side. But the university keeps it lively enough during the school year and it is about a 1/2 hour by train to Brussels. If I were ever to be so “lucky” as to land a job in the EU parliament (snork) or work for NATO, I would live in Mechelen and commute to Brussels.
I spent the next day in bed. I never really got up. It wasn’t really a hangover, i think it was just trip fatigue. I slept away the day. A waste I know, but it could not be helped.
We did have a lovely dinner at the Hotel Carolus pub, along with more of their beer (of course)
Finally, we had to leave for Brussels.
We needed to kill a night before heading to Mechelen. So we spent one night in Antwerp. Mainly to head to Wesmalle. So arrived at Antwerp, put our luggage in a locker and headed for the bus station outside.
It is about an hour long bus ride from Antwerp central. So, we hopped the bus and headed to the “Cafe Wesmalle”.
Now, we did not know exactly where it was, but there is a stop listed on bus schedule as “Westmalle.” So we figured we could hoof it to where the monastery was from the bus stop.
Well, the bus stop is in front of here. Right in front of the cafe which is across the street from the monastery. So we went in for a beer and a trappist cheese plate. They have the WestMalle Dubble on tap and the Triple in bottles. We had one of each and they do a half and half: Half dubble half triple. I am not normally a fan of half and half pours, but this was pretty tasty. So we had another.
We asked about getting into the monastery/brewery for a tour and were told we could go ring the bell and ask, but unless we had made arrangements in advance it was HIGHLY unlikely we would get in.
We decided to stroll down there anyway. It was a pleasant little walk but we were denied at the gate. I did get a couple of “spy shots” through the gate when they let in a delivery truck. :-). So we strolled back to the cafe and had another beer.
I noticed that we were, bar far, the youngest people in the cafe. Most of the people in the place were old enough to be our parents. Kind of odd. Perhaps we were there during “blue plate special” hours.
Fully beer logged we hopped on the bus back to town. We caught a quick snooze or two on the bus.
We then headed off to our hotel[which I remember nothing about].
The next day was a quick day. Kaddee had heard about this “gorgeous” pedestrian tunnel under the river that was decorated with all this art deco tile work.We found it. It was a straight, boring white tiled tunnet. The escalator down has some tiles. That was it. Oh well.
Onward to Mechelen.
[Edit: Photos from Ghent available here.]
So we woke up the next morning feeling FAR better than we had any right to after the long day and night of drinking. Perhaps walking 40 minutes back to our B&B helped.
We decided to stay one more night in Ghent, but the B&B we were in had no rooms available. So we had breakfast and I did some phoning and found a very funky attic room in an artist’s house. He was a painter, sculptor and potter. A rather eclectic individual. Somehow, when I first examined the room I missed the TRAPEZE that was hanging from the ceiling over the bed. Just call me Mr Observant. [In my defense, it was all coiled up and you had to untie it let it down. Ahem.]
After schelpping our luggage there we set out for our day. I had wanted to go the the Ghent Design Museum. It contained 2 items of interest.
The first one that attracted my attention to the museum, was the Aprilia Moto 6.5 which was right in the lobby. That got me in the door and we wandered around and found the Charles Eames exhibit. It was a neat exhibit, including about 6 short videos that Eames himself had narrated. One was about the production of the fiberglass chairs, and others were odd stop motion vignettes of parades using papermache or clay figurines. Very odd.
We were then off to the Dulle Griet for a beer and some nibbles. We had a Westmalle Dubble on tap as the house Dulle Griet blonde on tap.
Then Kaddee said that she had read of a scotch bar in Ghent that is somewhat well regarded. So we went off to find it. It is a cellar bar in this alley. As we were about to go down, I heard the mournful wail of not one but TWO sets of bagpipes. Now, I am not a big fan of the bagpipes. In fact I will usually beat feet in the opposite direction of a set of bagpipes. Especially since they are usually played by amateurs with far too much enthusiasm. Anyway, I refused to go down into a cellar bar that was being serenaded by TWO bagpipers. So we waited a few minutes and discussed where we would go. Perhaps we could come back later. Then, blissfully, the bagpipes stopped. Ah, it was safe to enter.
So down we went.
We found our way to HopDuvel and opened the door. We were greated by a loud cheer
“YOU MUST BE KADDEE AND JACK! WELCOME! COME IN COME IN!”
Uuhh. “Hi”.
Our American friend on the bicycle, Stefan, had arrived first. He had been embraced by a group of [hard drinking] locals that had spent the day watching the Tour de France at another pub not far from HopDuvel.
The ring leader of this troop was Ronald. He is the gentleman in the tie in the foreground of the photo. He is a pharmacist that owns a couple of pharmacies in town. The young woman and man with him work for a pharmaceutical company. Ronald is a big customer of theirs. They are out drinking on an expense account, apparently.
Ronald had traveled in the US quite a bit when he was younger. He said that he was always welcomed in pubs where ever he went. Americans invited him to join them. They bought him drinks to hear his stories. He always remembered that.
He said that this was a very “un-Belgian” thing, to invite strangers into the group. Belgians are polite and formal, but cold to strangers, according to him.
So now, whenever he sees Americans in a bar, he invites them to join him and buys them a beer. When Stefan showed up, he welcomed him and incorporated him into the group. Stefan told them that Kaddee and I were on our way on foot and would be there shortly. So when we walked in, they were waiting for us.
It really was a pleasant surprise.
To further illustrate how “un-Belgian” it is to invite strangers into the group, Ronald decided to conduct an experiment. He was going to ask the next couple of people who entered the bar to join them. He predicted that they would decline.
He did, and they did. They all said “uh, we are meeting someone” or “we are just here for 1 drink then we have to go”.
It was an interesting social experiment.
So anyway, Ronald was one of the people that was absolutely flabbergasted that we were in Belgium for 2 weeks and weren’t going anywhere else in Europe. The whole “we’re here for the beer” thing.
With that knowledge, he decided that they were going to buy us 10 beers representative of good Belgian beer. They then preceded to discuss the choices, quite loudly and vociferously, as only a bunch of half-drunken bar patrons can do.
I tried a few times to offer input on what we have had, what was readily available to us in Seattle, and what we would like to try. But it was pretty much ignored. I figured, what the hell.
They ordered us 10 beers and we passed them around and tried them. They were all good beers, but they were all beers I could get in the US. [Our local pub, Beveridge Place Pub, has a very good selection of Belgians.] By the time those beers were consumed, I tried to buy a round but the bartender wanted to go home and was closing up shop.
Alas, HopDuvel was not the opportunity to try more beers that I had hoped it would be. But it was a very fun evening talking and drinking with the locals.
Cheers Ronald!
The next morning, groggy and covered in mosquito bites, we stumbled out for some food. We ended up at Waterhuis ann de Bierkant. I had a delicious rabbit stew made with Chimay.
We started lunch sitting outside. But the temperature started to drop and the wind picked up. It looked like rain. We decided to move into the restaurant. Shortly after we moved the skies opened and it HAILED. Gotta love the low-country weather.
While we watched the weather, we enjoyed
After lunch and waiting for the weather to let up we set off for the tourist office to find our way to a few of the other beer houses we wanted to visit. We were told that they were in a quarter of town that was closed off to public transport and cars because the Tour de France was coming through there today. We are not big bicycle racing fans, so we were unaware that the Tour de France even WENT to Belgium. We could get there, but we would have to hoof it all the way AND places were probably packed with fans. Alas.
As we pondered our options we realized that the big cathedral we were looking at was St. Baafskathedraal, the home of “The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” by Jan van Eyck. It is a large work and in very good shape. Included in your entrance is one of those talking wands that will explain the history and significance of the piece. We had expected to go in, look around and be done in about 10 minutes. But we listened to the whole talk. It took about 50 minutes. It was well worth the time. It really is a magnificent piece of art.
After art-appreciation hour, it was SURPRISE, time for more beer!
So we walked to Trappenhuis and settled in for some serious sampling. While we were there, an Australian fellow over heard us talking and joined us. He was an interesting fellow. He is an actor/musician/street performer. His troupe, from Australia, spends the summer living in Ghent and travels around Europe doing various festivals. There was a big festival starting in a few days in Ghent, and he was going to be performing there.
After he had joined us, an American fellow asked to join us as well. He is a (currently unemployed) biomedical engineer from Minnesota(?) on a bicycling/beer drinking holiday of Europe. He had been to several of the breweries and had sampled a lot of beer.
The four of us compared beer notes and swapped stories for a few hours.
We had
We tried for Westvleteren again, but they were out. There were empty cases of it stacked, 6 or 7 high, in the bar. Bummer.
The four of us talked about HopDuvel, another famous beer bar in Ghent. We decided to head there and meet up again. The Aussie headed home to drop off his car and get his bike. [He never showed up. We were all pretty tipsy. I wager he decided to just call it quits]. The American was on a bicycle and he pedalled there.
We were unable to find a tram or taxi to take us there, because the area was still closed off due to the Tour de France. So we walked. It took about half an hour on a pleasant afternoon/evening.
Our welcome when we entered HopDuvel was something special. That will be my next post.
The next day was a travel day. Packed up and headed for the train station.
Right next to the train station is this huge flea market held every Saturday. We put our luggage in a locker in the train station and wandered through the flea market. It was a interesting experience. Apparently it is a common place to shop for furniture, clothing, housewares, art etc. One could easily furnish an entire apartment from scratch in one (very busy) afternoon at this market.
I know if I ever end up living in Ghent, I am gonna rent a truck and park it around the corner and go shopping here to get my apartment started.
On the train, we were *bad*. There were a couple of American women who headed to Ghent for the day. They asked tons of questions and really had no idea what to do in Ghent. They had no guide book. I got the distinct impression they were looking to latch onto someone as a tour guide. We ditched them. I felt bad. For about 5 minutes.
We stopped in Korn Markt square on our way to our B&B for some lunch.
And beer
After lunch and a stroll around the square to find an ATM, we made it to our (rather disappointing) B&B above a bakery just off one of the main squares in the old town.
We started our beer tourism of Ghent at Aba-Jour, a nice place on one of the canals. Great food, prepared with beer.
To drink we had (ordered Westvleteren, but they were OOS):
We then returned to our mosquito and fly infested B&B for a crappy nights sleep.
[Edit: Photos from our time in Brugge available here.]
After a very comfortable nights sleep and a filling breakfast at the B&B, I repeated to Kaddee that the day was her’s till about 4pm or so and we would do whatever she would like to do.
She decided to do laundry :-). We spent an hour or so in a laundromat, and she hit up a couple of 2nd hand clothing stores that were near the laundromat for a sweater and a few other items. [We were really cold the entire time in Belgium]
After that exciting start to the day, we headed out for tourist-time, non-beer.
Kaddee had decided that she wanted to go to one of the canals that ring the city and visit one of the windmills that was there. Being the clever girl that she is, our meandering path took us by another great beer pub.
After wandering around the town a bit, we stopped at Terrastje Brugge.
A nice little place with a pleasant patio, just beyond the craziness of the central tourist area. Sitting there in the very warm sun, out of the wind, we were actually warm for our first time in “the low countries.”
Kaddee ordered a Kriek on tap. Sitting in the warm sun, drinking kriek finally made sense to her. “I get it now” were her words I believe. We had some nibblies and
We then walked out to one of the outer canals and the windmills.
They are on grassy little hills. I don’t know if the hills were man made, but there are not a lot of other hills in Brugge, so I suspect so.
The grassy hills were popular with families picnicing and couples snuggling. It was a beautiful day.
We walked up to one of the windmills that is open to the public with explanations of how they worked and how they were built. We spent the 2EU to go up inside. It was a steep climb.
What I found interesting is that the entire windmill can be pivoted to put the blades into the optimum position. I don’t know if that is a common feature of windmills, but it was pretty neat engineering.
All the buttressing and post and beam construction were pretty neat to see as well.
What was not so neat was the amount of swaying and creaking going on inside. They should put a sign out that says
If this windmill’s a rockin’, don’t come knockin’.
