While roaming around S.E. Asia, we came upon a few folks who had traveled through Myanmar. Upon hearing their reports, and also realizing that Myanmar had just (re)opened their borders for tourism, we decided to skip Cambodia and instead redirect our Flight tickets to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar!

I realize also that information on the Net about tourism in Myanmar is outdated, and that happens because the country is changing so fast that any information becomes outdated really quickly.

So in addition to sharing our adventures with friends & family, I’m writing this in order to help those who would be traveling just after us. Here is our series of posts talking about our experiences in Myanmar. Starting with Yangon:

Yangon-1: Arriving

Yangon-2: The return of Lungiman! Myanmar Style…

Yangon-3: Pagoda Shmagoda, Let’s Go Bollywood!

Yangon-4: Dances with Puppets and Working Girls

 

The Mediterranean. Truly one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Jodee and I had the fortune to have visited two amazing Coastlines in the Mediterranean.

• The Croatian Coast on the Adriatic Sea
• The Turkish Coast on the Aegean Sea

The waters are crystal clear and a deep Turquoise blue. The weather, a shade south of perfect, and the people lead relaxed lives putting around on scooters and tut-tutting at tourists that rush through their sleepy little towns.

We took 3 trips along these Coasts.

First, we took a 7 day sailing trip through the Islands of Dubrovnik, Sipan, Korčula, Mlijet, Hvar and Brač.
Following that we rented a car and made our merry way through some coastal towns each blessed with an amazing beach. The towns of Rogoznica and Primošten deserve special mention for their amazing scenery.

Finally, we rented a car in Turkey as well and spent a week driving from the southern town of Antalya, through the beautiful towns of Kas, Olympos, Kekova, and Cesme, through to Izmir, which is close to the temple of Ephesus. Honestly, we were enjoying swimming in the waters so much that we decided to skip seeing yet another ancient ruin (Ephesus), and went to Cesme instead.

I was planning on posting pictures in this blog, but I couldn’t bring myself to pick just a couple. So instead please take a look at these albums on:

• Dubrovnik
• Croatian Yachting Trip
• Turkish Coastal Road Trip (coming soon!)

Turkey was the first place where I learned to swim. The ocean waters kept me afloat while I slowly learned to stop panicking in deep water. I still panic sometimes so I don’t go too far out yet!

In this post I’d like to tell you a bit about the interesting coffee culture of Croatia, and what to do if you’re a tourist without a ready kitchen while in Croatia (hint, it’s not good!)

 

Croatian Coffee Culture

My morning breakfast is usually a Coffee and a Pastry (In retrospect, as I write this blog 3 months later, that breakfast was primarily responsible for about 15 pounds of weight gain. Kids, don’t try this at home. Or anywhere else for that matter!). While in most places (Well, most places in Eurameritralia at least) this can be accomplished simply by going to a Café and ordering one of each, in Croatia, this requires visiting first a Pastry Shop to get the Pastry, and then a Café to get the Coffee. Talk about singular focus on core competence!

It comes down as follows. Croatia has a culture of ‘Caffe Bars’, which are exactly what they say: A Café and a Bar. They serve all sorts of espresso drinks and juices, that you get in a café, and all sorts of Bar drinks, such as soft drinks and Alcohol.  Cafes seem central to Croatian hanging out culture. Come weekday or weekend, rain or shine, there are almost always tons of people hanging out in the myriad cafes in the myraid-er alleyways in Zagreb. If you were in August, you would probably have found me there as well.

 

What they don’t serve is any sort of pastries, sandwiches or any solid food at all. So unlike cafes elsewhere, where you could get a coffee and a pastry or a sandwich (or a Chatpata Paratha Wrap if you are in India!), here you bring your own food and have it with your coffee. This is made convenient by neighboring establishments called ‘Pekaras’ or ‘Pekarnicas’ (Bakeries) where they sell only Pastries and Sandwiches.

I couldn’t figure out what resulted in this kind of a system. Talk about focusing on your core competence and outsourcing everything else!

The other unusual part of Caffes is that they only do Espresso. There is no concept of Drip Coffee.

If you ever find yourself in a Croatian Caffe Bar looking incredulously at the menu, here is a tiny guide to help you:

• Kava: Espresso
• Kava s Mlijekom: Espresso with foamed Milk (this is the closest equalent to a (wet) Cappuccino/Flat White that I have tasted)
• Kava s Šlagom: Espresso with cream. Depending on where you go this could be Heavy Whipping Cream or just Whipped Cream from a can.
• Cappuccino: Coffee doused in foam.

I soon realized that to get what I considered a Cappuccino, I needed to order the Kava s Mlijekom.

After a week, I was really excited upon finding the 2 places in Zagreb that actually do a Cappuccino the way I’m used to – complete with micro foam and artwork! Express Cafe Bar and Elis Caffe. These 2 cafes have Baristas that partake in the Barista competitions and know their coffee. Also, Croatia is blessed with good milk, so the Cappuccino in these places are really good.

Now that we talked about my favorite subject of coffee, let’s come to the topic of food in Zagreb (and indeed, in many towns in Croatia).

 

The Food. Uh Oh.

I have to start by saying that I love the country of Croatia. It has a rich history, beautiful cities, an amazing coastline, and an honest and hardworking people. The food here, unfortunately, was the most disappointing bit of our entire stay in this country.

This would be my take on how you would create the cuisine if you were the God responsible for the creation of Croatia. You take middling Italian food, blend in some middling Greek food, and throw in a pile of grilled meat, and you pretty much have it.

 

Most Croatian restaurant food can be summed up in 3 words, and this restaurant did so very aptly:

 

That was pretty much the fanfare at any Croatian restaurant we went to. The main difference between the menus of different Croatian restaurants is the paper that it is printed on.

They all have the same set of the following:

• The same 4-5 different varieties of Pizzas, Pastas, and Lasagnas
• The same few grilled meat options (Čevapi)
• The same few seafood options
• The same 2 unappetizing salads (One with Cucumber and Feta Cheese, and one with leaves)

Čevapi is a grilled meat dish which is essentially a Smorgasbord of different meats, with some potato fries on the side and the odd tomato added for garnishing.

Now the list probably looks like a decent amount of variety. But just try the same menu everyday for 3 weeks, and you’ll soon be resorting to hunting around grocery stores and the like. Speaking of grocery stores, I found the very best flavored yoghurt in Croatia. It’s Pista&Almond flavored yoghurt with real Pistachios in it! We spent many an afternoon feasting on just this!

Now I ended up spending 6 weeks in Croatia finishing up my Physical Therapy. As you might guess, the last couple weeks were spent searching high and low for any place that served non-Croatian food. In Zagreb I finally found a few and was happy. In the small touristy coastal towns, unfortunately, unless you’re willing to take a car and go hunting outside the coastal towns for food, you’re pretty much stuck with same ol’ Pizza Pasta etc… I had to make up for the lack of flavor with the view. And make up it did. The Coastal towns are some of the most beautiful towns I have seen in my life…

Now I’m sure that in every town, if you go outside the main areas you might find more variety, and the locals know these places. But as a traveler, you spend most time around the center of most towns, and this was unfortunately the only options we had there…

 

If you do end up going to Zagreb, these are a few of my picks to get a respite from Croatian Pizza Pasta Čevapi:

• Mundoaka: Not too surprisingly, this was born out of a collaboration between a Croatian and a New Yorker. Awesome fusion options, and decadent desserts. Just a few doors down is Express Caffe, one of only two Zagrebian cafes to offer really good Cappuccinos from La Marzocco machines. Hop on over for your after dinner cup!

• Kisa: A Russian-Georgian-Azerbaijanian restaurant. The menu is not extensive but this is a welcome respite, and the Ambience is casual and laidback. And we often ended up chatting with the waiters here long after the restaurant had closed for the night.

• Wok by Matija: Interesting variant of Chinese food. Tasty nonetheless. (Why was I looking for chinese food in Croatia? You try eating Pizza & Pasta everyday for 6 weeks!)

 

To be fair, we did get excellent, tasty, Croatian food one evening. It required taking a taxi out of the town center to probably the parts where the locals camp out! The place was called Stari Puntijar. It was in a hotel that was converted from a castle, and is worth going there just for the décor! I hear it’s used by the Government officials for their formal dinners. If you want to sample Croatian food that’s not the staple tourist fare, go there.

These are guides to the cities I have spent a decent amount of time in, and would be used by a carbon copy of me. If you’re not a carbon copy of me, well then, it’s all right. Not all of us can be perfect :).

I spent 2 weeks in this town, and the neighboring islands. In summer, the sun stays up till midnight! Dims itself for a couple hours (seriously, the night sky never goes completely black), and then comes up again at 2:30 in the morning! This is perfect if you’re pulling an all-nighter, but otherwise you better have solid blinds or a good eye mask. I made real good use of my sleep mask here.

Since for 9 months of the year the weather is dark and dreary, the Swedes really appreciate the 3 summer months and make full use of it! You will find people on every park, every café, and every place with a half decent view soaking in the Vitamin-D.

Things to Buy for Convenience

• Get the weekly/monthly subway/metro pass (SL Access Card). If you ride the subway more than once a day, totally worth it. Even works on the short Ferries!
• Prepaid Card. Comviq (same company as Tele-2) is the only Prepaid card that works. Expensive, like everything else in Sweden, but the connectivity is amazing.

Things to Know

• Get ready for sticker shock! Everything costs way too much. E.g. a ‘cheap’ meal of a sandwich in a coffee shop is 12-15$. A meal in a sit down restaurant is 30-40$, and that’s just the main course. And in not even a fancy restaurant. I hear the only place more expensive than Sweden is Norway.

• Cell phones work in the underground! They even work on a ferry boat out to some godforsaken island! The reception is insanely good.
• Everyone measures distance in metres (hello metric system!). For americans and brits, have some sort of app handy to convert, else brush up on high school math.
• Late night food options in Sodermalm were pretty bad. Don’t have kebabs late night. Your best bet, if you don’t have something at home, is Burger King, or worse yet, Mcdonald’s (I know, I know, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here!).
• People tend to go out on Fri, Sat, and Wed. Wednesday is also called ‘little saturday’ (Lill-Lördag), in other words, another weekend day. Gotta love the Swedes!
• Taxi Fares are unregulated by the government. Which is messed up because a fare can be as low as 199SEK for 10km (fare for 10km is kind of their standard as you see in the sticker below) unto as high as 1999SEK for 10km! I’m not kidding! Talk about highway robbery… So always check out this sticker on the side of the cab. This is the only bit of regulation that the government imposes. If that number is much higher than 199, don’t take it.

• The solution for this is to use Uber (the iPhone app). Uber fares are half to a third of taxi fares. And they come really quick. Once I found uber I never too a cab again!

 

Good Neighborhoods to Stay

Sodermalm

is a nice area with a slightly calm vibe, lots of young folk and good restaurants and bars. The swedes say it has a ‘hipster’ vibe, but they got nothing on good ol’ San Francisco hipsters with their tight, torn, black skinny jeans. Oh SF how I miss you.

Ostermalm

is a fancy shmancy rich neighborhood, like the Marina in SF, or Chelsea in London.

Norrmalm

is good if you have kids and want to hang out with the stroller crowd.

Gamlastan

is the old town. Incredibly touristy and expensive. Avoid.

I picked Sodermalm, and was happy about my choice. In Soder (as the Swedes call it), my favorite areas were Mariatorget and Nytorget.

 

Good Websites/Apps

Accommodation

• http://www.airbnb.co.uk: The Staple. Always good. I found it best to ask for what the closest metro (T-bana as its called here) station is and look it up on google maps. Also, it never hurts to negotiate. If you are staying for multiple nights, most hosts are happy to give you a discount.
• http://www.blocket.se: If you don’t speak Swedish, you better have a lot of patience!

Get Around & Do Stuff

Google Translate: Incredibly helpful at figuring out signs and menus
Stockholm T-Bana: the underground metro app
Google Maps: Amazing at telling you about metros and buses. The only thing it did not work well for were the ferries.
Yelp is completely useless. You find reviews written by 2 people and a moose. Sometime not even the moose.
Waxholmsbolaget: You will need this if you are taking a ferry to visit the archipelago (and you should!)

 

Places to Go/People to See/Things to do

Other than the standard touristy stuff, here were a few places I liked:

• Archipelago: Stockholm is surrounded by lots of islands. From huge ones like Vaxholm to tiny ones a bit bigger than a toaster. Abba, my favorite childhood band, used to hop over to the Archipelago to compose their music. Most islands (other than Vaxholm) do not have much in the way of restaurants and facilities. A hostel I stayed in the island of Möja did not even have showers! And they ask you to bring your own bed linens, or else you pay extra. So come prepared with food water and sheets. The islands are incredibly quiet, beautiful and serene. I’m typing this one from Grinda right now. Make sure you spend a couple days on a few of the islands. The recommended ones are Vaxholm, Grinda, Sandhamn, and Möja.

 

 

• Abba Museum!: I know I know. So touristy, but this was on the top of my list! You can even sign along to an Abba song and try to mix their song. Loved it!
• Places to dance Salsa: GrönaLund (which is weird because its an amusement park with a salsa club in the middle!), Club Caribe.
• Best Cocktails: Häktet, Linea Tijo. Both in Sodermalm
• Parks!: Stockholm has lots of lovely parks to spend a lazy afternoon in. I want to make a special mention of Skinnaviksberget because for some reason it’s not on google! It has really good views of Gamlastan. I want to thank my friends Lotta and Chris for showing me this place.
• I also really liked this guide to Stockholm that a CouchSurfer posted. They are all a local’s suggestions and everyone I checked out were spot on!. Check it out here.

 

Good Cappuccino Places

The quality of coffee in Sweden is on the average really good. Hence almost any café or kaffe you go to will have a decent Capp. One thing I did like is that, unlike San Francisco, good coffee does not imply snobbish Baristas.

A few of my favorite places:

• Johan Och Nystrom: In Mariatorget, Sodermalm. This cafe is owned by the roasting company, which I fouind to be the blue bottle of Stockholm. Good coffee, good service.

 

• Café Sempre: Close to Stureplan, Ostermalm. Cool neighborhood. Very Italian place.
• Drop Coffee: Mariatorget again. Good coffee. Terribly slow service. Bring a book to wait, or a witty friend to keep you company
• Coffice: Medborgarplatsen, Sodermalm. Good Coffee, Incredibly fast wifi. Go here to get stuff done, or to download an entire TV series. But the vibe is more of a work place rather than a cafe to chit chat.

One point definitely worthy of note: All Cafes have lactose free milk!!!!

These are guides to the cities I have spent a decent amount of time in, and would definitely be useful to a carbon copy of me. If you’re not a carbon copy of me, well then, it’s all right. Not all of us can be perfect :).

Getting there and back

I used the Heathrow Express. Totally recommended if you don’t mind shelling out some extra cash for the comfort and speed of it.

Things to Buy for Convenience

• Get the weekly subway/metro pass (Oyster Card) for Zones 1&2. You will rarely go beyond that. And if you ride the subway more than once a day, totally worth it.
• Prepaid SIM Card. Either EE, Vodafone, or O2. EE is the only Prepaid card that gives you 4G, but its also the most expensive. Vodafone was the cheapest. Also something called LeBara. I did not use it, but heard good stuff about it.

Things to Know

• Lots of Cafes/Restaurants don’t have good cell phone reception inside
• There is no cell reception in the underground.
• Traffic is maniacal, and as a pedestrian, its your duty to look everywhere to avoid being run down!
• The best way to ensure it doesn’t rain is to always carry around an umbrella with you.

Good Neighborhoods to Stay

I stayed in Paddington, Shoreditch, and Covent Garden.

Paddington

is decently central, but not really close to anything fun. The one really good thing about it was its proximity to Edgeware Road. The best Persian and Middle Eastern Restaurants are on this road close to Paddington. One I really liked was Café Helen.

Shoreditch

is hipster central. If you miss the Mission District in San Francisco, then Shoreditch is the place for you.

Covent Garden

is extremely central to everything a tourist would want to see, Picadilly Circus, Oxford Circus, Westminster (the clock and the Abbey), Leicester Square (which for some confusing reason the brits call ‘Lester Square’).

 

If you have the money, I’d recommend Covent Garden or South Kensington (a very similar feel).

For a bit cheaper you can stay in Paddington/Shoreditch/Kings Cross.

Good Websites/Apps

Accommodation

http://www.gumtree.com: Like Craigslist. A lot of locals listing. I found a really good deal in Covent Garden (50 pounds a night for a studio) here. It helps to have a UK number here so you can have them call you back. You see a lot of options for Kilburn and Aldgate East on this site. I would avoid them. They were very residential areas.

http://www.spareroom.com: If you want to find a shared flat. Popular over there.

http://www.airbnb.co.uk: The Staple. Always good.

Get Around & Do Stuff

Hype!: iPhone App that shows cool stuff in SoHo and Shoreditch

Yelp: I found was not very reliable due to a lack of a sizeable quantity of reviews

Tube Map: Offline London Underground App. You will need it as there is no Cell Phone reception underground.

Places to Go/People to See/Things to do:

Other than the standard touristy stuff, here were a few places I liked:

• Punjab Indian Restaurant (Covent Garden): Though in the middle of the most touristy neighborhood in London, this had good, cheap, Indian food.
• Brick Lane Restaurants (Shoreditch): Avoid like the plague. Tried it out. They were shit.
• Café Helen (Paddington): Best Shawarmas in London! Even better after a night out, as they’re open till like 4AM!
• Wild Food Café (Covent Garden): Awesome raw food place in Covent Garden. Tasty and Healthy
• Food Court (Shoreditch) next to the station. Good place with good options

 

And here were a few places I disliked, although they were supposedly ‘popular’

• Mahiki: Ok tiki bar that my friend Ashish took me to, but supposedly attracts really famous celebrities. Can’t see why.
• Dishoom: Weird modern take on Mumbai street food. Overpriced, Undersized, and their ‘fusion’ options just were weird. Avoid. The only thing I liked there was the Roomali Roti and Chicken Tikka. Not worth the visit though.

Good Cappuccino Places

As always, I look for good Cappuccino wherever I go. London wasn’t a good place to find good espresso. Good tea is really easy to come by. But for coffee, these are the few places I found that I liked:

• Nude Espresso (a few locations, including Shoreditch and SoHo)
• Monmouth Coffee (Covent Garden). Communal Tables so you can strike up a conversation with the gay filmmaker from New York or the Old Honeymooning Couple from Chester sitting next to you. No WiFi. Which seems to be a signature move of most good cafes.
• Notes (Covent Garden). WiFi available if you sit next to the window.
• Wild & Wood (SoHo): Weird vibe, good espresso
• New Row Coffee (SoHo)
• Timberyard (Leceister Square): Apparently the place to go for discussing venture capital startups and do work. No goofing off allowed here. Amazing coffee and super fast WiFi

In any of these places, grab a copy of the ‘London Coffee Guide’. It has a bigger listing of good coffee shops around London.