Beaten Archives | World Food

Off the eaten track: Ganja, Azerbaijan

July 5, 2019July 5, 2019
by Jono

Let me start out by reminding you that Azerbaijan holds the infamous record of having the world unhealthiest cuisine – finding fantastic, not-too-greasy food out here is a problem 🙈

Pretty much the healthiest part of azari cuisine…

We ended up in Ganja almost by mistake – we knew absolutely nothing about the place other than a pin on Google maps that we’d dropped at some point as a potential stop.

We hitchhiked in, honestly expecting a small, backwater town, and found ourselves gobsmacked by a modern, European city. While the name is deceiving, what it lacks in cannabis it more than makes up for in culture!

This was a famous writer from Ganja, Mizami Ganjevi.

The city is covered in art and sculptures, beautiful public spaces, parks, fountains, cafes, museums to famous poets, shopping aplenty, and even a few quirky things, like the house made from 50000 glass bottles.

The food scene, however, was a bit more tricky to navigate. There are a lot of slightly more upmarket spots, serving Western and international cuisine, and plenty of doner houses that can fill your stomach for R12, but very few of the mid-range good local places we love to find.

TripAdvisor here was virtually useless, as the place gets very few international tourists. The real gem of this town we actually found on Google maps, of all places, and ended up being incredible.

We found an old Soviet themed underground restaurant called Zirzemi restaurant, and its here: M9J9+3X Ganja, Azerbaijan.

The quirkeyness starts when you bang on the iron door and a Soviet soldier with a kalishnikov opens the flap and demands a password. We saluted and said “greetings comrade (Привет товарищ!)” in Russian and that seemed to satisfy him 😂

Everything on the inside was straight out of 1950’s Soviet russia, from the gas masks hanging on the wall, machine guns stacked up next to the door, old radio transmitters and a large vodka collection, down to the waiters outfits – old Soviet war uniforms!

The food however, was excellent. Not at all greasy or heavy, we had 9 dishes, a vodka (of course!) and some sparkling water, for 20AZN – around R160!

We had a strained yogurt with dill, Adjika, a sour milk, rice, tarragon and egg soup (way nicer than it sounds!), fried dumplings, two salads, a plate of lamb wrapped in grape leaves with a garlic yoghurt dipping sauce, a flatbread stuffed with spinach and cottage cheese, a chicken kebab, and a bread basket – all of which were cooked perfectly.

Part of the spread – low light photo unfortunately!

And at the end of the meal, we got to take some photos with the props!

All in all – a fantastic experience, and if you are at all considering Ganja as a destination, definitely stop in! Drop us a comment if you make out here 🙂

Travel

Renting a Tuk-Tuk – How to tour Sri Lanka…

April 13, 2019April 13, 2019
by Jono

Enjoying a coconut in the tea plantations!

We had heard over the internets that it was possible to rent a tuk tuk in sri lanka, and we immediately got excited – what can possibly be cooler than travelling in your own tuk tuk through asia??

After a little bit of research, turns out it was not only possible, but affordable and totally hassle free!

Here’s everything you need to know.

Is it for me?

Let’s be honest, different strokes for different folks. What we enjoyed doing isn’t necessarily for everyone.

If you are an anxious or newly licensed driver, then I would not recommend driving independently in any asian country. Sri Lanka is no exception, and the traffic can be up there with the best of them. While not as mad as in big cities in Vietnam or India, driving (especially in Kandy/Colombo) can be very stressful.

Hence, if this is your first visit to Asia, rather let someone else do the driving 😉

Driving yourself is a risky activity, especially if you have never driven in Asia before – do not do this if you don’t have adequate travel insurance.

Having your own tuk tuk is a means of travel that gives you ultimate flexibility, but if you are a solo traveller, it will probably be cheaper to use public transport, and if you are a group of more than 3 then you won’t fit into a single vehicle – 2-3 people is the sweet spot.

With that all out the way, having a tuk-tuk is absolutely the best way of seeing Sri Lanka! It will take you off the beaten track, and you’ll be driving the thing up the mountains, through tea gardens, into secluded private beaches, and through beautiful villages and forests. It’ll help you escape the crowds, connect with real local life, and see things that are outside the reach of other tourists sticking to the instagram-trail.

We loved it.

What’s up with the paperwork?

Turns out you need a special driving licence to drive a tuk-tuk – but luckily this is not too much mission to sort out. There are 2 ways of getting this licence – Either you can organize it yourself by going to the AA in Colombo when you arrive, or your rental agency can do it for a nominal fee.

We decided not to sacrifice the day for admin, and our rental agency organized everything for us before we even arrived! Makes a cool souvenir as well 🙂

You’ll need an international driving permit (IDP) issued by the AA in your home country and valid for Sri Lanka, a colour photo and scans/copies of your passport. And obviously a valid car driving licence – you don’t need a motorbike or other code of licence.

Where should I rent my tuk tuk?

There are loads of places to rent a tuk tuk, and searching through them can be a mission. We sifted through loads of places, and eventually settled on CeylonTusker tours – They got good reviews from previous customers and we decided to give them a try. A whatsapp and a few emails later, our licence was organized and we were ready to rumble!

Dayan, our host at CeylonTusker tours, was amazing – not only did we get the best price for a brand new tuk tuk, but his ground support was also amazing! We drove off comfortable in the knowledge that if anything happened to us, we had 24/7 support a phone call away. He was able to organize different sizes and models of Tuk Tuk, and if you have any specific requests such as extra luggage space or a fat driver or whatever, he’ll sort you out!

One of the questions that all the locals will ask you when they see you in a tuk tuk is how much you are paying for it – Everyone who asked us was impressed when we told them what we were paying, it was clearly a bargain!

Contact details:

Dayan Chinthaka
Ceylon Tusker tours
+94 776 685 331
chin3624@gmail.com
www.ceylontusker.com

Driving considerations:

Dayan told us “Driving in the west is based on road rules, driving in Asia is based on mutual understanding” – and this is the best summary we’ve heard so far! You need to understand your place and other vehicles place in the road hierarchy to be able to manage in the chaos.

Generally speaking, right-of-way is determined by a number of factors balancing each other, including (but not limited to): the size of the vehicle (Busses are at the top of the food chain!), who got there first, and accident avoidance.

Drivers in Asia are very aware of their surroundings, and you’ll find that they (as should you!) are able to anticipate problem situations and slow down or swerve before it becomes a problem. You are supposed to be aware of whats in front of you – and it’s your responsibility to make sure that people in front of you are aware of you. This is where the horn comes in – it’s your way of saying “I’m here!” “I’m overtaking” and various other things – use it liberally!

At least not breakneck traffic everywhere – on the east coast the roads were fairly quiet.

Route plan:

This is where we went – and it was fantastic! Having such mobile transport means that we could get to really cool places that we didn’t expect to find, and the spots that nobody knew about turned out to be the most fun! We covered almost the whole country, with the exception of Jaffna and the northern province.

Here’s the map!

Lowlight:

If we could do it again, we would skip Nuwara Eliya, we found it snobby, expensive and lacking good food options. However, there was a hela bujan hala, where you could get cheap local food, and there was still more authentic local life than in Ella.

Highlight:

Haputale – this is what Ella would have been like 20 years ago, before the crowds, souvenir shops and overpriced restaurants took over – an absolute gem. The views are unbelievable, on both sides of town. We went there to climb Lipton’s seat, and ended up staying an extra day. Definitely worth a stop for a day or 2 if you are driving around the Ella area.

That’s it folks! Let us know if you decide to rent a tuk tuk or have any questions, we’ll do our best to answer them 🙂

Off the eaten track

Off the eaten track in Kandy!

March 9, 2019April 23, 2019
by Jono

The drive to Kandy in our mighty red Tuk tuk from Negombo was a lovely one, going through beautiful hills and rainforest towns, we took it slowly and enjoyed the scenery. Arriving in Kandy we were greeted by crazy, bumper-to-bumper traffic, the worst we’ve seen in sri lanka so far. If you have your own transport, try to avoid mid morning and late afternoon – it’s anarchy.

Our hotel was a non-descript affair in Richmont Hill – slightly too far out of town for our liking, Kandy has a lot to offer so next time we’ll stay closer to the fun. Bags dropped, we headed into town for some exploring!

First thing we did was obviously to grab some fried street snack, wrapped in a greasy piece of sri lankan newspaper – perfect. Having refueled, we then walked into town starting at Bogambara – an old fort now being used as a local veggie market! Marna and I love local markets, eyeballing the interesting fruit and veggies for sale, and maybe trying a few:)

We also discovered an amazing local food joint, just next to the road on the west side of the lake – for an incredible eating experience go here: 07°17′29.95″N 80°38′14″E

Trust me – it’ll blow your mind. There are about 30 stalls selling every kind of sri lankan snack and fast food imaginable, and they are fresh, hot, cheap and delicious.

We then grabbed a whole durian fruit (not recommended, it’s massive) and walked along the promenade on the north side of the lake to eat it – we were there in March, and everything was covered in pink blossoms – unreal.

Feeling slightly sick from all the durian, we walked around a bit in town looking for a good place to have dinner, and eventually found café 1886 – looks fancy on the outside, but the food is delicious, prices reasonable, setting lovely and portions big. Try their low carb grilled fish.

Not a bad plate of food for Rs440 ($2.5)

Day 2 breakfast was at Sri balaji – a chain of south Indian restaurants serving idli and dosa at giveaway prices – there’s a good one in the southbound section of road B519.

A short Tuk Tuk ride Southwest of town got us to the Royal Botanical Gardens, where we spent a lovely few hours eating tropical fruit and wandering around the well manicured grounds.

After Bot Gardens, a good spot to chill for an hour or so is the ceylon tea museum just south of town, which has a tea café upstairs and a small shop selling tea. We managed to skip the museum entrance fee by saying that we just wanted to go to the Restaurant – didn’t vibe another expensive tourist trap, and it was lovely. Hordes of school kids arrived while we were there, which brought loads of energy, excitement, selfies and hi-how-are-you’s to an otherwise peaceful affair.

We then headed to Degaldoruwa temple behind town, which is a cave temple with beautiful hand painted walls and a large reclining Buddha – entrance is free, and in fact one of the local monks had to go get a key to open for us! Beautifully preserved, a wonderful little spot without any touts or popcorn sellers, it felt like a little slice of local Buddhist life.

For one last thing to do while you still have time, grab a coke zero and some arrack and head to the Kandy View Point for the best views over town – also lovely at night if you still have energy after supper 🙂

Tag: Beaten