'Turkey, again?' acquaintances asked several years ago, as we were planning our third trip in as many years.
'Don't you want to go other places, see other things, explore a bit?' The he half - who liked to flaunt his passport thick as a short paperback novel and boast of the number of countries he'd visited -could barely conceal his exasperation.
Of course we did. That's why we were returning. Our first and second trips to Turkey had taken us by car up and down the Aegean coast, halfway across Anatolia, and down to Antalya and Olympos. We'd covered a lot of ground, traveling in the depth of winter and the first blush of spring. But there was the still the Black Sea coast, the southeast near Syria, a good part of the Mediterranean coast, and eastern Anatolia. After our first trip, Turkey was an addiction. The more we saw of it, the more we wanted to see. The more we knew it, the more we were reminded of how little we knew. And the more time we spent there, the more we wanted to spend.
Some folks travel to collect visas. Not us.
When it comes to travel, we're serial addicts. If we fall for a place we go back - again and again and again. If we love a city, a town, a village, a market, a restaurant, a street stall, we want to feel at home there. We want to know the lay of the land and the minds of the locals.
Only by knowing what to anticipate can we distinguish the unexpected from the commonplace. On the first visit everything is new. We revel in that newness and then, on subsequent trips, in new newnesses. On return visits things we hadn't noticed or that barely registered the first time around, when everything was an intoxicating blur of unfamiliarity - buildings, plant life, customs, foods, forms of transport, traffic patterns, body language, speech patterns and colloquialisms, daily rituals - stand out in relief against a backdrop of what's familiar from the first (or second, or third) visit. Inconsequentialities that slipped our notice the last time find their way, this time, to Dave's viewfinder and the pages of my notebook.
And, sometimes something particularly wonderful: we recognize the faces of individuals, and they do ours.
So - Sumatra, again. And Padang, again. By the time we hit town at the end of this trip we had but half a day to work our way through a long To-Do list. New things and old things. Pasar Raya, the central market. Coffee to buy. Empek-empek to hunt down. Sate to sample. Hotted-up bemos to photograph. Sunset over the river to take in. And photos to deliver.
This lady recognized us as soon as we entered Warung Nanyo Baru, greeting us with a smile and a big wave. She strode across the old-style Chinese coffeeshop, hands outstretched as if we were long-lost friends instead of single-visit customers. We'd come to drop off the photos we promised to mail to her back when Dave snapped them in June. We didn't plan on staying for lunch, but there was no arguing when she insisted we stay for cups of strong coffee and a bowl of her specialty, bubur ayam.
It's a marvel, this bowl of rice porridge with chicken, probably the best of it's kind we've eaten anywhere in Asia. Thick and smooth, like Hong Kong-style congee, the porridge supports a ladle or two of brothy soy and spice-stewed chicken that tastes lovingly slow- and long-stewed. Half-boiled duck egg halves, their schoolbus-yellow yolks just slightly runny, compete for space in the bowl with absorbent, crispy-spongy you teow (fried Chinese crullers). A flurry of chopped Chinese celery leaves and a sprinkle of deep-fried shallots completes the tableau.
She's justifiably proud of her bubur - didn't bat an eye when Dave set to photographing a bowl of it in June. This time around, as we swoon once again over a bowlful, she nods quickly, once, as if to say, "I knew you'd come back to Padang. For this."
We had, in a way. For the bubur, and for her friendly smile. It won't be the last time.
Bubur ayam cart in front of Warung Kopi Nanyo Baru, Jalan Pondok (opposite 115J), Padang, Sumatra. (Look for the red Nanyo Baru sate cart parked in the same spot - also delicious.) Early morning to around 2pm, though supplies were running low by 11:30a on this recent visit. Closed Sunday.
Baroque bubur! The old geezers at the greasy Chinese coffee shop I go to every morning here in Chicago are minimalists in comparison: nothing more in their bowls of congee than a couple of dashes of white pepper...
Posted by: RST | 2006.09.26 at 08:26