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Posts by James

Apr 15

33 Comments

Finding Magic in Mexico

How far would you go to visit a dream destination? It seems surreal now, sitting in our living room with the suitcases unpacked, to think that we’ve spent the past two weeks in Mexico. Just a few nights ago, Bama and I completed a marathon two-day slog that began halfway across the world. My seatmate on the 16.5-hour flight between Mexico City and Istanbul (with a stopover in Cancún) couldn’t believe we were in Istanbul for a 16-hour layover before the 12-hour flight back to Jakarta. “That is such a long journey,” she exclaimed in wide-eyed shock. “¡Qué horror!” Read more

Feb 23

19 Comments

Lake Toba, a Second Time

Half an hour after stepping out from Silangit airport’s tiny arrivals hall into a parking lot bathed in morning sunshine, the promised hotel pickup was still nowhere to be seen. It was hardly an auspicious start to a hectic five-day assignment on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Joining me this time was British photographer Martin Westlake, who’d also shot my Bali food story six months before. Our flight had left Jakarta at 6:45 a.m. on a Monday and we were keen to hit the ground running. Read more

Jan 5

14 Comments

Wandering Hong Kong at Year’s End

The server was getting impatient. Hovering over our table, she made it clear from her thinly veiled annoyance that we’d taken a little too long to order our food. Bama and I were having our Boxing Day breakfast at a no-frills cha chaan teng (local diner) in Cheung Sha Wan, a working-class neighborhood of Hong Kong’s Kowloon Peninsula. We’d crossed the harbor to track down Gold Garden Café and its puff pastry egg tarts made to a traditional recipe. “Did they just come out of the oven?” I inquired politely. “No, you’ll have to wait till 11 for that. The ones we have now are still kind of warm.” Read more

Nov 20

27 Comments

Uzbekistan Eats: Somsas and So Much More

Suitcases propped against a counter in the vaulted departure hall at Tashkent train station, Bama and I wolfed down our own triangular somsas in a paper bag, biting through layers of thin, flaky pastry to get to the fragrant beef and onion filling. This humble breakfast on the go would herald the start of a culinary adventure through Uzbekistan — 14 days spent hopping between the ancient Silk Road cities of Bukhara, Khiva, and Samarkand, along with Tashkent, the country’s modern capital. After years of dreaming about such a trip, we were ecstatic to finally be in Central Asia. Read more

Sep 21

21 Comments

Morning Scenes from the Fire Islands

My favorite fridge magnet doesn’t depict a place, but a polar bear sprawled on the cool blue surface of what must be a zoo enclosure, fast asleep with its snout resting lazily on one paw. Scrawled above the slumbering carnivore is a short message: “I’m NOT a morning person.” That was true once. For I grew up in Hong Kong, a night-loving city that never sleeps, and my family — with the exception of my ever-punctual mom — was often late to bed and late to rise. On weekends or holidays, I relished being able to lie in until 10 or 11 and never felt guilty about letting the morning pass me by. How things change. Read more

Jun 9

21 Comments

Smooth Sailing: An Indonesian Pinisi Cruise

Somewhere in the waters of eastern Indonesia’s Komodo National Park, I tried to steady my camera while bouncing over the waves on a motorized rubber boat making circles around the Ayana Lako di’a, the early morning sunlight reflecting off its gleaming whitewashed hull. It was May 2019 and a last-minute work assignment had brought me an overnight cruise aboard this nine-cabin ship by the local Ayana hotel brand. The name Lako di’a means “safe journey” in the Manggarai language of nearby Flores — a long, thin, and mountainous island slightly larger than Connecticut (or about the size of Montenegro). Read more

May 11

16 Comments

On the Food Trail in Bali

There was a time my knowledge of tropical food-bearing flora was so limited, I recognized nothing other than banana trees. Some of that ignorance can be attributed to my upbringing in Hong Kong’s hyper-dense concrete jungle. While holidaying in my hometown in early 2014, Bama laughed when he realized I had no idea a relatively common plant grown in the soil of the city’s outlying islands—and sometimes on urban rooftops—was in fact the papaya tree. Read more

Apr 25

28 Comments

Saigon, 10 Years Later

As the plane descends over southern Vietnam, I observe braided rivers weaving across a canvas of mangroves and fish ponds, their silty waters glinting in the late afternoon sun. The semi-wild landscape below gives way to paddy fields, then the warehouses and factories of an industrial estate, a squiggly-shaped golf course, and expanding suburbia: empty plots of land bounded by small roads that carve out man-made patterns in asphalt. Read more

Mar 11

22 Comments

Rest in Love, Auntie Dhani

The first time I met Bama’s mother, she stood smiling in a loose red dress inside the garage of her previous home in Semarang, under the flight path of passenger jets arriving at the city’s airport. It was July 2015, and the second week of a six-month backpacking trip that Bama and I dubbed the “Spice Odyssey.” I called her Auntie Dhani; soon enough she had shortened my name to the more Javanese-sounding “Jem” for convenience. The ensuing crash course in the do’s and don’ts of Idul Fitri (a.k.a. Eid al-Fitr) was softened because she embraced me not only as a guest, but also as an adopted member of her small family. In little more than a week, she had nicknamed me “the funny son.” Read more

Jan 13

33 Comments

A Uniquely Hong Kong Christmas

Days before Bama and I were due to leave for our much-awaited year-end trip, my dad sent me a screenshot of the latest weather forecast for Hong Kong and urged us to pack warm clothes. He was right to worry. It turned out to be the coldest Christmas I had probably experienced back home, with temperatures in the city falling to 8 or 9°C (about 46–48°F) at first — downright chilly compared to equatorial Indonesia. Read more

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