Casino! A 'why/how to' for solo travellers



The Venetian, Macau

Casinos. You either love them or hate them. On the one hand, yes, they can be depressing depositories of crass, desperate, lonely and dejected people. On the other hand – hear me out – they can be the epicentre of light-hearted fun, frivolity and even a little bit of magic. That’s right, magic.

One thing I can say for sure, casinos have often featured somewhere in my solo travels, and have often been, dare I say it, a beacon of (neon) light on a dark and lonely horizon. Especially on those evenings when you’ve done all the sightseeing you possibly could and suddenly you’re staring at the four walls of your downtown hotel and it’s only 7.30pm. Sure, there’s the theatre and the movies, and a glass of wine whilst reading a book in a quaint pub. Sure. I’ve certainly undertaken all of those activities on my own and thoroughly enjoyed them. Sure. Or ...

... there’s the casino. On the one hand, you can sit quietly by a roulette wheel for hours without anyone really bothering you or asking you to order a drink or get out. Contented alone time but amongst real people and life. Just avoid eye contact and no one will try pick you up either. On the other hand the casino is also full of lots of friendly folk who are willing to chat and for a champion chatter like me, that’s a lovely bonus. Casual gamblers the world over like to compare notes, see how you’re faring, ask where you’re from and generally smile and are pleasant. (Note: serious gamblers do not.)

‘What else’, you ask? Well, you don’t actually have to gamble. Casinos always have free entertainment and cheap drinks. You can listen to a band, watch performers, enjoy magicians all while contentedly sipping $5 gin and tonics. Do you like dancing? There’s usually a free bar to do that in as well. The dance floor is usually packed – no one will notice that you’re bopping along on your own. Empty dance floor? Pretend you’re drunk and dance anyway!

There are, however, some pitfalls you should be aware of. Crowne Plaza Casino, Canberra for instance.

This casino (and I’ve been to quite a few!) unfortunately holds the honour of being possibly the most glum and tragic casino in the world. One big empty room with signs and information about entertainment but no actual entertainment. High minimum bets and burly, surly looking staff. If there had ever been any fun or magic in this casino it died a long time ago. In the dim lighting you could clearly see the silhouettes of slumped shoulders and hung heads. It’s possible no one had ever won anything in this casino. Ever. It had a funereal air and certainly had the capacity to suck the life out of any unfortunate person who accidently and blindingly stumbled inside it unwittingly.

Stay clear of those casinos. They will only make you feel more wretched and lonely/ homesick.

And there’s also a little thing I like to call ‘The Witching Hour’. At around 11pm, especially on a Friday or Saturday night, a group of tipsy 18 year old ‘men’ will somehow stumble past security and gaze around in awe. It’s usually a first or second visit and they swagger up to the roulette table with no clue whatsoever, nudge each other and say things like, ‘Oi, can you put something on the zero?’. They proceed to spill their drinks, bump into everyone at the table and generally make crass jokes and giggle like school girls. I have watched one of these witching hour heathens dig deep into his pockets and pull out about $8.50 worth of change and slam that onto the table proudly (next to the flurry of $100 bills). ‘Put it all on black!’, he cries with gusto. He is inevitably drily told that the outside bet is a $10 minimum at which point his kind friends rustle up a $2 coin and wait with baited breath as the wheel spins.

Red.

‘Ah, this game is shit!’. He just resists kicking the table and walks away disgusted.

Look, the witching hour kids can be entertaining in their own way. As long as you don’t get beer on your dress.

But back to the positives! Even if you’re not travelling solo, what a great way to spend some alone time even whilst with your companion! You’re in the same place, at the same time, you can still talk about the experience together, but you can, if you choose, just sit at the bar quietly having a drink on your own while they play Blackjack. A moment of peace and silence. Ahhhh.....

And casinos may even save you from natural disasters! In Singapore I was stuck in a resort while a torrential and frightening storm raged outside. Every room in this hotel, including shops, cafes, and bars, was floor to ceiling glass so that every flash of lightening struck me with the fear of God and imminent catastrophe. Except the casino. Comforting with its lack of any windows and reassuringly dim lighting, I peacefully and repeatedly played zero at the roulette wheel until all danger had passed and I was able to emerge an hour later in blissful calm and tranquillity.

Too much?

Ok, well visiting casinos on holidays is not everyone’s thing. I’m just saying – if you find yourself yawning before the sun has gone down and with an hour or two of evening time to fill, it’s there if you need it!

Sao Paolo, Brazil via the 1950s

My Italian father lived in Sao Paolo, Brazil for five years in the 1950s. He was in his early 20s and travelling with a posse from his village scrounging for work. A long way to go for work.

On the eve of his 74th birthday my father found himself wandering through the city, shaking his head in wonder, all over again.

As I saw it, Sao Paolo city centre was a seething mess of people. The city was so big it was too difficult to see the details – just general impressions. To me the city was alive and sharp. We walked along the wide thoroughfare Avenida Sao Joao which swings close by to the impressive city square, Praca di Repubblica. There were shops and opportunistic migrants selling their sunglasses and watches on the street. There were orange overalled cleaners trawling the footpaths and a magazine stand on every corner. Tall slim palm trees stood side-by-side with old fashioned wrought iron street lamps. Banana, mango and pineapple stalls cast a delicious sweet smell and everywhere people, people, people: those who were immaculately dressed with expensive watches, and those without limbs, scraping along on old skateboards.

But to my father the city was sadly empty and vaguely disappointing. He shook his head and painted a different picture for me: in the 1950s Avenida Sao Joao was open to street traffic and on hot summer nights the footpaths pulsed with young people like him chatting, drinking or heading to the popular Marocco cinemas. Too hot and tropical to stay indoors, people spilled out of doorways and wandered aimlessly, happy to be in the company of friends, even if none of them had any money to do anything. The thrum of cars competed with the noise of shouting, laughing and music. I pictured this scene in black and white. I imagined pomade and cigarettes, and crisp, clean shirts, even if the shirt was the only one the wearer owned.  

Barra Funda

We decided to find the house he had lived in, in a suburb called Barra Funda. My father wandered down the road, eyed his surroundings, crossed a street and smiled: he had found his bus stop and incredibly, the bus he used to take home still made the same journey. Twenty minutes later we find Barra Funda and more dismay. He finds an inner city suburb with empty shopfronts  and cheap housing. The corner store no longer exists and again, there is a distinct lack of people. He told me the corner store was the neighborhood hang out and every night the streets had hummed with activity. Now it was looking rundown and tired. No one would hang out on the corner after dark catching up on the daily gossip.

But at number 543 we stop and he smiles again – this is the entrance to his house. Just a white door with decorative iron panels. We were so tempted to ring the door and ask to look around but neither of us had the courage. It was enough just to be there.

He smoked a cigarette and was thoughtful for a moment. I tried to take photos quietly and unobtrusively, of the street, of the surroundings and of my dad. But it felt vaguely like taking pictures of the gravestones at a cemetery.  

Back in the city centre, in a crowded corner of the Praca di Repubblica, stands the Edificio Italia. It was built to honour the thousands of Italian immigrants who contributed to the wealth of Sao Paolo and hosts the Circolo Italia – the Italian Club.  The foundations of the Edificio Italia, second tallest building in Sao Paolo (46 floors), were being laid just as my father was preparing to leave Brazil. He had always wanted to see the finished product. Now we entered this stylish tower, still modern-looking some 50 years later, and took the elevator to the observation deck. We looked out over 11 million people. Cream, brown and grey buildings as far as the eye could see. Snippets of green but otherwise a vast city in its full concrete, bitumen and plate glass sense.

From this high point of view the city was breathtaking in its own way but not, I would say, beautiful. ‘Overwhelming’ perhaps fits better. Could I imagine arriving as a 20 year old, without knowing the language, without any idea of where to go, who to see and what to do to find work? Without any money, any life experience. Confronted by hundreds, thousands of people and all the associated commerce. It was a sobering thought. Despite the excitement, the thrill of foreignness, of being free from the domestic and sedate life my father had led in a small hillside village, it had to have been terrifying and overwhelming. The pleasure of ogling sophisticated beauties in pencil skirts must have been tempered with nagging thoughts about how he was going to eat the next day.

I quizzed my father – was he disappointed? Perhaps he shouldn’t have come back? There are plenty of schools of thought which tell you, don’t go back, don’t look back.

No, no he wasn’t disappointed. He was melancholy, tired, a little disorientated by the travel. But he was relieved he’d seen Sao Paolo again. It satisfied his curiosity. Perhaps it made his memories far more vibrant and coloured for a moment too.

And now he had a new story to tell of his time in Sao Paolo. 

Two girls and a two-star Michelin restaurant

Lunch at Amber, Landmark Hotel, Hong Kong

Travelling and trying new food go hand in hand. In Hong Kong you could head out for some fantastic street food or experience some of the exceptional regional cuisine. Or you could head to a two-star Michelin French restaurant in an exclusive hotel one Sunday afternoon and settle in for a long session of eating and drinking.

My niece and I were looking forward to this. We even traded in our sneakers and hoodies for high heels and make-up. Amber was suitably yellow. The long narrow room was sparse and quiet. It was very quiet. And sparse. It was formal. Very formal.

Even the cutlery is charming. 

But then our hostess wandered over and made a reasonably loud fuss over us, went through my tedious dietary requirements and generally spoke in a normal tone and not one reserved for art galleries. I was at ease after that.

amuse bouches

A duck pate lollipop, a cherry tomato with caviar and a clear mushroom soup. Keep in mind this lovely opening number consisted of exactly three bites of food but was accompanied by a reasonably full glass of champagne. Thank you! All I had eaten for breakfast was crackers with peanut butter. All my niece had eaten was nothing. It took about five minutes for the room to become pleasantly warm.

starter - another variation of duck pate for me and langoustine for my niece

There’s something exquisite about the tiny leaves and petals and half fork-fulls of food arranged on my plate. I’m trying not to eat everything in one bite. But it’s hard!

Ah that wine is lovely. French you say? Thank you! Mmmm.... (Apologies to wine lovers - I took not one single note of what I was drinking. It had bubbles, it was white and then it was red. I’m sorry. Sacrilege, I know. We did turn down a Coonawarra red (for us a ‘local’ wine) and opted for a French number.   

entree - tasmanian salmon confit

It seemed wrong for two Australians to order Tasmanian salmon but I was restricted in my choices and frankly, it just very much appealed to both of us! It was worth it because our dishes were brought out by two separate waiters who, without fanfare but with so much panache, placed them in front of us, took off the glass, smoke-filled domes covering our salmon and then quietly wandered away. ‘Thank you!’ I told their retreating backs. Smoked salmon.

‘Oh my!’ I said when the sommelier came around with the next wine. ‘It’s not a race,’ he said kindly. But the service is too quick for me to keep up! And I already had a line of half full wine glasses.... Thank you!

main - iberian pork ‘pluma’

Feel free to educate me about 'pluma'

No, I still don’t know what ‘pluma’ is. I think I even asked. It was truly delicious.

If I was giggling by the first course, I was completely loose by the second. I’ll just slip to the Ladies for a moment of composure – the door is right next to our table. But the waiter is there in a flash, ‘Oh sorry madam, someone is using that bathroom, I’ll show you to another one’. I blink at the charming young waiter and take a deep breath. Ok, steady now. He leads the way and at the restaurant entrance hands me over to another waitress who then hands me over to the maitre d` who then shows me down a long corridor and around a corner and finally to the Ladies. Oh dear. Three people to show me the way there but no one to show me the way back.  Did I mention I was drunk?

French farm cheese

I opted for the cheese platter. I’m vaguely lactose intolerant as well as gluten intolerant, it’s a platter for two and my niece doesn’t like cheese. I eat my gooey and sublime French cheese with a blueberry compote and sigh with deep happiness. Who needs crackers? I an starting to feel a little sick.

dessert one, two and three

This is a restaurant that has its priorities right. Three savoury dishes, three sweet dishes. Just as it should be. Thank you!

It’s time to sober up and I work my way through cassis sorbet, chestnut spaghetti and ice-cream, chocolate tart and salted caramel popcorn with the help of three short black coffees.

My niece decides that she simply cannot say thank you again. It was getting ridiculous, trying to acknowledge the quiet army of waiters, hostesses, sommeliers and general helpers each time they whisked away a plate or de-crumbed the table.

One more wafer-thin mint...

petits fours

Finally lunch comes to a close with petit fours, presented in a long cylindrical dish which opens up in tiers to reveal exquisite little sweets. As I contemplate and fiddle with my last little cellophane wrapped toffee, feeling very much like the character from Monty Python’s The meaning of life, encouraged to eat one last wafer-thin mint, the waiter steps up discreetly and tells me the cellophane is edible. I should just pop it all into my mouth.

Just one more – thank you. A surfeit of thank yous. And good night!

The upgrade

An upgrade is both a blessing and a curse. You can never go back. Correction – you will go back, whether you like it or not, but you won’t like it. Not one bit. And your expectations get higher and higher each time. And the disappointment more bitter each time.

'Before'... my view between the lacy curtains
at the Cathedral Gate Hotel

My first taste of an upgrade was during a visit to the historic town of Canterbury in my naive early 20s. I was staying right next to Canterbury Cathedral in a hotel that had been a place of accommodation for 600 years. The corridors sloped alarmingly and the bathroom had a bath and a plastic container to help you throw water over your head. No, it was not the late middle ages, it was the late 1990s. So I shuffled into the tiny front office with my trusty backpack and was told that my single room was not available, did I mind taking a double at no extra cost? Did I mind? I thought I’d won the lottery! I was all a-giggle when I threw my backpack down on to the floral bedspread and gazed out the window and on to a small town square. Utterly content and smug.

Upgrades were few and far between for the next decade. When taking flights, I was told, by people allegedly in the know, that I should dress nicely, ask nicely whether the plane is full and suggest, nicely, that I would be amenable to an upgrade should one become available.

That never worked.

On a flight between Hong Kong and Beijing my friend and I tried to buy our own darn upgrade and failed at that too! The ground staff told us it was really too expensive to consider (um... $250 each) and anyway, there was really only one seat available. This sounded suspiciously vague to us....

The breakthrough came when I travelled with two frequent, Qantas Club members and our flight was delayed. Someone summoned us via loudspeaker to the front desk. There we were solemnly handed our new boarding passes. Lovely blue ones. Business Class. BUSINESS CLASS. All the way to Hong Kong.

That flight was one of the most enjoyable of my life. I still think fondly about the fine asparagus and gruyere soup, of the champagne on arrival, and of the stewardess who kindly enquired whether there was anything else that could possibly be done for me. I played with that adjustable chair for hours, trying every horizontal, vertical and semi-horizontal/vertical position available (truth be told the cushion was a little thin and the mechanics underneath a little lumpy) but I could not sleep for a moment. What? And miss being in Business Class? No way!

Every economy flight after that has been particularly galling and depressing. On the way back from that same Business Class trip, we were upgraded again but only to Premium Economy. I remember the three of us sniffing our noses with slight disappointment. Premium Economy, eh? If we must I suppose.

The best upgrade I’ve ever experienced, however, was on a recent trip to Singapore. I was checking into the Marina Bay Sands resort and unbeknown to me, a friend of mine had spoken to her friend at the Marina Bay and asked if anything special could be arranged for me. I was travelling by myself.

Well. I sauntered up to the front office on my birthday and handed over my voucher for a room I felt sure would be in the basement. ‘Happy birthday’, the receptionist smiled. She tapped and fiddled away and then said, ‘Sorry I’ll just be a minute, I’m printing your Club Privileges letter’.

'After'....the view from my king size bed at the
Marina Bay Sands Resort

Che? ‘I’m pretty sure that’s not the room I booked’, I told her. She glanced at my quizzically and then smiled, ‘Oh, you’ve been upgraded’. I positively beamed.

I was at my bumpkin best when I threw open the door to my 52nd Floor Suite and couldn’t help shouting ‘Oh my God, someone else has to see this!! Oh. My. God’. Floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Bay. Two lounge rooms. A dressing room. A bathroom bigger than my last hotel room. And a king size bed. All to myself. My friend had also organised flowers, a cake and a bottle of wine. Heavenly. Apart from the fact that I was terrified at the prospect of approaching the window (the dizzying heights!), I was unbearably happy.

I could never stay there again of course – I couldn’t bear staying in the bargain basement room next time round and the chances of my being so spectacularly upgraded again are slim. Hence the blessing and the curse.

Does anyone else have a good upgrade story?

High tea



The Coeliac version of high tea


‘High tea’ is commonly known around the world as a dignified outing where refined people partake of their tea and sandwiches with perky pinkies outstretched. But, in the late 18th century ‘high tea’ was instead a hearty evening hoe down for farmers and working folk who downed meat, cheese and eggs with gusto, and scoffed bread and cake with their pinkies firmly tucked in. ‘Afternoon tea’ was another meal altogether and it’s what we have in mind when we order our English Breakfast with milk. Allegedly, the Duchess of Bedford had a hard time getting through the evening’s entertainment program without having a little something beforehand (it seems lunch didn’t really exist – only breakfast early and dinner rather late). The Duchess started inviting people round for tea and scones before heading off to the theatre and thus afternoon tea was born.

And grateful we are for it! I adore afternoon tea but for such a genteel activity, high tea in my experience has often been hilarious, interesting, fascinating but rarely genteel.

Here are three of my favourites:

The Lobby, Peninsula Hotel, Hong Kong

The Lobby

They actually call it afternoon tea here!

There is an airport bustle feel about such a dignified place. Amongst the lofty pillars and gold leaf, there is laughter, clatter, chairs scraping and cutlery clunking. Everything is run with remarkable efficiency – clockwork precision. Things arrive, flutter and land on the table: tea and then the compulsory three-tier cake stand.

I watch enthralled as a middle-aged fellow sits down at a table alone. He has a big smile on his face which lights up further when his cake stand arrives. Then, he takes out his video camera, holds it in his left hand, and turns it on himself while he scoffs a scone with his right hand. He practically smacks his lips with joy and closes his eyes with pleasure. He then gives a running commentary in a foreign language and I have enormous fun imagining what he has to say.



Tiffin Room



Tiffin Room, Raffles Hotel, Singapore

Tiffin Room

The Raffles Hotel is all those clichés – majestic, regal, palatial. The white columns are solemn and beautiful, and the colonnades are a cool and subtle oasis in the constant humidity. So there’s something particularly galling about having to line up outside the door of the Tiffin Room like riffraff lining up  for a hip nightclub on a Saturday night. Ok, the clientele are decidedly older and more conservatively dressed but otherwise, there’s that same buzz of excitement and boredom, anticipation and annoyance.

This was my first high tea as a Coeliac (no gluten usually = no cake). There was no cake. But there were sweet little jellies, chocolate dipped strawberries and blueberries and cream which were – no other word quite fits – delightful. The sandwiches were sound but the extensive, steaming, delicious looking buffet that called to me like a siren was off limits. Reasoning with myself that I had missed out on scones, I greedily dared to ask the waiter, ‘please sir, can I have some more?’ and was duly rewarded with more sandwiches made with the chef’s ‘secret recipe’ bread – so delicious that at first I thought they weren’t, in fact, gluten free.

The Tea Rooms, Gunner's Barracks, Sydney

The Tea Room

Surely this is one of the only places in the world where you have to guard your plate against swooping kookaburras stealing your smoked salmon sandwich. One swept onto the balcony, quietly but clumsily snagged a morsel, sending crumbs scattering and hands waving, and then took it back to a tree only meters away and smugly ate it.

This was a decidedly hilarious afternoon tea. My friend and I decided that the one (very camp) waiter, who made a (suitably camp) fuss over us, did everything in this restaurant. We decided that he was not only serving the tea and coffee but making it as well, and quickly donning a lace-edged white apron to make the sandwiches. He was out of the room when some smooth crooning suddenly came through the stereo system. We fell about laughing thinking that he’d taken on that role too and was singing into a microphone in between tea top-ups. We cried with laughter. I was actually in danger of throwing up all over my Royal Doulton and it was only the thought of that that subdued me a little.

Information souces include (but not limited to): http://www.thecarrington.com.au/menus.asp?pid=56

http://www.victorialodging.com/attraction/victoria-high-tea

Itinerary: Adelaide to Singapore to London to Madrid to Malaga

Bubion, Sierra Nevada mountains, Spain

I hope you read that title and groaned in horror. It was bad. Primarily because every now and then, whilst travelling in a plane, I suddenly have a freak out and think I’m going to plummet violently towards earth and my death (see flying-high). When I’m not having a freak out I find plane travel incredibly, monumentally, and stupendously tedious.

Following are edited excerpts from the journal I kept during my first solo travel overseas.  

June 25 Adelaide - Singapore

Terrified but happy.

When I checked my luggage in I asked ‘Is this backpack actually going to make it all the way to Malaga?’. The attendant smiled cheerfully but looked doubtful; ‘It should’. She sounded apologetic.

I’m pacing myself. I have 30 hours of travelling in total. I’ve managed to just sit for an hour doing nothing at all. This morning the woman at the shop counter routinely wished me a good day. I grinned back and practically shouted, ‘It certainly is a good day – I’m going to Europe!’. Because it’s not often you get to say that. I could tell though, that she didn’t care.

Still June 25 Singapore Airport

I feel fine! I still have to board another three planes but so far, I’m fine! No freak outs!

I love travelling on my own. You don’t have to worry about any judgements about, say, lying on the floor (like so) or joining other people’s toddlers in a compact game of indoor soccer at Gate 568.

But I like to talk and no one will talk to me. The fellow on my first flight sat with a giant newspaper held up in front of him for about 8 hours.

I live in fear of hearing DING DING DING ‘Passenger Tina, please see an airport attendant at Gate Lounge 42’. Who are these insubordinate passengers? Actually, I know of one whose departure time was changed, who missed hearing her name over the loud speaker and who was frogmarched out of  a duty free store and told the plane was waiting just for her and that she had better run.

In transit. I’m on my way to somewhere else. Malaga apparently. I’m in fine spirits!

Still, I’m afraid, in Singapore Airport. Still June 25.

I’ve not gone far at all – Terminal 2.

It’s almost midnight. It’s been a long day. ‘Day’ here is loosely defined as a set of hours.

London, Heathrow

Small freak out:

Mid-flight, whilst flying over the ocean, someone decided they’d had enough of plane travel (in fact, I distinctly heard her say ‘Right, I’ve had enough’ and I sympathised), marched boldly down the aisle and started rattling the exit door. The lady beside me clutched her husband in terror and whispered ‘We’re going to die’. But the attendants were on it straight away, man handling the lady back down the aisle. Perhaps to be sedated and/or restrained?

How do I get hold of those sedatives? Because I was shaking for some time afterwards.

I’ve only slept four hours. Turns out, camomile tea is not as potent or effective as commercially manufactured sleeping tablets. Especially with rivers of adrenalin coursing through your veins, triggered by the fear of imminent death.

And I’m sure I’ll never see my luggage again.

London, Heathrow. Still. June 26? 25? 27?

I’m constantly being told to ‘wait in the lounge’. I’ve started repeating it out loud which is not a good way to make friends. I’m still ok. I’m just F...ING BORED OUT OF MY GOD DAMNED MIND.

And I still have yet another two flights....

London to Madrid. Late June.

People keep saying ‘good morning’ to me which means very little at this point. I’m seriously starting to lose it now. I don’t know what to eat, when to eat it or even why or how. I’m looking forward to having a significant conversation with Connor, the guide for my walking tour, who’s collecting me at Malaga Airport. Was it the domestic or international terminal? What time was he coming? Oh my God. What if I show up at the domestic and he’s waiting in the international and he waits there for three hours and decides I’ve changed my mind and leaves and I don’t have any hotel or contact numbers or currency or probably my luggage.

I’d like to sleep now. A long long nap.

Why am I going through this mild torture? Ah yes. For a nice relaxing holiday.

Madrid then. Waiting for Malaga flight.

Surely this is my lowest point. The domestic terminal is eerily silent, except for a Spanish rendition of the song ‘Mull of Kintyre’ being piped over the loudspeaker. Which I find so absurd and unlikely, that I start to hum along. Rather loudly. There’s nobody here anyway. As far as I can tell, I’m the only person going somewhere today.

I haven’t eaten for hours now – I could not stomach another fetid, rancid plane meal. My ears are ringing and crackling and whistling. NO MORE PLANES.

Oh go on then, one more.

I’ve put on some lipstick. I feel better.

Malaga airport, waiting for Connor, shit scared.

So the baggage carousel stops going round. It was empty. Everyone had taken their bag and gone. Everyone except me.

So. Looks like my backpack didn’t make it.

I walk towards a large, glassed in, official looking office and wander inside. There’s no one in there but there are a number of suitcases. I decide to check if my bag is here. This is the state I’m in - I’m travelling with a big soft black backpack half my height. However, I proceed to check the luggage tag of every case there: a bright green Benetton case, hard red leather rectangular suitcase, a tapestry carrybag with a zip, and regular black trolley suitcase with easily identified yellow ribbon. I earnestly flipped over every luggage tag looking for my name.

No luck. Crest fallen.

Then the baggage carousel again started up behind me. I wander out again and watch, incredulously, as just my little backpack pops out and dutifully comes around to meet me. I take it, look around, shrug, say ‘thank you!’ quite loudly and wander through the exit.

Do I have anything to declare? Just my sanity.

Bubion, a village in the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges.

Connor walked up to me in the airport and asked if my name was Tina. I looked at him seriously and said, ‘I’m not really sure anymore’.

He steered me into the back seat of a van in which two other tourists were already happily sitting waiting. ‘How far away to the village’, I ask? ‘Oh, only three hours’. Clearly my deeply distressed facial expression indicated I might pass out at this news: ‘Just have a little lie down’, he said. ‘We’ll be there in no time.’

I was asleep before he finished that sentence.

A Coeliac in Singapore





High tea at Raffles



And now the delicate moment: '...and, please, no soy sauce'.



 

The cashier / manager frowned at me. ‘No soy?’.

‘No soy. It makes me sick.’ I put on an anguished face and clutched my stomach but this only made her frown even more. ‘I’m really sorry’. (Why should I be sorry??)

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Oyster sauce?’

‘Mmmm... I’d better not risk it. No.’

‘No oyster sauce?’.

‘No.’ Firmly. Politely but firmly.

She shook her head a little and punched numbers into her till. Then she turned and shouted the order to the chef in a language I couldn’t understand. I’m pretty sure that conversation followed the same lines as our exchange but I suspect it was also laced with a little sarcasm and things like ‘she says it will make her sick’ and probably finished with something like ‘These bloody strange tourists’. I’m pretty sure she rolled her eyes.

I didn’t mind the drama at all – it was worth the delicious plate of fried rice topped with a fried egg, and laced with the mysteriously named chicken ham but sans soy sauce. It was the first decent meal I’d had in Singapore in three days. I was there for the Formula 1 Grand Prix and I wasn’t going to risk being sick and missing it after waiting so long and spending so much money.

For the first three days, while the race was on, I would scurry back to a corner of my tiny hotel room in downtown Little India munching nut bars, cracking open tins, and boiling water for my gluten free noodle cups. It was a little pathetic – tuna flecks on the sheets, rice cracker crumbs on the vanity, washing plastic cutlery in the tiny bathroom sink and hiding it in the back of my suitcase. I felt like a girl with a nasty fetish to hide.

At the Grand Prix I had to ask inane questions at food outlets that generally baffled the person being asked: ‘Do you fry your chips in the same oil as your battered fish?’ (at the recreated English pub), and ‘When you say cheese sauce, is it just melted cheese or is it cheese made into a sauce?’ (getting nachos at the Mexican outlet). I looked enviously over at the noodle bar, sniffed deeply and sighed. I watched kids shovelling hot, spicy, saucy battered morsels into their mouths and licked my lips.

Instead, I ordered another gin and tonic.

Day four,  Grand Prix over and I was ready to be unleashed! To hell with the risk of vomiting in public spaces, I was ready to give it a whirl. For the next few days it was a feeding frenzy. First stop was the cafe I mentioned above where I ordered the fried rice for breakfast (it was 11am!). The cranky fried rice lady was the only one to give me attitude. Everyone else in Singapore was so understanding, accommodating and willing to play. So, next I conquered Chinatown with the most delicious plate of pork chop with honey sauce I’ve ever had the good fortune to consume. I regretfully relapsed into colonialism for a rib eye steak smothered in pepper sauce and a very proper English high tea at Raffles.  But the next night I consumed a seven course Chinese banquet with the desperation and abandon of a rescued survivor. Salt and pepper crab! Taro battered scallops! Sago pudding! I waddled back to the hotel, sated, smug and happy.

Towards the end of my stay, I was taken to dinner by some new friends – Indochine on Clarke Quay. Hip understated waterfront restaurant, moody lighting, humid of course, but a cool breeze off the water. And then imagine my surprise and joy when I was presented with a gluten free menu.

Coeliac nirvana. I’d made it.

 

 

* A Coeliac cannot tolerate anything that contains gluten (including wheat amongst other things). Soy sauce is usually processed with wheat and other sauces sometimes contain wheat flour thickeners.