Off to Malaysia for Lunch

Brunei is a tiny country and the nearest border with Malaysia is less than an hour's drive away from where we live.  Of course as Brunei is a dry country, most expats make fairly regular trips to the border in order to bring back their duty-free allowance of alcohol!  We are lucky not to have to do this as we are able to use the Naafi to buy liquor -  but last weekend we decided that we'd like to go 'abroad' for lunch, and headed for Kuala Lurah border post.

We left our car in Brunei and walked across the border - Here's Rob next to the 'Welcome to Limbang' sign.

There's really not much in Kuala Lurah, just a small and rather scruffy selection of market stalls and roadside restaurants that have sprung up on the border... but of course there's a duty free shop.

The restaurants are mainly tin huts often with a motorbike or two parked inside, or a barbecue set up outside a house.  We were highly amused to see a car pull up at one, and the driver pull a dead baby crocodile (about 50cm long) out of the boot!  She walked into one of the restaurant kitchens...  we decided not to eat there!  (Wish I'd been a bit quicker with the camera to get a photo too).

I loved this artistic menu!

The duty free shop had some interesting drinks not found in the Naafi.  We bought a bottle of the Chinese rice wine on the right of this picture to use for cooking.

We ate in a little cafe.  As soon as we sat down the Chinese owner came up to us and said 'Beer?'  It seemed a real treat to have a lager with lunch when eating out so of course we said yes... and yes again when he asked us a second time!

A nasi goreng (fried rice) for me, mee goreng (fried noodles) for Rob and 2 beers each came to the grand total of 9 Bruneian dollars - about 4.50 GBP.  Cheap and delicious!

We were also very excited to get FOUR stamps in our passports as we went through the Bruneian and Malaysian border-posts, going into then back out of Malaysia.  I think our passports are going to fill up pretty fast while we're living here.

Chestnuts

We went out for a cycle ride last weekend, taking in some of the Grand Union Canal towpath.  As we were hurtling down a long hill into Berkhamsted Rob suddenly screeched to a halt.  I immediately suspected some kind of problem - most likely a flat tyre (which seemed destined to happen, as I had forgotten to bring the puncture-repair tools with me...) but thankfully there was a much more pleasant reason for stopping - Chestnuts!

And not just a few.  As you can see, the road was covered in them, many squashed to a pulp by the passing cars, but plenty still nestling within their spiky shells.

The UK is home to two kinds of chestnut tree, although confusingly they are not related to eachother.  The Horse Chestnut produces the conker, inedible to humans but much used by children for playing conkers.  The Sweet Chestnut tree was introduced into Britain by the Romans who made much use of its edible seeds.  These chestnuts are available to buy for a few months over the winter (often seen as being symbolic of Christmas - 'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire', etc) but those in the shops are usually imported from countries such as Italy.  It seems that few people collect their own nowadays, although I suspect this is in part because the chestnuts you might see growing wild here are often tiny, too small to be of much use. 

 

These chestnuts however were a great size, the biggest I'd ever seen here, and we proceeded to fill up our rucksack-pockets with them.  Those prickly cases are vicious though, so I soon discovered that the best way to free the nuts was with my feet!

 

I'm not sure what the people in the passing cars thought of us...  I wonder how many people realised what we were collecting?

 

We had so many that I wondered how on earth we were going to use them all.  I had great plans for marrons glaces, chestnut cake, chestnut stuffing, etc, etc...

 

But you know, sometimes the simplest ways are the best.  We have just been roasting them on the glowing embers of the fire, eating them with nothing more than a sprinkling of salt, and drinking a glass of fine English beer while we do so.  

I love the Spring, I adore the Summer, but Autumn is pretty fantastic too!