Alright, this is a great and fun thread to read!
First things I look for abroad are exotic food or drinks to carry for my office colleagues but it's more like a fun game competing on who's going to bring back the most disguting stuff, I've always managed to win that contest. (I have them worry during my holidays, imagining what I may bring back, then it's a kind of challenge for them to eat or drink my foreign collection of edibles, everybody has a challenge score to meet according to the food item "disgustness". .).
Some of the best stuff I found in my trips and brought back were :
- a small cobra soaking in a bottle of alcohol I bought in Vietnam, it took 10 years to empty this bottle that eventually became a mascot.
- sugar coated dried squid from Borneo : tastes exactly what it looks like, flat dry squid and sugar.
- the all time favorite Durian flavored candies from Malaysia : butterscotch that tastes like old cheese.
- Kimchi (fermented cabbage) stuffed chocolate candies from Seoul : feels like somebody farts in your mouth when you eat them, Scored very high in disgustness.
- Kava root powder from Fiji and Vanuatu, I didin't realize it was considered like drugs, lucky french customs didn't care much about my dive bag when I went through. We performed a kava drinking ritual at the office, it took some time for my colleagues to stop staring the floor and go back home.
Then I also look for small fun stuff "with a twist" as a stupid prize for giving away at office inhouse contests, I'm trying to spend not more 5-10USD each,. It ranges widely from local art to completely useless or weird items. Just an idea :
- a raja turban from India (the winner had to go and take the metro with his/her turban, actually was a she)
- Thai bpxing shorts (the winner had to show of photo of him in full outfit)
- A silver hairpin from a Laotian craft market,
- a rattan ball of indonesian Sepak Takraw game for an office contest that nobody won.
- a nose flute from North Thailand, that someome with a more prominent nose broke.
- Woven penis sheathes from West Papua,
- The most legendary item I brought back : walking along the river in Kuching/Borneo at night time, a bloke called me in Bahasa melayu showed a box full of ...ahem.. weird stuff... there were kind of whitish and small rings that looked slightly extendable I asked him what they were. I understood itwas done from kambing (goat), he showed me like cutting his eye lids. So that was goat eyelids, when it came to their use, he mimicked putting the goat eyelid around his forearmand then gloriously stretched it hard up. So one of my colleague got an authentic local cockring made from goat eyelids.
Thirdly my flat looks like the Museum of ethnology where anything can either rest on the floor or hangs on the walls : shields from Borneo, war clubs from Fiji, new caledonia or Vanuatu, music instruments from Cambodia, masks or wooden storyboards from PNG, Vanuatu, Curaçao, Borneo, potteries from Borneo or Mozambique, sculptures from Bali, East Africa, South Pacific, a large tiki from Tonga and a fern statue from Vanuatu, painted and sculpted boards of a wooden house from Sulawesi, ikats from Lombok, woven cushions from Thailand, small stuff from Burma, Laos or Indonesia, and lots of opium pipes which I started a collection a while ago...
I remember once in Bangkok staying at The Oriental (just one night, they had an incredible discount, it was the opportunity to stay in that famous 6* heritage hotel) When you know the Oriental, everything is very much old world , I went to the concierge and asked him if and where I could find opium pipes to purchase in Bangkok... I had never seen someone blemish and panic like that....
Tshirts? Yes, only from the dive centres that deserve it AND that are nice looking.
Te best I foundin my opinion is Aquamarine Santo Luganville with a plan of the Coolidge in the back and an embroided logo on the front..
There is one shirt I forgot somewhere and I miss : a dive resort called "Fim Do Mundo" in Mozambique that isn't operating anymore. Dark green Tshirt only written "Fim do Mundo" Best name for a dive centre, a resort, a bar, a restaurant or anything that caters a service.
