@JohnH You are one lucky man sir. And I say that with certainty because I was there the day before! Unfortunately I've been running about since then so haven't had a chance to do a write up yet.
If anyone is thinking about going to OudFest and is on the fence, I can honestly say it was one of the most humbling sensory experiences of my life. To taste kinam, to drink kinam, to have various kinamic oils on my hands...and then the Nha Trang. Oh my goodness. I have never smelled a beauty as haunting as Nha Trang; it is like the deepest twang of mahogany sadness, or the mellow beauty of a cello being played by a master cellist...echoes and reverberations of a thousand years of the life of a tree from a sacred jungle. It smells like kinam, undoubtedly, just like the Borneo Diesel (piercing white kinam) and Port Moresby (kinam smoke) which I also tried, but the Nha Trang takes the kinam note and buries it in the heart of the most excruciatingly beautiful Vietnamese woodiness.
All of today I have been thinking about that oil and about kinam. I keep smelling what remains of the sweet drydown of the kinam oils, and my other highlight which was the Sultan Ahmet. They are in the very highest league of sensory experience for me. I feel truly humbled.
I also smelled so many other oils, including my favourite Hindi Assamugo Senkoh. I had Oud Musa, Hud and Shuayb on at the same time and for me the Assamugo Senkoh was easily my favourite. Oud Musa was perhaps the deepest whilst Oud Hud was strikingly unique, with a similar cannabis note to Aku Akira, but a completely different dry down - the dry down is something like caramelised hay. Assamugo Senkoh however had a very striking rose note for me (something Ensar said he did not get at all however), and was pristine and clear - it reminded me very much of the Agar Aura Hindis and everything I adore about them, but the Assamugo was a pitched at an octave higher than Chamkeila and Kalyani (the two Hindis I have from Taha).
Speaking of Taha, I took a few Agar Aura samples including Khmer Special K, Syed's Ascent and Ayu which were received very positively indeed. In fact Ensar told me more than once that I should think about getting a bottle of Ayu. I also had the privilege of speaking to Taha earlier in the day and quite honestly that was a true personal highlight for me, because although I have never met the man I consider him a great friend and someone whom I look up to in many ways. I've had long email conversations about how he envisages his oils and it was wonderful to see them being appreciated by Ensar. I had absolutely no doubt they would be, as for me they are extraordinarily fine works of art which are
severely under-appreciated. I am planning on posting some reviews of these masterpieces soon.
Sidi
@Ensar and Sidi
@Kruger I don't think I will ever forget that experience and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Everything I said to you at the time was magnified today as the magnitude of what I had experienced really set in. And again, deepest apologies for causing you to miss your meal...