My Adventure Gourmet Travels

Posted on 11/29/2009

Travel

What is adventure travel? Surely all travel is an adventure, although "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". Does the variance between a vacation and an adventure travel lie simply within the degree of difficulty in achieving the journey? Is the travel more or less an adventure based on the labor in getting from point A to point B?

Those who have progressed from armchair travel to country-hopping know what it takes to accomplish a successful international trip. Anyone who has traveled outside his home country to a foreign land, without the aid of a tour company, has had to rely on himself for guidance, and this is where the 'rubber meets the road' in adventure travel. The self-reliant one can get lost, but he knows that when he does he will find something fun to do, someone good to meet and something good to eat.

My personal favorite place for adventure travel is Southeast Asia. The richness of this region is so vast and so varied that I could never experience all its treasures -- from its geography, peoples, food, ethnic variety, religions, cultural practices and peculiar Asian ways of life. Southeast Asia is a joy to behold like no other place on earth!

While travelling I like to sight-see the major cities, small towns and countryside with a look-out for both famous and out-of-the-way places to experience the local culture and environment.

Catalogued in this website are the travelogues of my past 2 visits to South-east Asia and another upcoming visit at the end of '09 - which is my most ambitious yet - in only 36 days I will visit 10 countries and 26 cities/towns/hill resorts.

Food

The world is full of good food. Since I began travelling to Asia in '07, it has been my good fortune to eat the best food in the places I have visited. From world-class Thai lunchtime buffet at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Sala Rim Naam Restaurant in Bangkok Thailand, to 1st-class Malay food at Seri Melayu Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, to amazingly potent Indian cuisine at Banana Leaf Apolo Restaurant in Singapore. These restaurants personify and sum up the best-in-class foods of these various countries.

While travelling, I like to eat exotic and unbelievably tasty food at both fine dining restaurants and local eating houses. I look for food that I cannot get at home. From world-class, internationally-known fine dining restaurants to locally-known & popular restaurants, food courts, hawker centers, roadside food vendors, hawker push-carts and itinerant basket-toting entrepreneurs.

Many people consider street hawker food to be unclean. However, a simple rule to observe when travelling is "follow the locals". To be on the safe side though, when ordering food from road-side stalls and street hawkers I employ three simple rules to protect my health:

1. The food must be hot - preferably fresh off the grill or griddle. Food that is not served hot is at risk of containing micro organisms that can be harmful to my comfy insides.

2. Fried foods should be cooked in oil that is fresh (golden colored oil rather than dark brown or black colored oil). Oil that is overused contains dangerous free radicals, which in turn are carcinogenic to my interior ecosystem.

3. No cold foods or cold prepared drinks. Only bottled cold drinks.

Catalogued in this website are the outstanding restaurants and good eating places I have had the privilege of partaking at.

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