World food
World food and the local cuisine, is for us one of the essential elements of travel. It is one of the most important ways of understanding local culture and therefore a huge part of our enjoyment of a new destination. We put real effort into discovering where the locals like to eat, what makes up the local cuisine, and consequently getting away from the tourist areas. It’s fair to say we would try virtually anything. Probably the most unusual food we have eaten is insects. Street food, bar food, upmarket restaurants and dodgy dives all have a part to play in this journey of discovery. As we seek out new experiences we are in search of even more unusual food. You won’t get these experiences from hiding in your hotel!
- Europe, France, History, Independent travel, Photography, Travel Blog, Walking, Wildlife, World food
Carcassonne And On: Wine, Music, Food, Wine…And More Wine
Walt Disney is said to have loved this place so much that he modelled the castle of Sleeping Beauty on it. Up there on on the hill it looks like everyone’s idea of a fairy tale setting, with its perfectly cylindrical turrets pointing upwards so precisely that it’s tempting to look out for Rapunzel letting down her hair or some other damsel in distress calling out for help in the hope that her knight in shining armour appears over the horizon. The damsels, though, are tourists, and so for that matter are those coming over the horizon. Carcassonne is a town of two halves however you look at it. The…
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Black Bulls, Roman Ruins And A Missing Ear: From Aix To Arles
It was a waiter in Aix who first gave us the idea. “If you love Aix”, he said as he put down our sparkling golden beers on the table, “then please go to my town, Arles. It is even more beautiful than Aix”. Well, it’s going to have to go some to achieve that, but maybe we should give it a go – why not? And so we hatch a new plan. Counter intuitively, all the websites tell us it’s quicker to make the journey between the two towns by taking one train down to Marseille and another back up country to Arles, which feels a bit like going from…
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From Kampot to Kep: Discovering A Seafood Heaven
The South East Asia Games are underway. This regional, Olympics-style event is being held in Cambodia for the first time in its history, with Phnom Penh the host city. The last night of our time in Phnom Penh coincided with the Games’ opening ceremony, a spectacular event encapsulating typical scenes from Cambodian history and everyday Cambodian life all delivered with the wonderfully choreographed routines that characterise these opening ceremonies. Packed with commentaries on the country’s bright future and full of pride and patriotism, the whole thing felt like another powerful statement, another big step, on Cambodia’s road to a new era. The enthusiasm of the crowd simply watching on the…
- Asia, Cambodia, Independent travel, Outdoor Activities, Photography, Transport, Travel Blog, World food
Kampot: A Different Kind Of Town
The train is almost definitely not our best option for getting to Kampot, given that there’s only one train per day which leaves Phnom Penh at 7am and takes four hours to do just 150km, but my love of rail travel wins and so we skip breakfast and make our way to the station early enough to beat the traffic jams which create the daily morning gridlock. An ambling train journey through drier and more agricultural terrain eventually delivers us to the little town of Kampot nestling on the banks of the Sangke River, just a few miles from the coast. The smiley little guy introduces himself as Pat as…
- Asia, Cambodia, Independent travel, Outdoor Activities, Photography, Transport, Travel Blog, Wildlife, World food
Tonle Sap: Going Off Limits & Sleeping With Toads
This next part of our South East Asia trip is one which we’ve been looking forward to with such anticipation, not just recently but before the original curtailed trip three years ago. Why? Because we do love pushing the boundaries of the comfort zone, and this short adventure will surely do that. It starts when Var, our guide and companion for the next two days, collects us from Siem Reap and we climb into the nicely air conditioned 4×4. And when we say “companion” we mean it – Var will be sleeping in the same room as us tonight. “I will explain all we are going to do” he says,…
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Seven Sultry Days In Siem Reap
It’s already getting warm long before first light as we head back towards Angkor Wat, the clock ticking towards 4.45am and the darkness heavy with sultry heat even before the birds are singing. Michaela’s trusty weather app says today will be 39C but will “feel like” 45C and it’s clear that the mercury’s journey up the thermometer has already started. We’re up at this hour for the classic sight of the sun rising behind the temple’s five towers, a must-do experience for all visitors to Siem Reap. As we leave the tuk-tuk and start the long walk through the grounds, a silent pilgrimage of other early risers makes its way towards…
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On To Saigon Or Whatever It’s Called
Day 35 of this trip and we cop out for the first time. Up until tonight it’s been local food all the way….Indian, Nepalese and Vietnamese dishes, local specialities, street food, even a frog on a stick for God’s sake. But Can Tho is different: the restaurants aren’t quite as inviting, the atmosphere is less accessible, and the street food we’ve tried is unpopular with locals and close to inedible. So we cop out and find an “ordinary” restaurant, The Lighthouse, which, perish the thought, does steaks and stuff. For the first time since we entered the country, we eat some non-Vietnamese food: Michaela’s is a French dish, mine Belgian.…
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Down To The Delta: Markets On The Mekong
We seem to get from Da Nang to Can Tho in the blink of an eye, via a domestic flight which leaves on time and arrives early followed by a taxi driver with Formula 1 aspirations. Our base in Can Tho is in the Ninh Kieu district, close to the quay of the same name, and as we take our first stroll and look out across the water, there is a serenity which we think is like a Spanish siesta, but will come to realise later that it is something else entirely. The mighty Mekong River travels some 3,050 miles from its source high on the Tibetan Plateau down to…
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The Bridges Of Da Nang And A French Village In The Sky
Da Nang is a large and sprawling city, and our time here is very short – plus, we’ve discovered that the sights which we want to visit are a distance apart from each other and are all some way away from our seafront hotel. Sipping draught Tiger beer on our first night here, we are just debating whether hiring a driver for a day might be our best solution, when we look up and see a guy with a plastic wallet full of leaflets making a beeline for us across the road. “Hello”, he says, “my name is Mister Tony. You want find a driver and guide for your stay…
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Da Nang: The Modern Face Of Vietnam
Laying our Vietnam ghosts has been such an edifying process, we now have a very strong affection for this country after our bad times here at the onset of COVID when we met with some real hostility simply because we were British (this was when the pandemic had taken a stranglehold in the UK more than anywhere else). We’d also had bad food experience, the meals we ate in Hanoi back then were consistently poor, a bit like being given a bowl of washing-up water where if we were really lucky the dishcloth had been left in the bottom. We always knew though that this was not typical – every…
