When I set out for the beach town of Canggu, just over an hour south of Ubud on Bali’s southeastern coast, I didn’t plan to learn to surf. Actually, I didn’t plan to…plan. My whole goal was to go somewhere new with absolutely no plan at all and to say “yes” to any (reasonable) suggestion that came my way. So, when the first person that I met said, “you must learn to surf when in Canggu,” I gulped a little.
Continue ReadingThe Martyr Village
Visiting this village near the city of Limoges in the sparsely populated Haute Vienne Department of France does not involve visiting a place. Rather, it involves visiting a place in time.
Oradour-sur-Glane looks exactly as it did after the fires of June 10, 1944, stopped smoldering, leaving behind only the memories of the villages 642 inhabitants who were inexplicably massacred, and the burned-out shells where there was once a church, a bakery, a deli, a town hall.
Oradour-sur-Glane is purposefully preserved in a state of total ruin so that we never forget the atrocities of war.
Continue ReadingKuala Lumpur: Perfect Day (for foodies)
While you don’t have to be a foodie to love this day in the colorful city of Kuala Lumpur, it does involve a lot of adventurous eating – though the meals are all balanced by quite a bit of walking (so no guilt about the food consumption)!
Continue ReadingWhen an Island Goes Dark
I didn’t plan it, exactly, but I am somehow following New Year’s celebrations around the globe.
I joined old friends in Florida to ring in 2019 over champagne and laughter in January; lunched with new friends in Chiang Dao to celebrate the Chinese New Year over long noodles and warm red wine on the first New Moon of February, and I will celebrate the Khmer New Year in Cambodia next month.
Continue ReadingThe Best of Malay Street Food: Part Two (the one with the forbidden fruit)
Our little group of food tourists had dutifully followed our guide, Fadly, to street-food stands and local haunts throughout the village of Kampung Baru, tasting satay soaked in peanut sauce, burgers wrapped in egg and doused in Worcestershire sauce, squid stuffed with sticky rice and palm sugar, and cow lung deep-fried and dipped in chili paste.
And now as the sun set and the skies opened up, soaking the streets and sending little rivulets of water between the meat stations and produce vendors, Fadly said it was time to learn our way around the farmers market.
Continue ReadingThe Best of Malay Street Food: Part One
When I told people in Thailand that my next stop was Kuala Lumpur, multiple sources gushed: “Oh the food there is the best.”
So, naturally, the first thing that I did upon arrival in KL was to book a food tour touting the tastes of traditional Malay street food.
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