My newest travel rule:
The night before any journey, I must:
1) eat at a previously enjoyed restaurant OR
2) feel super-secure in the well-cookedness of my food (yeah, I think I just made up well-cookedness)
What brings on newest said rule? Well, the night before my flight from Luang Prabang, I was excited to find a restaurant serving Lao food. You’d think finding the local food wouldn’t be that exciting, but as every restaurant in Luang Prabang serves mainly western, Thai, or Indian food, seeing the small Lao menu was pretty exciting.
So I ordered up the one veggie dish on the menu. The green beans and rice came out at exactly the same time as a young girl approached me. She was hawking bracelets and dolls, and this was the second time during this sitting that she’d been in trying to sell her wares. Attempting as best as I could to humor her, I finally dug into the meal when she left. The beans were lukewarm and the rice room temperature. Hit by pangs of worry of eating food that hadn’t been properly cooked or that had been sitting out in the open for way too long, I dismissed my worries and convinced myself the rice wasn’t piping hot because the little pre-teen had talked for way too long.
Sadly, though, my stomach didn’t believe such convincing the next morning. Hours before my flight, I was curled up like a baby nursing a knot the size of Georgia in my stomach. Yuck. Not how you want to be feeling before hopping on a plane.
To be honest, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened earlier in your travels. Stomach issues are a common thing when traveling through Asia. Be careful!
Yeah…I think I’ve been a bit lucky because of my almost-all-veg diet. Let’s keep those fingers crossed, though!