Now, Travelling Frogs consider themselves reasonably intrepid, and like to try interesting foods wherever they go. However, this dish (on the menu in Danang, Vietnam) gave us food for thought*. Had something, somehow, got lost in translation? Should we try it anyway, in the interests of research and appreciating local culture?
I’m sorry to say (am I really sorry?) that, on this occasion, courage forsook us. Maybe another time…
*sorry!
Travelling Frogs are in France at the moment, and today the ‘cloches volutes’, the flying bells, have come back!
In the local tradition, church bells don’t ring between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Instead they fly to the Vatican to be blessed by the Pope, and come back on Saturday night, loaded with presents (yes, you guessed it, mainly chocolate!) ready to peal joyously on Easter Sunday. And when the bells ring, or when someone calls ‘les cloches sort passees’, that’s the signal for the start of the Easter egg hunt…
…is the name of one of the late, great Terry Pratchett’s books, in which he asks “Why do you go away?” I love his answer: “So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
Marcel Proust said the same thing, I guess: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
Food for thought, isn’t it…
We were told in Malaysia that monkeys fed by tourists are starting to suffer from obesity and diabetes – too much of the wrong food (and presumably, because they don’t have to search for it themselves, not enough exercise…)
And if that’s not enough to deter us, our guide explained that, in monkey communities, the alpha male is given food by inferiors. So they immediately rank anyone who feeds them as inferior and might treat them aggressively.
Ok, I’m convinced!
travelling frogs 