Food! Food! Food!

I mentioned before that I was traveling. As you read this, I'll either be getting ready or already on my way back to the States (hint, hint...this is the reason for lack of responses).

One of the things I love best about traveling is trying the local food. Especially so if it is distinctive from the stuff I usually partake in other than once in a while...say Mediterranean, Spanish, African, or pretty much anything in Asia. Well, the last two weeks it's this last that I've been in, specifically Thailand, one of my favorite places on the planet, in large part because of the food!

On this trip I've made it a point to stay away from Western food as much as possible. You could actually eat decent Western food here everyday as there's a large foreign population and many (MANY) tourist. But I've gone the native route, eating Thai food for nearly every meal. The good thing for me is that I love Thai food and am particularly found of the very spicy dishes (which surprises most Thai restaurant workers as they expect farang—foreigners—to want everything tamed down.)

Not going to write a lot as I'm putting this together while I'm still traveling, but thought I'd share some of the dishes I've had, and throwing in a few shots from street vendors, too! Please excuse the fact that I can't remember all the names.

Street Vendor at Work

Skewers Waiting for the Grill

Dumplings

Fried Spring Rolls

Spices to Make Extra Spicy

Satay and Pad Kee Mao

Panang Moo (Moo means Pork

Done

So...hungry?

Leaving on a Jet Plane...well, Left & Landed by Now

By Brett

By the time you read this, I’ll be halfway around the world, in warm weather near the equator.

Travel is an important part of my life, and an important part of my writing. It is both my inspiration and a source of my research. I often set many of my adult novels in foreign locations, and being able to marry my loves of writing and travel is the best of all possible worlds for me (hat tip to Candide).

What I love to do when I travel is just find some place that I can sit with a book and watch the world go by. This is a great way of getting a feel for how the city or town works, how the people who live there interact, and what normal everyday life is like. Yes, I do sometimes visit the typical tourist spots, but I never do those on any organized kind of tours. I always go on my own. But most of the time I just wander, soaking in wherever I’m at, and observing. Observing is one of the biggest parts of being a writer, and, I like to think, one of my best talents.

I often travel alone, no matter what part of the world I go. Would I like to travel with someone? Sure, but I also enjoy going alone. It’s a great way of forcing myself to meet the locals and learn more about the area. And while I will be doing some of that where I’m going, it is a location I have visited before, so I actually have friends there now who I will be seeing at some point.

When my turn here at Adr3nalin3 comes around again in two weeks, I’ll still be there, but just about to come home. Maybe I’ll have a story to tell you then, or some pictures to share. We’ll see.

So, how about you? Do you enjoy to travel? Do you have favorite places to go? Are you willing to stretch yourself out of your comfort zone? And writers, what’s your favorite type of thing to do for research?