恶人谷

For the whole time I was there I was often in the bizarre and somehow shameful position of watching a country dismantled before my eyes from a relatively comfortable distance.

Where once I believed that the meal was a leveling experience, a thing that could make a difference, that over food and drink in some small way people could make a difference ... I'm not so sure anymore. It seems now that whatever we eat, however proud we may be, good and bad alike are crushed under the same wheel. Obviously, I'm feeling a little pessimistic about the world these days.

Eating sichuan hotpot opens up whole new dimensions in the pleasure/pain spectrum. A delightfully sado-masochistic experience, yet curiously addictive. You're sweating, doubled over with pain and yet you want more.

Balut (half-term fetal duck egg) known in Vietnam as "hot vinlon" as I ate it can best be described as soft-boiled -- very soft-boiled. I found it disturbingly feathery, though the crunchy notes were not unpleasant.