Chinese guy a the market

When you think of Brunei, what usually comes to mind are images of grandeur: golden palaces, glittering mosques, one of the richest sultans in the world. Yet what I couldn’t imagine, what no travel guide ever tells you, is that the real surprise of Brunei is not in its architecture but in the simplicity of its people.

It may sound cliché, I know. After every trip, people say: “We met wonderful people!” But after years of traveling, rarely have I felt so moved. Here, there is no forced smile, no politeness worn like a duty, as you sometimes find in places overwhelmed by mass tourism.

Three ladies at the Royal Regalia Museum

No. Here, the smile is genuine. Kindness is spontaneous. Perhaps it is precisely because mass tourism hasn’t arrived yet, because Brunei hasn’t “sold itself” to the world, that such authenticity survives.

The first person I want to remember is Darren, the manager of the Badi’ah Hotel. Of Chinese origins but deeply rooted in Brunei, he hosted us for four nights, offering us a more than generous price. But it wasn’t just a business exchange. He went beyond that.

3 girls we met prior to our jungle tour

He arranged our tours, personally drove us to the starting point of an excursion difficult to find, and made sure every detail was perfect. Not like a professional on duty, but like a friend. And when I say friend, I don’t exaggerate: there was genuine care, almost affection, in his attitude.

Then there was Mohammed, our city tour driver. He speaks little, smiles even less, but his kindness shows in his gestures: patient, precise, respectful. He drives calmly, obeys the rules, and never rushes. And in a world where hurry is the norm, such slowness feels like respect. Even his English, though simple, was clear and helpful. Not a talker, but a man who knows what he’s doing.

Kampong Ayer boatman

And what about the boatman who took us through Kampong Ayer, the village on stilts, in search of proboscis monkeys? I don’t remember his name, but I will never forget him. With his modest boat, he guided us through canals, shallow waters, and tiny rapids. He spoke enthusiastically about his country, wanted to know who we were, what we did. And when we finally saw the monkeys — yes, we saw and photographed them — his pride was genuine. A rare person: polite, curious, sincere. The kind you wish to meet again on your next trip.

Then came another unexpected pair: the driver and guide who took us into the jungle. He, far more talkative than the guide, spoke non-stop for an hour and a half, explaining every detail of the journey.

Mira, our jungle guide in Brunei 

She, Margy — or rather Margelyn, a Filipina, administrative director of the tour operator, not just a guide — was young, professional, impeccable. And him? Perhaps the owner of the company himself, stepping in because, in a country where tourism is still slow, there simply isn’t enough staff. Two managers working as driver and guide, smiling and flawless in their knowledge. And yes, when you joke with them, they laugh because they understand, not because they must.

But if I must choose the person who struck me the most, it would be Mira. Nineteen years old, from the Iban people — the ancient Dayak — freshly graduated as a guide. Confident, intelligent, with impeccable English. She led us into the jungle on a “long boat” as narrow as a nutshell, steered with skill by Jimmy, another local, who navigated the shallow rocky riverbed with the mastery of someone who does it daily.

Alis, Pluto and the Iban guide Margy

Then came the trek, the suspension bridge… I, with my fear of heights, trembled, making the rope bridge tremble too. But Mira accompanied me calmly, without rush, with a reassuring tone. And I made it. Perhaps not a great triumph, but at 62 years old, it felt like a small victory. While she and Alice continued to the canopy walk, I stayed behind to rest. And above all, to reflect.

And then there were others: Somboon, the Thai cook from Korat working here, who after a week without pasta promised me spaghetti al dente “just the way you like them.” A simple gesture, but full of humanity, for someone like me who is so sensitive to the pleasures of the table. Or the three ladies at the Royal Regalia Museum, who stood up for a photo so as not to look like they were on break. Or the Chinese man at the market, proud of living in a country where, as he said, “the government helps the people.” Or the three smiling girls who greeted me with a heartfelt “Welcome to Brunei,” without pretense.

Sonboon the Thai chef

These people, even those with whom you exchange only a few words, tell you more about a country than a thousand speeches. They show you a Brunei that is not only sharia, monarchy, and oil. It’s a place where kindness is not an exception but the norm. Where hospitality is not a service, but a way of being.

And maybe, in the end, this is the Brunei worth knowing: not the one of golden palaces, but the one of sincere eyes, genuine smiles, and open hands. A country that, despite everything, leaves you with a lighter heart.

To learn more about planning your trip and experiencing authentic Brunei hospitality, visit the official Brunei Tourism website.

Photos by Guglielmo Zanchi (Pluto)

Watch Fantasia Asia video on Brunei HERE:

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Welcome to Fantasia Asia Channel! Today, we embark on an awe-inspiring adventure deep into the heart of nature at TharnBoke Khoranee National Park. Nestled in the province of Krabi, Thailand, this hidden gem promises a tapestry of stunning landscapes, from cascading waterfalls to mysterious caves. Join US as we explore the enchanting beauty and discover the secrets that make TharnBoke Khoranee National Park a true natural wonder. Don’t forget to hit that like button, and subscribe for more travel content. And now, let’s dive into this visual feast together!

Read Asian Itinerary article on  TharnBoke Khoranee National Park HERE: https://asianitinerary.com/tharnboke-koranee-a-high-quality-trip-for-real-nature-lovers/ 

The post THARNBOKE KORANEE’s Waterfalls and Caves appeared first on Asian Itinerary.

The White Temple in Chiang Rai is a stunning piece of architecture that has captivated travelers from around the world. This sacred place, also known as Wat Rong Khun, is a contemporary Buddhist temple designed by the renowned Thai artist Chalermchai Kositpipat. The temple’s striking all-white exterior, intricate carvings, and reflective glass embellishments make it a truly unique and awe-inspiring sight. 

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINK TO WATCH FANTASIA ASIA VIDEO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nc95PGMe6Q

The post The Enchanting White Temple of Chiang Rai appeared first on Asian Itinerary.

To my right Khun Cha, to my left Alis

Here we are still in Klong Muang, southern Thailand, and we are meeting up again with Khun Cha as she has promised to cook her specialty for us: Crab Curry, or Gaeng Poo in the Thai language. Of course, there are several Thai dishes that use crab as the main ingredient, but locals will tell you that no-one should neglect to include crab on the list of must-eat food in southern Thailand.

Our morning boat trip with the crab-catching family is finally paying off as it is the time for us to watch as Khun Cha, assisted by Alis, cooks the freshly-caught crabs collected.

CRAB CURRY RECIPE

Preparation time: 10 minutes  –   Cooking time: 10 minutes

INGREDIENTS 

The main ingredients are coconut milk, sugar cane, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaves and curry paste

Serves 4 people

• 300g vermicelli rice noodles (khanom jeen)
• 300ml/2 cups of coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons of yellow curry paste
• shrimp paste  to taste
• 1kg fresh crabs
• 1-2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 cubes of palm sugar
• few leaves of Kaffir Lime

METHOD

Time to add the coconut milk

Step 1 – Place a pot of water to boil and then cook the noodles (khanom jeen) until pliable and soft – around 5 minutes. Drain in a colander and set aside.

Step 2 – In the same pot, add the coconut milk and lower the heat until it boils and reduces to half. Add the curry paste and shrimp paste into the coconut milk and stir and press down until all the shrimp paste has dissolved. Season with fish sauce and sugar to taste (it depends on how salty or sweet you want it) and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the crab meat and a few leaves of Kaffir lime, and lower the heat. Once the crab is done, transfer the curry to a serving bowl and serve it with the noodles (or with rice).

It only needs to be stirred once

Bear in mind this is a dish quite uncommon on many Thai restaurant menus. A Crab Curry, or Gaeng Poo, is basically mostly a yellow curry – the colour originating from turmeric – made with crab meat. It is typically served with fine rice noodles (khanom jeen) and vegetables, though you can use rice instead.

The final moment is here, and the curry is delicious!!

You can easily buy pre-cooked crab meat, in which case the preparation is next to nothing and the whole dish can be cooked in 20 minutes. If you, like us, use whole crabs then the time taken is a bit longer, but the pleasure of eating it will be more intense.

Crab Curry, or Gaeng Poo, is indeed one of those amazing Thai curries that you need to have on hand. Thanks again Khun Cha for this fantastic treat. 

Thanks again to all our sponsors and in particular to tour agent Fantasia Asia – The team support was amazing as usual.

The post Thai Crab Curry – Gaeng Poo appeared first on Asian Itinerary.

Crabs: when you think of them, you think of food, or of running after them on the beach. There is actually more than that. In Asia, and in Thailand in particular, some species of crabs provide essential livelihood opportunities for local people who have little other options to earn money. 

Klong Muang coastline

The south of Thailand is predominantly a Sea Sun and Sand destination, with lots of local seafood delicacies to be enjoyed in the many restaurants scattered around the province. It is mainly for this reason that I have decided to spend a few hours with a family of local crab catcher in their quest to make and income and fill up their bellies, and hopefully mine too! Follow AsianItinerary on board of their longtail boat…

I start the day in Klong Muang, a rather peaceful tourist area located in the Thai province of Krabi. After meeting with our contact Khun Cha, her husband, her daughter and her father in law at 8am at the local pier, we board their longtail boat and set sail. The sea is calm and the sky is blue in this mid-January morning. Cha explains that most local fishermen go out quite early to haul traps and nets in and to collect the crabs. They often place their traps back in the water right after they have collected the previous day’s catch, which is what they are planning to do today. 

Our team on the longtail boat

As the sun rises higher in the sky and highlights the silhouettes of the several limestone islands that dot the Krabi sea, we slowly approach the first buoy that marks the start of the first set of traps – Cha’s family has 5 set of 50 traps each in place! Each line of traps is distinguished by the colour of the flag attached to the start and to the end buoy, for easy recognition. The traps are usually set down in circles, in order to cut each possible way out and catch crabs that are walking around foraging.

It is at this point that the collection begins. Cha’s husband and father in law skilfully lift trap after trap from the bottom of the sea: in this point the water is approximately 8 meters deep, Cha tells us. We are all pretty excited when they found one of the traps containing a decent-sized crab. Retrieving the crab needs skills: we observe how Cha’s husband quickly sorts through the crab, being careful not to break crab legs or get his fingers pinched. He is an experienced crab handler and he knows that the crab wants to get out but it does not like being forcefully grabbed. He gives the net a quick shake, grabs the crab from its back, takes it off the net, ties its spiked claws with two elastic bands and places it in a bucket filled with sea-water. 

A close-up of a fold-up net

These collapsible traps have an inner pouch that needs to be refilled with bait (small fish in tranches of bigger fish) before the trap can be folded up and placed on the boat floor together with the ones collected so far. 

We take advantage and ask Khun Cha a few questions, getting interesting answers on the crab subject. During the autumn months, the monsoon blows in the south of Thailand and the waters do feel the effects of the stormy weather. In that period, a warning of high waves often means fishermen cannot go out, especially those with small boats like the one we are on today. This means that not only will crabs be scarce in the markets, but also prawns and fish. Also, fishermen in this area have to deal with currents and tides: peak high or low tide are the best times to crab, as during swift tidal exchanges crab often bury themselves. It is when the water starts to flow again after low tide that fishermen place their traps to take advantage of the natural tendency of sea animals to swim with the current.

blue crabs

Back to our day, the operation continues until the whole 50 traps of the first set have been collected. While some traps contain one single crab, others give us occasional surprises with other edible sea animals such fish and shellfish and various shallow-water fish, an hermit crab with its massive shell, starfishes, a pufferfish and even a good-size octopus which devoured the crab that was in the trap leaving just the bones, and became trapped itself in the process.

We are told that most local crabs of any size are delicious, although there will be more meat in the claws and under the shell of larger ones. The shell of their claws and their back will be hard, however, making the meat difficult to remove. Some type of small crabs are quite heavy and have a lot of meat, but their shell is thinner, making it easier to remove. It is also amazing to learn that each female crab can carry between 30000 and one million eggs, and that no more than 30% of these will produce offspring. That is the reason why Cha’s family often releases ‘pregnant’ female crabs when they have darker eggs, a sign that they are near hatching time.  

A female crabs, notice the eggs are of a dark colour, which means they are near hatching.

An Internet research also tells me that the Thai Government has so far successfully established 320 blue crab banks across Thailand in an effort to raise the number of blue crabs in the sea, as the rising crab consumption in the country has led to a decline in their numbers in Thai waters.

And as our day leads to an end and our boat approaches the sandy shore, Cha prepares the catch of the day to be sold. Buying crabs directly from a boat when it comes in lets buyers see them at their freshest time, and also very active as they are recently freed from the traps. Price for local crabs can vary. On average, medium-sized crabs cost 200-250 baht a kilo, but larger ones can cost more.

Cha’s father in law. He has been fishing crabs all his life

We disembark and say goodbye to our lovely hosts. It is great to see that (at least in this area) locals have decided to both preserve the fishermen’s way of life and the traditional crab-catching methods.

IDENTIFY YOUR CRAB

In order to properly identify what crab you have caught, you need to look at it carefully. What colour is it? How big are its claws? How does its shell feel to the touch? The Marine Conservation Society and other associations have some great identification sheets that you can download and take with you when you go to the seaside, and they’re not just for crabs, but all sorts of other things you might find at the beach.

YOU MAY WANT TO KNOW

Blue swimming crabs have been increasingly threatened. If you find small and young crabs in a market or at a restaurant, treat it as a bad sign: if inconsiderate fishing practices continue, there will not be enough young crabs to replace the old crabs, which may have a severe effect on the future growth of the crab population.

MSC ecolabel

To take steps towards a solution, WWF invited an independent fisheries and aquatic resource consulting company to assess and evaluate the situation of the blue swimming crab fishing industry in Thailand using the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) standard. Seafood with the MSC label, gives assurances to consumers that the food comes from, and can be traced back to, a sustainable fishery that meets the highest benchmarks for credible certification and eco-labelling.

OUR SPONSOR

Asian Itinerary stayed at Nakamanda Resort, https://www.nakamanda.com 

For more information or direct bookings, take advantage of Fantasia Asia special rates: you can contact us on booking@fantasiaasia.com

Asian Itinerary was lucky enough to be invited to a crab curry cooking session at the crab-catching family home. READ ABOUT IT HERE!

The post Catching crabs in Krabi appeared first on Asian Itinerary.

This is your chance to travel with travel experts Fantasia Asia and Asian Itinerary on a journey that will encompass two of the most exciting and culturally rich countries of South-East Asia: Vietnam and Cambodia. The ELITE VIETNAM & CAMBODIA TOUR is full of amazing adventures and stops in the best cultural and heritage sites of these two picturesque countries, at a price affordable to every pocket. 

Wat Phnom in Phnom Penh

The ELITE VIETNAM & CAMBODIA TOUR consists of two parts for a total of 20 days/19 nights. You can choose to complete the entire itinerary, visiting both Vietnam and Cambodia, or you can decide to join in only the first part of the journey (ELITE VIETNAM 12 days/11 nights) or, alternatively, only the second part (ELITE CAMBODIA 12 days/11 nights). The first and second legs of the journey connect in Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh.

YES! WE ARE GREEN!

A nominal part of the tour profits will go towards planting trees. ZeroCO2 is an innovative start-up that deals with environmental sustainability through reforestation projects with a high social impact. They have calculated for us the environmental impact of our journey and advised an amount that will compensate it through the planting of a certain number of trees. 

Also, Fantasia Asia and Asian Itinerary actively cooperate with blogger and travel enthusiast Fabiola: follow her on Instagram HERE ! She will be an active part of this amazing tour, enriching the already juicy program.

Tam Coc river and fields

This is ELITE VIETNAM & CAMBODIA TOUR itinerary: 

VIETNAM: DAY 1 – DAY 12

Hanoi, Pu Luong, Ninh Binh, Halong Bay, Hue, Hoi An, Ho Chi Minh.

CAMBODIA: DAY 9 – DAY 20

Hoi An, Ho Chi Minh, Mekong Delta, Chau Doc, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap.

PRICES ARE AS FOLLOWS:

ELITE VIETNAM & CAMBODIA 20 days/19 nights

ELITE VIETNAM 12 days/11 nights

ELITE CAMBODIA 12 days/11 nights

Prices are in USD and per person in a shared twin/double room occupancy.

The tour first leg leaves on the 1st of March 2020. For the FULL ITINERARY PROGRAM click one of the following links:

IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

IN ITALIAN LANGUAGE

IN SPANISH LANGUAGE

Siem Reap temples

The tour price does not include the flight to the starting point. Participants will need to make their travel arrangements to reach the starting point, Hanoi for the ELITE VIETNAM and the FULL TOUR, Danang for the ELITE CAMBODIA, in time for the tour starting date and time. 

Fishing on Thu Bon River – Hoi An

You can now browse Fantasia Asia pages for full details:

http://www.fantasiaasia.com/elite-vietnam-cambodia-12-days-11-nights-part-1/

http://www.fantasiaasia.com/elite-vietnam-cambodia-12-days-11-nights-part-2/

http://www.fantasiaasia.com/elite-vietnam-cambodia-20-days-19-nights/

For further information and reservation, drop us an email at asianitinerary@gmail.com – we will be happy to answer your questions and clarify your doubts, and to guide you through the payment process. Reservation needed to secure a place in the tour is 30% of the selling price. Places are limited, act early to avoid disappointment. 

We look forward to hearing from you and to hopefully travel together in 2020 in the ELITE VIETNAM & CAMBODIA TOUR!

The post Tour Elite Vietnam & Cambodia appeared first on Asian Itinerary.