(uplifting music)
(overlapping distant chatter)
- [Meg] This is EF Outbound,
a podcast that showcases
transformative travel stories
that defy our expectations,
challenge our assumptions,
and teach us something new
about that world and ourselves.
(laughter)
(fireworks crackle)
I'm Meg Martino and I'll be
your host for this episode.
(tranquil music)
This summer, the EF Outbound
team got to interview
the ultimate traveler.
- [Anthony] My name is Anthony
Bourdain, I'm a traveler,
I'm a frequent flier,
I'm a storyteller,
and an enthusiast.
- [Meg] If you don't know
who Anthony Bourdain is,
a quick Google
search will suffice.
He's written books like
"Kitchen Confidential"
and "A Cook's Tour".
He's had shows on the Food
Network, the Travel Channel,
and his most recent
show, Parts Unknown,
has been on CNN since 2013.
And while he's made
the world his home,
you might be surprised to
learn that up until his 40s,
Anthony didn't really travel.
It's not that he didn't want to,
he just didn't have
the opportunity to.
But starting at a young age,
Anthony's curiosity
and wild mind
took him to far away places.
- [Anthony] I grew up in a
house of music and books.
My parents had a
good book collection
and the love of some really
great children's books
that my father would read me.
Y'know, bedtime stories
and then I'd soon,
dissatisfied with the
relative short amount of time,
I'd want to know
what's happening next.
This "Wind in the Willows"
action or Dr. Doolittle,
I wanna read the next chapter!
I'm not waiting around til
tomorrow night, so I'd read.
And then, of course,
there were all these
grownup books downstairs.
I started getting into those
'cause it was a little more
interesting down there.
(film reel whirs)
Films were very important
to me, very important to me.
My father worked
at a camera store
and we'd rent 16-millimeter
prints of classic films
and show them to
family and friends.
So my view of what the
world should be and could be
as a little boy was already,
y'know, pirate ships
and Tarzan and adventures
and faraway exotic places.
- [Meg] But as he got older,
those pirate ships sailed
off into the distance
and with them his dreams of
adventures around the world.
- [Anthony] I found myself
working in a very insular world
for most of my adult life.
I was in one kitchen or
another in New York City.
I didn't see any of it.
So by the time I
got this unexpected
opportunity to travel,
travel as much as I
liked, anywhere I liked,
I was pretty happy about that.
I was ready to take
full advantage.
I thought it was game over and
suddenly it was bonus round.
- [Meg] So when we
sat down with Anthony
in a beautiful villa in Italy,
he told us about his first
trip out of the country
for his book and TV
show, "A Cook's Tour".
For Anthony, this trip was
a first in many, many ways
and it held a lot of meaning.
He was going to the country he
had wanted to visit the most,
one he had been dreaming
about for years.
Today on EF Outbound,
Anthony will tell us
how Vietnam shattered
his expectations,
stole his heart, and returned
him home completely changed.
- [Anthony] In the
case of Vietnam,
it was a first love
in a lot of ways.
I grew up during
the Vietnam War era.
I've read deeply into
both the non-fiction
and fiction about the place.
It was a place about
which I had very high,
very maybe foolishly
romantic notions
and it ended up
being even better
than I thought it would
be, that experience.
(jangling blues music)
Back then, I went to Saigon,
Can Tho, Nha Trang, and Hanoi.
A lot of travel.
Oh, and up into the
tribal areas in the north.
God, looking back on it now,
my thread count has improved
somewhat since those days,
let's put it that way.
(motor putters)
I do not believe in
love at first sight.
I think you could make a
case for love at first smell
and the smells of Vietnam,
it's unlike anything
I'd ever smelled before.
Fish sauce, this sort of
fermented funky fish sauce,
which I happen to love.
Durian, which is a
slightly rotten smell.
Diesel fuel from the scooters.
Joss sticks burning
incense from the temples.
Jasmine.
(woman laughs)
Quite beautiful.
Graham Greene writes about it,
about a smell that grabs you,
and it does.
- [Meg] Graham Green writes,
"I can't say what made me
fall in love with Vietnam,
"that a woman's
voice can drug you,
"that everything is so intense.
"The colors, the
taste, even the rain,
"nothing like that
filthy rain in London.
"They say whatever you're
looking for, you will find here.
"They say you come to Vietnam
"and understand a
lot in a few minutes
"but the rest has
got to be lived.
"The smell, that's the
first thing that hits you,
"promising everything in
exchange for your soul.
"And the heat, your shirt
is straightaway a rag.
"You can hardly
remember your name
"or what you came
to escape from,
"but at night there's a breeze.
"The river is so beautiful,
you could be forgiven
"for thinking there was no war,
"that the gunshots
were fireworks,
"that only pleasure matters.
"And then something happens
as you knew it would
"and nothing can ever
be the same again."
- [Anthony] I fell in
love with the country.
I became bewitched
by the difference.
It's an extraordinarily
diverse place.
I mean, there are beach
areas and jungle, mountains.
There are alpine
areas of Vietnam
that look like Switzerland!
I was overwhelmed by the
kindness and generosity
of the people and the
cuisine, how regional it was,
how proud people
were of their food.
You'd go to Can Tho
and they'd say "oh, where
did you just come from?"
And you'd say, "I just
came from Saigon."
And they'd say "oh,
their food is terrible!
"You're lucky to be in Can Tho.
"The food is the best
in Vietnam here."
Go to Nha Trang.
"Where did you come from?"
"Well, I just came
from Can Tho."
"Oh, their food is terrible!
"You're so lucky
to be in Nha Trang.
"We have the best food
in all of Vietnam."
- [Meg] And while all of
Vietnam was capturing his heart,
Anthony had a specific encounter
that really started to
shift his perceptions
of the world outside of America.
He was going up the Mekong
Delta to visit a rice farmer
who would cook him duck
in a traditional manner.
He didn't know what to expect
and he started his
morning pretty regularly,
with a cup of coffee.
- [Anthony] You know, there's
that great coffee in Vietnam.
It's a true joy.
They have those
little metal tin cups.
They put the coffee grounds,
a little drip on top,
it takes forever
to pass through,
and you add sweetened
condensed milk to it.
It's very thick and
almost chocolatey.
Also great over ice.
Some of the most
delicious coffee on Earth.
So I'm sure I started
off with coffee.
Then boarded a long
sampan-like boat,
little jury rigged put-put
engine on the back.
Long trip, probably
about 45 minutes,
through interconnected canals
up to the rice farmer's home.
(water laps)
You see kids playing
in the water.
Rice farmers wadding as they
can do for hours at a time,
looking at you with
incredible curiosity
Livestock.
Laundry.
Homes of the very poor.
Especially in the morning, the
sounds of a farming community
in southeast Asia.
(rooster crows)
First the rooster crows.
Then you hear people
starting to cough
and clear their lungs.
You hear people washing
themselves, gathering the water.
Going through this
morning routine.
Starting up the cooking fires.
I'm a city boy.
I grew up in the suburbs
right next to New York City.
I've been in New York
City since I was 17.
For me, it's almost
shocking to not wake up
to car horns and garbage trucks
and the beep-beep-beep
of trucks parking.
(horns blaring)
So to wake up at four in the
morning, five in the morning,
to the roosters and then
people shuffling off
to the outhouse,
it's very different.
- [Meg] When he arrived,
Anthony quickly learned
something about his host.
- [Anthony] Him and
his friends were,
as was pretty much
required at the time,
which was slightly
more repressive,
all former Vietcong cadre.
People were introduced to
me as patriots and heroes.
"This man is a great patriot."
"This man is a great hero."
During the American War, what
they call the American war.
These areas had been hit hard.
They had no doubt
experienced every variety
of casualty, horror, loss of
family, torture, detention.
All of the stuff that comes
with an unconventional war.
- [Meg] Anthony, admittedly so,
had some preconceived notions
on how they would feel
about the six-foot four American
standing in front of them now.
- [Anthony] I thought
they'd be angry.
I thought there would be
some lingering resentment,
some hesitation, and I asked
about this, one old guy
who seemed to take
particular pleasure
in making me keep up
with him shot for shot.
He must've been pushing 90,
sitting there in black
pajamas across from me,
missing most of his teeth.
And I asked my translator,
I said, "please ask
the older gentleman
"does he feel any
lingering resentment at all
"for all the years of conflict
between our countries?"
The guy laughed!
And he said, "look,
don't flatter yourselves.
"We've been fighting
a long time.
"Before you, it was the French.
"Before them, it
was the Japanese.
"Before them, it was
the Chinese many times.
"After you, it was the
Cambodians, the Chinese.
"You are nothing special.
"During that time
you were our enemy.
"Now eat, drink, have
fun, nothing personal."
And he meant it.
This is an attitude
I'm unfamiliar with.
In the West, we tend to linger
over memories like that.
They don't have
the luxury of it.
They're farmer-warriors.
For centuries, they've
been farming rice
and, when necessary, transition
very smoothly and quickly
into a very ferocious infantry.
But they took great pride
in being good hosts,
which was very
important to them.
They were kind.
They did everything they
could to show me a good time
and make sure that I was happy.
- [Meg] This put
Anthony at ease,
so he put his prior
thoughts aside
and sat down to enjoy the meal,
which turned out was
something unexpected as well.
- [Anthony] This particular
duck, they wrung its neck,
covered it with clay
from the rice paddy,
and then built a big
fire of rice husks
and the duck was supposed
to bake inside the clay.
A few minutes into this process,
out of the burning
flame, the duck (laughs)
(duck honks)
is suddenly revived and
comes flapping in flames
out of the fire.
It was, uh, y'know,
the sort of scene
the Food Network had
never shown before,
let's put it that way.
God! (stammers and laughs)
Look, it's not, that's not fun.
- [Meg] Eventually they got
the duck back in the fire
and then finally
it was time to eat.
- [Anthony] Everyone
gathers around.
First thing they do,
crack open the head,
suck out the brain.
Look, it was not the
best duck in the world,
let's put it that way.
- [Meg] Oh my gosh, but you
made it seem like it was.
In the show, you're
like "this is amazing".
- [Anthony] Well,
one has to be kind,
grateful to one's host.
The rest of the meal
was really good.
We ate some very simple food
and a whole hell of a
lot of rice whiskey,
homemade rice-brewed whiskey.
There's no elegant
way to put it.
We got hammered,
all of us, together.
(dreamy Asian folk music)
And here they were, singing
as it got darker and darker
and we were something of
a curiosity in the area.
The old man had seen
Americans before, up close.
More than likely,
he'd killed a few.
But the kids in the
neighboring farms,
who started appearing
out of the darkness,
would come up and rub the
hair on my arm incredulously,
poke me and giggle and run away
and then come back
and poke me again.
I found myself as
curious to those kids
as perhaps they were to me.
I had to be helped
back into the boat.
You know, there's that
Raymond Chandler line,
"I went to brush
something off my cheek
"and it was the floor."
I'm pretty good at recognizing
when that time's coming
and I asked to be exfiltrated.
But it was a long ride
home, or a long float home.
I don't fully recall all of it.
It was very surreal.
Back in those days, I would,
ridiculously and maybe
even insultingly,
compare everything
that I was experiencing
to some scene from
Apocalypse Now.
But that ride down the river
or the canals late at night
with lights flashing, it
was very Do Lung Bridge,
(laughs) at least in my head.
You know, you talk
about transformative.
Our kind, we think
a lot of things.
It was the first time I sat
down with perfectly nice people
who were being wonderful to me,
who, at another time,
would've cheerfully killed me,
to have former enemies singing
songs, patting me on the leg,
making sure that I was
having a good time.
And they really wanted
me to have a good time.
That feeling of going some place
and experiencing something
I, A, never have before
but also could
never have expected,
that feeling of surprise,
of being disarmed,
of having the things
you think you know
turned completely upside
down, I learned to crave that.
(quiet Asian folk music)
- [Meg] And part of
that unexpectedness
and feeling of being disarmed
had to do with something
he'd never thought
to question before.
- [Anthony] I'd been
a chef for 30 years
before I saw my first
animal actually die
for food on my show.
It is not a pleasurable
or comfortable experience,
but I think people should
know what's involved.
There is a shame and
guilt that comes with it
that is useful.
I'd been ordering up death
over the phone for years,
but, y'know, Don Corleone-style.
I would make a suggestion that
maybe I would like some steak
and somewhere down the line,
somebody killed a steer
and did the dirty work.
I got the meat in a box.
And that's the way
meat had appeared
on my customers' tables.
I came back from
those first trips
seeing how hard people struggled
to put food on their table,
but also seeing what's
involved with the animals.
I am much less likely
to waste food now,
let's put it that way.
If I'm gonna cook pig,
I'm gonna cook it as
well as I possibly can
and I'm gonna use
every little bit of it.
It seems obscene.
Something struggled and
died for this dinner.
I'm not gonna throw half
of it in the garbage.
- [Meg] The next morning,
a slightly groggy Anthony
discovered another love
in the country
that was so rapidly
shifting his perspectives.
- [Anthony] Once I
spent time in Vietnam
and got used to spicy
noodle soup for breakfast
and eating noodles
for breakfast,
that ruined American
breakfast for me forever.
I could really never go
back to eggs and toast,
home fries, all of that.
It just ain't right.
If I do eat an American
breakfast, I need
a nap afterwards.
It's so much!
But to wake up, go out,
maybe a cup of
Vietnamese coffee,
sit there on a low plastic stool
out in the street, order
a bowl of spicy noodles
or bun nuoc or bun bo hue,
slurp away and watch
Vietnamese street traffic,
women in their ao
dais going back,
whole families, four or five
crammed onto one motorbike,
seeing how the neighborhood
works and moves and eats,
it's a fantastic little movie
going on in front of you
as you eat your noodles,
and that is a good way to live
that was life-changing
for me still.
I mean, for me still,
perfect happiness in a meal
is sitting down on one of
those low plastic stools
and ordering a bowl of noodles.
- [Meg] Vietnam had
officially stolen his heart.
After that, he went to Cambodia.
- [Anthony] And flew home from
there a very different person
than the one who'd
first showed up
knowing nothing about
making television
and nothing about anything.
- [Meg] And beyond the
new outlook on acceptance,
hospitality, and breakfast,
Anthony had been truly affected.
- [Anthony] I felt both enriched
and distanced from
my former life.
I had a very hard time
relating to people,
some people who I'd been
very close to before.
I had a hard time figuring out
not how I was gonna tell these
stories in a book or on TV,
that was relatively easy,
but how I would tell these
stories to my friends
and to my then-wife.
That was difficult.
That still is.
When you've been treated
generously by strangers,
when you've smelled
things and tasted things
and seen things that none
of your friends have seen,
that few, where you
come from, have seen,
that are unlike anything
you've seen before,
look, that changes you,
mostly in really good ways.
But I think you also
have to be prepared
for the possibility that it
will alienate you somewhat
from the life you once had.
You know, you're riding a
scooter through a rice paddy.
There's a color of
green during the season
and the rice paddies
look also electric.
(motor whirs)
You're smelling Vietnam.
It gets darker.
You look up and there's just
a perfect moon hanging there
in the sky over the rice paddy.
You think that moon is for me.
I'm here.
It's up to me to experience
it as much as I can
and keep it in a very private
part of my heart and my soul
because you can't in words
or in images really
reproduce that.
And maybe you shouldn't.
Meaning you go back
and tell your friends.
All my friends are
cooks and chefs.
Am I doing them a favor
by going back and saying
"oh, I just had the most
awesome time in Vietnam.
"I had a little rice whiskey
"and I'm out there
in the rice paddies
"and saw just this incredible
smoldering red moon
"rise slowly over the
treeline and it was awesome!"
Are they gonna be
grateful for this?
That's what I did last week.
What did you do?
Well, eh. (chuckles)
The pluming broke down.
It's like some experiences
are unshareable.
They changed my relationships
with a lot of people
having seen what I saw.
You figure out right away,
as one does with friends
and the people close to you.
You start thinking, well,
if I go back to Vietnam,
could I go with this person?
And you realize no.
No, they would not make a
good traveling companion.
They would not get it.
And if they don't get Vietnam,
I don't know whether I can
be friends with them anymore.
That's a terrible
thing to admit.
Your perspective has shifted.
You cannot look at your
old life the same way
when you know that things
could be different.
You know, I used spicy noodles
for breakfast as one example,
but it's way beyond that.
And as one continues to
travel and see other things,
many of them quite fantastic,
it's Rutger Hauer and
Blade Runner at the end
talking about seeing
those star ships crashing
and together in another galaxy.
It feels like that sometimes.
I've seen truly
incredible things
that I can't even
tell people about.
I've clearly made a decision
that I would rather
experience those things
than remain ignorant of them.
It might well be
more comfortable
to stay at home and y'know.
But not for me.
(serene music)
- [Meg] And as for
falling in love?
- [Anthony] I don't know
if you ever grow tired
of a country you love.
I'll never be done with
going back to Vietnam.
There's always more
not only to look at
for the first time,
but things to revisit,
to see how things have
changed and are changing.
And Vietnam is a place that's
changing very, very quickly.
I get off the plane
and breathe deep
and I'm happy to be
alive in Vietnam.
It's an incredible place.
(tranquil new age music)
- [Shelby] EF Outbound
is brought to you
by EF Education First,
the world leader in
international education.
This episode was hosted by
and produced by Meg Martino
with help from me,
Shelby El Otmani.
It was sound designed
by Billy Wirasnik.
And special thanks this week
to the EF Tours video team
for helping it
all come together.
For more information
on the podcast,
head over to ef.com/podcast
and if you like what you hear,
don't forget to subscribe.
If you want to share your own
transformative travel story,
email us at outbound@ef.com.
(radio crackles in
foreign language)
(dissonant Asian music)
(motor putters)
