My Relationship With Food Poisoning

I absolutely love traveling; new places, cultures, cuisine, art and nature. Sadly, I am not necessarily the ideal travel companion, especially in South East Asia. I got back from a 12 day trip to Cambodia a couple of days ago and during that time I somehow managed to have food poisoning 3 times. My friends via facebook and have been laughing at me quite alot and suggesting that if I started eating meat or to quote "put some pork on your fork" I wouldn't have these problems, in-between the sympathetic comments of course. 

Over the last 10 years I have visited over 20 countries and yes, I have managed to visit 30 different countries before the age of 30 (hurray, and I'm not 30 yet). I am a great tour guide, organiser and explorer, but you probably don't want to travel with me. How may countries have I had food poisoning in? Good question. 

My long standing relationship with food poisoning began around 9 years ago when I went on a hiking trip to Kyrygzstan. On almost the last night of the trip I managed to get food poisoning. I ate at the same restaurant as everyone else and had exactly the same as the other vegetarians. I was the only one with problems and had a 10 hour drive with minimal long drop stops. Fast forward 2 days and I am on the flight home. The medication that I was given stopped working and I found myself in that fictional scenario where the air stewardess asks if there is a Doctor on the plane. I can now guarantee that this doesn't just happen in movies.

When I traveled as a student I was mainly in and around Europe. With my student budget eating out in Europe for every meal isn't possible and I would carry a bag of museli. I gave myself a daily budget and would often elect to eat museli and go to a museum rather than have dinner. I didn't have food poisoning once the entire time. In total I traveled for around 6 months with my trusty bag of museli without getting food poisoning once. It has been suggested that I should go back to carrying my trusty bag of museli. My husband isn't keen on joining me in eating handfuls of dry museli and this could be a problem.

Most of the traveling I have done with my husband has been in South East Asia and this region has a love affair with animal related products. More often than not my husband gets hungry a long time before I do, which is probably a good thing as it often takes 2 hours for us to find vegetarian friendly food. During this time I have inevitably become hungry and quite grumpy too. On our first trip backpacking together we spent about 8 weeks traveling Malaysian Borneo with a brief stop in KL and Brunei. I personally think that backpacking with someone is a great test to a relationship. Heaven only knows why my husband is still with me as I had food poisoning roughly once a week during the trip. We ate identical meals the majority of the time and yet I was the only one that got sick.

Moving to China my stomach wasn't thrilled and despite learning how to order food and ask for it without meat we are rarely successful. It is horrible having to send food back to the kitchen and if it is taken back they simply pick the meat off and then we don't eat it anywy. When we travel in China we often end up eating appaulingly. Meals have been known to consist of biscuits, bread and potato chips. Maybe this adds to how my body struggles to cope with food around the world.

Due to my amazing ability to contract food poisoning my husband likes to avoid street food or anywhere that he thinks is a little unclean. This has added to the amount of meals purchased from the supermarket and lacking in nutritional value, but this has sadly not guaranteed the safety of my stomach. Ironically after eating at the most beautiful, clean and highly regarded restaurant in Goa we both spent the next 2 - 4 days exceptionally ill. We just can't seem to win.

Being snowboarders we love to go to Japan for the amazing powder. The food on the other hand, not so much. Japan is actually more difficult than I expected to, but it is the one Asian country that I haven't had food poisoning in. I love to experience new flavours and cuisine. However with most ramen being made with pork bone broth it is not something I can try unless they make it with a miso base. We walked around numerous places in Japan with my lovely piece of paper that stated in Japanese that I do not eat any type of meat or fish. I showed the paper to a variety of restaurants and got turned away from all of them. Pizza, pasta and Family Mart have saved me from starvation on numerous occasions. 

Being located in South East Asia we travel in the regoin as the flights are short and reasonably priced. I have also been able to contract food poisoning far more regularly. I have even excelled and beaten my personal best in Cambodia and contracted food poisoning 3 times in under 2 weeks. It would appear that no matter how safe I believe I am being I am destined to spend a portion of my holiday becoming intimately acquainted with the bathroom. Despite what my colleagues think I am not actually trying to have food poisoning in every country I visit. It turns out I've only had food poisoning in less that 4% of the world.