No cheese
Arriving in a new place, our senses are alive to the strange sense, sights and sounds that surround us. We revel in the unknown and absorb our environment and all its surprises. The joys of travel are all about the sensations we experience: tasting new foods, hearing different languages and music and of course the many sights that are on offer in our destination.
After travelling for a while however, some of the excitement about these discoveries starts to wear off, and inevitably a longing for some familiarity kicks in. It does so more for some than others, and no doubt more when we don’t feel on top of the world. But I think for everyone who has been away even for a short break there comes a point where you find yourself thinking “I could really do with ……” or even “when I get home the first thing I am going to do is….”
Still no cheese
For me the answer is usually my own bed. Some hotel beds are better than others but I know my own bed and pillows like no other and sleep best in my own familiar place. For my wife Sam it is our own bathroom and the comfort of knowing that the shower is strong, the toilet is clean and the room laid out exactly as she likes.
But when we met travellers who had been in Asia for months and asked them what they missed most, the answer was almost universal: cheese! Whether on a pizza, in a burger, on toast or just on its own, it is a staple part of a western diet, and for those who rarely go a day without the stuff a long stay in Asia can be a challenge.
Everything for sale - except cheese
We did see pizza places in most towns. We even had a very good pizza in Luang Prabang with a friend we’d met who had been away for a lot longer than us and was in desperate need of cheese. But we also heard of Asian-cheese related disasters, none worse than the pizza where the base was covered with soft spreading cheese (you know the awful stuff that comes in triangles). Another pizza horror tale involved a base where instead of tomato paste the chef used hot chilli sauce, but that’s another story…
Is cheese really missed by all westerners in Asia (vegans excepted of course), or did we just meet a strange sample of travellers? I would welcome hearing what others long for when away from home, before I sell all my belongings and move to Laos to open a cheese shop.
I have been in India for only a week and a half and this post made me laugh. I love the food here and never thought that vegetarian food could even taste half this good but… I could go for a cheeseburger or nachos
When I was interrailing at the tender age of 18 (many years ago now), all I wanted was a decent sweet and sour chicken with egg fried rice!
I agree on the cheese! I’m not a pizza super lover but after travelling in Thailand for a while, and we came upon a Pizza Hut in Bangkok, my body screamed for a pizza with an unhealthy amount of cheese on it!
After that back to the super Thai cuisine, but it was good to know we could find something cheesy somewhere
I’ve been living in Korea for 5 months now and I can definitely say I do miss the easily accessible purchase of a block of cheese from the grocery store. Cheese is available here if you have a Costco membership but is very expensive. Almost $15 US for a small block.
You can get cheese slices… which barely resemble the delicious source of calcium and can also find Pizza places that serve “cheese” pizza. It usually sits like a rock in your stomach for a week though.
Even in england I missed real cheese, but they have cheese in india ( sort of ) they use “laughing cow” to make cheese nans!
Mine’s peanut butter!
open the cheese shop.
Haha, thanks for the vote of confidence Elizabeth! Glad to hear so many great suggestions. Others that were mentioned on Twitter include chocolate (many times), cold milk and TV from home.
Valerie, I can’t believe you didn’t find ‘real’ cheese in England, the home of cheddar and stilton. What cheese were you looking for? And as for the sweet and sour chicken Karen, you’ve made me very hungry- I might have to get a take-away now!
Thanks for all the great comments
For most Italian the main issue when traveling abroad is food. I love tasting different cooking styles and the only thing I missed sometimes is bread.
But what I really long for after a while is my sofa, where I lay under my “linus” blanket and peacefully read a good book.
Leaving for Asia now and never knew there was a shortage of cheese!! How very sad. Since I stick mainly to the western hemisphere and have never experenced a cheese drought. I would have to say my “one thing” would be my own bed, like you said. And just regularity in general.
Wow – you hit it one the head! I lived in Vietnam for a year and I missed cheese terribly!! They had it, but it was so expensive that I couldn’t really afford it. One night a friend and I splurged on a bottle of wine and cheese plate…heaven! However – at the same time I lost 10 pounds living in Asia…no exercise…just the Asian diet. That’s certainly one thing they are doing right!
It’s amazing but until now I never realized that cheese was such a rarity in Asia. Looking back now I certainly see it but when I was there I just forgot about it. I do remember craving something, just not knowing what it was.
I guess it was the fabulous hunksa chunksa blocksa cheese!
Leaving for Asia now and never knew there was a shortage of cheese!! How very sad. Since I stick mainly to the western hemisphere and have never experenced a cheese drought. I would have to say my “one thing” would be my own bed, like you said. And just regularity in general.
Sherry, you’re so right that the Asian diet seems to work wonders for weight. I did manage to lose weight despite eating three large meals a day. And I remember when in business school in the UK most of our Asian students put on 20-30lbs over the duration of the course, yet lost it within a short time of their return home. Our western diet is full of fat. But cheese is still an indulgence that needs to be
It’s funny the things that people miss when they are away from their home country for a long time. I always remember running into a guy in Myanmar who was going nuts because he was used to flossing his teeth every day at home, but didn’t bring dental floss on his trip and it was driving him crazy. I was happy to give him some of mine, and he was a very, very happy fellow!
My last trip to India I actually had a food problem in reverse: I had grown to love Indian food so much that once I got home, meals were a big letdown!
I missed floss too (but didn’t let it get my down). A few weeks without flossing isn’t going to kill anyone. I’m with you on the Indian food too. I loved Indian food in India so much more than in the UK, that it was a let-down to visit an Indian restaurant back here. The same wasn’t true of China.
Thanks for visiting.
In Greece, it was ice. And when I get home from anywhere, the first thing I want is Tex-Mex.
After a while, I also miss waking up in the morning and not being compelled to go anywhere or do anything.
Thanks Sophia, and I agree I would miss ice too. I didn’t know it was hard to get in Greece. Were you in a remote place?
As for your latter point, I reckon I could happily miss that feeling for a very long time
What I miss most in Laos is a comfortable chair and as a whole I am missing chairs of any shape in cheaper hotel rooms all over Asia. Nowhere to put your clothes and just your hard bed to sit on. To live in Laos is like living in a creche as people sit mostly on the floor and the chairs are either little rattan things about 25 cm high or enormous monumental sculptured wooden chairs both ment for torturing a “falang”.
As a Swede I also miss our good drinking water straight from the tap wherever i go outside Scandinavia. And good luck with the cheese shop. I will definitely visit it.
A chair? That’s funny. Didn’t notice the chairs were bad, but I do tend to sit on the bed in a hotel room. I agree with you on the drinking water. We do take our tap water for granted don’t we? One good thing in Laos is that the water is so bad that even the locals don’t touch it, so almost every restarant and cafe (certainly all those that feed falang) uses bottled water for everything, meaning ice, fruit shakes and juices are safe to drink.
I haven’t been to Asia yet, but if you are right and cheese is scarce, then YES, I will miss it! Pizza is my favorite food and while traveling in Latin America I realize that it has become international fare. But, it still has to have good cheese to be considered pizza. Unless of course you are ordering a tomato pie, which I do love to get in Philadelphia.
Some of the best french cheese to be had outside of France, can be found throughout Vietnam…..
Jacques, you’ll have to post some links to the cheese shops of Vietnam. I haven’t been there myself but from the comments above it looks like many others have missed these, so you’ll be doing a great service
Jason, you can find pizza in most cities in Asia (they’re used to catering for tourists now) but outside of the major towns you’ve got to be prepared for anything.
We were saying just yesterday how much we miss good cheese!!! I’ve been in Hong Kong for a year & a half and have been a part of so many conversations about lack of cheese, You can buy it here in most supermarkets but it’s so expensive most people I know can’t afford it on a regular basis. A friend of mine moans that even blocks of cheese taste like the plastic processed stuff here. You can get pizza all over but I think we miss having it in the fridge. I get the chocolate thing as well. Even the same brand name tastes different (Australian vs UK Cadburys etc). That said when I get back to the UK I’ll miss the BBQ pork you get here!
Kerry, I reckon there’ll be lots of food you’ll miss from HK when you come back to the UK. We have Cadbury’s (the real thing) and cheese – they have so much more. Don’t they?