PHOTO WORTH A THOUSAND DONUTS

Dunkin Donuts is all over the world. When I was in Bogota, Columbia, several years ago, I noticed everyone who got on our plane for a domestic flight was carrying at least two boxes of Dunkin Donuts. I asked about it and was told that particular outlet, in the Bogota airport, was reputed to ahve the best donuts in the country. When people visited friends or relatives and they flew from Bogota, Dunkin Donuts were de rigeur as a hostess gift.
We were in Solo, Indonesia, where there are also Dunkin Donuits. The photos below, however, are from the bakery department of a Carrefour (a French chain of hypermarches). The other trays were colored brilliant oranges and reds, and a third tray held lime green with orange polka dots. The muffiins were equally brilliant.
Would you eat one of these things?

COMING SOON!

If your idea of soon is 90 days, we're on the same page. Ninety days from now I'll be on the western edge of the Ring of Fire: Indonesia, Malaysia, perhaps Borneo, little-visited places like that. My first stop will be the spider-shaped island of Sulawesi, whose central core is five active volcanoes. Unlike previous trips (Italy in the fall of 2011, for examaple, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa), I will be keeping you up to date on food, sights, food, sounds, food, smells (especially food), and how difficult it is to get to Torajaland. Among other places.
Other places? Singapore! Home of the famous hawker food stalls and of a cuture that lives to eat (my kind of culture). Much has been written about these open-air stalls, but not by me. It's the only reason I'm going there: the food. As Singapore re-invents itself every five years or so, there's not much history there except in the food. An amalgam of Nonya, Chinese, Indian, and every other cuisine of the immigrants who bilt this economic powerhouse.
Then off to Viet Nam, where in the north the incredible karst formations jut out of the placid waters of HaLong Bay (no doubt you've seen photos, they're on the wall of every Vietnamese restaurant in the country) and, in the central coast region, the ancient Imperial city of Hue (on the Perfume River, just gives me chills to think of it) will whisk us into the distant past.
And finally north and east to Japan, where I'll spend a lot of time in ancient Kyoto, and especially at a sushi bar I've heard of there.
Get ready for a lot of up-close-and-personal: sights, historic and modern; food, from street stalls to sit-down-with-tablecloths; natural beauty (under the water as well as above); indigenous cutltures and their arts and crafts. And who knows what else?
Stay tuned! Meanwhile, there's a new story about a day on the Italian trip you might get a chuckle out of.
Thanks for reading.