#adventurenotes

Native to Malaysia and Indonesia, rambutan is also widely available all across Southeast Asia. Rambutan fruit shares the same name as its tree, and many say it is comparable to the lychee and grape in taste and texture. This fruit is one of our favourite fresh market indulgences!

To open up the rambutan, use a knife or your nail to make a shallow slit down one side of the skin. Unlike the seed, the skin is not edible.

Give either side of the skin a gentle squeeze to dialate the opening and let the inner fruit pop out.

Like a big grape, the rambutan is very sweet and juicy, and it also has numerous health benefits, including, but not limited to, an excellent source of calcium (see, whoever said you needed to drink milk from another animal to get your calcium?). Once believed to be toxic unless roasted, the seed of the rambutan is actually very safe to eat raw and claimed to be good for your skin.

If and when the hairs on the skin turn blackish, make sure you refrigerate the fruit and eat within two days. Enjoy!

During one of our trips to the local fresh market, we passed through the meat and fish stalls and were halted by the sight of some live animals being sold for consumption- eels, large unidentifiable fish, and small turtles. Their conditions were cruel, stored In large plastic bowls, and they were in poor health.

Back at home we researched what these animals were generally used for, and we found that the turtles' futures were the most grim- likely to be sold to Chinese restaurants and boiled alive. We spent the night sleepless and decided to return the next morning with plans to buy two and take them to a nearby park with a fresh water source.

Upon arrival at the market we discovered them to be cheaper than expected, and so we could afford to buy four. The stall holder, without a second thought, piled them into a plastic carrier bag on top of one another and tied the handles up tightly. We rushed back to the car and opened the bag, the turtles were gasping for air and some had simply recoiled in defeat- we let them into Fred's large open rucksack for the rest of the journey. Three of them were Malayan Snail-Eating Turtles, and the fourth was a very tired Southeast Asian Box Turtle.

Our friend, Kim, drove us and the turtles to big local park with a large enough lake that, after researching the species of turtles, seemed ideal. We laid the turtles one by one onto the soft grass and watched them slowly gain the courage to take a peek around.

Quickly having relaxed in their surroundings, we took them in turns to the water's edge and lowered them to the surface- they did the rest, kicking away and diving deep into the lake to join the several other species of turtle that were already craning their little heads above the water to get a good look at what was going on.

This little monster couldn't wait his turn to explore their new home.

The Santol has got to be one of the most misidentified fruits on the internet! Most wikis and blogs that mention it wrongly refer to it as a Wild Mangosteen, a variant of the Purple Mangosteen (”The Queen of Fruits”). This misidentification is probably the result of too much confidence in online translations, and ironically if you look at the French translation you do get “faux mangoustan”. Once thought to be two separate species of red and yellow, the Santol is in actual fact one species of two variant colourations, Sandoricum koetjape. The Santol is a Medium sized fruit, its rind firm and the skin possessing a slight fuzziness similar to, but more subtle than, a peach. The fruit grows on a fast-growing tree with pink or yellow flowers, and it can reach 150ft in height. Origninally from mainland Malaysia, the Santol has become naturalised across South and Southeast Asia.

To open the Santol for consumption, take a reasonably sharp knife and cut about half an inch into the rind all the way round the centre of the fruit.

Once you have partitioned the rind, twist the two halves in opposite directions to help separate the inner flesh from the exterior husk.

Break apart the the fruit like Rafiki about to paint the forehead of a newly born Simba.

Since moving to Thailand, Thai Iced Tea has become one of our favourite things to order at restaurants, cafés, and anywhere else we can get our hands on a dairy-free version! We thought we’d share a little recipe that we’ve adapted to using at home, that’s easy for anyone to re-create.