The Beginning:
Join Tony to film a show in Uruguay? How quickly could I say "yes"? The plan was for a February trip -- summer in Uruguay. A no-brainer! February rolls around, and here I am, winging my way to Montevideo with my itinerant brother and his entourage of four from "No Reservations". Oh yeah -- it seems I am viewed as part of "the talent," so I get to fly in business class with Tony. It's good to be the king! Arrival in Montevideo is slightly delayed by the local customs chap inviting us to his office in back to share with us the benefit of his knowledge and experience dealing with thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment. After an extra hour of pointless discussion and waiting, we are met by our local "fixers" Sofia and Cecilia, and our van driver, Anibal. Our hotel, the Victoria Plaza, is apparently the place to stay in Montevideo, and indeed we see limos pulling up with various foreign diplomat and zillionaire types. Interestingly, I learned pre-trip that this hotel is actually owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, which has made a number of substantial and secretive investments in Uruguay.

The Archives:
The ostensible reason I am along on this show is for "genealogical research," the "family connection" thing. As young children we always had thought that the French part of the family washed up on this side of the Atlantic during World War I. But one summer when we went over to France to clean out our deceased great-aunt's house, we discovered a trove of yellowed documents alluding to several generations of Bourdains in Uruguay and a nearby border town in Brazil. But other than a fleeting reference citing our great-great-grandfather Jean Bourdain as a "merchant" in Montevideo, we have never known why these people ended up in Uruguay, what they were doing, or why all remaining Bourdains on the continent returned to France after 1860. Who knows what these guys could have been getting into?

The Antique Car:
I am not sure what the premise is behind Tony picking me up in the wonderful antique car (which I am told is the very same one used in the "Miami Vice" movie). But driving around in this thing is fun ... What TV viewers don't see is Max and Sofia crammed down in the back seat for the entire weavy ride around old Montevideo. If they were height-challenged people, their forced embrace might be peculiarly romantic. But this looks more like a painful knee in groin/elbows in breasts story going on back there.

The Chivito:
The brief summary: Chivitos are a local favorite, a Uruguayan mega-sandwich equivalent of Wendy's "Grand Slam." It has everything you could imagine on it - sliced beef, bacon, ham, cheese, egg, mayonnaise, olives, pepper sauce on a big roll. Absurdly huge and impossible to eat neatly, it's about the best sandwich I've ever had. Tony and I nail these down. Plus beer. I enter into food coma.

Phone Call:
At a huge Brooklyn-size cattle ranch, an estancia, we are riding around in our host's Jeep in search of the ostrich-like "ñandu" when my cell phone rings. How is this possible? We are miles from any town or cell phone tower! I pick up... and hear the taped message: My kids' school is closed tomorrow due to snow. I'm soooooo happy to be here. Our hosts are fun and interesting people. There is nice wine here. I'm going to try armadillo. The sight of the armadillo trembling upsets several of us in attendance. I am personally very glad the assisting gauchos take the thing away to bring him into his next state of existence. And yes, it actually does taste like chicken!

Cabo Polonia:
This point of land at the angle of two long and unspoiled strips of beach is fantastically beautiful. It is an "ends of the Earth" type place where a 1960's/70's-style hippie commune has survived. It's gorgeous here and I enjoy our visit, but somehow I'm also finding this place a bit depressing. The blind bartender with his little penguin friend crapping on the floor near the bar ...this is getting kind of strange. Still -- I guess I'd rather see Cabo Polonia stay this way than be just another enclave for the rich.

Jose Ignacio:
The Punta del Este Resort area where the Rio de la Plata meets the Atlantic is a mix of communities. The most famous areas draw the Uruguayan and Argentine versions of the Rodeo Drive crowd, a super-glam caste of people, some replete with Botox and implants. Up the road from the "Punta," Jose Ignacio is a more mellow, low-key satellite community, with unpretentious sun-bleached buildings -- more Fire Island than Hamptons. Our visit to the restaurant "La Huella" is maybe my favorite time on the whole trip. The restaurant is right on the beach and I can feel sand in my toes. The weather is great, and I'm totally relaxed and in the mood for the mojito and good food I know are coming. I'm looking forward to chilling with Tony, eating good food by the sound of the waves, and relaxing.

Having a Famous Brother:
What is it like having a famous brother? I admit, it is sometimes strange. That's my brother all over bus stops! And sometimes in in-flight magazines when I go on business trips. I gather in Singapore and nearby, Tony has rock-star status. But Tony's always been a brilliant verbalist with a buzz-saw sense of humor, so I've never been surprised that some with money and connections finally figured this part out. When I see him on TV, I'm just like many fans who don't know him: I enjoy the travel to places I can only dream of going, laughing at his hilariously-expressed but bang-on social and cultural observations and his self-deprecating humor. I am proud of Tony and consider myself his biggest fan. But I get sooooo tired of people asking me, "Chris, where's your brother now?" "What's your brother eating now?" Yada, yada, yada ... Shut up!

Uruguay:
I love Uruguay and will miss it. I want to come back some day. I dislike pretension. Uruguay is delightful because it is so not pretentious. People have lots of space and are relaxed. They take pleasure in the small enjoyments of life the way one sees in areas around the Mediterranean in Europe. Food and wine are good, plentiful, and inexpensive -- at least for visiting Americans. The clothes in shop windows in the center of the capital are generally very un-chic, almost old-fashioned. I do not see a single McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, or other similar chain.

And I like it that way.

"Did you have to wear the black thing?"

Just got back from my first "No Reservations" road trip, and the number one question from friends, family and co-workers isn't about the food, the shoot, or how it was to work with Tony. It's about what I had to wear.
Of course, the question is less about the garment, than how far I had to go to conform. It's about what the garment represents, or at least what everyone thinks it represents. It's about what it was like to be a woman working in Saudi Arabia.

I'm a producer. That means I'm ultimately responsible for everything that happens on a shoot: directing, story, logistics, details, feeding, transporting, lodging, gear, crew happiness, you name it. Big job, but I don't do it alone. My right arm is known as a Segment Producer, and is an unbelievably crucial member of the team. This position was also held by a woman, Nari Kye. Of course the winner of the contest, ultimately responsible for making it all happen, was Danya Alhamrani, yet another woman.

And yes, we all wore the black thing. It's called an abbaya, and it's basically a long-sleeved, floor-length dress that you pull over your head, and wear over your clothes. We also covered our hair with matching black scarves, so three women in abbayas produced an episode of "Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations" in Saudi Arabia. Oh, but I'm leaving out someone else who moved mountains making this episode: Dania Nassief, yep, another woman.

How did a group of women pull off a TV show in a country where women can't drive, can't vote, and really aren't supposed to hang out with non-related males? Well, they have a saying in Danya's hometown, "Jeddah is different." And for the record, so is she.

When we stepped off the plane after a brutally long flight from New York, I had no idea what to expect. Would Nari and I be shunned, ignored, treated like a lesser by the men we'd come in contact with? Having spent the last 15 years working as a woman in a male-dominated industry, I didn't really worry about it, since I've been dealing with that crap for years. That said, I've never had to do it in a country where the separation of the sexes was so strictly enforced by both law and culture.

One of the first and most obvious signs of that division was the abbaya. You can't help but notice, since literally every woman is wearing one. Most men wear a thobe, which is a long white cotton tunic, worn over white pants. So it's women in black, men in white. Needless to say, the contrast is striking. After all, what could be more "black and white" than black and white?

But that wasn't the only sign. In fact, there were literally signs, signs denoting separate male and female entrances for mosques, the "single" section (for men only) and a "family" section (for men and women) at many restaurants. No women allowed in the hotel pool. At the hotel restaurant, Nari and I were seated behind a screen, which Nari called it our "pen", separating us from male diners. I found myself wondering, "If even the breakfast buffet is segregated, how are we going to make this work?"

Nari and I had arrived ahead of the crew, to scout, bring over the equipment, and take care of last minute details. For about a week, we worked with Danya and Dania (names pronounced the same) taking care of the gazillion details that go into making a TV show. It took about 15 minutes in their company to realize that the separation of the sexes may dictate seating arrangements in certain restaurants, but it was not going to get in the way of making this show. Although the law may prevent the Danyas from literally taking the driver's seat, it did not prevent them from taking charge. Together they were an abbaya-clad dynamic duo of problem-solving, refusing to take no as an answer from anyone, male or female, that got in the way - my kind of ladies.

We also worked with a lot of local men: drivers, government officials and a "fixer" helping us out. Nearly every place we shot was male-owned, operated and staffed, and a whole host of male characters lent a hand along the way. And you know how all of them responded to women in charge? Great. Actually, they were a lot more than great. They were about the most warm, wonderful, welcoming group of people that you could possibly imagine. That bunch, with Danya at its center, was an extraordinary collection of people.

Now, before you think I drank the Kool-Aid, there was also plenty of evidence that things aren't exactly free and equal. Case in point: Danya and Dania operate Saudi Arabia's first female-owned production company granted permission to work without a male present. The first. And it took them over five years of fighting the system to get that paperwork in place. So they're not the norm, they're trailblazers.

And of course, Danya is no ordinary woman. She's pretty much the definition of extraordinary, and absolutely one of the strongest women I've ever met. Having grown up between Jeddah and North Dakota, she's got a pretty unique perspective on the similarities and differences between our cultures. There are an incredible number of things that I learned from her on this journey, including some unexpected perspective on the practice of wearing abbaya.

I should probably mention that I hate the idea of anyone telling me what to wear. I shun uniforms and conformity, they completely freak me out. So you can imagine how surprised I was to find that I didn't really mind wearing an abbaya. Ok, forget all the symbolic meaning for a second. For starters, it's practical. You never have to think about what you're wearing. You can toss it over a bikini or your jammies, and head out the door. And yes, I did both.

It's also the best way to blend in that you can imagine. Working on the show, the last thing that you want to do is call attention to yourself, since all eyes belong on Tony and Danya. Producers are there to get the show made, and need to find a way of making that happen, while blending into the woodwork. I can't imagine a better way of doing that than wearing an abbaya. Accidentally stumble into a shot? No problem. Instead of out-of-place Western eyesore, I look like a local.

Of course it goes without saying that you also want to respect all the local laws, customs, and tradition and in that sense, no problem. Abbaya-me.

But besides all that, I began to realize how the abbaya affects the way you communicate with women, how it shifts your focus. Without all the visual cues that wardrobe, hair, or even subtleties of gesture provide to help you "see" someone, you begin to read them in a different way. The art of conversation and eye contact gain more weight, because that's all you've got. The face, where attention really belongs in the first place, is where it stays. It forces you to work harder to see someone, and to pay deeper attention to the words coming out of their mouth. Certainly the most important abbaya-related thought I had had during the trip. Ironic that I didn't even notice all this was happening, till the first time I saw Danya take off her abbaya.

Although everyone wears an abbaya in public, it comes off at home. When you are hanging out with friends or family, no abbaya necessary. Underneath, many women dress just like they do in New York: skirts, heels, low cut tops, you name it. One particularly scorching day, after Danya, Nari and I had spent hours scouting locations in the desert sun, we had a meeting in my hotel room. The second the door shut behind us, we tossed our sweat-drenched abbayas and head-scarves to the floor. Danya was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. For the first time, I could see her hair, her arms, her legs. I noticed immediately how different this felt. In some ways, it was like I was seeing her for the first time. Like a layer that was new and more intimate had been revealed. I realized in that moment that that was likely the point of the abbaya, or at least part of it. It's saving that kind of intimacy for those that are close to you, your friends and family, who have earned the privilege. For the first time, I saw that the abbaya may have a role in protecting women, and not as something simply designed to control them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating for the abbaya. I don't want to see them parading down the runways, in a window on 5th Avenue, or on the sale rack over at Old Navy. I don't want to see rules about women's or men's clothing anywhere of any sort. I can't even get behind the idea of Black Tie. And honestly, in terms of focusing communication, none of us should require an abbaya to make that happen. Still, having that simple "abbaya insight" felt like an incredibly important step toward understanding Danya's culture. And isn't that exactly what travel is all about? Taking a walk in someone else's shoes, or under their abbaya, and trying to find a way of seeing things from their perspective.

I've been back in New York for about a week now. Last night as I walked home, I was thinking about how much I missed Danya, her incredible laugh, and the warmth and hospitality of her friends and family. The spell was broken when a stranger approached me, offering a graphic description of something he'd like to do involving his face and my backside. For a second, I couldn't help but miss my abbaya.

I know it is going to be a unique shooting day for No Reservations the minute I jump out of the drab green helicopter the Colombian Government provided us with for this scene. Since I am first out, I bolt like my a** is on fire towards the shoulder-high plants at the edge of the clearing we chose as a landing zone. My feet sink into the soft soil as I run, making the few yards I need to travel to reach the safety of the crops seem to take forever.I look back and see our military handlers file out next ... there are three of them, and all are dressed like Navy SEALs, ready with their MP5 machine guns to provide us a blanket of what is known in the military world as "suppressive fire" to protect us in case an emergency extraction is warranted while we are filming the upcoming scene.

Todd and Zach from our crew emerge from the heli next, and as they near my position, they both perform a perfect tuck and roll into the safety of the brush. Watching this, I am immediately amazed by how nimble our camera guys are while carrying around 30 pounds of lenses and gaff tape.

Tony and Tom hop out last. Tom boldly takes what is known as the "human shield" stance to protect our host in case things get hairy on the ground. They make it to our position with no incident, and we are all safe and under cover in the field.

I do a quick head count, and while doing so, notice Todd frantically plucking leaves off a nearby plant and jamming them by the handful into his camera bag. He sees me staring and shrugs, "When in Rome...ya know?" I let Todd get back to his gathering, and start thinking about our next scene.

What I had considered was the logistical difficulty of filming a hot dog scene in the Colombian rain forest. It is just a b***h to get in here in one piece...and it is hot -- hotter than one could imagine. My backpack is full of bottled water for the crew, and I offer one up to Zach - he shakes his head, too busy looking for a spot in all this green to white balance his camera.

What I had not considered was that Zach's intricately modified camera rig looks dubiously like a shoulder-mounted Stinger missile launcher ... this may create problems for us, especially if someone sees us from a distance.

As our helicopter lifts off and heads to the rally point I begin to wonder how the hell we are going to pull this thing off...and if the hot dog will end up being the end of Act 4 or possibly the beginning of Act 5 in the final cut of the show. Hot dog scenes are delicate in that way -- it all depends on the quality of the toppings, and if the bread is fresh baked or not, also if the actual dog is pork or beef.

BOOM

Our transport helicopter explodes mid-air with a shockwave so powerful it blows my annotated copy of the filming schedule for the day out of my hand. The explosion is followed by the arrhythmic popping sound of machine guns on full auto - I can hear the bullets cutting through the vegetation around me.

My first thought is - I hope the guys are filming this.

Our handlers scream for us to "hit the deck", and as I dive to the ground, my ears are still ringing from the blast. Landing face first, I spit out a mouthful of dirt as my head spins, and there is a redundant sound pulsing through my head akin to a phone ringing at full volume inside my skull...is this what shell shock feels like?

I gather myself and try to make a another head count - to my right I see Tony calmly drinking a beer and eating a slice of pizza while chatting up one of the soldiers working with us (where the hell did he get that piece of pie?)

To my left is a collection of spent mortar shells and ammo cases as well as an old style rotary phone, half buried in the moist Colombian soil.

The phone is ringing in cadence with my head.

So I answer it.

"Hello?"

"Buenos Dias, this is your 7AM wake up call."

I hang up the phone, and tuck and roll out of my plush bed at a beautiful and safe hotel room in the walled city of Cartagena -- it is time to go to work.

As my dream fades, I laugh out loud at it. Turns out Colombia is a completely different kind of dream...it is one of the most amazing countries I have ever visited. The Colombian people are awesome - unbelievably kind and accommodating, and the food is out of this world. Cartagena de las Indias is spectacular in its old world glory, and Medellin is as progressive a city as any I have been to in the USA (and much, much, more into their food).

You need to see it to believe it. But right now, I really want some coffee - I need to think about our trip to a remote fishing village off the coast of Cartagena that shoves off in about an hour.

This is going to be a great day. - JA