1. INTERIOR MOHAMMED'S EATERY, COLOMBO, SRI LANKA - DAY

One of the many eating houses in the Pettah, Colombo's main marketplace, provides the backdrop for mine and Tony's first Sri Lankan meal, a hearty breakfast of String Hoppers (steamed rice noodles); paripoo, or red lentils stewed in coconut milk; pol sambol, a spicy condiment of fresh shredded coconut laced with lime juice, salt and chili powder; chili fish curry, potato curry and sour fish curry. We have just slogged our way through the crowded and chaotic central fish market around the corner, and I, having prudently bypassed the lavish breakfast buffet at the stately Galle Face Hotel, our home away from home this week, have worked up a healthy appetite that neither the oppressive heat nor the condensed-milk tea we're sipping can kill.

Roll Cameras

In an instant the table is covered with a colorful, edible tapestry-the yellow-tinged potato curry, shaded with turmeric, contrasting against fiery red fish gravy and orange coconut sambol, black sour fish and white rice noodle nests. I waste no time, quickly using up all real estate on my plate, but when I peek at Tony's, it's looking pretty zen. As a fan of the show, my mind's eye flashes back to an episode like Montreal, where Bourdain was practically mainlining foie gras as the mischievous chef sent him a flurry of rich main courses, which Tony scooped down his pie-hole like a trooper. Was this the same Tony Bourdain, Mouth Almighty, The Walking Stomach, King of Street Food? Or did they cheat on TV, and just make it look like he eats a lot? That's certainly not what the producers told me when I signed on. Worse yet: What if he doesn't like the food? I considered it an honor and a pleasure to introduce a serious eater like Tony to the cuisine of my homeland, and if he just didn't dig it, I would have felt really bad. These thoughts were the subtext as we spoke casually about the meal for the cameras. Afterwards I asked him:

SKIZ

Tony, so how you feeling, man? Everything cool?

TONY

Yeah, man. But I've had this thing since before we left New York.

Some kind of bug or something.

SKIZ

Oh, no. For real?

TONY

Of course, it didn't help that the lady in the next seat was coughing all over me all the way from Kuwait City. But yeah, I can't seem to keep anything down.

It suddenly dawned on me that even a job as perfect as his-to travel the world and sample her exotic delights-had its own pitfalls. What if you were hot and jetlagged and afflicted with a serious head cold that impeded your olfactory senses? What if you were so sick you couldn't even keep any food down? What if you just didn't feel like eating and had to plow through three or four heavy meals in a day? Things to think about when you eat for a living. Nevertheless, this was a food and travel show, and with only six days of shooting, the show must go on.

Thankfully, it did, without a hitch. After Tony's stomach settled down, and we plied him with a few alcoholic beverages for good measure, the man I knew from the TV screen returned in fine form. Not only that, but he genuinely enjoyed each successive meal more than the one before it. In fact, I noticed that the whole crew-Producer Tom, Segment Producer Jared, and Jerry and Todd, the cameramen -- all loaded up on the Sri Lankan specialties every morning at the breakfast buffet, not to mention scarfing down all the food that Tony and I ate on camera, as well. And these guys can take the heat from all the chili-laden dishes, which I've never seen gringos handle so well. Of course, Tony gets extra points for making it through those first few meals, which probably went straight through him.

For more about the "No Reservations" Sri Lanka trip, check out my own blog at Riceandcurry.wordpress.com.

"You can't shoot THAT!" says our government minder.

"What?" I ask, through my phone.

With a dirty-toothed smile, "That, um, food cart. There are many places that are much nicer. Wouldn't you rather shoot there?"

"Where?" I ask with a pleasant, but deeply evil smile on my face, knowing this game like the back of my hand.

"Um" the minder sputters "anywhere but HERE. I was told..."

My mind starts wandering to other essentials as I look at the obviously fearful look on my poor, ABNR-virgin, cameraman's face. I squint, look bored, half smile and reassuredly, but ever-so-slightly, nod. Wink to Tracey. Street scene on. Ba-bang.

"You know ___________, I need to go to the toilet. Can you help me?" I ask earnestly while doing the "little-boy-leg-shifting-pee-pee-dance."

"Yes, right this way. I can help you," he says with the authority of a bureaucrat who actually means what he is saying, but doesn't get to say it very often.

We're off. Down an alley. Thru a gate. Large door. Man in uniform. Arabic spoken. Nods all around. Down a hall. Thru another door. Smell of excrement. Bingo. Government minder waits outside.

Now remember, I still have a phone stuck to my face. It's been there for days...l.i.t.e.r.a.l.l.y. Thank god for international cells. Tracey and I came to Egypt 3 days early to scout. Crew coming in on different days from different locations. Potential logistical hell. The pollution here makes Athens or Mexico City feel like clean oases of Swiss modernity. The noise of Cairo is literally as loud as "being 10 feet from a freight train." I read that somewhere. No joke. Government bureaucrat hell. Permits. You have them, don't worry. Well, you might have them by next week. "Next week" I yell. "We're shooting tomorrow." Well, you can shoot the pyramids. Ummm, actually, no you can't shoot the pyramids. "Forget the pyramids, can we shoot in the streets of Cairo?" You can't shoot ANYthing on the street. We know of some nice restaurants you would LOVE to shoot in, though. The Hilton has a great "Middle Eastern-style" restaurant with dancing and traditional music. Very clean. Tourists go there. You'll feel safe. You will LOVE it! Ahhhhhhhhh!

So I'm on the phone with the network, with Tony, with our Executive Producers, with the Egyptian government, with the airline, with customs officers, with the US government, with my mom ("help!"). I keep switching calls to our "fixers" when the Arabic becomes, well, irreplaceable with English. But I have to transfer the call. I can't hand mine over ... cause it's stuck to my F***ING face!

Thank god our fixers have phones. So from within the stall, I text, "SHOOT the scene. Shoot the scene!" And then, I take my time. I pretend I'm going #2, which requires more time in a world without toilet seats or toilet paper.

Just another day on ABNR ...

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.