Let’s face it, medical dietary restrictions can be well… restrictive. When you can sometimes struggle to feed yourself in your own city, travelling overseas as a vegan coeliac can seem like mission impossible. But with some planning, research and flexibility it’s not that difficult. And… we found that trying to explain (in another language) your weird dietary requirements to cooks and waiters can actually even add to the trip. So, these are our tips for travelling to SE Asia if you’re a coeliac – they’re not extensive but they might just help make your trip a little less stressful.
 
Before you go.
 
The internet is your friend. Google your destination for gluten free restaurants, supermarkets and delis. When we find a good one we screenshot the details so the information is available even when we’re not connected to wifi.

Choose your hotel or guesthouse wisely. We usually try to stay in small hotels or guesthouses that have been well reviewed – Tripadvisor is your friend here but Travelfish and other travel sites are really useful too. We look for guest comments that suggest the owner is flexible and helpful. Big hotels may offer gluten free food as part of the breakfast buffet but a small place is more likely to cook you something to order.

​At the Citadel in deep ponds the koi, like shards of afternoon light, swam at the surface waiting for crumbs. I stood with my eldest son in the rain. Tiny frogs hid in cracks between the pavers while we traced a spray of bullet holes on a wall, the mortar crumbling damply beneath our fingers. The rain, in sheets, closed out the distance and we shivered in the small space where we stood, between the darkened sky and the wet stone.
 
My notebook from that trip is a child's exercise book. It is dog eared from dampness, the writing smudged, pages missing. I wrote in hotel rooms and airports. At Khe Sanh I wrote as I watched ladies in conical hats sweep the ground slowly with metal detectors and the sun was high between the hills around us. On the train south from Danang I wrote perched on a bench greasy with years of use, the smell of old smoke and the carriages rocking like a boat at anchor.
 
One lunchtime at a cafe outside of town we perched on kindergarten sized chairs, and the children, delighted, fed the resident cats with their fingers and drank coke straight from the bottle. I still have a bottle opener from that trip. It was made by a man who couldn't speak from a thin piece of wood and two screws. On it he wrote, "Hue 2011." When you use it, the beer bottle tops fly off like insects.

The first time I saw an orangutan in the jungle I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. They are so extraordinary, so perfectly adapted for their lives amongst the tree tops that it is hard to reconcile the animals that I have seen in zoos with the ones we saw in the jungle canopy. They move across the canopy, agile and beautiful. Your heart does funny things when you see them, it skips and swells. Your neck hurts from looking upwards but you can't look down and your face starts to ache from smiling.

I fear for a future where the only way to see these beautiful animals is in zoos – it would be like only ever seeing whales in holding tanks or birds in cages too small for flight. Without the medium of the jungle they are cute pot bellied primates, in the jungle they soar.
 
Most of the orangutans who live in the forest around Bukit Lawang have suffered because of humans but only two of them openly show their dislike. Mina has bitten countless guides and tourists. Jackie doesn't bite, but occasionally she will leave the canopy and firmly take hold of a passing tourist, refusing to let go until paid with food. Our guides carried back packs with generous banana bribes, just in case. About half way through our day-long trek we stopped on a ridge to watch an orangutan in the canopy below us. As she started moving towards us Ari said, "That's Jackie," and frowned. Because of the fractured jungle light and the thick foliage it was...