It was soft. Succulent. Sort of squishy.

It had the most delicate pink hue this side of the Equator. If I stared long enough, it assumed a devilish grin.

I had it on good authority that it was flavoured just right -- enough to send the harshest of critics into orgasmic hallelujahs.

Unfortunately, I wasn't one.

Critical? Uh-huh. Non capisce.

Orgasmic? Nope. No danger of spiralling into hallelujahs, either.

What I was -- to put it most unorgasmically -- was a vegetarian.

In the part of the world I was in, that translates to what-in-salmon-hell-are-you-doing-here?

Good question.

As it happens, I do have a good answer. One that only an inveterate traveller will give you: I was drinking in the sights and sounds of a new place.

Truth or bare-n-dare, in Thailand, that's about all a vegetarian can do.

For the country is an olfactory overload. If it isn't the smell of dried fish, it's fish sauce. If it isn't both, it is any of the assorted sharply tangy sauces that doggedly waft right into your nostrils.

Fish sauce (naam plah, in Thai), for your information, assumes proportions of divinity in Thailand. So trying to convince any red-blooded Thai that you're not a great one for our little friends from the sea is no easy feat.

I managed. Just about.

I was with a group of 13 at a restaurant. All bar me were tucking into salmon, prawns and assorted seafood with a relish that was, well, orgasmic.

Me? I was the picture of abject patience: alternately fiddling with a spoon, a pair of chopsticks or a fork. Playing mental crosses and noughts in my head. Waiting for the chef to rustle up something suitably vijathalian (in Thai English, that's vegetarian).

At the best of times, I'm impatient. That I wasn't kicking up a heck of a ruckus I now chalk up to respect for another culture. And manners that my mother dished out liberally from one end of the dining table ever since I can remember.

At that precise moment, though, with gargoyles wreaking hungry hell in my stomach, I could have happily tossed those manners right down the tableside water boilers that are a common sight in most Thai restaurants.

Hunger drives man to strange acts. So true. I was about to launch myself on one of them, when out came the fluttering Oriental chef, beaming a wide, gap-toothed grin that was three-quarters pride and a quarter apology... to ceremoniously present his masterpiece in front of me.

Call me clairvoyant, but I knew what it would be. My choices I was fully cognisant of: tofu, mushrooms or lettuce.

Three lunches and dinners had wisened me to do a quick tic-tac-toe and tick tofu.

I was so right it hurt.

Make no mistake. I love food. I love trying out new cuisine. As long as it isn't living, breathing, moving before it is cooked and spiced up beyond recognition, I'm all systems go -- every last taste bud tingling.

It's only when I'm offered the same food three times a day for three consecutive days that I have to draw the line.

So when I said hunger drives a man to strange acts, I meant it. One of which was to devise a strategy: no more a la carte for me. If it meant going right into the kitchens and bugging the daylights off the chefs, then so be it. I would choose what I ate.

Hey, it was my stomach at stake here. I wanted something different.

Dinnertime. A buffet. I rubbed my hands with glee. At least I got to decide exactly what went into my plate.

I went up to the make-and-serve counter. Pulled out from my little clutch of politesse the widest smile I ever possessed. Lucky for me, yellow teeth don't figure in my dental history.

Then began some of the most inventive ways of sign languaging man has ever divined. And so it went on for 10 days.

Those 10 days wisened me to more insights. One was to learn to say, 'I'm a vegetarian' in Thai. It went something like: Phom kin jeh. Loosely translated, that means I don't eat fish.

Repetition is the better part of valour. Another valuable insight. If you want to make yourself heard, much less understood, repeat yourself till you get blue in the face. Nineteen to ten, you'll get your way then.

The most resourceful -- and this is one that has me puffing my chest out with pride -- was to get a local to inscribe 'I'm a vegetarian; I don't eat fish' on a piece of paper. That piece of paper... it acquired an importance all the bahts and the rupees in the world could never equal.

Well, you could say, 'Why go to Thailand at all?' You might be right.

But then Confucius did say, 'He who tries not new cultures is a cold fish'.

Me, I'm only human.