Unusual fruits

Fruits at the market

Although I’m not much of a fruit lover, I try to eat healthily while I travel and with the abundance of fruits at the local markets, I often end up eating fruit for lunch.

My favorite fruit remains the pineapple. I can get it almost everywhere, served nicely peeled and chopped in a bag with a wooden skewer. Occasionally I buy a mango, either the green and sour kind that they sprinkle with chili flakes, also served chopped in a bag, or the sweet orange variety, most often as a shake.

If I’m still hungry after just fruit, I supplement my lunch with a bunch of bananas. Sometimes it’s difficult to choose from the many varieties: small and yellow, large and green and everything in between.

I did make an effort to try the more unusual fruits that are found around here. There is the durian, the smelly fruit which I tried once and probably won't again. The taste is just as weird as the smell.

Durian

Sections of durian flesh

The rambutan is quite tasty as well as easy to peel and eat. It's very similar to lychee by taste but is more spiky on the outside.

Rambutan

Rambutan

The mangosteen is not one of my favorites, but the one I tried might not have been fresh as some of the inside sections were starting to turn brown.

Mangosteen

Mangosteen

The dragon fruit or pitaya looks much better that it tastes, in fact, it doesn’t have much of a taste at all. They often add it to fruit salads for its interesting pattern.

Dragon fruit

Dragon fruit

They serve coconut as a drink by drilling a hole and inserting a straw. It’s nice to try fresh coconut water once but I don't like the taste too much.

Coconut

They sell many more types of fruits, such as watermelons, mandarin oranges, grapes, apples and pears that are known to me as well as a bunch of others with which I haven't yet experimented and I still have no idea what they are.