Malaysian Durian Tour

[BigIslandGrower]

Just returned from a wonderful week of eating great durians in Malaysia.  Red Prawn, Black Thorn, Musang King, D-24 and many other varieties were on the menu.  A big thank you to Lindsay Gasik for putting this on.  She may be doing it again next year, so check out her Year of The Durian website if interested.  Here we are feasting at Raub Durian Orchard. 

[stuartdaly88]

She has a great website and sure is living the dream:)
I saw this on her website earlier in the year and have never wished I had enough money for something more
Trying currently to convince my fiancee that a durian tour like this will be an awesome honeymoon next year but imagine she ends up hating durian!
I'm a durian virgin too but iv never met a taste I found offensive and i know deep in my soul I will love them

[BigIslandGrower]

...Trying currently to convince my fiancee that a durian tour like this will be an awesome honeymoon next year but imagine she ends up hating durian!...

Find some frozen durian to try out on her!

[Droshi]

She has a great website and sure is living the dream:)
I saw this on her website earlier in the year and have never wished I had enough money for something more
Trying currently to convince my fiancee that a durian tour like this will be an awesome honeymoon next year but imagine she ends up hating durian!
I'm a durian virgin too but iv never met a taste I found offensive and i know deep in my soul I will love them

Durian has quite a few compounds and flavors in it, as such, both the smell and the taste can be very offensive to some, and pleasing or only mildly pungent to others. I really think it's just a matter of genetics (both the plant and your own), and less to do with just can you force yourself to like it or not.

Other fruits I've tried never compare. I ended up really liking Durian, but even in Malaysia, it's a love it or hate it fruit.

I would really encourage you both to see if you can find someone who likes it, and can help you pick out a good frozen fruit to try. At least see what you think before taking a trip just for Durian. But if you love it, the trip will be worth it!

[ben mango]

thats a lot of traveling for a week of eating durian, but i can relate. im an addict as well

[BigIslandGrower]

Tell me about it.  4 flights and 30 some hours en route from Hilo, without a stopover, to Georgetown.  For someone considering this trip in the future, I recommend spending at least a couple days on each end of the tour to do things on your own and make the long trip more worthwhile.

[stuartdaly88]

She has a great website and sure is living the dream:)
I saw this on her website earlier in the year and have never wished I had enough money for something more
Trying currently to convince my fiancee that a durian tour like this will be an awesome honeymoon next year but imagine she ends up hating durian!
I'm a durian virgin too but iv never met a taste I found offensive and i know deep in my soul I will love them

Durian has quite a few compounds and flavors in it, as such, both the smell and the taste can be very offensive to some, and pleasing or only mildly pungent to others. I really think it's just a matter of genetics (both the plant and your own), and less to do with just can you force yourself to like it or not.

Other fruits I've tried never compare. I ended up really liking Durian, but even in Malaysia, it's a love it or hate it fruit.

I would really encourage you both to see if you can find someone who likes it, and can help you pick out a good frozen fruit to try. At least see what you think before taking a trip just for Durian. But if you love it, the trip will be worth it!

Hmmm if i dont like it then will be the only flavour iv ever hated and that would suck and be weird for me. I wonder if that's true that you are born to live it or hate it no matter what? The combination of flavours sound heavenly.
Frozen durian dose not exist in South Africa not anywhere:(

[Triloba Tracker]

Glad to hear you made the trip successfully. Totally jealous, needless to say.
Hope to read all about it on Lindsay's website....

[BigIslandGrower]

Glad to hear you made the trip successfully. Totally jealous, needless to say.
Hope to read all about it on Lindsay's website....

Thanks.  However, I'm still within the window of incubation for dengue fever and malaria, so we'll see.     Actually, I was surprised that the mosquitoes weren't very bad there, compared to how they would be in Hawaii with similar conditions. .  Lindsay does have a write up on her website, but it's a general over view rather than a description of any specifics.  Believe it does give thanks to the farms we visited though. Must admit my durian eating was surpassed by at least one other tour member.  Probably just him. Young  Carlos from Ecuador was the King of consumption.

[Droshi]

Hmmm if i dont like it then will be the only flavour iv ever hated and that would suck and be weird for me. I wonder if that's true that you are born to live it or hate it no matter what? The combination of flavours sound heavenly.
Frozen durian dose not exist in South Africa not anywhere:(

I'm sure you can try to force yourself to like it, maybe eventually you'll come around if you don't at first. But I would highly doubt it.

Flavors that I taste will sound wonderful, but the guy next to me will taste things you won't want to hear when talking about food...

If you do like it, it's hard to compare most fruits to it. Very custardy, rich and filling. Something like banana pudding (exactly how my dad described it when he first had). But lots of varieties, so they can be anything from very simple taste, to very complex.

[BigIslandGrower]

Lindsay gave us sheets of tasting notes for assessing different flavors we may find in the different varieties.  The basics were:  Sweet, fruit, nutty, sulfurous, floral, fatty, bitter, overripe, spice, alcohol and numbing. Under each of these categories were several further descriptions.  For example, under sweet is the flavor cherry, along with others.  I may have got a hint of this with Red Prawn.
But for me, the sweet or bitter are the most dominant tastes and most of the others I simply don't experience.  It's hard to explain why some fruits are better than others. Some people prefer bitter, for some reason, while I don't particularly care for it. However, I can't imagine how the taste could be found offensive to anyone, unless it was spoiled, but that's just me.

[fruitlovers]

Was the tour worth the bucks and long travel haul? Would you do it again?

[BigIslandGrower]

Good questions.  Lindsay taught us how to recognize the top durian varieties, to avoid the possibility of being ripped off by unscrupulous merchants misrepresenting fruit, shared the best durian fruits and farms of Malaysia with us and also provided transportation, lodging and other adventures for a week.  So, yes I feel it was worth it.  It was a risky adventure for Lindsay to undertake, really. Many things could have gone wrong, ( a couple things did), so I am very pleased it worked out financially for her.
I don't foresee myself doing the tour again for a couple reasons.  First, following a set schedule for a week isn't ideal for me.  And, now that I know where to go in Malaysia it wouldn't be necessary, unless I was looking for companionship. The group was good fun, for sure. The long haul travel is certainly a negative.  I felt good in Malaysia despite the heat (Hilo's daily high temp is about their average daily temp), but it has taken me awhile to re adjust back home.  There's just no way to make the trip an easy one.  I would probably fly to Singapore next time and stay at the airport hotel there, then fly Air Asia to Georgetown or KL the next day.  A friend really wanted to go, but for health reasons could not.  I may return to some of the farms with his family at some point, but otherwise don't currently have a desire to return.  Our durians in Hawaii are almost as good.    When I sampled the fruit known as Jackie Chan's Wife at Bao Sheng, I thought it tasted just like the D-123 we grow in East Hawaii.

[fruitlovers]

Doing durian tours is a good idea. I would be tempted to go if Lindsay did a tour in Borneo. I'm more interested in rare species of durios and artocarpus, and those are mostly available in Borneo.

[BigIslandGrower]

Before parting, I asked her about the kind of tour you've also envisioned, and she's interested in doing it. 

[durianwriter]

Heehee, just found this post. Fun to read the reviews

I'm going to Borneo in November to lead a private seed collecting trip and do some scoping. We'll see.

[Kona fruit farm]

Hmmmm  Borneo....   that sounds neat.