The 5-day 2013 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival that ended last week left warm impressions for many travelers, including us at the Omar Niode Foundation.

Legendary travelers, Maureen and Tony Wheeler and Don George captivated festivalgoers with their tales from years of traveling around the world.

The 2013 Festival was not the first trip to Bali for Maureen and Tony Wheeler. In fact, in Asia on the Cheap, the first book of the company they founded, Lonely Planet, published 40 years ago was about their experience traveling from London to Australia with a stop in Bali, Indonesia.

Today, the Lonely Planet, sold this year to a third owner for $75 million, offers 500 travel guides covering 195 countries in many forms: television series, books, magazines, PDF chapters and products for iPhone, iPad, Kindle and more.

The traffic in Ubud was extremely heavy on Monday 14 October, but A Traveler’s Lunch an event hosted by Alila Ubud where Maureen and Tony shared their stories was an event not to be missed.

Don George, presiding the session, was a perfect match to lead discussions with the Wheelers. Don, who is currently the Editor at Large and Book Columnist for National Geographic Traveler magazine, has been the Global Travel Editor for Lonely Planet Publications.

Granted, the Wheelers’ stories are spread all over the internet and in a number of books including Unlikely Destinations. The Lonely Planet Story. However, meeting the legends was an exceptional experience.

Reading their words “We’d set out with the simple aim of traveling overland from London to Sydney, stretching our money as far as it would go and arriving pretty well broke” was exciting, but for us, hearing them told the story with their facial expression and body language was like being transported to their world.

One in the audience was so moved by the Wheelers’ stories that she tearfully thanked Lonely Planet for providing books that guided her to travel safely.

Tony Wheeler added to the emotional rollercoaster by telling how soldiers in one country used the Lonely Planet guidebook to familiarize themselves to a targeted country before invading it.

His latest book, Dark Lands, launched at the 2013 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival explored Colombia, Congo DRC, Haiti, Nauru, Pakistan, Palestine-Israel, Papua New Guinea and Zimbabwe.

It was hard for us to divide our concentrations between the legends sitting in front and the lunch prepared by Executive Chef Erwan Adri Wijaya and the Alila Culinary Team.

Themed The Global Gourmand, the meal was a culinary journey to the four corners of the world.

To quench our thirst in that hot day we had a choice of water infused lemongrass and pineapple mint that did not taste spice.

We had the lemon thyme and fennel cured tuna, where in a big white plate lied compressed watermelon, grape, pickled shallot and basil oil.

Next was Malawi spiced chicken breast, grazed with raisin cous-cous, piri-piri sauce, dried green olive and crispy eggplant skin. The taste of the innovative light chicken dish complemented the next dish: steamed red snapper. The fish dish floated on soy broth garnished with baby kalian, coriander and ginger salad, with mushroom wonton.

Desert, key lime pie enriched with sour cream, mango essence and citrus salsa came during questions and answers sessions.

We asked the travelers about their views and visions of culinary travel. Tony Wheeler was quite amazed with how this type of travel developed, praising Janet deNeefe, the festival founder, for her culinary programs. Maureen Wheeler was more direct: “I don’t like to cook, but I like to eat.”

The bonus was the book signing time, where we conversed with the travelers and asking all kinds of questions to our hearts’ content.

We asked Don George about his preference of all his writing outlets. Don likes the different platforms with a variety of audience. His website Don George- Pilgrimages – Encounters – Illuminations is a traveler’s delight with information on 10 travel books that he wrote or edited and a number of free travel tips articles in mainstream media.

Just off the press was the third edition of the travel writer’s bible that he authored: Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Writing. As Don stated in the book that we bought at the Festival, it represents the accumulation of more than five decades of life-experience.

As one of The 2013 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival friends, we are very pleased that the organizers were true to their words: it was an intimate lunch with legendary travelers.

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Images: Tony Wheeler, Omar Niode Foundation