The site has now includes ten half-hour videos and extras, each containing mouth-watering glimpses of Southeast Asian travel and culture, but especially the food. Exotic, but easy to prepare dishes abound, along with recipes for the best of the best.

Here is the latest edition – Green Chicken Curry at the famous Suan Thip Restaurant, nestled alongside an unusually quiet section of the historic Chao Phraya River in exciting Bangkok. You can also wander over to the main ETA site and where you’ll find all manner of food and travel tidbits about Southeast Asia, or hop over to the ETA YouTube channel and pick and choose your favourite country or dish.

Go ahead – indulge!

Click here to view the embedded video.

The twenty-six half-hour episodes and one-hour documentary special received worldwide attention. Originally, ETA played on public TV stations across Canada, on PBS stations across the United States, in several countries around the world, and many episodes formed part of the inflight entertainment on global airlines and cruise ships.

During its initial run in the United States I received two Emmy® Award nominations – one for the documentary special (Entrée To Asia: The Golden Thread) and one for the series itself. This new website launches the entire package of videos globally via its very own YouTube channel for all to enjoy.

At the moment there are three videos on the channel:

○ Five-minute Press Screener
○ Twelve-minute Pilot Episode
○ One-Hour Special

New half-hour episodes will be encoded and uploaded at the rate of one per week beginning the week of January 1, 2012. That means new video content will be available through the end of June 2012.

Shot entirely on location throughout Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand, Entrée To Asia is still… ‘Travel Television With A Bite!’.

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CTVGlobeMedia, Canada’s largest private television network, has sold its specialty travel-based channel to a broadcast media group headed by two media icons, Raja Khanna and Jay Switzer.

Launched initially as CTV Travel back in 2001 the channel was re-branded as Travel+Escape five years later. Programming was similar to Cox’s Travel Channel in the United States and Britain’s Travel Channel International (TCI).

In recent years one of CTV’s other specialty channels, OLN, has been programming travel-based fare and seemed to eclipse Travel+Escape as the travel TV venue of choice in Canada – Word Travels would be a prime example of that.

I’ve worked with Raja in the past on projects, and know Jay through reputation (he was President and CEO of former powerhouse broadcaster CHUM Limited in Toronto). Between the two of them I can’t see this acquisition being anything but a well-deserved boost for new travel programming. Specifically, with Raja’s pioneering online media background, I can foresee a significant, and possibly primary online component for the channel as its content is spread over different outlets and released to mobile devices. I’ve produced and directed a number of travel series for Travel+Escape over the years, and I’m personally happy to see any change here that brings new and compelling travel content to the airwaves (and WiFi!) My two cents.

The CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, Canada’s broadcasting regulatory body, similar to the FCC in the United States) still has to approve the sale.

Bottom line: This is good news for those of us who love travel television. Hey, we all need a vicarious hit once in awhile when we’re landlocked or desk-bound, yes?

Stay tuned, as they say.

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Do you like to watch…? Comments below.

Bread, in its myriad forms throughout the world, is a dietary staple, unless, of course, you find yourself in Southeast Asia. When I lived in Singapore the only Westernized version of bread I could find was what Singaporeans called ’sandwich bread’. Thinly sliced, long loaves of heavily preserved white bread the consistency of plaster board. It was normally sold in the ’specialty’ aisles of chain markets along with wieners and macaroni and cheese, and rarely found in the kitchen.

But there are so many other tantalizing varieties of food available to the traveler in Southeast Asia that you quickly adjust your palate. In fact, one of the best aspects of travel in foreign countries is the ability to dive into the food and culture of the region.

Entree To Asia is a travel-based cooking TV series I produced a number of years ago. It still amazes me how, in Asian food culture, so little changes. What was true — and tasty — hundreds of years ago, remains so today. Food in Southeast Asia remains an important aspect of the travel experience, and so the two are not only interconnected, they each thrive on their diversity of ingredients.

With this post we start a new category here at Wanderism – Food & Travel. We’ve nibbled around the edges of this subject before — articles about Morocco and the Vancouver Olympics for instance — but this category will deal directly with the connections between the two, and why, in many cases they are inseparable. Also, where possible, we will be presenting entertaining video clips with those posts. Today is such a case.

Herewith, the TV series demo of Entree To Asia. I went on to write, produce and direct 26 half-hour episodes and a one-hour special for broadcasters around the world. In future posts we’ll show clips from shows in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong. Also, coming up we have clips on the food of Central America, including Belize. All exclusive to Wanderism visitors. Enjoy!

A Taste Of Asia from Wanderism on Vimeo.

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Did you enjoy the video? Let us know. Comments below.

Ah, memories! That’s what travel photos are for, yes? Pictures of all those terrific places you visited on vacation posted to your blog, or your Picasa or Flickr account. Maybe send a few of the best ones via Twitter or set-up a slide show on Facebook for all to see. Of course there’s the cellphone video too, or maybe you picked up a small HD video camera for that Fiji trip. Our travel experiences continue to inspire laughter, awe and even jealousy in others, finally giving way to “Oh yeah – gotta go there!” It’s so easy these days to distribute, share and comment on our vacations, road trips and holidays.

While photographs and video feature prominently in our bag of tricks here at Wanderism, travel television continues to be a venue we develop with broadcasters around the world. Being a television producer, writer and director by trade, I have many episodes of programs showcasing beautiful islands, foreign locales, great restaurants and unusual cultures. Island Escapes is one of those television series.

Even though the 10-episode half-hour series hosted by Ziya Tong (above) was produced a few years ago, it continues to be broadcast in Canada, across Europe, the Middle East and Australasia. Plus, don’t be surprised if an episode or two pops up on a multi-channel flat screen on your favourite airline.

And just so you know that we like to share too, here’s the Flickr file with some of the photos from that production.

In the near future you can expect to see clips and possibly even entire episodes here on Wanderism. Stay tuned, as they say.

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What’s your favorite travel television program? Comments below.