• Submitted by: manso
• Editorial Articles
• 07 / 12 / 2011

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Anthony Bourdain in Old Havana, Cuba.By Rebecca Ruiz, Senior editor, msnbc.com. In the season premiere of "No Reservations" airing tonight, host Anthony Bourdain visits Cuba for the first time. He spends the hour falling for Havana's old school charms, from its retro cars and architecture to its passionate baseball fans to its so-called "sleeping" beans, which are eaten only after they've sat overnight.

U.S. tourists who have long dreamed of visiting the communist country should take note. Now that the Obama administration has issued new rules for traveling to Cuba, average Americans can visit the country provided they do so with tour operators that provide educational experiences. (See New rules promise legal Cuba travel for many.)

Bourdain talks to Overhead Bin about highlights - and the politics - of his first trip to the country. "No Reservations" airs this evening at 9 p.m. on the Travel Channel.

Q: You said in the show you expect to get a lot of grief over going to Cuba. Has the hate mail started trickling in?

A: No, but I think I’ve seen some stuff on Facebook. There are Cuban Americans with a zero tolerance policy as far as anything to do with Cuba. It is heretical for any American to visit. It is an emotional position that I understand and that I'm sympathetic to, but obviously I went anyway.

Q: For the benefit of your viewers?

A: No, because I wanted to go. I don’t know that I have a lot of virtues, but one of them would be an intense curiosity about the world. I think my expectation is that things are going to be changing in Cuba very soon and I wanted to see it before they did.

Q: Was there anything that you wanted to see firsthand?

It was the buildings, the cars. You really are walking into 360 degrees of another era. It really feels untouched. It is the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen in Latin America or anywhere in the Caribbean. There’s nothing like it. It’s gorgeous. Even as it crumbles, even given the very evident state of disrepair, it is beautiful.

Q: Is this the most politically charged destination you’ve visited?

A: For some people it’s going to be. I just don’t really care. I’ve been to a lot of countries where we have differences of opinion, to say the least, or bad histories or even places where they see the world very differently than I do. It was not something that I was looking to concentrate on, but at the same time, I was very aware that it was worth mentioning.

Q: Speaking of free expression, what did you make of the legally permitted street corner debates over baseball?  

A: I think there’s a lot going on there that I don’t know in the sense that you could argue publicly about baseball, but it’s probably ill-advised to argue about other things, though I do understand that politics do creep into the discussion at times. I wanted to mention repeatedly in the show certain obvious facts about living in Cuba, which is something that other travel show hosts, perhaps, did not do and I think got a lot of grief for it. If you’re eating in a fine dining restaurant it is worth mentioning that chances are, you won’t be seeing any ordinary Cubans there.

Q: Did you find any of your experiences in Cuba aggravating?

A: No. We met ordinary people, we met people who had been assigned by a government agency to help us. Right across the board at every level, people were shockingly frank with us as far as how they thought things would go. We were not shy about talking about these things. I get to come back to New York and say whatever the hell I want.  

Q: It looked like you ate well there. What was the best thing you had?

A: I ate some really good food in a high-end tourist restaurant, a Spanish-Basque place, but I have to tell you the "sleeping" beans were really extraordinary. I’m a guy who is very happy with just some good beans and some decent rice, and that was quite good.

Q: Do you feel like the next few years will be transformative for Cuba?

A: I think everybody there is tangibly holding their breath. They know something has to change. Even the noises coming out of Raul Castro - he breached the subject of term limits. Just the fact that he would utter those things in public, they’re recognizing a changing reality on the ground.

Q: Some people go to Cuba and fall in love with it like some people fall in love with, for example, New Orleans. Do you feel like Havana has your heart?

A: I feel it has my heart in really significant ways. It’s not my country, where New Orleans is. It’s not my system, whereas New Orleans, for better or worse, is. But it has my heart in the sense that I’ll always care a lot about what happens. I feel interested in what happens and how it works for the Cuban people in ways that I might not care in other places. It’s just so damn beautiful. It’s like Venice or Naples in that sense.  All of the things that don’t work, the fact that it is a dysfunctional system … is also what has kept it un-ruined. There’s not a lot of strip malls or the usual buildings you get for being too close to the Soviet Union; they managed to avoid that for the most part in Havana. It’s still beautiful and that’s something.

Q: You spend time with people who know the history, culture and quirks of the place. The most efficient way for most travelers to get the same behind-the-scenes look is to go on expensive guided tours. Is this a waste of money in your mind? Is there a better way to do it?

A: We do a lot of research before we go and we’re looking for local bloggers, people who live there and have a particular interest in what I’m interested in, which is looking at the world through a food-centric view. Also, we’re looking for someone with a sense of humor. Reaching out to local bloggers is always a good thing. There’s somebody, chances are, who has incredible and hyper-nerdly expertise in your area of interest. If you’re talking about a tour of Renaissance art in Florence, it would probably be a good idea.

Q: Finally, what are the highlights from this season of 'No Reservations'? What did you come home and brag about?

A: Naples was a lot of fun because we were tracking the "Red Sauce" trail. I wanted to know if the Italian food that I grew up eating, does it have any relation to what they’re eating in Naples? I had a really great time doing that show. The Iraqi-Kurdistan episode, I'm really excited about that one, too. It was very beautiful and there was shockingly good food. We had a lot of fun this season.

Rebecca Ruiz is a senior editor at msnbc.com.

Source: http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/11/7044293-