Vegetarian traveling

This is my first long trip as a vegetarian. As I’d suspected, it sucks. Or at least my level of expertise/preparation sucks. Here in Vancouver, before checking in with U.S. customs, I found a little food court that offered Greek and Chinese food as well as a Burger King and a pizza-by-the-slice place. First I went to the Greek place, in the hopes I could find my faithful standby, falafel … or even a spinach pie. There were a couple of young men in the line before me. “Don’t you have any vegetarian food?” one of them asked. (I nearly swooned – vegetarian boys?!?!?) Apparently the vegetarian options were Greek salad and … Greek salad.

So I moved on to the Chinese place. They actually had a combo plate advertised as vegetarian (mixed vegetables, spring roll, fried rice, and chow mein), so that’s what I got. Kinda. The chow mein was actually lo mein (noodles), so with the rice it made for a meal high in refined carbohydrates. But worse, the mixed vegetables had an OVERPOWERING shrimp flavour. I would have found it unpalatable even when I was an omnivore.

So what’s the secret? There must be people out there who travel considerably yet are vegetarians. Any thoughts on how to do so without subsisting on a diet of refined sugars and edible oil products? To add another wrench in the works, I’m carrying my camera gear, laptop, and CPAP device onto the plane, so I’m reaching the limit of burdens my back can carry and the airline will tolerate.

You know, I’m not a rabidly ideological person, and would even consider eating meat while traveling if I really had to, but I really question the quality of the meat that would be sold in airports and other tourist-y places, and I am extremely leery. These sorts of places seem to be the smartest places to be vegetarian, you know what I’m sayin’?