There’s always some level of humiliation that a traveler endures while touring a foreign land. From having to hike up your shirt to get at your money belt to unfolding a massive map to royally flubbing up the language -- the opportunities for embarrassment are endless.

Part of what makes Anthony Bourdain so fun to watch is that he makes none of the novice-traveler mistakes that the rest of us do. He’s the Marlon Brando of traveling, if you will -- the rock star explorer who plays it cool through all kinds of strange experiences and environments, and really only gets goofy and excitable when some form of grilled meat in a tube and a cold beer are placed in front of him (which actually manages to happen in nearly every place he visits).

Last night we found out how Bourdain reacts to feeling like the rest of us do when we travel -- as a tourist. He abhors it.

In fact, as we watched Bourdain sitting in the restaurant at Hotel Dracula, which looked like “a Motel Six had sex with a Renaissance Fair and then crammed in a breakfast nook and a crummy bar” on Halloween in Romania, his voice-over did say, “This is the low point of my career.” He not only looked bored as American tourists danced in their Halloween outfits all around him -- he looked really embarrassed to be wearing his own costume, with a fake knife sticking out of his head and fake blood running down his face. He was rolling his eyes and not even drinking profusely.

It was all Zamir’s fault.

Bourdain's buddy was the one who insisted that the two of them take this trip to Romania. And Zamir was the one to drag Bourdain to Transylvania to check out Dracula’s castle as a possible real estate investment (yes, you read that right: Dracula’s castle was apparently up for sale, and Zamir was considering going in on the purchase with some Russian investors). I have a hard time believing that it was a mere coincidence that Zamir and Bourdain ended up in Transylvania on Halloween ... but somehow Bourdain was talked into going to that hokey “dinner theater of the damned." I'm surprised he agreed.

While Bourdain clearly didn't dig this touristy stuff, what he did dig was the fact that Romania has a thing for slow-roasted pig. He managed to overlook the overload of kitsch in Bucharest's Jaristea restaurant -- which is absolutely covered in chandeliers, flaming candles, old-world paintings, and features waiters who wear red tuxedos -- because they served him an entire slow-roasted suckling pig with corn-stuffed apples, pickled peppers, and cabbage.

Zamir, Bourdain’s traveling partner, drank his way through this dinner, the next meal and then the next ... downing shots of whatever battery-acid-strength liquor those Romanians were serving. When their rickety car broke down on the way to Victor the Butcher's house on the outskirts of Bucharest, Zamir busted his back in trying to push it off the road -- and then downed a painkiller along with his shots. This was his 50th birthday by the way, so why not go for it? While his partner in crime was boozing himself into oblivion, Bourdain proceeded to join in on the pig-slaughtering-and-roasting festivities taking place in Victor the Butcher's backyard. The Butcher's young son (maybe he was 8 years old) and his father's apprentice even joined in the fun, first by blow-torching the fur off the pig and then later by snacking on pieces of its skin as it slowly roasted.

The meal that followed, which coincidentally was Zamir's 50th birthday celebration, featured polenta with sausages and cheese, mini stuffed cabbages full of spiced, ground meats braised in a ceramic pot, and endless toasts of that battery-acid liquor. And it all looked like loads of fun.

Bourdain's latest cool travel move may be his willingness to travel with a fan for a show this summer. If you're obsessed with No Reservations, you have two more weeks to answer the casting call and submit a 3-minute video for the Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations FAN-atic Special. Visit the Travel Channel website to find out more.

Next week on No Reservations: Anthony Bourdain dons a Hawaiian shirt and, you guessed it, he checks out those islands in the Pacific. Here's to hoping we get to see the New Yorker on a surf board!

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