24 Lessons Learned in Southeast Asia

I’ve just left Southeast Asia (and not without a few tears), but before I blog (um, catch up on blogging) about all of my travels in the area, here are just a few (not very serious at all) lessons learned over the past six months.

For more of these super deep, random travel lessons, see here and here. This stuff is the most fun to write about because I just laugh and ramble as I copy paragraphs from the Notes section of my iPhone.

I’ll say it again. It’s really the people you meet who make the destinations incredible.

Bring cards. Hang out with people who have cards. Never say no to playing cards. Even if your rules are different than theirs. Even if the game looks weird as hell. Cards will help you make friends.

Manual flush toilets are not the worst. Just make sure you recognize them. That bucket-garbage can thing filled with water and a scoop floating inside: use it. Pour the water in the toilet and gravity should take care of the rest. It’s almost satisfying in a way. On my first trip to Thailand I had no idea. I was all Hmmm do I wash my hands in here…? For the record, dirty squat toilets that don’t flush are the worst.

Be ready to explain why you don’t like electronic music if this is the case (e.g. because when a DJ just presses play on his computer, it is not fucking impressive, etc.) because you will hear that shit at every hostel. Everybody seems to love it, and I am in the minority. This song, however, is played literally everywhere and is worth a listen and an add to your Spotify.

Practical Tip: When embarking on a night of drinking, check the price difference between buying multiple beers versus buying a small bottle of rum with a couple of Cokes. It may be a better deal to choose the liquor (unless of course you’re a raging monster who cannot control his or her drinking, then don’t). This was a relatively new lesson for me, as the taxes on alcohol in Malaysia are pretty steep compared to the rest of Southeast Asia. I’m not used to being able to pour my own drinks at a bar, but I do like it.

Mosquitos. God. The bites, the itching, the Dengue. If you’re pretty sure there are mosquitos in your room at night, do you a) cover yourself in DEET before getting into bed, b) go on an incredibly ridiculous-looking mosquito hunt where you swat and clap at the air around your room for several minutes, or c) just go to sleep and risk the bites? Or, final option d) pay nearly double for a room with air condition? (For some reason, the mosquitos just don’t seem to annihilate you quite as much in a room with AC.)

Oh, and if you think mosquito bites are itchy, run into some jellyfish larva and then give me a call. In hell, I actually believe that you have to live with jellyfish stings permanently. And Satan will refuse to sell you calamine lotion, which by the way, is the only thing that saved me from scratching myself into insanity.

Rice is great for any meal. I will really miss having it at every hour.

Ditto for curry. Even at breakfast. Especially at breakfast.

Bring a book (or Kindle) if you have to wait. It might will take longer than you think.

Wounds, bites, and scrapes don’t heal well in tropical climates. They can also get infected. What?! I know, I’m as shocked as you are! Just be glad that the Indonesian pharmacist will glance at your red, swollen leg and immediately give you three days’ worth of antibiotics… and that it will only cost $3.50 to get you all healed up. (Do better, USA!)

Totally unrelated: Don’t drive a motorbike on a whim if you have no idea what you’re doing and haven’t had the best track record with regular bicycles in the past. And maybe don’t start off with somebody on the back. Just a thought. Didn’t happen to me or anything… Do, however, get on the back of a motorbike with somebody who knows what they’re doing. It’s the best!

The Philippines for sunsets. Actually, the Philippines for everything.* Go to the Philippines.

Never underestimate the time-killing power of watching movies and TV shows on your computer. You’ll need that downtime. You can download them from other savvy travelers (who have accumulated them by doing the same). It’s lovely when the wifi isn’t good enough for streaming… which it rarely will be. (RIP this external hard drive. You cannot, in fact, drop them on concrete floors. And I had so many episodes of The Office on there too, dammit!)

Always, always, always go on the booze cruise.

Coffee, tea, and cake breaks in the afternoon with a nice book. Ahhh, the perks of not having a job.

Yes, Scuba diving is awesome. But when you pretend like you know a ton about it and start using abbreviations (like when you talk about how the “viz” was really sub-par), you are the worst. Unbearable. The worst. Stop it. Go get your Divemaster certification and then I’ll be impressed.

The stereotypes are true. You really don’t meet a lot of Americans while traveling. But everybody in the world knows about Trump’s shenanigans and they ALL want to ask you about him. Not in a good way…

It really is the best when you visit a place that’s known for their food (like Thailand or Penang), but when you visit a country that is not known for their food, or worse, that’s known for having terrible food (*Philippines, I’m lookin’ at you), it becomes a lot easier to order mediocre Western food. The one upside of this is that it relieves food-obsessed people like me of the time normally spent agonizing over a menu or making food maps of neighborhoods on Google Maps (yes, this is a thing I do). Just order a pizza and don’t risk getting sick. Done and done.

Doing nothing sometimes is so essential. Doing nothing with friends is even better.

Blogging will become exponentially harder once you make those aforementioned friends.

So many places in Southeast Asia try to be a jack of all trades. They are simultaneously a restaurant, tour agency, laundry, and motorbike rental place. In commercial real estate, we’d see this as a tenant with a poor business plan grasping at straws to make a buck. Here, it’s just the norm. And it works. Yes, I would like to have a pancake while you book my bus ticket, thanks!

Ask for “takeaway” instead of getting your food “to go.” Ask for the “bill” instead of the “check.” Maybe if Americans traveled more, people would understand our lingo, but for now we have to defer to the language of those other English-speakers…

I think the breaking point for being abroad / when you really get used to traveling / when you decide whether this long-term travel thing is for you is about three months. I used to want to go home. (Hell, I thought I’d go back for Memorial Day to visit!) And now I don’t. Like, not really at all. Some things just don’t work out like you planned. This travel thing is unpredictable.

Can anybody else relate? What’d I Miss?!