SE Asia 1
The hardest things are the things you think will be easiest, like not missing home. Being able to wake up every day because you’re in a new country and everything’s exciting. The relationships you have. I realised very, very quickly that being able to do ANYTHING you want without fear of the consequences could be dangerous. And that it’s hard hard to have alone time when you’re overseas – and there have been times when I have wanted to be alone very, very badly because traveling with your boyfriend and his best friend means that I’m actually the third wheel.
I learnt that I can take three weeks of street food and then either a simple fried rice or a Lipton Iced Tea will give me the worst case of gastro over. (I hugged a toilet the entire night, and didn’t eat for two days.) Relationships are that much harder because there’s no such thing as a time-out and I have had to sulk at Michael while he’s sitting a metre away from him. (But there are, of course, upsides and it’s comforting to know you have someone to curl up in bed with at the end of a long day spent island-hopping.)
There’s realising how many times a day you’ve probably offended the Thai people, because you normalise what you do as what everyone does. There’s bargaining and bartering and settling on a price you feel is right, and then watching the very next person get the same thing for 200 baht less.
What else? There’s queuing and waiting and shuffling and impatience and more waiting to get through customs, and having something icky explode in your luggage, and being seated right in front of the crying baby on a 9 hour flight. There’s getting three massages in thee days, plus a manicure and the total cost being less than what you’d pay for a manicure in Sydney, and making friends with the travellers seated across from you at dinner.
Travel is probably one of the most fulfilling things I could do with myself, I think.