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| "We can't stop here this is bat country!" My best unintentional impression of Hunter S. in Palawan, Philippines. |
Burnout in
Asia
Travel Aesthetic
Traveling is tough, plain and simple. Idly daydreaming about its romantic scope is
one thing but trying to pull off any trip worth taking, let alone remembering,
is something else all together. The
planning, scheduling and fine tuning of logistics can be daunting with this in mind. I mean, unless you want to use a travel agent
or buy a package online. But, in my
opinion, that is cheating and bankrupting the experience before you even set
out. What’s the point of traveling
anywhere if you already know everything that is set to happen before you
leave? I mean, of course there will be the small
surprises like the entrees on the menu at particular restaurants or the decorative
touches the hotel staff put into your lavishly clean room accommodation but
there will NOT be the sort of confusion, helplessness, unexpected twists and
turns, the emotional peaks and valleys of an experience that you would be faced
to confront if you set out on your own journey off the beaten path.
All of those misadventures that travelers think that they want to avoid
and spend premium currency to insure against, are often in fact some of the most
memorable, most poignant, most unguarded and vulnerable moments that you will take
with you from any visit. I can assure
you that they will, if nothing else, be better than the stupid -n- forced candid
photos you will take where everyone is center frame in front of the historic
temple, shrine, or statuary that you may find that you knew nothing about prior and will have
already completely forgotten about before you finish saying "Cheese!" A static image that means nothing other than
you went there. “Look! It’s me!
I’m here! I went there!” You’ll be corralled into having a run-of-the-mill tourist vacation, taking hallmark photographs from marked locales on
trails already traversed by everybody else from every other continent on the planet
with a half-wit planning scheme, an egregiously ergonomic fanny-pack, all-terrain Teva sandals, and a state-of-the-art DSLR camera. No, you don’t
want that experience. Well, maybe you
do. I don’t. I’d save myself the money, the cramped
discounted plane ride, and the collagen in my skin and just buy myself a
postcard. When I travel I like to risk a
little, step out of my comfort zone, enter into the unknown, the exotic and challenge
myself with the occasional frustrating situation, trying on the size of the culture as a
stranger in a strange land. Yeah, I
cheat here and there to get by, you have to.
But I try and remember to not be the entitled fucktard tourist and
expect every last stranger in whatever foreign land I may be in to speak
English, and to cater to my dumb bumbling ass. Luckily for me and for you, the
majority of countries in the world, at least the countries that I’ve been
to thus far in Asia, have at least a survivalist grasp of the English language. They have to.
Where would their economies, let alone there personal incomes, be without it? One glaring fact that I discovered while in Southeast
Asia: Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines is that your average street vendor, is an artisan and a hustler. And trust me, they know the art of the
hustle. Even extremely talented artisans
and craftsmen are out on the streets grinding away at a hustling routine the
ambition of which would shame even the most steadfast of North American
businessmen. No joke. Most of these guys would be millionaires in North America - ingenious entrepreneurs who know the art of the sell. For them, knowing English is a simple
fact of survival. So, that being said, I try and at least
learn at least a bit of the native language before arriving; survival phrases,
which usually benefits me in more ways than can be expected. My experience has been that the locals can see that I am being vulnerable and humorously attempting to
sincerely communicate in their native tongue and are more often than not
charmed and begin with an eager excitement to use whatever cumbersome English
they can muster and we end up meeting halfway.
Maybe I am being a bit self-congratulatory here, but there is a bit of that dynamic that takes
place, for sure. I’ve had more than a dozen experiences where the locals become
eager to give away prized information about their favorite spots in the
village, i.e. restaurants, watering holes, dance troupes, performances,
markets, etc. but it’s usually inadvertently
discovered along the way. There is also
the obvious fact of market economics and globalization 101 that should perk you
to the fact that; a) you’re white, b) you have a decent looking back pack on, c) relatively clean attire, d) you're often white-knuckle-clutching a Lonely Planet bible or some
other travel guide that places the target on you so large and self-evidently, that if
they were to let you walk by and not try and solicit so much as an awkward English “Hello”
to win your attention, they might as well call it a day, go home and start fasting.
