You Know You Have Been Traveling Too Long When…

We are always amazed with how much our personalities change while we are traveling.  How we care less about the little things, but sometimes care too much about ridiculous things.  Travel can change your perspective on life, and here is a list of some situations that we have found ourselves in.  Although they seem perfectly normal while we are away,  I don’t think that we would feel the same at home.

We would love to hear about your peculiar situations that you have found yourself in while traveling abroad.  This is just a short list of 10, but I am sure that it could go on and on…

10. You know that you have been traveling too long when you barter hard over the equivalent of a dollar or less. You know they are asking too much money and there is no way you are going to pay that extra 50 cents.

9. You know you have been traveling too long when its seems perfectly normal to have someone pass their kid and a big box containing their DVD player up to you in a crowded truck, where you proceed to hang on to both of them for the next 5 hours.

8. You know that you have been traveling too long when you splurge on a nice meal at an expensive restaurant and while you are eating a cockroach crawls up your leg.  Once you notice what it is,  you simply brush it away and continue to enjoy your dinner as if nothing happened.

7. You know you have been traveling too long when Vang Dalat tastes good.  That is all I have to say.

6. You know that you have been traveling too long when you get on a bus in Asia, and after the ride you say, “Wow, that bus driver wasn’t too bad”. Huh?

5.  You know you have been traveling too long when you are invited in for tea and you watch your nice host rinse out the dirty glass with his fingers and you graciously accept his hospitality and drink it up.

4. You know you have been traveling too long when showering with cold water over your squat toilet doesn’t really bother you.  Or, when showering in a brothel in Ethiopia is heaven.  We won’t elaborate on that one.

4b. You know that you have been traveling too long when you shower one day and then seriously have to think about whether you should shower or not the next.  I mean you just showered yesterday! (showers and toilets deserve 2 parts in a travel list, they are always good for an interesting story or two.)

3. You know you have been traveling too long when you are in a country or city that has a very famous pagoda or temple and you just can’t be bothered to go and take a look at it.

2. You know you have been traveling too long when you stop taking your malaria medication.  I had a severe reaction to my doxycycline, and when I went to a clinic in Vietnam, they told me that I had to stop taking my malaria pills.  I was a little worried, because we were planning a bunch of jungle treks.  But the doctor didn’t seem to care so I stopped taking it and Dave said that if Deb didn’t have to take it, then why should he.

1. You know you’ve been traveling too long when you discover that your hotel room is infested with bed bugs, and you end up staying anyway.
In Thailand, Dave and I stayed in a hotel where he complained for 2 days about being eaten by mosquitoes at night.  I never feel mosquito bites, so I didn’t give him any sympathy and laughed and laughed saying, “I’m not getting bitten”.  Well, payback is sweet (for Dave).  On the morning of day three, I woke up and hopped in the shower.  As I was washing, I looked down and saw a bunch of red marks all over my body, I pulled on my glasses and saw, hundreds of little red bites in nice and neat rows all over me.  I freaked out.  I read my Lonely Planet, so I knew exactly what the symptoms are for bed bug bites were, and this was it. I barely managed to rinse off and ran out of the bathroom screaming; “we are getting out of this place”.  Dave kept repeating, “I told you so.  I knew something was wrong with this place”.  So we threw our stuff together and went down the 3 flights of stairs to the lobby.  By the time we got down 2 flights, we started losing interest and reconsidered.  It was hot outside and we had just settled in, the last thing we felt like doing was looking for another place to stay, so by the time we got to reception, we simply asked for another room.  We didn’t even ask for a discount.  It was pretty pathetic.