travel tales

Stories from travel through Southeast Asia

4/27/2020

For almost 20 years we've been moving around Southeast Asia teaching English, enjoying great food, meeting interesting people, buying products to sell to the West and above all trying to gain some understanding of the cultures we encounter.

We have garnered a lot of stories along the way and now seems a good time to tell some of them before the memories fade. It's debatable whether our writings will enlighten anyone as to the subtle mysteries of Asian life but we'll have fun trying. We're all human but contrasts in cultures explain why we sometimes don't understand each other and why also this can lead to some rather funny situations.

To be continued------

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Baby's first hair cut............

4/26/2020

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What is it that's so special about baby's first hair cut? Talking to Pong, one of our silver suppliers who had recently become a new father, we discovered what seems to be a very important event in the life of the infant and the extended family. Pong is part Thai & part Chinese so we have two cultural behaviors to consider. In this case the hair cut is cause for the extended family members to travel great distances to the cutting followed by a large buffet lunch. In Thai culture the cutting is very often done by a Buddhist monk as the monks can bless the child as well. How much of this custom is traditional or just an opportune time for a family get together is difficult to know - but at its core is the importance of family in Asian life.

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Mirror,mirror...........

4/18/2019

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You would think owning a home across the street from a Thai Buddhist temple would be highly desirable in Thailand. If you happen to be Thai think again. According to Thai Buddhist belief there are many spirits roaming around temple grounds. Not a comfortable feeling for the believers. The solution is simple. Hang mirrors around your home's outer walls, doorways & open windows facing the temple.
Apparently, a spirit, upon seeing its own refection, will be frightened and will beat a hasty retreat back to whence it came. Reflectivity seems to be the key. Everything from old cd's & dvd's to car hub caps and car bumpers will do the trick. Observe the photos.

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Lower your underwear please!

3/21/2019

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It's almost impossible to visit a country like Thailand and not be completely ignorant of many of their cultural beliefs. Your faux pas will become strikingly clear if you're lucky enough, as we've been, to have a lovely Thai friend willing to educate you.

For as long as we've been traveling to Asia we've always washed our clothes (most often underwear) in the room and hung them out to dry in any convenient place ie trees outside our window, bed posts, shower rods & curtain rods. On one particular day we were using a curtain rod as our clothes hanger. This situated our underwear somewhere in the vicinity of about 7 feet above the floor.

Our lovely young Thai friend happened to be visiting us that day and a few minutes after her arrival we noticed that something was causing her a bit of angst. Her eyes opened wide as she gazed agonizingly at the apparel hanging at the top of the curtains. What could be wrong?

Well, in any Asian culture the head is the most sacred part of one's body. No patting little children on the head please! To carry this out even further no garment worn around the lower parts of the body should ever be hung out to dry at a height that would exceed the height of a normal person's head.

In our ignorance as Westerners our first reaction was....what...you want me to bring those briefs down? This was followed by our sheepishly buying a floor style clothes rack. When in Rome!

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Oh How Sad!

2/6/2019

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You would think living in a house on a piece of property about the size of a football field would be a wonderful thing. And...if your neighbor's property were as large or larger and you were all living on the side of a beautiful mountain in a lovely state like Vermont, you might think that was wonderful too. You would have everything you could want, open spaces, quiet clean environment, privacy, the closest neighbor 100 meters away, living the American Dream...right? That's what we thought!

Meet Neung....our lovely Vietnamese hostess, owner of LaVie Hotel in Nha Trang. After viewing our abode on a web page designed to show our beautiful home to prospective buyers (yes...we're trying to sell it) she made a quick comment that the house looked beautiful. A few seconds later she started to ask questions. Where are the other houses? How far to the next neighbor? How far to the village? Once she had an idea of the space between us and our neighbors a mournful expression came over her face and she said in a very low tone "oh...thats so sad"!

The idea of privacy is not on their radar.

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Unspoken Rule of the Road

1/23/2019

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From the Euro American perspective the hours often spent commuting in heavy traffic can bring forth emotions we didn't know we were capable of - road rage being one of the most extreme forms!

In S.E. Asia, however, emotional reaction on the roads simply doesn't exist. Drivers - mostly on motorbikes - on the clogged and chaotic roads are devoid of anger. It's like watching a circus act as traffic seemingly flows smoothly in every direction without the aid of traffic lights or signage.

If you find yourself needing to cross a street in Vietnam simply close your eyes and step out - at an even pace and preferably on the diagonal - don't worry they'll go around you!

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First Post!

1/17/2012

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Start blogging by creating a new post. You can edit or delete me by clicking under the comments. You can also customize your sidebar by dragging in elements from the top bar.

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Stories from travel through Southeast Asia

Baby's first hair cut............

Mirror,mirror...........

Lower your underwear please!

Oh How Sad!

Unspoken Rule of the Road

First Post!

We've been traveling through Southeast Asia for 20 years. Here are a few stories.

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