Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

Asia
January 21st 2011

Published: January 26th 2011

No vacation is perfect. Although you could be fooled otherwise by all the gleaming ads on television and in magazines of tanned, uproariously laughing, vacationers with a cocktail in hand as they stroll down a generic beach at sunset with palm trees swaying sweetly behind them. This is the dream; this is the escape we all want. But the reality is no matter how much money you have or where you go on vacation, you will most likely have something go horribly wrong. You may get your passport stolen in Italy, you could get Montezuma's revenge in Mexico, you might get black out drunk and find yourself in a stranger's room in Vegas, or in my case, you will end up sleeping on a bench in the airport wrapped in a neon blue dolphin beach towel with your beanie pulled over your eyes and holding onto your belongings like you are holding onto a life float lost at sea.

Welcome to the joys of travel. And isn't it fun! Personally, I find the misadventures of my vacations to be the best stories and the greatest times. I'm really happy that you laid on the beach all day and got wonderfully crispy but I don't want to hear about it. I'd rather hear about how that crab got in your bathing suit top, which you threw off in a panic in front of an amused old man...not that this has ever happened to me...
With travel comes misery (that you will laugh about later on....once the crying has stopped) and here are some examples of the imperfections you may face on a "perfect" vacation and how I've dealt with them.

How to Sleep in Uncomfortable Circumstances Looking as Unattractive as Possible:

As I said before, dolphin towel, beanie, and airport bench. There will come a time when you will have to sleep in an airport. For me, this always seems to coincide with when I am sick. In Greece, I had a rotten cold and was ready to physically harm the next person who told me they didn't have honey. Why did no one in Greece have honey?! My tea felt so lonely and I felt wretched as I huddled on the floor with my bags, not sleeping a wink. Luckily I was on top of things this time around in Seoul. I found some benches on the 3rd floor away from the hustle and bustle. There were some Koreans snoozing already. I arranged my bags around me so no one could steal anything, wrapped my towel around me for warmth, pulled my beanie over my eyes to block out the harsh light, and put on some calming Iron and Wine through my Ipod so I wouldn't have to hear the loud cleaning machines. Soon came sleep (and then the cleaning lady who tried to throw away my breakfast like I was some kind of homeless person).

That next night in Bangkok, I turned off the lights in my mental hospital-esque hostel room and thew my sheet over me as the fan hummed in the humid sticky night. BOOM BOOM BA BOOOM BOOOOM BA BOOM. WHAT. THE. FUCK. It sounded like the dinosaurs had returned to planet earth and were having a rave to celebrate. Sadly the noises were not prehistoric creatures, but the bass of the glitzy club that happened to be right above my head. My first mistake is clear, I should have been at that club. The music was pretty damn good and I found myself dancing a little bit. But I had made my choice and seeing as I had a scarf wrapped around my head like a turban and toliet paper in my ears in an effort to find silence, I thought it might be best if the public didn't see me. The next morning I was thrilled to find a cold shower waiting for me, where I washed my face with shampoo for I had forgotten my face wash. Sexy.

How To Get Lost in the Thai Jungle:

Sure, one COULD go on a well marked hike that all the travel books crow about, but why do that when you can go on a hike you found in an old dusty book that leaves from a beach in the middle of nowhere and uses plastic water bottles thrown on branches as markers? Sounds like like a recipe for disaster. Perfect.

I hate to say this, but I think it's in my families DNA to get lost no matter the circumstances. We could get lost on a straight road. But here's the even better part: we love it. I find myself praying I'll get lost when on expeditions into nature with friends and when it happens I wring my hands with everybody and maybe squeeze a tear out of my eye but inside? I'm straight up giddy. It's just so exciting! The best way to get lost is to have a boy in his 20's lead you. The reason for this is that young guys have no fear and care little about their own safety. This means they will lead you down paths only mountain goats would take. And so my brother did, as we scrambled over rocks on ledges, cutting ourselves on sharp tree branches and sliding down loose dirt. Were we on a trail? Not really. The women folk soon retaliated and we headed back to the safety of our middle of nowhere trailhead, sadly not making it to our destination. But as they say, it's not about the destination, but the perilous journey that you can brag about to your friends in an effort to make yourself sound badass.
OK, maybe that's not exactly what they say.

How to Become Friends with Interesting Locals (when no one else will talk to you):

I had walked up and down Khao San Road about 30 times and Mr Fix-it had waved to me every time. I ignored him at first because I don't talk to crazy people sitting in metal chairs in the middle of the street, but he wore me down, preying upon my ever-growing boredom. I took a seat beside him as he introduced himself. "They call me Mr. Fix-it because I fix people. Your third eye, it is dark. I fix 5,000 women and some men. They all have shit, you have shit! I can see you have hurt in your past." My god! The man could see right into me! How did he know my past was full of pain? No way he could just guess that, everyone else in the world has pain free pasts! So maybe, I was completely skeptical of this guy and wanted to leave. But here's the thing. It's unwise to pass up free friends when traveling alone. If you don't talk to people once in awhile, you'll start taking to yourself and that's not so pretty. So I let Mr. Fix-It explain my chakras to me and offer to take me in a back room and fix me. We also people watched and talked about the power of smiling. I can't say we keep in touch but he certainly brightened my day (but apparently not my third eye).

How to Make a Boring Beach Party More Fun:

Beach party!!! Two words that are fun by themselves and fuckin' awesome together. But not always, my friends. Not always. Especially not when you've arrived at an island on it's self proclaimed "hang-over day". There we were in our pretty lil dresses, drink in hand, and the place was DEAD. This would not do. Some stragglers appeared and zoned in on us with the requisite travel talk. "Ohhh hey where you from? (insert stereotypical joke about their country here) haha so cool man where have you been? (insert crazy story of you drunk at this exact place). " This gets boring. So I basically lie and make up personas for myself. In one night I was Sarah from Australia, Hanna from Sweden, and Jonathan from Antartica (a personal favorite). The great thing is that people are also so bored from the usual chit-chat that they will almost always play along with your blatant lies. Be true to yourself? No thanks.

So here's to travel and all the despair that comes with it! Here's hoping it's always anything but perfect 😊

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

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