Never Follow the Guide Books

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When I came into Thailand on October 1st, I didn't have a clue about anything. I got misled and jerked-around and lost and ripped-off and all of it. Then I came into Bangkok and a girl named Gemma told me to pick up the "backpacker's bible": a highly-regarded travel guide to Southeast Asia that's thicker than a real Bible.

And I still got misled and jerked-around and lost and ripped-off.

Mike and I used the guide as we travelled through northern Thailand, and we found it quite useful. It was a crutch actually, saving us from any headaches by telling us exactly which guesthouses to stay at and what sights to see and how to get to the next town deemed worthy. We found it so useful, in fact, that we used it to guide us through our entire time in Laos.

And that might have led to the few experiences that I really didn't like in Laos. At any given time, there are thousands of backpackers in Southeast Asia following this guide word for word. We ran into dozens of them in Laos, and it was this whole system of sheep-flock travel that sparked my discontent. Of course, I didn't really think about it that way until I got to Cambodia.

The guidebook told me that the border would close by 5. When I got there, I had until 8pm.

The guidebook said that a Cambodian visa would cost me $20 U.S. I had to pay $34.

The guidebook told me that my Thai Baht would be good throughout the Khmer Kingdom, but they really only accept it along the border.

The guidebook told me that Koh Kong was only worth 1 night's visit, but I enjoyed it for 5.

The guidebook told me that Otto's guesthouse was the best in town, but the whole place smelled like cow manure, the bathroom was down the hall, my walls had more holes than a golf course, there were construction-workers there at 6am everyday to wake me up with their racket, and the food cost approximately one arm, one leg. On my second night, I found a place around the corner with insulated, mosquito-free rooms, cheap food and drinks, private bathrooms, a pool table, cable or DVDs or great music in the lobby, and some really fun hosts: not in the guidebook.

I'm starting to think that a trip through Southeast Asia via the guide will almost exactly resemble the trip of thousands of other young twenty-something explorers. We'll all miss the real cool, intimate spots in favor of the big tourist hubs. We'll skip from hub to hub on the recommended bus routes. We'll all patronize the same businesses while others flounder. We'll mob and overcrowd and pollute the popular cultural/natural/historical sites while the smaller or less-known points of interest slip into obscurity. And that's no way to have a truly adventurous--and ethical--experience.

I think I'm gonna have to throw away my guide book...

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Comments

[Momma]

The moral of the story
Don't take the Backpacker's Bible as the Gospel!