It is quite lazy, I realise, to do another list, but today was one of those days when, amid such a rich and vibrant place as Georgetown, I found myself uninspired by anything we did during the day. Not that we did not see great things, on the contrary, we spent the day visiting the Kek Lok Si temple on the mountainside outside of town. It's a huge and hugely impressive structure, or indeed collection of structures, housing an enormous and beautiful statue of the Goddess of Mercy, as well as a pagoda inspired by Thai, Chinese and Burmese architecture. We also ate some lovely Buddhist vegetarian food at the temple restaurant. It's just (and perhaps this was because it is out of town in a rather unremarkable suburb) that it didn't inspire me with a big stream of thoughts and reflections.
And this is a bit of fun, because as I was remarking to my sister the other day, the things that turn out to be odd, difficult or stressful when travelling are not the things you think they are going to be!
Not that any of these things are especially stress inducing, but they are comment worthy.
Top ten skills you don't realise you are going to need when travelling.
1) The ability to recognise a toilet when you see it. It might look like like someone's lounge, a shower or a cupboard. It might have a door, a curtain - or nothing. It might be a hole in the ground, a western style throne, a squat toilet or seemingly an empty room with a small drain.
2) The ability to discern what is a friendly 'hello' and what is a sales pitch. Get it wrong and you are either in an embarrassing situation in which you either part with more money than you have for a thing you don't need, or cause offence - or (and I think worse), you ignore someone being friendly and treat them like a con merchant, making yourself judge, jury and executioner without any information on which to base your labelling of this person as being anything other than genuinely warm hearted.
3) The ability to read a conceptual map. An enormous proportion of the maps you have been given will seem to bear little relation to the actual terrain. You need a little bit of map reading and a lot of imagination. Patience helps too. As does not necessarily being in a rush to get somewhere.
4) The word for 'delicious'. More previous than please, thank you or even sorry - people burst into the most genuine smiles if you can say truthfully and warmly that the thing they just served you - was great. Assuming you are an adventurous and open minded eater, it always will have been.
5) The ability to recognise a bus stop. Similarly to toilets, it could be a sign, a shelter, a makeshift restaurant or just an unmarked section of the road. Ask for directions and you will invariably be told 'just over there'.
6) The ability to take your shoes off. Quickly. I would add to thus an understanding of when to take them off at all. Feet, it seems, cause more offence universally than anything else. You can snort, spit and pee in the street but whatever you do don't go in there with you shoes on. Or off. Or point your feet at a temple. Or a local. Once you've mastered the rules which differ even within the same country, and managed a sort if pigeon toed stance where necessary, you can't, like me, where sandals which can take you for miles and stand any number of batterings, but take fifteen minutes to remove. Your tour guide, host, or husband will long since have gone on without you.
7) The ability to sleep on a different pillow. They are the key to a good sleep but you can't be picky. Like toilets and bus stops, they can be massive and fluffy, tiny and brick like, angled back, rolled into a cylinder or completely absent. Your neck just needs to learn to get by on its own. Without orthopedically endorsed support.
8) The ability to do without cosmetics. By which I don't mean make up and eye lash curlers. I mean shampoo, face wash, conditioner, shower gel. So far in South East Asia these, along with sun tan lotion and anti mosquito spray, are really expensive in comparison to other things. You can eat three meals for two and spend less than you do on the cheapest bottle if shampoo. Gradually you learn that if you don't wear make up you can use less face wash, that hand soap can double in public showers as shower gel, that your hair will be sweaty anyway, so maybe you can get away with less washing and thus less shampoo.... Am I sounding disgusting enough for you yet? It's OK, we are not that bad. There was a brief and dark period in which M decided deodorant was too expensive and protested by refusing to purchase any - but that was mercifully short lived. And to be honest I took his point. It's the same logic as hair washing. If you're going to be drenched in sweat after an hour anyway....
9) The ability to pretend it's not happening. When you ate, by necessity, on a rackety old truck being driven at break neck speed around hairpin bends by someone who is chatting animatedly into his phone - well the fact is you can't do anything about it immediately. You can be darned sure you choose your transport carefully. But for now? Close your eyes. And whistle.
10) And finally. The ability to leave. Travelling 'slowly' as we are means everywhere had a chance to feel like home. When we leave we leave friends and familiar places. We leave memories and a way of life. That we have the chance to make these connections is beautiful. You just need to remember that. Rather than mourning the departure. And every connection is as strong as we want to keep it. Memories, friendship, photographs and Facebook can fill in the rest.
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