travel | Put some cilantro on it!

Lesson 23 for Southeast Asia Traveling: Have your Viber and WhatsApp accounts already created

23. Have your Viber and WhatsApp accounts already created

If you’re a solo traveler on a short trip like me, or going on a longer adventure, you should sign up for Viber and WhatsApp before you leave.

A lot of the people you meet, both locals and travelers, are going to be using one or the other for communication. Remember, you switched your SIM cards at the airport and there’s no more texting from your US phone number, for the duration of your trip.

(Unless you use Google Voice: I was still able to text people from my phone, and computer, with my normal phone number. That’s because I use Google Voice instead of my phone on-board number. Because Google Voice is an application that sends text over the internet, I could still send and receive texts like normal. However, that is a choice I made many years ago, when I changed numbers.)

That’s where Viber and WhatsApp come in, especially when you want to text your new-found friend what time you’re going to catch the bus, or if they want to go to dinner, or anything else.

You can always email, but that’s so much clunkier.

I personally learned the lesson the hard way (in 2016) when I had to sign up for both types of accounts with my Vietnam phone number, and then try to switch everything back over to my US number.

See all the travel lessons here.

Lesson 22 for Southeast Asia Traveling: Be prepared to haggle

22. Be prepared to haggle

For the most part, in Southeast Asia, you’re going to have to haggle.

Not so in restaurants (fixed prices) or convenience stores (the same) but for the most part, be prepared to haggle.

It often helps to either know what other people are charging for similar goods or what the price should be in general.

See a nice backpack? Ask one of the travelers you’ve met what they paid. Use that to gauge what you should be paying.

One of the main markets in Ho Chi Minh City on Dec. 5, 2016. When going to a market, be prepared to haggle!

In addition, you should be prepared to walk away.

A lot of the time, vendors will quote you prices that might as well be the full retail when you walk into any store in the United States. Totally unacceptable. That’s when you walk away.

The vendor should came back with a better price and begin negotiations again. If not, it’s time to move on.

Other things to consider when haggling is buying multiple items to bring the price down.

Since I’m a big fan of bringing back really nice scarfs, when I find a vendor who has the wares I want, I ask how much. We go through the haggling rigmarole. When I’ve finally got the price down, I’ll say, what if I buy five, or 10? That should bring the price down even more.

Be prepared to have your calculator out (presumably your phone) and I also suggest having a currency converter app on your phone.

(When communication breaks down, use your calculator to quote prices.)

Other ways to politely talk a vendor out of an extreme price: I’m a student, I’m poor or, my favorite, I’m a poor journalist.

Sometimes, in especially tourist-filled areas, the vendor just doesn’t care, especially if you’re only buying something because you need it right now. In that case, just walk away.

It’s raining and you want to buy an umbrella, or a poncho? Sky high prices. It’s not raining? Reasonable price.

If you think it’s going to rain, or if it’s been rainy, then make sure to buy the umbrella when it’s nice out.

Did I mention an umbrella? If you’re in a rainy season, or area, or there’s a storm coming in, buy a nice umbrella. Spend a few extra dollars because, trust me, it’s worth it.

Just remember: you’re not made of money.

Find all of the travel lessons curated here.

A boy smokes something, Dec. 8, 2016, on the streets of Hanoi, Vietnam.

Lesson 21 for Southeast Asia Traveling: If using buses, protect your stuff if its raining

21. If using buses, protect your stuff if its raining

The first time it happened, I wasn’t angry. I was just sad. After a sleeper bus ride from Hoi An to Nha Trang, arriving at 6 a.m., I got my bag out of the bottom of the bus and found it was soaked. Not just soaked. Sopping wet. Still, I shouldered the bag, moved my smaller day pack to my chest, and trudged toward my hostel, soaking my shirt all the way through.

After getting a few more hours of sleep in one of the hostel’s empty dorm rooms, meant for travelers who don’t get to check in yet, I opened my backpack.

It was the worst possible scenario. All of my clothes in the bag were completely soaked. Not just a little. I could literally wring the water out of each piece of soaked clothing. Worse yet, two of my prime camera lenses had been wrapped in the same clothes. They appeared to be undamaged by the water, but I knew I was going to be staying in my dirty clothes until the following day, when I could pick up my cleaned and dried laundry.

Before I go any further, what should you do?

Wrap your clothes up in plastic bags if you’re worried about the rains
Buy rain covers for your bags.

(Read the rest of the story after the jump.)

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Lesson 18 for Southeast Asia Traveling: Wear a watch

18. Wear a watch

Phones are great, except when you’re traveling and they’re confused as to where you are, or which time zone, etc. Or when they are low on battery life and all the electric outlets are taken. Or when you’re in the airport, for your layover, and you have no idea where they put the clock, you don’t have a SIM card for Taiwan, because you’re just traveling through to Ho Chi Minh City.

Sometimes, you want to make sure your phone is charged enough so when you do get in country, you an easily navigate so you can get to your hostel.

What’s better is to bring a watch that you can easily set for whatever the local time is, both while dealing with layovers on the way there and back as well as moving between countries.

This also means you don’t have to deal with either bringing your phone everywhere or making sure it’s always fully charged.

So, just bring a watch.

Find all of the travel lessons curated here.

This little guy broke the bench! Go gasoline!

Lesson 17 for Southeast Asia Traveling: Have open travel plans

17. Have open travel plans

As a solo traveler, having open travel plans was the entire intention I have when I go so Southeast Asia. I usually land in the big city, stay there for a few days, talk to or make friends with some fellow travelers and figure it out from there.

Sometimes that means making travel buddies and sometimes that means I’ll use the advice from other travelers (taken with a grain of salt) to plan the next leg of my trip.

Whenever people ask me about my travels overseas, this question somehow comes up. When I say that I went without a definite plan, usually, people are thunderstruck, an entirely unfathomable concept, especially without having friends or family in country.

Going without travel plans is totally worth it, though. Things changes. People change. New people come into your life. Sometimes, a whole part of the country will be stuck in a monsoon during the dry season and you decide to flee to where it’s not.

I did not come up with this advice myself. I actually read it on a travel blog that was focusing on Southeast Asia. It was so right.

Maybe you want to go to Chang Mai in the north, or Phuket in the south or maybe you want to join some people on a trip to Cambodia. Maybe in Cambodia, you want to travel with someone. Whatever it is, keep your options open.

Having open travel plans only goes so far. After I landed in Thailand in December, 2015, I was a little lost. It was my first time in Southeast Asia and I hadn’t traveled anywhere outside of work for quite a few years at that point. A few years before, I lived and worked as an au pair in Germany, and backpacked across Eastern Europe, so traveling wasn’t entirely foreign.

I read the travel book (Lonely Planet) and re-read it after arrived in Bangkok. Finally, I got a taxi to take me to the backpacker district, which, in the evening, is one giant party.

I took this advice so seriously that I did not have any hostel reservations. Because I was so smart and decided not to get my SIM card immediately switched over, I was wandering around, paper map in hand, trying to figure out where to spend the night. The first few hostels I found were full up.

Finally, I found an empty hostel that was cheap, super cheap, with some dude sleeping downstairs, acting, I guess, as the hostel guard. Fortunately, they had AC. They were so cheapskate that I was their only customer that night. I passed right out.

Really, I should have already had a hostel reservation, at least for the first night. I later on went to stay at a highly rated hostel (and suggested in Lonely Planet) where I met a bunch of great travelers.

One of those travelers is the reason I was not entirely screwed when I lost my only debit card, yet another lesson.

Find all of the travel lessons curated here.

Christmas decorations in Downtown Bangkok. Make sure your travel plans are open enough.

Lesson 16 for Southeast Asia Traveling: Pay (and plan) for laundry service

16. Pay (and plan) for laundry service

Regardless if your trip is two weeks or six months, you should be traveling pretty light. That means you are probably going to have to get laundry done while in country. But, that’s OK! It’s cheap and your clothes will often come back folded tighter than you thought possible.

Do not bring enough clothes to last you the whole trip. This does require a little bit of planning. You figure, it will probably take a day before its ready so you should plan it out a little bit.

It’s cheap, it’s easy. In the meantime, go buy a cool beer shirt, or a soccer polo for the local team.

The other thing to consider is bringing fewer clothes with the intention of buying along the way. For me, that usually means synthetic soccer or polo shirts.

Find all of the travel lessons curated here.

As much as I love this photo, it shows the limits of shooting in JPEG. (See the sky?) Often, down this kind of alley, you will find laundry shops. Taken in Bangkok on Dec. 4, 2015.

Lesson 15 for Southeast Asia Traveling: When you find good clothes, buy them

15. When you find good clothes, buy them

It’s going to happen. There’s going to be a vendor on the street and he’s going to have the perfect piece of clothing. (T-shirt, button up, dress, scarf, shorts, etc.) You’re going to buy one, just one, and think, at the end of my trip, I’ll come back here, and I’ll pick up a bunch more.

Except you’ll never be able to find him again. It will be like he disappeared into a side alley, down the gutter or was picked up by the trashmen. He will no longer exist and your chance to get more of those shirts will be gone, forever.

I should point out that my favorite button up shirts were all bought (cheaply) from a street vendor when I was traveling through Paris, France, during my time as an au pair.

There are a couple other things that should be noted when buying things from vendors, at least in Thailand. The first is, haggle them down (assuming no price tags). If you’re buying in bulk, use that as a bargaining chip and if they’re asking too much, and won’t budge, just walk away.

The next is, don’t be afraid to just buy shirts, pants, shorts, whatever it is, there. I realized far too far into my trip that a synthetic Bangkok soccer team polo was probably one piece of clothing I should have been wearing much of the time, rather than a cotton T-shirt.

Find all of the travel lessons curated here.

You got to have some fun, right? Taken in Angkor Wat, Cambodia, on Dec. 17, 2016

You got to have some fun, right? This is the synthetic soccer polo I should have first bought when I got in country. Taken in Angkor Wat, Cambodia, on Dec. 17, 2016

This is a French girl (some kind of physical education teacher) whom I was supposed to send pictures to. I forgot her name and have no idea where I put her email address. Woops! Taken in Angkor Wat, Cambodia, on Dec. 17, 2016.

Lesson 14 for Southeast Asia Traveling: Consider buying or bringing a duffel bag for the return trip

14. Consider bringing a duffel bag for the return trip

I don’t know how much shopping you plan on doing but you should really consider bringing a duffel bag (that is very small and lightweight when empty) on your trip or buying one in country.

The simple reasoning for bringing it is: it saves you from having to find one on those last days before you leave, when you’re trying to get all your shopping done.

I write a duffel bag because they’re just so much smaller and easier to deal with than a suitcase.

When it comes to the main travel bag, I’m a big fan of a big backpack. Mine has a sub-backpack that attaches to the front or, for shorter trips, detaches, making it perfect for backpacking.

I ended up using one of the bags I bought (shopping bag sized) as my second piece of checked luggage to store many of the scarves and shirts I bought over there. Fortunately for international travel, depending on the airline, you get two bags free, which is why I suggest the duffel bag.

Find all of the travel lessons curated here.

: An indoor food market in Bangkok, Thailand taken on Dec. 4, 2015.

: An indoor food market in Bangkok, Thailand taken on Dec. 4, 2015.

Lesson 13 for Southeast Asia Traveling: Consider your shoes and a hat

13. Consider your shoes and a hat

I’m by no means a monster of a man but I do have big feet, by some standards (11 1/2) and I have a large head. This means it was nearly impossible to find shoes or sandals in Thailand, when I needed to buy some for walking in the jungle, because everything was just too small.

The same went for hats. Almost all the hats I could find were just too small for my head.

My take-away? Next time, I’m bringing my own hat (you really need it) and I’m making sure to bring a pair of amphibious sandals or shoes with me because I know, as a large footed man, I’m going to be screwed otherwise.

The other thing to consider about your shoes is, bring something comfortable to walk in that can also stand the heat. That may mean shoes with socks, or just flip flops, or, whatever makes you feel good.

Find all of the travel lessons curated here.

That’s a polish guy up ahead. We’re in the jungle. Honest to god jungle. Stepped in muck so deep, nearly lost my sandal. Bring some amphibious shoes/sandals. Please. And consider a hat for your big, non-Thai head. Taken on Dec. 13. 2015.

Lesson 12 for Southeast Asia Traveling: Bring sunscreen, Imodium, painkiller

12. Special things to bring: sunscreen, Imodium, painkillers

In Thailand, Vietnam and most of Southeast Asia, sunscreen is expensive. Everything else is cheap but sunscreen, man, it’s more expensive than it is in the U.S., especially for the type that you’re willing to put on your skin.

That means you should bring more than enough sunscreen (you’ll be sharing with other travelers, of course) than you think you will need, and it will likely have to go into your checked luggage.

In 2016, in Vietnam, I managed to lose my sunscreen down the side of a cliff while hiking with my bag. I then had to buy whitening sunscreen because I couldn’t find any of the normal brands.

While sunscreen is expensive, there are a few other things from the pharmacy that you should make sure to bring so you have them when you need them.

The first is the anti-diarrheal medication Imodium (generic name: loperamide). If you’re lucky like me, and have an iron stomach, you’ll get “sick” just once. I did incredible amounts of street food eating and ocean and reservoir swimming in Thailand and I ate even more questionable food in Vietnam. (I ate lots, I mean lots, of pâté and mayonnaise-based spreads that, in the US, would have been thrown away hours before.)

During my 2015 trip, I only got sick once, in Cambodia. I had to look up the generic name for Imodium and I paid way more than I should have when I did finally find the pharmacist.

In Vietnam, and more importantly, on my plane rides to and from Vietnam, my problem was larger-than-life headaches. Finding ibuprofen, or your painkiller of choice, is not the easiest thing in the world when you’re bouncing between flights.

Headaches were the bigger issue for me because, in Vietnam, I always had Imodium handy and made sure to take some if I even had the inkling that I was getting sick.

You should have both Imodium and your painkiller in your carry-on baggage so you only have to go to the pharmacist when you want to buy drugs that would otherwise require a prescription in the U.S. (such as Valium, generic name diazepam, and Xanax, generic name alprazolam).

Trust me. Imodium is a magical drug and having it in your bag will save you.

Find all of the travel lessons curated here.

See all those super pasty Europeans? (The ones in front of the boat are Polish. The two closest to the camera are Dutch and Belgian.) They need sunscreen. I need sunscreen. We all need, nay, scream, for cheap sunscreen brought from our home countries. Taken on Dec. 13, 2015.

The market may look a little shaded but actually, the sun is beating down. Really wishing sunscreen were cheaper, if you didn’t bring any (in your checked luggage.) In Bangkok on Dec. 4, 2015.

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