It’s time for another installment of what’s working, what’s not.

Needs improvement

1. City arrivals. We always somehow end up in a new place hungry, tired, cranky and hot and someone starts crying. Sometimes that someone is me. It just takes a couple hours between the plane and actually getting the place we stay and then getting food somewhere, and someone has a breakdown somewhere in there. The boy, when he is hungry, is truly terrifying. Ravana wouldn’t stand a chance against him and would run away whimpering in fear.
2. Learning to relax midday like the locals do. Here in the tropics, there is morning activity and then evening activity, because it is brutally hot and humid in the middle and only the idiot tourists are out. This is really where it helps to have a place right downtown, where it’s easy to head back to and chill in Air-con comfort until it cools off.
3. ATM fees. Man, they get you with every withdrawal. It’s hard to know exactly how much money you need especially when you’re withdrawing millions in local currency and your head starts to swim. In hindsight, we should only withdraw the absolute maximum amount every time as there is always a way to spend it, and many places do not accept credit cards. More than once we did not have enough cash and had to run to the nearest ATM to withdraw more. There are banks that do not charge ATM fees and reimburse you for international ones, and perhaps it would have been wise to use one of those, but since we have so many automatic payments arranged through our current bank, it felt like too much work.
4. Getting through the airport. Why won’t my kids just shut up while we got through security, immigration, or customs? Why must they use this time to ask the million questions they have saved up? Why do they say at customs “Hey Mom, what about all that US money you have?” (for the record, I only had $200 in cash on me, not declarable!) Holy god, it’s maddening and has led to some…unpleasant moments in the airport.

What’s working:

1. Still, the pacing and flexibility. We don’t have anything planned when we get into a country, and this has been great. When we got to Cambodia, we weren’t sure how the weather would be as rainy season is unpredictable, and because we weren’t booked we skipped the beach and spent more time in Siem Reap and had a wonderful experience because we could do things at a nice clip instead of feeling like we had to squeeze it all in.
2. Bike tours. Absolutely love exploring countries by bicycle with a guide! You get to see things up close, talk to people, smile, engage, and interact. So different than taking a tour bus or just going from point A to B in a car. On a bike you see the countryside, the houses, stores, hear weddings and parties taking place, and all the kids really do run out and wave and say “hello!” to you as you go by. If you like to ride, absolutely take a bike tour. We’ve done two with Grasshopper and they have been fantastic, and are planning on taking more as we come across them.
3. Smiling. Every time we smile at someone and say hello, we are greeted with the same on return. This has been true everywhere we go, even to people who may at first seem standoffish. Having the kids is also a natural icebreaker, especially the girl, who attracts attention everywhere she goes. We’ll go to a restaurant and the waitress will start talking to her and then just absentmindedly strokes her hair for the next ten minutes while she chats with us.
4. Finding places to stay. We’re learning that there’s a huge difference in staying outside city center and not. Our perfect place is just a few streets away from the main drag, where traffic and partying noise is low at night, but still walkable to where we want to go. Most of the times we have booked a place for a few nights when we get in, get a lay of the land and then book for the rest of the time according to what our plans are and where we want to be. This does take a lot of time of searching though, as there is an overabundance of available places. We are also almost exclusively using air bnb’s. As a family, it is SO much nicer to have a living room and bedroom so you don’t all have to go to bed at the same time, and the price isn’t that different.
5. Money. We’re more or less on budget for the trip, though SE Asia has been a bit pricier than I had anticipated. While we could stay in hotels that cost $20/night for a room, we wanted something a bit nicer. While it’s costing us less than a comparable room would in the States, it’s not dirt cheap. Food is moderately priced for us as well, since we’re less likely to eat at roadside stalls.
6. Saying “yes.” When you have an opportunity, take it! We did the photoshoot in Siem Reap, and then the photographers got a job in Saigon and asked us to take part! We got to do a free night motobike tour and eat delicious street food and hang out with young Vietnamese people, and it wouldn’t have happened if we’d turned down the initial offer.

Tips/Tricks/Advice

1. Do not, I repeat do NOT, under any circumstances, use the colored, highly perfumed toilet paper for any, shall we say, vigorous cleaning. Developing a contact dermatitis in sensitive areas is NOT fun. Ask me how I know (ouch, and thank goodness for the prescription hydrocortisone cream we have with us). I recommend watching youtube videos on bum gun use and learning to use same. The bum gun is a water sprayer attached to the toilet, looks just like the sprayer you have next to your kitchen sink. After use, you only need a square or two of TP to lightly pat yourself dry.
2. I highly recommend having all visas you need done prior to arrival if you are travelling with kids. Vietnam and Cambodia both have visa on arrival services, but there is a line for it and after a flight even one more line with the kids can break you all. In Bali it was a visa right at the immigration desk, no extra waiting, thank goodness.
3. We loved the Indonesian and Cambodian food, but needed breaks every now and then. One of my most delicious meals in Cambodia was a veggie burger I had at an expat bar. Mmmm. I no longer have disdain for people I see eating Burger King in foreign countries. Sometimes you just need a taste of home.
4. Plastic water bottles are everywhere and unavoidable. To try and save at least a few, I would boil water in the electric kettle provided in nearly every room, let it cool overnight and then refill a bottle. Some places have large water cooler bottles for refill which is nice.
5. If you travel to Cambodia, make sure all your money is crisp and new looking! The main currency there is the US dollar, but if bills are at all old looking, they won’t take them. I had withdrawn a $100 bill from an ATM there that had a tiny, 1/8 inch tear in one edge and they almost didn’t accept it. Check money whenever you get it and ask for crisp new looking bills only, else plan on just hanging onto it until you get back to the States.
6. There are some games in the Family on the Loose book that came in really handy. First is mini Olympics, done in waiting areas or even in line. Basically, a set of directions or challenges can keep kids going for a long time. Like, run to that pole, go around it three times, jump up and down ten times, then come back. Another is timing how long they can stand on one foot, or hop, or something like that if there isn’t open space. We also use the dinner games of choosing a category and then having to go around the table, each answer starting with the last letter of the one before it.
7. Bali, Cambodia and Vietnam are easy places to travel with the kids, with the exception of crossing the street. Do as the locals do, wait for a bit of a gap and then WALK across in a brisk, steady fashion so the motorbikes anticipate your movement and go around you. Don’t run pell-mell across the street. If you have a child who tends not to pay attention and daydream at inopportune moments, hold their hand. Again, ask me how I know.

Items gained:

1. Some new clothes, souvenirs. Eric and I got cool sneakers in Cambodia to wear around instead of our sad, torn up running sneakers. I’m not getting rid of those yet though because I think there is still mud in our future. We also got custom made leather flip flops in Siem Reap, leaving behind our nearly trashed other ones. I usually leave them in the hotel rooms – I don’t think anything is thrown out here, someone will take them and find a way to make them usable again.
2. Herschel backpack. That cheap messenger bag I liked? Well, let’s focus on the cheap aspect as it began disintegrating. In the Bali Airport I just bought a nice Herschel backpack and have loved it. Point is: take good gear with you. Side bonus though, I gave the messenger bag to the Balinese clerk who was absolutely delighted to have a free bag.

Items lost

1.My shit, a few times.

-s