I know, last week I gave the master list of counterintuitive travel tips. But, whaddya know, I thought of another one.
And that is: Discomfort is good.
You could say this is a variation on the idea of taking impractical transport. But there’s a greater sense of this, in which it’s generally a good idea to avoid typical luxury, even if you can afford it.
But don’t get too carried away!
There’s a little treadmill of travel style as you age and get a little more money to play with: you’re meant to go from hosteling to midrange hotels with air-conditioning to, phew, finally you’ve made it, some rambling resort in Thailand.
It’s a trap! Jump off! (Or, more realistically: Don’t seethe with envy over all those rich folks eating in them fancy dining cars, drinking coffee and smoking big cigars.)
Money just creates a buffer between you and the people you’ve come to visit. Money, if spent without thinking, buys space and distance: bigger rooms, bigger cars, private compartments on trains. But for that travel magic to happen, sometimes you need to be forced into proximity: in the cheap seats, on the sidewalk, at the public market.
“Discomfort” can also connect us to the past. I just spent a few days at Los Poblanos, hands down the best hotel I’ve ever stayed at (proof: this was my second visit, for vacation). Part of the reason it’s better than any typical “luxury” hotel is the physical reality of the place: the windows crank open; the thick old light switches are a little hard to flip; the door latches are intricate and don’t shut immediately behind you; the farm animals make noise. Of course nothing is truly painful: The beds are sumptuous, and I could turn on the a/c if I wanted to. But the irregularities haven’t been sanded away, as money tends to do, and the place is still filled with little reminders of how life used to work.
Then again, I’m writing this from a suite in Las Vegas, and I’m perfectly happy to be safely swaddled in a/c comfort, away from the masses (Masters of Beer Pong tourney happening downstairs!).
Oh, those wacky masses. (Sign in Albuquerque.)
This trip, in which we’re going across the Southwest without a car, was an experiment in applying travel strategies I use in other countries to more familiar turf. But on this trip, I’ve found myself choosing the more “comfortable” option frequently: the parlor car on the train to the Grand Canyon, the flight to Vegas instead of the long bus ride. Which may say as much about the United States as it does about me.
So: travel wisdom is a work in progress–and at least I have gotten my share of discomfort walking in 115-degree heat!
Your thoughts? When is comfort worth it? When did you feel like it was unnecessary or just got in the way?
I’m sorry that this post is long and has relatively few pictures. I know that other air-travel nerds will read it. The rest of you, I don’t blame you if you skip it and come back next week (more about Mexico!).
JetBlue–which I like to think of as my local airline, because its HQ is just a few subway stops down the tracks, at Queens Plaza–started direct service between JFK and Albuquerque on April 22. I booked tickets immediately upon hearing the announcement, in the winter. (Actually, I only booked them one way, because the return is a red-eye, and I am 40, and I cannot hack that any longer.)
It wasn’t until I was getting close to the day of departure that I realized I was going to be on the inaugural flight. One clue was that I had gotten a strangely solicitous and personal phone call from a JetBlue rep asking if it was OK if they changed the flight time to a few hours earlier. “Why, yes,” I magnanimously told them, “by all means.” I left out the part about how I don’t have a day job, so what do I care? They gave me a $50 travel credit for my suffering, and asked if that would be sufficient. I don’t think anyone has ever tried to placate me like that.
The morning of departure, I emailed my old roommate, who is more of an air-travel nerd than me, and asked if he’d ever taken an inaugural flight. What could I expect? I was imagining the back third of the plane taken up by mariachi bands, free-flowing margaritas, etc, etc. Aaron said no, he’d never done this himself, but he emailed me this link.
Well, I admit I was a little deflated. It didn’t look very glamorous–though airport lighting can suck the glamour out of anything. But there might be cake! I packed my bags and hiked it to JFK.
(Now, here is where I’d like to respectfully suggest that JetBlue change the flight to depart from LGA. Because that’s right by my house. JFK is a schlep. I mean, if they’re asking my opinion about the flight times and all…)
Anyway, I got to JFK, eyes peeled for special treatment and cakes. Au contraire: The Albuquerque flight wasn’t even on the board, and when I asked the security guy if I should be worried about that, he said, “Oh, what? Weren’t they calling that an hour ago?”
I had had that very personal convo with the JetBlue lady, so I did not panic. “Uhhh, wait, gate 15,” the security guy finally said. Which I guess is the gate for special occasions, because that’s where the party started.
That party was catered by a very well-meaning but clueless NYC operation. A buffet table was draped with those stripey Mexican blankets, and the guacamole was spiked with pineapple. There was orange-mango juice. And churros. And, horror of Tex-Mex horrors, chili con carne.
Sorry. Just awful photos. I was not as well dressed for the flight as the folks in these pics.
Enh, whatever. I’m used to people thinking New Mexico is Mexico, or Texas. And you go to Albuquerque with the caterers you have, not the caterers you wish you had. It was nice to see a cute buffet, surrounded by people in suits all congratulating each other. From the adjacent gate, passengers on a delayed Buffalo flight looked on with envy.
One excellent-ly Albuquerque detail was a poster someone had made of the Sandia Peak Tramway emblazoned with the JetBlue logo. That made up for any lack of green chile, which I couldn’t realistically have expected anyway.
Said poster in foreground. The tall guy in the background is the mayor of Albuquerque.
There was an American Girl doll making the rounds. Apparently the new one is from Albuquerque.
Around boarding time, the speeches began. Mayor Berry of Albuquerque was there to personally welcome us all. There was an awkward ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Awkward because those are big, kinda fake scissors, but they still have to really cut. That’s the American Girl doll, not a live baby, in range of the scissors.
And then we all got on and settled in. The captain made a speech about New Mexico history, which made me a little verklempt. So did the guy wearing a big turquoise bolo tie.
One nice thing about travel in New Mexico is you can always get a nice glass of bubbly, because the really good winery Gruet is based in Albuquerque. And lo–the head flight attendant let us know that they’d be passing out free glasses of Gruet sparkling wine. And there were beers from Marble Brewery in the back, free for the taking. Free booze–this officially trumped the DFW-BOS flight!
Because I had read that other post about the BOS-DFW flight, I was primed for games and prizes. I had made mental note when the captain said this was JetBlue’s 77th destination city, and I had a few other bits of B6 trivia up my sleeve.
But the big prize (a balloon ride and free nights at the excellent Andaluz hotel, and tix on JetBlue) was for a guessing game about how much fuel the flight was using. I am embarrassed to say that I was off by a factor of 7. The woman next to me, who spoke no English (‘Que es?’ she asked me; ‘Es un juego, sobre gasolina,’ I told her), guessed much better.
The rest of the prizes were given bingo-style, based on our seat numbers. This meant a lot of second tries, because JetBlue employees were in lots of seats. I’d guess the flight was about three-quarters full, with maybe a third of the people having some official reason to be there.
Mayor Berry had a custom apron with his name on it, and he passed out snacks. Let’s just say his main qualification for being a flight attendant is being tall enough to reach inside the overhead bins. The woman next to me went Terra Chips-less.
See? Pretty tall.
I had gotten to shake hands and even swap cards with the mayor, while we were waiting to board. He joked that he had “begged” the JetBlue CEO to start flights. It’s probably my own built-in insecurity I have about the relative importance of Albuquerque in this world, but I imagine this might be slightly true.
When we were close to Albuquerque, the captain let us know that we’d be welcomed by fire trucks that would spray the plane with water. It’s an industry tradition, apparently, for inaugural flights, called a “shower of affection. (“We’re trying to change that,” he said, sounding a little embarrassed. I’m not the only one who thinks this sounds vaguely dirty?).
Our approach was great–way up north, then circling back south and flying low over the Sandia foothills, right up against the mountains. If we hadn’t left NYC about 45 minutes late (mechanical issues; slightly embarrassing), we would’ve hit at prime watermelon-pink time. It was still beautiful. Definitely worth rescheduling the flight time for.
When we deplaned, we were greeted by the mayor, yet again (poor guy, dashing here and there to his marks!), and a group of Pueblo people in their full dance finery. A guy was playing a flute, and we all got colorful corn necklaces. (I’d been wondering what the NM equivalent of a lei would be! Of course–corn necklaces. I don’t think I’ve had one of those since elementary school.) The Sunport staff was all standing around in matching yellow polo shirts, waving and saying welcome.
Again, verklempt. I always get a surge of affection when I get off the plane in Albuquerque–there’s something good about the airport, even. And it was 10 times that on that night.
My mom had said, “Where do I meet you?” She didn’t know whether JetBlue had a labeled spot in the arrivals lane at the airport. She needn’t have worried.
Nice! Although note the inconsistent type style. Visual argh.
So, we never got any cake. But we did get goodie bags with some very silly goodies. (A giant plastic JetBlue cup–was that some kind of dig at Bloomberg?) I gave my brother the freeze-dried green chile stew, but I kept the Sunport luggage tag, and the mini version of the tramway poster. Whoever thought that up is a genius.
Thanks, JetBlue. Thanks, Mayor Berry. I hope this flight keeps running. It makes me proud to be from ‘Burque!
In the past months, I’ve been casting about for good models of travel writing, in hopes of learning more about how to structure my own book, how to lard it with interesting tidbits without weighing it down, how to tell a story without getting bogged down in details…
Of course once I told myself that I was reading for a purpose, my own crafty mind managed to justify all kinds of seemingly random books. And, in true self-absorbed-grad-student style, suddenly every book seemed like a travel book of some kind, through some magic elastic thinking.
But really, yeah. A journey is a journey is a journey. Here are some of the books I’ve read recently that took me on one.
So it’s fiction. I suppose you could say all fiction is travel writing, because it takes you somewhere else. But this book is different–it had me ready to hop a plane for Besz (and Ul Qoma).
I can’t say much more about this, except that it’s kind of a detective novel set in one of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Read it.
Dan Baum wrote the wonderful Nine Lives, about New Orleans pre- (and a little post-)Katrina, and this book covers equally “exotic” territory for the typical American-coast-dweller. Baum strikes out for middle America and all those gun lovers you keep reading about. Sneaky thing is, Baum is a gun lover himself, even though he grew up in and around NYC.
The book is more officially about American gun culture, but the travel element is right there in the subtitle, as Baum careens around the country interviewing ballistics-crazed oddballs. Sneaky thing is, Baum is a gun lover himself–even though he’s a skinny Jewish guy from New York, as he points out repeatedly.
Baum–oh, I’ll call him Dan, because I know him–has the gift of gab, and part of the appeal of this book is being able to picture him rolling into assorted gun shops and shooting ranges, trying to talk his way into red-blooded gun culture.
He makes a good travel writer because he walks the line between insider and outsider, explaining without lecturing, and letting the people he meets tell their own stories. And he takes advantage of his role as a traveler, a visitor, to class-surf, from redneck-y shooting ranges up to posh rifle competitions. Which is great, because we could use a lot more analysis of class here in America.
First, this is a wonderful physical object, a huge book with an embossed cover and fold-out maps and ribbon bookmarks. And its premise is bizarre and wonderful: the imagined drama behind a real event, when an American man showed up in London claiming to have visited the legendary visit of Timbuktu…back when Europeans still thought the place was built entirely of gold.
Shah writes two travel narratives in one: we all get to voyage back to the pompous hilarity of Regency-era England (where people get all their teeth yanked out because it was the fashion, apparently?), while Robert Adams (the American) tells his story of being hauled hither and yon through the Sahara as a slave.
Oh, third possible travel thread: Shah has hidden a golden treasure somewhere in the world, and the clues to its location (and a substantial prize) are in the book. Get cracking!
A wise investment[/caption]This is a ridiculously heartwarming book. Bob Harris had an epiphany about world inequity while on travel-writing assignment in Dubai, and proceeded to dump all his spare cash into microloans at Kiva. And then he went around the world visiting microloan recipients, to see how/if it all worked.
You got yer exotic locales. You got yer innovative ideas. You got yer wisecracking-but-super-nice-guy author. It’s a pretty solid combination. Although even I, who firmly believes the world is full of kind people, got slightly overloaded on all the sweetness and positivity. Which Harris warns of in the introduction, and makes no apology for.
I’ve faced the same problem writing about my travels. Nothing bad has happened! I’ve done stupid things and talked to everyone, and it all turned out totally fine. Travel writing ideally should instruct and nudge without seeming to, I think. But Harris actively decided not to be subtle, and just wrote a book to convince Americans the world is a great place. And I’m glad he did.
Phew. Went off the radar there for a while. Much of January and February was spent writing a draft of my book (I guess it’s safe to call it by its name now), The Crimson Sofa.
It got a little hairy at the end. After weeks of wrestling with the structure of the Morocco section (so many tiny details Morocco has!), I read a New Yorker story by John McPhee about his various strategies of organizing his stories. That provoked this:
If you see a theme here that I’m not seeing, let me know, OK? I mean, a theme besides mentally disturbed.
It didn’t really work. The draft I turned in frayed at the end like a faulty piece of rope from which our hero has already plunged to his death. I’m trusting the solution will come to me.
So I took a break. I went to Santa Cruz and the Bay Area, where I savored a fine Irish coffee at Brennan’s in Berkeley.
The nice thing about San Francisco is that Irish coffee is a year-round drink, not just a St. Patrick’s Day thing. This is likely due to the climate and lack of central heating. Irish coffee warms the insides when you need it most–like, say, July.
My father, Patrick O’Neill (so right there you know he’s qualified to judge), has strong opinions about Irish coffee.
First of all, the glass has to be just right: tapered, so the cream stays in an even layer as you drink to the bottom.
Brennan’s honcho says: These glasses were historically used for flips, before being adopted for Irish coffee.
After a scare, they are now available again from Libbey, even retail. (Before, you had to buy them in cases of 36, which is how I came to have 24 and my father has 12.)
Then, the coffee has to be strong. And the sugar goes in the coffee, not in the cream.
Sugar Duck approves of the Irish coffee recipe.
And the cream has to be thick, but not whipped stiff.
Brennan’s understands all this. The rest of the world does not always, and will sling you all kinds of crap (the world does this a lot; be vigilant).
So, in honor of St. Patrick, and my father Patrick, and what the heck, a book that’s still as drafty as a San Francisco Victorian…make yourself an Irish coffee today.
Mmm, creamy.Irish Coffee, the Astoria Way
Don’t balk at the sugar. It helps support the cream on top.
For each glass:
1 tsp sugar
Glug Irish whiskey
1 tsp Greek Nescafe (or any euro-brand instant espresso)**
Heavy cream, whipped till thick
Pour boiling water in the glasses to heat them up while you get everything ready.
Rinse out each glass, add your sugar, whiskey and Nescafe, then fill with hot water till about a quarter inch below the rim. Gently spoon on the cream.
**OK, fine, if you don’t want to use Nescafe, then brew strong, un-fancy coffee (no top notes of grapefruit or leather or whatever) and fill the glass 2:1 coffee:whiskey, leaving about quarter inch at the top for cream.
Irish Coffee, the Brennan’s Way
Here’s Brennan’s advice, in video form. Watch it for the excellent justification of the use of non-fancy coffee.
And don’t fret about the manufacturing cream: its main asset (aside from being extra-creamy) is that it holds its peaks longer than regular cream. But you’re not running a bar where you need to keep the cream whipped all day. Are you?
Ah, the year-end recap. Some silly things, some momentous things–and not just a rehash of old blog posts. Genuine new material here.
1. We got a pet.
Well, not really. But we did get Sugar Duck, a very easily anthropomorphized sugar canister from Turkey. He speaks with a lisp, and sounds sweet, but sometimes he can be a bit snippy. Peter and I are rapidly progressing toward being one of those awful couples who only talk to each other via hand puppets.
After a couple of months, Sugar Duck also got a friend from the homeland, Mr. Turkish Teapots!
3. I got a cover story in a magazine, and I won an award.
Please indulge my career brags briefly. I was moving too fast this year to fully appreciate these things at the time. Typing it now, I feel kinda bad-ass.
Both were via New Mexico magazine, where I’m always honored to be published. The cover story was this roundup of cool hotels in my home state, in the October ’12 issue.
The best awards are the ones you didn’t even know you were up for. A Macarthur is next, right?
4. I traveled alone throughout the Middle East, and I did not die.
Back in February, I was quoted in a story about how Americans were still traveling to the Middle East.
A reader felt compelled to warn me of my foolhardiness:
Hi,
I know you feel travel to the Arab nations is safe, but you need to appreciate is how fast the situation over there can change and as an American you are a symbol of hate at the moment.
We had the student hiker’s capture, when the USA has plenty of Mountains to climb.
We have the Aid workers freed by the Navy Seals in Somalia; BTW I think 10 Somalia’s were killed. So sad considering the Aid workers could be doing aid work in plenty of places right here in the USA.
Please don’t promote the middle east until women in Saudi Arabia can drive and vote. Or until women can choose their own husband.
[redacted]
Er.
Anyway, “the Arab nations” (I can’t vouch for Iran or Somalia) I visited this year are safe. I even picked up hitchhikers in Abu Dhabi.
Actually, everywhere is. I don’t think [redacted] appreciates this, and I feel sad for him.
5. I took up a sport.
If you consider hula hooping a sport. It’s certainly more of a workout than I usually get, a bit of a break from my couch-and-bonbons schedule. And, remarkably, it is the only physical activity I have ever been reasonably good at on first attempt.
6. I made friends in Arabic.
For all my years studying Arabic, I have never actually gotten to know someone in the Mid East purely by speaking in that language. That has a lot to do with studying at fancier schools in Egypt, where most people speak English as a second language.
This year, I went to more French-as-backup countries, and my French sucks. And those countries also happen to have some charming and outgoing–and patient–women I’m honored to have met.
7. I went back to Morocco with my parents.
They spent a lot of time there in the late ’60s, which is why I have the name I have. I also finally figured out what my name is really supposed to be in Arabic.
My dad sat down here and said sardonically, “Ah, mint tea again at Cafe Central in Tangier. I can die a happy man.” Then the waiter told me he loved the delicious ladies. Just another typical travel day.
(Oh, sh*t! The book! Why am I writing this blog post when I should be writing the book?!)
8. I turned 40.
And I feel pretty good about it. Even though I almost immediately had to have my wisdom teeth pulled. Life is so much easier at 40 than at 20. And so is traveling.
9. I might have just hit my limit with traveling.
I hope this isn’t related to the previous point. But it was a long year. As I’m writing this, I should have been on a plane to Kuala Lumpur. But general tiredness and a creeping sense of responsibility made me stay home. What’s happening?!
I do have a book to write (ack, sh*t!), and that requires sitting still. I’m a little behind schedule. After this post, you might not hear from me for another month or so.
(The book, in case you’re new here, has a lot to do with “the Arab nations”–and how they’re a great place to travel.)
******
I dedicate 2012 to all the wonderful people I met on my adventures: Maala, Btissam, Said, Alaa, Mido and family (oh, that was late 2011–but still!), Agnes, Holly, Arva, the women behind Qatar Swalif, Habooba, the Asrani family, and many, many more.
May your 2013 be filled with nourishing food and kind strangers.
Two final bits of contrariness, both terribly sensible.
Tip #7: Don’t ask the price of a taxi before you get in.
Guidebooks always say “Agree on a price before you get in a taxi.” I think I’ve even written this myself. But nothing marks you as an out-of-towner like asking a cabbie, “How much to…?” This makes the cabbie’s eyeballs flash dollar signs, just like in the cartoons.
So your one job as a visitor is to find out in advance how much a taxi should cost (ask at your hotel, or ask your Airbnb host, or whatever). Then just get in the cab, say hello in at least a loose approximation of the local language and state your destination. Pay the known fare when you get out (or, in known antagonistic-cabbie towns, get out first and hand the money through the window). This is what locals do, and it works!
I don't have any photos of evil cabbies. Instead, enjoy these perfectly sweet triciclo guys in the Yucatan. Maybe taxi drivers only turn bad when they get engines?
Even if you’re in a metered-taxi town, it’s nice to get a ballpark estimate, for peace of mind.
(Why are taxi drivers the world over so prone to unscrupulousness? They are their own strange tribe. May the honest and generous ones multiply!)
Tip #8: Sleep now, not when you’re dead.
A very concrete aspect of Tip #4 (“be lazy”). Again, you’re on vacation – why tire yourself out? Take plenty of naps. Observe the siesta culture, if there is one.
There is nothing more delicious than waking up in a strange place. (Freya Stark, by way of Matthew Teller, says it even better.)
More practically, the better rested you are, the less likely you are to have those little streetcorner meltdowns, where you’re hungry and tired and just can’t make a decision, and suddenly your travel partner is looking like the worst beast on earth, just because he/she is also hungry and tired and can’t make a decision.
One person I know calls this the Death Mope. The Death Mope is easily avoided through adequate rest. (And carrying some peanuts in your bag–another tip of mine. But there’s nothing counterintuitive about not starving.)
Me enjoying Greek culture and avoiding Death Mope. (Not-so-flattering-but-oh-well photo by Peter. I didn't realize till after the trip that my very ugly bra was always visible through the very large sleeves of that dress.)
On to more practical matters. Though this still relates to trip-planning.
Take the train, especially if it’s slow.
I can’t tell you how many guidebooks I’ve read recently where they’ve said, basically, “Enh, there’s a train, but you’re better off on the bus/airplane.”
C’mon—how will you ever be better off squished in a bus barreling down a highway? On a bus or a plane, you’re just waiting till you get there—that’s 100 percent wasted time.
On a train, though, the adventure starts when you get on. Fine, maybe it gets a little boring in the last hour, but it’s still at least 70 percent quality time.
OK, so maybe don't take *this* train...
Moreover, the train makes the decision for you. Overwhelmed by all the wonders a country has to offer? It’s easy to narrow down your itinerary if you just go where the train goes. After three trips to Morocco traveling almost entirely by their excellent train system, I think I’m finally ready to rent a car or hop a bus to the farther-flung parts of the country. Peter and I still haven’t run out of entertainment on the Thai train line.
Yes, you’ll be missing some things—but that would happen no matter what. Why not enjoy what you can see by train, rather than showing up cranky and poorly rested to a bunch of other places?
...but definitely this one. (Photo by Peter.)
I could expand this tip to cover all kinds of odd transport: bikes, funiculars, pickup trucks with bench seats in the back. The weirder and more novel, the better. That way, the transit time becomes an adventure too.
In fact, maybe this tip should just be: Go the least efficient way. The slower you go, the more you see.
Tip #3 was “Go where the tourists are”–to which I add:
…But skip the big sights.
Or, more precisely, skip anything that involves standing in line for more than, oh, 10 minutes. Also consider skipping most things that involve trudging around in the blazing sun.
By this logic, you might miss the Empire State Building. Or worse: the Pyramids in Egypt! This is pretty harsh—but going to the Pyramids in 90-degree heat, only to be chased around by camel drivers, is a recipe for hating Egypt forever.
Even after living in Egypt, I only got around to appreciating the Pyramids for the first time ever last fall, when it was a balmy 80 degrees, and thanks to everyone being scared away by the revolution, I didn’t have to push my way past mobs of underdressed Russian package tourists and squadrons of camel touts.
(Theoretically, the “hide in the mob of tourists” logic of Tip #3 should work at the Pyramids, as a way of avoiding the souvenir vendors and camel touts, but somehow the number of hustlers magically expands to match the number of tourists at what feels like a 16:1 ratio in favor of the hustlers.)
Just about the acceptable level of tourists at the Pyramids, fall 2011.
Anyway, you’re on vacation. Why would you spend it standing around waiting to see the Mona Lisa? Those mega-museums and those impressive tall buildings – they’ll be there a very long time. You’ll probably have another chance to see them, on a less-busy day. Right now – enjoy your time off, and just wander.
Unless, of course, you wake up freakishly early because of jet lag, and it’s raining. That might be a great time to go to the Louvre.
(If you’re thinking I’m a terrible cynic about the Pyramids, consider that no less a terrible cynic than Anthony Bourdain went to Cairo and skipped a trip to Giza. Instead, he had a nice boat ride with my excellent friend Hassan.
Hassan is a great guide, and he says the Pyramids drive him and all his clients crazy, and he would love to see the system improved. Here’s my post on the subject from earlier this year. Any advice?)
This tip, hot on the heels of Tip #1 and Tip #2, seems completely contradictory. Bear with me.
Go where the tourists are.
I really mean Go where the local tourists are. Plan your trip around domestic holidays or popular weekend-getaway spots, and enjoy. The most fun I’ve had in recent memory was in Chiapas in August 2009, the year swine flu scared off foreigners from Mexico.
I foolishly thought the major tourist spots would be empty. But hotels were packed with Mexican families enjoying the tail end of summer vacation. The ruins at Palenque were swarming with people. In San Cristobal de las Casas, kids were running around in souvenir Zapatista ski masks. It was great.
Peter and me posing with the winners of the Golden Age pageant in Palenque.
As travelers, we spend so much time avoiding (sniff) common tourists, but in the long run, you have to admit this can be a little wearing. When you’re the only foreigner in some village, everyone’s staring at you all the time, and you start getting antsy. Or if you’re trying to blend in in some European capital, you’re constantly worrying whether you just flubbed your coffee order and revealed your out-of-townness.
But, just as in the ugly, over-visited places I mentioned in my last post, if you go where the local tourists are going, you can enjoy the buffer of a crowd, which takes the heat off of you.
During that Chiapas trip, I went to the amazing church at San Juan Chamula. If I’d gone in a quieter time, I would’ve felt like a terrible interloper–it’s such a private-seeming place. (Er, should I really be stomping around this church while people are in the middle of intense healing rituals?) Walking into the church on the heels of a busload of Mexican tourists made me feel a little better. (Oh well—all the Mexicans are!) In fact, another Mexican tourist saw me hesitating and waved me in with a smile, like a good ambassador.
Ignore the traveler/tourist rivalry. Frankly, most tourists are fun (especially Mexican tourists!). They’re out to have a good time. So if you go where the domestic tourists are, it’s a little like crashing a party—but it’s still “counts” as a travel experience, because you’re with another culture.
