17 Things In SE Asia That Will Make You Say "Wait,...WHAT!?!"

After 9 months of backpacking and volunteering, this is my list of some of the most endearing, but also head-scratching parts of traveling through SE Asia.

1. What’s with the buses and ferries being so f#@*cking cold…

Travis King (Me)

Even if you are traveling very close to the equator in Asia, bring a warm sweatshirt and a winter hat, just for the hours you will be in transit. The majority of buses, vans, ferries and things that go are so cold it’s nonsensical. I get that a little AC can be nice when it’s sweltering outside, but I don’t get why they are going for a Day After Tomorrow type feel on the bus. Bring a jumper, blanket, hat and warm socks in your day bag for long bus journeys because the temperature will make no sense. (Picture: Freezing/sleeping on an early morning Ferry in Myanmar)

2. What’s with Bob Marley being EVERYWHERE!?!

Apache Reggae bar / Via bali-indonesia.com

I just recently began challenging myself to see if I could go a day without hearing Bob Marley. It's been over a week and I have yet to succeed. I like Bob Marley, but he is so popular in Asia that his music is just in the air. You go into any café, bar, beach side restaurant, hostel, or corner store and there is a good chance that you'll be "jammin'" almost immediately. Every town seems to have a reggae bar and/or a reggae hostel as well, sometimes multiple bars that are essentially Bob Marley temples. I've wondered about the infatuation quite a bit over the last few months and I think there are two main reasons for it. I think the main reason is that in heavily traveled places where you have visitors from all corners of the world, Bob's music is just very likeable and agreeable. Nobody, regardless of where you're from or your age is going to ask the bar tender or server to change the crappy music when the Buffalo soldier is playing. Also, Bob's music just fits the tropical island vibe that most places in Asia are going for. Even with all this Bob in the air and the happy reggae vibe throughout lots of Asia, in most places smoking weed is a serious crime, and in many places you can be jailed or sentenced to death for marijuana related charges. So, as you go, enjoy the music, but not the lifestyle.

(Photo: Not mine, but I remember visiting this bar and thinking, there could not BE more Bob Marley stuff in one room.)

3. Whats with the fruit that smells and tastes like farts?

unknown / Via travelblog.org

It’s really just one fruit, and if you’ve been to Asia you know the fruit I’m talking about. There are signs before entering buses or ferries that will have pictures meaning no smoking, no guns, and then one more that at first I was thinking “No bombs?...wait, but why does that bomb have little spikes all over it?” The sign is really saying no durian! Durian is this fruit that locals love throughout Thailand, Malaysia and lots of place in Asia, but to someone who didn’t grow up eating durian it smells like farts and tastes like garbage soaked in hotdog water. I’ve tried it three times now, always wanting to find a way to enjoy it or at least answer the mystery of why these people love it so much, but it always ends in me spitting out Durian, making strange noises and locals laughing. They do love it though, they treat it as a delicacy and even have durian coffee, ice cream, and all types of durian flavored treats. As someone who didn’t grow up eating durian, I see durian ice-cream and I think “fart ice-cream.” If you’re reading this and you’ve never heard of durian and you’re thinking that I’m just exaggerating or that I have soft taste buds, please go to Asia and try fart fruit… I mean Durian, for yourself.

(Photo: Not mine, but similar to many I saw throughout Asia. Have you ever seen warnings for a fruit before? This stuff is intense.)

4. What’s with paying to go to the beach? Isn’t it God’s beach, man?

Travis King (ME)

In a lot of the most beautiful places in Asia, like some of the most amazing beaches in the world, for some reason it costs money to see. Lots of places will get your money by saying that it’s a parking fee. They’re going to “watch” your scooter to make sure it’s alright (that they don’t steal it). Other places will just drop a random log over the road like a MacGyver style pay toll. I’ve had a group of 10 year old kids hit me up for some change to lift a stick so I could carry on down a road to a beach, where there was another toll to enter a “park” about 100 meters further down the road. The nature is beautiful, but it often comes with a price tag now in Asia.

(Photo: Riding around in Kuta Lombok, Indonesia)

5. Whats with paying to pee?

Travis King (ME)

This happens in a lot of less developed places throughout the world. Infrastructure in general, including toilets and plumbing, is a bit behind so those who have it know they can charge… about 20 cents most places. It still bothers me though when I’m stuck in a bus terminal somewhere and I have to make change or use some of my change on peeing as apposed to snacks. It also just encourages unwanted behavior: When I see that you have to pay to pee I immediately start looking around for sneaky corner outside or a tree to go behind. Peeing and water should be free! It was for thousands of years until we complicated things.

(Photo: A place near Flores, Indonesia, where I definitely peed for free.)

6. What’s with there being so much plastic involved in buying 10 ounces of liquid?

Travis King (ME)

You get a straw (no matter what), you get a plastic cup for your juice, and then you also get a plastic bag, to put the plastic cup with a plastic straw into. It’s more plastic than juice and just feels like one of those weird things that one shop started doing, and then the guy down the street was like… “I guess we need to start bagging up our cups of juice if we want to stay competitive in the to-go juice market.”

(Photo: Somewhere in Singapore)

7. What’s with all the signs that have everything misspelled?

Travis King (ME)

My basic hypothesis on this one is that they know it's wrong, but they also know it's charming. I've definitely gone into a little café because of the way they spelled "Hamed Berger" or "Fresh Jus."

(Photo: Nothing here is misspelled, it's just one of the best signs I've ever seen, and also made me choose this little bar to stop in while walking through Nara, Japan.)

8. What’s with all the amazing Wi-Fi access pretty much everywhere?

Travis King (Me)

It might have been because both times I arrived in Asia I was coming from Australia, but I have always been amazed by how good and available Wi-Fi access is almost everywhere in Asia. I am currently writing this from Gili Meno, a small sleepy island in Indonesia, and I have such good Wi-Fi at this restaurant I could download movies. In Australia, you might pay 5 dollars for an hour of Wi-Fi just to stare at a circle of death for an hour. The Wi-Fi in Australia is simply embarrassing, but Australia aside, I am amazed over and over again in Asia at how perfect and readily available Wi-Fi is from a little coffee shack in Vietnam, to a local noodle spot in Malaysia to this beach side restaurant on a little island in Indonesia. Maybe that’s why all the Australians come to Indonesia… so they can get on some decent Wi-Fi.

(Picture: Street noodles in Malaysia...with WI-FI)

9. What’s with the millions of electrical wires all connecting to the same random pole in the middle of the sidewalk?

Travis King (ME)

I suppose its electronics and stuff that I couldn't pretend to understand, but there are certain places in Asia where I'm just amazed that any single person in the world can figure out what's going on with all the wires connected to a single pole. Hanoi in Vietnam is quite famous for this, but there are many spots where the electrical wires look like 100 sailing knots tied around a large stick, and you can walk by and laugh about it, straight into a restaurant where you charge your phone and get a perfect internet connection.

(Photo: A common sight in Hanoi, Vietnam)

10. Why is the local bus never full?

Travis King (ME)

I’ve had a stranger sit on my lap. She was in her sixties or seventies and smelled nice. There are parts of central and south America that are famous for this as well, (like the “chicken buses” of Guatemala that are rad retro-fitted old American school buses that they pack to the gills) but basically in all of Asia there is no limit to how many people can fit on the local bus. Two seats can be 4, the isle is just a space to pop down little plastic stools that were hiding somewhere, and the roof of the bus is perfect place for all the possessions you have with you in the world! I have actually laughed out loud once when a bus driver pulled over inviting more people onto a bus where the isle was full and I already had a woman on my lap. I’ve even seen local people refuse to get on a bus, because they knew better than the driver that waiting for the next bus was a better idea than stuffing themselves in like clothes in my backpack.

(Photo: One of the awesome local mini-buses (Jeepneys) that cruise around Manila, the capital of the Philippines.)

11. Why are 7 year olds in the bar after midnight and why are they still working?

Travis King (ME)

This is one of the more startling and frustrating things you’ll come across in certain parts of Asia. In certain places, it won’t be uncommon to see kids hawking bracelets or trying to sell paintings way past any normal kids bedtime, and sometimes, while smoking cigarettes at a bar. I’m still wearing the bracelet I bought from a really clever and persistent kid I met in the south of Lombok Island, Indonesia. He could name the capital of any country in the world, and that was his gimmick (You give me 3 countries, if I name all their capitals, you buy a bracelet…), and I respect that. We ate breakfast every morning together I stayed in Kuta Lombok, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t tell him to go home when I’d see him working the bar scene and trying out his gimmick on 20 year old backpackers partying at 1 in the morning. I will say, the kids got work ethic.

(Photo: Kids selling stuff at a... you guessed it, Reggae bar, in Indonesia.)

12. Why do I get pulled over on my scooter and there are 10 year olds driving around on the sidewalks with no helmet on?

Travis King (ME)

It’s because I’m a tourist, obviously. It’s because I’m white, obviously. It’s because they can pull me over and say I don’t have the right type of license so I need to give them all my money, but I should feel lucky to just leave having given them whatever amount is in my wallet. Essentially, it's a bribe. During any of these types of transactions with the police in Asia, you will surely want to ask them, what about all the little kids flying around on scooters with no helmets on hoping up onto the sidewalk and going the wrong way down streets and stuff? That’s all good? Just no riding a scooter while being a tourist… that’s a no-no? Cool, got it. I hope my ‘fine’ goes towards fixing these road conditions, but something tells me you’re just going to drink a few extra beers tonight. Well, see yah!

(Photo: A wolf pack, ripping and tearing around the Thai islands)

13. How does that guy fit all of that on one scooter?

Travis King (ME)

There are actually several photo books already published of this exact mind-boggling phenomenon in Asia. It’s a daily occurrence to be impressed by the load being transported on someone’s scooter, and every now and then you’ll see a scooter that is a triple-take, eye-popping, laugh out loud, absolutely unbelievable amount of stuff (or just strange stuff) on a single scooter.

(Photo: Somewhere in the countryside of Vietnam)

14. How can that scooter be such a perfect family car?

Travis King (ME)

I’ve seen 5 people on a scooter. How, you ask? Let me paint a picture. The father is driving, the mother is all the way in the back, and in-between them sits the youngest child. Where the fathers feet would normally go, The oldest child stands with his back to the handlebars and the middle child stands in front of him with his face buried in the fathers stomach. They all seem perfectly comfortable and content, and are probably on their way to the grocery store where they will buy a weeks worth of groceries, balance it all over themselves and the bike, and drive back home with a look on their face like “not impressed?”

(Photo: Just the two of us in Cambodia, because I could never get a proper photo of the whole family...)

15. Why do random people want to take a picture with me? (When it happens… just go with it… maybe.)

Travis King (ME)

The first several times this happened I always thought the nice looking stranger was asking me to take a picture FOR them, and then it would awkwardly become obvious that they wanted a picture with me, or with me and the friend I was with at the time. It’s quite flattering in most instances. I always reacted with a “little ol’ me… oh I suppose” feeling in my heart. However, for the traveling ladies out there, some guy’s motives might be different. I heard from some girls I met traveling that the sly local guy working at the hostel broke out his phone one night saying “you want to see a picture of my girlfriend?,” obviously trying to impress them. When they saw the photo, they laughed and told him “that’s not your girlfriend, that’s Katie, we met her a few weeks ago…” So, only take the picture if everything seems on the up and up, otherwise, you might be the “girlfriend” of locals all across Asia.

(Photo: Margaux and I at the cliffs of Uluwatu in Bali with people we just met.)

16. Wait, that's food?

Travis King (ME)

They eat lots of things in Asia that I never would have considered eating... or even to be food prior to arriving in Asia. I've tried snake blood, cobra whiskey, scorpion, and all types of bugs. At a restaurant in Vietnam, my ex-girlfriend pointed out that so many store fronts and homes have little birds in cages, and when our waiter returned, we asked him, "You guys all have little birds in cages, but why are there no birds flying around free?" Without pause, he just matter-of-factly replied, "We ate them." For the more advanced, there's always monkey brains and a whole host of other crazy stuff you can consume if you want to go down that rabbit hole... oh, and rabbit, I'm sure you can eat that too.

(Photo: Snacks on a bus break traveling through Cambodia)

17. Wait, what… you can just do whatever you want?

Travis King (ME)

I always joked in Asia that if you find a piece of wood and a paint brush you can write your name on it, plus the word bar, and then put some chairs in your front yard… and BANG, you’re a BAR! Or you find some cardboard, write taxi on it, pop it on your car… BAM, you’re a taxi! Or you get a boat and fill it with snacks, pull up next to bigger boats with travelers aboard, and, BOOM, you’re a floating corner-store. The freedom and “wild-west” feel of Asia is one of it’s most charming, endearing, but often head-scratching aspects. If you haven’t had the opportunity to travel through South East Asia, do it, and get excited for it’s beauty, the warmth of the people, the unique culture, the amazing food, and all the daily moments that will make you stop and think, “wait, what…?”

(Photo: A floating corner store in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam)

Travis King (ME)

(Photo: Impromptu dirt bike rally on the beach in Lombok, because... you can.)

Travis King (ME)

(Photo: A sign that I made for my friend, Pak Man's restaurant, on Gili Meno, Indonesia)

Travis King (ME)

(Photo: Helping to build a friends restaurant on the side of the road near "Mindful Farms" outside of Chiang Mai, Thailand)

(Photo: In Ubud feeding monkeys, not eating monkeys, but you can do both in SE Asia. You can pretty much do anything you want in SE Asia.)