When traveling to other continents and cultures, it’s not just beautiful landscapes and exciting experiences that characterize the journey; many discomforts also arise. Some you know or even expect by knowing country characteristics. Ideally, these are overshadowed by the positive experiences but I think it’s important to mention that travel isn’t always easy, especially in Asia.

One challenge is the weather. In McLeod Ganj, it’s been raining day and night for two days and the first snow has fallen up on the mountains above 3500+ meters. The temperature here what lower at 2000m dropped down to around 11°C. Not just outside but inside the room as well. I could see my breath and was sitting wrapped in a blanket, wearing a coat in the bed. There is no heating installed here at most places as we know it in Europe. An electric heater is a possibility – so I did take that.

Naturally, in the mountains there’s no picking and choosing: if it rains, you go out in the rain. The gear: flip-flops, pants pulled up to the knees and raincoat. In the bag: socks and shoes which I put on immediately upon arrival. That’s the recipe. Flip-flops don’t soak through and you can wade through the water trickling down from the mountain.

In Asia, another challenge is the travel itself, the distances. Often there’s no direct flight or the plane departs/arrives at inconvenient times like late at night or very early morning. In such cases, spending the night at the airport is part of the deal. I have several lasting memories of this at Kuala Lumpur airport. It’s exhausting and usually requires mental preparation. Part of the deal 🙂

The food and the gestures and behaviors of people in a foreign culture can also be unfamiliar. Asian but especially Indian food is famously spicy and the concept of “not spicy” doesn’t really exist 🙂 People can be loud for example in India and women have a completely different role in society here. All of this can affect us too. Like when you see a separate section for women in the metro in Delhi.

Be mentally prepared to live a life here with local animals, even inside a house: gekko’s, cockroaches, bigger spiders and ants might appear. This is unavoidable at some point and does NOT have to do anything necessarily with the grade of cleanness.

Note: also in Asia it is common NOT to have warm water, not even for showering. Mostly places where the temperature is higher anyways so this even might feel refreshing. But always good to double check when booking accomodation.

Of course, these are just a few things and all part of the travel. But it’s important to keep in mind that we have to be flexible and completely detach from our known comfort zone! Living here based on the local standards 🙂