Greetings from Khaosan Road in Bangkok. Also known as: backpacker central. Glad we're not staying here long. Street vendors lined up. Crowded. Cars inches away. It's harder to haggle here, I think because there are more tourists, and more people likely to pay the higher price. We bought the cheapest drinks on the menu at this cafe so we could mooch off of the free wi-fi.
Today, at 6am, everyone on our bus got dumped on the road and we were left to wait until 6pm for our next bus to Ko Phangan. It was still dark and the travel agency that we needed to confirm our tickets with wasn't even open yet, so we sat around chatting with 2 German girls who were also waiting. Then we found some comfy chairs and fell asleep for a while.
Observation: There are so many European travelers, and we hardly meet any Americans. The very few Americans we do meet tend to have these stories of escapism from the life that they've fallen into while chasing the "American dream." These stories usually involve the following: working some unfulfilling job and thinking that money will make them happy; being involved in a relationship and losing their own identity in the process; basically, being pressured by society and family to follow this path of what they think they're "supposed to do," even if it's not what they actually want to do.
On the other hand, it seems that a lot of these Europeans we meet just take off for several months at a time, even at a young age, without that American need to explain themselves upon meeting about how they ended up here. Besides asking where we're from, they don't feel that it's necessary to know what we were doing before or what we're going back to doing in America. Traveling for the sake of traveling seems so normal to them.
I realize, too, that as Americans, it can be difficult to travel, especially with a 9-to-5 job. You sometimes still feel guilty asking for your 2 weeks of accrued vacation, worrying about negative vibes from your boss, and then end up spending the last few days of your vacation dreading the time it will take to catch up on hundreds of emails and stacks of paper on your desk upon return.
Money can also be an issue. College educations are also thousands and thousands of dollars more in American than anywhere in Europe. Many Americans get their degrees along with a built-in debt in loans, which creates the need to start working immediately so they can pay them off. If not, they feel like they should work so they can by a car or a house or something. And so the cycle begins...
People are different; countries are different; cultures are different. Everything has its positive and negative aspects, and we can all learn from one another. I just wish it were easier for everyone to get up and go, because there's so much more to see in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment