Just a few hours ago, my squad and I crossed the border into Malaysia to start Month Seven! How crazy is that?!
As we drove, getting our first glimpses of another new country, I was struck by the similarity of the landscape. Now, before the Race, my Asia travel experience was limited to a few hours exploring ruins on the Asian side of Istanbul. One of the reasons I was so excited about this route was that Cambodia and Thailand, in particular, were places I had always dreamed about visiting.
It’s funny how the idea you have of a place does and doesn’t match the reality.
So far, Malaysia doesn’t particularly resemble my imaginings of Southeast Asia, but of home.
There are the little tell-tale differences: signs in a foreign language, massive numbers of motorbikes, driving on the left side of the road, speed measure in kilometers per hour. But the trees – the trees look exactly the same.
One month ago, also while on a bus, I woke up to a gorgeous sunrise over the southern Thailand landscape. That was everything I expected Southeast Asia to be: mountains, jungles, waterways.
For most of the rest of the past two months, however, I didn’t see that part of Asia. In Cambodia, with most of our time spent either at the college or in the middle of a very modern city, I didn’t feel like we were in the mystical place everyone describes when they talked about this region. Being in Bangkok felt even more like an American city.
But Phuket…that island is what the tourists see.
And that has me pondering the differences between home and abroad. There are plenty of obvious benefits to traveling, like learning about history, meeting new people, understanding the strengths of other cultures and seeing the similarities between them. (And getting to eat legit local food!)
The more I travel, though, the more places remind me of somewhere else. Morocco reminded me of the Southwest. Romania reminded me of Peru. Rural Cambodia reminded me of East Texas.
God created the Earth with an enormous amount of diversity, of course, but I also feel like there’s a common thread that runs through every country, every city I’ve ever visited. The same dirt is under our feet, the same wind knocks our clothes off the line, the same sky hangs above us.
Maybe it’s a small world after all.
