YOU KNOW YOU’RE A WORLD RACER (in Asia) WHEN…
– “look both ways before you cross the street” no longer means anything. “hold your hand out as you casually stroll through 6 lanes of on-comming traffic” is more the norm here – if you wait till “just after that truck” you will be there for 25 minutes… and your teammates will leave you behind…
– you feel ripped off when you come across a meal that costs more then $0.75 (U.S currency)
– you walk past some puppies on the street and tell the owner “ohhh I like this one, it’s cute” and point to one you’d like to hold… in which case he picks it up, takes it in the back, and ten minutes later has it quartered up and boxed up for you to cook for dinner…
– seeing up to 6 people on one moto is completely normal
– you stay up for 24 hours straight before a travel day just so you are able to sleep on the bus
– your van driver drives 100 mph, passing cars that are passing cars, not seeming to mind if traffic is rapidly approaching from the other direction
– you willingly jump into an SUV with 3 complete strangers you just met on a tour who offer to give you a ride home in avoidance of riding the city bus
– a dance party consists of pressing the different “rhythm” buttons on an old yamaha keyboard
– you have access to cozy beds with blankets, yet you find your teammate taking a nap on the cold hard floor
– “same same but different” has become a normal part of your vocabulary
– living with a stomach ache almost every day is normal
– even things that “have no fish sauce” in them… are made with fish sauce
– YWAM in Bangkok feels like home
– you jump in a cab and tell the driver who doesn’t speak any english where you want to go… and somehow manage get there
– you are in downtown Ho Chi Minh City and an Abba song comes on and you and your teammates start dancing in the street, as locals surround you and take pictures, then ask you for your autograph when the song is over
– you have spent 3 months here and it doesn’t seem “foreign” anymore…
– it’s harder to leave this nation then it was to leave home 5 months ago…
