Learning to travel with your other half

Andrew O'Hagen for the NYT wrote:

"Every holiday is an ego trip for somebody. it is just that, in families, the person actually commanding the ego trip has to pretend he or she is running a functioning democracy. (And holidays, like failed states, are always run by one person.)

People argue so much on holiday because the occasion so often falls short of the desire: The desire is for rest,peace, no pressure and a sense of being away from one's usual self, and your average family holiday sets fire in comic sequence to each of these high hopes. 

What feels like a holiday is turning up alone at the Hotel Danieli in Venice on a beautiful day. You open the window onto the Grand Canal and you feel the breeze. You order tea from room service and press your face against the cotton pillow. You take out the books you will read and you run a warm bath.... you switch off your phone. Then you take off your shoes and die of bliss."

I never thought in my entire life that I would be able to travel with my boyfriend until he's actually my husband  and we're married (because my parents would never allow it even if I'm 25 or 40). So you could say that my first trip overseas to Bali with Frenchy was somewhat of great excitation. However, spending 24 hours with each other for 11 days could have been a recipe for disaster since we've only recently moved in together so we were still learning how to navigate around each other.

He had anticipated that I would be princessy and difficult, as some women can be when they see that their "hotels" have no stars, no aircondition and that their toilets are filled with wandering insects. For me I was just worried that he would want to see the things which I have already seen most of my life and just bore me to death - rice paddies, traditional dance, woven bamboo and so on. So we were expecting a lot of arguments to happen.

But the truth was it went really well - with the exception of one major crying outburst from me when we were lost in the middle of a forest.

O'Hagen speaks of the unmatched "desire" of what a holiday should be and I feel that being in an interracial relationship- especially one that crosses continents- adds another layer of possible friction points. For example:

1) Sun and Heat

I fucking hate the heat and the humidity in this region and do not feel that I need to travel in SEA because of the perception that I already "know" everything ( ASEAN history student). I want to see the "other", hear the strange languages and observe features on people that I'm not familiar with. But for Frenchy, all that I am and this region that I live in fascinates him. We are the "exotic" as he is to me.

Then there is the problem of tanning. He turns red while I get dark. It's funny how when we first reached Bali, a lot of the Balinese were unsure what ethnicity I was so they still spoke English to me. But after a few days of being in the sun, there was no confusion for I looked indigenous with my dark skin, big eyes, black hair. Conversations with locals became centered on why I looked so local and yet am from Singapore. 

2) Poverty and Cleanliness

I have travelled (and lived for some time) in Malaysia with my parents as I was growing up so I'm used to seeing worn-out kampungs, poor sanitation, dirty, muddy roads you name it. But I'm not sure if Frenchy has. I don't think the landscape in UK or France is comparable to what we have here so I was partly afraid that he would feel disgusted and in turn, make me feel guilty for bringing him to such places.

But you know what? He was forever amazed with how the walls or ceilings were made from woven bamboos or that the drainage system was so cleverly designed to divert fresh water to the fields and so on. I've never paid attention to such details because they were normal to me but seeing the excitement and wonder in his eyes just made trekking through rice paddies and little villages worth it.

3) Street Food

OMG. Frenchy wouldn't even step into a hawker centre so to think that he would eat by the street from some suspicious vendor? I doubt it. I was afraid we would bust our budget if we ate at restaurants all the time, so I had to be very careful to ask him everytime if he was okay eating by the side of the road. I mean my dad always said that squatting down by the longkang (drain) and eating durian cut open by the side of the road gives it all the taste and experience to make him happy. Not sure if your parents tell you this but mine always say, "Jangan makan tu, korang punya perut tak kuat macam kite punya." (lit. Don't eat that; your stomaches are not as strong as ours). The idea is that because my parents generation grew up in far less desirable conditions that we did, it made them more resistant against the possible contaminations in the street-side food. 

But Frenchy's not a local. So when we were served an almost anorexic bbq chicken served with rice from a road stall I did not expect him to be finger licking and saying it was the best dish he had ever tasted. Then we progressed to roadside satay in peanut-soya sauce. I had never eaten satay like that in my life and was suspicious about it myself but he was eating it like it was the most delicious food on earth. Gosh! And he loved the spices and started talking excitedly about cooking with lemongrass and all these "asian" spices. Okay, I admit my heart swelled a bit thinking that my partner's the best thing on earth. He loved Indonesian food, aka my culture my food! yay!

PS: I'll write another post on the places we went in Bali.