Every year, they come, mostly young Western women, to medicate, practice yoga, and follow an acetic lifestyle. I spent 12 days at the Yoga Vacation of the ashram Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Dhanwantari, whose founder, Swami Vishnudevananda, had the mission of popularize the practice in the West.

Listen to the report.

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When we travel, we discover that the way we do things isn’t always the correct one. That our culture is only one among so many. And that human beings, fundamentally, have the same needs no matter their differences.

All this is very lovely. But when I hear an Indian burping loudly on the table beside me, it makes me, like my mother, want to scold him and follow up with a lesson on good manners.

When I see a man collecting audible phlegm in his throat before firing it with gusto on the sidewalk, I’m urged to start a little chat on the basics of hygiene.

When I feel a woman madly shoving me to steal my place in line, my instinct is to yell, “Hey sister, can’t you see I was here first?”

And when I’m surrounded by stares when I walk on the street or sit in a restaurant? Inside I scream: “Did you lose something on me?”

Cast your mind on Archana, a graceful Indian dancer who, during a study stint in France, was horrified when a classmate blew his nose in class. The Russian man, in turn, found the comely Archana revolting when she issued a sonorous post-meal belch.

It’s so hard to accept our cultural differences. It takes work to see strange habits with anthropological eyes. In my case, anything involving bodily sounds and fluids hits hard. And I spent my days judging, condemning, and criticizing each of these gestures.

And that is exhausting.

Here’s the rub: the strange one around here is me. I’m the uninvited guest who is in no position to criticize the habits and the culture of one billion hosts.

Especially considering that I too, by ignorance or neglect, did things that are here considered rude. Yet I never got a moral lesson from an Indian when, for example, I eat with my left hand – which is reserved for hygienic tasks, never to carry food to the mouth.

No, I got no sermon and no disproving glances. Indians are far too polite to do that.

I now recall, with some amusement, the time I went on an exchange to the U.S. as a 15-year old. I was warned in a printed pamphlet that the habits, nutrition, and climate of a new country can cause a raft of symptoms, like lethargy, irritability, drowsiness, and others. This condition was called “culture shock.”

Uh-huh. The country of Nike, McDonalds, Kleenex, and Madonna. Those savages.

Whatever claim you make about India the opposite will also be true.

This makes it a pretty difficult country to write about. But by my own logic, it also makes it a very easy country to write about.

And yes, there is tons to report after a mere few days in the country. The problem is that few of it would go beyond the most cliché.

To say India is land of contrasts is not only old-hat, it’s also vacuous. It offers little of value.

Anyone can see the blaring gulfs between neighbouring realities: The land of Buddha and Gandhi still has a merciless caste system. You walk past a fetid slum where children defecate on the sidewalk and step into a movie theatre with designer toilets and food served to your seat.

You see men beach-bathing in the skimpiest underwear, but who would never wear shorts on the street lest they look like riffraff. Cows and goats loiter the streets like so many stray dogs. Indian homes are spotless but public spaces filthy. Raw sewage attacks your nostrils and incense soothes them.

Wouldn’t be caught dead wearing shorts.

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But this does nothing to explain the country; it’s expository information. So many people know what is India. Few are those who can tell you why is India.

Even attempting to explain India is disingenuous, since “India” is a geopolitical entity, a huge grab-bag of ethnicities, languages, and customs. A cook in Tamil Nadu has little in common with a banker in Calcutta.

But since opposites are also true, those two will share a lot of traits.

The country is too big, the traditions too fluid, the mythologies too permanent for summarizing. Thinking otherwise is just irresponsible.

I have two months here. If by the end I’m able to understand just a fraction I’ll consider it a great feat.

What they had in common was youth, a simple look about them, an an apparent will to help without asking for anything in return. They were good-hearted Vietnamese, in our opinion, above any suspicion.

Or would you doubt the intentions of a monk inside a Buddhist temple?

The first case: the perverted monk

It was our first visit to a Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia. We were in Can Tho, largest city of the Mekong Delta. And we were given, without any request on our part, a guided visit by a young man who seemed, to our ignorant eyes, an apprentice monk.

What started as sacred, with incense lit for the ancestors and three bows before the shrine, devolved into comical. The so-called monk, who spoke no English, made himself photographic director. He told us to pose with the bell. Under the stairs. With the view to the city. With the view to the street. We got the idea.

the 20th picture he started posing by my side, and the game of permutations resumed: the monk and me before the bell, the monk and me under the stairs…

We obeyed, a little out of respect, a little out of the weirdness of it all and a little out of curiosity as to where this would all culminate. After a certain point Roberto stopped pressing the shutter. He just aimed the camera and smiled. Disobeying a monk, after all, must be wicked bad luck.

What started as scared and devolved into comical soon turned to suspicious. At each shot this Vietnamese Annie Leibowitz found a way to get close to me. His hand migrated from my innocent wait to my hip. Alarmed, I said: “Roberto, the monk just grabbed my butt!”

But the exotic appeal was strong. A part of me wouldn’t believe in what I just felt. It had to be an accident. But the monk, not content with a successful fondle of a Brazilian butt, decided to push his luck.

After exploring my southern zones, he decided to migrate north. You know when you take a picture with someone by slinging your arm over his neck? Well, I think plenty of boys know the technique of leaving the land a little limp if his picture buddy is a lady of sizable bust.

The monk knew this technique. What started as sacred, devolved into comical, and turned suspicious, became startlingly clear. Take note of my expression:

No more pictures. No more joking around. We left in an instant.

The habit does not make the monk. It really, really doesn’t.

P.S. In the photos I’m wearing a tank top, a real faux-pas that I corrected a short while later. In a Buddhist temple, one must cover one’s shoulders and legs. My fail.

Photo by Daniel Grosvenor

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When selling bootleg books didn’t work, the boy turned to begging for food. He looked 12 and was still perfecting his pity pitch.

After four days in Siem Reap (and another week in Sihanoukville), I got used to saying no to child sellers and beggars. I read enough articles to know giving them money does more harm than good:

It encourages them to keep working and begging instead of going to school.

It creates a dependency on tourists for their livelihood.

It undermines the role of parents as caretakers and of NGOs trying to keep them off the street.

It encourages irresponsible parents to stay at home (sometimes drinking) while the child goes out and works.

Worst of all, it robs a child of her childhood.

My girlfriend Bianca, however, let he compassion speak louder than reason. When the boy said he was hungry, she offered to buy him lunch and eat with us on our restaurant table.

It was too late for me to protest. She was already going over menu choices with the boy. All I could do was limit how much we’d spend. No more than $1, I said. Enough for a generous portion of fried rice.

As he ate, Bianca asked him questions about his life. I welcomed this idea. It would be an opportunity for empathy-building, a way to learn more about the people we sadly learn to regard as travel annoyances.

He said he needs money to buy powdered milk for his baby sister. This set off alarms, since I had heard this from other beggars, including a woman carrying her baby.

Traveling in Cambodia, you learn quickly that Cambodians are great imitators but lousy innovators. If something works for one person, you can be sure many more will do the same.

For proof, compare the menus of any three restaurants in Siem Reap. Listen to the sales pitches of souvenir sellers. Notice how every street corner has a “Dr. Fish Massage” tank full of little fish that eat dead skin off your legs. Half of them offer a free beer with the $2 service.

The boy said his father lost his legs to landmines. He kept going, and it all started to sound a little too tragic. Instead of sympathy, I felt suspicion. This kid was combining several pity ingredients in a clumsy way. As a result, I wasn’t believing a word of it.

Then what I feared happened. Two other boys, who evidently witnessed our charity, entered the restaurant. One of them asked for a plate of fried rice while the other looked on. These kids usually move on after three “no, thanks” but this one would not budge.

And this is what I hated the most: I had to be a hard ass with the kid. I had to look at him sternly in the eye and say, “I said no. That’s final.”

As we got us and left our table, the boy’s eyes followed me with a load of rage I had never seen in this country of meek and deferential people.

“You stingy,” he spat.

It’s a lousy thing to hear, especially after buying one of his comrades lunch. And it exposed the third world beggar’s logic, which is so often kept veiled behind so many Have a nice day’s and Thank you sir’s.

And that logic is this: if you have the money to travel this far from home, you have the money to buy me food. You have the money to buy all of us food. So why don’t you?

Never mind that I worked hard for three years to save money for this trip. Never mind that I chose this country precisely because it’s cheap and I’m not rich. Never mind that I’m helping his countrymen by just being here, injecting money into their economy and creating jobs in tourism.

The boy was simply saying what most beggars think all the time, whether it’s true or not.

And that’s a hard but necessary truth to swallow no matter what comforts our faith in tourism dollars may provide.

Holy crap, I’m in Australia!

It was while sitting on a riverside restaurant on the Mekong Delta in the Vietnamese town of Chau Doc, which borders Cambodia. The resto floats on metal drums and bobs gently with the wash from passing boats.

You can see slender ladies with conical hats rowing their canoes across the river to visit a friend in a floating home, who might be washing her hair while crouching on her front porch.

That’s when it happened. “Holy crap,” I thought, “I’m really in Asia! Holy crap, I’m really traveling!”

A danger of extended travel is that it can become routine if you let it. You find yourself in another cheap hotel in another town. You get used to communicating with your hands and haggling over prices on a calculator. Exotic landscapes quickly become familiar as you adapt progressively quicker to alien environments.

You spend much of your time running practical errands, like changing money, and seeking reliable information. Yet the world is slowly becoming alike, and everything is getting easier. An ATM or internet cafe is seldom more than a few minutes away.

Worse still is the ubiquity of free or cheap wifi, giving you an easy refuge to the familiar, where you can forget that you’re in a shockingly different place.

And so I relish the little unexpected moments that slam you back to Earth, that remind you where you are and how lucky you are to be there.

I wish I had the discipline to wake up every morning and offer thanks to whatever force has allowed me to be wherever I am. Instead, I can thank an ageless brown river for spanking some gratitude into me.

What were some of your ‘Holy crap’ moments?

Other ones I had included:

In Solo, Central Java Indonesia, while sitting in a wedang, a food and drink cart that turns sidewalks into lounges with straw mats, iced teas and fritters. The sight of steam rising from food stalls under the pale yellow light from street lamps felt intensely Asian.

Watching a buffalo get sacrificed before my eyes in Toraja, South Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Hoisting a mosquito net over a bamboo and straw bed in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, where malaria is endemic.

Seeing the Sydney Opera House for the first time.

Feeling the slight discomfort and utter fascination of talking to a drunken Aboriginal woman in the streets of Alice Spring at 1 am.

Grilling green-lipped mussels that I picked myself at the Abel Tasman National Park in New Zealand.

Coming from the country of soccer is wonderful. From Zimbabwe to Vanuatu, you can be sure that your nationality will be instantly recognized – even loved – by the people you talk to. And that admiration will be instantly transferred to you.

Coming from the country of soccer is horrible. Especially if the wounds of defeat are still gushing blood. Or if, like me, you understand piddles about sport.

Then you have to confront conversations that look like this:

“Ah, Brazil! Ronaldo, Ronaldinho!”

“…Yes…(forced smile)”

You will be called upon to opine on Dunga’s performance as a coach. On the reasons for your country’s loss. You’ll be asked detailed analyses of the playing styles of Europe versus Latin America.

So what’s the best strategy to sneak away with elegance? Parrot Roberto’s explanations? Confess my ignorance and indifference and risk being seen as mad? Possibly break a few hearts?

I know! From now on, I’m no longer Brazilian.

“Hello, where you from?”

“Me, I’m from Canada!”

“Ahhh! Canada! Carlos Hernandez!”

“Sorry? Carlos Hernandez?”

“Yes, Carlos Hernandez! Football!”

(confused grimace)

“Oh, no, sorry, sorry, mister! Carlos Hernandez from Mexico!”*

I deserve it.

*Actual dialog with a taxi driver in Surabaya, East Java.

We’ve been together for month now, and it’s time we had that talk. I don’t know where you see this going, but I could say “the hell with it” to the rest of my year-long trip and stay here with you.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out. You didn’t really expect that, huh? Oh, stop giggling and listen.

Yes, you have beautiful beaches, scenic mountains, and hallowed temples, but it’s not just your body I fell in love with.

I feel really good with you. You treat me so well, and it’s not because of my money. Most times you don’t even ask for money. You just like being around me.

You give me a lift on a motorcycle in the rain then take me home to give me a dry shirt and some hot coffee. You talk to me on the train and take time off work the next day to show me around town. You teach me that it’s idiotic to keep a schedule, since you stop me every 30 meters to talk.

No, I don’t mind that you ask me 20 times a day where I’m from and how long I’ve been here. I don’t mind getting the occasional mouthful of truck exhaust and being nearly deafened by 100 passing motorbikes. You’re like a lover that farts in bed because she’s so comfortable and self-assured. You secretly know I’ll love you no matter what.

You don’t bother learning English because you’re too smart for that. You know that if I make the effort to speak your language, I’ll be rewarded in spades: a motorcycle ride through your narrow alleys, a free coconut sweet, your adorable laughter.

You’re religious, but not insufferably. You trim and mould religion to suit your lifestyle, not the other way around. You wear your Muslim headscarf with tight jeans and heels (and have no idea how confusingly hot that is). And you’re a good sport about it: you train monkeys to bow to Allah in town squares then poke them in the butt with a drumstick.

So you’re not exactly the best chef. Your food is good, but it can get pretty repetitive and sometimes outright disturbing. What the hell is this? A flattened and deep-fried lung? And yet, you manage to make me feel like a gastronomical Indiana Jones when your ugly streets explode to life with a million food stalls that tug me 10 different ways with their peanutty garlic grease.

But for God’s sake, go easy on the sugar. I can’t even taste the tea in this glass of diabetes. And do you have to smoke your clove cigarettes while you drive the bus? It’s not exactly well-ventilated in here.

Oh, whatever. Just go ahead, take my picture and add me on Facebook. I won’t understand anything you say there, but that’s ok. After all, our relationship is complicated.

The road had ceased being a road and it was now Mars after a bombing. Even when it was a road it still didn’t deserve being called one. It was as if the local authority had cleared the bush, dumped loads of rocks on it and said, “There, deal with it.”

Whatever holes were there, the morning rain enlarged them so they could, in theory, support a small reservoir for the nearby villages.

It’s no wonder the only car dealership in Mount Hagen, capital of the West Highland province in PNG, only sells four-wheel drive Toyota Land Cruisers.

We were returning to Hagen after an overnight trek up Mt. Giliwe, the second-highest peak in Papua New Guinea. We were tired from the eight-hour return hike, soggy from the rain, and still a bit frazzled from having slept in the middle of the jungle.

The Land Cruiser our guide was driving was admirably handling the terrain. In the car, his kids, wife, and nephews – who all climbed up the mountain with us, and none of whom spoke fluent English – were singing along to Abba with scary precision. Every time we went over a hole, our internal organs played a round of musical chairs.

But one hole was too formidable even for the mighty Japanese machine. It made the right half of the road rise far higher than the left. And as we heard that money must be funny in a rich man’s world, we felt the car tilt to the left.

We’ve all seen videos of cars flipping upside-down. I’ve always wondered was it was like to climb out of a capsized vehicle. Would it be through the window? The back door? Would the seat belt keep me glued to my seat?

Bianca, who was sitting between me and the driver on the front seat, was screaming as we realized that the car had tilted past the point of return and it was really about to flip over. But I was kind of excited as I squeezed the oh-shit bar on the passenger side.

But then, the car stopped. It stood at a perfect 45-degree angle to the imaginary horizon. Fearing it was just resting before completing its roll, I opened the door and slid out, taking Bianca with me.

It was a memorable sight, the big beige Japanese monster with its right-side wheels feebly in the air. The other passengers trickled out of the back door. Suddenly, we were surrounded by villagers who were pouring out of their huts.

It was like science fiction. An event set forth a reaction in its environment as though a collective consciousness was simply programmed to respond. One by one, villagers lined up against the car and began pushing it, an effort so natural and practiced, it reminded me of ants removing and obstruction in their hive.

Not one minute had passed since I escaped the car and it was back on four wheels, past the big hole.

After thanking the smiling villagers, we huddled back inside and off we went. The CD player was now on The Winner Takes it All and the children were singing along flawlessly.

We were escorted from the car by an entourage of village children who heard two white people would be spending the night in their community.

Understand that this is like learning that your neighbours would receive a visit from Madonna for a live performance in their living room.

It was already dark and we were led into a two-story hut that was pitch black inside. The kids were swatted away with a stick. Only the faint glow form a kerosene torch in the floor above served as a beacon.

Upstairs we were greeted by four people sitting around a fire pit in the centre of a smoky room. A large, dented aluminum pot was sitting on a metal box placed over the fire.

They received us with warm smile, saying little besides a few niceties in Pidgin. Like most PNG villagers, they are at once intimidated and marvelled by white tourists who make the conscious decision to visit their villages instead of remaining caged in high-end hotels.

We would later learn we were the first visitors they knew of to spend the night in a village home.

The dinner

Our host was Pundu, brother of Wako Napasu, owner of the young tour company Country Tours, which organized this trip. Pundu’s wife was busy stoking the fire by blowing into a long metal tube. The room filled with smoke that slowly seeped out through the straw roof.

Little by little, neighbours would drop in to cop a glance at the tourists and ask them a few questions if they spoke English. Where are you from? What’s the staple food in your country? How long will you stay in PNG? They understood us, but would often need their questions translated for us.

When the food was ready, we were each given a bowl with a half chicken each, a whole boiled cauliflower, and boiled ferns. When we protested that it was too much food, they insisted, telling us to leave what we couldn’t eat.

Everyone ate with their hands. Bones and other inedibles were tossed onto the fire pit, which served as a temporary rubbish bin.

We had spent the day climbing down the thick jungle track of Mt. Giliwe, and our shoes were soaked from rain and mud. While we ate, Pundu’s wife dutifully dried our shoes by the fire, rotating them with proud dedication. She even handled my filthy, soggy socks, which even I didn’t want to touch.

As we expected, we left a lot of food on our plates. This was happily devoured by others present, who had no problem gnawing at my half-eaten chicken thigh.

Pundu’s wife roasts sweet potatoes at breakfast

The shower

“Samson, Roberto laikim go was, yu go autsait wantaim em,” Joyce, Wako’s wife, barked in Pidgin to one of our bush guides who was also spending the night. Roberto wants to shower, go with him outside.

Samson carried a kettle of boiling water to the black of night and poured it into a bucket half-filled with cold water. It was sitting on a blue tarp just outside the house. There was a bowl inside the bucket. He sat and waited.

I undressed and poured bowlfuls over my head. The warm water felt lovely in the chilly night and I forgot I was bare-ass naked outside while a native watched. I could see the dirt from my body pooling in the water on the tarp.

Bed time

Our room was behind a ramshackle partition on the same floor where everyone ate. A flimsy door made from old wooden boards left enough space between floor and ceiling for someone to crawl through. Our bed was a few thin mattresses topped with a thick, sumptuous faux-fur blanket and a duvet as our cover.

Everyone else would sleep on a single mattress no thicker than a grilled cheese sandwich or on a straw mat. Our bed was by no means luxurious but it was the most comfortable in the house.

We fell asleep to the chatter in kagul, the local language, and to the smoke that billowed from the dying fire. When we woke up the next morning, roasted sweet potatoes were waiting for us.

The gift

In Melanesian culture, receiving guests in an honour. But “hospitality” is a poor word for the intense care and attention we received that night. Our ride was arriving and we were about to tell out hosts how memorable the experience had been.

But Korol, Pundu’s sister-in-law, spoke first. She extended a hand-made purse to Bianca. It was densely woven in tow shades of green, a month’s work even in experienced hands.

“I wish I had more than this bilum to offer you,” she said. “Take this as proof of the joy and privilege we felt for having you as guests in our home.”

We left the house with a purse and a few sweet potatoes, but it was more than we could ever carry. Our logic was turned on its head. The world where it is the host who is honoured with a wine bottle was far behind us. We, Westerners slumming in a primitive land, mere freeloaders in a barren rural home, were the ones who received the honour.

I can’t imagine, from now on, asking my guests to bring their own beer.