Upon Further Review ... Top Ten Takeaways from the trip

     I wanted to expand on a few key topics that made an impression on the trip.

This is the first five of a Top Ten Key Impressions - in no particular order

1.  Plumbing - 

     America has the best plumbing in the world.  A corollary to that would be most of the plumbing in the countries we visited was terrible.  
     Why do I say that?  The bathrooms stink, they are usually dirty and often filthy, the toilets don't work (if they have them), the showers run out the door, there is no hot water, the drains are usually plugged,  there is no water pressure, they never have adequate venting so the smells permeate the room, and so on. 
     And public toilets?  The worst.  If you dare go in there, you are taking your life in your hands.  

     Many bathrooms are simply "squatty potties", a hole in the floor over which you have to squat and do your business.  The bathroom on one train trip was hazardous to your health.

     
     Let me expand on this:  I used to be a plumber in my earlier years, and I pay attention to plumbing.  If there is one thing I know, it's plumbing.
     So my only conclusion is that other countries just don't put a high priority on sanitary, clean, or functional bathrooms.   
     As an example, in one relatively nice hotel we stayed at, the shower was basically a hole in the floor with a curtain around it.  The drain was plugged and the shower head shot water out past the curtain, which meant the water ran out under the door of the bathroom onto the hotel room carpet every time you took a shower. 
     I thought "doesn't anybody care enough about this to fix it?"    Apparently not.  
     American bathrooms (for the most part) are far superior to most other countries.   

2.  Passport control and border crossings

     Along with airport security.  Okay, you may remember the trouble while leaving the Warsaw Airport. 
     here is a link to the story meltdown at airport security
     I'm glad I didn't get in trouble there.  But frankly, the application of security checks is so random and inconsistent that I wonder how they really provide any security.  Sometimes they check you to the point of excess, and it takes forever.  Other times, they could care less and pay no attention to anything.  
     For instance - taking off your shoes.  Sometimes they make you and sometimes they don't.  I've noticed that even in the same airport the different lines have different rules.  And they jump on your case if you don't know - 
     Security:  "Take off your shoes, idiot!"
     Me: (pointing to someone else) "he didn't take his shoes off"
     Security:  "But I'm talking to you, Bozo!"

     Another issue - Passport control.  Let me be clear, I am in favor of tight scrutiny of travelers coming and going across international borders.  This can be a dangerous world and we should pay attention to who is going where.  
     But again, passport control is usually very unevenly applied.  At one major first world European country, they never even looked at our passport at all as we entered the country!  How are you supposed to keep the bad guys out if you don't even check their passport?  Rather troubling if you ask me. 

3.  Speaking English 

     Anyone who speaks English as their native tongue is lucky in this world.  Especially as a traveler.  Using the English language comes easily to us, but not to most foreigners.  They have to learn it to get along and travel.  
     Everywhere we went, almost without exception, we could find someone who could speak English.  That's good because we don't have any other language at our disposal.   (Well, I do pretty well in Spanish, but we didn't go to any Spanish speaking countries.  I did draw on it to communicate in Italy, but it was cheesy, and they just thought I was stupid)  
     

     Let me tell give you a language illustration:  I was talking to this guy from Sweden (I'll call him Lars) - and I complimented him on his English.  
     And Lars the Swede said "of course, I speak English, everybody in Sweden can speak English"
     Me:  "why is that?"
     Lars the Swede: "because they teach everyone in school from an early age"
     Me:  "but why teach everyone English?"
     Lars the Swede:  "Hey, there are only nine million people in the world who speak Swedish.  There is no place in the world where I can go and find someone who speaks Swedish, I need another language to talk.  Anywhere I go, someone can speak English.  And I'm a business person, so everyone everywhere in business can speak English."

4.  Clothing

     This could be a topic where you talk until infinity happens.  In other words, it's a pretty broad topic, but I wanted to mainly address the  clothes that we took along with us, or bought on the way, or threw out the window of the train.
Fiona throws her pants out the window
     As we were preparing to leave, we had to decide what to take with us in our limited baggage.  We made up our minds to take as little as possible, and confine everything to fit into a backpack each, for greater ease of getting around.  You either take everything or nothing, and we chose (almost) nothing. 

     It was bit surprising to me that when we got home, Fiona said, "you know I could have actually taken less clothing than I did"
     And my internal reponse inside my head was:  really?  I sure got tired of looking at that blue sweater you wore everyday.  
     Only I didn't say that out loud because I was using restraint and trying to not say something offensive.  Which brings up another topic - if you're going to travel around the world with someone and be joined at the hip for three months straight, you'd better get along pretty well, because your relationship will be tested big time.  But I digress.
     I bought three shirts along the way, several socks, a scarf for the cold, some flip flops, and other stuff.  Fiona bought stuff too.  Often it was to replace stuff we threw away.  Most of the time, clothing we pretty cheap everywhere we went.  There were more things we could have bought because we liked them or wanted to own them, but we had to pass - we didn't need them.
     The first thing we did when we got home was wash everything.  The clothes were sticky, stinky, dirty, and worn out. 
     Several times on the trip, we washed things in the hotel sink.  I got some good advice and often just wore what I had on into the shower, got it good and soaking wet, and took it off and laid it on the shower floor and stomped on it while I was washing my hair.  
     Surprisingly effective. 
     Compared to what many people were wearing, we had good clothes.  Some of the places we went, people were wearing rags. 
     We will never complain about what we have compared to most of the world.

5.  Cost of Living in different places

     Along with the numerous currency change, we had to constantly adjust to the cost structure of different countries.  There was a huge range of prices from place to place, but for the most part things were a bargain. 
     The biggest reason is the exchange rate of the US Dollar right now is the best in years.  In some cases, against some currencies, it's the best in history.  
     So if you need to buy something in South Africa, or pay for your hotel room or taxi ride, it was not expensive because the Dollar has never been stronger against the Rand. 
     Let me give you an example.  We were going to take the train from Kuala Lumpur Malaysia to Bangkok Thailand.  This is an overnight train with a sleeper berth.  It was a twenty hour train ride and they served two meals.  
     Total cost for Fiona and me?  Nine Dollars!
     But that wasn't always the case.  Some places were more costly.  Dubai comes to mind, it was the most expensive place we went, probably followed by Iceland and maybe the UK.
     On the other end, most places were quite inexpensive.  Malta was a total bargain, as were India, Cambodia, and Turkey.
     There were a few things that were universally expensive, like gasoline.  America pretty much has the cheapest gas in the world.  Everywhere else it is rather costly - average price usually around seven bucks a gallon.  
     Public transportation is really cheap.  Kind of a pain half the time, but often just pennies for a bus ride.  
     A word about public transportation.  When Fiona and I travel, we want to get out there with the regular folks.  We like to wander into every corner of the city, often on foot, but more commonly to take a train, bus, Metro, subway, boat, or other method.  
     We rarely used taxis.  For two reasons:  One, it's too easy.  It's a convenient default choice but remote from the citizens of most countries.  Usually the people riding in taxis were foreigners, not the typical person.  We preferred to mix with the locals. 

  
     Secondly, taxi guys always rip you off.  It's such a pain.  You often have to negotiate with a taxi driver on the price, and it gets really old.  They see your white skin and hear your foreign accent and the price skyrockets.  And they can basically take you wherever they want, while the meter (if they have one) just keeps spinning.  We tried to avoid taking taxis unless we had to. 
     But overall, there has maybe never been a better time to take a trip like we did from an economic viewpoint.


     Okay, so this is the first installment of the top ten observations and impressions.  More to follow tomorrow. 

     Thanks for listening.