My 3 Embarrassing Travel Confessions

This post is going to make me sound so utterly superficial and spoilt, but here goes.  I feel a bit embarrassed by this, but I have 3 confessions to make about travel:

1. One thing is, I am unable to rough it and prefer a certain standard when it comes to hotels.  To me the room can be tiny, but at least the bathroom has to be nice.  I always need to look at photos of the bathroom before I decide on a hotel.  I can’t believe that when I was much younger I stayed in a room with bunk beds for 12 and you had to walk down the corridor to share the communal bathroom.  Then I was not as fussy and the whole trip with my friends was so much fun.  The communal thing was actually fun.

When I was a child we only stayed at super cheap seedy motels and could only afford car trips to neighbouring Malaysia.  Those are the trips that I remember most fondly, because they were trips with my darling father.  Once a rat ate through our luggage leaving a gaping hole.  When I say seedy, I really mean seedy.  Now that I am older, I have grown a lot more finicky.  I am extremely hygiene and space conscious.

2.  I am a lazy traveller.  If I have to walk too far in the hot sun I will groan and whinge. No mountain climbing for me.  I am glad I did this when I was younger and like an energizer bunny.  On a Geography field trip in Bali I recall walking for hours from morning till evening over hilly terrain.  But even then it was not fun.  More like torture if I’m being completely honest.  We were all scorched, tired and sick at the end of the gruelling trip. And I’d rather forget the ramshackle places we stayed at where in mid shower the water would go off and you could hear your classmates crying out with soap in their eyes.  In one of the rooms the whole sink fell down when one of the boys leaned on it. It was pretty traumatic for him and the other boys made fun of him after the incident – poor guy!  Teenagers can be so insensitive.

3. These days I hanker for burgers.  Yes, I’m a Asian woman who just loves chicken burgers.  Unlike me, my partner can’t go without rice and can’t understand my non-Asian cravings.

So when I was in Vietnam I had burgers at KFC twice.  I know that’s terrible. I was in the land of amazing Pho and spring rolls, but the burgers were so good, because the chicken was so fresh and tastier than anything I’ve had in Singapore.   Here are more photos from the Vietnam KFC where the staff are so friendly. As I was taking photos they waved and posed for me.

photo by bookjunkie

photo by bookjunkie

photo by bookjunkie

photo by bookjunkie

photo by bookjunkie

photo by bookjunkie

photo by bookjunkie

photo by bookjunkie

About bookjunkie

Blogging about life in Singapore & recently cancer too.
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14 Responses to My 3 Embarrassing Travel Confessions

  1. 365days2play says:

    Hmmm sounds exactly like me. It’s only normal!! We pay good money so why shouldn’t we expect the best? Besides, holidays are usually to destress, so luxury is necessary!! With limited amounts of leave, how can we waste it roughing it out. I already do that in the office.

  2. OK….you’ve confessed…don’t you feel better?

  3. Maria says:

    I had to laugh about your KFC comments. I like to visit fast food places everywhere I visit, just to see how they differ from country to country. When I was in Vietnam, Asia was in the midst of the bird flu crisis, and all the chickens had been culled. KFC was serving Kentucky Fried Fish!

  4. ruth says:

    haha I’m going to try KFC if I visit Vietnam!

    FYI you’re not the only one visiting fast food places overseas. My go to place is always Macs 😀 coz they nearly always have an interesting “local special” fusion food! I try that with my comfort food of course. fries 🙂

  5. J says:

    Well, I for one would love to head up a volcano or raft down river. Throw me in the jungle anytime, I’ll probably be enjoying it. And to top that up, a nice scrub in a luxury hotel is definitely a warm welcome after the initial nights some simple, basic kampong hut.
    When I travel, the last thing I feed myself is anything familiar. 😀

  6. floramoreno says:

    Jeff and I usually stay at pretty nice places (we stayed at the Park Hyatt in Saigon, right across from that KFC actually), too. I don’t think there’s shame in that.

    But when it comes to eating, we like to eat the local fare. Even if that means eating at some pretty seedy restaurants. We learn a lot about a country’s people by the food and the customs associated with eating.

    • bookjunkie says:

      The Park Hyatt is lovely. I went to the Hair Salon here. I think it’s probably the best hotel in Saigon. We stopped by at the Highlands Coffee which was just across from this hotel.

      I too like to try the local fare (although in India I succumbed to a weak stomach), but I find it interesting to see the different takes on fast food in various countries.

  7. Crystal says:

    I am a TOTAL princess about travel now. When I was 23, I went to New Orleans by myself. I flew coach, and was just happy to be going somewhere I had to fly to reach. I stayed at a youth hostel in a room with 3 or 4 other women in the room and slept on scratchy thin sheets and showered under a piss of a shower and was just thrilled to be in New Orleans.

    Not quite a decade later, if the hotel isn’t a Western 3/4/5 star property, I’m not going.

    Flying in regular coach instead of coach plus or business? WHY DO YOU HATE ME?

    I’m not adventurous with food at all, and I can’t really think of a country I have visited (with the exception of Switzerland, where we only stayed for 20ish hours) where I haven’t sought refuge in a McDonalds at least once.

    • bookjunkie says:

      I am glad I am not the only one who loves a bit of pampering. Especially now that I’m out of the anything goes.. 20’s. It think it was more of case of not knowing any better…not being aware of the luxury out there (an ignorance is bliss situation).

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