When in Rome, What NOT to do.

Its been quiet a while since I had written one of these. All this time I was searching for some inspiration to write something that won’t make u close your window halfway through. (perhaps I was pretending to be Richard Castle…) By the end I was just left with a bunch of catchy titles and no content…

Ironically when writing was the least of my worries as I had the Herculean task of unpacking my bags from my last week’s visit to Singapore Malaysia, it hit me…..

There are so many things I could ramble on about my trip but those wouldn’t interest all… So today I just want to share a bunch of dos and don’ts while on a trip like this. I have learnt these, by observing the situations me and my friends got into. So any kind of resemblance to a real life event is purely intentional…….

1. To begin with, if on an airplane, you get an economy seat besides a hugely gigantic man who is going to fall asleep occupying half of your space, make sure you do your pee-pee and seat adjustments before or immediately after take-off. Otherwise you are left to have an awkward chit-chat with the air-hostess in the middle of the night!
2. If you are stuck in the middle of a looonnng line to a scary roller coaster, make sure you are well adjusted in your bowel-moving-schedule despite of the jet-lag. Or be prepared for an embarrassing accident in your pants.
3. When your hopped up on adrenaline while bending over and touching a bunch of sting-rays at the touch pool in the underwater world, make sure there are no electronic gadgets, say cameras hanging by your neck which may choke to death in the shallow water.. humph….
4. Oh, and speaking of touching, do not touch something like a python right before your lunch. Cause it ain’t pretty when you keep staring at your hands (despite of emptying the sanitizer bottle on them) wondering if you’ll ever summon the courage to bring them anywhere near your mouth ever again…!
5. When at a zoo, a safari, a bird park, make sure u click the cute animals in your brains with your eyes first before clicking them in your cameras. Otherwise you are left bewildered when your parents ask you if you saw the penguins at the water world or the bird park.. (and then get all judgmental saying you are absentminded…)
6. If you plan on staying up late with your group at nights chatting, laughing, playing housie, use different hotel rooms every night for the get together. That way the same neighbor will not be disturbed more than once and the new ones will wait patiently a considerable amount of time before complaining at the reception. Also note, playing kabbaddi in the hotel lobby is not recommended.
7. Do not slap your local tour guide right away if he yells “SEXYYY” and grabs your hand at a subway. He could be referring to your tattoo. Also, touching complete strangers might not be a big deal in their culture (even though you feel the entire crowd is staring)
8. When in a foreign land you represent India, so sometimes its better to tone down the extreme “Indian ness”. For example, it was mentioned to me that we Indians use our hand gestures vividly… Apparently, to us, cupping our fingers and rotating the cupped palm pointing it to the receptionist before actually saying anything, is asking for an adaptor! (please visualize this scene putting yourself in it to get hilariousness of the situation) So next time tone your hand gestures down because they might mean something else to others and you might end up with an adaptor shaped dent on your face!
9. If you are hungry or thirsty and want a drinks and snacks break, make sure your are not on the MRT or LRT (trains) in Singapore. (or any place that’s outside India for that matter) Consequently you could end up grabbing hold to a fist full of shev praying that the train doesn’t decelerate hard and you don’t spill the shev to get a 500$ ticket….
10. Lastly, if your local tour guides have some preconceived wrong ideas about Indians and India that they share with you the very first day, make sure you do anything and everything to correct them… (besides abusing them to their face in your Indian mother tongue…. )

So next time you are out make a list of dos and don’ts that you learnt yourself in similar humorous situations and you will have a great and entertaining trip!

P.S If you like this entry, please share it to your friends and feel welcome to add your own similar experiences….