As you walk around Bangkok, smells rotate between must, sweat, garbage, car/bus/motorcycle exhaust, raw chicken, unidentifiable cooking meat, &what I only know as "that one fish that smells like pus." It's crowded, &takes a while to figure out how to get around or find addresses. Everyone stares &compliments your tattoos, but even the nicest people want to charge you more for anything they can because you're obviously not Thai. A decent but still cheap meal is between 30 and 150 Baht, or about $1-5 US, &even if you're careful, there's a good chance you'll get sick from it. I did. Violently, even. The birds here sound extra cute, for some reason, pipping &chirping in the trees &on the edge of buildings.There are friendly stray cats everywhere, &everyone takes care of them collectively. There are stray dogs, too, but they just run around, mostly out of control. One chased me, barking wildly &snapping at the bottle of please-help-me-feel-less-shitty-Gatorade in my 7-Eleven bag. Garbage cans aren't really a thing in most areas. There are tiny &pristine shrines to the Buddha everywhere, &enormous ones all over, too. I saw a rat carefully maneuver his way to the front of one of these shrines, try to eat incense ashes, &then retreat in embarrassment. Thai people have a great deal of respect for tradition &religious customs, but rats don't.Tuk tuk drivers aren't afraid of running you over -- they assume you'll get out of their way. If you're anywhere near Japanese tourists, so many of them will ask to take a photo with you &your tattoos. Riding the SkyTrain, you'll think these people are nuts for wearing so much clothing with temperatures this high. There are far more tiny lizards scurrying around than there are bugs, but, fuck, are they ever huge when you do see cockroaches. There are dozens of Wats sprinkled all over, from the ornate-but-modestly-sized temples to the opulence of the Grand Palace. If you have a lot of extra money, you can take small trips to gorgeous beaches or do cool shit like feeding baby tigers at a monastery three hours from the city. My last day in Thailand, I did the latter, &it was every bit as surreal as you think it'd be.

It's not as hot up north as it is in Thailand, but a lot of the smells are the same, minus as much meat. There are even less garbage cans, &the trash is just about every single place you look down. Traffic lanes &stop lights are merely suggestions, &I suspect there aren't any traffic laws. The sound of horns honking is steady &unrelenting. Cows wander against &across traffic, in all directions, some led by cattle herders &others possibly wild. Taxi &rickshaw drivers will ask you personal questions about your career &your marriage (or lack thereof), but these topics aren't considered unusual or rude here.There are people shouting over one another, asking you where you're from &trying to sell you things &scam you in ways that don't even make sense. Again, you're a foreigner, so you're a walking dollar sign. The food &accommodations are cheap here, too, but just as suspect as in Thailand. Advertising celebrates all things Westernized, from wildly-colored billboards featuring countless American brands to the multitudes of "lightening beauty creams" targeted at Indian women. That broke my heart. You can take a train to Agra, the town where the Taj Mahal stands, for about 650 Rupees, or $13 US, for a nice, air-conditioned car with a good bit of privacy, but that's only if you can figure out their ridiculous ticket purchase system. Once you're there, you either walk through the slums or take a shoddy taxi to your hotel or wherever. The eagerness everyone approaches with when offering their services makes you wonder if you're going to be kidnapped. Five times a day, the call to prayer blasts from speakers in the areas with the most Muslims, but it's too noisy to really notice it except the 5:30am call. Electricity even in the nicest hotels goes out a few times a day, but at least the nicer places have back-up generators. There are even more cows, just hanging out &eating garbage, &they give you the warmest stares. There are more stray dogs &cats wandering, wild pigs along the roadside &monkeys sitting on rooftops eating stolen snacks.That Taj Mahal I mentioned is swarming with people more interested in taking a photo to show they were there than actually experiencing it's grandeur. It's grounds are mind-blowing, maybe made even more so in stark contrast to the families washing clothes in the Yamuna River just to the North of the of the tomb. Most of all, leaving India is the biggest &most exhausting ordeal you'll ever experience, &if you're me, you will cry out of frustration.

&eventually take a much earlier flight home if you're me, even after a good friend spends hours on the phone with the booking company &airlines to rearrange your flights so that you can still continue on your trip, just in an abridged &slightly less crazy format. You will still leave much earlier, if you're me, &skip Costa Rica altogether, because there's no way you're going to survive another two weeks of all this, &besides, there's someone back home you'd rather be traveling with, anyways. If you're me, you will return to your own bed finally, with vertigo, a head cold, &a body that begs for days of sleep.