Ever since I was young and would see exotic destinations on TV or postcards my aunt would send me from around the country during her travels, I always knew I wanted to see the world. Although my parents always said that travel was for “rich people” and that I could always travel once I retired, both ideas sounded completely senseless to me. For one, people on limited budgets travel all the time. People save money and backpack through countries, staying at hostels and scoring cheap flight deals; students always do this, and I used to do the same when I was in college and in my years just after graduation. The second idea is terrible because… let’s just be blunt: how do we even know we will ever even reach retirement? What if we die of a life-threatening disease or get hit by a car and killed way before then? Plus, even if you are fortunate enough to reach retirement age and actually stop working, how can you possibly be so sure that you will be able minded or able bodied enough to want or enjoy travel? My dad has suffered from worsening arthritis for years now. My mom has a disc out of alignment in her back, which she’s suffered from since my teen years. Was my mom really naive enough to think that she would be traveling in her retirement with a husband who doesn’t even want to see Canada, the country just to the north of us without their daughter pushing them to go, or that she’d be adventurous enough like some of her friends to travel in women’s friend groups?

Once I had my first international experience for a month away in Shanghai when I was 20, I was completely enamored and hooked, and all I wanted was more, more and more. While I have friends who love travel but also can’t wait to come home, I’ve honestly never felt that way about any trip, ever. The only time I’ve ever really gotten a small feeling of wanting to come home was after our longer stints in Melbourne at Chris’s parents house, which is essentially like a third home for me.

You would think that because I love travel that I love talking about it. This is a bit of a tough one: I love discussing travel… but with like-minded people. I like discussing it with people who have a curiosity about cultures other than their own, who want to go to places that aren’t just the main hot spots that Americans go to, and who love different cuisines. I love talking about travel with people who aren’t afraid to leave their comfort zone. If you don’t fit any of those descriptions, I probably won’t enjoy sharing with you. I get bored and annoyed when I come back from trips, and occasionally a colleague will make a statement like, “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to go to that part of the world (we’re discussing India), but I always get scared that I won’t be able to get by because they don’t speak English, and that’s all I speak.” Okay, this response is flat out wrong for multiple reasons: 1) if you are simply a tourist in a place like Asia, you will likely be staying at an accommodation where everyone CAN speak English, and they will be ALL OVER you to help you if you wish because hospitality is a priority in their culture, 2) Um, one of the national languages of India is ENGLISH, and since you work at an education tech company, you should know this given most of our customers start their user base in India, where they are taking our courses… IN ENGLISH, and 3) 70% of communication is body language. While on your holiday, you’re unlikely planning to have a discussion about the quadratic formula or the hidden meaning behind Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, so please get over yourself that you won’t be understood. You’ll want usual, everyday things conveyed like, “how much is this?” or (ugh) “Does this have wheat in it?” Plus, if there truly is a doubt, there’s always this thing called GOOGLE TRANSLATE. A little kindness and a smile also can go a long way.

Yes, that comment did really get said to me last week after I returned. And yes, I did correct this person’s ignorance and nicely respond with all the replies I noted above. The other comment I got from another colleague was, “How did you choose India and Sri Lanka?” That seems like a fair question initially, right? Until you think about this: if I had said I was going to Paris, Rome, or Barcelona, no one would ever ask me why I chose any of those destinations. And we all know why: the three European cities I mentioned are heavily trafficked by tourists. When people go to a place like Sri Lanka or India, there always… needs to be a reason outside of just, I want to go there and have fun and eat! They are seen as more foreign and exotic lands, less accessible to those in the West.

Another thing I do love about sharing travel: when people actually take my suggestions or recommendations. I get so, SO excited when I’ve shared different lists that Chris and I have compiled, and someone comes back from their trip and lets me know that yes, they did book our day guide in Saint Emilion! Yes, I did book the wine tasting tour in Chianti! OMG, the paella place you recommended in Valencia was one of the best meals of our entire Spain trip! All the above have happened, with the paella restaurant comment happening the most recently. This always makes me happy, as I love sharing things we’ve done that other like-minded people will potentially enjoy.

This isn’t meant to be a fully comprehensive pro and con list of traveling as an American. If it were, this discussion would be a lot, lot longer. But in a nutshell, over the course of our travels in the last 11 years, I’d say that if there is just one massive pro to traveling as an American, it’s the power of the U.S. dollar. The U.S. economy is strong. We live in a country that is a major world power. All of that contributes to why earning money in U.S. dollars is so much to our advantage. It means that in the vast majority of countries where we have traveled, the exchange rate has been in our favor. When we traveled to Australia for a month in December, every time we bought anything, whether it was food or an actual good, when we’d look at the price tag in Australian dollars, we were essentially getting a nearly 40 percent off discount. During our travels in Sri Lanka, the exchange rate was about 300 Sri Lankan rupees to $1 USD, so a grand meal of crab at 1450 LKR cost us a mere $4.50 USD. When I see these exchange rates when I travel, it makes me even more painfully cognizant of how the everyday worker in a country like Sri Lanka would find it quite challenging to be able to not only afford airfare to have a holiday in a country like the U.S., but to actually enjoy a real holiday adventure while away. The average income for someone who identifies as “middle class” in Sri Lanka is about $3,658 USD/year to put this in some perspective.

For the biggest top of mind con of traveling as an American, I would say there’s two things that immediately spring into my head: 1) we don’t have generous vacation policies, and even when we work at companies or in industries where we have “unlimited PTO,” there’s generally an unspoken expectation that it’s NOT a good thing for you to consider taking 2-4 weeks off at a time. My company has a “discretionary PTO policy,” yet if I were to take off more than ten consecutive business days, it would require department head approval, which… is saying quite a bit. It’s always a running joke that Americans think a “long vacation” is five consecutive business days off, yet somehow, our European and Australian counterparts will usually, at minimum, take two weeks off, while a holiday of an entire month is fairly normal. But what this means for us as Americans is that essentially, we have a lot less time to explore any given place. This last trip, we spent five full days in Kerala, and about six days in Sri Lanka across two cities. But that doesn’t even factor in the time spent in transit to and from, which were essentially two full days. We barely made a surface dent on each place because we just didn’t have enough time. Was it fun? Yes. Would it have been even more fun and comprehensive if we’d had more time there? Obviously.

The second con of being an American and traveling? Well, for one, Americans aren’t really known as being the smartest cookies on the planet given our embarrassing math and reading scores, plus how inane a lot of our politicians sound to the world via the media. And two, because we’re not seen as that intelligent, we’re oftentimes the prime targets for pickpockets and con people who are looking to profit off us. A number of my colleagues over the years have fallen into these traps, sadly, and so unfortunately, it’s a bit closer to home for me.

The history of tea in India and Sri Lanka is a bit of a sad one. While the British were responsible for introducing tea to India in the nineteenth century after taking it out of China, the Brits essentially made a crap ton of money off of the growth and production of tea in India and Sri Lanka. They had local Indians and Sri Lankans do the hard labor of the growing, cultivating, and processing of tea, paying the locals very little for their back breaking labor and long hours. And then, the Brits took the majority of not only the high quality tea leaves, but also the profits. That’s actually the history of how masala chai, or Indian spiced milk tea, became popular: the British took all the high quality tea leaves for their own consumption and sent it back to Great Britain; they left all the “broken” rejected tea leaves (now known as “CTC” tea, or “cut, tear, curl” tea) for the local Indians to drink. And for the Indians to make something tasty out of the British rejects, they added delicious spices like cardamom, clove, cinnamon, ginger, and then milk, steeped it on the stove to meld the flavors and make the tea extra strong, and then essentially made it their own. It’s really come full circle now, when you think about it, because now, White people get excited about chai and want it, which is why “chai” seems to spice everything, from lattes to breads to cookies. The non-Indian people who want it don’t always seem to know what the term “chai” even means, though, so you hear a lot of Indian comedians make fun of White people saying “chai tea”: it’s essentially redundant because “chai” actually means tea, so it sounds idiotic to say “tea tea.” It’s also why almost every single coffee shop, including Starbucks, has a “chai latte” made from some crappy, cheaply made syrup. Today, White people want what the Indians made out of the crap they were given by their White colonizers back in the day.

The story of Dilmah tea is a fun one that aligns with this “coming full circle” thought, though. The Lankan founder of Dilmah tea learned about tea production through British owned companies operating in Sri Lanka, but he always wanted to run his own tea business. So when he turned the ripe age of 58, he decided to break off from these companies, use what he learned, and create his own tea business. He combined the names of his two sons and created the “Dilmah” tea company. He wanted to reclaim tea for Sri Lankans by bringing ownership back to the native people. Dilmah is a huge luxury tea brand that has international presence now; you often see their tea bags in the tea trays at 4-5-star hotels around the world. They distribute globally, but I still have yet to find them anywhere here in the U.S.

I got introduced to Dilmah during my first trip to Australia in December 2012, and I’ve been a huge fan ever since. Chris’s parents drink Dilmah Ceylon tea daily, and though they use tea bags, which are typically filled with “tea dust” and are low quality, I found this tea to be the best, most well rounded black tea out of a bag I’ve ever had. So every time we go back to Australia, we always stock up on Dilmah tea bags. So, as you can probably imagine, I was quite excited to finally visit Sri Lanka as the home of Dilmah, and to see what other varieties existed.

On our last day in Colombo, we visited the Dilmah T-Lounge at their Chatham Street location. The lounge was really beautiful – a very comfortable, colorful, modern place to catch up with friends and share a good quality pot of tea. The range of teas was nearly endless, and almost all of the options for purchase were loose leaf, as tea was meant to be enjoyed. I found varieties that you likely cannot easily get outside of Sri Lanka, such as Endane Estate Sapphire Pekoe, Yata Watte Ceylon Tea, Meda Watte Ceylon tea, and Nilagama Estate BOPF tea, and given the exchange rate from Lankan Rupees to the U.S. dollar, none of these containers of tea cost more than $5 USD, which was quite a steal. It was hard to narrow down the choices of what to buy, and I definitely had some decision paralysis, but I finally did and got so excited at my purchases and when I’d be able to enjoy these once back at home.

While walking around the streets of Colombo, we noticed that there was a section of the city that had a number of Chinese businesses. While in Sri Lanka, it was pretty rare to see foreign businesses or cuisines, and so when we did see them, they really stuck out. I also noticed a number of workers leaving offices at the end of the work day who appeared to be ethnically Chinese. I wondered to myself if these people were born and raised in Sri Lanka, or if they were coming from mainland China for work opportunities here.

We stopped by a cafe that was tied to our restaurant to get something to drink, and I noticed a man and a woman, both speaking in Beijing accented Mandarin in business casual clothing, chatting over coffee and desserts. They apparently noticed me, too, as I was chasing Kaia around the cafe after letting her out of her stroller. The man poked his head out and motioned to me, asking me in Chinese if I were Chinese from China. I smiled, feeling a bit sheepish about how long it had been since I’d had a real conversation with anyone in Chinese (unfortunately, it doesn’t count to have one-way Chinese conversations with Pookster). I responded, No, I’m American, but my family is originally from China. And he smiled back: Oh, so you’re overseas Chinese (yes, there is actually a Chinese word for this: it’s “hua yi”).

We had a quick conversation along with his female colleague, and from that brief exchange, I learned quite a bit. He said that before he saw me chasing around Pookster, he had assumed I must be here for school (HAHA, I told him I had finished college YEARS ago). He asked what brought us to Sri Lanka, and I told him we came to India and Sri Lanka on holiday but were leaving the next day. From their accents, I could tell they were from Beijing, but I decided to feign ignorance anyway and asked about their background. They shared that they were both from Beijing but here in Colombo for a temporary work project for a few months. I commented how I found it interesting that we had already seen so many ethnically Chinese looking people and businesses here, and he informed me that there are over 100 Chinese companies that have offices in Colombo, so it’s very common for them to send mainland Chinese workers here, either to live and work permanently, or on temporary projects like themselves. Wow – to get to go on a work trip to Sri Lanka would be truly amazing! I asked them if they’d had time to do any sight-seeing between work, as I understood that Chinese work culture is pretty brutal, and they told me that they spend their weekends exploring and traveling to other parts of the country; Galle was one of their favorite quick destinations from Colombo.

It was a short exchange, but it was nice to chat with people who actually live and work there, even if it is temporary. It was also a rare and fun chance for me to have a conversation 100 percent in Mandarin Chinese, which is getting rusty by the day, and which I try to refresh with Udemy language videos as well as YouTube Mandarin refreshers. Every time they asked me a question or said something, I had to spend at least a second or two digesting what they said, figuring out whether I understood their full meaning, and then formulating how I would respond. I wish I had more of this practice every day.

Other than cuisine and learning about new cultures, a big highlight of traveling for us is seeing unique sights that we don’t see every day here at home. Off the top of my head, some of the most quirky and memorable sights we have seen were the World’s Largest Pistachio in New Mexico, the bubble gum wall at Pike Place Market in Seattle (yes, it was definitely gross), the Canadian Potato Museum in Prince Edward Island, and the Catacombs in Paris. We can add another site to that quirky list: Helga’s Folly, the “anti hotel” in Kandy!

While researching our visit to Kandy, I came across this recommendation as a place to either have a quick snack or a meal in a “unique” setting. While you can certainly book accommodation here, I think the real charm is in being in the hotel for a bit to observe all the unique artwork and decor. Helga’s Folly is considered an “art nouveau” boutique hotel, outfitted in a mix of traditional Sri Lankan and Dutch decor and furniture, with rooms covered from floor to ceiling in hand-painted murals, glass and tile mosaics, and newspaper and magazine clippings. No inch of the place is spared of some eccentric jungle, ghost, or godly mural, or some sort of glass or ceramic decor. There are skulls and skeletons every which way you turn. Massive candelabras covered in what looks like years and years’ worth of wax are strategically positioned every ten or so feet you walk.

This hotel was originally a mansion owned by the famous De Silva family. Edmond Frederick Lorenz De Silva was a popular Sri Lankan politician who was the former Sri Lankan ambassador in Paris. Once his daughter Helga inherited the property, she converted it into a hotel and renamed it “Helga’s Folly.” She spent a lot of time hand painting and decorating the entire place herself as a form of therapy to move on from the suicide of her first husband, and the unhappy marriage to her second. It is known to be one of Kandy’s very first hotels. Many famous people have stayed there, including Vivien Leigh and Mahatma Gandhi (!), who was apparently a family friend of the De Silvas.

As soon as we entered, I knew this place would be creepy. There was no one at the front desk, and most of the lights were either dim or off completely. We stopped by as a respite from the pouring rain (we were traveling during monsoon season, after all), and we had tea, juice, an omelet (which was originally meant for Pookster, but she refused it), homemade bread rolls, and some really delicious and crunchy ginger snaps. The tea was served in a very grand, silver, antique rotating teapot, which I had never seen before, but was completely amused by when using it. It was a nice rest from the rain, and a good time to let Pookster roam around relatively freely.

But we made the mistake of accidentally leaving behind her baby drinking cup, so the next day, we had to come back to retrieve it. We called to ensure the cup was still there and had an Uber driver take us back up the hill. I went into the hotel myself to fetch the cup. But this time, literally no one was in there. No sounds could be heard. Every single light was off, though the front door was wide open. I walked up the stairs to the dining area, where I knew the kitchen was by, and called out about five times. I waited at least two minutes before anyone responded and came out to greet me, but that two minutes felt like an eternity, surrounded by all these creepy skeletons, black walls with ghoulish murals, and musty newspaper clippings from the 80s and 90s. I could feel myself getting a slight chill over my body, despite the fact that it was so hot and humid outside. When someone came out with a smile and presented the cup back to me, I immediately took it, thanked him, and dashed out.

It is no wonder that place is said to be haunted or possessed. I would NOT be comfortable sleeping overnight there for many, many reasons. I do hope it survives, as it’s definitely very kitschy and has an interesting story, but eeeek.

Everywhere we went in India and Sri Lanka, people probably stared at us and wondered about us as a family: a mixed Indian-Chinese/Vietnamese couple with a mixed race child. We got asked a few times about our backgrounds, and they always thought it was interesting that we were a mixed race family. One night, when I was in a sari shop trying to ask if they sold toddler sized lehengas, two workers were eager to help me while I pushed Kaia around in the stroller. One of them asked me about my background, then asked about my husband’s. When I let them know, he marveled and kept repeating over and over again, “Wow! This child is Indian, Chinese, AND Vietnamese, living in America! WOW!” It was as though I brought in a tiny celebrity into their fancy sari shop, and the rest of the workers were oogling over Kaia’s “exotic” background.

There are always going to be people who marry “into” their race. People are comfortable with what they are comfortable with, and I get it: it’s nice and easy to not have to explain every single tradition custom or food or flavor, or have to translate everything from one’s mother/father tongue. But as the world becomes ever more connected, and as people continue getting more educated and intermingling, it’s inevitable that there will continue to be more and more mixed race babies and people, and those mixed race people will likely mix even further and create the most interesting and unique “mutts” we have yet to know. As naive as it may sound, maybe that could potentially be a way to combat prejudice and racism: if there are more people with more varied backgrounds roaming this land and earth, perhaps people will realize that it’s more “normal” and discriminate less. Then, people like Kaia Pookie won’t be so “interesting” or “unique” or “exotic,” and she will eventually be just like the rest of the world of mutts.

Sri Lanka is an island nation of over 22 million people, yet somehow, until very recently, I knew very little about the cuisine. I think if the average person were asked what Sri Lankan cuisine was, they’d have no idea how to even respond, which is so sad considering how rich, varied, and scrumptious it is. I knew about some of its overlaps with south Indian cuisine, in the form of hoppers, rotis, and parathas, but I knew nothing else prior to this trip. Like in a lot of cultures around the world, Lankan cuisine is one of those that can be frustrating because a lot of what native Sri Lankan people love about specific dishes… is specific to the recipes/methods their mothers, grandmothers, and family members have. While sambal may be a common accompaniment to meals in Sri Lanka, the flavor profile can vary greatly from one restaurant to another, one household to another.

One of the places that is especially renowned within Sri Lanka for its cuisine is Jaffna, the capital city of the Northern Province of the country. It’s where the complex and delicious red jaffna curry that came with our crab at Mayura Hotel originates from. And given its coastal location, Jaffna is famous for fresh seafood mixed with lots of aromatic spices, plus tons and tons of freshly grated coconut and coconut milk. Although we didn’t have a chance to visit Jaffna, having that crab curry at Mayura Hotel was definitely a tasty hint of what we could expect on a future trip there.

One place we had a late lunch at during our last full day in Colombo was Culture Colombo, a relatively new, modern Sri Lankan restaurant that attempts to showcase multiple regional cuisines under a single roof. One of the most memorable dishes of our entire trip was another crab curry we had here, which was called kakuluwo Negombo kramayata. The description read: freshly caught crab (350g) marinated and slow cooked according to a unique recipe of an authentic household in Negombo. Negombo is a city that is about a 6.5-hour train ride north of Colombo. It’s also a popular beach destination that is known for super fresh crabs. The Negombo crab curry we had at Culture Colombo was just as delicious, if not more, as the jaffna crab curry at Mayura hotel. This was really light, silky, and extremely aromatic. It almost has a floraly, grassy flavor at the end. I could also tell that it was lightly spiced with cinnamon, which was a slightly sweet touch. Chris said he could just drink this curry broth/soup endlessly and not even eat the crab!

Sri Lankan cuisine is lesser known and under appreciated. Although many of the flavors overlap with parts of India, it’s clearly its own cuisine. I hope we will have more opportunities in the future to taste more of what this beautiful country has to offer for our tummies.

In Kerala, I was definitely a spectacle everywhere we went. I know that it wasn’t just the fact that we were pushing around a stroller (very rare to see anyone pushing any baby on a stroller either in India or in Sri Lanka), or that I was a Chinese-Vietnamese woman walking around with a brown-skinned, seemingly Indian man with a baby… or even the fact that people would quickly come to the conclusion that because of the two people pushing the stroller around, that this baby was a MIXED “Chindian” baby – a very unique and interesting “thing” to look at!

I got stared at a lot. And it was definitely because in their eyes, and in their country, in a sea of Indian people everywhere, I was a minority, and so because of that, I stood out. As Chris always likes to say: Indians are the biggest “starers” in the world: they stare with little discretion and have zero desire to hide the fact that they like to stare. They likely think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with staring. So everywhere we went, people stared at me, turning their heads, their eyes constantly lingering on me and every move I made. On our first trip to India, I tried my best to be modest and cover my back and shoulders for the most part with a shawl, but it got really sweaty and disgusting after a while, so I eventually just abandoned it. I tried it maybe once or twice on this trip and finally just threw in the towel and gave up. Regardless of whether my shoulders were bare or not, people were still going to stare at me and think I was some interesting object. So what was the point of trying to be modest and cover up, anyway? After the first couple days, I got over it. But people still insisted on peering into the stroller to see my little Pookster’s face. Others got protective over her, especially when the sun would occasionally get into her face, and start waving at us to cover our baby and prevent the sun from shining directly on her.

But as soon as we landed in Colombo, all of that changed. Suddenly, I realized that no one was really staring at me anymore, and that if anyone was looking at us, they did it very discreetly, or they focused solely on my Pookster. So the next time anyone tries to make the statement that Sri Lankans are “basically just Indian,” my reply back will quickly be, “Well, no, they’re a totally different country and ethnicity. And also, Indians have ‘staring’ ingrained in their culture, whereas Lankans actually are able to exercise some discretion.”

We were very fortunate to have a Saturday in Colombo because that’s the only day of the week when the Good Market Lanka is open. Good Market Lanka is an outdoor market that happens every Saturday in the city of Colombo that is made up of different independent and local social enterprises, artisans, and businesses that are environmentally friendly, organic, and sustainable. The market has over 120 vendors and operates as a non-profit with a brick and mortar shop that is open every day, though each Saturday, anywhere from 70-80 vendors set up stalls in the nuga tree car park at the Colombo Racecourse to showcase and sell their goods. After breakfast at the hotel this morning, we went to the Good Market to see what this “good market” was all about. It was definitely very modern, laid out like a lot of the farmers markets you see in Manhattan or New York, with similar fun signs and awnings to let you know what each offers. But when you take a look at exactly what goods and foods the vendors are offering, you quickly realize that this is anything BUT what you’d find back in the U.S.

We had tastings drizzled directly on our fingers of local fresh and aged Sri Lankan honeys, which had a level of richness and complexity we’d never quite tasted before. We stopped by a hopper stall to pick up a sweet honey version of a hopper, which was made to order in the typical rounded bottom hopper pan and drizzled with honey, served on a small banana leaf. We purchased a cup of avocado “juice,” which was different for us; we’re mostly used to having avocado in a smoothie form, mixed with ice cream, ice, sugar, and milk, and so having it pure and blended with just water and a bit of sugar was unique. I picked up a pair of hand painted, beaded earrings made of locally sourced wood for just 300 LKR (!). We also tried buffalo curd, purchased and devoured Sri Lankan wattalapam, a unique and spongy coconut custard pudding made of coconut, jaggery, sri kaya, eggs, and spices; and a delicious and refreshing hibiscus lemonade. We discovered a treacle local to Sri Lanka that is actually made from toddy palm, which was also new to us; treacle, as I’d previously understood it, is a sweetener that is common in the U.K. and Australia that is like a molasses, made from uncrystallized syrup derived from cane sugar. So we realized while at this market that there’s a whole different meaning for “treacle” here in terms of what it’s actually made of! We stopped by an organic produce vendor who was selling Alphonso (!) mangoes and learned that a number of varieties of mangoes that are native to India also grow here in Sri Lanka. We purchased one Alphonso and had the vendor cut it for us so we could eat on the spot; I figured this would be our last time eating a South Asian mango on this trip, so why not just get it and eat it straight away? All the vendors were so welcoming and friendly. They were eager to explain their products to us, how they were produced, and everyone spoke amazing English, so we didn’t have any issues understanding their meaning.

And if that all was not enough, we also stopped by Jack Mania, a vendor selling all jackfruit based products, which got me really excited because I just love jackfruit SO much! We sampled their jackfruit jam, made solely of jackfruit, lime juice, and sugar. There was no filler in here at all, and so of course, we purchased a jar! And what I noted above is just what we tasted and interacted with directly. There were endless other vendors selling delicious snacks, foods, and desserts, and beautifully hand crafted items. We just didn’t have enough time (or space in our bellies) to take it in and eat it all.

A place like Good Market Lanka is the kind of place where, if we were local, we’d love to come back to regularly to try and sample everything. They even had some live entertainment in the form of a drummer giving semi-lessons to young kids, as well as sinks in the back area where you could wash and clean yourself after indulging in all the delicious food there. It was sad to leave, as I would have loved to have tried many of the other foods there, but time is always limited while traveling. In the end, we were happy to be able to spend a couple hours on our last morning here before leaving to go back home.