I think travel teaches you to be somewhat hardcore. You are usually thrown into circumstances way out of your control, many of which you have no option but to do the very thing you are scared of, uncomfortable about, or just grossed out by.
When you are faced in that predicament, you just have to hold your nose, take a deep breath and say suck it up as you do it.
It really is worthwhile because the result is always almost that your tolerance level and pain threshold is much higher.
Here are 26 ways travel taught me to SUCK IT UP
- Having to stand up in front of 500 Thai high school boys and introduce myself as their new Ajarn Angrit (English Teacher) in a language they did not understand.
- Craig, a carpenter and professional footballer, having to stand up in front of 40 students in the best school in Thailand and teach them English- they knew grammar better than him!
- Having a fear of flying, yet still flying on over 100 flights
- Bungee jumping in Bali.
- Slingshot catapult in Bali- where some people died not long after where did it.
- Almost coming face to face with a tiger in the Sumatran jungle, whilst still having to hike for another half a day wondering just if he was going in the same direction as us in the thick undergrowth beside us.
- Facing the “Bad Place” a notorious, worst-in-the-world Grade 5 rapid on the Nile.
- Public toilets in China. Think hole in the ground, no doors or dividing walls and a line of women waiting and watching.
- After saying “I just can’t suck this one up” to the worst toilets in the world in Zimbabwe, choosing to squat in the knee-high grass n the side of the highway with several Zimbabwean women while cheerfully waving at passing vehicles tooting their horns.
- Sitting on the handle of a bicycle, in the back of a pick up with 20 smiling Cambodians for 8 hours.
- Cutting my South-East Asia travel short due to Balinese coral cut infestation on my foot and heading straight to London.
- Arriving in London with no money, no friends, no job, and no place to stay.
- Arriving in Dublin with no money, no friends, no job and no place to stay.
- Dossing on the floor of the lounge room with 5 other travelling friends in a house occupied with about 20 foreign bodies, while we waited for a room to open.
- Playing 100 club on Christmas Eve and making the 100 minutes without a vomit or toilet run.
- Sleeping on rocks in the Sumatran jungle, while our trekking guide kept watch for tigers with a big hunting knife and me suffering with pain from refusal to venture outside in the dark to pee in the bushes.
- Travelling with your partner 24/7 for months if not years
- Being stuck on a guided tour with people you could easily slap.
- Sleeping in a mini van, during the humid Floridian summer and being eaten by mozzies, to cut costs and travel longer.
- Sitting in the back of an African mini-van for 8 hours, in a space made for flat-stanley, with my knees up to my chin, the roof sitting on my head and a rooster’s head pecking dangerously close to my eye.
- Camping in the Rockies in freezing temperatures during the summer and busting to go to the toilet but holding it because of the hungry marauding bear outside.
- Tick bite fever- swollen joints, excruciating head-in-a-vice headache and having to be carried around the Cape Town hostel.
- Being ill and having to go to a Vietnamese hospital that was an old concrete building with one bed and a team of doctors happily examining me. (Hey they correctly diagnosed and fixed me, where the Western doctors didn’t have clue!)
- Sitting on the back of a motorbike in Sumatra with a mushroom tripping freak driving singing songs to me about killing the tourist, while I prayed and tried to think of ways I could escape and survive and begging myself not to burst out into sobs again and start another maniacal taunt from him because of it.
- Bed bugs. Infected house. London. No other words needed.
- Travelling with kids: excess baggage, excess costs, excess tantrums
Suck it up and Just do it! Ends up being a lot of fun and gives you great stories to share!
How has travel taught you to suck it up?
