The Young and The Restless | Pre-conditioned to absorb the culture shock

It was before Bangkok’s backpacker district was properly paved, before Khao San Rd was lit with neon lights and offering all manner of goods and food luxuries from the international chain stores that now line the street.

We boarded a city transfer bus to the area from the airport when we landed.

It was night-time. I was tired after a long commute and possibly more fragile than I might’ve been if I were well rested at the beginning of a new day.

I remember sitting on that bus, the humid heat smacking me fair in the face after embarking at Melbourne during a cold June, looking out the window, taking in the foreign scenes that were so far removed from anything I’d seen at home, and being filled with dread.

Packs of stray dogs darted in and out of traffic, stopping to aggressively scratch at their already bleeding scabs on their mostly hairless bodies.

A man in dull brown robes that looked like what some lesser-known order of monks might wear than the bright orange Buddhists’ ones I only knew about then, lifted them, squatted and defecated on the footpath, while pedestrians side-stepped around him unfazed by the act.

A man with no legs lay tummy-down on a skateboard and skilfully propelled himself with his arms — with nothing on his hands to protect them from the filthy ground — along the paths that would have been unsuitable for any wheelchair.

My dread grew as I considered we — my boyfriend, who was three years older and far more independently travelled, and I – had booked an open-ended ticket and were staying indefinitely.

We had quit our jobs, gotten our affairs in order at home for a long absence and set out with actual backpacks, not suitcases, filled with all the compact, lightweight and quick-dry clothes, items and gadgets to travel the world.

I wanted to immediately turn around and board the next flight back to Melbourne.

I knew I’d tasted homesickness before, but nothing to that intensely longing extent.

Nonetheless, I knew I wasn’t going to pull the pin, despite desperately wanting to.

We pressed on and found a little $2-a-night hostel with a masking-taped-up window, broken door lock and cockroaches scattering across the floor.

I made sure I wore my thongs to shower in the shared amenities and then curled up, gratefully, in my boyfriend’s arms for comfort and a much-needed sleep.

The second wave of culture shock hit me as soon as I stepped out into the daylight on to the bustling street in the morning.

It smelled so different to home, was loud and unnerving, and I froze when I realised we had to cross the street without a pedestrian crossing in traffic that had no breaks.

It took me about a week to find my feet and start rolling with it; longer to actually start enjoying it.

But after two months, I was relaxed.

I was bartering comfortably, speaking a few complete sentences in Thai and had the darkest tan my skin has still ever seen.

I’d grown to love the humidity, wasn’t seeking out Western food, and had stopped panicking in the vicinity of packs of mangy, rabid-looking dogs.

The experience was life-changing and inspired a persistent desire to travel that has never waned.

Last year, I took my kids overseas for the first time.

It was a soft entry into international travel, on a cruise ship out of Sydney to Vanuatu.

I wanted them to get a culture shock, but not a debilitating one like my 1998 experience.

But, on a cruise ship, you’re ushered around somewhat like you’re on a school excursion.

And the islands we explored were so perfectly presented to receive the cruise ship passengers, they looked like movie sets.

Port Vila, when we ventured away from the pop-up market where all the vendors preferred Australian dollars over their own currency, was the closest we got to ‘another world’.

And perhaps unsurprisingly, when I asked my kids, they said that our little off-track adventure was their favourite part of that trip.

To be honest, they got more of a culture shock when I took them to Darwin the year before.

So this year, I took them somewhere wild.

When we told people we were going to Borneo, most didn’t know where it was.

Great, I thought, the kids might finally get their life-changing culture shock.

But we hit the streets of Sabah’s capital, Kota Kinabalu, after our airport transfer to the hotel for some exploring and I watched carefully as all three of them took it in their stride.

No-one was on edge, shocked, frightened, overly inquisitive, awestruck, confused, or any more overcome with excitement than any other holiday we’ve taken.

During our trip, we ventured to beaches and islands, into the mountains, into the jungle where there were wild animals in every direction we turned, to river country to stay at a lodge you could only access by boat, then to another city.

All the different environments, not one freak-out.

When we returned home, I reflected on why this might be.

Maybe, I thought, the GV is far more multicultural now than it was when I was a teenager.

Maybe they’d heard from their friends at school about what to expect at our destination.

The way people look and dress, hearing them speak in their native languages in their cultural groups, maybe that took the shock’s edge off for them.

That didn’t seem enough to prepare them for the difference in the way places look and function, the different currency and customs; it had to be more.

Then it hit me.

And after a brief discussion with my eldest who confirmed my suspicions quickly, my conclusion was that social media was responsible; TikTok videos, Instagram reels, Facebook posts.

They’d seen moving imagery of everywhere we were heading before seeing it in real life.

What an impact social media has.

So while I envy that their introduction to international travel wasn’t frightening, I mourn for them that almost every experience they will have will be foreshadowed with these digital previews, watering them all down.

My experience was mine alone, not influenced or softened by some stranger on the internet.

I might wish I’d not been as sickeningly scared as I was on transit from the airport to the backpackers’ hostel 27 years ago, but knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t change it for this modern world.