While on the bus from Malaysia to Singapore, I reflected on all the Southeast Asian countries we’d traveled through.  Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, in that order.  I realized that (excepting a small backwards step to Cambodia) we had been easing ourselves back into the first world with every new country we visited.

Once I started to look for them, I found arguments to support this theory everywhere.  Bathrooms steadily improved, from bucket-flushing in Laos to modern toilets in Thailand and beyond.  Hotel keys changed from big, metal skeleton keys to RFID-enabled plastic cards.  Safe drinking water was more readily available; we could once again drink from the taps in our Singapore hotel.  Internet access speed increased and wifi hotspots, while more prevalent, were also more often locked down and monetized.  English in Laos was only found in hostels and travel agencies, but by the time we arrived in Kuala Lumpur it was the de facto standard.  In Singapore, we could watch the local news (a novelty for us!) because the major newspapers and television news broadcasts were all in English.

Perhaps the most obvious indication that we were climbing back up to U.S. standards was the lessening number of scooters on the road.  It was literally impossible to view any stretch of road in Vietnam, no matter how short, and not see a motorcycle somewhere.  There were fewer in Cambodia, fewer still in Thailand.  By the time we arrived in Singapore, it was almost all cars again.

Anyone who has traveled extensively knows that reverse culture shock is a very real thing.  Setting aside the psychological problems that some travelers cope with after being in a third-world country long enough (being unable to share experiences with friends and family because they’re don’t care about or, conversely, are jealous of them; difficulty readjusting to “the daily grind,” etc.), there are many surprises – some good, some bad – waiting for you when you return home.  Toilet paper in public restrooms.  Drivers sticking to their lanes.  People showing up to appointments on time.  Having to make hundreds of choices in a grocery store.  High prices.  The constant barrage of advertising.

Personally, I’ve noticed it always takes me at least a week to stop mentally preparing my approach to each and every person in public.  How do I translate my question into Spanish?  What gestures can I make if they don’t understand me?  Shut up, brain!  I’m back in the States!  I can just ask in English!

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If you’re in South America and ask other travelers what they think about Chile, you’ll hear two different things over and over: Chileans speak fast and everything is much more expensive.  I guess it’s not surprising then that those were pretty much the first two things we noticed when crossing the border from Bolivia into San Pedro de Atacama.

Language

The language, I knew, would sort itself out in time.  They speak Spanish there, like pretty much everywhere else we’d been, they just hurry all their words together.  In previous border crossings, I noticed the weird phenomenon where, on one side, I understood almost everything said to me and on the other, practically nothing.  My Spanish usually isn’t good enough to pick up the reasons why; it could be the speed, the accent, or the slang.  The tiny improvements I gain in comprehension over the next week are too small to notice as they happen, but after seven days or so, I’m usually doing alright again.

I never got to that point in Chile.  We were in and out of the country too fast.

(Interesting note about Chilean English:  We were told that Chileans learn “American English,” rather than “British English.”  Not that there’s a huge amount of difference between the two, but sometimes you notice the changes.  Flat for apartment, that sort of thing.  You would think that learning American English would somehow make their Spanish easier to understand, wouldn’t you? Well, you’d be wrong.)

Sticker Shock

The sticker shock in Chile was harder for us to deal with.  Coming from Bolivia, we were used to paying, oh, about $20-25 a night for a nice private room.  Our first place in San Pedro ran us $42 and we had to live with a shared bathroom.  (They even charged us for towels, $2 a piece!)  The hotel reception guy saw our hesitation and asked if we were coming from Bolivia.  We nodded and he said, “Yeah, tourists from Bolivia always want lower prices.  It’s just more expensive here.”

Later on, in La Serena, I wandered into a music store and looked around at the prices.  Figuring the Twilight sensation would be a good place to do a price comparison, I checked out what it would cost to buy a book, a DVD, and a Blu-Ray disc of the first in series.  Roughly: 10,000 pesos for the DVD, 13,000 for the (trade paperback) book, and 22,000 for the Blu-Ray.  That’s $21.25 (DVD), $27.65 (Book), and $46.80 (Blu-ray). Not everything costs more than it does in the US, but media certainly does.

It would have been easy enough for us to stick to our $100/day budget if we were only concerned with food and lodging, but we had two other big expenses to consider: Excursions and transportation.  I haven’t look over the budget too closely, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Chile was the first country that broke our budget.  In that respect, it was a good thing we got out of there so quickly.
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