Nov 15, 2013

There are certainly a few things that scare me when I think of setting off into the world with little more than my wits and some stored knowledge of various places I might end up visiting.

Yes, I am scared I will be the victim of a typical tourism related crime (bag stolen, passport grifted, scammed out of many of my hard earned monies). Definitely nervous that my hubris, naiveté or plain old idiocy will result in a broken body part requiring helicopter transport from the jungle I was trying to traverse on a still feral boar. I am terrified something bad will happen to my wife [knocks on wood].

However as much as me being sore from injury or laid up from eating undercooked meat-on-a-stick will suck, and oh man it will suck, I am really super uncool (soon to far too literal) with the heat.

 

 

I am not a between-the-tropics type of guy. I was born and have lived my entire life in a climate with all four seasons definitively showing up. I mean I like cold weather. I like the snow. I look at where our collective would like to go and I do not see much in terms of countries dominating the Winter Olympics.

It dawned on me to look at the globe. Now I like maps, and I like to look over the maps to give myself an idea on this pale blue dot I may end up. Where places are relative to others. Then I decided to look at a map that included a thick red equator line. I was shocked.

As much as I have looked at a map in some form or another in recent months, I had not had the idea to check it with the equator visible. I could hardly believe that both Sri Lanka and Singapore (barely) are in the Northern Hemisphere. Then I immediately thought ‘Shit. Singapore, a place I truly want to get to, is pretty much on the fucking equator. Double fuck, this whole fucking trip is going to be a like a year-long vision quest in a fucking sweat lodge. Shit!!!’

Let me say this. I am not opposed to “nice weather” (which by the way is relative, I think Seattle has nice weather – it’s temperate, which is not a bad thing). I enjoy a trip to a place where is it warm. I have been to the desert during the summer. It’s good for a while. Especially with the knowledge that I can soon return to my hometown where the leaves turn color in the fall and not because the sun has literally burned them to a darkened shriveled hunk of their previous shade-giving glory. I am however not a fan of constant oppressive heat. Three showers a day, more shirts than that, never ending swamp ass, air like boiling soup heat. Frankly I do not understand how anyone enjoys that.

So apart from changing our planned route to detour through Scandinavia, what is this guy to do to counter the fire and brimstone like climate?

• Slather on more sunscreen than should be allowed by law.

It’s not that I am so enamored with my porcelain doll skin that I want to stay pasty, but I do not tan. I go from stark white, to red, to hospital. There is very, very little middle ground. Sunscreen, not SPF3 tanning oil, will be needed in copious amounts. This will not help beat the heat, but will absolutely help curb the long lasting effect of that wretched star and its UV emissions.  It will definitely make my wife happy as she will not need to apply chilled aloe to my freshly fried skin every hour.

Additionally, and seriously make sure whatever sunscreen you are using is not old. Like all things it loses potency with age and when being in the equatorial sun for weeks at a time, weak sunscreen will not suffice.

• Shade, shade and more shade

It is your friend. Find it and get in it.

• Cool water, and colder beer

Drink both in copious amounts. Yes, water should probably be option one as alcohol will dehydrate you, but beer just tastes so much better. Plus enough beer will keep you from caring about the rising mercury as much.

• Learn to love it

I have heard when travelling to places of extreme heat and humidity it can take 3 weeks to become fully acclimatized. I am hoping this time frame is accurate as I fear it will take more like 3 months. Regardless, iIt is eventually going to have to happen.

I may never love it. It may always be my nemesis. The bane of my fair skin. But that doesn’t mean I cannot come to enjoy the rays on my back and get over the fact my shirts will constantly be damp. And even if I can’t, I can convince myself that the hotter it gets the more beer is needed.

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