"Recharging the batteries" on a vacation in Thailand.

I think that a lot of us go through certain points in our life when we question where we are in life in a sort of "what the hell am I doing here... I don't belong here" (thanks Radiohead), sort of way. I go through this every now and then with Da Nang because although it is lovely here, there are certain aspects of it that annoy me and make me question if I should continue to live here.

But I have recently, because of my recent trip to visit a friend in somewhat nearby Phuket, Thailand, come to realize that a "hate-cation" can often have a very positive effect on your life.

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I recall reading about something of this sort on some reddit thread a long time ago and up until this moment I had no idea that it was a Simpsons episode until this very moment.

The thread had indicated that it can sometimes be beneficial to take a holiday or vacation to a place that you are relatively certain you are not going to enjoy or at the minimum it is going to have a lot of annoyances involved with it. The purpose of this is to one, make you become more patient, and also to renew your love for the place that you happen to be.

This kind of reminds me of the few times I have cheated on someone that I was in a romantic relationship with and realized because of that of how good I have it as far as my relationship is concerned. That's probably TMI so I'll try to keep things on topic henceforth.

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You may recall that when I was writing about my trip to Phuket that I became very aware of how absolutely terrible the traffic situation there is. The roads are chaos and are extremely inadequate given the population of that medium-sized island. Everything you do that involves simply leaving your little neighborhood takes ages and will involve some leaps of faith as far as jutting out into oncoming traffic is concerned.

Also, because of the much higher levels of tourism there, you are constantly pestered by "sales rep" (I'm being kind with that term) to be constantly spending money. There are also ripoffs around every single corner, and the prices are higher for most things there based solely on tourism and because they CAN in fact, get that much for something like a beer. I was reminded about how extreme the tourist markup is when while me and my friend were walking on the beach we stopped to ask a woman with a cooler for a couple of beers that were priced at 150 THB each. She said "ok, moment, wait here" because she didn't even have the beers in stock. We could see that she was headed across the street to the 7-11 and stopped her, saying "mai pen rai, mai tong pai suu" which means, "don't worry about it, you don't need to go and buy anything." When we went to the next 7-11 we discovered and found that the 150 THB beers we were about to purchase are 38 THB at the 7. That's one hell of a markup!

You don't ever really see that happening in Da Nang. If a woman (or a man...but for whatever reason it is almost always women) on the beach is selling beers out of a cooler in Da Nang, the price is only marginally higher than it would be at a minimart. It is never 4-5 times the price.

We were also confronted and even followed constantly by taxi drivers with the "where you go?" tactic they have for pressuring you into getting into a taxi. I can mitigate this much better than most people because I speak Thai but these guys are pretty relentless. After one guy finally leaves you alone he is almost immediately replaced by the next one to the point where you can't even walk along the beach in peace.

This only ever happens in Da Nang if you happen to be somewhere that people often need taxis such outside department stores or at the airport.

So if you are keeping count, I am now annoyed by being constantly harassed, inflated prices, and horrible traffic conditions. NONE of these situations exist in Da Nang, the area that I have called home for 5 years now.

So while the idea of a hate-cation is probably not a great idea because of course it is stupid to spend money on something that you know you are not going to enjoy, I think that a bad vacation can actually be very beneficial to your overall quality of life. Since returning from Phuket I have a newfound appreciation not just for my city, but my condo and also my own bed. These are all things that I have been taking for granted for a while now.

So if you do find yourself on a bad vacation one day, take a step back, remove the Karen-batteries, and use it to your advantage. It has worked wonders for me in the past few weeks as I know look around where I live and genuinely appreciate the places that are part of my everyday life.... constant car honking and all :)