Goodbye Tok’s Little Huts

Like Anita and Nathan, Abby and Nancy showed up looking for lodging. Until recently, I had forgotten that people do that. But there they were, on break from a special overseas course related to their MBA curriculum from Thunderbird University in Arizona – traveling free and by the seat of their pants.

I heard their American accents as I passed and said hello. It quickly came out that Abby grew up in Studio City and went to the same high-school as Emily – a school of no more than 60 per class – graduating four classes later. She even had a crush on one of Emily's good high-school friends, Owen.

Once she and Emily were face to face, the quick game of who they knew and high-school reminiscing was completed and they moved onto a round of Jewish Geography. Within minutes there were a few overlaps and the universe was in harmony.

As we discussed our travels and their education over dinner, the subject of food came up – as it inevitably must among Jews. Nancy, who is Chinese-American also had much to contribute. This led quickly to the subject of Israel and our visit to Saed's in Akko where we found the best hummus in existence. We of course had photos in my iPad which we happily shared. As Abby scrolled through the photos, her jaw dropped and her mouth watered.

"It's like Jew porn!" she exclaimed.

Emily and I laughed ourselves to tears.

Besides a fun evening of discussion, I was reminded of the difference between how we travel now and – to bring in Barbra Streisand to bring the Jewish theme full-circle – the way we were.

Our days of showing up wherever we want and asking for a room based on a recommendation in the Lonely Planet are over. We are "special needs" travelers.

We didn't realize it at first. The trip started off so simply. Most places we wanted to go had numerous choices of suitable accommodation and we put very little thought into it other than trying to pick a decent place within our desired budget.

Region 2 has meant planning our every move carefully. Trains in India book up sometimes two months in advance. Good deals on domestic flights are available for a limited time only… In a huge country whose infrastructure hasn't kept pace with its development, getting from A to B takes planning and a fair amount of time.

We now spend considerably longer investigating hotels. In fact, we're like hotel detectives. With each lodging experience, our list of questions has grown longer.

Do you have high-speed Internet? What is the speed of your Internet? Is that Kbps or Mbps? Do you have WiFi? Is it in-room? Is your WiFi wireless? (because in Kerala everyone thought WiFi meant a cable…) Are there any additional costs for WiFi? Do you have power outages? Does your WiFi work most of the time?

Before we left, we assumed that we would be taking advantage of the truly cheap accommodations available in India and Southeast Asia. I figured we'd go a cut-above low-end, but still toward the cheap-side and save a lot of money.

It turns out that with our high-speed WiFi requirements, we aren't good budget travelers. After all, no speed, no work. So, we've settled in to being mid-range travelers and I don't think we've minded the additional comfort that goes with that. In fact, we've decided that in many ways, we aren't in our 20's anymore. We're good mid-range people.

Still, even at mid-range, we have to do some hunting to make sure our accommodations accommodate us.

In Region 1, I did all the hotel/lodging planning. Emily was stressed before we left, so I handled initial planning and it just kept rolling that way because – I like to think – I did a good job. Because Region 2 is Emily's region of expertise, she took the lead in accommodation hunting and quickly became tired of it. While she's had resplendent success with Keraleeyam, she didn't love the process of setting it up.

Now, as we reach the precipice of Region 3 which begins February 1st, the reins have returned to me. Luckily, so have the resources. It wasn't hard to find a place that meets all our requirements for our arrival in Bangkok. I was even able to locate good WiFi on Koh Samet – my favorite island in the Gulf of Thailand. Amazingly, just about everywhere on the tourist trail has high-speed Internet.

With known resources ahead in Bali, Singapore and Malaysia, our next few months are looking fairly solid.

That doesn't mean they're cheap. The old days of walking the beach, looking for a 300 Baht bungalow with maybe a bed, but possibly just mats on the floor, a fan, a shower with no hot water heater (which isn't always a problem because the water usually comes out warm anyway), and a toilet that flushes by dumping a bucket of water in it – are over.

We need the kind of bungalows and accommodations I used to think of as being for spoiled prima donnas and older Europeans. We will be the people paying US Dollar figures for our beachside accommodation. I never thought it would happen to me.

Combine that with the fact that the Thai Baht is now at 30 Baht to the Dollar instead of the 44 Baht exchange rate of eight years ago when I lived there, and it's shocking to me how much we'll pay. Not that it's any more than we pay here in India – because it's actually less. I just never imagined I would pay that much in Thailand.

I have outgrown the days of Tok's Little Huts and "flush your own" toilets. We're going to have a hot water heater and flush toilet on Koh Samet. And not only that, we'll have WiFi on the beach. Who knew?!

All we have left to settle is our hotel for Delhi for our last four days of January – and we're working on that now. WiFi seems to be fairly attainable and it appears we can get some decent quality for our money – which is nice.

We may not be able to travel like Abby, Nancy, Nathan and Anita anymore – since we're too old and needy. But we at least know that when we return to the San Fernando Valley we have a solid financial future in using our best food – and especially hummus – shots for a future career in Jew porn.

Sent from my iPad