I’ve preached it a million times, but travel isn’t always a walk in the park. We’ve had amazing experiences and horrific experiences too (our airbnb experience from hell in toronto? Or our 15+ hour delay coming home from Hawaii. Ugh. Remember that? The worst). And all sorts of crazy things in between. Travel is real life with an opportunity to learn, explore, and adventure. So let’s talk about the weirder things that happen during travel. Or at least one weird thing that happened somewhat recently to us…
One day during our stay in Kathmandu our friends Lisa and Ben suggested that we all go to Khokana. For whatever reason I kept misunderstanding these two very English-speaking people and thinking they were saying ‘cocoanut’. They weren’t. Regardless, I was in.
Wandering a rural town, exploring old temples, making prayer wishes, and adorable animals? And finding the towns specialty that happens to be vegan? Sign me up.
And we received blessings— so you know, a good adventure for sure.
So the weird thing… after our little walk (or in Marlowe’s case: skip through town), when we were heading back to our car, we passed a large group of men sitting outside. And one of the oldest men started yelling in Nepalese. It appeared that he was yelling to or at Marlowe, which was confusing for sure. Usually in weird, slightly uncomfortable situations, I just avoid eye contact and continue walking. We could barely understand him… I mean, yes, because we don’t speak the language, but also he was old and unclear. I was holding Marlowe’s hand as we passed the group of men. The one man came up and sort of grabbed her, made her turn to him, and started speaking at her in Nepalese! I didn’t know what was happening! I wasn’t super scared, because he didn’t seem overly aggressive, but I was confused for sure. We all were a bit confused.
Our friend Ben came up and said something to him (Ben’s been in Nepal for forever, so speaking Nepali is no problem for him) and the old man let go, mumbled something, and we walked away. Apparently the guy thought Marlowe was Nepali and didn’t know why we had her! I’m not sure if he thought we were kidnapping her or what, but it was a strange moment for sure. We tried not to make a big deal out of it to not scare her. She wasn’t overly alarmed since she never felt she was in danger either, but she was just as confused as the rest of us for sure.
This is definitely not the first time Marlowe has been touched/grabbed/addressed in public. But this is definitely the weirdest. We had an experience in Guatemala where the sweetest, smallest, elderly woman touched Marlowe’s face in a crowded market, smiled at her, and kept walking. She loved Marlowe so much. We also had a Japanese woman grab her hand in the airport and ask if she could take a photo of Marlowe and I together (no idea why, this experience was definitely lost in translation haha), but I assume it was because of Marlowe’s cute outfit and owl hat, haha.
Anyway, weird stuff definitely happens in the world, and this was totally an interesting experience. But honestly, maybe also fun that Marlowe got confused for a Nepali. Also! Funny enough, this is not the first time someone has asked if she was Asian. And probably not the last.
How weird is this on a scale of 1-10? Super weird or sort of normal? Have you guys had any super weird or interesting experiences happen to your while traveling? I’m curious to know!
Oh and PS. We also saw the cutest stray puppy in the world. Alex: “I still can’t believe you let her hold the puppy”
You better believe it, haha.
Good times, weird times, boom! Cheers friends!
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