Josh Martin is a London-based NZ journalist who writes across business and travel topics.
Visiting the countries of South East Asia has become a clichéd, but still necessary, part of the Antipodean-in-their-twenties Starter Pack.
You know the drill, you’ve seen the itinerary of criss-crossed countries affectionately known as the Banana Pancake Trail, plastered over social media: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Bali, Malaysia, Singapore – maybe the Philippines if time and budget allow. Myanmar if you’re up for it. Revisiting a couple of these countries again in your mid-30s is “same, same, but different”.
Ease off the skimping
While there’s still the overall mantra that less money spent per day can mean your SE Asia stint can be extended, a student or graduate’s travel budget obviously can’t yet compare to those mid-careerists.
It’s great that the days of overnight buses are now few and far between (if you step aboard one at all). While I’m a huge fan of travelling by long distance or overnight train, being cramped up on a bumpy bus back-seat next to a sweaty tank of an Aussie no longer is part of my journey. The same can be said of dorm rooms.
And a bit more splashing out
This region, Singapore and Hong Kong notwithstanding, can always make a pauper feel like a king. I stayed, for one night only, at my first proper five-star hotel in Bangkok in 2012. Even without that, a quick currency conversion on what it costs for a beer, a steak, a tailored garment, a day trip or taxi ride always made you think, “Yes, another please!”.
Now, the same currency tailwinds prevail, and even with global inflation at decade-highs, mid-30s travel in SE Asia mean the pool villas, rooftop cocktails, private boat trips and suit fittings are less than a once-a-trip splurge. In the decade since, you realise your perspectives on what quality, luxury and value actually are. We revisited that same Bangkok hotel a decade later and wondered what we had been so excited about.
Accepting your limits
I’m in awe of how many of them do it: overnight bus, temple, tour, beer stop, street food lunch, beach, haggling at the market, booze cruise, dinner, dancing, midnight dip, nightcap, dorm room. Repeat. I shiver and my liver clenches at the thought. And young travellers do this for weeks at a time, and love it. Nope.
Although I left that era kicking and screaming, the Banana Pancake trail in your 30s is slower, more thoughtful and a lot less YOLO (kids, still say that right?). Heading to Ha Long Bay at 7am the next day? No Beer Street stint in Hanoi, then we’d better get an early night.
Baggage
This one’s a dead giveaway. The wanderlusting hostel-dwellers were imaginatively dubbed ‘backpackers’ by New Zealanders because of their hardy, well-worn luggage choice. We didn’t even bother differentiating the noun to describe both the person and the accommodation site with the same word (where the rest of the world might use hostel or pension).
In your 20s the Antipodean traveller will collect little souvenir sew-on flags of the countries they’ve been to for decorative conversation starters. For the flashpackers a decade or more older, a sweat stained lumbar support pad is no longer required, and you’ll more likely see us dragging trolley cabin bags or overstuffed Samsonite cases through the alleyways and train stations of Ho Chi Minh City or Koh Samui.
The pack has dispersed
Finding a group of half a dozen thirty-somethings who have no prior relationship and weren’t thrown together on the same organised tour is nearly impossible. It’s couples everywhere, a far cry from the huge packs of singleton graduates and gap-year travellers who hop from one hostel to another throughout the Banana Pancake trail in their twenties. They meet at one party hostel or tour bus, swap insider tips, recommendations and itineraries (if they’ve planned that far in advance), and find safety and good times happen in numbers. They swap numbers and social media handles to meet up again. Best friends forever, right?
Fast-forward a few years and these people who you were certain had made a breakthrough in the race towards enlightenment from a beach bar on Koh Pha Ngan island have a social media presence that careens from anti-vax to ‘all lives matter’ to direct sales marketing scheme intros … or maybe just endless inspirational quotes.
Thirty-something Banana Pancake trailers have no such pretensions of any Anglophones they meet along the way, knowing full well that unless they’ve arrived with them at the airport for the initial take-off, they will never see their fellow travellers again.
Some things don’t change
Despite these (relatively minor) changes, there are more similarities between the Millennial Banana Pancake trailers and their Gen Z counterparts. The culture shock for Kiwis dealing with the hypertension of worrying about being scammed, the apprehensive un-Kiwi-like practice of haggling, the necessary adjustment to crowds unseen on New Zealand shores.
Most of all, the heady concoction of budget-friendly sunshine, sand, sites, a shot of hedonism and more than a sprinkling of spirituality means the first steps of an OE with visit to SE Asia is unlikely to be your last.