1. Purified water - I don’t do it anymore now but when I first entered Guatemala, I’d started following Lonely Planet’s overzealous advice and brushed my teeth with drinking water when one of my fellow homestay mates told me he was doing that. Lonely Planet also tells you to wash all your food with drinking water and that you shouldn’t eat uncooked vegetables but I’ve been doing all that in blatant defiance of their advice. It is impossible to escape the salads in Central America: one, because it’s so ubiquitous; and two, because it’s so good. I’ve been eating plenty of market/street food (actually it’s my favourite) and I’ve been okay. Maybe Bel is right, maybe Malaysians have got stronger constitutions. Our tummies have been trained well by the not-so-distinctive-as-we’d-like-to-think Malaysian feature: the pasar malam (night market).
2. Hot water - This commodity much taken for granted at home in Malaysia and in London is scarce and only available in some houses (you have to install a waterheater which obviously requires extra money) and even if it is available it is usually inadequately provided. Either the water only remains hot at low volume, or it is too hot you run the danger of scalding yourself, or too cold - there seems to be no way to have anything in between. Water pressure is also generally dismal. I always feel like I have soap suds stuck in my hair after I shower. In Guatemala when I couldn’t access hot water I didn’t shower at night because it was too cold. In Nicaragua, where I’ve been traveling for a month now, I’ve only had hot showers for a few days when I was in the highlands of Estelí and Jinotega. But in Nicaragua, the lowest country in Central America, it’s almost welcome because it’s so hot.
3. Toilets that flush - Not all toilets flush, and even if they do, they might not if you clog it with tissue paper. In Guatemala and Nicaragua you don’t flush anything down the toilet, not even toilet paper that you’d think is supposed to go down the toilet bowl. Instead, you throw everything into a wastepaper basket that is provided, whether or not your tissues are filled with urine or faeces or that monthly inconvenience women go through. Very nice.
4. Electricity - Electricity still gets cut off sometimes, often enough that a torch always comes in handy. And it generally costs a household for electricity so people try to save as best as they can (one of my homestay conditions in Antigua was that if I used more electricity than I was supposed to, I would have to pay an extra $10). A lot of places I’ve been to in Nicaragua and Guatemala are very dimly-lit - entire restaurants look like they are shut for the day when they are actually open and running. In Guatemala I have a friend whose uncle teaches children to read, and once I came upon them late in the afternoon and the children were reading without any light. I had to squint very hard to read anything in that light. But there it is, people try to make do without if they can.
5. Meat - I think meat must be rather more expensive, because while I was in Antigua living with a family I had no meat for the entire week. I was paying my host mother $10 a day for accommodation and all three meals but as unkind it is to say this, I guess they’d kept the money for themselves because one day when we (the homestay students) were out of the house they invited some friends over and had a huge meat fest, sausages galore. This was only my host family, however. I’ve heard of other friends with host families who were fed so much meat they were complaining, the irony being that they were trying to be vegetarian. Go figure. And I think if you are mixing with the locals a lot rather than tourists who can afford to eat out in restaurants all the time, it is likely you will find yourself mostly on a vegetarian and carbohydrate diet. Lots of beans and tortillas, which I’ve tried to get used to and am getting accustomed to… but still, thank God for the eggs!
6. Trust - Because you’re a tourist, some unscrupulous locals will want to try to take advantage of you, primarily of your money. I’ve heard of situations (and the guidebooks have warned) where people pretend they are your friends and then cheat you of your possessions. An Aussie guy I met on the road told me how he had befriended this Guatemalan guy who had invited him to his home, after which his camera went mysteriously (or not so mysteriously) missing. It’s worth being cynical about people here. The region is poor, anything for a buck seems to be the mentality. Not always, of course - you shouldn’t come here with that kind of absolute attitude. Your trip will be most rewarding if you keep an open mind, but still, some caution would be smart.
7. Anonymity - It is close to impossible not to be bothered on the streets in Central America. I thought being Chinese I’d be less obvious (not so White, you know), but no, I stand out more. Not many Asians around here, you see. Everywhere I go, I have to fend off hollers of ‘Chinita Chinita!’ and that rude kissing sound they make at you to get your attention. If you think the stares the construction workers in Malaysia give you are bad just because you’re walking around in a spaghetti strap, in Latin America you’re subjected to worse. I’ve made the mistake before of saying hello back and being friendly and one time it didn’t turn out so well, so these days I’m a lot more careful. Sometimes you think, ah… you’re in someone else’s country you want to talk to people and all that, get a better picture of what the country is like, but sometimes it’s not worth the hassle. Some of the men aren’t interested in only talking. I mean, of course there have been a handful of really nice people, really nice gentlemen, who are interested in you just because you’re this foreign specimen they’ve never seen before. But there are a lot of them who aren’t too. So. The same advice applies: an open mind and a pinch of caution.
8. Progressive attitudes - I’m going to sound like such a colonialist saying this but honestly, some of the men here have quite old-fashioned ideas about women; but in some ways, well, not old-fashioned at all. They’re a lot more liberal with their sexuality here but at the same time they have old-fashioned notions of sex and women. Does that make sense?
9. Businesses with change - You can’t carry any kind of big money around Guatemala or Nicaragua. It is often difficult to get change. In Guatemala I worked in a restaurant in San Pedro, Lake Atitlán, and a few times I’ve been asked by indignant customers, ‘What? You’re running a bar here, how can you not have change?’ My boss never had any change, it was really difficult.
10. Efficiency - Restaurants in Guatemala take ages to serve you your food. I’ve had to wait an hour before in a Japanese restaurant in Antigua when I was their only customer in the middle of the day. It’s the Guatemalan speed of things. For example, when I worked at the restaurant in San Pedro, I’d put in a lady’s order to the chef but half an hour later when I inquired about it he belatedly told me it was impossible for him to prepare what she had ordered because he didn’t have the ingredients. Now why couldn’t he have told me that earlier? In the end I got a real tongue-lashing from the Americanized Guatemalan lady, which was embarrassing because her boyfriend (who was with her) was none other than the friendly British bartender of the most popular bar in the village. He’s obviously had run-ins with the Guatemalan way of running a kitchen because he was so nice about the cock-up and in fact, seemed rather sheepish by his girfriend’s outburst, and later when I sought him out at his bar he said to me, “Yea, it’s funny, my girlfriend always says Guatemalans are so impatient - they hate to wait, but still they keep each other waiting all the time.” Well, if it’s any consolation, the food is almost always good (very simple, but good), everything fresh and made from scratch. In Nicaragua, thank God, you don’t have to starve to death before your food is ready.

Now, having said all that, I think I might have led you to think that I’m not enjoying my time in Central America. In fact, quite the opposite. I am having a great time traveling, dividing my time between staying in one place at times and moving around constantly at others. It’s only that the different culture and way of life in Central America has made me realise how different the life I have been living thus far is, and I know now what to appreciate. At the same time I’ve also realized there are things I like better about the Latinos’ culture over my own, but that’s a post for another day.