“Travel Temperatures”?
Right now we’re having a serious heat wave here in Vancouver, where today we set the all-time heat record, beating the previous champion, which was yesterday. Before this week, we hadn’t had temperatures like this since the 60’s. Granted, what we call an unbearable heat wave is what most cities call “summer”, but that’s just not how we roll here on the wet coast 
Daily life has become a chore and all anyone talks about is how hot it is outside, or how you can’t sleep at night in your un-airconditoned apartment. The thing that gets me, though, is how much the heat here flattens me, but I know I’ve recently been in weather just as hot (if not hotter) in Southeast Asia, and don’t remember it being this big a deal. Does my body react differently to the same weather depending on what continent or time zone I’m in? Is there such a thing as “Travel temperature” versus actual temperature?
Last night I once again couldn’t sleep, pacing the living room at four in the morning to generate some motion in the air around me for relief. And to avoid rolling over and accidentally touching the bf,who generates too much body heat and feels like cuddling a heated rock. I know I’m not alone in walking around 24/7 at home in nothing but my underwear. In Singapore, where they didn’t even bother giving weather reports on the news because it was always 32 degrees and humid as hell with a chance of thunderstorms, sure, I remember it being too hot to wear sunscreen (because you just sweat it off anyway) but I don’t remember it impacting my daily plans. Of course I stuck to the shade as much as possible, everyone did, but standing out in the sun when you needed to, was just something you did. Here it’s something you do and complain about it. One day in Kuala Lumpur I even put up my umbrella to shield me from the sun (I know this is a good idea, but it just seems so… cheesy. At home only Asians – who do have lovely skin well into their eighties for a reason- and seniors do that. I need to get over that stigma, but that’s neither here nor there). What I mean is that it was so scorching that I had to get over myself and put up the umbrella, but that’s not what I remember about the day.
Some of it could come down to hot countries having better air conditioning because they need to, or the fact that I knew in advance it was going to be hot and mentally prepared myself for that, but I think the big difference is that when I’m on vacation, I have a checklist of things to do and a limited amount of time to do it in. Nothing, particularly something as insignificant as the weather, is going to stop that. I can collapse from heat exhaustion once, and only once, I’m at the top of the stairs at the Batu Caves. Conversely, here at home, it’s the daily grind. I’m doing similar things today as I do every other day, so the one really bitch-about-able standout is the freaking heat.
So maybe it’s not “travel temperatures” as much as it’s “travel attention span”. I have to stay focused on the sightseeing goal, I didn’t fly fourteen hours next to that screaming baby for nothing! Keep going! Back in the real world, if I move too fast it means I sweat through my work clothes and have to greet clients all day with a shirt smelling like a gym sock, so the motivation to run and catch that bus is gone.
So the secret is to go on vacation. Immediately. Like leave now. That way I can wake up tomorrow just as sweaty and uncomfortable and not notice as I’m too busy checking to make sure I have my camera in my pocket as I run out the door.