I spent 3.5 months backpacking in India and Southeast Asia. I saw incredible places and stood in a hundred postcards. For me though, people are what had the mos

I spent 3.5 months backpacking in India and Southeast Asia. I saw incredible places and stood in a hundred postcards. For me though, people are what had the most impact. Tens of thousands of Hindus come to die in Varanasi each year. If you die and are cremated there, you are freed from the cycle of rebirth and can attain salvation. I stood with an Indian friend on the edge of tears as I watched them burn the dead. He asked me why I was sad, and I told him I was sad for the dead. He said do not be sad, this is the way they wanted to die. We were warned never to get a train ticket on Indian Railways below 2nd class. It wasn't safe. There were only enough 2nd class tickets for my friends, so I went to 3rd class alone, in the middle of the night, and went to sleep in a top bunk, the warnings echoing in my mind. When I awoke my 5 neighbors were speaking softly to each other. They shared food with me they had brought from their homes. We showed each other where we had come from and pictures of our families. I didn't speak the same language. Cambodia had 25% of its people starved or murdered less than a decade before I was born: Year Zero. Anyone educated was the first to go. We hired a tuk-tuk driver to take us to the temples around Siem Reap. He was the son of farmers. At one temple we came out the entrance and snuck up on him while he waited for us. In his lap he held open a book in English, and tucked into it a smaller book. It was a Khmer-English dictionary. I had a lot of good times meeting people at hostels and going to bars with other travelers, a few of whom have become dear friends. You could easily stay with tour groups, never leave the westernized areas of anywhere you go, and take lots of selfies in incredible places. It brings money to the local economy. It's up to you though. If that's not what you want, getting away from it is as simple as walking 2 blocks in any direction.