The World Tour of Oopsies: Chapter 20—The Missing Pieces

Rickshaw at high speed on highway (Getty)

Nov.13.2025

[The World Tour of Oopsies is an ongoing series of travel stories about my first decade of travel. During these adventures and misadventures, I had to unlearn many things I thought I knew about life. Welcome to my miseducation.]

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Catch up on my World Tour of Oopsies:

Part I / Credits

Following a week-long trip to Vietnam and Thailand over winter break during my sophomore year of university, I realized that I had an issue with my school credits. Looking back, I don’t remember what happened—all I knew was that I wouldn’t be staying in Bengaluru for my second semester. Instead, I would be heading to our Brooklyn campus.

That was fine with me. I was overwhelmed by India, and my partner and I had just broken up. It was a surprise break-up, too, meaning I landed in Vietnam with a boyfriend, but by the time I was leaving Thailand, I was solo.

It was a solid time to return to the United States and get my bearings. It would also give me the chance to find work to replenish my bank account while completing a semester of ‘normal’ college.

So, I left Koh Samui (see: Chapter 19) and took a short flight to Bangkok. From there, I went back to Bengaluru, packed my bags, and flew to Brooklyn, New York. Alone.

Part II / The missing pieces

Here’s the part where I don’t bring up a lot of my time in Brooklyn. Here’s the part where I also admit that there are a lot of things that I haven’t brought up on this World Tour of Oopsies.

Why omit so much from my travel stories?

I was in my teens. And then my early twenties. (In Bengaluru, I celebrated my twentieth by singing Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream at a karaoke bar.) I’m sugar-picking what I show you because this is a travel blog, not a confessional.

That being said, there are some tales that are too good not to at least mention. Want to know what’s happening behind the curtain during some of these travel stories?

Here’s a shortlist:

My host mom in Costa Rica (my freshman year of college) was 24 years old, making us more like host-sisters—but she still insisted I call her Mommy. Which means I had to call her on-again, off-again boyfriend Daddy.
My classmates and I got into the Costa Rican psytrance scene, which involved a few mountain raves that cling to the outermost edges of my memory. Ticos party.
The large two-story house I shared with my classmates in Bengaluru had a famously misappropriated Hindu symbol carved into the floor in the main room. If you know, you know. If you don’t know, Google it.
After taking some ‘medicine’ in Goa one time, I challenged my friend to a meaningless contest, and I won. The loser, unfortunately, had to get an ass tattoo. Worse, we found a tattoo artist who let us do the tattoo ourselves.
I would go on to tattoo a second friend’s butt-cheek only a few months later while attending college in Brooklyn. The next year, I would accidentally get tattooed in Thailand. There’s a lot of tattooing going on, and I’m not sure why?