When you are headed for a trek, know your water sources

You will always underestimate how much water you need. Make sure you know where you can get water on your trek route.

After eating spicy thai food (or any food) don’t rub your eyes.

I seem to have a lot of incidents involving spicy food and body parts. What can I say, I’m an idiot.

Cellphones are no longer a luxury. They are extremely useful in an emergency.

There was a time I sweared off cell phones and decided to live an offline life. I was driving by myself in the middle of Utah on the way to Moab when I noticed the empty gas indicator light up. The communities are hundreds of miles apart and I spent an excruciating long time cruising without AC in the middle of a desert hoping to get to a gas station. I promptly got a cell as soon as I got out of that mess.

If you decide to sit up ahead with your rickshaw driver, keep your legs inside the rickshaw.

I was riding along with the driver in a rickshaw near the ancient ruins of Hampi. My legs were dangling outside when a cobra slid past my leg. The reason I noticed the cobra is because my leg felt something slide past.

Make sure you know your night rest stops.

Happened during my Everest base camp trek. On the way back after my group decided to fly back from Lukla, I decided to trek another 3 days to the next main town. On the second day after a 12 hour trek, I couldn’t find any tea houses to take me in for the night. I spent an hour asking random people if I could sleep in their huts before eventually finding a tea house for the night.

After cutting Jalapenos, do not go and pee

No matter how well you’ve washed your hands, it will burn like hell. And if you decide that taking a shower is the best action, then unlike me make sure the shower is not at its default of hot water. It will make it worse.

Observe and practice before trying to appear cool

I used to take a bus on a daily basis and noticed some people used to get off the bus before it came to a stop. At a round about, the bus would slow down and this would be enough for a couple of people to get off the bus while it was still in motion.

I figured I should try it out once. Big mistake. I jumped off the middle step instead of the bottom so I was going perpendicular to the direction of the bus. The roundabout might have slowed the bus but I didn’t count for the angular momentum. So I landed flat on my back and had a court side view of the truck behind come to a screeching halt. I survived but looking up at the angry driver, I made my way out of there as quickly as I could.

Yogurt is not a milk substitute

If you run out of milk and decide to substitute it with yogurt in your tea just because they are both lactose based, don’t. It will ruin the taste of your tea

If you decide to power wash your microwave by overheating a bowl of water and soap, don’t.

I tried to clean my microwave by heating a bowl of water and dish wash soap. I figured steam mixed with soap would power wash my microwave. While the microwave got fairly clean, the soap steam entered the heating elements and fried the microwave. Ended up buying a new microwave.

The grand canyon trip got me reminiscing about stupid actions taken by me. Here is my version of life pro tips

 

If you are out of dishwasher liquid, do not substitute with dish wash liquid.

I had to spend an entire afternoon cleaning up a flooded kitchen filled with soapy bubble water.