I’ve been looking back at some old travel photos of our trip to Vietnam and Cambodia.  And now I can understand why people at the time gave us a very strange look and asked us whether we were taking the kids.

When we went to Vietnam, my daughter was only five and my son was seven.  At the time, I thought they were so grown up, but looking back on the photos – they look so little! Since that trip, we have also taken them to India when they were eight and 10 years old.

And I don’t for one moment regret taking them overseas at such a young age.  Although, I wouldn’t say it was easy.  Some of my enduring memories are of playing incessant games of ‘Simon Says’ in the ancient ruins of stone temples in Cambodia, taking all of our lives in our hands crossing the streets in Ho Chi Minh City, being slightly terrified when we got lost at night on the way to our restaurant in the old city in Agra.

But I also remember the guide in Hanoi who taught our daughter to sing his favourite Vietnamese song and took us out for ice-cream with his family, the record set for the cheapest dinner ever at the vegetarian restaurant in Mysore ($5.96 for the whole family all-you-can-eat!), and being showered by elephants in India.

But one of the most remarkable things that surprised me was how much the kids took in about the history and culture of the places we visited.  In Vietnam and Cambodia, as you can imagine, it’s pretty hard to avoid tourist activities that involve stories of the war.  And while we didn’t specifically seek them out, it was impossible to shield the kids from some fairly confronting images – I remember one glass monument which was filled with human skulls.  Just how do you explain that to a five-year old?

But what really delighted us was when the kids started asking some really intelligent and sensitive questions about what they had been exposed to.  We never started the conversation, but instead let them lead it, and answered any questions they had as honestly and age-appropriately as possible.  It started with our daughter asking us over dinner one night “How does one country rule another country?” (referring to the French occupation of Vietnam that we had heard about that day).  It definitely opened up some conversations that we wouldn’t normally have at the dinner table.

And then in India, their recall of the stories we had heard from one place which didn’t quite gel when we heard the same story a few hundred kilometres away across a significant border line.  A good opportunity to explain how a story may change depending upon which side of the war the storyteller fought on.

Tips for travelling with young kids

If I had to pass on some tips for travelling to some of these more challenging destinations with young kids, I would make a few recommendations.  Obviously all the regular tips for travelling apply – listen to the advice of your travel agent, travel websites, Lonely Planet, local guide etc.  But below are my tips specifically for those travelling with kids.

Firstly, we made sure that when we arrived in a new place, we had a guide meet us at the airport and transport us to our hotel.  This took out all the stress about making sure we always knew where we needed to be and how to get there – no worrying about dodgy taxi drivers or messed up accommodation bookings, when the kids were tired and just wanted to eat and sleep.

We also booked in regularly with high quality accommodation with all the mod-cons.  This meant that when the kids were a bit overwhelmed with culture shock, we could escape back to an airconditioned room with cable TV and internet access.  And swimming pools at reputable hotels are a godsend.  Even if you are not staying at a pool-equipped hotel, sometimes you can pay a fee to enter a pool at another hotel.  This has several benefits – it provides a relaxing break for the whole family, a cool respite from the heat and humidity, and it’s also a source of exercise and fun for everyone.

We planned our itinerary fairly carefully.  Every second or at least every third day, we booked an activity which was specifically aimed at amusing the kids – elephant rides, safaris, a family cooking class, a houseboat ride.  Expecting them to traipse around to endless ancient stone walls is a bit unrealistic.  And some of these activities that we might not otherwise have done provided some of the highlights of the trips.

Be prepared for some of the more challenging aspects of travel.  The things that our kids found a bit confronting were beggars in the streets, and even more so, hawkers selling their wares as they are more aggressive and don’t tend to leave you alone.  Also, both of our kids are fair and blonde.  This meant they got LOTS of attention with complete strangers wanting to take photos.

And whenever we stopped still long enough for one family to take a photo, more photographers would form a crowd, and it was sometimes difficult to escape, with a couple of notable examples when we got surrounded by about 50 teenagers and had to escape back to our car, and the time someone picked up my daughter and started walking away with her – only to place her on her grandma’s lap so they could take a photo.  One benefit was that this did at least provide the opportunity to take some great photos of some local families with beautiful children themselves, or wearing lovely traditional saris.

The best advantage, we believe, was broadening the life experience of our kids.  I think we live an incredibly lucky and privileged life in Canberra, and we really valued giving our kids the opportunity to see that there are so many people in the world who have a much harder life, but also that there can be and is so much history, culture, and joy in some other cultures.

And it was all worth it when my son wrote in his travel journal in the plane on the way home that India had been his best holiday ever!

Although I have told my husband that our next trip needs to be somewhere easy to travel – maybe Europe??  But I’ve noticed the travel brochures for Africa appearing on the coffee table…  I’ll let you know how it goes!