A number of posts like this seem to pop up every year. You can divide Western people staying out here into three broad groups, the expats, the NGOs and the tourists. Most expats are out here for decades or forever because there is something wrong with them and they don't fit in to the country they grew up in. Expats range from complete nut cases, to cranky old white racist assholes with too much money and the belief that they can treat everyone like dirt because they have money. Then you get people who are really dysfunctional and should be in more structured environment where they are at least looked after. And here and there you find people who acually make it their home. But most cultures out here don't have the concept of naturalized citizens. You can live here for 50 years and perhaps even have a passport, speak the language fluently and have a successful business but you'll always be gwailo, gaigin, farlang, barrong -- a white guy (and yes, most expats are men).

Then you get the NGOs. Expats hate NGOs. NGOs are the true believers, they are here to save the world. When they aren't saving the world they are sitting in the coffee shops that sprang up in areas where NGOs have sent people to save the world. NGOs think they are better than the expats because they "are working with local people" when in fact they see nothing, know nothing and ultimately look down on the people they think they are helping. The secular NGOs look down on the religious groups who set up schools and give english lessons and packets of instant noodles in return for children singing about Jesus. I'm not saying that what they are doing is worthless, teaching basic literacy, and providing food and some medical care is a good thing. But they want people to pay them back in belief. The secular NGOs think they are above that, but NGOs are like Jelly Beans, they might be all different colours on the outside but inside they are the same imported coffee beans that they slurp in the countless coffee shops established to suck what little money they are being paid.

Finally there are the tourists. I used to hate most of the tourists, but the most cliche'd tourists are mostly alright. They are clueless and they come and spend their money and will go home with some nice memories and don't make things any worse when they leave. A sub-species of tourist are the backpacker who pray to their holy heavily worn copies of Lonely Planet guidebooks. Expats like Lonely Planet because you can pick up a used copy for free that has been left in a bar -- always look for the multi-country guides, because backpackers never buy the far expensive single country guides -- and if you see a place in your country that is listed there, avoid it like the plague and then you will never have to see another backpacker except at bus stations and airports. Backpackers are very insular -- they only travel together, they only eat and drink at backpacker establishments (locals don't like them because they never tip, seem to think that sitting with their laptop or mobile phone at a restaurant for hours after ording the cheapest thing on the menu is ok). Backpackers often are not only clueless but insultingly clueless. You see these morons in deeply conservative religious capital cities like Vientiene wearing cloths you would wear at a beach in a Western country. I actually had to tell two girls at a Lao border crossing who were getting a bit of the cold shoulder from immigration that if they put on a t-shirt over their string bikini tops and acted a bit more polite, things might go a little faster. Yeah, right.

Then you have the newest subspecies of tourist, the digital nomad, who write posts like you just read. There is nothing in that post that indicates that he has been anywhere in Nepal or anywhere that isn't in a Western ghetto in an eastern country. A nomad is a kind of parasite that might kick back a little bit of positive feedback in the way of money to keep their hosts from killing them or brushing them off but suck more than they give back.

I encourage people to actually come out and live out here, stay away from the expats, the NGOs and the tourists and especially the digital nomads and learn something. It's difficult, it's traumatic, it can be heart breaking and at the same time open up worlds, wonderful worlds you never new existed. You will be a better person for it, you will be a better programmer or designer or writer or whatever. You will never be able to go back to where you came from and see it the same way again.

And then if you are strong enough you can either come back out here and do something to make it better, or go back home and use your new eyes to make where you came from better.