One of the most consistent irritants when traveling abroad is this: people are constantly asking you where you’re from. Every tout and huckster. Every schoolkid who knows three words of English. Every employee at every store. Every rickshaw driver. Without fail. I think part of it is to get your measure, and determine how much money you might have. After a while, it gets invasive and unpleasant.

The same thing happened to me when I traveled through Indonesia years ago. After a while, I gave joke answers. My favorite was “Disneyland,” but the locals just thought I’d said “New Zealand” so it didn’t work.

But upon entering Kerala, I made up another fake country name: “Viagra.” Natacha didn’t want me to do it. But I figured if I was going to get the same annoying question thirty times a day, I should have a little fun with it.

The first time I tried it was in the spice shop. The guys there barely missed a beat, looked at each other with a little confusion, and said, “That is a drug, yes?”

Busted.

Then they laughed. So not only did it backfire, but I basically told them I came from an ED drug.

But it sure felt better than saying “USA” for the four hundredth time.