I’m a plus-sized girl travelling in Asia – it is an exquisite a part of the world however locals continually taunt me about my weight

A travel influencer on the trip of a lifetime around south east Asia has opened up about the challenges of being plus-sized in different cultures. 

Alice Mockett, from Bedfordshire, quit her job five months ago and gathered up her savings to take a solo backpacking trip around Asia, where she has seen some of the world’s wonders. 

Having spent a decade working as a travel agent in holiday destinations across Europe, the 32-year-old thought she was prepared for any experience.

However Alice has received some nasty surprises while exploring the continent, in what she describes as ‘micro-aggressions’ from locals towards her weight – to the point where she’s considered flying back home.

Alice, who is currently staying in the Philippines, began to notice awkward stares as soon as she landed in the region.

During the last five months, she has been subject to regular remarks about her size from locals, which she says has knocked her confidence.

Speaking exclusively to FEMAIL, the blogger opened up about her experiences, explaining people have poked fun at her or pointed out her weight more times than she can count.

 She even described one instance where an entire bar of people laughed at her as she left the venue.

‘Imagine your biggest insecurity and then someone pointing that out every other day for five to six months straight,’ she said, adding that ‘it is hard going’.

The blogger, who has 7,500 followers on TikTok, @alice_in_wanderlust31, regularly shares details of her experiences as a plus size traveller. 

As well as being plus size, Alice is also 6ft which only adds to the disparity between her appearance and those of locals, who she said are ‘thin and short’.

‘You just never know where you’re going to get it from,’ she said. ‘You can actually just be walking down the street. Go to buy a drink and you get called big. 

‘You sat on a boat trip having a nice time, and someone comes up and tells you how big a splash you’re going to make. It just comes out of nowhere.’

Alice first took off to South-East Asia six months ago, leaving behind her job and taking off for a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Knowing she would ‘never have the funds’ for a mortgage with ‘crazy expensive housing prices’, she took off with all her whole life’s savings.

Before beginning the adventure, Alice worked as a holiday rep and spent seven seasons with Thomas Cook, exploring countries all across Europe where she claims she rarely, if ever, received comments about her weight. 

She spent time in Greece, Spain and Portugal and always found the people ‘lovely’. 

But her recent experiences backpacking have been vastly different. She recalled an early moment during her trip when a airport worker assumed that she would need a seat belt extender without asking her – despite her having never needed one before.

On that particular flight, she had decided on the day to pay extra to have a seat with extra leg room as a ‘treat’, since a number of Asian airlines have a smaller seat pitch.

At the time, she had lost some weight and was ‘feeling good’ about herself. But when she arrived at the airport in Bangkok, a member of staff quickly apprehended Alice to tell her that she couldn’t use an extended belt in the emergency exit row.

Alice has never had to use an extender, which she informed the worker, who didn’t appear to believe her, and warned that she may not be able to have the seat.

In a panic, she then spent the hour before her flight frantically researching seat measurements for the airline.

‘I was really anxious. I was Googling belt lengths and doing everything I could to try and find out whether I’d be able to do up the seat’.

When she boarded the plane, a sympathetic member of the cabin crew told her to try the belt and Alice discovered she was well within the limits with ‘a couple of inches to spare’. 

‘But my experience was me being anxious for hours before my flight because she had looked at me and judged that I wouldn’t be able to do up my belt,’ she said.

Alice also argued: ‘Skinny people in the airport who paid for extra leg room aren’t Googling seatbelt sizes.’

Since she has been on the go, Alice has experienced countless experiences of a similar ilk, with strangers seemingly not afraid to make decisions for her based on her weight.

Recently checking into a hostel in the Philippines, Alice asked staff at reception whether she had been placed in the top or bottom bunk in her hostel dorm room. 

She claims the staff moved her from the top bunk to the bottom bunk ‘after seeing you’. 

Alice said: ‘I was grateful for the bottom but I knew why they had done it.’

Although she has been able to enjoy most of her experiences in Asia, she admitted she avoids some tourist attractions, such as theme parks, where there could be weight limits.

‘Why would I put myself through the embarrassment,’ she said.      

Alice has spent most of her trip travelling alone but did spend a brief period travelling with her ‘petite friend’, who she said had a vastly different experience in comparison to her.  

‘I traveled Cambodia with my petite blonde friend and I noticed how many more people talk to her approach her laugh and joke with her than they do me,’ she explained.

On one occasion, the two walked into a bar in the capital Siem Reap, and were greeted by a wave of people ‘putting their arms up and acting like sumo wrestlers’.

Horrified by the display of cruelty, her ‘skinny friend’ tried to stand up for her, but Alice had already spent three months in Asia and ‘wasn’t shocked at all’. 

On another occasion, Alice was on told by the driver of a boat party she was on that  there would be ‘a big splash’ if she jumped in the water.

Alongside local attitudes, Alice noted that ’95 per cent’ of the people she has seen in hostels are slim.

‘You have to have a hell of a lot of confidence to come and do this,’ she said.  

During a visit to Vietnam two years earlier, one horrifying encounter nearly put her off going back for good. 

‘I was in a bar street in Vietnam. It was actually not full of tourists. It was where the locals went, and my friend decided to stay out, and I wanted to go home. 

‘It was just two streets to walk down and I kid you not, not every single person in the bar, like person by person, probably like 400 people in these bars all turned around and laughed at me as I walked down the street.’

Alice said she has noticed a significant disparity between the way she is treated, not only be locals, but other backpackers.

She said that she is rarely approached and that people ‘aren’t as friendly’.

While dining at a restaurant in Sri Lanka, a waiter asked Alice if she needed a extra large portion of pasta when ordering.

Although the comment would spark controversy back home in the UK, in Alice’s sympathetic view, the waiter ‘had good intentions’ and believed he ‘just wanted to make sure I was full’. 

She said she ignored comments at first, but that she has since started ‘calling people out’ when she spots people making remarks about her weight. 

‘I’ve had them locals talk about me in their local language, and normally I just ignore it but I just decided to start calling people out and saying, Oh, what are you saying? You’re talking about me.

‘I think we should call people out, especially if they’re talking about us behind our back in in our language, everybody else’s language.’

Speaking in a video on her TikTok, the influencer said: ‘I’m so tired, I’ve just started to call everyone out on their bullsh*t’.

Alice said she found she was treated the worst in Sri Lanka, Vietnam and the Philippines. 

She recalled one instance in Sri Lanka when she out hiking and received the unsolicited advice from someone who told she should ‘hike more’.

‘The tuk tuks always try and get you in their vehicles, and I say, no, I’m walking, they’d say, “yes, you need exercise”.

While she initially found comments ‘funny’, six months of hindsight left her ‘crying on the internet’ over what have become nearly daily experiences of people remarking on or poking fun at her weight.

‘My body confidence has probably gone down because of the comments,’ she said.

Although she is positive about her experiences on the whole, she admitted there have been moments that have made her want to pack up and leave.

In a recent TikTok, the blogger broke down in tears and said she just wanted to ‘go home where no one talks about my weight.’

‘In the UK, we have got a culture now of body positivity. 

‘I’m not in denial that I’m a big girl, but I don’t feel any shame about being a big girl in the UK, whereas I feel it has made me more self-conscious of my weight. If you’re getting told something about yourself constantly, that is going to happen.’

‘I’m no different from anyone else, I’m just bigger,’ she said in the video. 

Despite some of her negative experiences, Alice maintained that she had met ‘so many nice people’ while travelling. 

‘I’ve had such an amazing time and don’t want to put people off going to South-East Asia,’ she added.

She began vlogging her experiences on TikTok to help ‘inspire others to do it’ while also ‘being realistic about what they will experience’.

After two of her videos went viral, Alice was inundated with messages from people who were worried about travelling as plus size people.

She urged other plus size people not to be put off from going themselves, but pointed out that their experiences would be different from people with slimmer bodies. 

‘I don’t want to put people off like. My whole thing is, we are big girls, but we can still do what skinny people do, and that’s that’s kind of my mentality.’ 

‘My message is – do it anyway but you’ve got to be prepared for the comments you’re going to get.’