Just a note: I've never even been further east than Ba'albek, Lebanon.

he people you meet in the Middle East and South Asia, do you tell them that you're a Buddhist (provided that the discussion ventures into religion)? If you do, what's their reaction?
Yeah, my uncle asked me four years ago what I believed in. I said I wasn't a Muslim, so he just shrugged and went along with his business. The people in Lebanon were like "lol okay", even the people in Ba'albek whom we knew were Hezbollah. I've had a grand total of one negative reaction in Jerusalem, from this dude who told me that me and my mother were going to hell.