Tag: people

What no one says about travelling

When you read travel blogs, it’s always about how fascinating the journey is, how helpful people are, how charming the kids behave, and how scrumptious the meals are. Few bloggers talk about the sprained ankles, weak knees, and frostbite. And almost no one says how it is to hear about a terror attack in a place they’ve once been in. We should talk about that more often.

Travelling is a wonderful way to spend your life. Not only does travel teach you to handle yourself in a more mature way, but it also teaches you to be respectful, humble, and not be an asshole. Travelling throws you in uncomfortable places, shoves down your throat experiences you don’t want, while still bringing you out feeling fresh and craving more. That’s the beauty of travel. I’ve yet to meet a traveller who’s tired of travelling. I’ve yet to encounter a wanderer who doesn’t want to wander anymore. I’ve yet to camp with a hiker who’s ready to give up high sights for high heels. If there’s anything that all travellers share, it’s the passion for travelling despite the hardship. I’m no different.

Although I haven’t travelled as far and as wide as many other travel bloggers, I’ve seen enough to know that I never want to buy a house and settle down for good. I’ve walked enough to know that I can walk more, and I’ve seen enough to know I’ve seen only a grain of the desert. But I’ve also been to a place that’s no longer the place as I remember it.

Buena Vista Park, San Francisco
Buena Vista Park, San Francisco

I was in California a few months ago. I was travelling for work, but catching as much as non-work sights as possible. The city of San Francisco sits in my memory as a wonderful and welcoming region of all people and opinions. The district of Castro remains as a place I can always visit and share the cheer. So when I left the country, I felt I knew San Francisco a little better than I did before visiting.

Within a month of being back, I heard news about a random shooting incident in Castro. Several people heard gun shots in the dead of the night, and a police officer got hurt.
Out of nowhere a tight knot clenched my throat. I’d been there. I know where it happened for I’d been standing on that same spot a mere weeks ago. I’d bought coffee in that locality. I’d rested my sore feet after hours of continuous walking. The place that gave me comfort had given someone else a death sentence. I didn’t even know the place anymore.

The streets of Castro
Castro, San Francisco

It was no longer the place I’d fallen in love with. That incident made me wonder if what I’d experienced there was even real. Sure, I was a tourist and tourism isn’t the same as everyday life. When I walked the streets of San Francisco, however, nothing about it showed hatred or a potential threat. That’s why the news left me nonplussed. Over the next week, I read about three different shooting incidents in the same city I’d grown to admire.

While this happened, wildfires raged all over California. Although I knew the state is prone to fires every summer, and seeing hills in their neighbourhood go up in flames isn’t new for the residents, it still shocked me. It pained me to watch graphic images of searing red flames lapping up through grass and grass-fed beef as a vacuum sucking up dog hair.

None of these incidents made me hate California. They, instead, left me lamenting. We no longer care for the things we should care about. We don’t see in our land what a foreigner sees. We’ve reached a point where it takes strangers to identify the beauty around us.

All these have made me more vulnerable to distressing news. I flinch when I hear about a stabbing in a place I’ve visited. Even if the incident isn’t related to me or with even the safety index of that particular city, it still affects me. It’s made me more sensitive and inclined to preaching a peaceful society. Travelling has made me care more about this place we call home.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if people travelled more, we’d appreciate the world more — leaving it better than when we entered.

Well, I can hope, can’t I?

Triggered

Bess stared at a tattered postcard. The sun was setting behind the Empire State Building, once-brilliant brightness browned with years of neglect.

Walking away from the boxes she’d been unpacking, she sat down. She’d bought postcards in all 56 countries she’d visited, stocking boxes upon boxes with frozen memories of a lifetime of adventure.

She was no longer the same. She’d neither left the house nor invited anyone since her husband died. For fifteen years, she lived alone, minding her self, motiveless as if in a trance.

Until the postcards evoked her younger self.

Picking up her laptop, she searched: Seoul.

A first-time solo traveller

Aloneness has always been my happy place. Although most people would assume I suffer from social anxiety, it’s in fact a bad case of intense affection to solitude. I find that it helps me focus on my thoughts and prioritise myself. The society I grew up in, however is overprotective to the point of patronising. My parents make constant effort to prevent me from being too alone.

My father, in particular, agonises that I’d end up forever alone. It’s this deep-seethed fear that makes him flare up with emotion every time I hint at going out alone. And to avoid causing more pain than he already feels, I often choose to obey rather than counter argue. It’s easier for the both of us when I avoid confrontation. Besides, at 60+, it’s almost impossible to introduce change in his attitude. There’s just too much inertia there.

It thrilled me when my boss announced I’d be travelling to the US with a colleague for a work event. Here was my chance to venture on my own, a chance I wouldn’t forgo. I decided to extend my trip by five days and inaugurate my solo travel experience.

Hello, SFO
Hello, SFO!

Soon, with lots of help from my North American colleagues, I’d made travel and accommodation arrangements in Portland and in Seattle. I’d spoken to strangers, made flight reservations for myself, and even mapped out my itinerary. I felt proud. I realised I’d organised my life without being my parents’ puppet. By the time I left home and embarked the flight, I had everything for the following month planned out, ready for life to play it out.

Finishing up the work event, my colleague returned home as I prepared to run solo. As I walked out from my employer’s sponsorship and embraced my own, I felt my entire weight on my shoulders. To my sheer surprise, though, it neither scared me nor dragged me down. It, instead, made me feel complete and independent.

For the first time, I realised, I—who’s never felt autonomy in personal life—could manage being a part of the world on my own. Growing more and more fond of that comforting thought, I took off on my journey.

I couldn’t have planned and scheduled any of it without my friends and friends of theirs I acquainted with during the process. But I no longer expected my father to do the talking on my behalf. I didn’t need him to set up my life for me. And that, I think, is the most pivotal part of every first time solo traveller’s life—finding their own path, and accepting its consequences.

Memories

Though he had to walk an extra mile, he chose the longer route. That way, he could avoid the forlorn building.

It’d been an impressive construction once. The entire village witnessed the minister inaugurate the glass factory. Thousands of workers marched every morning into the building alight with energy and abuzz with activity. The villagers could afford additional meals and silk garments. For five months everything had been wonderful. Until one afternoon a machine collapsed and the boiling liquid ruined eighty families.

The factory had been abandoned since. And Prem had dropped out of school to replace his father elsewhere.