Sometimes, it’s better to travel than to arrive
Travel, first and foremost, is a privilege— most people don’t get to explore the world at will. In addition, if you do it enough and for long enough periods of time, travel also becomes a state of mind.
I find it really hard to break out of this mindset when I return to familiarity. When everything’s familiar and nothing is a challenge, I feel ambivalent and uninspired. But when I have to do things like buy a local sim card, or attempt to explain to the taxi driver where I want to go, or deduce that the word ‘jalan’ means street, my days somehow seem more fruitful.
Perhaps Pico Iyer, travel writer and author of a fantastic recent NYT article about unplugging, said it best: “Once the movement was in my blood, I could never out. At every point, travel taught me that everything else paled by comparison.”
I spent today solo exploring the central part of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I think it is the familiar feeling of the unfamiliar that I crave so much when I’m at home. Sticking out like a sore thumb (or a 5’10” white girl in Asia) and feeling the gaze of store vendors as I walk by only strengthen my resolve to not submit to a generic tourist experience.
For lunch today I chose a plastic-chair eating establishment where nearly all the (male) patrons spent their lunch-hour staring at me in confusion. I sort of predicted this was going to happen the moment I stepped inside the place. This waiter had no idea what to make of my presence and interacted with me with a mixture of trepidation and amusement. Needless to say, I was pretty uncomfortable, but it felt good. It felt like I wasn’t doing what’s expected of someone like me. Sitting there, I was forced to just be— there was no iPhone or newspaper to hide behind either, just my onion naan bread and chutney.
Later when I was negotiating a price with a taxi driver he asked, “How many people?” I responded that it was just me. He seemed surprised and once we started the drive he asked me again, “So you’re just traveling alone?” I suppose he found it unusual, but I find this is the only way to feel like a traveler, rather than a tourist on vacation, when I’m in a new place.
When I’m exploring by myself, it keeps me alert, keeps me on my toes, stops me from getting comfortable. Furthermore, doing this as a female is a totally different experience and requires a particular state of mind. My strategy is to always keep moving, even if I have no idea where I’m going. To my mind, tourists are passive while travelers are active. The strange thing is, when I’m doing this unfamiliar dance in a new place, it’s when I feel most like myself.
