The Accidental Tourist

My first experience, traveling outside the island I call home, was twenty-one years ago. I was three years old and shared a passport with my mother — a grainy black and white, stamp-sized photograph of my grumpy face was stamped and authorized and away I went.
I don’t remember much about the first time I was on a plane but I have seen pictures of myself immersed in a colouring book and trying to unwrap a digestive biscuit with my chubby baby fingers — so the flight must have been a good one. I do remember every year that followed after that. December was “Holiday Month” and this was when the entire family took off to various parts of the globe together, dodging sand storms, crossing icy waters by ferry and catching murderous rickshaws until a turbulent flight brought us back home in time for the New Year. There were days when we didn’t make it back by the 1st of January and I remember starting school a few weeks too late — by which time everyone had made friends and I had to sit in the front row of the classroom. But those were trivial concerns.
Travelling with the family is interesting. My parents are inherently tourists — born into a generation where “adventure” was for “reckless hooligans,” reciting the only mantra we ever needed: “We must abide by the guide or the guide book at all costs.” My father would buy intricate maps, call ahead and alert all members of our extended family to make sure they knew we were arriving in case something disastrous occurred. The kids were routinely given hotel cards in case they got lost, which never happened because the mothers had a firm grip on all our arms. We always stayed in comfortable hotels, ate carefully crafted meals, stayed in the shallow end of the pool and avoided the colorful, loud and crowded areas. Local cuisine was a burger at McDonald’s or a safe sandwich from an artfully decorated tea-room, thanks to which I have amassed a collection of Happy Meal toys from several continents and a quiet admiration for fancy chinaware.

The towers, the bridges, the pyramids, the palaces, the gardens, the art, the Colosseum — not a single landmark of global importance was overlooked. Pictures snapped on Kodak cameras: blurry faces at Disney World or a grimace next to the Eiffel Tower still stand as a fond reminder that tourists can still have a lot of fun on the beaten path.
But that was a while ago.
Lately, I’ve been travelling on my own and the transition from a tourist to a confused solo-traveler has been an interesting once.
My first solo visit was to China.
Arguably not the easiest place to venture to first, but it happened and I’m alive and save for a constant desire to sit at a road-stall and slurp spicy breakfast noodles, I’m fine. As always, my father walked over with a guidebook, some maps and a long list of “Do Nots” and a smaller list of “Places to See.”
I can’t say I made much use of them.
For the first time, I stayed away from the comfort of my dorm room, ignored the convenient “Western meals” in the cafeteria and decided that the 5-minute bus ride to the nearest town was worth it only to savour their spicy, pork-stuffed bread and peppermint green tea. I sat on a small road on Sunday, when they serve free beer and although I was sipping water, I said yes to roasted kebab sticks and bitter porridge, praying that my mother remained blissfully unaware of the toxins entering my system. I refused taxis, learned how to work the subway without knowing a lick of Mandarin, and took two solo trips to the Forbidden City, Beijing Zoo and the National Museum.
And each day when I headed back to my warm room, I felt tired and wholly satisfied.
Was I a traveler? Or a tourist?
I don’t know.
I’m still learning, that’s for sure.

I mean, don’t get me wrong — I love laying by a pool, or curled up in Egyptian cotton sheets with a coffee and a movie (if you’re all about that fancy life!)
But for some reason, I’ve also veered away from a lot of things I’ve once been used to. Coming home and telling my parents that I sat with a wizened old lady and watched her fry duck meat for me, or that I decided to go on a two hour trek right before the final day of a conference, only to get jumped on by a monkey, aren’t only stories for now but memories for later.
I can’t and won’t considered myself an “experienced” traveler. My two decades of travelling have been greatly affected by the fact that it was with family and most choices made were safe ones. I don’t see this as a crutch, however — it’s opened a lot of doors for me and created a constant thirst to see more of the world. And while being a tourist is fun and wandering around shopping malls have been.. interesting, it also pushed me to explore outside convenience. I’m enjoying the fact that I’ve now, decidedly stepped out of the tour bus and onto the pebbled roads. Because let’s face it — it’s fun!
Local experiences are the best experiences and lately, budget travelling makes it easier for anyone to enjoy little adventures. The world we live in is so vast and exciting and colorful and I don’t want to look back and think that I didn’t see enough of what I could because I was a little lazy or hesitant.
And besides, tourist traps are not too shabby when you can make up for it with hot tea and momos afterwards.

I want to say Carpe Diem, but that’s a cliche so I’m just going to say, take each adventure with a sense of නැව ගිලුනත් බෑන් චූන්. Go out. Do something different. Have some fun. It’s a big, beautiful world out there.
Would be a shame in if you missed it.
