This is why Solo Travel can be Horrific
This is why you must do it
“Sorry ma’am, the gate is closed.”
What, no?! This cannot be happening. I am in Kuala Lampur, supposed to be on this flight to Bali, and reach Ubud in the afternoon. My taxi driver is waiting there. My family back home in India thinks I am on this flight to Bali but I am not.
I am traveling alone. I don’t even have someone to vent out at.
The Malindo Air transfer desk is uncooperative. With some robotic excuses, they ask me to book a new flight which, according to them, is only available at 8pm. It is 10am right now.
This is not working, my mind reminds me.
I argue, beg, nearly sob, feel sick. I try to fix so that my mind can stop telling me that this is not working. But the more I try, more I fail. In the end, I realize that it is what it is.
There is nothing personal about it.
It is a set of events happening that, although undesirable, is not improbable. I have to just respond to this change of circumstances as mechanically as I can.
I check flights online and find another cheaper ticket on 6pm flight (f you, Malindo staff). I book that and request them to ensure my bags are transferred correctly to my new flight. The desk staff reassures me. I reschedule my taxi on whatsapp.
I find a couch in the waiting area where I doze off for a couple of hours before waking up starving.
My emotions are about to kick in, making me think of loneliness, how things fall apart and all. I can see it coming. So, I get up and find a cafe.
After eating half a sandwich, I go and sit in the waiting area outside the flight gate. I am not moving now, I cannot miss this flight. I again ask the staff to check my luggage and they say it should be fine.
I reach Bali 8:30pm at night. The last bags have arrived and mine are no where to be found. I am not shocked. This was again a probable event and it has happened despite my hoping it didn’t.
I express my unpleasantries to the Malindo Air baggage staff, fill out the forms and am told that my bags would be delivered the next day to my hotel in Ubud. After taking the ground staff’s contact number, I leave with my backpack that has all electronics and no clothes.
The taxi ride is dark outside and inside.
But I keep bringing my focus on what needs to be done next. I inform my well wishers without alerting them to the worrisome part of the bags and my decaying morale.
This trip was supposed to make me happy and it has already started with a thorny prick. It is not working.
I buy the simcard, water and close my eyes.
This is Ubud, a place close to my heart. I can feel the rice fields in the dark. The lull in the streets, small warungs, happy taxi driver — my mind takes me back to my first trip to Bali in 2016. It was my first solo trip and had transformed me in more than one ways.
After hours of fighting melancholy, I begin to cheer up. The situation can be dealt with, its not the end of the world.
I reach my homestay almost at 11pm and smile when I am shown the room. It is beautiful and clean and green. I crash on my bed.
Next morning, I try to track my bags. They have reached the airport and will be duly transferred — is the message I get. But evening comes and no sign of the bags. I am now told that they did not have a delivery vehicle and would try next day.
This is the trigger my mind is ready to jump at. See, it is not working.
I cannot shove it aside anymore but I sit there and let it do what it wants to do. I acknowledge all the dark thoughts.
“Yes, it is not turning out the way I wanted. Yes, I have to deal all of this on my own. May be I won’t find my bags ever. May be I would be traveling alone always. May be I would never get anything. Yes, it is disheartening. Almost disgusting. May be life shattering.”
I let it all flow through my mind. I talk back to those thoughts with love and acceptance that may be this what it is meant to be and it is okay.
How bad can it be? I mean I am in this mindfuckingly beautiful place, getting to do what I love, with no one determining my choices. I have a book to read, a book to write and people whom I love. I mean really, what am I supposed to be complaining about? May be this is the perfect life!
This is exactly why one should do solo travel — not for the fun and photoshoots but for facing your fears. This is what transforms you.
I witness the negative thoughts and just observing them instead of blocking them makes them weaken down. They dissolve away. I am not even trying to shoo’ them away but they are going on their own. “Hey wait, talk to me!”
I decide to go shopping and make the most of my bagless situation. I buy a dress I love and eat a good dinner. The dress makes me feel clean and sexy. The food makes me feel nourished and wise.
After all, my bags will now arrive the next day and it will all be great. But what if something happens again? May be that is okay too.
I know there is always a way — not around — but through. And if you walk through any situation, you eventually cross it.
Next morning, I am informed that one of my bags is locked and unless I unlock it, custom check cannot happen. So, I need to come down personally to pick and get my bags checked.
Hmm. If they had informed me last day, I could have done that earlier.
This is horrible.
Yes, it is horrible but not incurable. If you think about it, there is hardly any situation that makes moving ahead impossible.
So, I call my taxi. Go there, pick my bags. Ask them where can I file my complaint politely. Take the taxi, and come back. Reunited with my bags, I smile. But, I smile because it really did not matter anymore if I found them or not.
It was always a set of accidental occurrences that I did not prefer happened. But if I stopped having a feeling about whether it is good or bad and just accept that it is, it loses its devastating effects.
Accidentally or subconsciously, I have practiced the art of observation and stoicism. And that is perhaps the best way to learn something — by practice, by intuition, by self-discovering when you need it.
“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti
Stoicism is predominantly a philosophy of personal ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world. According to its teachings, as social beings, the path to happiness for humans is found in accepting this moment as it presents itself, by not allowing ourselves to be controlled by our desire for pleasure or our fear of pain, by using our minds to understand the world around us and to do our part in nature’s plan, and by working together and treating others fairly and justly — Wikipedia
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