Travel Dispatch - Week Eight - "Three Questions"

DATELINE - AO NAM MAO BEACH - 04.09.2014

“Are you alone?”

As I travel, I find myself being asked the same three questions over and over. Whether it’s on a train or in a coffee shop, in Australia or Malaysia, from a local or a fellow traveler, whenever I get into a conversation with someone these same three questions pop up. I’ve learned to expect them.

The first question is an obvious one. “Where are you from?”

The second one seems straightforward. “Are you on holiday?”

The third one, I never would’ve guessed before I left on this journey. “Are you alone?”

That one always gives me pause.

Now, I don’t feel I can properly answer the first two questions, either. I mean, I’m from America. (I feel obnoxiously grandiose responding, “America,” like I’m mentally throwing my arms out to the side as if to shout “Ta-da!” but saying what I feel is the more technically correct “The United States” doesn’t seem to get any recognition if the questioner’s English is poor, whereas “America” gets a big smile or knowing frown and “Am-er-ri-ka!” response. Minor point, however.) There have been no real repercussions, positive or negative, to “admitting” this, no recoiling at the Ugly American, no cursing of the Imperialist Empire that is my birthplace, none of that bullshit, but on the other hand, no warm hugs or free meals. I have been greeted as neither liberator nor oppressor. Even were me being American treated with some visceral reaction, happiness or anger, I wouldn’t care. I was proud to be an American before this trip started, and I still am. Not more so, not less so. Seeing other parts of the world has only made me appreciate what my country has as well as what it could improve, but those emotions haven’t hit me as strong as I might have guessed. It seems besides the point, somewhat. 

(Maybe the neutral reaction stems from no one around these parts ever seeing Americans anymore? I realize that’s not possible but while visiting five countries in two months, I haven’t run into any fellow Americans. Australians, of course. Europeans by the boatload. But no Americans. Perhaps I’m going to the wrong hotspots or something, but I’m at a point where if I see a group of white faces in a museum or on a beach, without any further information to go on, I assume they’re German. Minor point, however.*

*UPDATE: on the ferry from Phi Phi Island to Krabi Beach in Thailand, I rode on the sun deck and finally saw some fellow Americans, a group of young women, early 20s, on an extended vacation. Overhearing their conversation, which dealt mainly with hangover cures and henna tattoos, I felt at once liberated and oppressed myself.)

It seems that “Am-er-ri-ka!” is only half the answer to the question, however. “Where I’m from” right now is without question up in the air. I don’t know where I’m going to live when I return from this trip, whenever I do return from this trip. I’m determined not to make any decisions on that score while away, and though I’m content not to worry about it traveling, being asked causes a little panic to flicker in my stomach. The question only emphasizes to me that I’ve got a real life full of uncertainty in my hands, uncertainty that I signed up for willingly. I did this to myself; what was I, nuts? This trip is only the first part of the plan. The plan when I return is to find a place to live cheaply and try to write as much as I can before heading back to the cubicle world with my tail between my legs. But I don’t know where that cheap place will be, so I feel the only true answer to “Where are you from?” is “I don’t know.” and that causes a slight dread in me which the shopkeeper in Perth, Australia trying to hand me my change with my potato chips doesn’t quite seem to appreciate.

Keeping this loose plan I’ve laid out for myself still in mind, the second question “Are you on holiday?” seems unanswerable as well. I’m not punching a clock while I’m traveling and I’m certainly not getting paid to watch dolphins off the coast of Bali, enjoy noodle soup in a dingy food stall in Penang, or take pictures of the Kuala Lampur skyline from the top of the Menara Towers (I’m willing to entertain offers, though). With the exception of writing every day, a demand I’ve met surprisingly often, I have no responsibilities during these months on the road. My time is mine. 

This is not quite the liberating feeling one would expect, and although the “plan” only lingers in my mind as simply a gentle worry and isn’t debilitating, isn’t oppressive, this whole thing doesn’t quite scream “holdiay” to me either. Quitting my job, giving up my apartment and my city and setting off on this time seems more Important with a  capital “I” than a holiday, more fraught with uncertainty and risk than a vacation. What is this trip supposed to accomplish?

“This trip will change you.” Everyone says it will change me. Fair enough. I'm tempted to respond, "Care to let me in on some specifics, genius?" What will those changes be, how big will they be, and why can’t I feel myself changing right now? Will it only be when the Earth spits me back out onto “Am-er-ri-kan” soil that I’ll notice and appreciate these changes? Will it only be after somebody rears back and spits out, “You’ve changed, man”? Worse, what if this doesn’t change me? Or what if it changes the two or three things I actually liked about myself? All of the “Importance” of what I’m doing, or what I’m trying to accomplish, or what may or may not happen, all of these thoughts fly through my head and again, I wind up saying, “I don’t know,” and again, I’m thrown into a mild panic, which the bartender in the Raffles Hotel Bar just trying to make small talk while mixing my Singapore Sling doesn’t quite seem to appreciate.

“Are you alone?”

Obviously, this third question has different connotations depending on the questioner. The guy riding across the aisle from you in the train from Butterworth, Malaysia asks you that question for a different reason than the go-go dancer who asks it in some sleazy bar on Bangla Street, who asks you for a different reason than the waitress serving you your fish balls on rice in Ubud, who asks you for a different reason than the “concierge” at the Dawn of Happiness on Ao Nam Mao Beach near Krabi, Thailand. Sometimes a question is just a question, sometimes it’s the announcement of an agenda. But every time the question is asked of me, “Are you alone?” my over-analysis muscle, which I’ll concede I periodically exercise to fatigue, starts doing enough reps to “burnfatnotbuildmuscle.” If they held a Mr. Olympia for twisting and shaping and convoluting things and events and thoughts into every possible (well, every possible negative) result, I’d reign as champion.

“Are you alone?” Well, I guess I am. I’m making this trip by myself. It is just me. There are days that pass when I have no conversations longer or more meaningful than, “How much for this?…Okay?…Could I have a water too, please?…Thanks…” It’s been four days, and I’m not convinced there are any other guests staying in this simple but painfully beautiful set of bungalows here at the Dawn of Happiness. I may as well own it. For the past four days, I’ve come out and written in the open restaurant and the waitress and I are now at the point where she brings my coffee, eggs and toast and I pay her without words. I write my pages at a picnic bench and try not to look at the unbelievably turquoise water lapping at the beach twenty yards away. I finish my pages and take a swim in water that almost makes me mutter, “Too warm,” and then drink a Singha beer in a hammock. I go back to the restaurant and the waitress picks something for me to eat for dinner, and I pay her. I drink another Singha. I go to bed. No one talks to me. It's fantastic and it's terrifying. For the past month I’ve walked around a world where I barely need to listen because I know I won’t understand anything I hear. I’ve sat on subway cars with groups of people chattering away around me, and I might as well be sitting on the car by myself. So “am I alone?” Sure.

And yet. Almost every day there is a moment where I have an experience, an interaction, no matter how brief, where I don’t feel alone at all. Long train rides back and forth between Sydney and Perth, Australia suck for trying to sleep, but they’re marvelous for finding a temporary friend and holding hours-long conversations where you talk about anything and everything, going past getting to know someone but commiserating over a shared experience. These conversations will linger with me more than any museum I wander around. Using AirBnB instead of going to typical hotels may result in staying in less-luxurious locales and an occasional dirty towel, but it also results in a host who loves to talk, loves to recommend things for you to do, loves to make you feel comfortable in her hometown. The memories of those hosts will stay with me past any recollection of a skyscraper I enter. In two months traveling**, I’ve discovered my favorite parts are the conversations, the interaction, the social animal created when two or more people ask each other questions and listen to the answers. I’m told that this trip will change me. One of the changes that needed to happen in me was to be more social, to be more outgoing. Traveling by yourself forces you to do this, or you implode. So “am I alone?” Is anyone, really, when all you have to do is ask the person at the next table, “Where are you from?”

**SIDE NOTE: Two months? Geez, that's a long time.***
***SIDE NOTE to SIDE NOTE: Only two months? Geez...

And yet. I miss. I miss while doing this trip. Goddamn it, I miss people. If you're reading this, chances are good that I miss YOU, specifically. Why haven't you called?! (smiles) And you that know me will find this ironic, as it has seemed to many that I’ve spent the last two decades trying to live a life where I missed as few people as possible. I’ve been tagged with the “curmudgeon” label and I embraced it. "Don’t drop your hands, Billy," was a constant admonition. So In July, as my departure approached, people would ask me, “Will you miss Los Angeles?” half-expecting me to say, “Are you kidding?” with a disdainful shake of my head. Even before I left, however, I started to suspect what was coming and would respond, “Not the city. The people in it, though...yeah...”

Um, yeah; I might’ve underestimated that a touch. I lived in Los Angeles for twenty-two years and suspect I felt comfortable there for an aggregate of sixteen hours. I didn’t really want to move there to begin with, didn’t really know why I was moving there, and I certainly didn’t want to leave my friends and family back East. But there was a point, years after I had moved to LA, as curmudgeonly as I strove to be, as much as I wanted to keep my guard up, to not drop my hands, that I realized that if I left, I would miss as many people as I missed when I moved there…

…and then I flew halfway around the Earth to spend nine months in either a bus or train seat. I've covered almost 18,000 miles in two months and haven't split a check once.

That’s called a lack of foresight, yo.

So “am I alone?” Christ, yeah, sure feels that way. I feel like I’m on my own and will be forever, and I’ll never see the people I’ve grown to know and come to love ever again, and I don’t like that one single bit.

And yet. That’s bullshit, I know. That’s Mr. Olympia, flexing. I toss out a needy request for a kind word on Facebook, and dozens weigh in. Many more sent emails. Even without my whining, friends and family check in, say they’re reading the blog, claim to be enjoying it. The Internet enables me to talk to anybody I miss, at any time, at any Starbucks on the globe. The laptop I carry in my small daypack allows me to stay in touch with all of those people I miss, and lets me know that people miss me (this is why the moment it looks like rain, I wrap that sucker up in a giant ZipLoc bag).

I’m not sure I believed that would happen.

So “am I alone?” Hell no.

And yet. And yet. And yet.

“Are you alone?” We’ll see, I guess…

…The shopkeepers and bartenders don’t seem to know what to do with this response, either.