told this story last night
In the early 90s, I went to Southeast Asia. I traveled with my friend Tracy until the time she had to fly to Singapore to meet up with her boyfriend. I had planned on traveling alone for another few weeks, through the Indonesian islands of Bali, Flores, Irian Jaya, and then on to Hawaii.
What I didn’t count on was the crushing loneliness and utter alienation of traveling alone. I hated it. Eventually I met people and made friends, but it was not easy.
The beginning of my solo journey did not bode well. After a traumatic day of injury, heatstroke, and more (a story for another day), I headed up to a remote town in the north of Bali. It was primarily Muslim (though most of Bali is Hindu) and it was my first taste of outright hostility based on my gender. My cab driver drove me in circles, demanding American dollars. I was grabbed on the street. I met an ex-patriot American at a bakery, who was polite but not friendly, and it took every ounce of will for me not to grab her and cry and beg for her to take care of me.
I got a room at the nearest hotel I could find, which turned out to be a very seedy prostitute hotel. In my room, I collapsed onto the bed. My pillow, inside its case, was alive with ants.
If I wasn’t a full day’s travel away from the nearest airport, I would have run screaming — too weak for the challenge of third-world solo travel. So I soldiered on, because I had to, and it did get better — although I did skip the rest of Indonesia.
But that lowest of the low point — feeling that pillow, all squirmy with ants, has stayed with me forever.
Ugh, I think we all have a travel yuck like the ant thing. One of mine was in Mexico when I looked over at a friend’s dinner plate and the blob of rice was moving like a volcano. The rice was shaking and then we watched one of the biggest cockroaches I had ever seen came out from center. (And no.. she didn’t eat around it).