Traveling Alone

Rather than do my poor interpretation of a travel log, I will refer you to a much more detailed and pictorial source on traveling in S.E. Asia. Take a look at "travelfish.org". It is a really good source for travelers in the area along with photos. Plenty of great information about the area and the attractions. There, I discovered I am "flashpacker" because I stay in lodgings from $10-$20 rather than backpackers who are classified as less than $10.



There are many people of different ages traveling as couples or alone in this category, they are different nationalities and gender filling the restaurants, kayaking, sight seeing and just generally "touring". Interestingly, they all have to communicate in english so it is far easier for me than many other tourists.

Then there are others, including the Muths's, who are real adventurers and do things as they did like riding a bike around SE Asia(Ouch, my taint). Check out their blog at "themuths.blogspot.com".

Me, I find it really liberating to be on my own while traveling. If you have ever been in a situation where you have two couples trying to decide on, for instance where to eat, and three agree but there is a one person hold out and the hold out tyrant gets his or her way because the others don't want to make a scene, you can understand the attraction of traveling alone. Living in the same hotel room with another person and being together for 24/7 is oppressive for both. Overall, travel is sometimes fatiguing and when cranky people are tired they become a pain the ass (myself especially)and can make life unpleasant for those around them.

I first traveled alone to Europe with a backpack in 1972. Previously, I was in the army but that is like traveling with an athletic team as you are always hanging out with guys who want to do the same things. Traveling alone is quite different as you are always looking out at strangers rather than in a group with another person. I must admit, it was difficult to adapt but as time has passed and I have more experience, I am much more comfortable traveling alone than with someone else. Maybe it has to do with getting to be an older male. You look at some of the other social mammals such as lions and elephants and the males detach themselves from the herd to hang with other males first and then alone as they age. I just chalk it up to genetics and do not assume any guilt for getting annoyed when I spend too much time with people.


OK, so maybe, just maybe, I am the one to get cranky. At least this way I don't inflict myself on anyone else.

I just finished reading "On The Road" by Jack Kerouac. Funny, I can remember reading "Roughing It" by Mark Twain when I was traveling in Morocco in a VW van with 6 other people on the road from Amsterdam in the "Marrakech Express". That was about his trip out west to San Francisco. Now, I am traveling in Laos and read a book written about traveling the same route some 70 years later. The Beat Generation fueled by bennies and hard liquor and tea and bop, celebrating life and birthing the hippies.

Final page:

"the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old,"