Musings on travel and solitude in a crowd

Some errant notion caused me to pick up the magazine out of the seatback, which is written in both Mongolian and English.  An interview with Otgonbat S. caught my eye because he was talking about travel.  This caught my eye - “When we travel, we walk out, but in reality we travel deep inside.”

In the beginning, according to Otgonbat, we travel to see new places. But after a few trips, most people tailor their traveling to their own interests, whether those are taking photos, mountain climbing, trying other foods, studying religious beliefs, experiencing different cultures, or other reasons. I think traveling solo is a variation on that concept.

When you travel alone, it falls to you to figure it out, whether you are sick, tired, hungry, lost- you can’t just let someone else do it for you, because there is no one. Over time this builds confidence and epands one’s capacity to cope. It develops problem solving skills. While I very much enjoy meeting other people when I travel, the characteristics of solo travel suit me very well.

Travel often (not always) makes a person more observant and resilient. I’m not sure if travel makes one more curious or if curiosity promotes travel, but it seems there is often a correlation.

I think generally it also tends to make people a little more tolerant because they can empathize better with someone, even a stranger, who they see struggling in an unfamiliar situation. After having quite literally been soaked with sweat from anxiety and fear, I am inclined to stop and ask if I can help when I see that familiar look of terror.

I’ve met so many people who live in a country other than their country of birth/origin on just this one trip. Many seem not to think strongly in terms of nationality, but view the world as their country. Some have migrated for education, work, love, or adventure, and they took ‘home’ with them. This attitude seems to me to be more prevalent in areas where proximity brings regular contact with other countries. Europeans are a case in point, many being multi-lingual as a practical matter. However, there are many, many Russians and Chinese living abroad as well, and former/current commonwealth countries such as Australia feed that flow regularly as well. We seem to be the minority in our world view, perhaps because we can currently afford to be insular.

A lot of people traveling in Mongolia that I’ve talked to are using guides in each city- the guide picks them up at the airport or train station, their hotels and activities are all pre-agreed. I saw some whose guide came into the Beijing Railway Station (you can only get in with a ticket and ID normally) and walked them to the gate for their train. I can see the value of that, it reduces the margin of error by a great deal, eases anxiety, and makes travel possible for some whose physical condition would not otherwise allow it. I think the reason I eschew such an approach is that in the end, I enjoy the challenge, the process, of figuring out how to land on my feet in a new place. The initial terror fades quickly and leaves delight and satisfaction at being where I’ve never been before. Also, if you have a guide, they tend to follow you around (or vice versa). 

On the train, enjoying very much the mini village that existed on the train, I still began to yearn for time to myself. I find it exhausts me to continually interact or feel the pressure to do so, I need big blocks of time when no one I know is watching me. I solved this on the train by walking down to the dining car, and I sat there in the noise and activity, completely at ease despite the colorful chaos around me, because I was alone in it.