solo traveling: vignettes from singapore and borneo

I was craving alone time.  Before setting off for Southeast Asia, I was in a mad flurry of handing in final papers, trying to spend meaningful time with roommates, and preparing for my trip.  As I boarded the plane in Portland, I finally had time to write, time to read, time to think—so I pulled out the first book I had time to read for fun since Christmas break.

During the two weeks of Spring break I spent a lot of time reading and journaling, and spent the majority of every day alone.  Solo traveling for me is terribly, wrenchingly lonely, but comes with the rewards of talking with people I’d never have otherwise had the chance to meet.  For example, on that first flight out of Portland, I ended up sitting next to a woman who owned a Japanese restaurant in Corvallis and who was flying home to Japan for her mother’s funeral.  We talked on and off for most of the plane ride, and I felt like I learned a little bit from this exceptional woman about having an attitude of patience and diligence.

When I went to Borneo, I sat by another remarkable woman on the plane.  I was just settling into my book when the lady next to me said unexpectedly and without preamble, “Hi!”  I answered, “Hi?” a little surprised, not sure what she wanted.  It turned out she was just looking for conversation.  She was traveling home after a long stint of working in Singapore.  She was from the interior of Borneo from an ethnically Chinese community, and had studied Industrial Engineering at the University of Tennessee.   We chatted for the whole plane ride, and ended up sharing a taxi from the airport into town.

***

While staying in the town of Kuching, Malaysia, I was staying at a hostel that I’d found online.  I was lured by the promise of $6/night for a bed, air-con, and free breakfast.  The beds were nice enough for six bucks and the air-con indeed worked, but the breakfast turned out to be stale Wonder Bread and a can of peaches that looked like it’d been opened months ago.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because it forced me to get out of the hostel early—6am, when the roosters started crowing and the construction noise next door picked up—and I got to enjoy the city of Kuching during the coolest, calmest hours in search of breakfast.  I was told there was good Malay food across the river, so I hopped on a $.15 river taxi—a long, narrow wooden boat powered by an ageless boatman—and explored Kuching.

because I’m apparently forgetful, I didn’t take a single picture of Kuching, so here’s a picture from the internetz of the main road along the river where my hostel was.  Mostly, the areas along the riverfront were incredibly touristy, with shops boasting names like BORNEO ANTIQUES and THE BONG SHOP.

and here’s an incredibly stylized picture of a water taxi

Because my trip was last-minute and informed entirely by internet discussion boards, I ran into a lot of Western tourists who were doing similar circuits of SE Asia.  One Canadian told me dozens of crazy stories from her 6 months of travel in SE Asia (chasing a monkey that had gotten ahold of her backpack that had her camera, all her money, and her passport in it into the jungle in Thailand; watching a guy hamming it up with a water buffalo in Cambodia, before the buffalo stomped and gored him to death, etc.). She also told me that her brother lived in Singapore, so she made that home base and visited him every few months, but that she hated Singapore because the people were so rude. 

“In Canada, when you pass by people on the sidewalk, you smile and greet them.  If you’re about to go through a door at the same time as someone else, you hold the door open for them.  In Singapore, nobody smiles at anybody, and you have to push and shove to get through any doorway.”  Her observation seemed fairly accurate—I found myself using my elbows a lot, and getting elbowed a lot in return, especially when pushing my way through the rush-hour subway crowds—but I was still surprised at this girl’s judgement on Singaporean politeness.  Politeness strategies vary by culture. In the US, for example, there are elaborate rules for how we eat food (think of all your mother’s “table manners”) but we would never dream that showing the bottom of your feet to someone could be rude—which it is in many Middle Eastern countries.  Imagine how many Middle Eastern visitors we routinely offend by crossing our legs, kicking our feet, stretching (think of all those early-morning runners), and whatever else we do where we inadvertently show the soles of our feet to the world!

Singaporean “rudeness” is similar—it is simply unheard-of to hold doors open for people when air-conditioning is so precious, and if you smile at random people on the street, they’ll probably assume you’re a prostitute.  My own impressions were actually that Singaporeans can trip over themselves to be polite—when I was shopping (yes, I’ll admit to going shopping in Singapore.  When in Rome…) the salespeople would follow me around the shops, and if I help up a certain dress they would fetch ten more that they thought I’d like, and they’d tell me how great this one would look at a garden party, and how beautiful that one would be for an evening party… right, since I go to so many garden and evening parties?  Anyways.  This Canadian was obviously a seasoned traveler, but she seemed very quick to impose her home culture’s rules on others.

As a traveler, I probably unknowingly fall into the same traps, and there’s no way that I can say that a 5-day blitz through Borneo allowed me to come to any understanding of Bornean culture.  However, I hope I approach the endeavor with an open mind.  For me, the point of traveling is to further my neverending quest to be a better person.  I don’t think I can grow without being exposed to new people and new places, even if that exposure is superficial at best.  Through conversations, which are so easily sparked by being a solo traveler, I do feel like I can learn more about the world.

***

Here’s one last story about the world’s endless possibilities:

While at Bako National Park, I started talking to one of the guides who had studied zoology at Cornell, and then stayed on for a year in New York working as a tattoo artist.  He said that the first time he saw a tattoo parlor advertising “WE ARE EXPERTS IN TRADITIONAL BORNEO HEADHUNTERS’ TATTOOS” he got super excited, but when he went in to look at the designs, most were from Polynesia or were somebody’s creative imaginings, and weren’t even close to the tattoos he’d grown up seeing and giving.  One of his friends from New York happened to own a string of tattoo parlors, so this friend brought him on as a tattoo artist who could give people actual traditional Bornean tattoos. 

The story of how he met this tattoo-parlor friend was one to remember: before going to Cornell, this guide was at the local university in Kuching, and one night he had a dream where he met an American woman.  A few nights later, he had a dream where he also met her son.  A little while later, this guide was walking through the university, and he saw the American man—the woman’s son from his dream—walking towards him.  The American did a double take, and shouted, “This is fucking bullshit!” and almost started a fight, because he, too, had had a dream where he met the Malaysian man.  The two men finally calmed down enough to argue about who was more freaked out, and the Malaysian recounted how he had met the American's mother, and had been to his his house and met his dog.  The guide told me, “I’m a scientist—a zoologist—and I’m a Muslim.  I don’t believe in witch-doctors or magic, but I swear this dream was real.  It was like a path for me, for my life.”   This path led both men back to New York where they reconnected at Cornell and then worked in the tattoo business together.

The guide said that now, he sees a lot of white guys (and girls) who are covered in tattoos, and who have gauged ears (which was apparently a Bornean thing) and he said he though it was cool and respectful in a way for white people to embrace other cultures’ art forms.

What an interesting world!