Four Strikes Against Solo Travel

I had a friend here tell me the other day that she was a slave to her office and I was a slave to travel. I’ve had an office job maybe twice in my life and I know that working from 8-5, being busy or, even worse, having to look busy for those set hours of the day were not at all easy for me. Probably why I never lasted more than a year in one of those jobs. Being a slave to a school was a lot harder work, but the time was busy and I more often than not enjoyed the work. Kids were the reason I got out of bed in the morning and if I didn’t have a smile on my face at 4.30am, a student was likely to have me laughing out loud by 8.00.

My job here in Turkey does indeed make me a “slave” to travel. My partners here, the US Embassy and an educational organization acronymed TED, have projects and schools all over the country and they send me off to check-up on all of them. I have to say that it doesn’t give me much to get out of bed for in the morning other than to pack a bag, catch some mode of transportation or to write a report, none of which chains me to an office and that I like. But the constant travel is not my favorite. As a matter of fact, after quite a few solo trips for fun and adventure’s sake, I am growing to dislike more and more setting out on the road, or into the air on my own no matter what the reason.

It’s 3.30 on a Thursday afternoon. My bus leaves at 4.15 from the main bus station in Ankara so I better get downstairs and catch a taxi. This will be a short trip. Just two nights so my bags are light. I pay the taxi, get my receipt and head to terminal. This place is HUGE! Three levels of “peron” - the bus equivalent of gate - each level having at least 50 of them – arrivals, departures and maintenance/fill-ups. Inside the terminal is lined with bus company counters battling for the passenger heading to Konya or Istanbul which are about 3-4 hour trips and even Batman and Van which are closer to 15 or 16 hour trips. Fortunately my travel budget allows me to fly to those far-reaching destinations, but this trip today will just be 3 hours by bus. I slowly realize that my bus company does not have a bus at the designated peron or any nearby peron and have to figure out where it is.

Here lies strike #1 against solo travel: dealing with the inevitable travel bumps, in a foreign language. When traveling with someone, or at least someone you like, these bumps hold very little stress and can even be good fun. For example, one person can go and check the schedule change while the other stays with the bags. Hauling around luggage, a computer and a water bottle adds a whole lot of literal and figurative weight when you’re faced with chasing through a crowded terminal in search of a bus or a plane you are now late for. A travel companion also takes away the stress of being late. Solo travel is all about the destination, but when you have a companion, missing a bus just means the two of you hang out in the terminal together, read books, listen to music, play cards or just tell stories. You’d be doing the same things on the bus anyway.

I’ve almost mastered counting in Turkish, so I could understand when the guy at peron counter #40 told me my bus was 45 minutes late and would be leaving from peron #29 instead of #25. Now, even my light baggage was an annoyance, so I headed to the spot, perched myself and read for the next hour. With the majority of the population choosing bus as their mode of transportation and so many bus companies, the coaches are generally quite nice. Fairly clean with a “steward” that walks the aisle pouring water, handing out packaged cakes and crackers and chi to the travelers. They are supposed to be non-smoking, but there is always one chain smoker that can’t keep his lips off the damn things, so his cigarette smell then mixes with his fairly strong body odor and that is less than pleasant. The 5 foot-nothing older woman sitting in front of me has been known to recline her seat back into my lap too, which is really uncomfortable. But I equip myself with a book and an iPod to escape into my own world that also drowns out the Turkish music videos playing on the TV screen. Strike #2 against solo travel: A friend with you would give you a reason to laugh about this situation. You aren’t in it alone, which makes the discomfort so much more bearable.

Three hours and a cigarette stop later and I arrive at my destination city. It’s been dark and rainy the whole time and might as well be midnight. Someone is supposed to be waiting for me there, whom I have never met. I’m not the hardest person to find in a crowd so I am sure they will find me since I will not be finding them. They grab my luggage and shuttle me to their car. Usually an English teacher comes along so I can at least have more than a conversation of “hello . . . how are you . . . my name is Ismet” with my guides. The time will be about 9.00 at night by the time I get into my hotel room. Crackers on the bus and the chocolate that I brought with me leave me feeling satiated, but I know I need something more substantial in my stomach. This leaves me at strike #3 against solo travel: dinner. Whatever the day held, good bad or whatever, having to sit down at the end of it and have a meal alone often makes it all seem pointless. I don’t mean to seem so fatalistic here. I’ve had some amazing solo travel experiences at the end of which nothing really matters . . . the smile on my face and the memories in my mind win and a good meal alone is just as good as a meal with someone. Not the case so often with work travel. You just continue to read the book and isolate yourself making the whole day just blend into a blob of nothing-special.

Salad and glass of wine consumed, bottle of water in hand and off to my room to have a shower and sleep. Now this is the situation for work trips. There is almost always someone at the station or airport to pick me up and take me to where I’m going. The solo adventure traveler doesn’t have that option always. Strike #4 against solo travel: searching for accommodation in a strange city. Sure, you can reserve ahead of time, ask directions, have a map, but when a bus drops you off in the middle of a city at night and there is no sign pointing you in the right direction, the next 20 minutes can really suck.

A recent work trip had me really close to the Mediterranean Sea so I decided to extend into the weekend and travel to the coast. Antalya is well known for it’s old city and beautiful warm beach seaside scene and even in early November, it lived up to this. As advised by a local, I took a shuttle bus from the station to the city center. I’ve been to old city centers before. Cobble stone roads that don’t allow cars to enter. It’s usually hard to miss this area. That was not the case here. Where the bus dropped me off, everything looked like a modern city. Traffic, trams, parking lots and buildings. It was dark and I was clueless. My crap Turkish got someone pointing in the right direction for me, so that direction I headed and sure enough, the cobblestone road appeared.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick was the sound of my suitcase wheels as it followed behind me, drawing the glares of the very few shot-owners that still had their doors open. The pension that I had reserved gave me walking directions from the “main bus stop” but it appeared that I had lost that lead. Old cities rarely have street signs so all I had with me now was my sense of direction, which basically meant that I was lost. Pulled out my crap Turkish again to get some more points, but my hotel seemed elusive to most of them. Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick
What I did find was a hotel I had sent an email to for a room but didn’t hear back. I figured I’d go for it. As I approached, I saw that most was dark inside – not promising, but I knocked anyway. No answer. I rattled the door a bit – locked. As I turned to wander on, the door flew open and standing there facing me was a man with what I can only describe as a Fred Flinstone club in his hand – a huge fricking club raised to knock over whoever was on the other side of the door.

I’m going to stop the story there because this entry is meant to be about the negative side of solo travel. There are bonuses too, and this story continues on and turns into one of those, so until next write . . . I promise it won’t take as long to post as this one did.