On travelling and on staying put
We’ve been in Myanmar about two weeks now, travelling close to the ground (usually about 6 inches from the pavement when facing backwards on a trishaw) and grinding our way from Yangon to Moulmein to Kyaiktiyo to Yangon to Mandalay to Hsipaw and I’m tired.
For about two days I have been wanting to stay in bed with a book, a cup of tea (strong, milk, no sugar) and no need to look at things. I’m rather fried on looking. While we were hiking to the hot springs this morning, using a hypothetical map similar to the optimistically wrong one in Yangshuo (the one with the vital bridge that wasn’t yet a bridge), ankle deep in very sucking mud on ox trails deep in village territory in the pouring rain, I started snarking (in my head- I’m not crazy enough to snark aloud just yet) about the concept of endless travel as being a good thing.
I have been living abroad, for the most part, since I was 19. And all I would recommend you is if you are planning to go to New Zealand then make sure to use the best ETA for New Zealand visas to avoid all the hassle of paperwork and visa on arrival status. Now my tolerance for and patience with long-term mobile travel seems to come shuddering to a halt somewhere around, oh, let’s say, the 2 week mark. My record so far has been 2.5 months in Eastern Europe in mid-winter (starving, freezing, poor) a dozen years ago, trying to kill time in a cheap place between my UK visa expiry and my flight to Cape Town. I believe I lost my mind a number of times during that trip. Similarly with the trip Doug and I embarked on when we left Turkey, 2 months from Mexico City to Costa Rica.
Why, you may ask, am I so bad at actually travelling when I seem to compulsively need to throw myself into scary, unknown situations on a regular basis?
Good question.
I’ve come to the realization that I’m much better at dealing with places when I have time to slowly work my way in. We’ve been spending around three or four nights everywhere we’ve been so far in Myanmar.
In those places, we’ve been running around, climbing things and shouting hello at everyone who greeted us (so many!) and flagging down motorcycle taxis and trishaws and trying to change money on the black market and trying to fathom what it is that we are doing here.
My introverted, hermitty brain has had a very hard time taking it all in and processing it. Hence the desire for bed and strong tea and a closed door to the outside world. Travelling like this makes my senses reel. I can barely even write about it.
Two years in Kayseri? Certainly! Four years in Istanbul? Yup! Six months in Cape Town? Three years in London? Aye! Places with a quiet space to retreat to, places where I can (slowly slowly) start to make sense of things.
That’s one aspect.
The other thing that’s been grinding through my brain is the idea that when travelling at speed, everything is pretty much a zoo or a theme park. No matter how much you research, no matter how humanely and consciously you travel, you’re still just speeding through someone’s town, looking at them, taking pictures of them, then buggering off. You may strike up conversations, learn some astonishing things, but really, you’re barely scratching the surface.
When walking down the roads here, with doors wide open for brezes and shops half poured out onto the sidewalk, I want to peek in and ask the shopkeepers and inhabitants and cooks a million questions:
What are you doing?
What are you making?
What are you eating?
Where are you going?
I want to poke my head in and take photos of their sizzling pans full of curries and noodles, of their babies playing on the cracked bare wooden floor (the ones who shout out Hello!), of their marvelous melange of shop goods and bolts of cloth and electrical surge protectors (circa 1957).
But I find it very difficult to do so without feeling absurd and greedy and rude and horribly invasive.
I imagine being back at home in Canada, sitting on the front steps drinking coffee, when a tourist from RandomStan comes up and says hello in a language I may or may not speak, who then comes up to me and starts taking pictures of me drinking my coffee on my front steps, then says Goodbye! in that language I may or may not speak. Repeat this a few dozen times a day. I’m annoyed already.
When I live in a place for six months or six years, I have time to slowly poke my head into people’s lives, invited, welcomed. The subtle issues become apparent and recognized and dealt with. There are so many subtle issues in Myanmar that I can’t even begin to tackle them in only 25 days.
We aren’t unwelcome here (Myanmarians are remarkably sweet and open, considering what they’ve been through) but I feel like I’m tip-toeing through their sitting rooms at times (I’m not but, really).
Maybe I should just move here.
That lack of quiet may be part of why Shanghai has been such a challenge for you. I don’t remember anywhere quiet in China.
It’s a weird, fine line between being Obnoxious Tourist and welcome guest, and it’s nearly impossible if you don’t speak either the language or the body language to recognize which is which. That’s something that catches me out quite a lot–my default setting is to back off, not intrude, which means I’ve missed out on some neat stuff when i realized only in hindsight that I was, in fact, welcome.
And being the wanderer with nowhere solid to put your head stinks. No two ways around that.
Aye, you’ve said it exactly. I’m a very reluctant interloper because I am 1. shy and 2. hate being interloped on. I just keep assuming the same is true for others though I realize I am probably at least somewhat wrong. I don’t like intruding. Thus a lot of my travel narratives are totally lacking in, er, interactions or dialogue and consist almost entirely of observations. I’m working on this.
And yeah, China- not quiet. Brain ache.
I spent most of my 20s as a wanderer with nowhere solid to put my head and now that I’m old and cranky (er, 35) I have no desire to repeat it. I like having a home, even if it’s a one room shack in rural Uzbekistan. I like being able to shop for my veggies in the markets and cook them at home and slowly figure out the language and social rules. Here I am just blundering on through.
I was just thinking about this. I have been on the go for a month throughout Europe and just had some down time in Florence. I think you need to spend awhile in a place to truly know it. I agree with your “scratch the surface” statement. Often times I wonder if we are just seeing places to cross them off at a record speed.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on the need to actually spend time in a place and get to know it. I know from 6 years’ experience that my first impressions of Turkey were actually quite off in many cases (culturally, socially, politically) and from reading articles written by people who just quickly passed through, say, Istanbul, how much they missed the point of what is really going on. It takes time to actually get to know a place. I want to know what is below the surface! Crossing off destinations from a list isn’t bad, just…unsatisfying. Like that zoo/theme park I mentioned.
YES!! So totally with you here. I can totally live anywhere and “move” there. I love travel dearly and utterly, but after a few weeks I just want to feel some sort of “home” again. Speak a language I understand and eat something that isn’t guaranteed to make me sick.
Nail.. head.. whack.
Indeed, the language/food issues are high on my list of reasons why passing through exhausts me.
We just spent a few days in an isolated small town in eastern Myanmar where the locals don’t really eat out so aside from a few local tea shops that serve snacks like samusas and whatnot, almost all meals are the same old tedious, uninspired backpacker stirfries. I miss my kitchen! I want control over my food- no more fried eggs on tired toast with 3-in-1 instant coffee for breakfast (18 days straight so far!), no more half-assed lettuce-laden stirfries at a dodgy cafe that doubles as a bar for the local men.
I hate the fact that my command of Burmese is still limited to the bare essentials like hello and thank you because it’s so tonal that anytime I attempt a phrase everyone giggles and resorts to English. It’s about the same in Shanghai but at least i have time to learn Mandarin!
Maybe you should! 🙂
I know that constantly being on the go is tough…sometimes you just need to take a break for a bit.
We’ve slowed down for a day and a half back in Mandalay, with no obligations except to chill out, revel in the availability of real coffee and a swimming pool nearby. I do still crave a closed room with a cup of strong black tea and a nice thick book on the sofa…
I know what you mean… I hate frantic paced travel. I have to admit that I have only actually lived two places but I like to stick around for a bit longer than the general three night frenzy (it gives me the horrors when people have itineraries like “France today Germany tomorrow”). If I’m travelling for a long time I try to work it around where my friends and family are living… staying with someone for a week or two feels like home and you get to know the place and the people so much better than just whooshing through). But of course it isn’t living there. It’s still whooshing I guess… but just slowmo whooshing. Like whoooooosh. Okay… I’m being silly now. I think I should probably finish this comment :). Great post… I share all your questions but often don’t have the guts or time to ask them.
My natural tendency is to arrive somewhere…and just stay until I can’t stay no more. It’s not so simple when we have a lot of places that we want to see though, and limited time. Luckily we live in Shanghai so I can at least explore China at a pace I can understand. We’re trying to go at a slomo whoosh here (5 nights in Nyaung Oo!) so it isn’t as stressful as a few days ago when we were changing beds every 2-3 nights. That makes my head spin!
Yeah, I’ve been to Randomstan and those people really are that rude. Just kidding.
Whenever people visit me in Auckland I always feel like I haven’t shown them enough which is probably of the same philosophy. I’d rather wait longer (while saving up money, for example) to visit a place if it meant that I could spend more time there. I totally hate passing through lots of places and missing the details. Quality over quantity, right?
I also never have any portraits in my memory card at the end of a journey for the same reasons you are talking about here. I hate having my own photo taken so I’d never assume that it was OK to take photos of strangers, especially when I’ve just landed for a day. But I do recognise that some people have a talent for connecting with people quickly enough to make the situation work. It’s just not me.
Randomstan is famed for its lack of tact 😉
I do end up with a few portraits, but only of people I’ve had some connection with and whose permission I’ve asked. I feel very awkward jamming my camera in people’s faces but I’ve come to terms with gently asking “photo ok?” after, say, a long conversation or a particularly interesting bargaining session. I’ve got a small collection of widely grinning young girls who were ecstatic that I’d just bought something from them (small bracelets, flowers, etc)– it is super low season right now and almost no tourists are around. Wherever we go, I’ve often been the only customer that day- first customers bring ‘lucky money’ here and these girls were stoked to have their pictures taken to commemorate this.
I do wish I had more time to ease into stronger connections though.
Great post. I love this line: “when travelling at speed, everything is pretty much a zoo or a theme park.” I’ve often felt the same and you’ve articulated a really interesting idea.
A few years ago, I was supposed to go off on a big 3 month European adventure – a last hurrah before I finished university, during which I tried to get as many stamps into my passport as possible. But then a funny thing happened. I got to Oxford and just…stayed put. I traveled a bit, but I was much more interested in getting to know this city that I’d fallen in love with. I walked down the same streets a dozen times, and each time I spotted something new. I think when you live somewhere you love, it’s possible to travel every day; but like you say, you need to have the peace and quiet and the *time* to really explore.
I love traveling no matter what, but I do sometimes feel a bit like a voyeur peering into other people’s lives and then disappearing. In an ideal world I’d be able to get to know every place I visited; but in the end, there’s just not time for that. What I do find is that I keep wanting to go back over and over again to the same places, as if I want to chart the way things have changed, or stick my whole foot in the water as opposed to just a toe. It means I don’t have as many of the proverbial stamps in the passport, but I have at least a slightly stronger relationship to those places I have visited a few times.
Thanks for such a thought-provoking post!
Thanks for your comment- I’m so relieved to know I’m not the only one out there who is not entirely at ease with bam-bam-bam travel. Slow is good. I was sad to leave Turkey after 6 years because I was still discovering new things- but at the same time, I was so familiar with the place, the language, the food, the culture, that I felt like I was a part of it, not just passing through.
I had a great laugh at your image of tourists taking pictures of you sipping coffee on your porch. I always think like this if I go near a zoo and imagine the animals doing the same back to us. It tends to keep me away from zoos.
I loved this post. I am a slow traveler type. I love to get to know the pulse of a place, it is too hard to do this when you are racing through. My husband, Craig and I travel by living and working in a new country and then taking our time exploring the area. We often travel in between countries for several months at a time but we always like to take it slow.
I’ll never forget learning at the Grand Canyon that the majority of tourists that go there stay for 15 minutes. Enough time to get off the bus and take the ‘I was here’ shot. This floored me. The Grand Canyon is such a wonder of the world, how can you know it if you only briefly meet it. We spent several days at the North and South Rim hiking and exploring and I now have such enriching memories of it.
Slow down, it’s not the Amazing Race!
15 minutes? Eek! I suppose it’s fine if you have a list you want to tick off (to each their own) but popping in and out just makes me feel disconnected. I too am the live-and-work kind of traveller who makes millions of side trips from wherever it is that I’ve chosen to live at the time. Turkey was great for side trips!
I came to Ecuador two years ago and was planning on staying for the summer. Still here and still learning things that I would of missed if I stuck with the plan.. There is something to be said for seeing a lot of different places but staying in one is a good way to actually learn about the culture!
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Yes, yes YES! this is exactly how I feel. I have been living abroad on and off for the past 12 years–no problem with that at all. But long term travel, the constant moving, grinds me down. Slowing down and staying a long time in one place, that’s how I prefer to travel, can’t stand that “bam-bam-bam” style either.
Thanks for posting the link to this piece on my blog! I totally relate. I would much rather stay in one place for an extended period of time than move about. Even on my current trip, I’m staying put for a good chunk of time (1-3 months in each place) but even that sometimes feels too fast.
After stumbling across your post on the topic, I thought you’d relate 🙂 You have an awesome blog, by the way. I appreciate the length and wit of your posts. Awesomeness!
Great post! I can totally relate. I spent much of my late 20s and early 30s travelling in endless cycles for work and pleasure, and never really felt comfortable with it. My best times were when I could get a work contract in a place for multiple months, and settle in. I always felt that travel was important to me, and I had a longing for it, but I was never really comfortable actually travelling.
It is only since taking the leap and moving abroad that I have figured out that in fact I’m not really a traveller, I’m actually a migrant. I wrote a blog about it here: (http://gregwtravels.travellerspoint.com/279/). Getting into a place and becoming part of it is so much more comfortable for me than just passing through.