In the weeks leading up to my TIE adventure, I wasn’t the least bit worried about the cultural differences or the language barriers that were awaiting me, the project I’d be working on or even where I would stay (we were winging this to start out with. I’m currently staying with a super impressive Prospect Burma alumna). My only worry was about being alone, which if not done by choice, I equate(d) to loneliness: my biggest fear.
The other day I asked my colleague Shwe (who is my age) what made her happy and she said that it was spending long periods of time alone. People think she’s weird because of it, but I am simply envious of her and others like her who are totally content with their own company. She went a step further joking that she shouldn’t be eating the “husband and wife snacks” we were having for lunch (2 fried halves of a pancake-like-dough that are eventually melted together) as she has been an “FA” and only ate the individual halves. FA means “forever alone”.
It was a joke and we laughed, but for me there’s something distinctively different between being comfortable by yourself and being “destined to be alone”, but I don’t want to go there today.
Back in London, I rarely leave my comfortable bubble of being surrounded by people. Barty and I have been together since I was 21 and flatmates for even longer, I have awesome friends who are always up for an adventure and life is always busy. In short: being alone isn’t a thing I do nor something enjoy (apart from maybe the occasional hours on a weekend).
Whilst I’ve done a few solo travels in the past, I didn't love it. Not because I was worried about anything going wrong, but simply because I get a thrill out of sharing memories with people.
Like for most people who haven’t mastered meditating, being present in the moment is really hard for me. Unless something isn’t great, then I'm totally present taking in everything vividly (like being stranded alone on the roadside outside a Myanmar beach town, waiting for a 7-hour bus back to Yangon, that should have been there 2 hours ago) .
On the other hand, when I'm alone and experience something extraordinary all I hear is a little voice in my head narrating the experience to someone in the future thus removing myself from the present. The details I pick up on vary depending on who I’m thinking of and so I feel incapable of making memories just for myself. I much prefer to experience and create these memories with someone even if that means that I’m still not entirely creating my own authentic moments.
So here I am, on the other side of the world with most meals, evenings and weekends at my own disposal. I’m someone who naturally can’t sit still and always need to be doing things, otherwise I get antsy. When I’m alone this antsi-ness turns to loneliness. I know this about myself, so I keep myself busy:
During the week I’m in the office where, now in week 4 I’ve moved into “get shit done mode”
I walk up with the sun, keeping my curtains open and beating my alarm so I have time for a walk in the morning
Evenings I spend at a public lecture or exploring markets and other bits of town
I’m trying to move past my “hello” “thank you” “tasty” “beautiful” vocabulary and get stuck in Burmese numbers. 8 in Burmese is shit. 8000 is shit-town.
I keep a daily diary. Something I’ve never done before and am really enjoying the experience although I get impatient at how slowly I write. Part of the process I guess.
I also send myself on missions: The other day I swallowed the ball of my tongue piercing. As the tongue heals really quickly and I’m not adult enough to say good-bye to my piercing just yet, I set out to find a tongue ring in Yangon. No easy feat! After visiting tattoo studios across town in vain, I eventually found a piercing place on the 6th floor of a random apartment building in a neighbourhood I would have otherwise never gone to. The five people hanging out in the studio probably had every single piercing in Myanmar on them: they were covered: one girl had 4 tongue piercings. We took a bunch of selfies together, but sadly all on her phone.
No real loneliness so far. Apart from when I’m alone in my room, but then I escape it by heading to a roadside café or people watching in the park.
My solo-trip to Bago (a pagoda town) 2 weekends ago wasn’t lonely at all! Neither the creaky train, the adventurous buses back or the eerie atmosphere in the town itself could shake me.
But then again, I have data on my phone and was whatsapping with my friend who had just arrived in Korea and sent a detailed report of the singing toilets in her hotel room. So, I wasn’t truly alone. Being connected to family/friends anywhere in the world at a click of the button is an incredible feeling when you crave their presence. But my keeping busy, finding entertainment and being so connected didn’t really put my ability to be alone to the test. (...and the sensory overload is getting exhausting).
Last weekend I went to Ngwe Saung Beach (I could maybe frame it as a way to see how I’d deal with just my own company, in a remote lonely place with not much to do. In reality that wasn’t the intention: I love the beach and was ready for a break from Yangon).
A nightbus got me to the beach town around 4am on Saturday. Stupidly I hadn’t noticed that the remote beach hut I booked, was in fact… super remote. The only option I had was to take a motorbike the last 25 minutes through the middle of nowhere along sandy, hilly paths in the pitch black. (Mama, wenn du das liest – sorry!)
With hindsight a little naïve, but at the time the only option and I remember spending the whole journey being amazed by the bright starry sky (and of course, thinking of specific people that would also appreciate it).
I love arriving to new places in the dark is it means you arrive twice. After my power-nap, I woke up at sunrise to see that my beach hut was actually right on the beach. Pretty sweet.
My weekend consisted mostly of long walks along stretches of completely deserted beaches. It took me 1.5 hours to walk to the next town and I saw one confused fisherman on the way. My phone hardly had any signal: I was alone!
It’s amazing how solitude makes your brain kick in and starts over-analysing and reflecting on everything. I remember starring at hermit crabs for a while and then laughing out loud to myself at the apparent symbolism. Too much sun?
At one point I was really enjoying my own company. We did what I wanted, whether that was continuing to walk, stop to sip on a coconut, read my book or ditch that book for another. We were having a great time and really didn’t need anyone else. But then we started fighting: half of me was actively focusing on being in the present, the other half was doing that stupid narration thing again thinking of how I would describe this to somebody.
Sunday morning, I spent another couple of hours walking and just as I was about to get into another fight with myself, I came across a family of fish farmers. It was the start of a little fishing village that had so much activity and charm.
Since arriving in Myanmar I’ve totally lost my filter in most daily situations (I’ve acquired a filter over the last few years, holding back what I think in most scenarios. This used to be very different: my high-school friends will remember getting entertained and frustrated by my lack of filter. It’s kind of a free feeling to have (temporarily) lost it again).
I ran up to the first family and tried to strike up a conversation about what they were doing. Their son was the interpreter but really he just repeated in English what I said: “Fish?” “Fish!” “You dry fish?” “dry fish!”. With gestures, I understood that they dry fresh fish and transport it on their tractor to another town. There was fish everywhere but oddly it hardly smelt.
I totally lit up! Being greeted b the children “Mengelaba!” “Mengelaba!” made me feel like I was part of something and I lost all sense of feeling alone. It’s a funny thing, the illusion of being connected by the presence of other people.
Despite the little fights in my head, I feel incredibly content and carefree (I mean, it’d be pretty crazy not to in this setting).
The only downside was that the hut I was staying in was very basic, so I wasn’t just fighting my thoughts but also swarms of red ants. In the night the rats that lived in between the walls would screech and scurry around. (Luckily, we were separated by a wall…I thoroughly inspected it to make sure they wouldn’t end up on my mattress!).
On my own, I tried to rationalise the situation and attempt not to care. With somebody else, I would have probably found the whole thing hilarious. What is it about having someone else present that would make rats in the wall a fun experience? You share the burden. But why can’t I do it alone?
I’ve come to learn that I am okay by myself and can enjoy my company, but I am and always will be a people person, no matter how much I can get annoyed by them. And as much as I would love to be able to, I don’t see any long-term solo trips planned for myself in the future.
Oh – and one more thing. While I’ve been only eating Myanmar food since I got here, I’ve been playing it fairly safe.
I need a little more peer-pressure and a little less translation. Mawia, my colleague, took me out for lunch the other day and helped me order:
Mawia: “Chicken or pork?”
Feli: “Pork.”
M: “Tongue or Intestine?” F: “Chicken.”
Mawia’s reaction was a big belly laugh – something I’ve come to know and love about him.
FYI – my meat tokens have come into short-supply.