Though I have many memorable trips to my credit, my trip of a lifetime has to be this one, not for the ‘best’ travel experience but for some scary moments attached to this trip.
Right from stepping out of my house in Mumbai, this tour turned out to be so adventurous that I can actually write a book on it.
‘Backpacking’ word invites a certain notion about it. No five star hotels, nobody to see off and pick you up in chauffeur driven cars, no shopping sprees and no elite guided tours. Backpacking has its own charm and if you add ‘solo’ to it then it becomes superlative… especially for an Indian female like me.
To give you a gist, early this year I was on a 48 day solo backpacking trip to two countries… Malaysia and Thailand.I had no concrete plans as to what places to visit and for how long. For my whole journey I had short-listed just 2-3 places and for rest I depended upon locals.
I was told Thailand would be bad for a lone traveler especially when there was some internal disturbances in Thailand at that time. But my experience told something different.
If you go into the interiors of Thailand, you won’t find a trace of English anywhere. Except for bigger select cities, the signboards allover the country are in Thai language.
In spite of language barrier in Thailand, I hopped many islands, did snorkeling and camping, played football with coconut shells, did river cruising at Krabi, ate and relished street food, enjoyed the night markets, climbed 1200 steps for a temple, disliked Phuket culture, learnt a few Thai words and taught some English, helped a lady vendor and her grandson for 3 days to set up her food stall. Thai massage, caricature, tattoo were all part of the game. Did I mention by mistake I once had entered into a porn massage center ?
Except for one or two occasions such as the time I witnessed a whole night brawl just outside my bamboo hut in an isolated island Koh Lanta where I had stayed for 3 days; Thailand was great.
That incident started at 11 PM when I was trying to sleep in my hut. As soon as I heard the first noise, I was glued to the wall in dark fighting with giant mosquitoes and watched it through the gaps till the wee hours. And oh, in the evening I had spotted a snake on the floor of my hut. The floor was made of wooden planks. You can imagine how I would have stood there dumbstruck.
I was witness to throwing of liquor bottles, chairs, footwear some of which were inadvertently in my direction; slapping, biting, pulling hair, hurting each other to bleed and of course nice adjectives, blame game which ended with police and some arrests. But I repeat, Thailand was awesome; I’ll go there anytime again.
Then I crossed the border between two countries overland and came to Malaysia.When I decided to alight at Alor Setar on my return journey from Thailand, I did not know what I had in store or what to expect from this small city in north Malaysia.
It is a Muslim dominated Malay town with very few Chinese and Indians descendents compared to other cities. The place is big enough to have an airport, a railway station and is a developed town.
Having stalked, surrounded and shoved by 8 taximen when I landed just after dark wasn’t going to be a good thing to start with. I had three fully packed pieces of luggage… one backpack, one large shoulder cum handbag which contained my laptop, camera, medicines, important papers and other necessities and one bag full of shopping goodies from Thailand. Yes, I was a fool to buy those artifacts.
I was looking for a modest nice motel/hotel to stay. The spot I was standing was supposed to be a busy market place, yet it was so deserted. Except a 7-eleven shop, all others had pulled the shutters down.
I started walking on the street looking for someone who could understand English and guide me. I reached a place where there was a bus stop and then there were some taximen. On this side some office buildings stood and on other side was another shopping mall which was dead by that time.
The cabbies were watching my every move and they all came together to me. Before I could say anything, I was surrounded and shoved by 8 taximen. I counted the number later.
Only words I could understand were ‘hotel’ and ‘taxi’. One was pulling my bag and another held my hand. I yelled at them.
I could see they were laughing and making fun of me. I thought probably they’d go away if I threatened them to call the police. But this was a Muslim country and recently I had read in newspapers how a western woman was punished for tasting beer in that country. What if they tell some fake story to police.. about me making some indecent gesture or offending them in any manner? Will their police believe me or them ? I already had a bad experience with local police in Kuala Lumpur.
I won’t go into details as how finally I found my way to a small hotel after getting stalked in alleys by an Indian looking man who earlier had refused to help saying he didn’t belong to that town and later wanted me to follow him for some hotel. I was extremely terrified.
Sheer presence of mind, courage and an angel’s help saved me that day.
Next day was no less eventful when I had gone to Alor Setar bus terminal to enquire about bus timings for further journey. None the less I stayed in that town for three days before moving to another small town called Ipoh. 
This is one of the winning posts for the Trip of a Lifetime Contest. Congrats to the winner
