ME, MYSELF AND I
based boulders that can be used to make do-it-yourself mud mixtures to exfoliate the skin. I see the boulders, but I am not quite sure how to turn Mother Nature into a beauty regimen, so I approach a couple who appear to be there for the same reason.
“Hi, Bonjour, Shalom,” I say, using an amalgam of the three languages I can muster. “So, how does this work?” “Come,” says the girl, “I’ll show you.”
I follow her and watch as she uses one hand to shed dry rubble into her other hand, which is cupped on the edge of the rock. I do the same, accumulating as much as I can before walking with her to the water. She then rubs it all into a gluey grey paste before covering her arms, legs and face.
I immediately regret not only wearing a one-piece swimsuit, but a very expensive one at that. I wonder whether it will stain, but I slather myself in the stuff anyway.
Camouflaged in mud, we stand awkwardly for a bit exchanging traveller pleasantries—where are you from? How long are you travelling for? Where have you eaten?—before retreating to our own swathes of sand to blissfully (and carefully) sunbathe in peace.
It doesn’t take long for me to get restless, so after catching her eye and receiving a nod of reassurance—as if to say, “You can wash it off now!”—i return to the sea to do so. Sure enough, my skin is new-born-baby smooth. Better yet, I’d had a quintessential Solo Travel Moment: I relished a solitary experience, only to have it amplified by strangers who became friends, if even for an instant, resulting in a memory for a lifetime.
Many recent travel surveys have shown a growing degree of confidence among women when it comes to travelling on their own, buffeted by the general trends of a boom in experiential travel and easier online access to reviews and guides. Last year, Klook Travel’s first solo travel survey showed that 34 per cent of women are completely fine with the concept of travelling alone. Over the last decade, solo sojourns have become a conscious choice for many women around the world.
Despite never attending sleep-away camp during childhood summers nor studying abroad for a term in college, travelling alone is something I’ve been comfortable with for 20 years now. Once I ripped off the Bandaid, I couldn’t imagine what took me so long. And it all stemmed from that first trip post-university where I got suckered into a multi-handed spa treatment on a beach in Bali. While I was young and inexperienced at being on my own, I was still a New Yorker, so if anything, I was more embarrassed than scared by having fallen victim to a common scam. The fact that the perpetrators were women may have mitigated the sting, though. They did try to swindle me out of more money than we’d agreed upon, and I relented a little just to end the situation as quickly as possible. But thankfully all I walked away with was a bruised ego.