Are we really all interested in "traveling"?

I saw more white people on my first day in Jogjakarta then I have during my entire 6 weeks in Indonesia. It hit me as I was shoving my way through the crowd on Jalan Malioboro that I was back among the land of tourists; no longer was I the only bule who garnered the "Hello Mister!" attention from shop owners, the requests for photo opps with school kids, and the attempts at broken English that I have grown to love. No, here I was just another tourist. Sigh.

Today it was hot and sunny, and then it rained. I wonder if my fishermen at the lake are feeling sick. Many of the men I interviewed for my thesis attributed their illnesses to changes in weather, especially a rapid change in hot to cold weather. So when I got back to my hotel and immediately jumped in the pool; I was oh so grateful for the clean cool water as I sliced through it...as a Pisces, water is my second home. I didn't even think the muddy rivers I had left behind in Kalimantan as I savored a moment of quiet and bliss that is rare in Java; one of the most crowded islands on earth.

Later as I ate at a renowned backpacker restaurant two doors down from my very nice (but still cheap!) hotel I looked around at all of the other bule as we drank our icy Bintangs and ate organic rice and sauces without MSG--most are definitely European, this place seems to be popular with the French, Danish, and Germans. A few travelers from Argentina and one brave lady from Mexico have also crossed my path, along with a few Aussies and Kiwis. Yet still no Americanos, but I'm sure that won't last long. This restaurant was opened by some Belgian dudes who wanted to create organic sustainable restaurants that benefit the local community...but I couldn't help but wonder how exactly this uber-trendy and doubly expensive restaurant helps benefit the local economy more than what I could buy directly from the local street vendor a few blocks away?

My mind started wandering as it often does, and I wondered...why do most people like to travel? Does everyone like to travel, or it has become something to occupy the spare time of the affluent? Maybe...but then there are the budget travelers, the young hip students who want to show off how cultured and awesome we are. It has become a bragging right, in certain circles; how about this for a mad lib: "Dude, how many (girls have you banged/countries have you traveled to this year)?" "Aw man, its been kind of a dry spell lately. Only two this year, and could only spend about a week in each one. But next year, gonna take a whole month off, hit up Europe, the Mediterranean, maybe Central Asia? It's gonna be epic." 

To travel, according to my favorite online dictionary, means to take a trip, go from one destination to the next, usually abroad. Benign enough. Exciting even. 

Yet, the etymology of the word travel is the Middle English word travail; meaning a work especially of a painful or laborious nature, a physical or mental exertion or piece of work, excessive labor, suffering. If you go even deeper, it is rooted from the Latin word, tripalium, which is a 3-staked instrument of torture. Go ahead, google away. So how did we go from this--->

         to this?

I wonder if the Incas were jumping for joy after they finished hauling

 all those rocks up that freaking mountain

Hmmm. Still like traveling? Yeah, me neither. 

But I wonder-what does traveling mean for most people? Seeing beautiful monuments, meeting new people, going on exciting adventures in exotic places, experiencing new cultures? Yes, all true...but I also feel that a love of "traveling" has become the Y generation's version of "keeping up with the Joneses" as we all try to outdo one another with our stories and experiences. 

A few sample conversations inspired by true events: 

"Oh, when did you last go to Chile? Aren't the people there wonderful? Yeah, I was a nanny there for a year before backpacking across Patagonia and becoming the youngest person to summit Aconcagua..."

"Yeah, I've had malaria SIX times...."

"Well lets see, I speak French, English, German, Italian, and am teaching Spanish this summer to some refugee kids from Sudan.."

"Oh wow, you've been to 10 countries? Gosh, I've lost track of all mine...I think I've been to at least 30...Oooops-I forgot Africa! So it must be closer to 40. Still a long ways to go!"

And as a member of the Global Health crowd, I can say we are perhaps the worst at this...although we like to legitimize our travel by calling it "work" (tongue-in-cheek; we actually do work really hard at helping people around the world; I just think we are very guilty of all that I have named above!)

And how much local culture do we experience? Or is it more bringing our culture with us, to these beautiful spots where we want to see these once-in-a-lifetime things (but with a/c and wifi please). As for Indonesia, Jogja is nice, Bali is even nicer, but Jakarta and Kalimantan can be hot and miserable places at times, and life is not easy for many people who live there. I don't think most of us travelers would want to stay much longer than a few days here if we had to live like the average Indonesian...

When I think of a true travailler, I think of my friend Janelle, who lived for 2 years in the Moroccan desert while in Peace Corps. Yikes. Or two of my professional mentors, who were medical missionaries for 20 years in Bangladesh (well, maybe that is more of "huge life change" than traveling. scratch that example.) 

Would we all be so excited about traveling if we had to go about it as our forefathers did? Spending weeks or months at sea getting scurvy, days on foot, carrying heavy packs, not talking to our family for months, and even then only a measly letter? I can honestly say that 16 hours by motor vehicle on bumpy dirt roads, explosive diarrhea, and sleeping on mattresses that may or may not be infested with fleas is not my idea of fun. So is it worth it when I get to see my first orangutan in the wild or get a sweet pic of that temple at sunrise? Yeah after the fact (just make sure to ask after the flea bites have worn off). Or like childbearing, you forget the pain after awhile and only remember the good parts.

Modern technology has made our lives so much easier, that now many people can afford to travel to all the cool places that God gave us on this globe, and that is not a bad thing. But traveling, in my opinion, has now taken on the opposite meaning of travail. Those of us well-off enough to afford that round-trip ticket to Bangkok can live like kings on a few USD a day, but this option is still limited to those of us with both money and power. Not necessarily personal power; but country-level power. Those of us lucky enough to reside in Western countries have a pretty sweet bargain as we are able to gain access to most countries without much hassle or expense. Yet, how easy is it for a Bolivian or Libyan to get a visa to visit the U.S.?  Not very. When I was conducting my interviews in Kalimantan, so many people would tell me how they wanted to visit the U.S. someday, and ask me how much it cost to get there. I didn't have the heart to tell them it would be like me trying to save up enough money to buy a Gulfstream G4. 

The Malay and Dayak of West Kalimantan are some of the most hard-working people I have ever seen in my life; sun up to sun down they toil away in the heat; fishing, weaving, laundry, crops, cooking, cleaning...they live pretty well, by Indonesian standards, although still perhaps monetarily poor they always have enough food, nice houses, some have TVs. Experiencing their life for just a few weeks was really rough for me; more than once I was extremely homesick and longed for the cold wind in my face as I ride my bike down the Embarcadero. They are the ones who travail, and I was the one who traveled; yet they were the ones who were content, and I was the one in agony (well, only sometimes-there were of course high points). How did these two words, rooted in one another, come to mean such opposite things? Somewhere in the midst of Lonely Planet, online forums, cheapflights.com, and digital photography, traveling became a passion, a desire, a fad...someday I want to go somewhere without a guidebook, without a plan or camera, without knowing the language or even anything about the place, and see how I handle things. I sort of tried to do that here, but bought a language book the second I found a bookstore and even though I am sans Lonely Planet, the Thorn Tree forum has provided many recommendations last-minute.

As I sit here typing away on my MacBook enjoying my coffee and the sound of the waterfall splashing into the pool; I look around to see if there is anything even remotely Indonesian around me, and the only thing I spot is the disgusting kerupuk sitting untouched by the bule guests in a glass jar on the extravagant buffet table. 

Do I still like traveling? Sure, kind of. But what I enjoy more is learning, seeing, doing. And how many things have I left undone in my home state of Georgia, or in the U.S. in general? Plenty. At last count I have only visited 18 out of 50 states! Do I like traveling at the expense of missing out on important events, like my best friends graduating from medical school or Bay to Breakers?

Today I was going to go see some more temples outside of Jogja. But I decided I needed a break from traveling. So I will sit, and rest, and work on my presentation I have to give in two days that has been sadly neglected, because of, well, traveling. I have loved my time in Indonesia, but I will be more than happy to unpack my suitcase, grab a cold pint in the Mission, and gossip with my friends about our love lives. So to all of you travelers out there-I propose a challenge; next time you visit Fiji or Tanzania, take a few days away from the fun stuff and try to see the place for what it really is--visit a local hospital or go work in the rice paddies for a day in the full sun and humidity...And try to do it without complaining, without sadness or pity, just as a normal person that lives like this, day after day, and is content with it, happy even.

I think, if you do this, you will fail, like I did. You will be hot and whiny...you will feel slight pity for the barefoot children playing in the dirt, happy as they are, because you know they will probably never go to college or be able to see the things you have been lucky enough to see. But later, when you are removed from the situation, safe in the comfort of familiarity and native speakers, you might realize how vast and complex our world is and how little you actually know after so many years of graduate school. You might also appreciate the difficulties faced, if not at the time, for how they forced you to adapt, how they exposed your true colors and motives that normally you can hide. You might learn a thing or two about how to combat loneliness, when you don't have facebook or text messages as a fallback. And you hope that these lessons aren't akin to your biochemistry course, which you immediately erased from your memory as soon as the course was over. And maybe, like me, you will gain a new appreciation for what it means to call a place "home".

And you might realize that you do love traveling...just not for the reasons you originally thought.