First among the many dangers of staying “at home” too long is growing too comfortable. Comfort, I’m fond of saying, is the enemy of progress. The more comfortable you are, the less likely you are to face adversity.
Adversity, according to Webster’s online dictionary, is synonymous with “difficulty” or “misfortune.” Although adversity very often comes in the form of difficult or unfortunate situations, I believe that adversity is not only positive, but necessary.
Over the course of my extensive world travel, I have faced adversity more than my fair share of times. Rather than allowing myself to feel victimized or unlucky, however, I view adverse situations as an opportunity for introspection and self-assessment.
Coming up against adversity forces you to show your true colors — and I’ll tell you from experience that they aren’t always bright and beautiful. But to me, there is a gift in being able to see yourself at your worst, demons you might not encounter if you stay at home in front of the TV. Adversity is, in this way, a conduit to progress.
Stuck in India
One particularly memorable example of my having faced adversity while traveling was in India in April 2009, during my second trip to the subcontinent. I returned to India with a genius idea I’d hatched during my first trip a few months earlier. I would buy women’s clothing and accessories dirt-cheap, import them back to the U.S. and sell them for a (relatively) large profit.
My shopping trip went entirely as planned, and then some — I got an incredible quantity of stuff for the little I spent, within the span of just one weekend, no less.
The day of my departure, I was enjoying a leisurely lunch at a beachside café in Palolem Beach when the taxi drove up. As we pulled away, the driver spoke. “To confirm, what time is your flight?”
I removed a printed itinerary from my bag. “6:10,” I said. Then, I looked at it again. Fuck, I thought. It says six-teen ten. Four ten!
“What time is it right now?”
The driver pointed at the car’s clock. “10 minutes to four. You’ve got plenty of time.”
“Actually,” I said, “I don’t. Please drive me to the nearest travel agent. Now!”
In the minute or so it took him to drive back to Palolem’s town center, the worst possible scenarios filled my head. What if there are no more flights to Mumbai today? What if Delta won’t book me on a different flight back to the U.S.? I’d be stuck in India. I’m going to be stuck in India. I am stuck in India!
It was with this panicked and irrational mindset that I approached agents in successive travel offices, each of whom seemed progressively less willing to help me. At the time, I assumed this was part of the Universe’s grand plan to leave me screwed over and stranded in Bumfuck, India.
After completely alienating the first half-dozen or so people I encountered, I came across a travel agency staffed by a woman so cool and calm even my hissy fit couldn’t faze her. “Where do you need to go?”
“Mumbai,” I said. “Tonight. I have to make it tonight.”
She gently tip-tapped her keyboard. “How does 6:30 p.m., arriving at 8 p.m. sound?”
“That’s incredible!” I said. I reached into my bag and pulled out my credit card, apathetic how much or little the ticket would cost. I was so happy and so thankful I could’ve kissed the woman’s feet. In less than a minute, I was confirmed on the flight and back in the taxi. I apologize profusely the poor driver during the 90-minute drive to Goa’s airport and tipped him fat when I arrived.
I am not stuck in India.
Bon Qui Qui in Bangkok
If you’ve ever lived or traveled long-term in Asia and you happen to be white, you know that Asian people conduct themselves reverently toward Westerners, particularly Westerners who happen to be male and at least marginally good-looking.
The effect the constant “yes, sir; of course, sir” has on you might not be pronounced if you spend only a few days or weeks in Asia. But by the time I arrived in Thailand to participate in the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s “Medical Blog Contest” in November 2010, I had lived in Asia for the better part of a year and, during that time, heard “No” from local people few enough times to count on one hand.
To be sure, I had to confirm with the reception at Bangkok’s Diamond City Hotel that I would need to pay more to upgrade to a room on a lower floor and, thus, closer to the Wi-Fi signal my computer wasn’t able to pick up from my original fourth floor lodging.
“You mean to tell me,” I said, “that I need to pay more money, because you put me in a room you knew was out of reach of the hotel’s Wi-Fi?”
“It’s a larger room,” the woman said. “A better room. Just 150 extra baht per night.”
“I don’t want to pay 150 extra baht per night,” I said.
“I understand,” she said. “In that case, you can always come down to the lobby to use the Wi-Fi.”
I could feel my blood begin to boil. Did she just assert that I need to do my work in public? Does she not understand that I chose to stay in a hotel, rather than a hostel because I want privacy? What is wrong with this woman?
“I am not,” I said sternly, “paying extra to ‘upgrade’ to another room. You list in-room Wi-Fi as one of your amenities, and if Wi-Fi isn’t available in your standard room, you should upgrade me free of charge.”
“But Sir, I–”
“No buts,” I said. “Can I please speak to your manager?”
“I am the manager, sir,” she said.
I felt like I was an actor in a real-life Bon Qui Qui at Burger King. My pulse began to accelerate.
Before all was said and done, I would “blow up” again, albeit to a much less dramatic extent than I’d done in India the previous spring. I did ultimately get what I wanted — a free upgrade to the lower-to-the-ground, “nicer” room — so although I can’t say my decision to have apologized for my behavior was altruistic in nature, I was forced to swallow my pride.
Luckily for me, apologizing profusely enabled me to establish positive rapport with all the staff members at the hotel, which I now consider to be my de-facto Bangkok home, and one of my favorite hotels in the world.
Walk, Like An Egyptian
If you’re still reading at this point, you’re probably thinking to yourself, God, Robert is such a diva! What an ungrateful, entitled little bitch he is! Indeed, I feel the same way when I look back at how I’ve reacted to some of the adverse situations I’ve faced, particular ones like the Bangkok hotel incident, where I was only scantily placed at a disadvantage.
What I’ve learned encountering different sorts of adversity on the road, however, is that the specifics of the misfortune or difficulty I encounter are secondary to the point of adversity. What adversity exposes is your true nature: How you react to an adverse situation is a reflection of your character.
As a result, the more you encounter adversity, the more you are able to look your demons in the eye and move forward in your character development. The less dramatic situations affect you, the happier you become when times are tranquil.
One of my more recently experience with adversity, in Sharm el Shiekh Egypt was also one of the most harrowing. As had been the case in India in 2009, this particular encounter occurred in a taxi cab. Only this time, I actually was in danger of becoming a victim.
See, I’d gone against my the advice of the staff at Oonas Dive Club. Rather than booking a driver through them, I strutted down to the main tourist road in town. I was delighted when a driver approached me and quote me just 300 LE for transport to and from Ras Mohammed National Park. The receptionist at Oonas had told me that I would pay no less than 600.
On the way back from the national park, my driver was even kind enough to give me a tour of Sharm el Shiek’s old town center, including a new mosque that had just been built, and a huge Moroccan-style dinner theater. It wasn’t until he pulled up to the road that led back to my hotel that I realized his actions had been anything but charitable.
He counted on his fingers for a few seconds. “OK, so that will be 900. OK?”
900 pounds? Is he joking? I reached into my bag and pulled out three hundred-pound notes. “Three hundred. That’s what we agreed upon — remember?”
Rage filled his eyes and, although my door was open and I had one foot out of the car, he slammed his foot on the accelerator. “You pay me 900, or you die.” He picked up a large rock from the floorboard. “And I smash your camera.”
Over the subsequent minute or so — it felt much, much longer — he practically spoke in tongues, informing me that he had borrowed a friend’s car without asking, that he needed money for petrol and that, apparently, he had overpaid for my ticket into National Park, none of which were my fault.
When I saw the security guard in front of the swanky Naama Bay Hilton on the right side of the car, I rolled down the window and waved to him. Thankfully, this caused the driver to slow down and eventually stop. I ran out of the car and practically knelt in front of the guard as I begged him for help.
“We agreed to a price of 300 but now he wants 900 and he threatened to kill me and break my camera if I don’t give it to him. Help me!”
After a few minutes of heated conversation with the drive, the guard came back to me. “You give him 600, you can go.”
“Five hundred?” I waved five hundred-pound notes in the driver’s face.
“Six hundred,” he screamed. “No less!”
I added an additional bill to the stack and practically threw it at him.
His face lit up and he opened the passenger door. “You need a ride back?” (At that point, we were nearly a mile past where I needed to be.)
“No,” I said. “You are a dishonest man. I would rather walk.” And so I did.
To be sure, this wasn’t the first time I’d been scammed, nor was it the first time I’d been forced to pya a price I knew was too high in spite of protesting against it. It was, however, the first time I felt in mortal danger because of (just) defiance — but thankfully, the cooler demeanor I’d evolved into by that point enabled me to react in a way that saw me exit the situation alive and well, even if I was slightly poorer than I wanted to be.
Encountering diversity while traveling has allowed me to see immature and flawed sides of myself that have always been there, but that literally never come out “at home” because of how devoid of conflict my easy existence here is.
Indeed by allowing myself to face adversity, I have permanently corrected many flaws in my behavior and thought process, flaws that would still be poisoning my daily interactions under the surface today if I hadn’t confronted them, even if they never fully reared their ugly heads.
Have you ever faced adversity while traveling? Tell me about your experience in a comment!
Robert Schrader is a travel writer and photographer who’s been roaming the world independently since 2005, writing for publications such as “CNNGo” and “Shanghaiist” along the way. His blog, Leave Your Daily Hell, provides a mix of travel advice, destination guides and personal essays covering the more esoteric aspects of life as a traveler.
