We have wrapped up Month 4 - almost a full month of travel! In this trip, we had a mix of both solo travel and travel with friends - one week in Beijing alone, two weeks in Mongolia with friends and then Kazakhstan alone. I was meant to travel to Xinjiang with my dad but ended up getting diagnosed with pneumonia while in Kazakhstan and had to fly back home…

Compared to my previous trip to Africa, I would say that this trip involved more intentional choices.

I felt like I started to find my own rhythm with solo travel, and I eventually figured out the importance of pace to be able to sustain oneself on such trips. When travelling alone, I typically hit between 15 - 20K steps a day. Days start out slower, with me having a larger breakfast and typically heading out only after 10am. I find that the most troublesome part of solo travel is having to feed oneself (LOL) so my next meal is typically around 4 - 5 pm and becomes a mix of lunch and dinner. I typically aimed to reach back to my accomodation by 7pm (although Beijing definitely felt safe and I would not have qualms staying out later). This gave me an early night to relax and cycle through my reflections / posting of photos + some additional planning for the next day or addition steps of the trip. This trip was the first time I stayed in hotels by myself while solo travelling (vs hostels), so it was definitely a different style and approach which I felt like I learnt to appreciate.

Falling sick overseas was not in the bingo cards this year, but what an experience as well?!

(I say this belatedly but definitely felt stressed at the time while having an uncontrollable cough overnight in a capsule hotel - I did move out the next day but felt an immense sense of stress and guilt for disturbing the peace at the capsule hotel that night).

I had missed a tour while I was sick, and the tour guide had whatsapped me to say that if I needed any help with translation I could give her a call. This tour guide, whom I have never met in person, turned out to be a complete lifesaver. On the 9th of May, I booked a hotel next to my capsule hostel and headed over to see if I could do an early checkin. I could only do it at 12pm, but the staff at the lobby helped me to find a doctor that was open (a challenge on Victory day!) and booked me a Yandex cab to take me there in the meantime. It turned out that the medical staff did not speak English and the translation apps were not the most effective (I had forgotten to add the Kazakhstan and Russian keyboards to my phone and the voice translation was not very accurate.) I ended up calling the tour guide who responded immediately and became my translator over whatsapp for the next 2 days. Am immensely grateful for this, I am not sure how I would have managed otherwise! The pharmacist on my first day was also extremely patient, and slowly used google translate to explain to me how to take the many different medications I was prescribed.

In retrospect, I felt like I was pretty good at dissociating myself and still getting stuff done while feeling sick. I am most impressed by the version of me on 9th May, which got laundry done, found a new hotel, went to the doctor to undergo the various tests, packed stuff from my hostel and moved into new hotel, bought food to eat with meds, all while running at 38 C+ fever. If that version of me could show up everything we would be doing so well I bet, but no I have dropped back to slush mode since arriving back in Singapore. On the bright side, this has definitely given me more confidence regarding solo travel.

Being sick does feel like it has disrupted so many plans, and have thrown me for a loop given that a lot of my gap plans were meant to be active. After all, how should I spend my time at home, given for now I can’t dive, hike, run or go for exercise classes. It feels completely different from the person or version of myself that I am trying to build. Upcoming Month 5 will probably all be in Singapore - hit me up if you would like to grab a meal.

This trip also had me thinking and reflecting on the purpose of travel, and questioning whether I was just checking items off a list.

As I went through the various tourist attractions in the different localities, as well as the different tour activities in Mongolia, it led me to think about why I was doing such activities and the rationale behind it. After all, what is the purpose of travel? Is it just to see different places and what is the value add of that? Is it just to have fun and take photos and to create bragging rights? I felt this especially as I began to tire over the course of the trip, particularly in Kazakhstan. But I do think amidst all this, even as you do the “touristy” activities in a curated manner, you still do get to look around and observe and see more of the country - to get an understanding of its context and background, and the lives of the people there.

Sometimes it is also eye opening just to see the different ways that people live - I think it helps one to recognise areas where your home country is doing well and not take the BAU for granted, as well as see where there could potentially be areas for improvement and learnings from other countries. I felt a culture difference especially in Mongolia, where the modern population still chooses to live as nomad in gers - a culture and lifestyle that is so completely different from the way we live in Singapore, but it works for them and honestly just makes so much sense given the physical environment that they live in.

It is also interesting to hear what people have to say about Singapore. In South Africa and Namibia, we typically heard that Singapore was very clean. In Kazakhstan, my guide talked about how they heard about Singapore’s lack of corruption. And everyone seems to know the name of Lee Kuan Yew and think that he was president.

The other aspect of travelling that I particularly appreciate is hearing and learning about the history of the place. Although much of this can be read online, being in the place just creates more touchpoints that make thoughts and memories stick, and also just naturally makes one more interested.

I feel like travelling helps to form mental maps and networks (and you never know when these may be useful in the future!). For instance, we learnt that Koreans have a strong presence in both Mongolia and Kazakhstan, because of history and also the current economic context where many Mongolians go abroad to work in Korea and bring some of the cultural influences back with them.

Regarding history, in particular this thought stuck in my mind: when travelling in Europe before my exchange many years back, our travels made me realise just how recent everything (aka world war I and II) was. Yet travelling in Asia has created the inverse effect, taking me back centuries to 100 - 900 B.C. In Mongolia, I learnt about the Mongol Empire that captured and ran much of the world, and its links to China and the rest of Central Asia. Books also talked the different dynamics back then, with the silk road in Central Asia as a hub for commerce and knowledge, with the East leading the way rather than the West. Learning about the history of different places helps me to connect the dots across over time.

For now, I’m trying to read books (at least one lol) on the places I travel to so I can try to justify to myself that I am learning productively rather than just holidaying around. But I do think it has been informative!