write or flight
some of you will be glad to know I am fucking off to Asia for a little while.
First instalment of my travel diaries: the journey.
I may be fleeing the country but my writing stays consistent, in fact more persistent.
There is quite literally nobody else to talk to.
01/06
‘I need a nice, new diary pen. This pen is cursed. It is a Hempstead House pen. Plagued with memories of them taking me off furlough.’
- Diary excerpt from 2020
This used to be my therapy journal, but, instead of purchasing an entire new pad, I just ripped out the pages of all my crash-outs, which I thought was quite green of me. They say going travelling is interchangeable with therapy anyway, just with more Instagram stories and fewer NHS waitlists, so it’s contents won’t have changed all that much. Instead of using Freudian psychology to assess my fucked up conscious thoughts, I will write of Eastern Buddhist techniques and the impermanence of everything. All that is created will crumble! C’est La Vie.
I like the paper in this journal.
I told Claire, my first therapist, that my ancestors in Kenya bounded it by hand for me.
I wonder if she knew I was a massive liar, but couldn’t call me out on it because I contributed to her pay check.
I’ve never been to Kenya.
I am visiting the motherland of other fellow daughters of immigrants before my own, because SkyScanner was doing a deal.
I got the journal from a charity shop.
Apparently it’s made of Elephant dung.
I wonder what’s the specification for the ‘finest’. Poetic really. That it is quite literally full of shit.
I write all the time anyway. Super anti-social with it too. But I want to make the extra effort with this journal, aware that the next three or so months will be a profound moment in my early adulthood. At least that’s what everybody cannot stop telling me. I think it will be sad if I’m forty with kids (or cats, idc) thinking about how I was 22 and the job market was so dire I dotted about Asia for a quarter of the year and that was my peak. I also am a sucker for instant gratification so if I love it so much, I will simply stay (legally, before immigration seize my belongings). As if I am this nostalgic now, I can’t imagine how insufferable I am going to be another twenty years down the line.
I wonder if I can fill all these pages out. I am going to do The Artist’s Way. Three pages of consciousness each morning, although I have been trying to do that for the past month. But in England, my rotation of conscious thoughts is the picture of depression: Grey sky. I want to die. Eggs or Porridge for breakfast? Work in an hour. Perhaps I can fit in a nap.
I leave in nine days and have nothing planned. Other than my flight on Tuesday, which isn’t even to Asia, it’s to Athens. At something dumb like 4 am. And from Luton, of all places to have a stupid-o’clock flight. They don’t have a 24 hours Waga. I bet they bugger something up and I won’t have time to get a Pret. Always happens.
I’m in Athens for a day. Not sure what for. Although, just discovered the UV will be 10 so I’m laughing. Then I go to Singapore for five hours. My colleague told me not to leave the airport, they have rollercoasters.
I thought it would be a fun side-quest to tour all the airports across the Black Sea to waste 40 hours and save £300 that I will no doubt spend on breakfast, lunch and dinner in their respective over-priced foodcourts.
Today is my first day off in a while, which is why I start this journal now because I have no patience, but am also going to attempt to put together some form of itinerary, at least for the initial week. Maybe a little To-Do list. Go crazy. Like I need to fill in some arrival form, or I won’t be let into the country. That would be a waste of the three days spent getting there. I need travel insurance and an eSIM. I get my vaccines tomorrow. Left it a bit late, but I’ll be fine as long as I don’t pet all the cats (hard edition). I should pack to check that my bags fit the allowance because all the flights are telling me to board naked - my clothes weigh too much.
To be honest, I am more concerned with finding a good place to get a lash lift. I got my hair braided last week out of fear that my hairstylist wouldn’t have availability closer to the time. Glad to see my priorities are in check.
04/06
I got the last of my travel vaccinations today. My fault for being Type B, the same type of Hepatitis that is not covered by the NHS, and getting them all at once, because my triceps are ready to fall off and it was meant to be an arms day at the gym.
I get this freewheeling demeanour from my mother who must be more Type B than me because she has no clue what the nurses were stabbing into me at school. I call her up to ask if she has my vaccine records, since I grew up before the NHS got an app and our certification was a scribble on a paper, she goes ‘No, Why should I?’
After pretending to not listen to us bicker on the phone, the nurse starts asking about my mother and what is her occupation. I told her she was a health visitor. So her every-day task is to keep the records of other children, makes sense why she doesn’t care for mine.
The nurse is concerned for me, that I am going away for three months on my own but couldn’t find room 4 and have not made the effort to tie up my shoelaces this morning.
She is assessing the health risks in the countries I may or may not be going to but considering I don’t know, it’s proving to be quite the task. ‘Whichever direction the wind blows’ doesn’t have an official travel advice page on Gov.uk. Also considering the humidity is 95% when I land, there will be no wind blowing.
She tells me, regardless, to not get pregnant. I laugh. But she’s being dead serious. SE Asia has a risk of Zeka virus at the moment which is bad for a foetus. Makes it come out with a small head or something. She asks me if I was going out with a male partner. I tell her no, and maybe last year that was the plan. This year, I am biting the bullet and going alone. I plan to make that TikTok. The one’s that are like ‘Told my boyfriend I want to travel’ and he said ‘We’ll see,’ cue me gripping onto a stranger’s waist for dear life, ‘I don’t know what he’s seeing, but I’m seeing unmatched views on the Ha Giang Loop.’
She was like, ‘So you will be at high altitudes then?’ ‘Have you packed any altitude medicine?’
She said I can’t get pregnant for two months after my return either.
Gutted! There goes my timeline.
She is worried about rabies.
Babies and rabies.
Me too.
I am equally as stressed about who will sunscreen my back this whole time.
I suppress the urge to text him.
As I leave she tells me to enjoy my trip.
‘Don’t forget to pack your common sense.’
Then kisses her teeth.
I will always love African women because I have a mother in them wherever I go.
05/06
I was supposed to go to Tesco to get some Baht but they refused to serve me since I didn’t bring my ID. It was Big Tesco which is like a twenty-five minute walk from mine so I am hesitant to go back. I am tired from doing nothing all day. I wonder if the Thai will understand that I tried to exchange before I arrived but the English are pricks, pointing to myself: case in point, so can they take my GPD. It wasn’t a totally unsuccessful trip, I got the lash lift.
06/06
Four days to go. I accidentally spent some of my travel fund at a sushi restaurant last night, Clap in Knightsbridge, where it costs £30 to laugh a decibel too loud. I do think that’s an unfortunate name for a fish restaurant. Stunning interior and sushi however, and a lovely time spent celebrating my friend’s birthday. I do quite like London in the summer. Maybe I should stay.
07/06
Last day at work today. My favourite duo at work, Micheal squared, gave me a present. I opened it and it’s a small silver device thing. Mik 1 tells me to pull it. So I do and it makes the most deafening screech. They have gifted me a rape alarm.
Nothing says enjoy your travels like a device that highlights the constant state of vulnerability women exist in.
My mum is thrilled as she said had been meaning to get me one herself. That was the leaving present she got my sister before she began university.
My mother is starting to get angsty about my departure. See below for a few snippets of our recent conversations:
08/06
Had some leaving drinks this evening and my friends all got me cards that say ‘Good Luck’, maybe this is normal and considerate, but luck for what, lying in the sun? My minute concentration of melanin prevents me from burning if that’s your concern. I thought you got the classic ‘Bon Voyage!’ with a hot air balloon on the front or a cat in sunglasses with a baguette.
They all sat around the table validating my mother’s nervous breakdown, telling her she had every right to be scared. I left my phone on the bin overnight last Monday and just last month lost an entire bag in the smoking area of a club. I use my passport as ID and it’s beat, they suspect in Vietnam I’ll show the officials and be detained. My reply time averages at 2 weeks.
It feels like I am off to find the last horcrux or something the way everybody is reacting. Pleading that I come back in one piece. I am really just going because I need a deep tissue massage that isn’t £150 for 30 minutes.
09/06
Attempting to get my library e-books onto my kindle and it’s coming out distorted. It’s times like this when I miss my ex because I can’t seem to get the hang of pirating. Fuck it, I have purchased five reads for my journey. Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential is first up. This is what I hate about the analogue world dying, capitalism wins yet again.
Leave for the airport in fours hours, I will start packing in a bit, just enjoying my bed for the last time. I’ve popped on a face mask and put on Love Island.
10/06
Leave in an hour. I have just finished packing my bag and maybe the stress is beginning to hit because it’s way bigger than a carry-on but it has no choice to be a carry on, I have downloaded my boarding pass so can no longer add priority. I thought I was clever by getting carabiners to dangle my water bottle and neck pillow and sandals from my zips, but it’s giving Buckeroo. I feel unbalanced and keep bumping into things.
I woke everyone up coming down the stairs sounding like a percussion ensemble at 3am.
ALERT she’s finally LEAVING.
I managed to score a lift from my dad. It meant leaving at 4 am and he had to go to work at 7 am but the price you have to pay to get rid of your unemployed daughter for a bit, hey. Everybody is half expecting him to show up mid-trip. He went to Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia twice before and is telling me all the places to go but I keep reiterating how a lot has changed in twenty years because every time I google one of his ‘spots,’ it’s been closed down.
In the car, as I am still half-asleep, he told me how him and his ex were held hostage and spiked so I should trust my intuition because his was ringing alarm bells but they were offering 30BHT cosmos. He waves me off with a smile.
I told you Luton would be the issue of this whole trip. Not even 10 miles from my abode, causing me more stress than when I’ll be 10,000. The security belt we got funnelled through broke, so our stuff got moved to another but no staff were telling us which one so we had to play a game of man-hunt but instead with our fucking luggage, 40 minutes before the gate for my flight closed.
My dad has equipped me with five AirTags for this trip because, not sure if anybody mentioned, I lose most things. If my left foot is in front of my right, I am getting an alert that something has been forgotten behind. All good and well if I wasn’t also separated from the tray with my phone in. This guy behind me was calming his brother down and I started joining in with his breathing techniques.
The security lady doesn’t want to conduct a body search on me because she thinks I am under sixteen. Girl, I am travelling to the other side of the world on my own, aged 22, please let me prove to you there is nothing inside my trouser leg without you pointing at every black man asking if it’s my father. He is white. Why do you think he was held hostage?
Made it through without getting an extra fee for baggage! Somebody in charge loves me.
Experienced some slight mania in the aeroplane loo. Think it’s because I have had twenty five minutes of sleep in the last three days. I just clocked, like this is my life for the next three months. Just my internal monologue and I. Christ.
Whizzair are tooo chatty for a budget airline. Pilot is on the speaker talking about horoscopes, you are just drawing more attention to our delay by pissing us all off.
Got stuck in the bus doors from Athens to the beach. Didn’t know the doors opened inwards so they smacked me in the face, and I am not used to the depth of my backpack yet, so that got squished, bursting my bottle of shampoo all over my knickers, when they closed again. I shouldn’t have then opened my bag up in public, because it looked very incriminating.
I love Europeans though since nobody batted an eye. In London, somebody on the tube would have filmed me then taken all my belongings.
To get the buses to stop here, you have walk out in front of the bus and make rude gestures at the driver, who will look you in the eye and still run you down.
This is going to sound fabricated, because I have been here two hours but it is very fitting of the stories I have been told involving Greek men. I met a guy on the beach and he wants me to stay in Athens. He’s ugly, obviously, I wouldn’t be writing this at the airport if he wasn’t and instead taken him up on that fish dinner by the seafront.
He has a dog and I know I promised to stay away but it came and sat on my lap. I wish he told me he found it on the street slightly earlier, before all the belly rubs. To the dog, not him. We engage in polite conversation and I ask him what he does and he says a dealer. I replied a nonchalant ‘oh,’ thinking he’s on about cars and wouldn’t just tell me if he meant drugs, and he says ‘yeah, weed.’ Apparently it’s the only way to make a living out here. Greece is for holidays, not living. Then we had this super interesting chat about the economy of the country and now I want to make a documentary. I love talking to ordinary people. He taught me what bullshit was in greek, μαλακίες (malakíes), and said that’s this country. He lived in Bournemouth for a bit, loves London, hates America and only came back to Athens because he injured his leg.
He also offered me a lift to the airport which would have been fabulously convenient but it was all too death-trap for my very first day, so I declined and made him take photos of me on the beach to send to my sister instead.
Greek iced coffee might be one of the best I have ever had. Espresso Freddo.
I’m sat across from another solo diner. Maybe he will fall in love with me, or maybe we will keep passing filthy looks over our novels.
11/06
Language actually isn’t a barrier. We all want to connect…our phone to a charger. There is one socket in the whole of Athens departures before you go through security. I wait two hours to use it after a lady, then as soon as I plug mine in, another woman taps my shoulder and asks but she doesn’t speak Greek or English. I want to tell her to fuck off, I just got here, but she was elderly and loud and those type of women appeal to me. I let her share and our phones went up by 1% every half hour. She kisses my cheek as she leaves.
On the flight to Singapore.
Men should really book two seats because the guy next to me is around 6’5 and his hairy leg is on half of mine for free.
The British Empire was insecure. As I look out the window, I am convinced Britain attempted to colonise everywhere because we are ugly and they are all naturally stunning. I can see that from 35,000 feet high.
12/06
Singapore airport is insane. There is a butterfly garden, a waterfall, a shopping mall, a cinema, multiple food courts, a spa, a swimming pool, all under the same room. No rollercoasters though. Glad to have escaped the liars.
I am going to the gym. I would have booked in for the pilates but they don’t have a 3 am class.
Laksa for breakfast at 4 am. Mmm warm goodness. Slurping away whilst I watch Moya’s youtube video.
The matcha here is better than any I have ever had and I’m only in the airport. It’s not artificial. I really might never leave.
I have arrived in Bangkok!
Stopped in 7-11 before I got the metro. Classic Western tourist. The cheese and ham toastie was alright but not amazing like everybody says, had a yogurt thing and two thong bananas! The lava cake does live up to it’s reviews.
On my last leg, whilst I was in the air, a flight from India to London crashed and only had one survivor. I landed and instantly my phone alerted my family and I got messages of relief because two crashes had already been reported in British media that day. In hindsight, my mother had every right to be twitchy. It reminded me how fragile life is and that everything is an outcome of luck.
I keep seeing videos emerge of the passengers on board and my thoughts are with all those that loved them because how utterly heartbreaking.
My dad wrote in a text how everything with tremendous reward, always has a little risk and I really think that strikes true in travel.
The hostel owner bakes cookies and calls me sister. She said when my hair gets messy, she can re-braid the front.
Haven’t put my bag down for like two days.
I have already met two Scottish girls, back in Bangkok earlier than planned because they got an infection in Phi Phi. Where I may be headed to next. We are going to go for a pad Thai after I have had a nap.
The others are all Thai men, I helped one use a PDF converter because he was shouting at his phone since it wasn’t letting him make edits to a government document.
Life is good.
I will end this segment here since I have officially arrived at my first stop, but I’ll keep you updated as my travels continue!
I’m gonna be living for this travel series fr, got Asia in my plans for next year. Please go into MINUTE detail about everywhere you go