Reflections on the Road: Strangers Who Became Friends

In one of the final pages of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karmazov, the main character is speaking to a group of boys and encouraging them to harness the present moment in a way that will guide them in the future.  He says, "And whether you are absorbed in the most important pursuits, reaching out for the highest honors, or struck down by the cruelest griefs, always remember how good it felt when we were all here together, united by a good and decent feeling, which made us...better people, probably, than we would otherwise have been."

In all human interaction, there is that initial moment when we meet someone.  Often little comes of these first encounters, but other times - times when individuals are united by a "good and decent feeling" and made "better people, probably," than they otherwise would have been - something meaningful happens.

For some travelers, strangers are people you try to avoid while you're in a foreign context, because strangers are unknown variables capable of causing you harm, making you feel uncomfortable, or detracting from your sightseeing agenda (I've experienced all of these).  For others, however, particularly solo travelers who have no other company, strangers are one of the most alluring reasons for traveling abroad.  If travel is about seeing what lies around the bend, rest assured that strangers will be somewhere around that bend.

My own travels would have been a shell of what they were had it not been for the strangers I met along the way and who became my friends.  Here are four of the people I'm richer for having met:

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BJORN

One foggy afternoon in the Vietnamese hill station of Sapa, I stepped out of a restaurant and saw a young guy sitting on a step across the street, quietly taking in the scene around us:  Hmong women and children hawking their trinkets to travelers.  After a couple of minutes -- I was also taking in the scene and, standing alone, could have looked lost to a passerby -- he asked if I needed help with anything.  And so Bjorn and I struck up a conversation and learned we had a lot in common.  We both usually traveled alone, were interested in people more than sites, and both thought that love should have something to do with travel.  He was from Hamburg (and a number of other places) but was currently living in Bangkok, and he wrote about photography.

Three hours later, wet and muddy after having been caught in rain while hiking together to a nearby village, we said goodbye as I rushed to catch a train to Hanoi.  The camaraderie we experienced in that short time was no small thing; we had stumbled upon a gift in each other.  Ten weeks later we would meet for lunch in Bangkok, and with my back surgery just a couple weeks away he expressed regret that he was about to leave town for a long trip.  While he was gone, he said, I was more than welcome to have the keys to his apartment to rest and recuperate in a setting better than my cheap hotel.

I continue to follow him through his phenomenal website, and I suspect one day we will meet again.

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VI

Because seven-day work weeks are standard for many Vietnamese employed in the travel industry, each day at the cafe in Nha Trang I would see Vi, a young waitress who usually worked the afternoon and evening shifts.  A Catholic born and raised in Nha Trang, she was quieter than her coworkers and more conscientious too.  I was drawn to the way she treated people.

We got to know each other just a little during that week in 2004, even going on a date of sorts to an Italian restaurant (her parents gave her a 9 p.m. curfew).  Two years later during my second trip to Vietnam, she and her motorbike were waiting for me at the train station.  In the week that followed our friendship developed as I got to meet her family and friends.  Through her a whole new side of Nha Trang opened up to me, and I saw people and places travelers would never learn about merely through their guidebooks.

 
Vi now works for a travel agency in Nha Trang, where I took this photo a few minutes before we said goodbye and I continued on toward Hanoi (July 2007).

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EKARUT 

I met Ekarut in 2005 while watching the sunset atop Mt. Phousi, in the Lao town of Luang Prabang.  I was about to sit down on the temple steps when a guy sitting a few feet away said something like, "Be careful, there are ants!"  I looked down to see a long line of the insects, thanked the man, and then sat someplace else.  Later that night I again saw the man, this time sitting alone in a restaurant, and I decided to walk up and thank him again for warning me about the ants.   We spoke briefly - this is when he told me his name, that he was Thai, and that he was on a brief holiday from Bangkok - and we exchanged contact information so that we could perhaps meet weeks later once I was in Thailand.

We did end up meeting for a meal in Bangkok later that summer, and then we met again in 2007 - both in Bangkok and then at his parents' home in Trat, where I spent the night with his gracious family and enjoyed eating fresh fruit picked from their yard.  The next morning Ekarut drove me to the nearby Cambodian border and wished me well on the rest of my journey.  A few weeks later he left for Texas, where he is now working on a Ph.D.

Ekarut and his parents and sister at their home in Trat, Thailand

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BOVY

Bovy is the manager of the Ocean View Beach Resort at Haad Khom, a beach on the Thai island of Ko Phangan.  We met one evening as I was walking the beach looking for a place to stay.  I settled on her guesthouse partly because of its location, but even more because of the extraordinary friendliness of her and her staff.  I had never been to a guesthouse in Thailand where the manager made sure to spend time with each of her guests, as she did every evening during dinner time. 

It was while staying at Haad Khom that my back took a turn for the worse.  Rendered nearly immobile by a herniated disc while on a beach two miles from the Ocean View, Bovy and one of her employees fetched me in a pick-up truck, stopped by a pharmacy to get some pain killers, and then drove about 3 mph over the bumpy road in hopes of sparing me further pain.  Two days later they helped me to the ferry dock on the opposite end of the island, where I caught a ship back to the mainland.

When two weeks later I emailed Bovy from Bangkok to let her know I was doing fine but would be having surgery later in the week, I received a completely unexpected response:  "It is tough being abroad when your health condition is not good," she wrote.  Two days later she made the 12-hour journey to Bangkok to be with me for the surgery.

 
Bovy preparing my bill upon checkout in September 2007.  She and her staff decided to give me a 30% discount as a gesture of support for this struggling writer/photographer.  "We think what you are doing with your writing and photos is a good thing," she said.  "We want to help you in this small way."

		Joel Carillet, Gather Travel Correspondent
	Joel's column, "Reflections on the Road," is published every other Thursday to Gather Essentials: Travel. His articles, based on extensive travels in Asia and the Middle East, seek to shed light on humanity, both our own and that of others.   They aim not merely to entertain and inform but also to develop a sense of connection between the reader and the world. Joel's writing and photography have appeared in several magazines and newspapers, including the Kansas City Star and Christian Science Monitor.  Currently his agent is seeking a publisher for a book manuscript entitled Sixty-One Weeks: A Journey across Asia, and in February 2008 he began selling photographs through jcarillet.imagekind.com. When not on the road, he happily calls Tennessee home. Keep up with Joel's article series by joining his network, or subscribing to his content.