Hostels

This morning I got talking to a woman that I've seen about the place over the last few days. She spoke to me first as I'm rubbish at all that.

She's been here a while and within an hour had not only sorted out my lunch, but completely adapted my plans. It turned out that the boat I was gonna catch, a tourist boat (devil word tourist) would cost me about 5 times as much as just getting the normal boat. She then told me about a few excellent other places to go, including a £3.50 massage that turned out to be excellent.

After having a great day, largely due to her, I returned to the hostel for the rest of the evening. She arrived with a friend and we were then joined by someone else just wanting to hang out, we hadn't me her before.

So there I am, 47 English, offering nothing but my witty repartee for what that's worth (nothing), Sandra, my Bangkok guide, German, on her way to Singapore after leaving Hong Kong and it's troubles, Victor, a young Thai guy with loads of booze and Anna, a young (South) Korean woman who lives in California and is travelling solo around Asia. In theory we have very little in common, but we had a fantastic evening.

The hostel I'm staying in is pretty great. The room is nice, although I could do without the guy who's been setting the snoring world record the past few days, the view is amazing and it's pretty central. It only cost £6 a night as well, which helps. But it's only a bed really.

Where hostels really come into their own is the people. Other travellers with similar or (usually) better experiences than you getting together and sharing stories. Anna is off to Cambodia tomorrow and then on to India, between us we'd been to everywhere she's planning on going to. I have no doubt her trip will be better for tonight. We share stories, we share food, drink and laughs. We're a group of solo people bought together by convenience, need and luck.

Tomorrow we'll mostly all say goodbye, probably forever apart from Facebook and Instagram, but personally, I'll take a bigger message, a lesson. I'll take the tools I need to carry on this trip, because I was starting to worry there for a while that travelling solo actually meant travelling solo.