A one woman ticket, please
A growing number of women in India no longer hesitate to go on a holiday alone, and this can be an empowering experience.
You're alone, madam? Why you didn't come with someone?" said Pritam, the earnest concierge-cum-waiter at the Shanthi Guest House. Here I was brimming with excitement at the start of my adventurous solo holiday in Hampi, and this guy goes and bursts my bubble. "Why? Is it unsafe here?" I ask him. "No, no, not at all," he assured me.
He is not the only one. I've had several people wonder why I need to travel alone; some are worried about my safety, while others are surprised I don't get bored.
The backpacking culture in the West takes solo travel for granted. For Indian women though, it's still relatively uncharted territory.
Why go alone?
Twenty-nine-year-old Preeti Uchil got into it when she took off for Coorg after losing patience with trying to match schedules with friends, and now loves travelling alone. "I bathed and fed the elephants and spent hours gazing at them at Dubare Elephant Camp," she recollects. "There was no one to rush me and make me do touristy things."
Two contrasting trips to New York made Pallavi Lotlikar, 25, a votary of solo travel. "The first time I spent three days in New York with a friend and she made me go to the museums and the Statue of Liberty even though I hate monuments and museums. When I went again, I was alone; I just cycled around the city. I went to Central Park armed with a picnic basket and a book and spent the day there." This year she visited the UK alone. "I'm a low budget traveller and don't mind living in hostels," she says, "but some of my friends can be pretty high maintenance."
The holiday is more flexible too. "I'd planned four days in Edinburgh, but after two days I took off to Aberdeen instead. If someone had been with me, I might not have been able to change the plan," points out Pallavi.
It can also be "empowering" for somebody with an individualistic streak. Kanika Batra, a freelance set designer, says it gives her the time she needs "to establish a connection with nature."
She spent her 26th birthday in Costa Rica - it was just her and the Punta Uva beach. "I walked along the beach, swam in the ocean, snorkelled... Minus the usual chitchat, I was able to explore every element to the fullest."
Meeting people
As for feeling lonely or bored, in fact for me it was the opposite. When I was in Hampi this summer, 99 per cent of the tourists were foreigners suffering from a severe Goa-hangover, and part of the charm of being alone was meeting interesting strangers. I stayed in a guest house in Virupapur Gaddi, which is across the Tungabhadra river from Hampi. A boat would ferry people across to Hampi, and waiting for it on the jetty I would invariably get into a chat with somebody, and each day it was a person from a different country.
Kanika Batra had the advantage of knowing Spanish when she visited Latin America. "On a beach in Costa Rica one evening I began talking to a bunch of little boys, and I helped them make a catapult. They took me home and I ended up staying there a couple of nights."
And Lotlikar remembers sharing a dorm in Scotland with 15 girls, each travelling alone. "So we grouped up according to how we wanted to spend our day - I went pub-crawling with one group, and explored the Highlands with another; a third group I joined just strolled around the city soaking in the culture."
The safety factor
Lotlikar has so far confined her solo trips to the West, because her family feels India is "too unsafe to explore alone". In the UK, on the contrary, her concerns over safety were met with puzzlement. "I tried to buy pepper spray in Wales, just so I'd be prepared in Scotland, but the salesman didn't even know what it was. When I told him, he began laughing and said, 'Lady, the men in Scotland wear skirts, why would they do anything to you?'"
Batra says that India too can be safe enough but you do have to keep your wits about you. "I'm from Delhi," she adds. "I don't stay out alone post 11pm here, and I just apply the same rules when travelling solo." She has visited the Rajasthan belt, Manali and Varanasi alone. "I've never had to use it, but I always carry pepper spray." Sometimes she makes up stories about herself to deflect unwelcome attention. "It's safer to pretend to be a firang," she explains, "otherwise they ask too many questions, and tend to get too familiar. I once told a local I was from Israel when he wanted to know about my family and why I smoked!"
The one time Batra missed being in a group, momentarily, was when she was robbed in Mexico and left penniless. "At first I felt annoyed, this wouldn't have happened to me if I had been travelling in a group."
She took up a job painting a mural for a restaurant to make ends meet and by the end of it she was confident of making it all alone under all circumstances. "Every Indian woman needs to get out there and make a journey alone," she insists. "It's really empowering." Amen to that!
A growing number of women in India no longer hesitate to go on a holiday alone, and this can be an empowering experience.
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| Solo traveller with a llama and a Peruvian girl in Cuzco, Peru |
You're alone, madam? Why you didn't come with someone?" said Pritam, the earnest concierge-cum-waiter at the Shanthi Guest House. Here I was brimming with excitement at the start of my adventurous solo holiday in Hampi, and this guy goes and bursts my bubble. "Why? Is it unsafe here?" I ask him. "No, no, not at all," he assured me.
He is not the only one. I've had several people wonder why I need to travel alone; some are worried about my safety, while others are surprised I don't get bored.
The backpacking culture in the West takes solo travel for granted. For Indian women though, it's still relatively uncharted territory.
Why go alone?
Twenty-nine-year-old Preeti Uchil got into it when she took off for Coorg after losing patience with trying to match schedules with friends, and now loves travelling alone. "I bathed and fed the elephants and spent hours gazing at them at Dubare Elephant Camp," she recollects. "There was no one to rush me and make me do touristy things."
Two contrasting trips to New York made Pallavi Lotlikar, 25, a votary of solo travel. "The first time I spent three days in New York with a friend and she made me go to the museums and the Statue of Liberty even though I hate monuments and museums. When I went again, I was alone; I just cycled around the city. I went to Central Park armed with a picnic basket and a book and spent the day there." This year she visited the UK alone. "I'm a low budget traveller and don't mind living in hostels," she says, "but some of my friends can be pretty high maintenance."
The holiday is more flexible too. "I'd planned four days in Edinburgh, but after two days I took off to Aberdeen instead. If someone had been with me, I might not have been able to change the plan," points out Pallavi.
It can also be "empowering" for somebody with an individualistic streak. Kanika Batra, a freelance set designer, says it gives her the time she needs "to establish a connection with nature."
She spent her 26th birthday in Costa Rica - it was just her and the Punta Uva beach. "I walked along the beach, swam in the ocean, snorkelled... Minus the usual chitchat, I was able to explore every element to the fullest."
 |
| When you"re on your own amid Hampi"s ruins, part of the charm lies in meeting interesting strangers from different lands |
Meeting people
As for feeling lonely or bored, in fact for me it was the opposite. When I was in Hampi this summer, 99 per cent of the tourists were foreigners suffering from a severe Goa-hangover, and part of the charm of being alone was meeting interesting strangers. I stayed in a guest house in Virupapur Gaddi, which is across the Tungabhadra river from Hampi. A boat would ferry people across to Hampi, and waiting for it on the jetty I would invariably get into a chat with somebody, and each day it was a person from a different country.
Kanika Batra had the advantage of knowing Spanish when she visited Latin America. "On a beach in Costa Rica one evening I began talking to a bunch of little boys, and I helped them make a catapult. They took me home and I ended up staying there a couple of nights."
And Lotlikar remembers sharing a dorm in Scotland with 15 girls, each travelling alone. "So we grouped up according to how we wanted to spend our day - I went pub-crawling with one group, and explored the Highlands with another; a third group I joined just strolled around the city soaking in the culture."
The safety factor
Lotlikar has so far confined her solo trips to the West, because her family feels India is "too unsafe to explore alone". In the UK, on the contrary, her concerns over safety were met with puzzlement. "I tried to buy pepper spray in Wales, just so I'd be prepared in Scotland, but the salesman didn't even know what it was. When I told him, he began laughing and said, 'Lady, the men in Scotland wear skirts, why would they do anything to you?'"
Batra says that India too can be safe enough but you do have to keep your wits about you. "I'm from Delhi," she adds. "I don't stay out alone post 11pm here, and I just apply the same rules when travelling solo." She has visited the Rajasthan belt, Manali and Varanasi alone. "I've never had to use it, but I always carry pepper spray." Sometimes she makes up stories about herself to deflect unwelcome attention. "It's safer to pretend to be a firang," she explains, "otherwise they ask too many questions, and tend to get too familiar. I once told a local I was from Israel when he wanted to know about my family and why I smoked!"
The one time Batra missed being in a group, momentarily, was when she was robbed in Mexico and left penniless. "At first I felt annoyed, this wouldn't have happened to me if I had been travelling in a group."
She took up a job painting a mural for a restaurant to make ends meet and by the end of it she was confident of making it all alone under all circumstances. "Every Indian woman needs to get out there and make a journey alone," she insists. "It's really empowering." Amen to that!
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