On being alone
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For once my Monday morning began a little differently to the standard commute to work in Notting Hill. It was a commute nonetheless to get to Moorgate, which you get used to whilst living in London - but this time it was for something much more important.
I hope you find what you're looking for.
For the second time this week someone has hoped 'I find what I’m looking for’ when I go travelling. I thought nothing of it the first time apart from that it was a seemed like a nice thought. However the second time it struck me. It struck me because this wasn’t phrased as a question - this was phrased as a cold, hard statement. It clearly wasn’t asked out of curiosity - more than a nice message these two wellwishers had ultimately categorised me as someone leaving in search of something - another graduate who is searching for more than a job perhaps - or dare I say another gap year swank who is searching for (and this pains me) themselves. At this point a million thoughts whirred through my head. Am I actually searching for anything? Do I have to be searching for something? What do they want from me! For the past two years I have slowly planted this travel seed in my head and whenever I heard that someone was going travelling (damn I was jealous) but I also only saw this as encouragement to save my money and get going - and of course I believed that everyone else felt the same. I tried long and hard to imagine what it looked like to a twentysomething Londoner who has landed a good job and had no intentions of upping and leaving in such a gallant manner - and I found it quite difficult. To someone who doesn’t want to leave their life behind and venture into the world alone with a backpack (which a lot of people do and that's naturally fine) I know it might look like I’m running off into the sunset to grow dreads, fall in love with a native and escape the Brexit backlash by living on a merry little cloud in the Himalayas, but you'd be wrong! The issue is my current situation is actually great! I live in Central London, have a nice job, have a good group of friends and everyone I know is healthy and happy - so there’s hardly a gaping hole in my current life that I’m trying to fill. Secondly and more importantly, I don’t have very much money so I’m also not doing this because I simply can. So why am I doing this? Why does everyone think that I’m searching for something? The truth, and the only explanation (and the way I managed to convince my parents) is, if I don’t go now then I never will. This is the one opportunity when no-one, a parent, a boyfriend, a friend is depending on me and I’m not depending on them. And the older I get the smaller that opportunity feels to me. Sure you can go travelling at any age and with anyone but right now I have the opportunity to stand on my own two feet and so I’m taking it. And so for the next time someone hopes that I find what I’m looking for, I’ll thank them for the positive message and remind myself that I don’t need to panic. And to whatever I find along the way - well we all know the saying that when you least expect it (and are least looking for it) amazing things can and will happen. I’ve been lucky enough to never need any medical assistance from the NHS and despite the long waiting lists that we hear of, I think our health system is pretty good - even if it needs a few reforms. Having said that however I had to learn the hard way that their approach to travellers is somewhat different to what I expected. When I spontaneously booked my flights I was aware of two things - I would need insurance (I could probably guilt trip my parents into that one) and I would need vaccinations. With this knowledge I immediately booked myself into an STA travel clinic for a ‘consultation’. Before my visit I also googled the prices of the vaccinations I needed. At roughly around £35 per jab for Tetanus, Typhoid and Hep A - I hardly minded shelling £100 for what I hope is eternal life, or at least protection from dirty water. The consultation started how I expected, the nurse read through a list of things that I might be liable to contract and ultimately suggested that I overdose on all the vaccinations possibly available. As much as I take pride in my health aside from the occasional cigarette, it dawned on me that the nurse was certainly up selling and I felt both conned and a little confused. The majority of these vaccinations also required two or three rounds which meant rather than £100 for all three vaccinations, I’d be looking at £100 each. Of course, this was a private clinic and although I’d hoped that STA would be great for travel advice (they weren’t) their health clinic did however leave me with one golden nugget of advice. I was about to opt out when the Nurse informed me that these vaccinations are actually free through the NHS - at which point I was certainly opting out - for her then to kindly reminded me if I don’t get any vaccines I’m charged £20 for the consultation. I left with a swollen arm, one rabies vaccination, a hangover but most importantly the knowledge that the NHS provides these for free - because after all they should want their citizens to be healthy when they spread their wings beyond this bordered, rainy island. But I was wrong again. ‘Are you travelling?’ ‘Yes’. ‘OK we don’t do those vaccines here’. ‘Umm… OK I’ve been told I can get them, is there anywhere you can recommend?’ ‘Travel Clinic’ ‘Umm’ ‘Bye’. Despite a qualified nurse informing me that these vaccines are available, a number of newspaper articles and even the NHS website clearly stating that these were free, that was the response of two local GP’s in Camberwell. My next port of call was the walk in centre and this time I thought I’d be a little clever, so I called the one up in Soho. ‘Are you travelling?’ ‘I actually just need a booster shot - I never..’ ‘Is this for travelling’ ‘... No’ ‘You need to go to a travel clinic’. After calling three separate NHS services it began to feel clear that rather than the vaccinations being unavailable, it was the situation under which I was requesting them that was actually the problem. Another NHS clinic in Stockwell stated that the vaccines were free but only for patients that were registered with the clinic for 3 months or longer. Goddammit they really were against the last minute spontaneous travellers weren’t they? Would I really have to pay more than my flights worth just for some injections? Maybe I could just go without? Is this what privatisation feels like? I wondered if I was being selfish for asking the NHS. In some light I could see why they would be reluctant to provide costly vaccinations to people leaving the country and I would have almost accepted it had a nurse and their website told me otherwise. But I was now aware that friends that had received them for free, and quite frankly it seemed almost unfair. After a day of research and phone calls to other London health services I was getting desperate. It was my last hope to walk into a health clinic personally, show them the NHS website and ask them what the hell was going on. I walked into Penny Hill Walk-in Centre in Notting Hill and almost leapt with joy when the staff said they were free and that they had no idea why other places were charging for them. After a few dead arms I am now almost fully vaccinated and can feel at a little more ease when I get there. The moral of the story is not to give up. Find out what you need and what you’re entitled to and know that the NHS as resentful as they seemed towards the last minute traveller can give you some of these vaccinations. I know that we are lucky to have a health system that is free - but my health precautions have cost me both a lot of time, stress and money because no-one could give me any good advice. Where to?
I’ve been feeling restless for a while now. Every year during university I’d hoped to do something spontaneous over the summer period, and every year this somehow fell through. Graduation came and passed and it looked like the only place that I could feasibly get to would be back to my parent’s house (and I had no intention of doing that). Two grand into my two grand overdraft and up to my eyeballs in every sort of student debt I decided to find a job in London and start saving. I've spent the past eleven months dreaming of escape from the daily grind - staring out of the window and hoping for a room with a view (or no room at all) or anything that is different from the rainy outdoors I saw from my South London bedroom. Often working 7 days a week, I finally reached a point at which I felt had just enough money to get the hell out of this country. So what’s the plan? 1.Nepal On the 13th September I’ll depart from Heathrow and after a brief overnight stint sleeping in Delhi airport I’ll arrive the next morning in Kathmandu, Nepal. If I’m honest I know next to nothing about Nepal apart from a few google searches and a lonely planet guide. I have booked one week in a hostel and from there I intend to make a plan as I go along. 2.Malaysia My time in Nepal will come to an end on the 12th October at which point I’ll take a flight to Beijing via Malaysia. Surprisingly the most expensive flight of my trip, I land in Malaysia at 4am and depart at 7pm so I have the whole day to explore Kuala Lumpur. 3.China A day later I’ll get to Beijing where I’ll spend a week hopefully walking along the Great Wall and then head down to Shanghai possibly by train. Unlike Nepal where you’ll find me floating around, Chinese visa restrictions means that both I, and the Chinese Embassy need to know exactly where I am every day, hence my itinerary being a little more regimented (though still not set in stone)! 4.Australia The third leg of my trip flies from Shanghai from Melbourne where I can spend up to a year sunning it up on a beach and earning a wage that you can actually live off. It's funny looking above at this list of countries, as it doesn't actually feel like a big journey at all. Just four little bullet points that sum up what might be the next two years of my life. Then again, I've never sold all of my belongings and left with no home to come back to. Of course I’m hoping to start saving again and then continue onto planning the next half of my journey round to South America - though that's certain to change! And so as Britain sadly crumbles as a result of the Brexit aftermath with a Prime Minister that we didn’t vote for, you’ll be able to find me in the Himalayas or on a Melbourne beach. I’m excited to see how this plan will undoubtedly change as my trip progresses, after all there’s always a chance I’ll hate it and beg to come home (although I doubt it) … |
Tamara DavisonBefore the trip begins. ArchivesCategories |