I must have been 25, or something.
I had booked a flight, with one destination.
Bangkok, Thailand.
A few days before leaving I had looked online, maybe it was even the day before.
There was a hostel in an area that I liked, but I didn’t book it.
I went on that flight, not knowing where I would sleep that night.
I wasn’t worried though.
When I arrived at the hostel, first they told me everything was full.
I said, “I checked the website and there was still availability”.
I didn’t really get an answer, he gave me a stare instead.
I saw the little guy going behind the computer.
The same guy that had told me, they were fully booked.
I heard the ticketing of the keyboard and the sound of the ventilator.
It was quite warm.
While I was getting used to the surrounding, there was still silence.
My mind went back to the moment I was arriving at the airport in Bangkok.
I was standing at customs, because we thought we needed a VISA to enter the country.
However I had checked before departing if I needed that.
I still don’t know why I was standing there.
It was my first flight overseas I was traveling by myself.
However, I wasn’t nervous.
The woman of customs didn’t really understand what we were trying to say and I think we also had no clue.
I was there with someone, who also didn’t know how this worked.
We had found each other collecting our travelling bags.
There we were standing at the customs desk trying to explain, I think I even used my hands.
Her English was not that good, the lady from customs.
At least, that is what I remember.
Because all this lady kept repeating to us was, “Go out, go live!”
This is a true story.
After several times, we started to understand and left.
We realized we could just go, without a VISA.
We were tourists nevertheless.
Perhaps I just needed to be there and hear what she had said.
‘Go out, go live!’
I am still thinking about it, till this day.
What that means, being a tourist.
What I think is something I have found in a movie called ‘Passengers’.
Just my own finding, I am sharing.
We are all tourists and our souls are just passing through.
We should not take things too seriously.
Before we know we are old and have missed all that is waiting for us here.
I don’t know if it really gives meaning to life.
The movie is played in space, where one guy wakes up for some reason on the way to the future.
He is with a group of people that bought this flight to that destination.
However his booth opens up earlier than the expected arrival date, somewhere unknown.
He has a good time on the spaceship, because he is the only one awake and can do whatever he likes.
However he gets lonely, because he is the only one awake on that spaceship.
He decides to wake up a girl he finds beautiful.
He had enough time to check everyone out, and he also did.
So he decides to wake her up, because he wants to spend his time with her while being on this journey to the future.
Of course he doesn’t know how she will react to this awakening.
I thought it was a bit selfish of him to wake her up.
She didn’t choose it this way.
But well, who am I to say?
I also think it is a bit of a contemporary love story of sleeping beauty or perhaps even snow white.
Ok, perhaps, I am taking it too far and this story goes more about the prince.
I am just thinking.
Isn’t it just nice to be woken up and that this is where love starts?