To See a Friend


People who travel for leisure usually do so to see a new place and a different culture. I did a particular trip this year not for those reasons. I traveled to see a friend. Seeing the place was just incidental.

I have friends all over the world. There's Taka and Ishi, whom I both met through an exchange program. They live in the outskirts of Tokyo. Niyom, Pok and Pisit all live in Bangkok. Margaret, a friend from university has settled down in New York. Ernie is finishing his contract in Seoul. Beijing-based Chen Yi works for the Economic Daily. Jenny's in Switzerland on sabbatical.

Thanks to the Internet, communication is faster and cheaper now with email. We can scan photos and send images of ourselves or upload them on our homepages. ICQ or AOL Instant Messenger allow us to exchange messages. We can chat with them online. Or talk to them from our PCs by using FreeTel.

However, even though we exchange letters, send emails and make phone calls, sometimes these are not enough. There are certain things we miss out on. Little details about each other's life.

And so I embarked on a trip to see a friend in Turkey. Making the trip wasn't that easy. I've received a lot of discouraging words. Like, it's not safe for a woman to travel alone in a Muslim country. Or I've received warnings like, a rebellion might erupt at any moment because of the arrest of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish movement. Then, there's the timing, schedules and personal commitments to consider.

Then came another setback just two weeks before my planned trip. An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale hit Turkey on the 17th of August 1999. Buildings collapsed, burying and killing thousands of people and leaving many homeless. Fortunately, my friend who lives and works in Istanbul some 90 kilometers from Izmit, the epicenter, is alive and not at all affected.

However, that incident fueled more words of discouragement. It's funny how people interpreted it as a sign that I shouldn't go-all these superstitious stuff. The succeeding days found me glued to the TV set for news but it painted a bleak picture-of people lining up for gasoline, water and food; the outbreak of diseases; unsafe buildings that may collapse at any time because of the strong aftershocks. Even the travel agents were rattled when I said I'm going to Istanbul. "But the earthquake!" was their common reaction.

The copyright of the article To See a Friend in Travel for Young People is owned by Haydee De Guzman. Permission to republish To See a Friend in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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