In Coron, Palawan

In the middle of my Palawan trip with friends, I found myself suddenly alone in a seaside restaurant by the hotel intent on occupying myself with Bill Bryson's rants about small-town America and a disappointing glass of fruit shake. Around me were foreigners who were alone, too, sipping their own fruit shakes, reading their own books and taking in the view of the sea, and I wondered about their reasons for being alone-- reasons which were probably very unlike mine. I struggled to blend in with these people and be unobtrusive and so I buried my nose deeper into my book, but I wondered about them. I thought about those who choose and are comfortable in their solitude, those who are in a strange land because their fear of the unfamiliar is thwarted by their irremediable desire to explore the new, and I realized that I cannot imagine myself in their shoes. Afterward, I went to the hotel's sun deck to lie on the hammock and read my book and it was lovely, but I knew that I cannot, all by myself, brave a new land and culture for the hammock. For now, at least.