Tales from a Trip: The Les Miserables Lessons for Travel

The new Les Miz movie is about to debut on Christmas Day with previews already making their rounds.

So for the past few days, I've been getting panda eyes from lack of sleep and lots of crying, pouring over anything Les Miz on the web.

The story stands the test of time because of its universal themes.  Hope, redemption, love, forgiveness, starting fresh, paying it forward.

Now how is Les Miz relevant to a travel blog?

I've always wondered why people travel.

For some it is work driven.  You get put on a plane, then into a hotel, sent to offices for meetings, forced into bits of over indulgent evening entertainment, maybe get an hour to yourself, then put back on the plane home.

For others, it is pleasure driven.  It a respite from the day to day of your life. Perhaps a sort of escape. Or even a way to validate the goodness of your existence and reality when you visit countries that aren't as prosperous as yours.

There are many reasons of course.  But the most pressing question would be: What do you truly see and hear when you travel?  Or is it just a geographical difference for you?

Not too long ago, I visited a friend in London.  We were planning to spend a Sunday together.  However, he got tired out after staying out at the clubs the night before.

It was not a big deal.  This was London.  Lots to do.

I went to Greenwich.   It is a World Heritage Site and I make it a point to visit these locations during my travels.  There was a weekend market where I had a wonderful traditional beef dish that was coated in melted cheese.  The air was a little nippy and the hot meal was superb even if you had to stand on the streets to finish it off.

I wasn't sure of where else to go and ventured into a nearby area that had wonderful architecture.  Didn't seem very busy so I walked around.  Then I heard something amazing.

It was coming from one of the buildings.  I zeroed in on the music and peered through a window but could not see much. I made out the shapes of a few people around a piano.  They must have seen me, this Asian gawking though the glass. They must have thought I was weird.

Truth is I love musical theater.  And the quick realization that I had stumbled upon a class of sorts of musical theater students rehearsing something was like a gift. Their voices were resplendent.  And through their singing, I could make out parts of a story, and imagined how it might be staged.

I stood next to the window for about an hour, trying to be discreet, and hoping security would not be called on me.  I admired the sense of dedication and passion that was communicated through their voices.  I felt re-energized somehow.

I realized that some of my best travel experiences have been unexpected.  And largely due to just exploring without expectations. If one can draw parallels, it is like Marius only seeing Eponine as this concept of a person, rather than seeing her as someone who loved him enough to sacrifice her own happiness for him.  If we travel with fixed ideas about people and destinations, we lose the benefit of what they can truly provide.

Travel without really opening up your eyes and ears to what is around you, rather than what you project to your environment, limits the beauty and the lessons from your experience.

I was in Istanbul in winter.  It was dead cold.  Snow up to the knees.  My day tours were semi-disasters.  And my life was threatened at one point by a bunch of thugs.

Still I wanted to make the best of it.

I made the Grand Bazaar my comfort zone.  At least it was warmer than the outside, central, and had lot of things to do and see that could keep me busy for hours.

Being winter, customers were pretty thin, and Asian faces even lesser.  I was an immediate target.  Eventually I made contact with a few shop keepers.  Some of them were young and it became easy to start chats with them.

They started out trying to scam me to buy their stuff at inflated prices.  I was a little too savvy to be tricked.  And eventually the barriers came down and we began to communicate well.

The more we talked the more we realized that we may have had pre-conceptions about each other that were not true.  Many of the shop keepers were not from Istanbul.  They came from neighboring cities and towns and were lured by the promise of a better life in the capital.  Most came to the consensus, for those that lived there, that Istanbul was not the gilded city.  It was a dangerous one where they would not even venture out at night if they could help it.

It was something I learned the hard way.  And I experienced something that I never thought I would. I faced a crisis.  And it forced me to be creative in how to get out of it. I did, but it rattled me.

I turned to the shop keepers as an outlet to vent and to get some kind of support. They gave that to me. I received kindness and sympathy.  I remember a blue eyed Turk saying he would leave the shop early to have dinner with me, because being alone in the dead of winter in Istanbul truly was not a good idea.

I realized how important it is to render help when you can.  Even a kind word may be helpful.  The shop keepers gave a little bit of security back to me at a time when, as a lone traveler, I felt violated.  They did not have to, they just did.  Just as Jean Valjean in Les Miz paid it forward after he was saved, it is important to extend the blessings that has been given to you.

It is extraordinary that I have received remarkable kindness from others. When you travel without your name cards and histories, nobody knows who you are, and you have a clean slate. People relate to you as a human being.

Jean Valjean stole a load of bread and was jailed for 19 years.  Inspector Javert refused to see that a man could be more than just one act, that the breadth of life was not determined by something done in a few minutes, that every person was capable of more.  If everyone was like the priest who bought Valjean's soul for God with silver, and assumed that everyone was innately good, imagine the possibilities.

Everyone deserves a clean slate, a fresh start, to gain hope and to receive love.

When I travel, I am exactly how I want to be, and who I am when I look at my own spiritual mirror.  I don't have to play a role for the benefit of others.  I don't have to live it up or live it down.  I am happiest when I meet people from those living on the streets to those managing empires.  They only have to deal with the person I am now, not the complications of past lives.

Again, it is rather like Les Miz isn't it?  If Valjean had not broken parole to start a new life in the small town, he would not have been allowed to prove his worth and eventually to begin a new chapter as mayor.

So, I carry with me the importance of the lessons from Les Miz everywhere I go. Hope, redemption, love, forgiveness, starting fresh, paying it forward.  Travel isn't just about stepping on different soil or being in my comfort zone for me.  It really is microcosmic of Life itself, where you must connect on a human level and experience differences to grow and to renew.  Every place I go, every face I see, is a renewed opportunity to write a new positive chapter with someone else in some other place.

And that is truly why I travel.

I take pictures of my foot on the ground to remind me that I am but a guest of the land
and for that one moment I was there.