A WOMAN TRAVELING ALONE

The question of safety while traveling alone has led people to tell me they could never travel alone, and they asked for one or two of my adventures. I tell of the tranquil perfection of Phi Phi Island, Thailand, which hid unforeseen threats: while swimming alone in the Andaman Sea, I got dragged out by a current into the South China Sea; during a pirate raid I hid all night by myself, and later a stalker forced me to leave the island. Only the helpfulness of strangers helped me escape. I’ve described the details in my book Getting the Story (to be published by John Koehler Books in September this year.)

The Phi Phi story, and others touch on the concerns of a changing world: the most isolated places lose their innate purity as they become over-developed by tourism’s glitz. I witnessed this in Phi Phi and other islands in the Gulf of Thailand.