How I Minimize Use of Plastic While Traveling

What would you do to reduce using plastic when everything around you is made from plastic? How would you convince yourself not to buy or take plastic from anyone when every other person readily offers it? While buying milk and groceries from the neighborhood Mom-and-Pop shops, how do I refuse to take the plastic bag every time? Won’t that mean I have to carry everything in my hands? Won’t I feel embarrassed when people see me and point out my inanity?

When I thought of quit using plastic from my existence, all these thoughts used to come across my mind. However, as I progressed through my journey, I found myself getting successful day by day. It is easier to be eco-friendly when you are in your city or home than doing the same while traveling. I had heard stories of the dead bodies of millions of fish coming to the shores of the oceans because humans have polluted the waters.

At once, I thought that how does it matter if plastic in the oceans kills every creature? I was being selfish, I must admit. I researched further about it and talked to people in Mumbai and Bali. The aware, even though uneducated, people of these places had a common perspective that every creature on this earth is co-dependent on each other in one form or the other. People eat seafood and they are at the risk of contaminated animals. The vegetarian folks are at equal risk because they consume fish oils, which might be extracted from infected fish. Plastic does not disintegrate for hundreds of years, which is what we know. A meagre pet bottle of soft drinks needs 450 years to break down. Imagine the kind of mess we are leaving for the future generations. Anyway, without digressing from the topic, let me share how I minimize using plastic while traveling.

Not using plastic containers

As I said, it is easy to follow your principles when you are at home. My real test begins when I leave home to travel to my dream destinations. Last month, I had to car rental in Bangalore without driver for my road trip to Coorg. It broke my heart to see the amount of filth people had spread throughout the way. Since the day I have started loving wood and glass containers, I have never found the dearth of them anywhere I travel. Even for keeping oils and face wash, I prefer using glass containers rather than plastic tubes. Next, when I have to store my food in the car, I don’t touch plastic tiffin boxes. I have a variety of steel containers at home, which I blissfully carry in my bags. Some of them are so well made that they are equally air-tight as plastic boxes.

Not taking a plastic bag

Whenever I have to buy something, I refuse to take plastic bags. Indian shopkeepers readily give away a plastic bag to everyone who buys even a needle from them. However, I carry a durable and reusable plastic basket for buying things from the market and keep putting things in it until it is stuffed. Next, if I don’t have another basket, I use my backpack, which is always there with me while traveling. I don’t need to say more because I never buy more than I can carry.

In the last five years of going plastic free, I have realized that everything is possible if one is determined. All the excuses that I used to give myself were futile because I have actually gone plastic free in this day and age of enormous plastic use.

My Experience as a Foreigner in India

I went to India for the first time six years ago, which was to attend a learning program in Bangalore. After that, I have taken quite a few trips to the country, each of which has contributed to enhance my perception about India. During my last visit in Bangalore, I was volunteering as a teacher in a distant village. Wherever I went, kids and even adults would call me akka. They would point and stare at me, and some kids even followed me wherever I went. However, all these staring never made me uncomfortable because I had understood it quite early that these villages had never seen a foreigner in reality!

Well, this was not easy to grasp, but I had become habitual of these stares.

I would go to school, and every children in the school would beam up and shout, akka, in the loudest voice possible. The mother of one student once remarked that I looked like someone from the TV, maybe even more gorgeous than that. I had picked up a few Kannad words by then, and I felt immense gratitude towards that woman. People in India, I had heard, are sincere at heart. I would constantly witness there kind behavior every now and then.

The adults would often come to me and ask about my home, my husband, my studies, my salary, and my friends back home. Every person I met wanted to know about my life. After a few months in the village, one fellow-teacher pulled me aside and asked me,

“Why don’t you behave like other foreigners?”

That left me perplexed and I asked for further clarification. She said, “akka, I am surprised that you are American, and yet, you don’t smoke, drink, or consume drugs. You don’t go for late night hangouts, don’t have a boyfriend, and you don’t eat non-vegetarian food. You respect all of us, share our food, pay with children and teach them. You have already learned a bit of Kannad and you seem to be a decent person. You are like family to us now.”

I explained it to her that the smoking, drinking, and eating meat are considered right and wrong in different parts of the world. I don’t do any of it because it is my choice and that I prefer to live a simple life. I realized that she had made a perception about foreigners just as I had made the same about Indians. I helped to clear the stereotype image in her mind, and she was happy to hear my views.

When I had to leave from the village, had booked a Car Rental in Bangalore without driver. The entire village gave me a warm farewell, and a couple of villagers helped me reach the place to pick up the car. It was a profound moment for me as I said goodbye to those dear people. Although I may never visit them again, I will have their memories in my heart forever.

How I Helped My Father to Quit Smoking and Begin Travel

My father used to be addicted to smoking a couple of years ago. He tried to quit it many times, but maybe he failed because he was not determined to accomplish the task. However, mom had already warned him that he was caught smoking, at home or outside, she would not let him stay inside the house for the night. She was definitely a strict woman.

Now here is the catch. My father works from home, at night mind you, and he took immense benefit of his job timings. He would often go in the balcony, have a fag, and come back to his desk after he was done with his cigarette. I had seen him a couple of times smoking around three in the morning, but never dared to complain about him to mom. I knew that dad would have to sleep outside, maybe on the street, just because he dared to break a rule in the house.

Poor dad!

Then again, I also wanted to stop him from harming his health. And I got this chance one day. Last year, I was searching for a document in my room, but I could not find it. I thought it might be there in my parent’s room, so I went there. I lifted the bedding a little to search for that little piece of paper, which was my iPhone bill. I had to get my phone repaired, which was under warranty. Who would want to pay a hefty amount for a bit of service on the iPhone?

As I lifted the mattress, I found a huge pack of cigarettes very well hidden in one corner of the bed. Now I had one chance to make dad leave cigarette, at least for a night. And I would get a chance to use the non-smoky bathroom at least that day. I pocketed the packet, went out of home on the pretext of meeting a friend, and dumped the cigarettes in a public dustbin. I know my dad, he would have found them in the house, no matter where I hid them.

Now dad was frantically searching for something that night, but he could not say it to me. When I asked him what he was looking for, he said that he was looking for some crucial documents. I suggested him to look in the cupboard rather than under the bedding. He knew my wicked mind, but he did not say anything. He worked for the night with a sad face, and this went on for a month before he confronted me.

I told him that I had been throwing out the cigarettes every time he hid them in various places.

Dad: Why did you do that? I smoke only once a day.

Me: Dad, even if it is one fag a day, it is harmful for you. You need to stop it.

Dad: I am trying.

Me: You are not trying dad; you are fooling yourself and us.

He looked away and tried to find what to say next.

Dad: Okay, what do you want?

Me: You have been already off the cigarettes for more than a month now. I want you to give your daily expense of cigarettes to me. I will save it.

Dad: Ahaan! That’s an interesting suggestion. And what do you plan to do with that money?

Me: We will go for a trip with those huge savings.

Initially, he smiled at my suggestion, but gave in later. I booked a car hire in Bangalore for our trip to Coorg, and hence made it a norm in the house to save money from his cigarettes’ expense and travel.