Is there room for one more?

uddenly the bus comes to a halt and the passengers slowly make their way up the aisle, their bodies stiff from the long, cramped journey. I turn to the locals in the seat behind them and ask them what is going on. “Jalan Rusak,” they answer in Indonesian, which literally means “Broken Road”. The areas on the windy mountain road ahead that weren't paved contained deep trenches and large boulders. Whatever little asphalt existed was buried under several recent mudslides. Yes, it was indeed a BROKEN ROAD.

During my travels I invariably find myself on some kind of broken road. With nothing to do but sit and wait for the car to be fixed or the road to be cleared, I sit and watch how people deal with the uncertainty of travel. Some people (mostly foreign tourists) are at first amused by the flats tires or the washed-out road. But after several hours, they grow impatient with the lack of information, the lack of infrastructure, and the lack of any hope of sticking to their carefully planned schedule. The locals, however, are experienced in dealing with travel surprises. They take the opportunity to check on their goats and chickens, have some tea, let the kids run around, and watch with utter fascination as a few men try put whatever rusty tools they have dug out of the trunk to use.

Life is what you make of it. You can either let the disappointment of slipped schedules consume you, or you can shrug all that off, and learn to live in the moment. Sure, you can have a basic itinerary, a simple plan, but you’d better be prepared for the unexpected, and learn to embrace it. You never know when your path suddenly becomes a Broken Road.