A single lady traveller

by Shylaja Shetty (India)

I didn't expect to find USA

I am a single lady traveller from India and I always prefer to use the local transport wherever I travel to on a holiday. This was my first holiday in the US and I was covering Newyork, buffalo to Lasvegas to LA to Malibu and then SFO on my own. This was an incident while exploring LA. I was to reach the Redondo Beach area from LA city late in the evening. On reaching the metro station I got to know that the green line which was supposed to take me to the next station wasn’t working. The friendly cops directed me to take a local bus to another station and from there to Redondo. It was already getting dark and Iam alone. I boarded a bus and looked into my handbag to find no change. I remembered then having read somewhere that I had to keep the exact change. The bus driver was kind enough to let me travel though I found the change and paid him when I got off . In sometime after I boarded the bus I realised the bus was going on a highway. The last thing I wanted was to get stranded on a highway in any country. I got off at a small station which in the middle of a highway and found only 3 people. A guy who looked like a Latino hops off in a bicycle into the station and seeing me standing alone checks if I want help. No that din’t sound very concerning. Thankfully the same cops I had met at the previous station passed by and checked if I was fine. All this was happening and what was flashing in my mind is a poster that I had seen in another metro station the same day about a 19 year old being raped at 4am. I boarded the next metro to Redondo Beach and when I go off what I dreaded happened , I was stranded in the middle of nowhere. There was no one in the station and it was around 10pm. I walked down and tried the Uber app. There was no network coverage. In my mind I was already molested. While I waited helplessly at the station, another train arrived and a woman got off. You must be thinking that’s a life saver . I thought so too. She doesn’t understand the English language and I don’t speak Spanish. I handled the roller coaster ride inside a dark tunnel in some country better. I asked her to open google translator and typed English to Spanish. She understood. But it doesn’t end here. You learn that it’s very important to stay calm always because I had forgotten my hotel’s name. Remember I have travelled alone all over the country and stayed in hotels everywhere. She types the hotel name and it says that hotel doesn’t exist. Then after a few minutes I calm down and think and then get the name, address and she puts me in a Uber and I reach the hotel. Anything could have happened that day but today when I look back Iam happy that’s it’s been a good learning experience for me. Hope your looking at each other after reading my story . Trust me you may not find a better amateur than me to train.