That December night.
A birthday, a cute stranger and an offbeat adventure.
“I’ve never been so mesmerised by… nothing. It’s like I am in a trance”, I mumbled.
“Hah. Yes, I’ve heard it does have that effect on people”, she said in a quiet voice, without moving her gaze.
“Uhm hm”, I was too busy taking in the view myself to respond coherently.
“Beautiful, so beautiful…”, was all I could think.
—
I peered out the window of the moving bus.
The traffic was overwhelming, but that was normal.
A small smile crept to my face.
I leaned back in my seat, scrolled through my phone for a bit and then placed it in the kangaroo pocket of my hoodie.
As I hummed along to the music playing on it, I took a sip of the mango juice I was drinking out of a box.
—
To cut a long story short:
I decided to go for my first solo trip on my birthday.
Just a 3-day getaway to a quaint, little town near my city.
One day before the B-Day, I caught a bus to start my journey.
I reached the travellers’ hostel I was staying at in about 4-4.5 hours.
I checked-in, took the slip of paper with the key code to my room (that I would be sharing with ~five other gals) and walked towards it.
The place wasn’t that big, but it was situated on a mountain-top, overlooking a deep valley, so the view was exquisite. You could clearly see the paragliders doing their thing from the balconies as well.
The architecture and design of the place was quirky too, with rows of stairs running up and down through the maze of multi-coloured boxy rooms, and a co-working space/dining area beside it.
I found my room.
But before I could punch in the key code, the handle jiggled, the door opened and I was greeted with a smile by a girl of about my age.
She was wearing an off-white-coloured long, baggy shirt with a black trackpant, her short, dark brown, wavy hair falling all around her face, and her big, round eyes glinting in the morning light.
“Cute”, I thought.
She flashed a friendly smile.
“Hey! Come on in, I heard some noise outside the door so I thought of looking, nice to meet you!”.
“Thanks, my name’s Raven, call me Rave”.
“I’m Robyn, call me Rob”.
We shared a laugh.
I put my bag down on the floor and looked around the room.
There were 3 bunk-beds. 3 nightstands. 2 washrooms. 2 basins. 2 cupboards. 2 fans. 1 air conditioner. 1 table. 1 large mirror. 1 shoestand. And 1 window, that opened to the valley side.
“So… how does this work? I have to just claim one of these beds by sitting on it or something?”.
She giggled at my silly question.
“Yes, that’s actually it”.
“Cool”.
I noticed that Robyn had picked the bottom bunk of the bed closest to the window.
A set of wired earphones, a novel, a pair of socks and a jacket lay messily on her bed.
I chose to take the one right next to it (the middle one).
I plopped my stuff down on it to indicate my selection.
After a quick wash and a change of clothes, I asked Robyn, “Wanna stroll around the place and maybe grab something to eat?”.
“Sure!”.
—
The day went well.
Robyn was travelling solo too. So we decided to tag along with each other.
She had come from quite far away though, unlike me. And this was just one stop in her trip. She was on a 3-month break to travel all around the country — of course, that was a virtually impossible feat — but she had picked a lot of must-see destinations.
We had grabbed some brunch at our hostel, and then headed out.
The shopping centre and market were at a walking distance, so we strode along the road, loosely following the Google Maps route.
She and I were of the same age.
She was studying Literature, and made money on the side by doing freelance photography — she did personal shoots, wedding shoots, birthday shoots, headshots and conceptual/theme-centred shoots.
We found a lot of common ground, so holding up an engaging conversation was easy.
We bought some goodies, did a bit of sightseeing, drank some chocolate milkshakes and basically had a fun outing.
By the time we got back, it was late in the evening.
We came back to our room and saw that two other girls had joined us.
We exchanged pleasantries and made some small talk with them.
They were sisters, and were here with a group of their cousins to experience the adventure sports activities that the town had to offer (since there were many rivers, plateaus and mountains in the area — kayaking, horse riding, boat riding, trekking and paragliding were popular contributors to adventure tourism).
They soon got ready and left the room.
I was picking some clothes to wear and thinking about what to do for the night.
Robyn interrupted my thoughts and asked, “Rave, there’s something I wanted to do when I came here… would you please care to join me?”.
That was a bit mysterious, but there was also a hint of sincerity in the request.
“Yes, sure”, I replied without question.
—
It was not windy, but it was cold.
The atmosphere was dense.
The sky and the stars looked like silver glitter on a black sheet of paper.
Which was tinted with swirling hues of a rich, dark blue.
The moonlight was the only source of illumination.
It shaded everything it fell upon with a greyish-white gleam.
The land was a vast expanse of nothingness, for as far as your eyes could reach.
Just patches of grass, mud and rocks everywhere.
Not a tree or another soul in sight.
Nothing other than bits and pieces of earth.
A flat and empty plateau.
Except for one quietly placed pond.
Ah, yes. The pond.
It looked like it was filled with ink, not water.
And it seemed shallow, at a glance.
But for some reason, it gave off an ominous vibe — one that said: “If you dare to take a dive, I’ll suck you inside my inky, black depths, never to return”. *cue menacing laugh*
(Pardon my fetish for the evil and horror genre. <3)
But the stillness of life on that land was more peaceful than unsettling.
Robyn snapped her fingers in front of my face.
I turned to look at her, my eyes were slightly watery from not having blinked for long.
She let out a soft giggle.
We were here.
On an offbeat little adventure.
Around 1 hour close to midnight, we had walked up a hidden, little hill about a kilometre away from our hostel.
Robyn knew the way, I had just followed her.
It took us like 30 minutes to reach its flat top.
“Come here, let’s sit”.
She made some place for us on a softer mat of grass, pushing the stones aside.
I followed her and sat down, with my knees held close to my chest, my face resting on them, turned towards the left, facing her.
“Have you been here before, Rob?”, I asked out of curiosity.
“No. But I heard about it from a friend. She was supposed to come here with me, but couldn’t make it”.
“I see”.
A comfortable bout of silence enveloped the air surrounding us.
Robyn closed her eyes, sitting cross-legged, with her hands resting on her ankles.
I looked up at the sky, then let my eyelids drop down too, allowing all my other senses to experience this scenery as well.
“Oh and hey, happy birthday”, Robyn whispered.
I opened my eyes in surprise and looked down at my wristwatch, it was 12:00 AM.
I had completely forgotten, it was my birthday.
I gaped at her with an amused expression.
“Wait- how do you know??”.
She just smirked and continued to gaze ahead, into the nothingness.
What a dreamy night, that December night.
P.S. Like what you read?
How she knew? Now I'm curious 😂