The trek through Mongolia pales in comparison to what I am about to embark on. Assuming I can pull this off.

I am headed to one of the most remote countries in the world. In fact, if you Google “least visited country in the world,” my destination will pop up: Tuvalu.

If you discount the construction workers and other temporary visitors, only about 200 to 300 tourists visit Tuvalu each year. That is less than one tourist a day on average!

When I asked T-Mobile whether Tuvalu was one of the 210 countries they have roaming partnerships with, they practically laughed at me.

The first time this tiny island nation caught my attention was when I read that, because of rising sea levels, parts of the country may become uninhabitable within a few decades. In fact, Australia has begun offering a special migration pathway for Tuvaluans as the country prepares for an uncertain future. At the same time, Tuvalu is trying to preserve its identity in a fascinating way. The government is creating a digital replica of the nation in the metaverse so that its culture and sovereignty can endure even if the physical islands are eventually lost.

Incredibly, Tuvalu’s biggest source of income is its internet domain: .tv. Television networks, streaming companies, and media businesses around the world pay to use it. Not bad for a country that most people struggle to find on a map.

The country’s nine islands together cover barely ten square miles. You could walk across some of them in minutes. If you are inspired my the recent World Cup and try to kick a ball or two, you will be well advised not to kick very hard. You will not get that ball back from the ocean.

What I am most excited about, though, is the runway. There are only two flights a week. Once the little propeller plane takes off, the runway transforms into the town square. Kids play soccer, families stroll around, neighbors gather to chat, and life simply carries on. I cannot wait to kick a ball around on an airport runway.

For all that excitement, I am also a bit apprehensive.

There is no cell phone coverage for me. Internet connectivity is unreliable at best. There are no ATMs. Credit cards are largely useless. Cash only, and that too, only Australian dollars.

Needless to say, there is no five-star resort waiting for me. After digging through travel forums, I found a gentleman who rents out rooms in his home. We exchanged a couple of emails, after which I asked how I should reserve my room. Should I send a deposit?

He seemed puzzled.

My email requesting a room was apparently the reservation.

With hardly any cars on the island, I am now wondering what it is going to feel like dragging my suitcase down the main road (also, the island’s only road)!

And yes, there is one more thing nagging at the back of my mind.

If volcanic activity interferes with flights again, as it did in Vanuatu, I could find myself stranded for another four days.

The next four days (or more, subject to flight cancellations) promise to be an adventure in adaptation for me. This for a guy who likes to live his life on a military-precision clock!

Ah, well! Ready or not, Tuvalu… here I come!

Usually, in a Marriott hotel, I get a gift when I check in for being a long-time customer. From some extra points to chocolate to a wine bottle to a simple card – I have seen them all. This, I have not seen. This is in the Sheraton, Fiji.

They wrote the whole thing down with small leaves of a local tree!

We are a bit delayed because… there was not enough boarding space on the ground on the tarmac! This was a first for me!!

The propeller blades are on. And we are ready to take off!!

The picture is a bit blurry from inside the aircraft…

Fantastic beaches. Looks like there are people who live there too.

The outer ones are on the northwest side.

If you ran up and down the island – tip to tip – three full round trips, you would have finished your 5K run then!!

We just landed in Funafuti. Check out the people gathered around to watch the plane. And further note, there is no fence between them and us!!

Now they have to wait for the plane to pass for them to cross. One of them came well prepared with an umbrella in case he got stuck on the other side of the runway.

The plane left the runway and crossed the main road which has been duly blocked with cones for us to get to the parking bay.

In terms of infrastructure, it is even beyond Dalanzadgad – the small mining town in Mongolia!

Decided to walk along the main road back to the airport. Where the main town is. The idea was to stock up on some dry food and water.

The water, meanwhile was highly distracting for walking at any good pace. I kept stopping every few steps to get another view.

As beautiful as the water is, the rising ocean levels will all but consume the entire island. Lately, the water level has been rising at a much faster pace. That structure you see is an UNDP project to quickly create embankments – else the runway will be submerged in five years, making the island and its people all but unreachable!!

This is the main island I am staying in.

It was just as easy as that. Stood there and took a selfie. Realized that there were a couple of amused locals looking me as they were crossing the runway on their scooter.

People have their family members buried right in front of their house – in their frontyard to be precise.

The one place that was nearby had two items on the menu. It is the same everyday – a burger or a half or half pound chicken with rice.

Burger it was! Since it also came with fries!!

Curious if anybody ever uses it.

That was a lot of walking in the hot, humid weather. I came back to my room, took a shower, and stretched out for a bit. As I rested, I found myself wondering what I was going to do for the next three days.

Then I rented a scooter.

And that changed everything.

Now I do not want to leave the island.

There is something magical about riding around with the warm evening breeze on your face. There are no helmets anywhere on the island, which somehow adds to the wonderfully carefree feeling.

Now, I just need to make sure that I do not miss my flight with all that scootering around!

The runway, as I had mentioned before, doubles up as the island’s evening recreation center. Around five o’clock, the whole village pours onto the runway. Kids, parents, grandparents… everybody. Soccer, rugby, volleyball, you name it. Some are out for an evening stroll while others simply stand around soaking in the energy and cheering everyone on.

I have seen airports with duty-free shops, lounges, and even spas. This is the first one with a pickup soccer game on the runway.

This kid was learning to crawl… ON THE RUNWAY!!!

A few locals and tourists had gathered there. When I walked in, there was a Bollywood song playing!! When I told the DJ that it was a Hindi song, he had no idea. He had a YouTube playlist going on.

The beauty of the azure waters to behold, the sip of the hot coffee singeing my tongue, and the simple chair that my new friend Aziz lent me… these are some of my favorite things…

Have scooter. Will travel.

Step 1: At the sound of the siren, close the gates on the main road so the plane does not accidentally try to use it.

Step 2: Close the gates on the runway so nobody else wanders onto it.

Step 3: And this is the crucial part: send people on scooters to chase the dogs off the runway. (Everybody knows a curiously watching dog and a multi-tonne metal tube approaching it at over 100 mph don’t mix well)

Step 4: Everyone gives a loud cheer the moment you spot a light breaking through the clouds. The passengers cheer the loudest since they realize they will not be stuck on the island, after all!!

Admiring the colors or contemplating investigating what is going on with that ship?

You may remember Sharmila and me standing on the glass bridge in Eleuthera, looking out at the cerulean Caribbean blue on one side and the deep Atlantic blue on the other.

Today, I found another spot like that. Here on Fongafale, the island narrows to just about 20 feet. On one side is the sky-blue lagoon, and on the other, the deep blue Pacific.

Surreal.

You saw the toddler learning to crawl on the runway. She was adorable.

You have probably seen models walk the runway. They are elegant.

Now you get to see a runner run the runway. He was… difficult to watch.

Evenings are not my ideal running time. It was hot, humid, and I was painfully slow. But I was determined to complete three end-to-end trips on the runway, a little over 1.5 km each way.

So, I can now proudly add another completely unnecessary achievement to my running résumé. Right next to “Ran the original Marathon route of Phidippides” (back in 2015), I can now claim, “Ran a 5K on a live airport runway.”

My running logbook may be fading with age, but at least it is getting weirder.

I had just finished my 5K run on the runway, which had taken a fair bit out of me. So after stretching, I just sat there with my legs stretched out and my palms resting on the ground, trying to look more composed than I probably felt.

That is when these two adorable kids came along and struck up a conversation with me. Their English was broken, and their version of asking my name was, “Who are you?” But they were curious and cheerful, so we chatted anyway.

Apparently, they were sisters and already in school. They had plenty to say about it, though I did not catch much because their Tuvaluan kept slipping into the conversation and leaving me behind.

After generously sharing the story of their lives, they took off down the runway just as suddenly as they had appeared.

Not before they let me take a picture of them, of course.

You may remember my picture of the dogs venturing out into the ocean. This morning, as I sat by the water with my coffee, I noticed another one doing something similar. I followed it closely. At one point, it suddenly jumped at something, almost as if it were trying to catch a flying fish. I have no idea what was going on, but it was fun to watch.

Coffee, a book and the boundless blue!

One of the first problems I had to solve after landing in Tuvalu on Friday afternoon was… Sunday.

Everything shuts down on Sunday. Restaurants are closed. Stores are closed. If you have not planned ahead, food can become a real problem.

That reminded me of an incident from many years ago while I was trekking through Mongolia.

I met an American father and daughter who were traveling on the Trans-Siberian Railway. They had started near the North Korean border, made their way through China and Mongolia, and were headed all the way to St. Petersburg.

The trip had a deeper meaning. They had recently lost his wife, her mother, and this was their way of celebrating her life.

Having already spent a few days in Mongolia, I knew how challenging the local food could be for the American palate. So I asked them, “How are you solving the food problem?”

They shared a very practical trick.

“No matter where you are in this part of the world,” they said, “you can always find hot water. They constantly drink tea here.”

Every train compartment had a large hot water urn for tea. Every station seemed to have boiling water available. Before starting the journey, they had simply filled a backpack with instant noodles.

It was such an elegant solution that I never forgot it.

Standing in Tuvalu decades later, I suddenly remembered that conversation.

I found a five-pack of instant noodles at the Tokotu Beach Convenience Center. My room had an electric kettle for making coffee.

And just like that… Sunday was solved.

I have not had one of these days in a long time. The island shuts down on Sundays, so I had nowhere to go and nothing to do. I took the scooter for one lap around the island, and then settled into my chair by the water to read a book. Just like in the morning.

Only this time, instead of coffee, I had red wine.

Today, no running. I will walk up and down!!

He is sprawled on the very runway that planes land and take off from!!

This island really has no open area other than the runway. Not sure if this is going to be a political speech, a religious sermon or plain old island music playing!

Apparently most people in this island have pigs. However, for sanitation purposes, they do not keep the pigs near them. Everybody keeps their pigs on the other side of the runway specially earmarked for pigs. And twice a day, they dutifully go there to feed them and all that.

That is some sensible thinking…

Man has little chance to match the beauty that Nature creates!

Today is my last day. One of my last views of the lagoon. Difficult to say where the water ends and the sky begins.

Effect of sunlight on the moored ship in the lagoon.

My heart is heavy leaving that spot.

Technically, I was trespassing on someone else’s property. But on an island that may cease to exist within a couple of decades, property rights are not what people seem to dwell on. Even the rickety stool was loaned to me by another long-term guest, Aziz.

And yet, that little corner became my Walden Pond.

I spent hours there, simply gazing at the horizon, completely lost in thought. Every now and then, one of the island’s friendly dogs would wander over, looking for a bit of company. Over cups of coffee, glasses of water, and the occasional glass of wine, I would make my way through another chapter of my book, only to close it again and sit in quiet reflection.

There was something profoundly humbling about that place. Standing on a tiny sliver of coral in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, I could not help but feel the complete insignificance of the self. And yet, that feeling was matched by an overwhelming sense of gratitude that I had somehow made it there at all.

I know I will probably never return. There are too many places left to explore, and life is too short to retrace every step.

Still, of everything I saw on this remarkable island, it is not the runway, the lagoon, or the endless ocean that will be indelibly etched in my memory. It is that quiet little corner by the water, where time slowed down, thoughts grew louder, and for a brief while, I felt completely at peace.

One of the unexpected joys of spending four days on a remote island like Tuvalu was getting to know my host, Niu.

He is barely in his late twenties, yet carries himself with a quiet maturity. He now runs the family lodge that his father started. The lodge is called NiuEti, named after Niu and his younger brother, Eti, who passed away at a very young age.

Life had more challenges in store for the family.

A few years later, Niu’s father, who is younger than I am, developed kidney failure. In Tuvalu, there is no dialysis beyond basic support, and certainly no possibility of a kidney transplant. Niu did not hesitate. He volunteered to be the donor, and fortunately, he turned out to be a match.

Finding a hospital was the next challenge. Even Fiji does not perform kidney transplants.

Eventually, father and son found themselves headed to New Delhi, to Fortis Hospital. But fate intervened once again. They had traveled to Fiji for preliminary tests before flying to India when COVID shut the world down. They ended up stranded in Fiji for two years. Thankfully, Fiji at least had dialysis centers that kept his father alive until they could finally make the journey to India.

Later, I had the pleasure of meeting Niu’s father. He could not stop talking about India.

“What do you remember the most?” I asked.

“The cars honking on the streets,” he said with a broad smile.

We all laughed.

Here I was marveling at the rooster crowing and the pig squealing in Tuvalu. And he was marveling at the cars honking in India!!

Over the next few days, the three of us had many conversations, ranging from life to business. One mystery was finally solved. I had always wondered why they had never asked me for a deposit when I booked my stay.
The answer was remarkably simple.

There was no practical way for me to send them money, and no practical way for them to receive it.

In Tuvalu, cash is the only way to do any business. And not Tuvalu dollars. Tuvalu has some coins, but they cannot afford to make paper money. So, they use Australian Dollars.

NiuEti Lodge receives some of the highest reviews online. Of course, everything is relative. Most visitors to Tuvalu are seasoned travelers who know that luxury is not the point of coming here. But what Niu offers cannot be measured by thread counts or room service. He is unfailingly kind, always ready to cook a meal at odd hours, help a guest solve a problem, or simply sit down for a conversation.

As I left, we promised to stay in touch.

The only practical way, of course, is through the lodge’s reservation email.

Some people leave you impressed by what they have accomplished.

Others leave you inspired by who they have become.

Niu belongs firmly in the second group.

One of the greatest joys of traveling is that sometimes you set out to discover a place, and instead, you discover a person.

I first met Aziz while wandering around the common area of the lodge looking for my host, Niu. I needed a power converter for my room but could not find him anywhere. Instead, this gentleman emerged from the kitchen and asked what the problem was.

As it turned out, he was not part of the staff at all. He was another guest, albeit a long-term one. He called Niu, tracked down a converter, and solved my problem within minutes.

That was the beginning of a wonderful friendship.

Aziz is from Peshawar, Pakistan, and is in Tuvalu for a year, working on a UNDP project. Before this, he had spent time in the Solomon Islands on another UNDP assignment. He looks at least ten years younger than he is and carries himself with the easy confidence of someone who is perfectly comfortable wherever life takes him.

Over the next few days, we found ourselves talking often. We spoke about his family and his two children back home. But what really connected us were two shared passions: music and books.

On my last evening, we sat by the water talking about qawwalis. We wandered through the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, and the Sabri Brothers. Aziz, of course, understood every word of the Urdu lyrics and patiently explained the meanings that had escaped me for years. Had the island’s internet been a little more cooperative, we would probably have spent the evening listening to them on YouTube.

Books were our other common language.

He had often seen me sitting by the water reading.

“If you finish the book, leave it for me,” he had said.

I never did finish it. But before leaving, I handed him the other three books I had brought with me. Somehow, that felt like the right goodbye.

What fascinated me most about Aziz was the life he had built for himself.

He enjoys his own company. On moonless nights, he heads to the edge of the island to photograph the Milky Way. The pictures he showed me were breathtaking. He loses himself in books and music, helps guests around the lodge without ever being asked, and more than once offered to cook a meal for me.

Three evenings a week, he heads to the local bar to play pool with his island friends.

“And who is your best friend here?” I asked him.

“The scooter,” he replied without missing a beat.

I laughed.

As I left Tuvalu, I realized I was taking home far more than photographs and memories of a remote Pacific island.

I was taking home the memory of an unexpected friendship. Sometimes the people we meet for only a few days leave footprints that last a lifetime!

The island airport is wonderfully humble, perfectly in keeping with the island’s size and the number of visitors it receives.

Everything is frighteningly informal. Check-in, security, immigration, customs (yes, it is an international airport), and just about everything else seem to be handled by the same three or four people. There is no currency exchange. No snack bar. No gift shop.

But, wouldn’t you know? There is a duty-free liquor store!!

Why is it that airports everywhere are so eager to sell you alcohol? They tempt you with it before you fly out, and then greet you with it again when you land.

We are going to get “high” anyway, right?

As I mentioned before, Tuvalu is the least visited country in the world.

Over the few days I spent there, I got to know quite a few fellow travelers. They were easy to spot. You would invariably find them either at the pool bar or at Sue’s Kitchen! Most were from Australia or Europe, including Luxembourg, the UK, Germany, and Switzerland. Curiously, I did not run into a single tourist from the United States.

But I noticed something else.

If you meet a tourist in Tuvalu, chances are you have met one of the world’s true nomads.

It makes perfect sense. A tiny, remote island nation with minimal infrastructure is probably not where you come for your tenth or even twentieth country. You get here after years of chasing distant corners of the globe.

On my last day, I found myself sharing a lunch table with four other travelers at Sue’s Kitchen while we waited for the plane that would take us away.

“How many countries have you been to, Rajib?” Louise from the UK asked.

“Seventy-two by the UN count. Eighty-six by the ISO count.”

“How about you two?” I asked Louise and her partner, Jeff.

“One hundred five by the UN count. One hundred seventeen by the ISO.”

“Wow! How about you, Tony?” I asked another gentleman I had just met, originally from the UK but now living in Australia.

“One hundred forty.”

My jaw dropped.

Then we all turned to the fifth person at the table. Sadly, I have forgotten his name. His answer, however, I will never forget.

“All but four countries.”

“What? Which four?” I blurted out.

Ironically, I have already been to all four. They were all Caribbean nations.

The conversation that followed was mesmerizing. Louise and Jeff spoke about their recent trip to Afghanistan. Tony had just completed visits to all fourteen sovereign countries of Oceania on this very journey. Our fifth companion talked about traveling to every country in Africa, including Western Sahara.

I just sat there listening.

These were not tourists.

These were explorers in the truest sense of the word.

And as impressive as my own travel journey has felt at times, sitting at that table reminded me just how much of the world is still waiting to be discovered.