Advertisement
Published: April 15th 2010
Edit Blog Post
A colourful rig
Most truckers seem to also be artists. We spent our final couple of days in Delhi doing some last-minute sightseeing and shopping. Then finally, after three epic months, it was time to go home. It was such a wonderful trip that I didn't want it to be over, but I was also looking forward to returning home. Mel and I became increasingly more excited as we got closer to home. The trip went smoothly (no missed flights this time!) and after 3 flights and more than 24 hours of travel, we arrived home to a sunny, warm beautiful afternoon in Vancouver. Our house and Bella the cat had received excellent care from our fantastic friend and house-sitter Brendan, and it was a such wonderful feeling to walk through the front door and see his smiling face.
Since we've gotten back, I've found myself taking great pleasure in things I would normally take for granted. For example, brushing my teeth using tap water, pulling fresh clothes out of a closet instead of a backpack, and having a REAL hot shower! Not to mention things like fresh, clear, fragrant air to breathe, knowing exactly where I'm going and how to get there, streets free of trash and manure, and
A lucky dog
curls up for a nap on a different kind of flower bed. no language barriers. Also, the feeling of crawling into my own bed for the first time in 3 months...WOW - it's the little things that really add up to there being no place like home.
So now I find myself reflecting on all the things we saw and did over the past three months. There were so many experiences that left such an impression on me. Every single day was an exciting, new adventure. I feel like I have a lot of digesting to do, and I have thousands of new stories to tell. Mostly I feel like I have created a wealth of wonderful new memories with Melanie as we prepare to step into the next chapter of our life together.
There were aspects of the trip that were very challenging. Although most people were wonderful and helpful, others were sometimes less than honest with us, and it took a lot of energy to be ever-vigilant in order to not get ripped off or sent in the wrong direction. Getting crammed on to buses and trains was one of the least pleasant experiences for me. Having to jostle and fight to maintain a position in a line-up
Progressive India...?
This brand might want to consider a name change if they ever go international... was particularly frustrating too. I had trouble getting used to how common spitting was, as well as littering, smoking, and for men relieving oneself (number one AND number two!) in public spaces. Often people would have LOUD conversations in the very early morning, a few feet from where we were sleeping on trains or in hotels with paper-thin walls - with seemingly little regard for anyone around them. Being promised one thing (hot water, for example) and receiving quite another (COLD) got the best of me at times. Then there were the flies, roaches, mosquitoes, lizards, frogs, and one particularly large centipede that made our accommodations uncomfortable at times. Many people in restaurants, trains, and even on trekking trails would completely unselfconsciously play bad music on their extremely lo-fi cell phones, seemingly assuming that everyone around them was enjoying it too (we were NOT!).
All of these annoyances 'come with the territory' with this type of travel, and generally speaking we took them in stride. I realized early on in the trip that it was important to maintain a good sense of humor about these types of things. I also always kept in mind that I was a visitor
Cultural context is everything
Seeing symbols like this everywhere took a little getting used to. in the places we went, and that as backward and annoying as some of these things seemed, it would have been wrong of me to try and impose my own cultural values and norms on them.
By far the good experiences outweighed the bad, and as with all of the other travel I have done, it was the people in India and Nepal who made this trip truly special. When we traveled by train, without fail the Indian people sitting near us would cheerfully strike up conversations with us. Everywhere we went so many people were genuinely interested in where we came from, who we were, and our impressions of their country. Mel is an expert at asking for directions and people were always very friendly and helpful, sometimes even going out of their way to take us where we wanted to go. People at all stages of life - adults, teens, seniors, and children were eager to talk to us. Even toddlers would smile and wave enthusiastically at us from their parents' arms. Warm, open-hearted gestures like these transcended culture and touched me on a level of pure humanity, and they were some of the highlights of the
trip for me.
As I mentioned before, a sense of humour was crucial, and many seemingly insignificant things never failed to bring a smile to my face. For example, often when we visited restaurants, after the meal we'd say, "we'd like the bill, please" - to which the server would casually reply, "ok...what did you have?". We'd list off the items we'd consumed (three cheers for the honour system), and the server would open up the menu, look through, tap the prices into a calculator (or just add them up in his head) and give us the 'bill' verbally. Spelling is generally arbitrary, so we would sometimes peruse menus which included 'snakes' (snacks). One of our trekking lodges advertised a 'worm heater in the dining room', and our hotel in Varanasi offered a 'vibrator massage'. There was no shortage of things that made us giggle during our travels...(see this entry's photos).
These are just some general overall impressions that come to mind now that we've been home for a couple of days. I know that many more things will occur to me as time goes by - as I process the trip and as I talk to people
about our adventures. What I know now is that the past 3 months have truly been the trip of a lifetime. I feel very grateful to have had so many wonderful experiences, and I feel very fortunate to have shared them all with such a wonderful partner and traveling companion.
Thanks to everyone who has followed along via this blog - it's been fantastic to share and to keep in touch this way. Although we didn't respond to the comments many of you made, we have read and appreciated them all. My hope is that this account of our journey may have inspired the travel bug in you, and that next time I may be following your adventures in faraway lands...yay, travel!!
Namaste ~
Jeff
Advertisement
Tot: 0.204s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0474s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb