Advertisement
Published: October 28th 2010
Edit Blog Post
It may seem premature to make an assessment on a year of your life in October, given that there are still two months left before it draws to a close, but 2010 already ranks as the best of my 30 years. Being able to realise the long-standing ambition of traveling around the world has been unquestionably the best experience of my life...
Which makes the reluctant acceptance that my trip is now drawing to a close all the harder to bear...
But, at 7,970 feet above sea level, standing on a mountain ridge above the Urumbamba Valley, after crossing the snow capped peaks of
Salkantay, through the tropical cloud forests and Andean villages of the Sacred Valley, and gazing upon the
"Lost City of the Incas",
Machu Picchu sits in sacred majesty... As a mesmerising reminder of how astonishingly fortunate I have been to lead such a charmed existence and quench the irresistible impulse to travel over the last year...
Being thankful to the unexpected good fortune bestowed upon me by the
wanker bankers who, through getting pissed and making stupid bets with other peoples money triggered a
Global Financial Crisis, is perhaps an odd position to find
yourself in... But the word
redundancy is now perhaps my favorite noun in our glorious language and for me will always be a synonym for
"liberation"... Reflecting on my travels, whether it be the places I have been or the people I have met, it feels almost impossible to digest it all now...
Sterile, barren deserts... Animist Shamans... Lush green rain forests... Teaching English as a Foreign Language... Hypnotic Holy Men... Snow capped mountains... Frantic, head-spinning cities... Fellow Backpackers & Volunteers from every corner of the Earth... Misty hill stations... Raucous riverside bars... Mystic Fortune Tellers... Golden Buddist Temples... But, there are a few places that stand out and, whilst it may be a bit self indulgent, in no particular order, for the few people who have actually followed my inane ramblings on this blog and actually give a shite, here is a quick snap-shot of the best places I have been fortunate enough to visit...
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India
...the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world... the center of the earth in Hindu Cosmology... the only truly incomparable place I have ever been... charismatic, spiritual, maddening and sometimes overwhelming,
Twain wrote of
this city of death:
"... its older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together..." He´s wasn't wrong. Hoi An, Quang Nam Province, Vietnam
...escaped the destruction of successive wars in South East Asia... once a major international port in control of the spice trade... oozing charisma and utterly bewitching... and with a pace of life so slow, preserved and steeped in history wandering around the historic core sometimes feels like stepping back in time...
Enchanting. Phnom Penh, Cambodia
...once known as the
"Pearl of Asia" before enduring so much darkness bitterness and grief it´s a miracle this place hasn´t collapsed in on itself in pure misery and hate... instead, this baffling brilliant city is a head-spinning assault on the senses... dazzling pagodas... cramped, frenzied streets... the biggest smiles on planet earth... something intangibly glorious runs through this city every second of every day...
Inspiring and utterly intoxicating. Mount Tai, Shandong, China
...the foremost of the
Five Sacred Mountains of China... a place of worship 1,000 years before the birth of Christ... 6,000-plus stone steps leading to the summit...
lined with stunning Taoist temples and pavilions... intricatley carved archways... poetry and stone inscriptions carved into the rocks... ancient locus trees... all set against stunning natural scenery and designed to integrate the heaven, the earth and the human as a whole...
Essentially a road to nirvana. Cusco, Peru
...the historic capital of the
Inca Empire set at dizzying heights is the continent’s oldest continuously inhabited city... ancient ruins and archaeological gems... narrow cobblestone streets and carved-stone fountains... colourful parades, dances and processions ... and of course the gateway to
Machu Picchu... The perfect place to go out on a high. But now I have come to the end... Convinced, whilst not wanting to disagree with
Confucius, that the world is not small... But massive! And whilst it would probably take one hundred life times to see it all, to not want to give it at least a go is to have the imagination of a
stick insect in my humble opinion... Still, despite that, as I write this at least, I think perhaps this Chinese proverb is true...
"No one realises how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow."
Because there is only one place in the world I want to be right now...
Back in England...
Back
home.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.202s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.1019s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Iain
non-member comment
Nice blog
Hey Matt, great blog. Look us up when you get back and we'll have a beer. Look forward to hearing your stories. Just think, if it wasn't for Ramani, you might just have spent the last 12 months producing monthly competitor analysis reports!