What A Different 101 Days Make…

What A Difference 101 Days Make.

A few statistics from the past 101 days:

Slept in 33 beds.
Read 19 books/graphic novels.
Endured 18 airports.
Used 7 currencies.
…….
And a partridge in a pear tree….

I’ve been 101 days on the figurative road. One that has spanned (starting in the UK) South Africa, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and soon enough Australia. There have been many bumps in this road (Cambodian roads have many a literal bump) that had me disheartened.  Travelling isn’t easy.  On the contrary, most would-be travellers don’t leave the constraints of their own minds.  Remarking that money, jobs, native animals and insects to a given country, all stop them dead. It’s bullshit.  People, in general, like excuses to hide behind.  To justify to others but mostly to themselves why they will not stand up against their own cowardice.  But I’m not here to act like a pushy Jehovah’s Witness that you’ve just unwittingly opened your door to.  I merely want to account my experience in a nutshell that travelling the world, or journeying far and wide or whatever you want to call roving over the earth indefinitely, is tough.  It certainly is not a holiday where one flicks off the flip flops and lounges by a pool for two weeks nor should it be.  Although there is a slight measure of that should one need it (I certainly do). 

A 101 days in and I am tired.  In my bones.  Tired of airports, disorganised officials, packing my bag, unpacking my bag, carrying my bag, having no time to myself, nonsensical and whimsical people, perpetual noise and much more.  And that’s just Cambodia.  I haven’t been this physically exhausted since I spent a summer working at a camp in New York acting as a kind of adoptive father to 8 children who were my responsibility 24/7.  (I did Camp America in 2013 – that’s what initially opened my eyes to the bigger world around me.  Even you’re even thinking of it, just go ahead and do it.  It’s a life-changing experience). 

These are just a taste of the lowlights where I’ve felt that I may implode into a cloud of smoke. 

• Having my skateboard confiscated unjustly by a jumped up Rent-A-Cop in Hermanus, South Africa.
• How one flight delay had a gross knock on effect, effectually throwing a spanner in the works in my whole flight itinerary.  I would like to use that spanner to retool the heartless robots working for Etihad Abu Dhabi airport.
• Being muscled out of over a £100 by a scandalous car rental agency whose customer service team are also heartless robots.  First Car Rental (owned by Drive South Africa), you go fuck yourself.
•Plans to work on an island for 3 months not working out as upon arrival I realised it was a disorganised mess and I’d be living in squalor.
• A rickety bus I was on broke down in Cambodia and I was stranded on the side of the road. I eventually flagged down and paid again for an equally rickety bus that did manage to make the journey to Siem Reap. 
•Not wanting to sit down let alone sleep in a room I’d paid for as the pictures on Booking.com had it looking like the MGM Grand but it was  actually more akin to the bathroom in the first Saw movie  (Which has happened a few times).
• A “hotel bus” billed as ‘a luxury bus with beds’ for the 16 hour overnight journey from Siem Reap, Cambodia to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam turning out to be a wackier, dirtier, hotter, seedier, misinformed, more disgusting and cramped version of the Knight Bus from Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban. 
•After stepping off my the Knight Bus and hopping in a taxi to take us immediately to the hotel I paid what is the Vietnam Don equivalent of £20 as I foolishly had no concept on the exchange rate. The hotel was quite literally 3 mind walk away down a nearby alley. He took me for a ride of around 20 mins all around the block to make it seem longer. When I have the energy I’m going to Liam Neeson his dishonest ass “I will find you…”

Much more has gone wrong and affected my plans and person but in hindsight I don’t know if I’d change any of it as I feel wholly fulfilled in how my travels have gone and where I am spiritually right now.  Yes, in the moment of some of them I perhaps grew homicidal tendencies but they passed.  I’ve grown from them, become more tolerant because of them and have some great anecdotes for any dinner parties I may never attend.

To counteract the lowlights I’ve mentioned, travelling has supplied many more high points than it has low, sometimes I have to look closely but I guarantee that being a stranger in a strange land will always give one a reason to smile. 

Airports have made the world as small as you want it to be.  Around the world in 80 Days? More like Around The World In A Day And A Half With 2 Connecting Flights.

Putting my whole life in a bag was one of the most liberating moments in memory.   The throwing away of material things was a wonderful cathartic moment.  I now have 20kg of ‘essentials’ strapped to my back and that’s me. 

To think that had I stayed at home and not pursued my dreams of seeing, experiencing and learning from the world makes give me claustrophobia.  To think I’d still be in a job I hated is enough to make this grown man cry.  But worse so is the thought of not having of met beautiful people from all walks of life and cultures.  To learn from some, to enlighten others, to have a conversation entirely of smiles and hand gestures.  To view an alien point of view, that opens up a whole new plane of understanding, knowledge, empathy or utility is glorious. 

So 101 days in can I say I’ve changed for the better? I think so.  Awareness is the key to change and I am more aware of the world’s intricacies that ever before.  I have had fleeting friendships with inspiring people in every one of the countries I’ve visited. Therein is the majesty of travelling for me. Like the fleshy shells we inhabit for a collection of years, it is all temporary.  I have met some people I feel intrinsically connected with on a spiritual level, knowing that in 10 minutes I’d probably never see their faces again.  Nothing is permanent.  Uncomfortable as that may sound it adds a particular spice to living.  A comfort zone is a nice place but nothing grows there. Sure one can fill its space with routine, materials and money but that all often leads to mundanity – the deadly killer of dreams,  passions, spontaneity, joy and wonderment.  All of which, may I add, are some of the key ingredients to growing in mind and spirit and becoming self-aware of one’s place in the wide world and even wider universe one lives in and naturally to happiness. The kind that I never found back home.

Now I’m not saying at all that everyone should quit their job and set off on an adventure that has no end.  I am saying though that if people took breaks from the norm and chased something a little different, a little crazy then the world would be better informed.  The mass media (“oh no we have a lefty, liberal, hippy on our hands”) would have less control, there wouldn’t be so much ignorance and ultimately fear.  I’ve seen scaremongering news reports throughout my life about many places I’ve now been to and I’d say the majority are misinformed and in fact dishonest.  I can look at a newspaper article, watch a segment on the news and in my mind know that their words are venomous lies.  Many however do not seem to be able to grasp at a pinch of salt to go with much of the lies.  Scare tactics by governments and religions and mass media have always been used to keep the the many in place.  If we all started shuffling around just a little bit however we’d be able to hold opinions on more issues that the world is facing rather than meet them with disillusionment, ignorance or hate. 

101 days.  101 long days fuelled by dreams and hopes and filled with wonder and awe.  As I type this in my 6th airport in 4 days, tired, hungry, and missing my family, paradoxically I am still happy. In each country I’ve visited on this big journey I have felt at home in many ways.  I trust myself and take solace in small things like having 2 pillows on a hotel bed, finding a carton of milk in the fridge of a mart or not being able to hear other people go number 2 from a shared bathroom of a hostel.  I feel comfortable enough being uncomfortable and that feeling is a little bit magic. My comfort zone has expanded its boundaries and the only thing to do is seek more adventures to see if I can expand even further.

  I’m about to hit Bali to surf for 3 weeks straight.  I’m servicing myself and flicking off the aforementioned flip flops as after Bali and The Gillis I start off on a year long adventure of Australia in a camper van.  Where I’m sure I’ll be cursing a punctured tyre, or fighting off giant spiders and snakes (I’m thinking Aragog and the Basilisk from Harry Potter respectively) as I try to pee in a bush on the side of a road in the middle of longitudinal nowhere.  I will however have a blistering orange sun behind me setting beneath a landscape of mountains allowing the stars to come out and play. With the vista filling my eyes I will also hold a ferocious spirit that has grown exponentially and a treasure chest of epic memories that could be played (should we be able to view memories like we do YouTube videos) with a rousing Hans Zimmer score. 

Here’s hoping the next 101 days are filled with as much awe-inspiring moments, breathtaking sunsets and sunrises, meeting of truly interesting people that defy the notion of small-talk with stories of a life that’s been lived.  I hope that what is to come entails some of what has been but mainly comprises of new experiences that I can reflect and smile upon and know I’m doing right by me.  That’s all that truly matters.  That you can sit alone with just you and your thoughts and feel you’ve never lost a shred of dignity and integrity in yoyr choices, that your life has and is what you want it to be and that you are putting into the world more than you’re taking out. 

Now being the geek I am I have two quotes that have been resonating with me recently.  One is from a song and the other from one of my favourite films of all time (inspired by one of the greatest books). 

Here’s the lyric that’s been scratching inside my mind.  Vampire Weekend – Giving Up The Gun. 
“But in the years since I saw you last, you haven’t moved an inch”.

The opening line of one of the best movie monologues in existence. The philosophical, antagonistic android Roy Batty  (Rutger Hauer) from Blade Runner ladies and gentlemen.

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe”.

Words by Aaron Farrell.

Thanks for reading. Aaron Farrell JK(Jedi Knight)