Throwback Thursday: Big Magic

Tags

Anything is possible, Big Magic, Change your life, creativity, Elizabeth Gilbert, Inspiration, Rufus Wainwright, Shame, Spiritual journey, spirituality, writing, Writing inspiration

First published in July 2017

I read Elizabeth’s Gilbert’s book Big Magic, about creativity.  In it she mentions ‘those dreams where you dream you suddenly find another room or rooms in your house that you didn’t know you had’, and I thought, really, that’s a thing?  I have those dreams regularly.  I usually dream about the same flat, not one I have ever had in real life, but in my dreams I return to the same one over and over.  It’s one of those old terraced houses divided into flats; messy, lots of other flats around.  Each time I dream it, I rediscover a whole other set of rooms that are a bit neglected and that I have simply forgotten about.  In the dream I wonder what to do with them, which room to sleep in, what to use the rooms for; I suddenly have all this extra space I don’t know what to do with.

I also have other dreams, where I open a bag of rubbish or I open a drawer and it’s filled with old cat food tins that haven’t been washed and have gone off and are filled with maggots.  I have to somehow make myself quickly pick them up and get rid of them without looking at them otherwise I would be unable to do it.  And I’ve let all the other rubbish pile up as well, I can’t understand it, the cat food tins or the rubbish, and I am appalled.

In real life I can let my car get very messy, tissues, wrappers, dust and stones.  I am somewhat ashamed even though I still do it.  So I thought the dream was about that, that I was ashamed of myself.

Worse still, I sometimes dream about caged animals that I have forgotten to look after, that I somehow inexplicably forgotten I had and that are mercifully still alive despite no food or water.  I thought all these dreams were about shame, or at the very least, clattiness.

So when I continued reading and Elizabeth Gilbert went on to say that those dreams are all about ‘expansiveness and your life having more possibilities than you previously realised’, that was very pleasing to me.  Especially as this was exactly what I had been feeling:  the evening before I had gone out for dinner with two people that used to work in my team, young women on their first jobs, with me the manager of the team and their supervisor.  I had the sweet and rare experience of hearing about what I was like (it had echoes of a child asking its mother what was I like tell me what I was like when I was little…) That was a few years ago so I have probably changed a lot but still, no one really tells you what you are like, you can only guess.

When  I said that I thought that senior management preferred a man in my team to me because he’s always the same, always unemotional, always smartly dressed, and his car is neat and clean and mine is always messy they looked horrified.  Your leadership, your direction, your care, you’re amazing how you get it all done, we were so lucky we had you for support, they both said.  They reminded me of all the different tasks I do and the skills I have, and said that if I ever wanted or needed another job I’d have no problem getting one with the agency they work for.  The agency pays more so I could work fewer hours.  Listening to them, I felt all the possibilities, being able to do healing as well, expansiveness…  When I used to just think about all the bad stuff- I am messy, senior management probably disapprove of me, without realising, I actually have skills!  One of the women invited me to visit her in Sweden, a genuine invite, and hearing about her life there, how she’d moved there from Suffolk, was so interesting and inspiring and made it sound so easy.

It made it sound so easy to change your life.

On a more down to earth level, it took away my fear of redundancy, knowing there are plenty of jobs and the world is more than just my current workplace.  It’s such an amazing gift, the gift of peace of mind, and a sign that I am in tune with the universe.

I realised I had it wrong:  those dreams weren’t about my clattiness or my buried shames, they were about the hithererto unknown expansiveness and potential of my own life.   I have nothing to be ashamed of.  At worst, the unfed animals were a gentle chide or reminder about my sometimes neglected creative work…

Because although I am where I want to be writing wise anyway really, in terms of where I was this time last year and where I am now, undoubtedly I am an inconsistent and unfaithful bride to creativity.  I certainly don’t have Liz Gilbert’s dedication and approach; I have other things, true, an absorbing career which is practically a vocation- can you have two vocations, can you have them at the same time?  I suppose so, look at Nick Hornby and countless others.

This time last year (Christmas), I did a little review of life and I had an idea for something to write this year.  Then I got waylaid in Buddhism and other seeking and beyond seeking, even considering that writing was behind me along with all the different religions I had burned through, because, I had decided:  I am to cease all seeking behaviour, and writing is a seeking behaviour.  And maybe it was, maybe it is, but isn’t talking, isn’t breathing, isn’t yoga, and who makes up the rules anyway?

***********

The thing that got me writing again after I had abandoned it, was writing a spoken word piece for a friend’s 50th Birthday party, (a night of anything goes performance.)  She said it could be about anything, so I wrote a‘my spiritual journey’ thing,the only thing I felt able to write about.  I wrote it while listening to Rufus Wainright’s song  Go or go ahead on repeat, which he wrote after a crystal meth binge.

Liz G says creative inspiration can either come in a skin tingling rush or it can be quiet and you just get there by following your curiosity and clues and it leads you there.  Or it can be like this…  I read a book, it mentioned a dream, I listen to a song at just the right moment, I recall a dream, I write it down.  And now I am in such a clear eyed clear minded place, isn’t this the perfect place from which to write a book?

Thank you very much for reading

Rachel Hill

About the author

I am forty nine years old, married to John Hill, we live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire, UK.
In March 2018 after selling our house and giving away 95% of our possessions we embarked on a year of slow travel in India and South East Asia. I’m writing a personal/spiritual/travel memoir of that year.

Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

Keeping the faith

Tags

Anything is possible, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, escape the matrix, family, Greggs vegan sausage rolls, guilt and forgiveness, India, Narrowboat, Netflix, parents, Technology, Travel memoir, writing

Photo:  our boat

So adjusting back, or rather into as we’re in a new life, has felt harder than we anticipated this week.  Especially technology.  E.g. My husband applying for jobs and doing CVs on his phone…

My trusty tablet failed me (Samsung S3) about which I’d kept saying, you just need to last the year, then I’ll get back and set up WiFi and go back to using a laptop.  Well we didn’t set up WiFi straight away, I thought perhaps I’d manage by going down the pub or hot spotting to my husband’s phone, not wanting to get bogged down in lots of contracts etc…. plus I’d got used to working on my tablet and thought I’d just get a keyboard for it…

I only lost a few hours of work- I religiously email everything to myself as often as I get a chance- it was more the shock when it suddenly decided to not recognise my password. I’ll need to factory reset it when I can face doing that.

Anyway now we have WiFi, there was a special offer on and we got a super cheap deal.  Setting it up was hard, then resigning in to everything, computer doing updates, blah blah blah, all was stressful.  But once I had put on all my emailed work, seeing all my chapters laid out on a big screen was nice and I’m sure it will be much easier to work where I can flit between documents easily.

And we watched Netflix (Quicksand, recommended by a friend of my husband, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles from Google Play) on the laptop; it was like being in the cinema!  After a year of watching everything on a phone or at most a tablet, it was amazing, I couldn’t get over how big the writing was!

Boat news:  I am now fully competent at emptying the cassette toilet and filling the water tank. We got a second futon off the secondhand site, and went to collect it one evening, and went out for a curry.

We were excited to chat to Indian people, the place was called Delhi something, but the people were from Bangladesh and hadn’t been to India.  We had a nice chat anyway.  We decided we don’t need to go out to eat after a year of doing it all the time, but I did enjoy putting on earrings, a nice top and a jacket (I have turned into a bit of a slob on the boat); and I did feel really happy:  evidence, see below:

Big walks have continued, I have almost made it into the next village (I go a bit further each time). Greggs vegan sausage rolls have continued.  I have a correction to last week’s post; there were not anti vegan sausage roll protests outside Greggs, everyone just thought there was.  A group of protesters had been hemmed in by police, just happened to be outside a Greggs…

We went to Norfolk and got spoiled with a lovely dinner, use of a luxury shower and luxury smoothies, and went to an event for my son showcasing his work prior to his exhibition in New York.

In the year that I’ve been away he’s bonded with my nephew who is younger.  My son did his CV and my son and his friends all helped prep him for the interview- he just got his first job- as well as providing socialising and fun.  I also got to meet my son’s new girlfriend, his agent and some new friends, who were all lovely people.

My son also sent me a lovely Mother’s Day email filled with memories of good things he remembers me doing when he was a child and teenager, and I think we’ve both put the past behind us (he was a troubled teen and I couldn’t manage his behaviour, or live with him by the time he was eighteen; he is almost thirty now).

So all good there.

I saw my mum, she was restrained in not asking me a lot of questions and I seem to have, for now, created better boundaries. However, my son and nephew told me that she had said (re me going off to India,) that I had had a mental breakdown/mid life crisis, so I’ll probably need to stay strong to ensure that that relationship stays within certain limits.

Has anyone watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer?  Do you remember the episode that fans hate, where she is shown in a mental hospital, having doubts as to whether any of the being a slayer world is real.  It’s never fully explained- she has been spiked with poison and could be just having visions- which is why fans hate it.  ‘What’s more real,’ she says to her best friend Willow, ‘A scared young girl in a mental hospital, or some kind of superhero slayer and vampires?’

In the mental hospital, her mum keeps saying, ‘Believe in yourself, believe in yourself,’ meaning come back to there.  After a lot of conflict, Buffy chooses to say goodbye to her parents and go back into the Buffy world.

Photos:

We have a beautiful location

There is also a caravan and camping area.  See loo emptying point on the right by the bins, a short wheelbarrow walk from our boat!

Sheep opposite our boat

Beyond the caravan area, a pond and trees

Thank you very much for reading

About the author

Sold house left job decluttered almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Just arrived back in the UK and now living on a narrowboat.  Writing a book about everything…

For more photographs of the trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

Geography Of The Moon

Tags

Anything is possible, escape the matrix, Geography of the moon, Ho Chi Minh, Minimalism, Music, Travel, Traveling, Travelling, Vietnam, Voluntary simplicity

The man at the bus stop in Da Lat asked us if we lived in Ho Chi Minh City.  It seemed strange to imagine the possibility.  The following evening in the taxi on the way to the gig, we admired the city.  Tall skinny blocks of matching buildings, square blocks of flats with outlines almost drawn around them in white light, a collection of buildings lit in various neon lights, and best of all Building 81, the second tallest in South East Asia (the tallest is in Malaysia apparently.)

We had seen it coming in on the coach, like a child’s building block tower, the stacks narrower and narrower until a thin point.  Interesting in the day, and spectacular at night, lit up like a computer motherboard, and in front of it chunky blocks of flats looming black out of the darkness, lit in patches, like something out of The Matrix or Bladerunner.

I’m disappointed that I can’t find the clip of this; I thought YouTube had everything.  I’ll describe it as accurately as I can from memory.  In Billions, Taylor begins a romance with Oscar.  Taylor and Oscar go back to Oscar’s after their first proper date.  He has a classy apartment and a great sound system.  He presses a button or whatever and on comes The Killing Moon, by Echo and the Bunnymen.

‘Is this okay?’  Oscar asks.  ‘It’s what I would have hoped for, had I thought about it.’  Taylor answers.

Much is written about how as people get older they stop listening to new music.  It’s hard for anything new to compete with things that are so loved.  Or for things not to remind you of something you already know, and prefer.  And sometimes it’s about wanting to lean on someone older, even though they were young when they made it.  And having seen so much music, been to so many gigs, it’s easier to get picky and hard to impress.

What would we have wanted that night, had we thought of it?  Turns out it was Geography Of The Moon.

Timing:  The day before I’d read Des’s post about going to a very special show in Seattle.  Before the first song was finished… play for me my Lord a song that I can sing… I realised I was going to do a post about going to a gig too.  Psychedelic enough for my husband.  Mournful enough for me, with the kinds of lines I like such as, the taste of a thousand dirty mouths.  

Timing, again: a song that could have been written just for us at that time: wanderlust… the future is unknown… the universe will provide… remember you will die make this an interesting ride…

We’d been in a temporary slump, experiencing a lack of confidence, and then we meet these two.  They had lived on a boat in London, and were now on the road touring Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, just the two of them.

It was good for me and my husband to have a night out.  We were out until 2am and up much later, the noisiest ones in the hostel (except for the staff downstairs who were smoking marijuana, listening to loud music and hugging inflatable balls…)

 

Thank you very much for reading

March 31st 2019 The Matrix 20 year anniversary

Tags

Anything is possible, escape the matrix, The matrix, The Matrix 20 year anniversary, The Matrix 20 years, The Matrix 20 years later

I believe in following the white rabbit.  Do you?

I’m not necessarily braver than you.  I’m not necessarily any more mentally intact.  I actually physically went somewhere else, but that isn’t necessarily necessary for everyone.

I woke up in my life and realised I had to do something in order not to die without having lived.  Watching, and thinking about, The Matrix, and Alice in Wonderland- see blog, helped me break free and dismantle my old life.  Placebo provided the soundtrack see blog explaining their impact.  My Escape the matrix posts one two and three

It is twenty years since the Matrix film was released see my previous post.

I watched The Matrix with fresh eyes once I started ‘waking up,’ at the time I didn’t get it.  It was the same with Blade Runner.  Later I watched  Black Mirror and Battlestar Gallactica.  Westworld will do it too, but that’s too violent for me to watch.

I sometimes think about where we ‘really’ are, and the nature of reality.  I sometimes think of being a brain in a tank, or going ‘back into the tank’ to regroup, especially when I was in the capsule in Tokyo! 

I have on occasion believed I just arrived in this day or moment, and that all my memories are a feed.  I also sometimes think, Wow, if I created this back story for myself, I really did a number on myself.  It’s not glaringly dramatic, I sometimes think that much more extreme lives might have been experienced by this consciousness, but that this is the last one and so is fine tuned to have any experiences that were missed previously; the things that upset me are so complicated and subtle and detailed and just keep on hurting, and therefore keep me emeshed and prevent me waking up fully.  In Blade Runner, they implanted memories, families, a back story, into the robots ‘to make them easier to control.’  I still feel a bit goosebumpy thinking about that

In Siem Reap we watched The Thirteenth Floor and afterwards went for a walk.  Me feeling like I’d just arrived, Look at that, look at that.  A purple building, a row of neon lights.  I had to sit down on a bench, but even that was overstimulating, pictured above; shells and mosaics are kind of a thing for me.  I decided to have a working hypothesis that it’s a matrix.  That would mean: don’t worry about what people think, in cafes, walking past, don’t get distracted.  Instead focus attention, choose, consciously choose, don’t go around saying hi to everyone, don’t waste energy, don’t feel self conscious, don’t be scared of mother, believe I can do anything that any similar person can do i.e. write book.

Since then I’ve been lower, and right now I’m higher, confidence and frequency and understanding wise.

There can be many signs that awareness is increasing.  It can be seeing the beauty and feeling bliss.  It can be seeing the beautiful things even when feeling very bad.  Beyond that, it can be seeing things in real life that I’ve just seen on Netflix , or vice versa.  Or hearing similar conversations.  Or timing.  Or meeting people you need to meet.  Or the clock whenever I look at it saying 04:40 or similar: when I turned on my tablet to write this post and looked at the clock it said 07:07.

It’s about fearlessness.

Beyond all the films, books, the spiritual teachings, the New Age philosophy, it’s about waking up into your life.  And realising, really  realising, that you are a being, that you are here, in a life, in this world.  That you are conscious, that you are alive, but that you will die and that that could happen anytime.

Once you realise this, as Neo said, what you do with that information is up to you…

Thank you very much for reading

‘If you think you’re enlightened, try going home for Thanksgiving

Tags

Anything is possible, artists, confidence, mother daughter relationships, mother son relationships, Parenting, Self realisation, separating from adult children, Shaman, shamanic ritual

For SMUT and Self-Esteem, a very wise and perfectly written blog. Reflecting on everyday experience through tools such as mindfulness and Buddhist teachings.

Even at the age of forty seven I was scared about telling my mum of our plans to give up work and go off to India, particularly about selling the house. And on the way to telling her about the boat I was as nervous as if I were on my way to hospital for an operation. I played the song above, ‘You say you can’t, I hope you can, I hope you can…’

My mother is an astonishingly capable individual, potentially a lot to live up to, and who has very strong opinions. But feeling as if I’m not free to live my life as I wish to because of what she might think or say isn’t on her, it’s on me.

Again and again people say, no one can have power over you without your consent, and such like. Certainly in the run up to going away I said the same kinds of things to myself and tried to deal with it on an intellectual level. I did what needed to be done, but I made a big palaver about it, putting things off and getting stressed out, and expending a lot of time and energy on it all.

On Thursday of last week we made our first trip back to Norfolk to visit people. Firstly we went to see our dear friend K, who made us a lovely lunch*, let us go on about India, and was very supportive about my book and our ideas. She asked us each if and how we thought the year of travel had changed us. We both said we felt it had, but that we didn’t know exactly how yet.

Then we drove over to see my mum. Towards the end of the year of travel I had had dreams about this meeting, and woken feeling anxious and intimidated, as I was when I visited before I left. This time, I didn’t feel even a flicker of nerves on the way there, and sailed through the visit authentically and confidently. We showed her photographs, she made us a delicious meal**, and we chatted about general topics. We all seemed happy to see each other, and had a nice time.

In the past I had involved her too much in my life, and I had felt shadowed by her strong opinions. The year away provided the opportunity to reset boundaries. I’m sure she doesn’t approve of everything I’m doing but she appears to have accepted that I’m doing it anyway, and didn’t question or comment.

I know it’s because she cares but I have to have this bit of separation in order to fully realise my own personal potential.

I wasn’t fake friendly or fake tough, I was totally myself during that time, and that is best described as relaxed and powerful. And it just happened that way, that’s how I’ve changed. (Just got to keep it up!)

Then we went to see my son. He’s not, as far as I’m aware, working on the same things with me, but I know he’s done better the less I’ve been involved in his life, culminating in him being offered, while I was away this year, the chance to exhibit in New York in May.

(I still have to work on resetting habits and expectations re money though, now that he is almost thirty and I am not working at the moment.)

We all acknowledged that he’d done the best all by himself, and I told him what the Swiss shaman I met in Kerala had told me, that when you have a baby it is your job to ‘Give them the bliss,’ but then when they grow up you must set them free. The shaman said I must set my son free so that he can become a great artist.

*beetroot and chickpea burgers, pasta in tomato sauce and broccoli
**vegetable curry, rice, samosas, and apple crumble and (soya) custard
We were thoroughly spoiled that day!
Thank you very much for reading

Italian Baba

Tags

Anything is possible, Baba Cesare, escape the matrix, Hampi, Incredible India, India, Italian Baba, Love India, Travel, Traveling, Travelling

In Hampi in India (for blogs about Hampi with pictures see here, here and here) we went to a chai stall on the temple side of the river; out of the main village, past the Rama temple.  Twenty years ago my husband had visited this chai stall and met Hanuman and his wife and was surprised and pleased to find that they were still there!

We visited most days for chai and coconuts, we chatted with them, fussed their pregnant cat and watched the monkeys in the tree nearby.
Hanuman told us about an ‘Italian Baba’ who lived opposite, on the other side of the river.  They said he had built an ashram there that had been going for forty years.

Hanuman explained how to get there and a couple of days later we set out to visit.  We had to walk beyond Hanuman’s chai stall, we went wrong once and had to go back and be redirected, but we got to a place where there is a man who takes people across the river in a coracle.

We explained we were going to see Italian Baba.  The coracle man told us that he had died the day before from heart problems; he had been taken to the government hospital but the doctors were unable to save him.  He said it was still okay to go to the ashram and pay our respects.

The coracle was beautifully made, there was just the two of us and the man rowing us across.  The water and the scenery surrounding it looked absolutely magical.

The man showed us where to go, and handed our money to the man on the other side, his boss.  We paused at a little temple first, we hesitated, unsure if we were allowed in.  An Indian family beckoned us, and showed us the way; we followed them down a stone corridor, at the end was a shrine with a very old Baba there.  We followed the family, gave some money and had a blessing.

The man who had rowed us was still outside and pointed the way through scrub and old garden to the ashram.  I had imagined lots of mourning devotees and was unsure if it was even appropriate to go, but there was no one about.  The ashram looked as though it hadn’t been active for a few years.

We met an Italian woman who had come especially to see him, she was very moved to have arrived the day after he died, and we all had a hug.  A caretaker was there, but no other residents.  An Indian man who spoke good English showed us around.  He showed us the Baba’s bed and a picture of him on the wall and we took photographs.  He asked to take a photograph of all of us together in front of the Baba’s picture, ‘To remember this day.’

He explained that he had grown up knowing the Baba, who had come to India as a young man in the 1960s and stayed, at first he had lived in nearby caves.  For the past four years the Baba had been living between Goa and Italy and hadn’t been to the ashram, as he was very old.  He had decided to visit the ashram and look around and do some tidying in the garden.

He had travelled from Goa to Hampi, which is quite a journey along bumpy roads; he was staying in a guesthouse in Hampi not at the ashram as he needed somewhere more comfortable with a fan.  When he arrived in Hampi he began to feel unwell.  His wife and children were with him.  He didn’t get to the ashram but he did get back to Hampi.

I asked the Italian woman if the Baba was famous in Italy.  She said not exactly famous, but known because of a book that had been written about him by a fellow Italian.  She said the title translates as ‘Barefoot on the Earth.’

After Hampi we left India and went to Cambodia.  We spent a few days in Phnom Penh and then went to Otres Village near Sihanoukville.  There we met a Spanish woman who speaks and reads Italian.  She had borrowed a book off another guest to read… guess what it was?!  Yes, the book about Baba Cesare the Italian Baba.  We took a picture of the actual book, above.  Below, the river and coracle and the ashram.

Thank you very much for reading

About the author

Sold house left job decluttered almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Just arrived back in the UK and now living on a narrowboat.  Writing a book about everything…

For more photographs of the trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

‘At home wherever you go’*

Tags

Anything is possible, Cambodia, Incredible India, India, Love India, Narrowboat, Nepal, Thailand, Tokyo, Travel, Traveling, Travelling, Vietnam

All the places we’ve stayed… in chronological order… with links to relevant blog posts

We had a budget per night of £10 (or US$13 or IDR1,000, roughly).  We stayed in private rooms, except for me in Tokyo.  We kept well within budget most of the time, often staying in rooms which cost half that amount.  We blew the budget in Tokyo (£20 per night), and went over once in Delhi and once in Bangalore, and towards the end of our Pushkar stay when prices went up due to an event.

* from an article in an old magazine about the benefits of meditation, read in a cafe in Pondicherry, India

Delhi, India (Hotel) pictured above Arrival meltdown and First sickness

Our first stop.  That spot is special to me, I did my yoga there, ‘I’m doing yoga, in India!’ and I lay there in the hall on the cool floor next to the bathroom the night I was sick.

Train Delhi to Goa

Colva (Hostel/Guesthouse) Colva (Hotel)

Agonda (first Beach hut)

Agonda (second Beach hut) pictured above

Hampi ‘the other side of the river’/ ‘hippie island’ (Guesthouse) pictured above

Hampi temple side of the river (guesthouse) pictured above

Anjuna (guesthouse)

Arambol (guesthouse)

Panaji (guesthouse)

Varkala (bungalow)

Varkala (guesthouse) Meeting our people

Kovalam (hotel)

Varkala (hotel) Everyday enlightenment

Kanyakumari (hotel)

Kochi (homestay),

Night train to Chennai

Chennai (hotel)

Chennai (guesthouse) pictured above A piece of my heart is still in Chennai and Broadlands Guesthouse

Pondicherry (guesthouse)

Bangkok, Thailand (guesthouse)

Night train to Surat Thani

Haad Rin (bungalow)

Thong Sala (bungalow)

Sri Thanu (bungalow)

Night train to Bangkok

Tokyo Japan (capsule hostel) pictured above

(My husband went to Cambodia while I was in Tokyo, he stayed in two different guesthouse rooms.  He also did a trip to and from Bangkok with his daughter, and so had an extra overnight train journey, and three nights in three different hotels, so he wins on numbers!)

Kolkata India (guesthouse)

Night train to Varanasi

Varanasi (guesthouse)

Varanasi (guesthouse) 3 hours (unbearable due to building work)

Delhi (hotel)

Sleeper bus to Pushkar pictured above

Pushkar (guesthouse) first room

Pushkar (guesthouse) second room pictured above

We were there for a month and felt like part of the family.  They upgraded us for our last few days!  I loved Pushkar, home to Babas, gorgeous looking cows, and fun monkeys.

Delhi (hotel)

Kathmandu, Nepal (homestay)

Nagarkot, Nepal (wooden chalet)

Varkala, India (guesthouse)

Hampi (guesthouse) first room, second room So many things to love in Hampi…  and our second room

Bangalore (hotel)

Phnom Penh, Cambodia (guesthouse)

Koh Rong, Cambodia (tent) pictured above (travel update Cambodia)

Otres Village, Cambodia (bungalow) Writing and contemplation

Siem Reap, Cambodia (hotel) A little bit of luxury

Hanoi, Vietnam (apartment)

Hanoi, Vietnam (guesthouse)

Sapa,Vietnam (hostel)

Hanoi, Vietnam (hotel)

Night train to Dong Hoi, Vietnam

Dong Hoi, Vietnam (pub/hostel)

Hue, Vietnam (hotel)

Nha Trang, Vietnam (hotel)

Nha Trang, Vietnam (hotel) next door

Dalat, Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, pictured above, our last room in SE Asia

As this posts we will be waking up in a Travelodge in London, before getting a train to Northampton, then a bus, to begin our new lives living on a narrowboat in the Northamptonshire countryside!

Thank you very much for reading

the end and the beginning

Tags

Anything is possible, escape the matrix, Minimalism, Narrowboat, Narrowboat living, Travel, Voluntary simplicity

In April 2017 we asked ourselves, what would we do if we could do anything?  The answer was stop working and go off travelling.
Just less than a year later, in March 2018, we left good jobs, sold our house, gave away most of our possessions and went to South East Asia, mainly India, for a year.  Here are my India highlights.

Getting from April 2017 to March 2018 was scary at times.  B, a fellow blogger and now friend who I met here on WP, sent me the Rilke quote above which is useful now too.

Before we left the UK we bought a narrowboat to live on when we get back.  It is moored in an area that was unfamiliar to either of us, we spent two very happy weeks on it before we left.

It’s natural to feel some anxiety about our return home (in less than a week!) and there have been times when it has tipped into fear.  With regular meditation helping I have recently experienced it as excitement rather than anxiety, and the future being unmapped as seeming expansive and joyful rather than scary.

I’ve channelled my anxiety into getting this week’s and next week’s blog posts prepared and scheduled.  The following week I hope to be back with an update re life back in the UK and on the boat.

I am not full of doom and gloom about returning to the UK, I’m excited about seeing friends and family.  My son has done amazingly well since we’ve been away, as well as facing his fears and getting his teeth done, his career as an artist has taken off, and his work is being exhibited in New York in May, see flier below!

Thank you very much for reading

For photographs of the trip see Instagram travelswithanthony

Sab kuch milega: Anything is possible

Tags

Anything is possible, Couchsurfers, India, Inspiration, Inspirational people, Pushkar, Sub kuch milega, Travel, Travelling, Workstay

Sab kuch milega: Anything is possible

 

Pushkar, Rajasthan, India

Drinking ginger lemon tea at a street stall we met a man from Spain, aged forty-four, who has spent the past year cycling from Spain to India.  He is doing it all on a tall bike, the height of two bicycles put on top of each other.  He camps, which he tries to do after dark as he attracts so much attention and interest from the locals, albeit all positive.  He showed us a photograph of a big group of local people who had come to his camp to meet him, to see how he cooks, and to ask questions about his bike and his trip.  Arriving tired and wanting to wash and rest he often has curious visitors descend on him, who also arrive early the next morning and wake him up; although upon opening the tent to see lots of smiling faces peering at him he said it was impossible to be annoyed.  See his blog, it is in Spanish but WordPress offers a translate button.

On the bus we met H, an English woman aged thirty-one who has been away from the UK for seven years, teaching English in Spain for a few years but otherwise travelling using work stay and couchsurfers, (next stop Australia. (hosting a couch surfer also sounds great, scroll down the couchsurfers page to read a host’s view, it brought a tear to my eye!)  This was H’s fifth time in India, she said that often when travelling on buses she is the only foreigner, and her experience has been safe and positive.  We have met lots of solo female travellers and they have all said the same thing, despite the horror stories.  M, a young woman from New Zealand said that her experience had been that Indian people only want to check she’s okay.

H introduced us to J, a twenty-five year old man from Scotland, he has been away from home for four years, again using work stay, doing the online marketing for a trekking company in Nepal, building clay ovens, volunteering, and occasionally spells in a ‘proper job’ earning money for the next stage.

At our guesthouse we met a Spanish couple in their forties who come to India regularly as he buys fabric and has bags made which he then sells to tourists in the Canaries where they live.  He just looks to make enough money, not loads, and manages okay.

Also at our guesthouse we met a British man, fifty-two years old, who spent fifteen years living and working in Japan, first as a DJ in a gentleman’s club, then teaching English to kindergarten kids.  He then worked at a bar in Thailand, the job came with free meals and accommodation.  When that ended he returned to the UK, working most of the year and then travelling for a few months in South East Asia during the winter.  This is the fifth UK winter that he has missed.  He has now got it so that his pattern is six months in the UK working, six months travel, via careful budgeting.  ‘I’m a hermit, when I’m in the UK, I don’t go out.’

We met a mother and son, aged ten, from France travelling for a year, they’ve been to Malaysia, Indonesia, French Polynesia; after India they go to Myanmar, Thailand, then have to choose between Cambodia, Laos and The Philippines.  ‘A year is so short,’ he said, and told me he’d met a family with kids aged four, seven and ten who were travelling around the world on a boat for six years.  ‘So much time,’ he said.  He did his studies happily on a tablet in the restaurant, and proudly showed us his worksheets.

At the local juice bar we met a man from Austria who said he was in India for the winter with his partner and children aged two and four.  He said they’ve been good with the food- although they can spot French fries and Fanta on menus!- and their guesthouse has a big outdoor space where they can play.  Next they are going to Goa for the rest of the winter where they have friends, and there is even a kindergarten for the Western kids.  He said, ‘It’s great because here I have time for them, at home I’d be at work, but here, there’s nothing to do.’  ‘I know, the only thing to think about is, do I need to do my laundry, or do I need some shampoo,’ I said.  ‘Yes, go to the Himalaya shop, that’s it,’ he said and we both laughed.

At our guesthouse we met P, a thirty-four year old woman from Costa Rica who came to India to do a yoga and meditation course and is now doing educational and inspirational videos on YouTube.  Up until recently she was married with a house, a business, two cars and all the trappings of what is thought of as a successful life.  Despite this she wasn’t happy; she separated from her husband, dismantled her business, sold the house and cars, and went off to California to trim marijuana plants.  ‘But you have a doctorate!’ her parents said, but she went anyway.  Right now she is volunteering with rescued elephants in Rajasthan, India, and making her videos.

Also at the guesthouse we met A from Portugal, thirty-three, it was her fifth time in India.  She is an organic farmer and showed us beautiful photographs of figs, of which she grows many different varieties, avocados and glossy purple aubergines.  Together with other environmentally minded people she has successfully persuaded her local authority to vote to protect her local environment, not working along political lines, just to protect nature.  She comes to India for the spiritual and healing aspects, and says she comes here as often as she can when her business is quiet; ‘When the trees are asleep.’

Travel update

In Pushkar until 15th November, then to Delhi, briefly, then to Nepal for two weeks.

Thank you very much for reading

See you next week