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Rachel

~ following the white rabbit…

Rachel

Tag Archives: Travel

My travel memoir of a year of slow travel in India, Thailand, Tokyo, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam is now out!

26 Thursday May 2022

Posted by Rachel in Travel

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

a year of travel, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Slow travel, spiritual memoir, Thailand, Tokyo, Travel, Travel memoir, Vietnam

I fell in love with you and I cried is a spiritual, personal and travel memoir of a year in India and Southeast Asia.
In April 2017 my husband and I asked ourselves, what would we do if we could do anything?
We decided to sell up, leave our jobs and go travelling, along the way unpicking the conditioning of property, career and security and exploring what a life with less stuff would look like.
We gave away most of our possessions and in March 2018 we went to India, where we spent seven months in all, then Thailand, Tokyo, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam.
My book documents the trip through the eyes of a relatively inexperienced traveller. The sights, sounds and colours of India and Southeast Asia as well as the physical and emotional challenges.

This was a pre Covid19 trip of a lifetime; making connections with local people and fellow travellers and putting beliefs about minimalism into practice by living out of a small backpack for a year.

It is available as a paperback from Amazon, as an ebook from Amazon, Google Play, and hopefully wherever you buy your ebooks.

Thank you to the wonderful WordPress community who read along, commented, encouraged me, and published their own blogs which kept me company throughout the year, on long train journeys and in all the many rooms we stayed in. Thank you.

Connect on Instagram @always_evolving_ever_real

When things fall apart/Letter to Flower

05 Sunday Dec 2021

Posted by Rachel in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

India, spirituality, Travel, Travel writing, When things fall apart, writing

When things fall apart, is a book by Pema Chodron, Buddhist Nun and teacher of meditation. She has the best book titles, another is The wisdom of no escape. I read her in Varanasi, India when a sadhu told me to ‘Pick a guru’ *realising this could sound rather pretentious* anyway, back to the everyday present:

I had two weeks leave from work, unfortunately I had a bad cold which began in my last days at work and finished the weekend before I returned. It did make me slow down though, and that was a good thing. I binge watched Succession Seasons One and Two, and rested.

I went to Norfolk for health checks- blood tests and a consultation with the GP, having put this off for months, while worrying almost 24/7, and everything came back clear. I saw a couple of friends and did some Christmas shopping.

I returned to work to find three members of staff were leaving: my manager who interviewed and recruited me; one of my favourite people; and a new member of staff who had barely started.

And just like that, it seemed, work fell apart. Everyone got stressed, moany, demanding, and less likeable. (I include myself in this too, as despite my high ideals, I am not Buddha)

The foundation and the heart seemed to have vanished. An alternative job appeared in my inbox and I applied; chatting to the agency on the phone in the garden at work feeling like the beginning of an affair. (I didn’t get it)

I know, I know, I always know, that all I have to do is stay steady in the face of upheaval and things will settle. In fact I didn’t stay steady and things did settle.

A member of staff who had been off for weeks suddenly reappeared as good as new, like a good omen. Them, me and the favourite member of staff who is leaving shared some laughter and an emotional moment, eyes filing with tears. My manager’s replacement has been appointed.

I have at last started to become fully reacquainted with swimming, going regularly, building my strength and experiencing occasional moments of flow when the stroke really comes together. I’ve also been doing yoga at home.

After stagnating a bit (or as I call it, having  a fallow period) due to both having long lasting colds, we have set new goals to switch off Netflix and talk about a topic at least some evenings. Last night we spent a happy evening on travel plans, excited by India and then Cambodia lifting tourist restrictions.

At work we have begun saying goodbyes to the dear member of staff; she has requested we all write her letters! Maybe this is what this will be?!

Dear Flower

What I’ve really enjoyed about knowing you is our meaningful chats about spirituality. I’ve really benefitted from the company of someone who is religious. I have found it inspiring and enriching to hear your stories and to talk about your perspectives on mental health, which includes your own personal family experiences which you have been kind enough to share; about Islamic perspectives on mental health and the challenges faced by ethnic minorities in a predominantly white-European-centric system.

For example, I appreciated you telling me about the non-colour-blind mental health services assessment, which specifically asks questions about individual’s experiences of racism. I have found these conversations enriching and educational.

But I’ve also just really enjoyed being around someone who has such strong values, such a strong personal spirituality, and someone who continually reflects and tries to be a better person each day.

You have lit up the team. The staff love you, the patients love you. I always said when we did our groups we didn’t really even need to plan an activity (although you always did bring such lovely, beautifully presented and thoughtful activities for the patients), because they would have been happy just to see you.

I will miss you, it won’t be the same without you. If you want to meet for coffee on a Saturday sometime I would like that very much.

The Verse of Light (Arabic: آیة النور‎, romanized: āyat an-nūr) is the 35th verse of the 24th surah of the Quran (Q24:35).

Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth.

The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp,

The lamp is within glass, the glass as if it were a pearly [white] star,

Lit from [the oil of] a blessed olive tree,

Neither of the east nor of the west,

Whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire.

Light upon light.

Allah guides to His light whom He wills.

And Allah presents examples for the people,

and Allah is Knowing of all things.

— Translation by Sahih International Wikipedia

Thank you very much for visiting

Since August I’ve been keeping a stream of consciousness document going, some of which gets loosely edited into blog posts. Along the way I make a note of spin off ideas to come back to in the editing. It’s part work memoir, part meditation on boat life, and life in general. Working title Triangles are the strongest shape

My memoir of a year of travel in India and Southeast Asia- I fell in love with you and I cried– is complete and will be published sometime next year

Follow me on Instagram: always_evolving_ever_real

India 2020: Part 4

01 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by Rachel in India, Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Begging, Delhi, India, Indian train journeys, Poverty, Pushkar, solo female travel India, Solo travel, Travel, Travel writing, Traveling, Travelling

20200207_143725Ganesh at the hotel arranged the taxi to the train station. At five am it was still dark and quiet. When I booked my tickets there were no AC chair class and no two or three tier AC sleepers available. So I booked sleeper class, which is cheaper and can be a little more lively and crowded. You aren’t shut off like in AC, the windows are open, more people come through the train selling food or asking for money, and people from other carriages can come and sit down if there is space.

I checked with three separate people that this was the right train and got on. The bunks were three high, I had a lower bunk. Most people were men and were either asleep or had ear phones in. I lay down and covered myself completely with a blanket and tried to sleep but it was cold. I was anxious but after a while I calmed a bit, and also I heard the voices of kids, a woman; a family nearby.

I woke up around eight or nine am and sat up, hair everywhere, dishevelled. An older man with a kind face and a Rajasthani moustache was looking at me. ‘Ram Ram,’ he said, smiling. Two people, a man and a woman, were sitting at the end of my seat, I sat up and greeted them and apologised for taking up so much room. During the day the lower seats are for all three people to sit on.

From here more women and family groups got on. As there was a charging point I thought to top up the phone; the charging point wasn’t working and an older man sitting opposite me tried to get it going for me. A young man who was on the top bunk opposite and had been there the whole time, said, ‘Excuse me Ma’am, you can charge your phone,’ and offered me the use of his power pack. I didn’t need it as the phone still had plenty of battery and I had a power pack too, but I was very touched that he had offered.

I felt sorry that I’d got onto that train with the compartment full of men and felt anxious, when just as before, people were only too ready to help. On the lower seat opposite were four people, on mine were three. Someone got off mine and the woman opposite, who had seen me falling asleep sitting up, gestured to me to lie down. I was grateful, my hips were aching and my legs felt stiff.

Two young Australians I had met in Pushkar had described finding their sleeper class journey from Delhi to Pushkar quite challenging. It was their first time in India, they were both young, blonde and good looking. The man had said men had come to stare at the woman, his girlfriend, and that there had been loads of people coming through asking for money. They had found it all a bit overwhelming and said that Indian people in the carriages had had to help get rid of them. I was grateful for the warning, and started accumulating ten rupee notes to give- also good for drinks etc- whilst being aware that I might say no if I didn’t want look conspicuous e.g. if there were lots of people asking at once.

I may have missed money requests from being asleep and covered up, because the only ones were a very dignified man in white with a metal tray; a man shuffling on the floor who had no use of his legs; and, to my delight, a Hijra. The Australians said the Hijras were rude but reading online afterwards I understand this may be part of their persona. Anyway this person was not rude at all. They came in, asked everyone, at least one man gave money straight away, another when asked again. I gave without being asked. She touched the top of my head (this was a blessing I found out later) and invited me to take her photograph. She was the first Hijra I have met. I read an Indian woman online who said that her mother told her to always give as they have no other way of getting money as no one will employ them. The Indian man who had hesitated then given when asked again looked at me. I was happy, smiling. ‘India experience,’ I said, he smiled.

On the way into Delhi outside the window there was a long pile, like a raised stream, of rubbish, plastic bottles and all kinds of rubbish, not far from and running parallel with the train track. I saw huge pigs with big piglets walking in the rubbish, and an eagle swoop down and up. Just on the other side of the rubbish were a row of tiny dwellings, hovels really. Some were one room and made of concrete, some were makeshift looking shelters built from sheets of plastic. Some were one row only, some a few rows deep, and some on top of each other.

Between the hovels and the rubbish, there were children, and a woman with a baby sitting while a small group of official looking people talked to her. Behind it all were tens of apartments, or hotels maybe, under construction. It would be nice to think they were being built new homes. As well as the trains, the rubbish, the living conditions, there was all that construction dust too. A little further along there were groups of women and teenage boys moving shingle amongst the opposite train tracks. No one was wearing any masks.

Past houses, some falling down, some okay. In the nook of a blue faded building, a teenage girl dressed all in black, knees bent up, side on in profile, a little centre of peace. The scene was just like the opening lines of ‘I capture the castle,’ by Dodie Smith.

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The train arrived in Old Delhi, near The Red Fort. I couldn’t get a train to New Delhi, walking distance from Main Bazar, as they all arrived very late at night. I thought there was a prepay for taxis, there wasn’t, it was only for auto rickshaws, but the man in the booth told me which ones were the official taxis, which I was grateful for. I got a good view of The Red Fort, but I didn’t feel like stopping. I could see crowds of tourists in the grounds, and the air outside the taxi was awful.

I was happy to be back at same guesthouse, feeling happy to see them and more confident returning a second time after my trip. They booked me a taxi for the morning, free of charge! I ate at the same place as last time, Gobi Manchurian, an only in India ‘Chinese’ dish of cauliflower either ‘dry’ deep fried or wet ‘with gravy.’ I had the gravy version, with veg fried rice and lemon tea.20200205_105728Above: the sweet little cheeping birds- at my local shop in Pushkar- you can see they’ve put food out for them on the ground 💜
20200110_141713In the taxi to the airport a flock of the little cheeping birds swooped and landed on the road and amongst the cars; more than I had ever seen close up like that, it felt like a farewell gift. Then a man came wandering amongst the traffic selling the lemon and green ‘bean’ evil eye talismans I love, lots of them hung in a neat carousel. I had first seen them in Varanasi in the doorway of a house with pink walls and a red stairway, and then everywhere in Pushkar this time.
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I had run out of hand cream, John who was picking me up from the airport in London was bringing me some from home, along with my big coat. I went to look for a Body Shop anyway. The big store was closed, but a sign directed me to a concession near the gates not far from mine. I didn’t see it at first then asked the man, they had little tubes. He made a big thing of trying to sell me the special offer, three tubes for ten percent off. I asked if could pay in sterling, he said no, only rupees. Or by card, he suggested, but I didn’t want to do that because of the charges. I said okay I’ll just take one then. He said, ‘Sorry not now we are in handover, come back in fifteen to twenty minutes.’ I did come back, they were still not serving. ‘What if I gave you cash?’ ‘No, boarding card and passport,’ ‘Okay, when?’ ‘Fifteen to twenty minutes.’

I gave up and gave my rupees to the two women who were cleaning the toilets. Earlier I had debated getting coffee and a pastry but decided not to. I had just over five hundred rupees left, enough for one small hand cream or coffee and pastry and not much else. It probably felt like a good tip for the two women attendants though. All in all it was a lovely India ending.

Thank you very much for reading

India 2020: Part 3

23 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by Rachel in Pushkar, Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

anxiety, Babas, Cows, India, Indian wedding, loneliness, Monkeys, Pushkar, Rajasthan, solo female travel India, Solo travel, Travel, Travel memoir, Travel writing, Traveling, Travelling

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Now and again I would suddenly feel, Oh wow, I’m here by myself, scary. Other times, I would feel, wow, make the most of it, appreciate it, soak up as much as possible. Still other times, it felt natural to be there, like a second home.

But like my month alone on the boat, two weeks was enough. I looked forward to the next adventure we could do together. I did go out one evening and have a mojito and a pizza, recreating an experience from last time, but in general it is my husband who provides the fun; I can be overly serious and work- ish.

Compared to the worst moments of our year of travel, I didn’t get super low or terribly panicky; maybe being alone I just had to keep myself together, five and a half weeks, almost six, was quite a long time. If I felt funny sometimes I still made myself get up, wash myself, wash my clothes, the bare minimum. I had a couple of minor slumps in the middle but in general I kept my mood up by having my mission, writing, and having a daily list and an overall to do list.

Often I would give myself something to do, e.g. go to a new cafe someone had recommended, go to the ATM, or a job such as get my train ticket printed. Because things in India tend to take longer and be more complicated, completing a relatively small task results in a burst of satisfaction seemingly out of all proportion to the task itself. I also rode the dialectic between being content to not do much, as always, and the fact that does anxiety stop me doing more.

Wedding season commenced, with music playing every night, and very loud brass band processions. One of the owners of the guesthouse invited us all to his daughter’s wedding (see pictures above.) I went with my Italian neighbours. As you can see, it was a beautiful experience.

I maintained good boundaries and I didn’t have any issues. But I was also aware of not saying no to everything. I did let a man, a Brahmin, take my hand and give me a very accurate mental and physical assessment. And one evening a man at a street stall stopped me, he asked me the usual questions about where I was from etc. We talked about Aloo Baba, then he said, ‘Actually I stopped you because I was going to flirt with you, but then I saw your face and that you have such good energy, you are a good person.’
‘You know what Aloo Baba says,’ I said, ‘Control looking, Every woman my mother my sister.’
‘They Aloo Baba rules,’ he said, ‘I have my own rules, ‘Beauty is for looking not for touching.’’
‘Well that works just as well,’ I said.

Late morning one day I was just getting up, I heard the sound of bins being moved and assumed it was the cleaning staff. Then I heard the sound of monkeys running about outside the rooms and a scream from my neighbour. I went out, she was standing outside her door with her skirt ripped all the way down the front, but luckily no injuries to her skin. She had come down the stairs and probably startled them and inadvertently blocked their escape route.

As before, there were always cows at the rubbish dump near the guesthouse. Towards the end of my stay cows always seemed to be licking each other, getting the bits they couldn’t reach themselves. It looked cute and I would stand there watching them. One day I was at the rubbish dump staring at the cows when one of the staff from the guesthouse came up behind me. ‘That is cow,’ he said, laughing. I never minded the way that being a foreigner meant sometimes being a source of amusement for locals.

There were always people around to chat to if I felt like it; at the rooftop restaurant at the guesthouse, at the coffee place, at the chai stall, or just out and about. Just as before, it felt like a place where people of all nationalities meet and connect with each other. I met people from Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Argentina, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Holland, USA, UK, Ireland, Mexico, Spain, Jordan, Georgia, and from India I met, as well as lots of people from Pushkar, a lovely family from near Hampi, and a Baba from Rishikesh, we swapped phone numbers.

One morning I was sitting in a cafe, a woman came in, there were no empty tables so I invited her to sit with me. We connected and had a good chat. She was my age, married but travelling by herself like me, from Australia. ‘It’s so good to talk,’ she said. She was going to Varanasi next so I shared some information about it. ‘See, you’re never alone, not really,’ she said.

Thank you very much for reading

More about Pushkar with photos: Pushkar blogs: Babas, gorgeous looking cows, and fun monkeys. Pushkar draft chapter extracts start here

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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. This is my personal blog.
Thank you for visiting
Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

India 2020: Part One

09 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by Rachel in Pushkar, Uncategorized

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

Delhi, India, Indian train journeys, Main Bazar, Pushkar, Solo travel, Travel, Travel tips, Travel tips for India, Travel writing, Traveling, Travelling

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I just spent five and a half weeks by myself in India. Depending on your perspective you may say, ‘No big deal,’ ‘How brave,’ or something in between. And that’s how I felt about it too. In the run up to the trip I got a bit anxious about the journey and about the whole trip. The news certainly didn’t help, and that’s probably what made my mum extra anxious about me going on my own. Anyway, I did it!

I spoke to two Indian people on the plane who said they thought I was a writer, ‘Ah we thought so, when you said you stayed in one place for a long time!’ I was pleased. I watched two films on the plane. Diane, an interesting portrayal of older women and difficult aspects of motherhood, and Richard says goodbye: ‘You’re unusual, the world is dying for you. Don’t give into mediocrity like the rest.’ The prospect of death helps to realise the feeling of being alive…

Arriving at Delhi airport felt familiar, but even inside the airport the poor air quality, which we’d seen from the plane as a smog enveloping the high rise buildings, made people cough and made my eyes sting. There was a long queue at immigration and I got tired but I made sure I concentrated hard on what I needed to do, get my bag, change money. John had booked my place to stay, choosing a place with good reviews and popular with backpackers, and arranged for them to pick me up. It was very nice to step out and see a sign held up with my name on.

The driver was nice, we chatted about his family- he had five daughters- and he slowed down so I could get a good look at the monkeys which hang out near Parliament Gardens, and which I remember seeing on our first journey from the airport to Paharganj (Main Bazar), on arrival for me for the first time, in March 2018. My guesthouse was slightly off Main Bazar and down an alley, I was slightly disorientated, and the driver had to show me where the entrance was.

Walking in it looked a little shabby and there were lots of men standing around. I was shown up to my room which was three floors up. I shut the door behind me and wobbled for a moment, then reminded myself that John had thoroughly researched this place. I went back downstairs, they were able to sell me an Indian Sim there and set it up for me straight away, and I went out to complete the rest of my mission namely to buy a fast charger, I got one which had two USB ports which was great as often there’ll only be one point in a room. I got crisps, coca cola and nuts, just like usual (only it wasn’t hot like usual), and water, and shampoo, and managed to accumulate an impressive amount of change, always an ongoing mission in India.

I slept and then went out for dinner, I walked the length of Main Bazar and felt unable to decide on anywhere, went back to the guesthouse and the staff advised me where to eat, just around the corner. I felt comfortable in the restaurant and had tea and more tea, and again, as usual, things felt much better with a belly full of warm food. And I didn’t get sick, a first for staying in Paharganj.

In the morning I had to wake the staff to let me out, I walked down Main Bazar to the end where the train station is. It was early and dark, but there were quite a few people about, including tourists with wheely suitcases, and I didn’t feel unsafe. My driver from the airport had said to me, ‘Don’t be too friendly to people in Main Bazar.’ The hotel staff had said, ‘Don’t listen to anyone at the train station unless they are wearing a black hat and black jacket,’ i.e. the official station staff, because scammers can tell you your train is cancelled (and I suppose then try to sell you hotel rooms, drivers and so on.)

I got to the train station and was about to go to the counter to ask which platform when a man told me it was platform 2. I thought it won’t hurt to believe him, so I went in, and when I checked on the board, he was right. Then I couldn’t work out how to get to it as one stairway was closed, again a man told me the way, and it was correct. So again, although there are scammers, of course, there are also tons of people who are just helping you.

It was five am and dark. You have to get to the station an hour before in India. Because we’ve taken trains before I knew that there are letters and numbers on small displays on the platform which correspond with the carriages, so I waited in the correct area, later making sure by checking with a staff member on the platform. I waited near a family group and messaged John to let him know I was okay.

I was in chair class, in the middle, next to a man Indian born, raised in the UAE and living in the USA, we chatted a lot. On my other side was a British man, who it turned out was listening to exactly the same book I was reading, Haruki Murakami’s The Windup Bird Chronicle. I wondered if we had a message for each other or something, but in the end we ended up chatting and then getting a taxi together to Pushkar, where he was also staying.

The train stops at Ajmer, there was full on hassle re taxis and auto rickshaws, and no pre pay stand there. I hadn’t been able to arrange a pick up from the guesthouse, and potentially that was the most dangerous part of the journey, getting in to an un pre paid taxi, or at least the part I would have been most anxious about. So if that’s all that book synchronicity did, made sure I shared a taxi, felt safe and was safe, that was plenty enough. The taxi dropped me at the bottom of the guesthouse steps, I texted John to say I had arrived and went in to what felt like a home from home, I even had the same room we had in 2018!

Photos: Sunrise on New Year’s Day somewhere between Dubai and Delhi. Supplies and change in my room in Delhi.

Pushkar from previous trip with photos: Pushkar blogs: Babas, gorgeous looking cows, and fun monkeys.  Pushkar draft chapter extracts start here

20200122_171432

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 South East Asia, mainly India.
I’m writing a personal/spiritual/travel memoir of that year. This is my personal blog.
Thank you for visiting
Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill

Here I go again

15 Sunday Dec 2019

Posted by Rachel in India, Pushkar, Travel, Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

escape the matrix, India, Minimalism, Narrowboat, Narrowboat living, Pushkar, Rajasthan, Travel, Travel writing, Voluntary simplicity

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I had originally planned to go back to India by myself; I was keen to have some alone time and time to work on my book and I thought it would be a good experience to be in India alone.  But then we just had a month apart, albeit I was on the boat in rural Northamptonshire not in India, but I had plenty of alone time and no longer felt the need to push myself to go off on a solo adventure.  So we decided John would come too.  But life happens and something has come up which means he needs to stay here.  So it looks like I am having a solo adventure after all!

I’m getting an airport pick up from the Delhi guesthouse, I’m staying in a backpacker place with a travel/info desk, we’ve booked my train out of Delhi already- a day time journey in chair class, and I’m going to spend all my time in Pushkar where we’ve been before and know people.

I’m going to do as much book editing as I can, and the rest of the time enjoy Pushkar.  The delights and wonders of Pushkar are many and include: monkeys everywhere, fantastic food*, markets, a small mountain to climb, many beautiful temples to visit, lovely cows to feed, a holy lake and Babas (holy men and possibly women) to talk with.  And nearby Rajasthan cities to visit possibly too. * masala dosas, sabje bhaji, dal, aloo jeera, rice, homemade brown bread with peanut butter, huge bowls of fresh fruit salad with soya milk, all kinds of smoothies, great coffee, there’s even a French bakery a walk out of town…

Photos by my husband Anthony John Hill: the view from our balcony onto Main Bazar Delhi; the view from the guesthouse rooftop restaurant in Pushkar; one of the dear cows of Pushkar with a little friend.

Thank you very much for reading

About the author 

In March 2018 we sold up and left behind most of our possessions to go off travelling for a year, spending most of our time in India.  I wrote a blog and began writing a memoir of the year which I am currently editing.  My husband and I live on a narrowboat in rural Northamptonshire, UK.  Our days and lives are an interesting mix of the every day and the journey of self realisation.

 

Inspiration and support

13 Sunday Oct 2019

Posted by Rachel in Uncategorized, writing

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Chennai, India, Pushkar, Travel, Travel memoir, Travel writing, Travelling, writing

The working title of my travel memoir is ‘I fell in love with you and I cried,’ from Chennai. After the drafting, now comes the editing. I hope I will just fly through it, after all, surely writing the first draft is the hardest. Some bits are near as dammit perfect such as my favourite chapter so far Chennai Part Two. For photos of Chennai see here. Some chapters need a bit of reworking, such as Pushkar, home to Babas, gorgeous looking cows, and fun monkeys. Onwards and upwards, wish me luck!

Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski
“there is always that space there
just before they get to us
that space
that fine relaxer
the breather
while say
flopping on a bed
thinking of nothing
or say
pouring a glass of water from the
spigot
while entranced by
nothing

that
gentle pure
space

it's worth

centuries of
existence

say

just to scratch your neck
while looking out the window at
a bare branch

that space
there
before they get to us
ensures
that
when they do
they won't
get it all

ever.
--It's Ours”

― Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

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About me

Sold house, left career, gave away almost everything else. Went travelling with my husband for a year, mostly in India. Here are my India highlights. Currently in the UK, living on a narrowboat and finishing a book about the trip, a spiritual/travel memoir, extracts from which appeared regularly on this blog, and I am returning to India 31/12/19!

Lord give me a song that I can sing: Part Two

11 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by Rachel in Uncategorized, Vietnam

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Cosmic ordering, Ho Chi Minh City, Law of Attraction, love, marriage, spiritual memoir, Travel, Travel memoir, Traveling, Travelling, Vietnam

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Draft extract from the final chapter of my travel memoir

Lord give me a song that I can sing* Ho Chi Minh City

It can be hard to get a dentist in the UK, an NHS one anyway plus we’d have other things to do and might not get around to it for a while, so we’d decided to get check ups before we left. Anthony had booked the dentist when we were in DaLat. It was a private practice, very smart; the decor was leaf green, with green lockers where we put our outdoor shoes and green Crocs to wear. When it was our turn a member of staff took us up in the lift to the dentists. We were seen at the same time in separate rooms. We were struck by how many staff there were and how much attention we got, at one point I had three members of staff with me. Apparently lots of Australians come to Vietnam for dental treatment, even with insurance it is cheaper to fly to Vietnam.

We went to the army surplus market, it wasn’t as cheap as we’d hoped, the stall holders were good at the hard sell and it wasn’t at all easy to bargain. I bought army boots; Anthony bought army trousers and a long green coat. I liked the enamelled rice bowls supposedly used by the Vietnamese soldiers and considered getting them for presents. It was an indoor market and so incredibly hot we had to leave for a break.

We found a cafe where we drank freezing iced water, Red Bull and coffee. There was a waving cat on the counter, the man in the cafe told us about waving cats, businesses have them, he said, rather than waving, they are beckoning customers in. We asked him about whether the stuff in the market was real, given all the years which had passed. He said that some may be fake, but you’d ‘have to be expert to know.’ In the end we bought engraved US Army lighters for presents. Unfortunately these were confiscated at Air China check in. Every other airline we went on let us carry one lighter in hand luggage, Air China, none at all. At the counter there was a huge plastic sweetie jar half filled with cheap lighters, and our special ones were added in, sadly.

We went to the area popular with tourists, where there were narrow alleyways, lots of massage places, street food stalls, packed little shops selling everything and nice little bars and restaurants. We stopped at one and I ordered a mojito…

(We met *Geography of the Moon who we met here and went to see play, you can read about that here)

…I had only had only two cocktails, one mojito, and one cinnamon one called ‘The Struggle,’ invented by a previous bar tender, ‘She was going through something,’ the bar tender said, and one beer, with lots of space in between. But I got a contact high. Such a high of happiness. Later I lay there loved up, him asleep or resting, me thinking, appreciating him, thinking he may die, what would I be like. The next day I said, ‘I thought Oh my God what if you die, I’ll scream and I won’t be able to stop.’ I’d had a dream like that, like being out of body, trying to get a hold of myself and stop screaming. Anthony’s face was a mixture of horrified and sad. ‘No you won’t,’ he said, ‘you’ll say to yourself, ‘we had a great time together, and now it’s time to get on with the next phase of your life.’’

With two days left, I did my ‘Words are spells’ action plan/wish list. Interesting that post success life looks the same as what we are/have been doing… I imagined what I’d want, how it could start, someone could approach me about the blog… And they did. What next?

Jim Carey, ‘You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.’ The alternative is what we’d do anyway, get ordinary jobs, not suicide.

What is being a failure anyway? Leaving with nothing? You can’t take anything with you anyway.

In the coffee shop we had a conversation about The Future; Anthony saying I must finish the book and that he would support me, over coffee and iced peach tea and more free iced tea, so much liquid. Anthony said, ‘It’s funny how you get a free drink when you order a drink.’ And that at least in the case of coffee the free drink is often much bigger than the ordered and paid for one (a last metaphor!)

Just before we left we went back to the mojito place where we’d met Geography of the Moon. We ordered Anthony breakfast, me, Americano, a great big coffee. We had one last thing to buy, incense, we thought we’d have to go to China town but we were fed up with shopping. Like everywhere the restaurant-bar had a shrine with incense burning. We asked the woman where we could buy some. ‘Are you Buddhist?’ she asked. ‘Well we meditate, we use incense,’ we said. ‘Easy,’ she said, and told us to just go out of the restaurant down the alleyway and to ask at any shop, and wrote us down the Vietnamese word for incense on a piece of paper. Sure enough, at the first shop we came to, we were shown a big box full of packs and tubes of incense, perfect for presents and for us.

Lord give me a song that I can sing/Sing for me my lord, a song that I can sing (GOTM). Much as the mournful request is hardwired into me to love, I know really you can sing the song yourself. You can write the song yourself. You can write yourself the song you want to sing. 

‘Your life is your life, go all the way’ Bukowski

Thank you very much for reading

For more photographs of HCMC see previous blog

Thank you very much for reading!

20190315_130033

About me

Sold house, left career, gave away almost everything else. Went travelling with my husband for a year, mostly in India. Here are my India highlights. Currently in the UK, living on a narrowboat and finishing a book about the trip, a spiritual/travel memoir, extracts from which appeared regularly on this blog, and I am returning to India 31/12/19!

Lord give me a song that I can sing: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

06 Sunday Oct 2019

Posted by Rachel in Uncategorized, Vietnam

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Backpacking, Cosmic ordering, escape the matrix, HCMC, Ho Chi Minh City, Law of Attraction, Mid life, Minimalism, spiritual memoir, Travel, Travel writing, Vietnam, Voluntary simplicity

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Draft extract from the final chapter of my travel memoir

Lord give me a song that I can sing* Ho Chi Minh City

*Geography of the Moon who you can read about here

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The man at the bus stop in Da Lat asked us if we lived in Ho Chi Minh City. We marvelled at the possibility. There are ex pats. There are digital nomads. There are retirees. There are people with all sorts of businesses. It’s not that strange but at the same time, the thought that it could be us seemed somehow hard to believe. And yet he thought it. And yet, of course, it’s possible.

In Nha Trang we’d sat in a restaurant and checked the booking for HCMC. We realised we’d booked somewhere with no WiFi- since almost everywhere has WiFi, it was easy to forget to check. It was quite hard to find cheap places in HCMC and certainly they all seemed pretty small- I wondered was it a dense population, like Tokyo, with space at a premium? Anyway after quite a while of searching we re-booked a small but nice looking room.

When we arrived in HCMC we realised we’d forgotten something again and not got our own bathroom; we hadn’t always had our own bathroom on the trip, but it is nice to have, plus we thought, it was our last place. Not only that, the place was very hostel-y; and our room was actually one of two small private rooms off the main dorm, which meant we had to go through the dorm, right to the back, and through a door on the right to enter.

A balcony ran along the back of the dorm and past our window too. Our room had looked grey in the photographs, in real life it was unfinished with bare concrete floors, albeit with a nice rug and a comfy futon bed, a clothes rail and a desk. It didn’t help that the key to our room stuck and didn’t work so that we had to go in and out via the balcony doors. So we were a bit disappointed, and thought about moving, especially as the first night was very loud outside; below the hostel was a restaurant bar with people outside late.

But it turned out okay, as always. There’s a sense of having to bed in to a new place. We got used to the room and stopped being bothered about the lock, and the staff were really friendly.

I had been anxious about the shared loos, only three toilets for all those people but there was hardly ever anyone else in the bathroom area. Sometimes there were young women in there playing music, I wondered if it was a privacy thing, like in Japan? And later we even enjoyed the noise outside or at least appreciated it.

The dorm room had eighteen beds in it, you could even stay as a couple sharing one, occasionally walking through I caught glimpses through slightly open curtains, people had made like nests with food etc, like hutches, could one live like that all the time, I wondered?

Inside we had AC as powerful as we wanted, outside on the balcony it was hot hot hot and dusty. From the fridge downstairs I bought ‘big water,’ Sprite and beer and took them upstairs and onto the balcony. Such a pleasure, those things, and looking out, smoking, and watching the people below and passing by.

Again, breakfast was included, I only went down a couple of times, huge chunks of French bread, and black coffee. Anthony said that one of the biggest differences between when he went travelling twenty years ago and now, was the phones. We had a smart phone, Anthony did the booking of accommodation, trains and buses etc, and it was very useful. But at breakfast, in the open area at reception, we looked around, no one talking to each other, everyone on their phones. So when a man walked in, looking around for somewhere to sit, it was us who made eye contact and ended up sitting and chatting with him, as we were the only ones not looking down at a phone. He was tall, which confused me at first, as I hadn’t thought of Chinese people being tall, and casually dressed in shorts and a faded pale blue t shirt, the other Chinese people I’d seen had been smartly dressed. Plus, he was on his own, and the others had been in big groups. He was the first and only Chinese person we met. He said he had made his money already and now came for several months of the year to Vietnam to eat the healthy food; he often went to the market and bought a kind of vegetable/fruit that looked like a potato, he cut me a slice of it, I wasn’t that impressed, it tasted similar to raw potato to me. He explained that the food in China is poisoned; the air is polluted. He told us about a Chinese dissident, now living in the US, who is on YouTube, who speaks the truth about China, and who he believed would be the one to change everything. You can’t say anything against the government, maybe nothing happens then, but it is noted, and one day it comes back to you. He said it used to be hard for Chinese citizens to get a passport, now it is much easier, hence the huge rise of Chinese tourists.

There was the feeling of things to do, a kind of anxiety. In Nha Trang we were low, in DaLat we were high, here, it was more balanced, about practical things, shopping for warm clothes and presents. ‘Just do what’s in front of you’ (method of dealing with anxiety). It felt still, in the eye of the storm, it (home) upon us, surreal…

We walked to the night market, past very expensive looking creatively decorated hotels, everywhere lively, busy, vibrant. On the way back we walked through a public park, there were huge fallen leaves on the ground. A crystal meth addict stumbled around near a bench. There was music in a pavilion, with formal dancing lessons going on, young people, then in the next pavilion, older people doing dancing lessons. In the streets there were people of all ages out late, eating cheap food, drinking cheap beer. It seemed easy for people to be out having fun, socialising and enjoying themselves in the evening. Of course, being somewhere where it is dry and warm late into the night helps to make this possible.  HCMC had a nice vibe, people seemed happy. ‘We could live here for two weeks a year,’ we said; ‘Phnom Penh for a month, India and the UK for the rest of the time.’

For more photographs of HCMC see previous blog

Thank you very much for reading!

About me

Sold house, left career, gave away almost everything else. Went travelling with my husband for a year, mostly in India. Here are my India highlights. Currently in the UK, living on a narrowboat and finishing a book about the trip, a spiritual/travel memoir, extracts from which appeared regularly on this blog.

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

04 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by Rachel in Uncategorized, Vietnam

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Backpacking, Cities of South East Asia, Geography of the moon, HCMC, Ho Chi Minh City, Mid life, spiritual memoir, Travel, Travel memoir, Travel writing, Vegan travel Vietnam, Vietnam, writing

I am still working on the HCMC chapter, so in the meantime here is another photo blog post!

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(Above) The tourist area where I drank mojitos and where we met Geography of the Moon

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(Above) Dusk near the night market

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(Above) Our hostel was above this bar

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(Above) The amazing all vegan design your own hotpot place complete with fake eggs!

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(Above x2) A very cool cafe we went to after visiting the dentist!

All photographs by my husband Anthony John Hill

Thank you for visiting!

About me

Sold house, left career, gave away almost everything else. Went travelling with my husband for a year, mostly in India. Here are my India highlights. Currently in the UK, living on a narrowboat and writing a book about the trip, a spiritual/travel memoir, extracts from which appear regularly on this blog.

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