India 2020: Part 4

Tags

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

Ganesh 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.

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.Above: the sweet little cheeping birds- at my local shop in Pushkar- you can see they’ve put food out for them on the ground 💜
In 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.

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

Tags

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

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

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

Tags

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

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

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

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

Tags

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

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!

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!

Nha Trang, Vietnam

Tags

Nha Trang, Travel, Travel tips, Travel writing, Traveling, Travelling, Vegan, Vegan travel Vietnam, Vietnam

DRAFT book chapter extract

The two of us can be indecisive, and our usual indecisiveness was exacerbated by illness, exhaustion, missing India, and the ever closer end of the trip and return to the UK which triggered fear re what are we doing/what have we done/The Future.* (*now that The Future is here, I don’t feel scared at all, and my everyday life doesn’t seem at all scary)

So we ended up booking a week in Nha Trang, which was super touristy but not with fellow Westerners and provided us with yet another completely different experience. As we’d said right at the start, this trip was about having experiences, and that doesn’t all have to mean good.

As soon as we arrived we knew it wasn’t us at all, a glitzy shiny lit up holiday resort, like a very upmarket Great Yarmouth (link to blog explaining why I love Great Yarmouth so much!) with late night shops, restaurants and lots of ‘ordinary’ tourists rather than backpackers. We watched dazed from the cab, and he dropped us off in amongst it all, at the top of a main street, off which a smaller street, still busy with restaurants, was where our hotel was. As it was so near the end of the trip though it was even easier to just go with it, to say, it doesn’t matter, it’s all experience.

My first impression was how bright everything was, how lit up, hotels, everyone out, lots of busy little street food stands, like a very small version of the Khao San road in Bangkok, everything smart and shiny.

This was very much an ordinary looking hotel, lots of floors, lots of rooms, shiny marble floors but still very cheap, five or six pounds (US$7) a night. The room was again very good quality like Hue, clean and painted white with two double beds, a desk, a fridge, a big wardrobe and a bathroom with a bathtub!

Nha Trang was the site of a Russian naval base, it had been used for R&R by the Russian Navy and had become a tourist destination popular with Russian families. Vietnam generally is affordable plus Nha Trang is hot with a good beach. Russians had opened businesses such as travel agents, jewellers and shops with everything written in Russian.

The menus were in Russian first and sometimes not in English at all. Like in Sihanoukeville, it was a useful reminder that we aren’t the centre of the world. From our Western perspective, it can seem that Western culture and the English language dominates. We’d travelled around India and been spoilt with so many people speaking English. In Sihavoukeville in Cambodia we had realised how many Chinese tourists there are now and how important they are. And that we as Brits are insignificant, numbers wise anyway. We met no other Brits in Nha Trang; we heard only one group of Americans. The other tourists were Russian or Chinese.

‘Things to do in Nha Trang,’ still came up on Anthony’s phone several months after our return to the UK, which always made me smile, as we found very little to do there. We did walk to the Incense Tower (below)

The first time we tried to go to the Incense Tower we walked the wrong way and ended up having a long beach walk, which turned into something else (see next post.) We didn’t give up though and walked back the right way and got to it. We’d started our walk on the beach in the early evening when it was cooler and by the time we’d walked to the tower it was dark with all the neon lights lit up. All around that area were hotels, many with names in lights. ‘Happy Hotel.’ Huge hotels with only small gaps between them. One looked like honeycomb. So many hotel rooms. Really, they were all needed? It was hard to take it in, the numbers, the facilities.

The Vietnamese shop assistants spoke Russian, a few times they spoke to us and we didn’t understand and then they realised we weren’t Russian, ‘Oh you are not Russian!’ A Russian man outside a bar gave us a flier, ‘I thought you were Russian,’ he said. We went out for a meal at an Indian restaurant; the Indian head waiter spoke Russian to the other diners. I was so impressed, maybe he already knew English, maybe not, but certainly he had had to learn Vietnamese, and then learn Russian as well.

It was interesting to observe a different group of tourists. In the evening their (the Russian tourists’) skin was often bright red. This was in sharp contrast to the other tourists who were Chinese, who covered up from the sun with hats and tops and who also wore pollution masks. Walking alongside the beach we saw the Russian style of sunbathing, which was standing, arms outstretched, baking, in bikinis or brief trunks. Although when I reported all this to my cousin back home in the UK she said that she sometimes sunbathes like that too to make sure she gets an all over tan.

 

On the walls of a restaurant on our street were photographs of all the animals they served, before and after, a photograph of the animal alive next to a photograph of it prepared to eat or in a meal. A photograph of a live chicken and then a whole chicken raw and plucked, a photograph of a frog, an alligator, an ostrich, a snake, next to a photograph of the animal cut into chunks in a meal. This became known as ‘the place with all the animals.’ But nowhere was any better. Everywhere was the same.

All the restaurants had tanks, aquariums, at first glance they looked like fish tanks for decoration, then no, it was to eat. And outside almost every place, all along from the corner of our road and all down the main road were bowls, like large plastic washing up bowls, all the same in pale green as if bulk bought, some stacked on top of each other. There were lots of these bowls outside almost every restaurant and in the bowls were what looked like every kind of sea creature. It was as if every sea creature you could imagine had been captured. Crabs with their claws bound with a rubber band, I couldn’t tell if they were alive or dead. Two big fish in a plastic bowl the same size as them who looked almost dead; there was a limit to what they could endure. Lobsters clearly alive. All sorts of small creatures, strange kinds of squid. They changed the water and it spilled out onto the pavement; every day we walked past, through the poor creatures’ water, slippery underfoot. As well as all the sea creatures, shops sold dead baby alligators with pearls in their mouths as ornaments. Heated barbecues on the street cooked lobsters and other creatures.

The Happy Cow app saved us while we were in Nha Trang. A tiny stall, a little cart, run by a woman for twelve years, serving Banh Mi (filled baguettes) with all vegan ingredients; different kinds of seitan meats, sauces and salad, for about twelve pence each. Her cart

Part Two on Sunday

Thank you very much for reading

About the author

Sold house, left career, gave away almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Now back 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.

 

Hue, Vietnam, Part Two

Tags

Great Yarmouth, Hue, spiritual awakening, spiritual memoir, Travel, Travel memoir, Travel writing, Traveling, Travelling, Vietnam, Winter Gardens Yarmouth, writing

Extract from draft chapter: Hue, Vietnam

For more photographs see post Picture of Hue The other touristy thing we did was to visit the abandoned water park. We let the hotel manager book our lift, his relative, to take us there. The water park was officially long closed but the security guard on the gate turned a blind eye to visitors ‘sneaking in’ for a set fee, explained to us in advance by the hotel manager and the driver. The driver asked us how long we wanted and then arranged to pick us up, he wasn’t allowed near the entrance and had to drop us discreetly on the path. We walked down to the gate, paid the security guard, and he pointed us to a track.

It was a bit of a walk through what reminded me of Norfolk, England, where my mum walks her dog, or where the festival we go to is held. Like heath land, dusty paths, heather, bracken, patchy trees and scrub.

The first thing we saw was the big painted dragon at the entrance, faded and distressed but all the better for that. We had brought water with us, and snacks, not expecting there to be anything there, but there was a woman who had set up a little stall with cold drinks and two hammocks under the trees; very enterprising. We bought cans of Red Bull. On the bridge/walkway leading to the dragon there was a Western couple, she had dyed pink hair and tattoos, they looked punky/alternative. They were taking pictures of themselves and seemed kind of impatient for us to pass. ‘What, don’t you want us in it?’ Anthony said. Even the cool people are obsessed with selfies, everyone is.

Inside the dragon was a staircase, everything moulded out of fibreglass, cracked, plants growing through, graffiti, the paint colours had become interesting over time, sepia, tea, burnt yellow. The staircase led up to the top and from inside the dragon’s mouth was a view out across the water and the park.

Our guesthouse was on a narrow street with a few small restaurants and bars, including small places with bench seats or plastic tables and chairs, a cabinet selling cigarettes; hotels and hostels and massage places. At the either end were bigger streets, beyond one end was a market area used by locals, the other end had shops selling luggage and back packs and led onto the tourist area.

Hue had lots of massage places, karaoke places and hairdressers. Many women had glamorous hair. Between our place and the market area there were lots of hairdressers; some were tiny with just enough room for two clients and two hairdressers side by side. On the main roads there were formal karaoke places but people also just did it themselves, near our place on the way to the market we passed a front room with a family sitting on a front room floor with food dishes and one person with a microphone belting out songs.

The other end led to the tourist bit past lots of shops, we passed whole shops selling crash helmets- people wear them in Vietnam. In the tourist area we passed a smart clothes shop with women cutting out fabric on the floor, a toddler was wandering around with a cutter in their hand, which worried me, ‘Let it go Rachel,’ Anthony said. I admired a thin young white and brown cat that was just inside the shop, a woman who was just coming out smiled at me, picked it up, and put the cat into my arms in one swift movement. I was transported into a blissful cat cuddling reverie. ‘How long are we going to stay here, just asking,’ Anthony said.

Beyond this area was the riverside tourist area with restaurant boats and people trying to get visitors onto them, a big bar, and a beautifully lit circular building- a restaurant- lit with changing colours green, pink, blue, yellow, so beautiful. It reminded me of the Winter Gardens in Yarmouth, a smarter version, but nonetheless. Link to blog re why I love Yarmouth so much. We sat on a low wall at the edge of the river near the lit up building and people watched. There were glamorous looking tourists; women in traditional clothes, wide leg trousers, long suits with split, matching hairband, and yellow long fitted dresses, a group of three women in beautiful immaculate outfits, perfect hair and makeup, tall and elegant. A boy aged twelve came up to us and asked if he could talk to us and practice his English, he talked to us for a while in excellent English.

Just before we left we walked beyond the market area, we passed what looked like a nail place, the decor bright shocking pink with Astroturf on walls, it looked like a sitting room with bright pink beds close together, giant teddies, a child and two fluffy dogs one white and one brown running around the room and bouncing about on the beds. It looked like the set of a wacky children’s television programme. We walked over the bridge and crossed the river, suddenly a world away, even from the market area, let alone our street or the tourist area. Beside the river on the other side were makeshift dwellings like a tiny shanty town. We carried on down the road where there were a few shops and cafes and restaurants and stopped for tea.

The place we chose had crazy decor, the walls looked like a children’s nursery, painted with giant pink snails, insects, flowers and food, we realised some were probably television characters. We ordered peach iced tea and chips, they also had baguettes, we thought well we could eat here. It’s possible to live on chips and baguettes if not the most healthy option. If people (especially us) were expecting us to come back slim, Vietnam was our undoing with the baguettes and the fries. Of course when we did return, no one was rude enough to say anything though being British.

On the way to the train station from the window of the cab I saw a series of perfect images like art postcards: A woman in black and a conical hat on a shiny bright red brand new looking bicycle. A woman side saddle on the back of a scooter wearing a very short lacy dress, one long leg sticking out with a stiletto shoe. A woman on a bike wearing a black tweed suit jacket and red stilettos. A woman on a bike- bare legs, white stilettos, a hooded top and a pollution mask, she struck me as a perfect example of the Vietnamese style I’d seen. Hue, all legs, flowers and fruit, I said.

Thank you very much for reading

About the author

Sold house, left career, gave away almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Now back 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.

Hue, Vietnam Part One

Tags

Hue, spirituality, Travel, Travel memoir, Travel writing, Traveling, Travelling, Vietnam, Vietnam train journeys, Vietnamese hospitality, writing

 

For more photographs see previous post

Extract from draft chapter: Hue, Vietnam

There were television screens fixed to the ceiling on both sides every few seats, showing adverts on a loop and some programmes including a nature documentary, everything a bit too loud for my sensitive ears.

It felt refreshingly easy to have a relatively short daytime train journey (from Dong Hoi to Hue.) Travelling just three hours south made such a difference in temperature; when we stepped off the train it was just like stepping off a plane at a holiday sun destination. Hot!

In the cab we saw an chay (vegetarian) restaurant and got excited but then we wheeled away. After a few minutes the cab looped back, down a narrow side street. I who have zero natural sense of direction didn’t see this but Anthony said that we were at the other end of the street to the restaurant and then there it was, right opposite our hotel, a big sign ‘An Chay.’

The hotel looked quite smart with a reception desk and shiny polished wood tables downstairs, with a well dressed looking manager in a white shirt and chinos and smartly dressed female staff in skirts and blouses. Our room was lovely, painted white with a window and a balcony both with wrought ironwork. The standard of accommodation seemed very high. ‘Any complaints, I fix,’ the manager said, meaning the reviews online, which are such an important aspect of hospitality and booking now- he addresses everything they raise. We had our own bathroom, which he apologised for, ‘It will be painted’ but it was just fine, luxurious compared to many places we’d stayed. Everything was clean and there was even a fridge in the room and a wardrobe with hangers. Such luxury, for five or six pounds or seven US dollars a night.

We let ourselves have the windows open for a bit as it was still early, not yet mosquito time. The balcony was too narrow to stand out on but it had glass doors that opened and it looked out onto houses made pretty with plants on their balconies.

Breakfast was included there the same as in Dong Hoi, at the shiny wooden tables in the dining area in the reception downstairs, a big chunk of baguette with a dish of teeth-tingling super sweet jam and black coffee. The manager was very friendly and talked with us over breakfast and told us his story. He had left home and paid for an English course and then practised and polished his English with an Australian at the same time as working. Like many people he had come from a poor family and had to learn a whole new language to better his financial prospects. There were a few other guests but we didn’t meet people, it seemed like people were all on a busy itinerary/schedule with tours etc. It didn’t have the hang out do nothing languid chatter of some of the places we’d stayed in India or Nepal.

At the an chay restaurant we ate a hot pot, it was a classic dish but we’d been scared to order at other places we’d seen it in case it had meat or meat stock in. The hot pot, a metal saucepan with a lid, comes to the table on a gas burner, very hot and bubbling away, with a separate big white plate with uncooked mushrooms, the long thin white ones, on top of a bed of greens, plus a plate of cold rice noodles and small white bowls. You add the mushrooms and greens into the hotpot, which already has vegetables,and herbs including big sticks of lemongrass and three kinds of tofu, turn it down, wait for a few minutes and serve yourself. You put some of the rice noodles in the bowl, add some of the hot pot on top, which heats the noodles (and also the noodles help cool it as it is so hot) and Voila! It’s a work of art, an activity, a nourishing meal, kind of simple and complex at the same time, a beautiful experience.

If Vietnam had the best fruits of any country we’d been, Hue had the best fruits of Vietnam. Anthony went out alone one day and bought a bag of fruit from women selling fruit on the pavement in the market area. ‘I don’t know what I got,’ he said, ‘she just took control and gave me stuff.’ One looked a bit like a passion fruit or a pomegranate from the outside, inside it was pale pink and fleshy with a white centre and a stone, and the fruit dripped milk. You couldn’t make it up, I couldn’t have imagined something like that. I was enchanted, enraptured by the fruit. Another kind of fruit was dark purple on the outside, inside there was a pink firm and spongy layer which seemed not to be for eating, and inside that were white segments a bit like lychees but arranged in the round in segments like satsumas.

As well as the fantastic fruit, the vegetables were lovely too; we found another place to eat further along our alleyway that did stir fry vegetable dishes with big chunks of vegetables, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower, alongside soft white tofu baked in tiny rounds. At the an chay place one day we asked the woman what the green vegetable was that was sliced with bobby edges, like a circle drawn with a very shaky hand, it tasted strong like pickle. She brought a whole one to show us it looked like a knobbly, spiky cucumber. ‘What is it called in English? She asked. ‘We don’t know,’ we said, ‘we don’t have.’

We did two touristy things. We walked to a small palace, it was very hot, we stopped at a bakery on the way and bought buns and cans of weird drink, strange tea in a can, they let us take two plastic red chairs and sit outside.

Even though the walk was hot and tiring it was good to walk and see the shops, especially the women’s clothes shops with outfits on mannequins and rows of skirts or tops on hangars. Black office skirts or short skirts in black and neutral, with women’s fitted shirts; little denim shorts and t shirts- the women here covered the top half of their bodies from the sun- pinafore dresses with white blouses, and amazing sparkly princess dresses. We passed a shop just selling pyjamas, in the window were mannequins in typical pyjamas, silky button through shirt tops with loose trousers.

In the street we saw women wearing traditional style long dresses and trousers, lacy dresses, jeans or active wear and t shirts, comfy clothes in matching colours, and pyjamas. The Vietnamese men were very handsome and the women were so beautiful. Hue had the least amount of cars we had seen in Vietnam, more scooters, and more use of scooters for everything; we saw a scooter with a flat trailer on the back with a big tree in a pot.

The palace was quite small, and reminded us of an English National Trust house; with vintage/antique wallpaper, gold seats and paintings. There were no ropes or glass for protection, just signs and hardly any restricted areas.

On the walk back we stopped at a coffee place. I ordered coffee and Anthony ordered ginger tea and we both got the standard free iced tea on arrival which had a hint of caramel. Anthony’s ginger tea was a work of art; a ginger tea bag, saucers with salt, sugar, lime, ginger, and balls like hard dried truffles maybe a herb bundle or root of some kind, and an orange slice. Salt and sugar together was quite common in Vietnam, maybe for the hot weather and rehydration like the salt and sugar lemon sodas in India. It was so hot that we were astonished to see women in padded jackets, and one woman go past on a scooter in a padded parka with a fur hood.

Along the streets in amongst the trunks of trees were shrines, on the way back we saw one with dragons, it was made out of concrete and built into the tree. Another had once-lit cigarettes which were now pillars of ash, standing upright alongside the incense. So many people smoked in Vietnam, tailor made cigarettes were cheap and everywhere, as if the health message hadn’t reached yet.

Part Two on Sunday

Thank you very much for reading

About the author

Sold house, left career, gave away almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Now back 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.

‘Order beer with your breakfast we won’t judge you’ Siem Reap Cambodia

Tags

Cambodia, Mindful travel, mindfulness, Siem Reap, Slow travel, Travel, Travel fatigue, Travel writing, Traveling, Travelling

Extract from my (draft) travel memoir

Even from the road the hotel looked good: shiny, clean and smart with a cream facade and at the front a blue swimming pool; to our eyes it was like a pop star’s luxury residence.  The outside was neatly paved, with pots of bright pink and orange flowers, and lots of pretty summer shoes outside the entrance.  As it was early our room wasn’t ready so we waited at the bar/restaurant: fruit salad, baguette and jam, and lots of coffee.  We met two women sitting at the next table, one from South Africa, one, younger, from England, they’d met on a previous trip and decided to do a trip together.  We went on about India and how great it was.  The younger woman didn’t like India, she said she’d got hassle from men.  She was the only person we’d met who hadn’t liked India.  But of course there’s a flipside to every country, no point pretending otherwise.

The reception staff, young men with good haircuts, were lovely and friendly, they did us a hand drawn map of directions to the barbers for Anthony and a place that did proper massage for me.  ‘Not like-’ he mimed someone giving a very lazy massage and chatting- ‘Ten dollars please.’

The room was big and clean, painted white with its own bathroom with a hot shower and towels provided.  The bed had white sheets, duvet and pillows.  The headboard was solid wood, shiny and carved, mid colour wood not pine not mahogany but sturdy and heavy.  At the other end of the room was a wardrobe with double sliding mirror doors, it was like having my own private yoga studio!  A desk and chair, two bedside tables, and everything so clean and polished and shiny.  That room, although no more expensive than our average, felt luxurious.

I had read about travel fatigue in someone’s Instagram post.  As well as the normal missing friends and family, dealing with the stresses and strains- unfamiliar foods, new places- of travel; some people also over schedule, moving from place to place too fast, packing the days with long tours, and over photographing everything.  There was no danger of us doing that but we still got tired sometimes, especially when ill in Delhi, hence why we cut our plan to travel around Rajasthan down to a month in Pushkar.

Nearby the hotel were smaller restaurants, cycle hire places and travel agencies.  A short walk away was the main food area with lots of restaurants, pubs and an indoor market which we had a look around.  I became temporarily enamoured with glazed and decorated bowls made from coconuts, elephant purses and checked scarves, the prices going down as I looked without me doing or saying anything.  Other than a pair of sunglasses to replace my ones from Phnom Penh which had broken, I didn’t buy anything, and the feeling of wanting things soon wore off.

That first night we had tofu, pad Thai, ‘no fish sauce,’ staff familiar with vegetarians which was good, and fresh mango juice, thick and gloopy, ‘sexy in the mouth’ like the noodles of the first night in Bangkok and then later our first night in Cambodia in Phnom Penh.

There were lots of big Westernised bars and restaurants as well as street stalls with small plastic tables and chairs on the pavement, stalls on the back of motorbikes, plugging into power supplies installed on trees.

The room in Siem Reap represented real comfort and luxury; especially after a week in a tent, with everything sandy.  On the polished wood bedside table, my lipbalm, my kohl eyeliner, my earrings, a charcoal face pack I was excited to buy from the 7/11, and my new glamorous (but cheap) black mirror sunglasses which I always kept there, the ceiling fan reflected in them.

We’d noticed shrines in Koh Rong, here there was a big one in the hotel foyer, and another big one in the restaurant we went to most often.  Every day fresh; two cans of coke; a can of drink, cups of coffee, a cup of tea in a glass cup; two glass cups of hot drink; two apples; a bunch of bananas; a basket/bowl of all sorts of fruit; fruit and veg; stacks of money; a bunch of incense, something new every day.  It was like the morning rituals we watched in Pushkar, shop keepers sprinkling water and lighting incense before the working day began.

I wondered if we should do it at home, make a shrine, have a morning ritual, make a tea for the shrine, light incense, set an intention, not directly from or connected to a recognised religion.  Anthony said religious practices look like a kind of OCD sometimes; he once had a friend who used to walk around the room fifteen times before he went out, everyone thought it was a big problem but Anthony always wondered why was it a problem, why not just accept that it was something that he did, like a kind of ritual.  Like I could change my OCD checking of the taps before I go out into a mini ritual, say thank you for having water.

The restaurant where we ate regularly was open to the street, we watched people going past on motorbikes and scooters and parking outside.  I liked looking at people’s clothes, a lot of the women looked quite glamorous in lacy dresses and one day we saw a woman with astonishingly long hair.  On the opposite side of the road there were shops, I saw a bird going in and out of an electrical box, a small box on a pole with a slit; I saw that in front of the shops next to it there were also boxes with birds nesting in.

At the restaurant, I was excited to notice that there were fans reflected in my sunglasses again, just like in the room.  Anthony pointed out that I put them on the table facing up, and fans are on the ceiling… Another time, in the market, I saw my sunglasses reflected in two big blocks of ice.

We talked a lot over meals at the restaurant.  I noticed that we were able to discuss things like politics better without annoying each other or getting annoyed.  It’s not so much that we disagree on big picture stuff, more that the way we approach things is different and used to cause conflict during discussions.  Each difficulty this year has moved us forward in terms of how we handle discussions, personal issues and the way we are together….  Part two on Sunday

Thank you very much for reading

Kanyakumari, India: photographs

Tags

Colours of India, Incredible India, India, Indian houses, Kanyakumari, Love India, Travel, travel blogging, Travel memoir, Travel writing, Traveling, Travelling

Here is a link to my blog post about Kanyakumari from July last year

Thank you for visiting

About the author

Sold house, left job, gave away almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Now back 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.

‘No Drugs, No Prostitutes, No Weapons:’ Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Part Two

Tags

awareness, Cambodia, guesthouses, hostels, Incredible India, Love India, Phnom Penh, spiritual enlightenment, spiritual memoir, Travel memoir, Traveling, Travelling, writing

Draft chapter for book about our time in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in January

‘No Drugs, No Prostitutes, No Weapons:’ Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I got my laundry ready the first day, but forgot to take it out with us, and after dinner it was closed.  Even getting it ready was enough.  Likewise with shopping, I had tried to do it all on the first day.  I bought a few things, they didn’t have everything, at a friendly shop on our road near the laundries, but didn’t make it to the 7/11 style supermarket until the next day.  We flew with low weight and needed to buy shampoo etc on arrival.  The first day and night was enough stimulation- I was over stimulated, walking through the bar street I felt tired.  Noticing my tendency to overdo and crash.  Don’t have to do everything all at once.

The next day we found a real stationers, an entire shop selling stationery, I bought a really nice notebook, and gel pens!!!   I had brought enough for the trip, given away some in thanks for my monkey tablet rescue in Hampi, and so had just run out.  And at the ‘7/11’ there was soya milk, face cream, body moisturiser, Vaseline, Nivea, makes, luxury four blade razors, and all kinds of biscuits!  Almost all cream was whitening again like in Thailand. and Japan and sunblock went up to Factor 100.  I bought big thick sunscreen; I had slacked in India and let my skin go chicken skin-ish.  Never mind, they are the tiger stripes or stretch marks of the experience.  Simple pleasures; stocking up on necessary items such as soap etc, and also nuts, and getting our laundry back, done in washing machines, with little tickets when you took it in, felt so good.

Mobile rickshaw or motorbike stalls often had a phrase on a loop coming out of a speaker; we’d hear a vehicle going past with a repetitive, monotonous announcement, it sounded so serious to us.  In India it would have been politics trucks, here it was someone selling snacks or corn on the cob or coconuts; the coconuts in Cambodia were the biggest I’d ever seen.  There were handcarts with bells, and noisy kids’ toys like in Thailand.  Again, I noticed the difference in noise tolerance between South East Asian countries and the UK.  One day a bicycle with a loudspeaker blaring out a repeated an announcement just parked in the street near our guesthouse selling filled baguettes.  It would have driven me insane but the stall person and the passersby seemed unperturbed.

We mostly ate at a pavement cafe on the front, there was free iced tea, we risked it the first time; later we looked up about ice.  If it is big chunks with a hole in, which this was- chunky cylinders with a hole through the middle like very large beads- that’s good, that’s for drinks.  Otherwise it could just be from packing- we saw great slabs of ice on trolleys, beautiful like glaciers with air bubbles and fractures and the light shining through it.  We might have been more nervous about eating there but we saw a Westerner there who looked like a regular.  Normal sized plastic tables and chairs that spilled onto the pavement, the cooking was mainly done out the back, with some barbecue meat inside and out the front.  Inside the restaurant was a glass fronted wooden cabinet full of nail polishes, as if someone had a sideline doing nails.

On the way to the restaurants, we passed a glorious gold and red temple, so shiny as if it had just been built.  We saw a rickshaw with Astroturf over the roof and down to the top of the window, and at the front over the wheel.  There were lots of barbers set up on the street who kept asking Anthony to come and have his hair cut.  Before we left he did go to them and was given a typical Khmer haircut, a little too short at the sides for him.  But except for the barbers and a man outside a restaurant who asked us a couple of times if we wanted to eat there, that was it.  Compared to Varkala Cliff, Kerala, India where there was a strip of ten or so restaurants and twenty or so stalls, with everyone practically begging us to eat or shop at their place every time we walked past.  In India tourists can feel permanently pulled and guilty and buy to support not because they need or want anything.  At Bangkok airport we met a man who was just returning to the UK after a holiday in Goa, India.  ‘I’ve bought so many shorts and t shirts and I didn’t even want them!’

We went to the night market and saw Marilyn Monroe style silver lurex and red velvet plunging neckline dresses.  There were lots of bright colour designs printed on t shirts and shirts.  I saw a woman wearing a shirt, so bright and with two big faces on the front, one on each side.  In the evenings women often wore pyjamas in the street, usually button through shirts and three quarter length trousers; one evening a woman walked towards us wearing pink shiny pyjamas which were luminous in the dark.

But… it soon didn’t seem enough, after India it seemed too tame, too touristy, not authentic enough and no engagement.  It wasn’t like India in Pushkar  or Chennai.  No cosmic recognition, we didn’t meet any of the young tourists, families or ex pats around us.  And after all our complaining towards the end of India about selfie takers, I missed the attention.  Not because I liked feeling like a celebrity (okay maybe a little…) but because it was positive interaction with the people of the country.

We missed India.  All the things we had been annoyed about, we missed.  Really like a love affair, you may be annoyed by your wife doing xxx or your husband doing xxx but when they’re gone, oh you miss those things.

I drank coffee French press good strong coffee and wrote downstairs in the restaurant.  Sometimes it was hard to concentrate, with families and other guests talking and playing guitar.  The coffee was great for writing, not so good for sleep; I caught myself out a couple of times having coffee too late in the afternoon and then wondering why I couldn’t sleep at night.

It was whirring around my head so I wrote it down, the What’s Next, and then the word document disappeared.  I had emailed it to myself as back up so I could’ve found it in my emails, but would that really be best?  Is it beneficial to live in the future?  No.  Was losing my What’s Next? ideas a ‘coincidence?’  There’s no such thing as coincidences.  What’s another word then, synchronicity?  Serendipity?  Signs you are on the right track?  Assistance for staying on track?

Rather than trying to plan for or worrying about The Future, it came to me that a useful self support system could be to make spiritual enlightenment or awareness the goal or guiding aim or principle of one’s life rather than anything else.  That way you’ll always be okay because you can do that whatever, wherever, and anything can help.

Thank you very much for reading

About the author

Sold house, left job, gave away almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Now back 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.

For more photographs of the trip see Instagram travelswithanthony