So where does one start when trying to sum up the most intense 10 months of one’s life? Writing this round-up of my trip round the world has been something that I’ve dreaded and tried to put off for as long as possible (as some of you are only too keen to remind me!). However, as with everything in life, the story never really ends and, now that I know where the tale is heading, it’s time to finish off one episode in order to move on to the next. This and the next chapter will be the final entries on ‘Finbar Goes Round the World’ but I will be starting up a new blog ‘The Road to Hell’ from Friday December 9th. Don’t worry, I’ll post the address on here for those who are interested…and for anybody with a sadistic streak, I promise plenty of entertainment.
So, to begin: I’ve noticed the predilection in recent years for the compilation of lists and the general synthesis of information into small, manageable chunks. For the benefit of those people who’ve enjoyed the blog by means of reading photo captions and looking at the pictures, here is a FAVOURITES vs. LEAST FAVOURITES list. (For those who had the time and patience to wade through the 186,000 (!!!) words I’ve posted since last September, you’ll probably have a deeper understanding of the things I loved and hated…but this is just a reminder.)
My favourite:
Country to travel in - Malawi – friendly people, beautiful & varied landscapes, ease of independent travel, cheap and relaxed.
City - Singapore – vibrant, clean, amazing food and the most beautiful women in the world.
Journey - Everest Base Camp Trek – some of the most awesome scenery and for the pure physical challenge.
Place to see more of - Cambodia – the wild jungles of Ratanakiri & Mondulikiri and the southern shore of Tonle Sap & revisiting Angkor, Phnom Penh & Serendipity Beach.
Music - Trance...obviously!! In particular, the sublime ‘Euphonious’ by David J, which he brought out to me in Thailand.
Food - Argh!! All of it…but especially Vietnamese, Thai, Filipino, Singaporean & Korean.
Restaurants - Vijit Restaurant, Bangkok; Thamel Brasserie, Kathmandu; Any food court, Singapore
Cooks / Chefs - Sarita (Ram’s wife), Komala-Didi, Jan at Mayoka Village
Strange thing - Breathing underwater – yes, okay, I’m talking about Scuba diving…
Day - River tubing in Vang Vieng
Fellow traveller nationality (not Brits) - Canadian and American (trust me!)
Locals - Malawi
Man made object - Angkor Wat!!
Natural object / place - Mt. Ama Dablam, Nepal
Airline - Singapore. Beautiful, attentive cabin crew, great seats, loads of leg room and superb in-flight entertainment.
Achievement (physical) - Reaching Everest Base Camp
Achievement (psychological) - Walking into a school of 11-18 yr olds, with no teaching experience, no syllabus and no text books...and succeeding as a teacher.
Experiences - The whole trip - but, especially working with the
children of Samata School and Open Arms Infant Home.
My least favourite:
Country to travel in - Vietnam. Too commercial, travel was pre-packaged & uninvolving, hard to find the ‘real’ Vietnam
City - Kathmandu – despite the amazing experiences I had there, too dirty, smelly and hassling!
Journey - Siem Reap to Bangkok by road. Ramshackle, tiny minibus, warzone roads & no air-con!!.
Place to see more of - Vietnam...4 weeks was plenty enough for me!
Music - R&B...zoiks!! Especially the stuff blaring out of the Cactus Bar on Haad Rin, where we’d daftly agreed to meet the others.
Food - Western Tibet…yuk!
Restaurants - Anything in Tibet outside Lhasa!
Cooks / Chefs - The chef at our hotel in Lhatse, Tibet…
Strange thing - The unbelievable filthiness of bank notes in Nepal…probably support their own eco-systems! ;-)
Day - Christmas Day alone in Bangkok
Fellow traveller nationality (not Brits) - French (apart from Ludo)and Israeli (apart from the Chiang Mai gang)
Locals - Vietnam
Man made object - Anything Chinese in Tibet
Natural object / place - None
Airline - Air Canada...but only for losing my bag en route to Seoul, despite reassurance.
Achievement (physical) - Getting the squits on the way up Pulchowki, Kathmandu Valley
Achievement (psychological) - Allowing myself to be hustled out of cash by the bus operator from Siem Reap, when I knew he was probably dodgy.
Experiences - Becoming aware of the sordid child sex-trade in Cambodia. And seeing the casual manner in which Western sex-tourists flaunt their predilections both there and in Thailand.
And for the stats freaks amongst you here’s a few little numbers to get your blood racing: 186,000 words; over 1000 posts to this blog; 2700 photos taken – of which, at least 250 were of sunrises or sunsets; about 3500 e-mails (almost every single one replied to individually!); countless msn chats with good friends and the occasional phone call. For those of you who managed to stay in regular contact – thank you so much. You’ve kept me sane and reminded me that I’m loved…and most of all you’ve kept me in touch with reality and reminded me of who I am and where I come from. So much so, that being back has mostly felt like I’d never been away.
And so, to the final question – in my mind the most important question – what have I learnt? Well, patience has never been one of my strongest attributes and, unfortunately, I suspect I now have even less patience with people who don’t realise how good their life is over here…I’ve seen the other side of life and I know that the world is full of people who live in the most appalling conditions, who have nothing material and know only struggle and hard work…and yet, somehow, accept this with good grace and get on with it wearing a smile. I simply have no time for people who can’t appreciate what they have and even moan about it. However, there are two kinds of patience and I’d like to think that after my experiences I am calmer and more patient in situations where I’m forced to wait and there’s nothing to be done about it. Hopefully the beneficial effect on my blood pressure will mean that I actually live past 50 now…
Some of you may be horrified to know that I have learnt to believe in myself more – even in the toughest situations. I’m not saying that I’ve ever been lacking in confidence but perhaps the challenges I’d faced in life prior to my trip had never been enough to shake that confidence to its very roots. Two situations on this journey had me sufficiently worried to question my ability to succeed and coming through them both has given me a nigh-on indestructible core of belief in my abilities and my way of life.
Mentally, teaching at Samata School in Kathmandu was the scariest job I’ve ever taken on – particularly as the true nature of the challenge only became apparent after I’d started. Not only had I been unprepared for the specific problems of that situation but I had just spent 4 months loafing to my hearts content and I was out of shape mentally as well as physically. To merely come through it would have been immensely satisfying but to feel like I’d done something useful; to feel like I’d helped these kids and to share in their success; to have earned their respect and affection by truly teaching them something new…that is the most amazing feeling I’ve ever had in my life. When the chips were down I was able to dig deep and come up with the goods and that is something I’ll always have with me.
On the physical side of things it’s probably true to say that I’d given up any realistic expectations of fitness long before I went away. My rugby career had been curtailed by a back injury and, despite long hours on the dancefloor, my ever-expanding waistline was fighting to become the first part of me to grow old disgracefully. I really didn’t think of walking up a few hills with a rucksack as being heavy exercise…but I guess when those hills are the Himalayas and your rucksack weighs 20kg, walking takes on a whole new meaning. Starting the Jomsom trek with Don was a serious shock to the system and I realise in retrospect that without a mainly vegetarian diet during the previous two months, I’d have been suffering the same issues as him on the way to Muktinath. The pounds I’d already lost were vital for my weak legs and flabby cardio-vascular system. A day later, of course, I was devastated at having to leave him in Jomsom when he went down with the squits but by then, I already knew that this was a physical challenge that I could not put down…it was something I had to do. The following 6 days were full of relentless toil – don’t doubt that I enjoyed my surroundings, my food and the company (of Michael and Suriya) but do realise that I sank, exhausted, into my sleeping bag every night. By the time Don and I were reunited, I’d lost a lot of weight and he was calling me ‘Stick-Timmy’. In all honesty, completing the Jomsom trek with its daily quota of steep ascents and descents is probably the most I’ve ever asked of my body in such poor shape. Looming ahead of me though was the prospect of the Everest Base Camp trek at altitudes more than 2000 metres higher than the Jomsom trek. I’d suffered enough at 3200 metres…what would I be like at 5300? I very nearly didn’t go on the EBC trek and it was only my fascination with the place (after reading ‘Into Thin Air’ and ‘The Climb’) that guided my decision. In the end, thanks to my Jomsom-found fitness, I completed the trek in good order (only suffering with altitude sickness headaches on the final push to Base Camp on day 8), although I can’t deny that it was extremely demanding at the pace I was setting. Fearing the challenge and still overcoming it was a valuable lesson and another boost to my self-belief.
There have been some less pleasant lessons to learn. Perhaps the hardest one is that even friendships don’t last forever. I knew that the world changed and moved on…I just hadn’t realised that this included all of it…even the bits that I thought were safe and under control. In the end, regardless of our personal strengths, we have to understand that all we can do is try to have a positive influence on those around us and accept that sometimes this just isn’t enough.
Outside of myself, I was also able to learn a few things about the world. First of all, it’s not as big a place as you might think…and certainly not as hard to get to. I appreciate that world-travel has expanded astronomically in the last 10-15 years, making everywhere more accessible but the fact remains that people’s conceptions of distance have still not caught up with this reality. The exponential improvements in communications and computer technology have also really helped to shrink the world – if I’d departed on my trip at the tender age of 23 (as I’d hoped to), there’s no way I’d have been able to take a computer with me, let alone find places to use it or run this blog. This very ease of communication has taken a lot of the problems out of travelling. Without the blog, how difficult would it have been to let so many people know so quickly that Dave and I were safe after the tsunami?
Primarily, though, learning about the world is really learning about people and I’ve seen with my own eyes that the majority of people in this world are inherently good. Yes there is an unfortunate minority who will exploit any situation that gives them an advantage (particularly, it seems, where personal power is the prize) but there’s enough humanity in humankind to make these people irrelevant…as long as those that can, do! This, in my opinion, is the crux of the matter…doing something…and the point I’m trying to make, is that doing something is not as difficult as you might think. I’ve been inspired this year by meeting people like Uttam Sandjel (founder of Samata School in Kathmandu), Birgit Albers (co-ordinator of ‘Back to School’ and my host at Njobvu Backpackers in Monkey Bay, Malawi) and Claire Thomas (National Co-ordinator of SKIP and my good-time buddy from Mayoka Village, Malawi). It was also inspiring and an immense pleasure to renew my acquaintance with Neville & Rosemarie Bevis at Open Arms Infant Home in Malawi. These are extreme examples of people doing something. Getting up off their backsides and really helping people who need it most. Of course, most people have commitments and responsibilities that prevent them from contributing in such a way but I’ve also met hundreds of student and career-gap volunteers and fund-raisers who are doing their bit to support people like this and making vital contributions to the lives of others less fortunate. I urge anybody to get out there and do something if you can – I guarantee you’ll get as much out of it as you put in (and probably considerably more!) and, more importantly, you could be making a real difference to the life of someone who needs it most. For those of you that don’t have the opportunity to get out there and do it yourselves, I’ll be giving you a chance to put your hands in your pockets in the next chapter.
And finally…
I just want to say one final massive thank you to everybody who has supported me and helped or even just thought of me while I was away. If there was one thing I wish I’d done more of, it would be taking photos. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and, much as I may have tried, I have simply been unable to describe to you in enough detail just how amazing and beautiful the world and its inhabitants are. If I’ve inspired one person to go out there and see it for themselves then this blog has served its purpose. I don’t regret a single thing that I’ve done or has happened to me over the last year – I’m so, so glad I went away…and I’m so, so happy to be back.
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