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Other entries in Southampton

Around the World in 150 Days

I have come full circle and ended up exactly where I started. But this does not signify failure. I have been round the world and back and have had an adventure and a half. I am listening attentively to Ravi Shankar as he skillfully plays the sitar. The mystical eastern notes are dancing around me and shivers are zipping down my spine as I reminisce about lands far away. Memories flood back to me. People keep asking me 'So! Bridie (and her bag) what was the best bit?!' What a question, quite impossible to answer! But what an alluring challenge....

Although every country that I visited offered me different insights and inspirations, India holds a certain significance for me. Since visiting in 1993 I have always had an urge to return, and now it has captured me, I am fascinated and hypnotised. The Indian people are so characterful, so full of life. The country is so diverse, so fascinating, so vast. India is where I was most stunned, most disgusted, most shaken up, and most impressed. India was where I laughed the most and where I was most constantly surprised. The most obvious and explosive memories are from this time; characters that will not easily leave my mind.

Firstly, our Ayervedic massage teacher, with his brown pot belly, sitting cross legged and teaching us about the chakras.  And then there's our friend Nagrami or 'Blue Sky', our friend working in Hotel Comfort in Chennai, who keenly brought us cups of coffee 'Chinni Nai' bursting in without knocking at any given opportunity and making us weep with incredulous laughter at his willingness to serve, and his happy, happy smiling face. Who could forget the grumpy mustached man in the GPO in central Mumbai, who refused to sign our bit of paper until 'after the lunch break', who then proceeded to put up a cardboard notice saying ON LUNCH BREAK and sit there eating his sandwich for 45 minutes whilst we patiently watched and waited. And then the unforgettable time the policemen in Cochin City wouldn't let us leave our hotel because we didn't have our passports with us. On making a call to his senior after five hours of me huffing & puffing in an overstated English accent, he put down the phone and said very solemnly, in his strong Indian accent - 'I'm afraid you must return home immediately Miss Ashton'. And then proceeded to roar with laughter when he saw my horrified face, until tears rolled from his eyes.

With no doubt, it has been the people who have made my trip. Strangers, who have become friends, who in turn will become memories. Meeting so many interesting characters, locals and travelers alike, has given me an unexpected appreciation for the human race. We are a beautiful species! Our diversity is astounding. I have grown rather fond of us, of our achievements and our failings, of our imaginations and our abilities and our differences. I am so happy to have been able to observe cultures and habitations, to widen my horizons and see what people are making of their part in the world. Thousands of faces are etched in memory, some to fade and some to linger. I have also happily grown closer to my own. I have learnt and grown and explored with Gemma, and with Manny, and with Gemma and Manny. Gemma especially, has seen me at my very worst, and yet she remains a faithful friend. Traveling has highlighted certain qualities in her which have provided me with the confidence and stability needed for an otherwise daunting trip. And it is deemed true on the traveling circuit that if you can hack traveling with your partner - then it must be love. I have found also that being so far away has ironically brought me closer to people I may not have otherwise been in touch with here in England.

The diversity of the world's religions has been a constant source of fascination for me. Never have I stepped outside of my own environment to see that not all the world is centralised around the Christian religions. Never have I seen so many people living their faith with such passion, creativity and colour as the Hindus. They celebrate their beliefs and their Gods as a part of their daily life and with such exuberant significance. Witnessing their devotion is inspiring, as they worship their multi-coloured and multi-armed Gods at the temple. Sitting with the Buddhist monks in their orange robes with Manny in Thailand taught me much about the eastern religion. And then of course, on the other end of the scale; and the western worshippers of hedonism in Goa. I have also perhaps observed the perversion of religions and of cultures. An example being perhaps the strangeness of being in the middle of a Fijian jungle, where life is primitive and simple, where the only sign of modernity is a small battery powered radio, yet, on a Sunday the whole village community including the village chief, puts on their Sunday best and plods into town to go to worship at the Christian church. Even here, in the remoteness of it all! I am sure that the missionaries that visited this village were full of love and good intention but to me, being there it seemed sadly like an unnecessary perversion of culture.

I have witnessed living examples of the widening crevice between the rich and the poor. In Cambodia I worked with some of the worlds poorest children and saw life through their eyes if not for a few days. I learnt of my own personal wealth, and was able to see just how luxurious my life is in comparison to the world's majority. I will never forget sitting in the back of a dusty dark little antique shop in Vietnam, with the bright eyed shop owned who kindly sewed up my torn skirt for nothing but my company. She spoke perfect English and we sat and chatted for hours. She could not believe that I was just 22 and on a trip visiting at least seven countries. It seemed impossible to her, she had never been able to afford to leave Vietnam, despite her shop being open well into the night.

I have been learning in a very real way that the western lifestyle is a very large part of our world, and a part that is growing in confidence and size. It appears to me in comparison to the east, greedy and impersonal. The western standards of living do not make room for nature and the slow paced appreciation of life. We, the rich, the ‘educated' have always led the way, we are bigger, better, stronger. But our poorer neighbors have much to teach us. Some of the happiest people I met were the poorest and lived the simplest lives. I feel privileged to have visited parts of the world where people are unaffected by commercialism, not constrained by the ties and the lures of materialism. I have been stunned how many people in the world live in such unadorned existence. Visiting a small village in Fiji revealed to me that some people still do live with little or no contact from the outside world. Needing no electricity and living completely self-sufficiently from the land.

I however, am a western girl in a western world. It is how I live and what I know. My richness does not guarantee my happiness, but it is really only with this that I have able to travel in the first place and I am grateful for this. Life in the west certainly has advantages and developments. Indeed, I have adjusted to hospitals and designated diabetes nurses. I depend on supermarkets for my survival. Libraries and resources and the internet feed me knowledge. It cannot be said that either way of life is better, but without question, that life is diverse and as different as it could be across the globe. We can learn from each other.

I keep hearing the phrase 'So! Back to reality...?'. This is not reality. It is merely a reality. Everything I have experienced over the last five months has been real, reality for me is just where I happen to be. I feel strongly that is important to see life as a journey. Just because my clothes are now in drawers and not in my backpack, each day is still an adventure. It doesn't matter where you are in the world; if you are making the most of your experiences in life then it is life that is the journey. Having said this, it is important to conclude that I would, one day, like to repack my reality into my dusty bags and venture forth again to further explore this Little Green Planet. There is so much more to learn, so much more to explore.

As for the weather; my body must fine tune its English thermostat and I must grudgingly dig out those woolies from the attic. What a pleasure it has been to dance in the sunbeams of the tropics!

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