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In Word

On The Road Again… Very Soon!

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I leave Thailand in just over two weeks. That’s when my visa is up. I won’t be coming back straight away as I have for the past year. No. I will instead be packing my bike into a box and flying with it to Delhi! To start an epic bike ride through the Himalayas!

I am both excited and nervous about this. Excited because… I love an adventure… hello!!! And nervous because… its frickin’ India and India is frickin’ scary! Last time I was in India I made myself sick with anticipation about how it would be when I landed. I projected all kinds of dreadful scenarios that, in the end, never came to be. My landing was smooth and wondrous and I hit the ground running with five other travellers and with their help, we easily navigated our way through Calcutta and on to Bodhgaya, Varanasi and Delhi. No ay problema!

But that was then. That time it all worked out! This time? the dreadful scenarios are piling up and pushing themselves into my stream of thought which of course causes me butterflies. All the what ifs!!!

Ahhhhh! This is not my first time around the block! Why the nerves?!

Oh well, here’s hoping it all works out!

Some answers to questions people have asked.

Dude! You got it amazing there… why are you leaving?!
Ha! Totally I got it good here… all things material a guy could possibly want. And the weather to boot! So why am I leaving?

I have been in Thailand one year almost to the day, and despite loving it here, I am totally called to be on the road right now. Longing for crisp mountain air and a good thigh burn up a steep incline. I long to see my breath and gaze across mountain landscape. And yeah… spend a few nights in my tent freezing my butt off!

I want to experience the depth of spirit I remember from my last time in India. Here I’ve become somewhat hedonistic in a way that is not sustainable or even desirable. It  feels kinda empty. Fun! Don’t get me wrong… but lacking depth and meaning.

So where are you going?
Think I already gave that away! India! But NW India to be more precise! When the opportunity presented itself to get back on the bike… My first thought was NW India and more specifically the Manali – Leh Highway. Four hundred and fifty odd kilometres of remote mountain highway that crosses four 4,000 metre passes.

…And Why?
 When I was crossing Central Asia by bicycle… I was driven on by the hopes of cycling the Pamir Highway, another high altitude roadway that for me is the holy grail of the kind of cycling I want to do: Remote, challenging, beautiful, cultural. I didn’t get to do it because at the time the Pamir Highway was closed on account of some political turmoil.

I felt cheated! And wondered if I would ever get a chance to do this route again. Though when my mind focused on NW India and the Manali – Leh highway… it was like, “Yeah, this will more than make up for missing the Pamir Highway!”

Need to give a shout out to Mat and Anna from Poland. Two intrepid cyclists who I met in Kyrgyzstan and then again recently in Koh Lanta! They held me spellbound as they told the story of their ride through NW India… and even after they had gone, I scoured their blog: Getting Nowhere captivated once again by their account of their journey through this remote area. I had written India off as too dangerous a place to travel… and yet herr were these two telling me otherwise.

Are you travelling solo?
Okay no one has actually asked me this, maybe they just assume I am! But I am so excited that, no!!! I am not travelling alone. At least for the first couple of weeks.

I had contacted my friend Heather in London who I stayed with while in London asking if she would mind sending me my stove and water filter that I was storing at her place. And I said, sincerely that if she wanted to join me she was more than welcome! And to my surprised delight… she said, “What the hell? Why not?” A bike expedition she was supposed to go on in Death Valley had been cancelled and she was more that ready for an adventure!

I met Heather in Sucre, Bolivia at a home stay and shared good conversation and a few bike excursions! One in Sucre and also we did the Death Road in La Paz. A wild decent down what’s claimed to be the most dangerous road in the world. Fun!! Clearly we both survived!

As I mentioned Heather was also very kind to host me at her place at the start of my World By Bike adventure. I still have extremely fond memories of that stay and my time sightseeing there. She even biked with me my first day out of London and also joined me from Bristol to Bath during the ‘I don’t know what the hell I’m doing so I will just meander around England’ phase of my world trip.

I was such an unaccomplished rookie cyclist back then and she got to witness some of my freak outs!

Hopefully now after a couple of years on the road and 12,000 km on the bike… I will have a little more panache.

Heather has perhaps as adventurous a soul as I do and I admire her because she has balanced her adventure fix while also maintaining her career as a doctor.

Many many people have taken interest in this thing that I’m doing… though I have been dying for someone to join me in cycling these far reaches of the planet. That Heather has bought the plane ticket and jumped in with both feet gives, for me, much needed external validation to what I’m doing.

Are you ready for this?
In terms of preparing? Hells no! I am scrambling at the moment to save my life!! Ahhhhh! But in the bigger sense of being ready… absolutely. Despite my extended stay in Thailand, I still see myself as a dude on bike exploring the world and I am so ready to get back to that. Needing some perspective actually on the hollowness paradise served up. Behind the good times.

What about this new website?
Alright no one asked me about this either but no one knew about it! I am really excited about having a ‘home’! Not just an account on Travelpod. A place where I can showcase my digital life! My writing, my pictures and my goofy videos! So far this is a work in progress but stay tuned!

Okay I just pushed out over a thousand words! In future posts, I’m going to try and keep it around there and write more often. And yeah I know that this post isn’t the type of writing people have come to expect from me… and I need to work out my nerves before I get back to that!! Weird! Starting a new website like this has left me very self conscious about my writing. here’s hoping that doesn’t last long. Hey! At least it’s informative eh?

 

In Word

Paradise is a place?

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I live in Koh Lanta, Thailand in the lap of luxury high up on a jungle hill, overlooking a beautiful Island dotted inlet. I have at my disposal a lap pool, high speed internet, big screen TV, a scooter, fridge, stove, washing machine,  AC and delicious Thai restaurants five minutes down the road.

And the Ocean another minute past the restaurants. I have friends here and an active social life. I do laps in the pool at least 5 days a week and my body is showing the results… my fear of becoming a bald fat 50 something is looking less and less likely. Well bald yes! What can you do?

I eat very healthy and I fully appreciate what I have. FULLY I have all this at my disposal and plenty of time to enjoy it. I have it all here. I really do!

And yet something is missing! Something that I will probably only figure out once I leave this  place. Which is soon. I know something is missing because for some reason, instead of just enjoying all this luxury and leisure, instead of the well being I would have thought all this would bring me… something feels off!

The place that resembles mostly what paradise should look and feel like, turns out can issue out as hollow an experience as being in a tent in the middle of a central Asian desert. Wait… I actually felt quite connected in that instance!

I could be the only person on the planet who would see this as a good thing!! But I do! To have it all and to still feel this hollowness. How beautiful is that?! It frees me from wanting it all! Or it tells me that having it all is not what it’s about. That life… at least for me does not require the perks to make it feel complete. Or more having all the perks does not necessarily make it complete. But I knew this before… it’s kinda why I’m doing what I’m doing! This travelling and writing gig thing that I’m doing, that I at times don’t know what I’m doing!! It reconfirms for me what my life NEEDS to be about. Passion. Creativity. Adventure. Risk. But this wasn’t the biggest learning from my stay in Lanta.

In Lanta, I experienced comfort, stability, routine. And it was for sure a nice break from my huge bike ride where I was indeed losing perspective. Yet my luxurious break also brought to light an important connection I had not been aware of.

That the hollowness I was struggling with, and had struggled with for… ever, had a twin!

That there was a very strong connection between that hollowness and the anxiety and awkwardness I experience when it comes to connecting with others, even in basic social interactions.

Um yes, that’s right people, even you who know me well! I put up a good face, I knows it… but inside when it comes to connecting… I’m a train wreck!!

It was in Lanta that I fully got this. And it took several instances of anxiety filled social and interpersonal interactions for it to really sink in.
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Hmmmmm. At this point, in a website titled “Journey In Word” and if you get the play on words, you would expect that I would have a spiritual, meaningful solution to this. Nope!

Once it sank in how awkward for me connecting was and how disconnected I felt, I made a ‘desperate’ decision to connect at all costs!

And as it turns out I did know how to connect… drinking!

The moments I look back on the connected moments in my life… these islands of connection… many of them involved alcohol. Some of my favorite memories are of being piss drunk with friends. I know this not to be a permanent solution. I can’t even imagine the person I would be today if I had been at it as hard as I was in College all this time… yet the need I have to connect at the moment, blotted out my usual discernment around alcohol.

Many of the people I like here drink …copiously! And they are good people, I figured if I’m going to connect I need to meet them there.

And what can I say? Holy crap have I been having fun! Holy crap. Feels so good to get to a point where I feel so connected to the people I am partying with it doesn’t matter how I got there. Drunken friends …you complete me!

For the moment this eases the pain of disconnection I struggle with.  And it is also a major reason I am getting off this Island! That and the humidity!

I know that if I stayed, I would deepen this drinking groove …and this does not entice me. I am so enjoying my drunken exploits here! So so soooooo much fun… I just do not want to make it a part of my life. Living here it would be.

So paradise gets put on the back burner! Happy to cycle off to a place where the disconnectedness I struggle with is on account of actually being alone and not on account of feeling alone in the midst of  ample social opportunity.

Oh and the weed thing?! That’s a whole other topic!

In Video, World By Bike

Turkmenistan… First beer in over a month!

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Riding The Afsluitdijk in The Netherlands

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