I return to the States soon, can't say how soon because Mom and Dad still don't know. It is soon enough though that I began writing a summery of how I feel as things come to a close. I was blaming my recent 10 days of monastic silence for my inability to express how much this trip has meant to me. Really though, to sum it up, in a witty interesting way, how a trip around the world - but more sincerely through my heart - has changed my own little world, is completely impossible. I'm going to continue to try. Hopefully, at Bottle Beach (see best beaches bellow) I will find some inspiration. For now though, on my 2 year anniversary, all I leave you with are some figures that mean more to me than you. I won't be offended if you skip it. It will leave us something to talk about when I return shortly :)
:::NUMBERS::: (year1/year2)
# of LP's: 8
# of wounds gone septic: 4 (always thinking of Alan, blek)
journals filled: 4 1/2
continents: 5
countries: 28
largest time zone gap: 18 hours
longest train journey: 3 days, GOA --> DEHLI
Overnight treks: 9
hospital visits: 5 (4/1)
friends to visit: 12
haircuts: 3
CD's burned: 25-30
passport stamps: 95 (46/49)
bus rides: 206 (107/99)
boat journies: 84 (52/32)
plane flights: 26
dancing nights: 52 (39/13)
toilets sat on: 83 (43/40) Year 2...mostly squat but many more Guesthouses where I was more inclined to relax :)
bottles of wine consumed: 257 (191/66)
longest period w/o showering: 4 days
::: EXTREMES :::
Best treks: Cerro Llao Llao, Bariloche, Argentina/Helambu-Langtang, Nepal
Best Sunsets: Serengetti/Jaisalmer Desert/ Helambu trek over the clouds
Best Sunrises: all 10 @ Lucknow Vipassana Centre after already meditating 2 hours- music, mist, love/ Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia
Best Book: Shantaram by David Gregory Roberts/ Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Most $$$: England
Least $$$: Nepal
Best Big Cities: Buenos Aires, Kathmandu, Madrid
Worst Big Cities: Lima, Agra
Best Little Places: Shangri-la, Bariloche (too many)
Best Star Gazing: Annapurna Sanctuary Trek, Zambia
Best Beaches: Vilanculos, Mozambique/ Bottle Beach, Thailand (where I am now!)
Best smiles: Tibetans and Thais
Favourite Animal: elephant
new fear: spiders
Best music: British
Worst Music: Thai Pop
Most overplayed music WorldWide: Bob Marley
Craziest Parties: Spain, Laos, Goa
Most Mellow: Nepal
Best Surprise: Bolivia, Romania, Zambia
Biggest Let Down: Peru
Best (and only) work experience: Barmaid at Baobob's Beach
Worst toilet: Bulongshon, China...can still see the maggots
Buddhist precept broke the most: KILLING, I am lethal when it comes to Mozzy Murder
Hottest Local: Jaisalmer, India
Coldest: Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia/ ABC Trek, Nepal
Best Food: Greece, China, India, Natasha's Parents
Worst Food: Hungary (oh the irony)
Best Wine: Mendoza, Argentina
Best Beer outside of Europe: BeerLao, Breweries in Bariloche
Best Pastries: Greece
Best Western Food outside of the West: Kathmandu, OR2K Israeli food
Best Cheese: South Africa
Worst Cheese: India, paneer, blek
:::COUNTRIES VISITED:::
Mexico
Argentina
Bolivia
Peru
Uruguay
Brazil
England
Spain
Germany
Hungary
Austria
Romania
Greece
Kenya
Tanzania
Malawi
Zambia
Botswana
Namibia
S. Africa
Mozambique
India
Nepal
Thailand
Cambodia
Laos
China
Indonesia
Places Added to my Must-See List:
Israel
Mongolia
Tibet
Iran
Egypt
Ireland
Colombia
Russia
Cuba
Western Africa
New Zealand
Places I will definitely return to:
Argentina
Brazil
England
Spain
Greece
China
India
Nepal
Players and Participants (# of visits):
Natasha 6X
Jess 2X
Tim 2X
Lynne 2X
Kristen
Eve
Mom and Dad
Brooke and Leann
Paige
Olly G
Beth
and Hernan
The MVP going to Natasha, having visited one another 6 times, not including the 6 weeks we traveled together in Bolivia and Argentina.
Natasha Chatur:
travel style: wherever, whenever
Dance style: Reggaeton
Fashion style: better than mine
Life style: RockandRoll
I could continue to spout off my highs and lows of this adventure in volumes. I have already done so in my journals. I have taken thousands of photos to document landscapes and architecture and toilets. It is the people who I have met though, that need no documentation, they are guarded safely in my heart. The people are more beautiful than any sand dune, any coral reef, any Patagonian glacier. They are the lovely, amazing people I've met and who have let me into their lives that have made this trip what it is too me, literally: a dream come true. Thank you so much.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
"The simple and astonishing truth about India and Indian people is that when you go there, and deal with them, your heart always guides you more than your head. There's nowhere else in the world where that's quite true." - Gregory David Roberts
This is not traveling. I'm on holiday. Goa is a holiday- it is a release from whatever it is you need to free yourself from. A release from the travels of India: a beautiful coastline full of sunbeds and palm trees, a release from the rumblings in your stomach: menus full of western, eastern and even Indian cuisine, a release from that pain in your neck or gut in your abdominal: massages and yoga to the rescue!!
I'm not going to lie - it feels like I'm cheating. If feels a little too easy in Goa. Of course I went to the Mexican restaurant 2X, I've been craving it since LA. It also means a 40 Rupee samosa when you can find it (not many tourists want street food) knowing you can get them on the train for 5 rupees each (and for 2X as much grease!). I also won't be lying when I say I love it here. Mango juice in pop glasses, live music almost every night, fireworks, cows wandering the beaches, bamboo huts and fresh seafood daily. Who wouldn't want to stay longer, I ask myself as my 6 month visa runs out next week. After talking to a few people about my experiences in the north, I fear I might have frightened them away from the subcontinent forever. This is a grave mistake!!
My 2 month stint in Nepal, separating and soothing my 2 different experiences in India, gave me the break I needed to feel my way through India, instead of think my way. "Sometimes, in India, you have to surrender before you let yourself win." And so I did. Or maybe I was now without expectations. Being the country most heavily looked forward to has it's burdens and maybe I was looking for the wrong things. By far the most rewarding and challenging country, it has stolen a special place in my heart. Not that I haven't been reserving a spot for it. Anticipating this wondrous and spicy land for years, it was difficult at first. I was trying hard to create that magic that, of course, only arrives after hope is abandoned.
And so I sit here, sipping my espresso, sighing that sigh only a tourist village can provide knowing that the "real" India is a 5 minutes walk where tomorrow I will catch 2 buses to Anjuna for the Wed market. A 2 hr journey, I know, I took it from the train station yesterday in a moment where I thanked at least 8 ppl for their kindness before collapsing off the bus. You see, I fainted on the bus yesterday night. Packed in like sardines, standing, there was no need to hold on to the bars because there was no room to fall. Or so I thought. Sweating a waterfall I'd never sweat in my life, I thought it was strange even if we were that packed, it wasn't that warm. The last thing I remember before the man asked, "My friend?! My dear Friend?! Are you OK Madam??" was me telling him, "I'm very sorry sir, I think I'm going to faint" and then falling to his knees. With more compassion than I've ever felt from a group of people; a group of people that 20 minutes before were so concerned with their standing room (kicking, shoving, shouting and scratching) had turned their concern to a stranger. I was offered a bottle of water, a woman to hold my bags, a man to guard my backpack--taken off my shoulders by another man, an elderly woman to offer me her entire frame to lean upon and a man, when noticing the younger man taking advantage of my closed eyes and trying to feel for my sides, shoved so violently the molester from the moving bus and offered me his seat. This is the India I've fallen in love with. This is the India I was hoping for.
I'm reading a memoir of a man who escaped an Australian prison and fled to Bombay (Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts). In a passage I read yesterday, a group of mafia dons were describing suffering and how it is impossible to know happiness without it. They are each others equals and opposites. It made me think, in the last 5 years, I've gone from suffering the most I have in my short life....to being the happiest. This makes me excited for the future and all of the unimaginable possibilities it possesses. It also elates me that it is in India, where I feel I have begun to perfect my skills for enjoying the simple beauty of the present.
Enough now! See what this place has done to me?! Off to Thailand now to see what other adventures life wants to throw at me...well food really. I'm all about the food.
Happy 2009, wishing you all
Love and Laughter;
Health and Happiness
This is not traveling. I'm on holiday. Goa is a holiday- it is a release from whatever it is you need to free yourself from. A release from the travels of India: a beautiful coastline full of sunbeds and palm trees, a release from the rumblings in your stomach: menus full of western, eastern and even Indian cuisine, a release from that pain in your neck or gut in your abdominal: massages and yoga to the rescue!!
I'm not going to lie - it feels like I'm cheating. If feels a little too easy in Goa. Of course I went to the Mexican restaurant 2X, I've been craving it since LA. It also means a 40 Rupee samosa when you can find it (not many tourists want street food) knowing you can get them on the train for 5 rupees each (and for 2X as much grease!). I also won't be lying when I say I love it here. Mango juice in pop glasses, live music almost every night, fireworks, cows wandering the beaches, bamboo huts and fresh seafood daily. Who wouldn't want to stay longer, I ask myself as my 6 month visa runs out next week. After talking to a few people about my experiences in the north, I fear I might have frightened them away from the subcontinent forever. This is a grave mistake!!
My 2 month stint in Nepal, separating and soothing my 2 different experiences in India, gave me the break I needed to feel my way through India, instead of think my way. "Sometimes, in India, you have to surrender before you let yourself win." And so I did. Or maybe I was now without expectations. Being the country most heavily looked forward to has it's burdens and maybe I was looking for the wrong things. By far the most rewarding and challenging country, it has stolen a special place in my heart. Not that I haven't been reserving a spot for it. Anticipating this wondrous and spicy land for years, it was difficult at first. I was trying hard to create that magic that, of course, only arrives after hope is abandoned.
And so I sit here, sipping my espresso, sighing that sigh only a tourist village can provide knowing that the "real" India is a 5 minutes walk where tomorrow I will catch 2 buses to Anjuna for the Wed market. A 2 hr journey, I know, I took it from the train station yesterday in a moment where I thanked at least 8 ppl for their kindness before collapsing off the bus. You see, I fainted on the bus yesterday night. Packed in like sardines, standing, there was no need to hold on to the bars because there was no room to fall. Or so I thought. Sweating a waterfall I'd never sweat in my life, I thought it was strange even if we were that packed, it wasn't that warm. The last thing I remember before the man asked, "My friend?! My dear Friend?! Are you OK Madam??" was me telling him, "I'm very sorry sir, I think I'm going to faint" and then falling to his knees. With more compassion than I've ever felt from a group of people; a group of people that 20 minutes before were so concerned with their standing room (kicking, shoving, shouting and scratching) had turned their concern to a stranger. I was offered a bottle of water, a woman to hold my bags, a man to guard my backpack--taken off my shoulders by another man, an elderly woman to offer me her entire frame to lean upon and a man, when noticing the younger man taking advantage of my closed eyes and trying to feel for my sides, shoved so violently the molester from the moving bus and offered me his seat. This is the India I've fallen in love with. This is the India I was hoping for.
I'm reading a memoir of a man who escaped an Australian prison and fled to Bombay (Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts). In a passage I read yesterday, a group of mafia dons were describing suffering and how it is impossible to know happiness without it. They are each others equals and opposites. It made me think, in the last 5 years, I've gone from suffering the most I have in my short life....to being the happiest. This makes me excited for the future and all of the unimaginable possibilities it possesses. It also elates me that it is in India, where I feel I have begun to perfect my skills for enjoying the simple beauty of the present.
Enough now! See what this place has done to me?! Off to Thailand now to see what other adventures life wants to throw at me...well food really. I'm all about the food.
Happy 2009, wishing you all
Love and Laughter;
Health and Happiness
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