WANDER-THIRST BY GERALD GOULD

Beyond the east the sunrise; Beyond the west the sea

And East and West the Wander-Thirst that will not let me be;
It works in me like madness to bid me say goodbye, 
For the seas call, and the stars call, and oh! The call of the sky!

I know not where the white road runs, nor what the blue hills are, 
But a man can have the sun for friend, and for his guide, a star;
And there’s no end to voyaging when once the voice is heard, 
For the rivers call, and the road calls, and oh! The call of a bird!

Yonder the long horizon lies, and there by night and day
The old ships draw to home again, the young ships sail away
And come I may, but go I must, and if men ask you why, 
You may put the blame on the stars and the sun, 
And the white road and the sky.

~~ Gerald Gould

Ah, wander-thirst! What a beautiful poem by Gerald Gould. So perfect and true. 

COFFEE BERRIES

I went back home a month ago and the whole estate was full of ripe coffee berries ready to be picked. So beautiful and red. 

'THE BEACH' BY ALEX GARLAND

I spent my whole Sunday, doing one of the best things ever-reading in bed. And I read such an amazing book too, ‘The Beach’ by Alex Garland. I watched the movie adaptation of the book when it first came out but to be honest, don’t remember much of it now. I was browsing through a book store the other day and came across the book and just picked it up on a whim. And I am so glad that I did.

I loved the book. Truth is, I like almost every book I read and every movie I watch unless it is extremely bad. But I didn’t just like this book, I loved it. There is something so appealing about being the only ones on a beautiful untouched beach, co-existing peacefully with the few others with you. But of course, paradise is not always what it seems and I like the way the author manages to bring in that concept in his book.

 The story is so beautiful, emotional, dark and twisted- I could not put the book down once I started. I tried hard to put the book down and do other things but I kept thinking of the protagonist, Richard and what he was going to do next. There is not even one moment in the whole book, where I thought it was even a teeny weeny bit boring. The clichéd word that millions of other people have used to describe millions of other good books is ‘gripping’ and I use it here to say that this book was absolutely ‘gripping’.

For some reason, I cannot stop raving about the book. Granted it’s not the best book in the world, not even close but something about this book really drew me in and kept me captivated from the start to the finish. The plot was so wonderfully exquisite ( I don’t even know if I can use the word in this context but I am) and the characters were so interesting. Alex Garland did such a good job of putting his thoughts down on paper, I think the book is extremely well-written and I loved the protagonist in spite of his extreme flaws.

The book captures the longing to travel, and the difference between a tourist and a traveler. One of Richard’s sayings that I really liked was-“If I'd learnt one thing from travelling, it was that the way to get things done was to go ahead and do them. Don't talk about going to Borneo. Book a ticket, get a visa, pack a bag, and it just happens.” Funny how it comes at a point in my life where I have been all talk with nothing at all happening on the travelling front.

This book is a must read for everyone. It truly takes you into another world and does what a good book is meant to do-stops you from putting it down until you are done with it!

POEM BY JOHN O'DONOHUE

I was reading Chris Guillebeau's blog,which I have been following pretty regularly for some time now and he posted the poem below by John O'Donohue which I absolutely love. This poem is such a beautiful one on travel. So, here goes:


Every time you leave home,

Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:

How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.

-John O’Donohue

ROMANTIC VENICE

I finally went to the theatre to watch ‘The Tourist’ yesterday. So much for my big plans of saving money, it just doesn’t seem to be happening. Anyway, I am writing not about my half-hearted attempts to try and save money but about how amazingly wonderful Venice looked in the movie.

Since as far back as I can remember all the romantic novels I read had something or the other to do with Venice. The protagonists either fell hopelessly in love with each other while in Venice or were jet-setting off to Venice on their romantic escapades or their honeymoons. Thinking of Venice always conjured up romantic images of gondolas (although I found out that they now use motorboats and the gondolas are used only by tourists), bridges and beautiful architecture.

The various movies set in Venice only increased my infatuation with the place and the latest movie to make me really want to visit Venice is ‘The Tourist’. The shots of Venice are so artistically beautiful that they make me drool! And the characters of Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie dont make matters any better by falling in love in Venice too. It just increases the romantic quotient of the place even more! 

Ever since I was little, Venice has always been on my list of places to visit, much before I developed the urge to see the world and experience its varied cultures.  I wish I get to visit this wonderful, beautiful, absolutely romantic city sometime soon. 

AMAZING UNDERWATER MUSEUM

I was browsing the web and came across something very, very fascinating- an underwater museum with 400 life size sculptures at the bottom of the sea in Cancun, Mexico. The sculptures have been created by a British artist, Jason deCaires Taylor and are cast from real people that the artist chose from all walks of life and age groups.

The most amazing part is that the sculptures are created from special cement that does not harm marine life and actually aids them by serving as artificial reefs to promote and protect the diversity of marine life. I love that Jason is creating works of art but is also doing his bit for the preservation of the environment. It is truly amazing and wonderfully inspiring and I love his sculptures.

The sculptures look so real and the best part of this project is that every time a person visits this underwater museum it will be like a totally new experience since the marine life and various other elements of the sea will constantly keep changing the sculptures. I cannot wait to go there. Another place to add to my never ending list of ‘places to visit’.

http://www.underwatersculpture.com/index.asp

THE BLUES AGAIN

It is always like this after a holiday. I get back home and I am grumpy and irritable and don’t feel the least bit social. I got back from my one week trip to Coorg, Masinagudi, Ooty and Coonoor last night since I had to get back to work today. Things started to go downhill as soon as I woke up this morning. I couldn’t bring myself to get moving after my customary cup of coffee and ended up reaching work an hour late which did not earn me any brownie points with the colleagues I am sure! And the worst part-I have been sulking all day. I hate coming back after a holiday. I was also at my anti-social best with my brother this morning and answered only in monosyllables every time he tried to ask me something. And even though it’s not so cold here I am covered up from head to toe thinking about the freezing Ooty weather and wishing I was back there. I hate coming back from a holiday and settling into the routine life of someone who has a full-time job. Sigh.  

DREAMS AND THE 'FRUGAL' LIFESTYLE

‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. EXPLORE. DREAM. DISCOVER.'- Mark Twain.

This quote by Mark Twain pretty much summarises the thoughts that are going through my head at the moment. These days, travel is what is foremost on my mind most of the time and that is what I am most passionate about. Twenty years from now, I do not want to be disappointed by the things that I wanted to do but didn’t or the places that I wanted to visit and didn’t!

For the past few years, my life’s plans have been to first travel around India and see as much as I can of my beautiful country before I go abroad and explore the rest of the world and its different cultures. For the past few months though I seem to be veering off course- no longer on the path of my aforementioned plans but instead now what I really want to do is backpack across Europe with my best friend. Ah well!

The Europe plan started to take shape in my head when my friend found out that she had got into college in London. That was when we had this discussion on how I would go visit her and we could backpack across Europe together. After that particular discussion, I would start planning trips around India but my mind would invariable end up wandering across Europe with my friend. That was when I realized that I really wanted to do just that, and I thought the first step towards getting there was to tell my parents. My parents heard me out and were quite supportive about my plan- not surprising at all since they know by now that I have a serious case of wanderlust.

Obviously I don’t earn enough to do this trip on my own and my dad is going to ‘loan’ me the money (one of the many ‘loans’ that I have taken from him in the past couple of years to go on my trips!).On my part, I have decided to start giving up on the material things in life and live ‘frugally’ for the next nine months, to save up as much as I can with the little that I make. So, from next week on, no more weekend trips to the theatre to enjoy a big tub of popcorn and a movie, no more eating out or spending obscene amounts of money on cocktails, no more taking autos but instead I have to learn to take the bus to get me places, make my own coffee and drink it at home instead of buying coffee at the Coffee Day that’s just below my office and no more lusting after the new bag that looks so amazing( lusting is okay, as long as I don’t buy it!).

It is definitely not going to be easy and I know I am going to slip up quite a bit but maybe after I start, I will consciously think about whether I should be spending money on certain things, which I think is a step in the right direction. This is me trying to save as much money as I can, and living the ‘frugal’ lifestyle by not spending money on the things that I can do without.   

As I sit at my desk and write these words, I have no idea of knowing whether my ‘frugal’ lifestyle theory is ever going to pan out and even if it does, there is no way of knowing how long I am going to stick to it and to what degree I am going to stick to it.  I don’t know if this big plan of backpacking across Europe is going to finally be anything more than a dream or if it is going to be something that actually happens.

 But, what are we without our hopes and dreams? I for one, have so many dreams, dreams of visiting every country in the world someday, dreams of living in another country for a couple of years, dreams of making a difference in my own little way by volunteering for an NGO, dreams of being a fairly decent writer someday, dreams, dreams and more dreams. But for me, that’s what keeps me going- my hopes and dreams. Like John Lennon sings so beautifully in ‘Imagine’- ‘you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one, I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will be as one’.

Whatever the outcome of this whole plan, the thing I know for sure is that I learn something from this whole experience either way. Maybe I learn to save money and I end up going to Europe and having the trip of a lifetime. And if that does not happens I still have my dreams which will keep me going long after anything else. 

BRO

I took this photo somewhere along the road to Tso Moriri. The Border Roads Organisation(BRO) have some really amusing signs all the way to Leh which had us all cracking up whenever we zipped past one of them. This is that one sign that I really loved, seems like the BRO are not only funny but also philosophical! To come across this sign in the middle of nowhere was quite a surprise. 

PRAYER FLAGS

My never ending fascination with prayer flags and all things Buddhist. A photo I took at a monastery in Leh. 

PTF

I am constantly reading travel stories and articles on the web when I have the time and I just chanced upon this article by Eric Weiner, who incidentally is the author of The Geography of Bliss. I have a copy of his book and I love reading parts of the book whenever I am sitting around at home. His article describes what I call Post-holiday blues but he calls it by a much more creative name- Post-Trip Funk(PTF). It is funny I found this article when I did. And of course, he describes it much, much better than I did so I am posting the link to his article below.

http://www.worldhum.com/features/eric-weiner/post-trip-funk-ptf-20100329/

POST-HOLIDAY BLUES

It is funny how life is,about a month ago I was extremely excited about the trip I was going to take in less than a few days time and and now,a few days after I have returned home I am plagued with a serious case of post-holiday blues. My holiday was most wonderful and I was privileged to visit one of the most beautiful places in India, but my mood shifted so suddenly from elation to gloominess as soon as I stepped off the plane at Bangalore that it even took me by surprise. Sure, I knew I would be slightly depressed but I did not think it would hit me that hard. The truth is, I always feel like this after a trip but I think it was so much worse this time because this was one of the longest trips I had been on. And yes, the fact that I was finally starting work after taking a whole year off was a major contributor too. It took a while for me to recover from my post-holiday illness which had me taking to my bed for two days but after a week or so I was back to myself thankfully! I do feel a twinge of sadness now and again when I think of my most amazing trip but what keeps me going is that as I sit here typing this I have already started planning my next trip(which is hopefully soon!).

THE TRAVEL BUG

I wish I could travel, travel, travel, travel to places near and far and get paid to do it. This is THE ultimate job-for me and about a million other people in the world!!! Seeing that there are so many people that have the same dream as me, chances of it actually happening are very, very slim methinks. So I have decided the next best thing is for me to travel as much as I can, when I have the resources and the time.
 I wasn’t always interesting in traveling all over India and the world, to explore new places and cultures, though I do suspect the travel bug was lurking around somewhere, just waiting to bite. And it finally bit me when I was around 15 years old when my aunt decided to take me to Goa on a holiday. I still remember the trip in detail because it was the beginning of my passion for travel. We explored Goa as much as we could in the week we were there, taking local buses to remote places and tiny villages, wandering around in the flea markets, renting a bike and just riding around enjoying the countryside, visiting the churches and the best known cafes that we looked up in our Lonely Planet book which was our Bible on that trip. After that trip all I could think about was traveling to places and I began to read up on India and dreamt of how I would become this famous travel writer someday.

6 years later, I realize I still haven’t done much traveling but the restraint of being too young to wander off on my own (my parents have a say since they are the ones who generously fund my trips) is working against me at the moment. The good thing is that I am still passionate about traveling and I know there will come a time (I fervently hope!) when I have enough resources at my disposal to make all the trips I want to.  Till then I will keep reading my ‘Outlook Travellers’, ‘Lonely Planets’, various friends’ blogs and make the small trips I can afford to make.