So people see my travel pictures and think I am living a dream. Yea, remember this word dream for later. Have a lot to say on this but later. Travel can affect you in multiple ways, one of those I had already posted earlier – Food for Thought : Travel and Conscience.
If you travel a lot, you’d already know and if not, then know this – travel is not all that like an everlasting fun ride. It has its moments, both good and bad. As you travel more, you see new things, your perspective changes, your understanding varies, you make new friends and you make new discoveries about yourself and others. Bottom-line – you change, both mentally and physically. As we change, the things we used to like earlier might not appeal to you anymore and worst thing to happen is that feeling of not fitting in anymore. Well this and more, I will talk about in this post.
I am certainly not the person I used to be two years ago. Ask my friends and family about it – they’d know! While I changed for good, there are many things that I had to learn/unlearn for the life I am living now. Let’s start on a lighter note and proceed towards the more serious issues.
Living a dream
There are few who take this sentence to mean literally! Literally as in I am living a dream with no serious commitment towards life whatsoever. Oh right, it is okay to waste three years of your life for an MBA but trying to pursue something that falls outside of the so called acceptable criteria is a serious offence. Try it out, tell somebody you are fighting with all you have to get an entry into a premier institution and look out for the reverence you’d find in their eyes and then tell them you are trying to take photos and sell them – yea, exactly that's the look I am talking about. After a degree from such a prestigious institution, is this what you want do is the question I get so frequently by now I am used to letting it not affect me at all. I smile and walk away. I wonder if these people have never heard of the phrase – To each his own! I am screaming to each his own, people!
Yea, like that’s possible. I seriously have lost track of the number of times I’ve heard this over the past year. How is it possible for anybody to get paid for doing nothing? I have no clue how that can be accomplished and I am thinking maybe the ones who keep saying this to me have gotten to know the secret recipe to get your company to pay you for nothing. In that case please let me know as well. But otherwise, I have a normal 9 to 5 job like the rest do and yet I try to squeeze in time to pursue my hobbies and interests. Next time I hear someone say this, for all I know, somebody’s gonna get hurt real bad. ;)
Oh wow, looks like I am back to the rant mode now – read this for my previous rant – Top Five Annoying Things to say to a Photographer.
I am a creep, I am weirdo.
Not in the actual sense, but if you listen carefully when I am sitting with a group of non-travelers, you might actually hear Radiohead singing this song for me. “What the hell am I doing here, I don’t belong here.” No kidding, with all that travel, now I have nothing else to talk to other than some adventure from some corner of the country. Conversations flow freely with fellow travelers even we are meeting for the first time on the other hand even with friends I run out of topics eventually. This is one of the serious side effects of travel now. I don’t seem to speak any other language and if you are not willing to listen to my (mis)adventures, I might not speak to you again. I know, that’s crazy! Working on it people.
Read WanderingEarl's hilarious take on this - http://www.wanderingearl.com/has-travel-made-me-dumber/
Read WanderingEarl's hilarious take on this - http://www.wanderingearl.com/has-travel-made-me-dumber/
More creepiness, I talk to myself.
As I write this, I am still talking to myself. I wonder when this started but I was neck deep into this by the time I realized I was doing it. I look at something and I say to myself – ‘wow! Look at this’ as if I am not already looking at it. I found some solace in knowing few other travelers do this too. I am wondering if any of you reading this post talk to themselves. While on a trek, I walk at my own pace which would keep me away from company and possibly I started talking to myself then. And also when I had to curse myself for getting into a difficult trek or situation I would’ve started this. Whichever way, now talking to myself is part of travel. As a friend once said, if you yourself cannot enjoy your company how can anybody else? Well I think it makes sense and I can be in peace with my own company.
It is not a perfect dream. It is not a simple life.
Many seem to think I am either living the perfect dream or leading a simple life. It is a happy life alright but neither is it perfect nor is it simple. It is just a plain case of what you see on the top. Travel might look all that sweet but that is what it is in the end – sugar coated. I do not come back and publish ugly photos neither do I come back and tell you I was miserable on some days nor do I tell you about my sad tales of depression and sleeplessness during travel. It ain’t a free world and you’ve got to pay the price for what you get. Let’s just say it is as simple as saying you need to get up early to catch the sunrise. It doesn’t work any other way. How ironic is it that I wake up very early in the morning whenever I am on a vacation. Aren’t vacations supposed to be relaxing? Well exactly, understand that I am not on a vacation instead I am on a mission to explore. This comes with a star given the fact that I have a job to get back to which means limited time on the road and I do not have huge fortune stashed up to back me up which means limited money. Limited time, limited money and unlimited travel can mean only one thing – a very high tolerance to the uncomfortable. I’ve stayed in dingy hotels, very cold places, very hot places, dragged my legs forever, spent sleepless nights and traveled in crazy ways. I am not complaining for this but I am just saying this is a way of life for me and you should know that this is not all that pink and rosy.
Social Life? Yea right!
Another major setback of the travel that I do is that I have no time left for family and friends, at all. It would’ve been easy if all my best friends traveled as much as I did. I still try to involve my family in my world by spending at least one major vacation a year with family but that barely does it. I don’t meet them as much as I would’ve liked to and I am very thankful for the friends that I have who understand my complete lack of communication with them. Once in a blue moon I can still call them and talk about everything under the sun. But these friends are the only ones who have been there before my travel days. If I look at it now, I didn’t make any new acquaintance (let alone a friend) after I started traveling who is not either a traveler or trekker or a photographer. It is rarely that I am free on weekends and even if I am, this is what happens to me.
Depression while on travel
When I first started to travel I wasn’t much aware of this phenomenon while on the move. It was all bright and sunny and I couldn’t contain the excitement of seeing new things every day. But then slowly as the travel increased and I also started going out for longer durations I realized after few days, chances are you might just fall into the rut. You are tired because of the endless travel, cold sleepless nights and all you want to do is sit in the room comfortably. And then it all follows, just one incident to take your mind towards depression. You see some kids and you start thinking of realities of life, somebody cheats you and you start thinking how unfair life is, or chances are you might think how unfair life is when you visit palaces, I mean what kind of lives those rajas and maharajas lived and the jobless souls who are still living that legacy! I honestly avoid palaces for this same reason, I really do. I go down the vortex of depression when I see these palaces. Depression also comes from another source that I will discuss below.
Read about Johnny Vagabond's super take on this - http://su.pr/1SwC73
Read about Johnny Vagabond's super take on this - http://su.pr/1SwC73
How do you keep the excitement alive?
Knowing me, you would also know my interest primarily lies in the unexplored. I swear to god I cannot stand those touristy places crammed with a million people in every inch. And my travel does not make sense to me unless I have some crazy adventure or a brilliant picture or something in the superlatives for sure. Now the question is how much adventure can I get? Before heading to Rajasthan, I was very apprehensive about my trip. After seeing the spectacular wilderness of Himalayas, Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats how can I find something interesting in the tourist hub of the country was my thought. Luckily with some help I was able to craft an itinerary that very well suited my needs of the unexplored and little known. Of all the days I spent in Rajasthan, the least enjoyable days were in Jaipur, Udaipur and Bikaner. There is something in my mind that refuses to even consider popular places on the tourist grid. You can only imagine how tough it gets for me to get excited about a new place. Thankfully India still has many unknown places, but that is mainly thanks to the common Indian Traveler who wants to see the only common things. But I don’t know how long the excitement will last. For what it’s worth I can never go to Ooty and enjoy the scenery around.
No need to say goodbye!
This is one more thing I need to condition myself to if I intend to become a world traveler. The moment I meet a fellow traveler/trekker/photographer conversation flows like I said earlier. We have a good time and then the dreaded moment arrives. I hate saying goodbyes. Meeting many interesting people is part and parcel of travel but somehow I have never been able to leave it at that. I feel sad when I have to leave the new friends and the locals who were so hospitable. I cannot just take the memories and get lost. The feeling arises, to stay back a little longer which of course I cannot do and this will lead to more perplexed thoughts.
While I am still learning to deal with all such issues I am pretty sure travel is all not that rosy for you as well. We still do travel for the love of it and nothing can possibly deter us from doing so but there might have been few sacrifices you made or few compromises you made or you just put with the inconveniences. What is your experience? I’d like to know.
In the end you might wonder why I am doing this if I all I can think of is problems, but the post with the benefits of travel and my love for it will run for pages. So let’s just leave it at that. Even one photo can make me travel all the way from Bangalore to Jaisalmer.
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