The end of part one

It seems like a lifetime has passed since the end of November when I crossed the border from Nepal into India. My first trip on a local Indian bus from the Nepalese border to Gorakhpur, feels like an eternity ago, and the first sleeper train ride to Varanasi could have happened to a different person, and in a different reality. It’s been just over two months since I arrived in India, with an 18 day break in Sri Lanka in the middle. I arrived as a newbie traveller, my four weeks in Nepal having given me only a taste of what was in store for me. I leave today on a very different note, a seasoned traveller, yet still a newbie, more aware, less afraid, and definitely a stronger person than I was when I first arrived.

When you travel, every day feels like an eternity, and every time you prepare to leave for a new place, it feels like you’ve been in the current one forever. I was in Munnar for three nights and it felt like it was a month. I arrived back in India from Sri Lanka less than four weeks ago, but it could already be a year ago. Varanasi, our first destination in India feels so far away, like a trip that I took a long time ago. When look at my photographs, I am reminded that it wasn’t so long ago, but I still recall the moments with a nostalgia usually reserved for events of many years past. I was in Kochi, my last stop in India for only three days, yet I felt like I’d been there forever, and beautiful Munnar, which we left only four days ago, feels like a distant dream. This afternoon, sitting in the tuk-tuk on the way to the airport after saying goodbye to my travel partners of the last six days, the reality of Kochi already began to fade, and the new reality of a day in transit, started to take over.

Today, my last day in India, as I sit at the airport and look back on where I was and who I was just a few short months ago, I can safely say that there is nothing that I have done in my time here that I regret, no experience that I don’t cherish, or haven’t learnt from, and no person that I have met that hasn’t changed me, even slightly. Friends I met in Nepal, who I have been lucky enough to meet up with again both accidentally and on purpose at various points during my time in India, the stunning views and interesting towns I have been privileged to see, amazing performances, amusing bus rides and thousands of random moments here and there. Even my few not so pleasant experiences, treatments gone wrong, bad purchases, unpleasant encounters, dodgy stomachs and unhelpful or uncouth locals, are all filed under the category of “things to learn from” and “mistakes not to repeat”, and each holds its own place in the large suitcase of travel mementos that I will value and keep learning from for many years to come.

There are two moments from the past two months that I come back to over and over again. Both of them happened in the same week in December, in two different places. The first was in Hampi, on the way to the Monkey Temple. I was walking with two friends in the middle of the unexplainable geographical phenomenon that is Hampi, all of us with eyes that could barely take in the beauty of our surroundings, when all of a sudden one of them stopped and said to us, “Look at where we are. We are so lucky to be here, not everyone gets this opportunity”. The second moment happened in Goa, in Arambol. My friend arrived at midnight straight of a flight, after not having seen the beach for months. When I pointed out that the blackness right in front of us was the ocean, he was so excited that he ran to the water’s edge, stripped down, and sprinted into the water, with such a shout of abandonment and freedom that I, left on the shore clutching a handful of clothes, couldn’t stop smiling for the next hour. Small moments, not necessarily special moments or wow moments, but moments I remind myself of when I start to take travelling for granted, and when thing start to become routine. I think of them in the brief moments when I need a reminder of just how lucky I am to be able to take part in the incredible experience that is traveling.

Today I feel like I’ve passed a major milestone in my trip. Not only am I only a few days away from the half-way mark of my 6.5+ month trip, but the huge chunk of my time away that in my head was known as “part one” is now over. Nepal and India are done, and now it’s time for the next stage. I fly from here to Bangkok, where I have exactly eight weeks to take on SE Asia before I fly to Australia for six weeks and then head home right in time for the craziness of Midburn 2015.

I’m both glad and sad to leave India. When I booked my flights back in October, I did so deliberately, knowing that unless I had set dates for each stage of my trip, it would be hard to pick up and leave, especially if I found a place I really liked. I wanted to define my boundaries in advance, to force myself to see more and do more, and to experience more countries. In retrospect I am glad I defined those boundaries. It turns out that pre-travel Tammy was pretty smart and knew exactly what she was doing, she somehow knew (she’s a clever little one) that mid-travel Tammy may or may not have been able to give in to the temptation of staying just that tiny little bit longer. India has been an incredible experience and I’m glad to have had it. I have a dream of returning sometime soon for a longer period of time, but whether that dream will become a reality, only time will tell. As I landed in Mumbai today and saw the slums that border the runway, I was reminded of just how multi-faceted the reality of India is, and realize that I have only scratched the surface during my time here.

In the meantime, I have another three months of adventures to look forward to. I land in Bangkok tomorrow and the only concrete plan I have is to go straight to the Chabad house to pick up a package from my parents. Once that is done, my options are wide open. I can go anywhere, and do anything. I don’t have a list of places I need to see or things I need to accomplish. There is no to-do list to check things off of, except of course for the ever present “do my laundry”, which, if not taken care of, will start to become an issue in the next few days. I don’t have flights or accommodation booked, no visas organized and no people I need to meet up with at any particular time. I have some theoretical ideas for where I want to be and for how long, with Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia all on the “potential” countries-to-visit list, but the details of if, when, what and for how long, will be determined over the next few weeks.

There was a time when embarking on a trip such as this, with no plans, may have scared me, but today it excites me. It’s a new chapter, starting from the beginning, but with the added benefit of a huge amount of experience and knowledge accumulated during the last three months, both about myself and about travelling. I’m looking forward to sitting in Bangkok airport at the beginning of April, waiting to catch my flight to Australia, and looking back over my movements in February and March, seeing where I was and what I managed to accomplish. Most of all, I look forward to seeing how all these new experiences have shaped and changed myself and my outlook. The excitement of the unknown is intoxicating, and I’m looking forward with anticipation to this next chapter.