[mumbai, india] This place certainly didn't end like it started. It went from honking horns, dirt, grime, shit and chaos to this. Simple. Modern. Magnificent. - but that's India. It's the best of the best and the worst of the worst. Here you truly get a sense of power of the people. It's culturally mind blowing and the food is simply amazing. I will never forget those days on the train, or the countless festivals I encountered and the people both far and near. It's been an amazing 6 weeks. Certainly a place that can be 6 years. Stay tuned for where I go next... #hesheadingeast #nomad #nomadlife #vagabond #traveler #justabackpack #india #mumbai #memories #modern #architecture #arch #3dprinting #nerd #VSCOcam (at International Terminal T2, CSI Airport, Mumbai)
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It's the night before Vipassana and I'm neither excited nor worried. Maybe I am just tired [it being 104 during the day quickly becomes exhausting]. Maybe I am unaware of what is about to happen to me. Maybe I am just ready. We met a man, who was the Indian version of me - he hoards old stuff aware of every story - but he looked at us and said we are 20 years too soon for Vipassana. For we haven't lived enough to look back and get answers. He expresses there is a fine moment between when one door closes and the next opens, and often we misjudge this timing do to fear, anxiety or uncertainty. It all made sense, and was honest and kind. But so much growth and change has happened in my life with in the last year and well I'm not looking to open or close and doors - rather I want to reflect and strengthen the passage I'm on. I want the next ten days to be about re-grounding my individuality, my insecurities and prepare me for my return home. I am about to return to an unknown of knowns. I will see the changes be unchanged. I will interact with the good and the bad. It will all come full circle. But I've not. I've gone in a linear progression. I've grown. Changed. See and done. It will be less than 4 weeks after this course until I return home. I am excited and scared more than I am for these next 10 days. But maybe home is just one more stop. Maybe it too is just apart of my travels and discovery and that this one year plan maybe is five, ten or my life.
One thing I have learned from Bobby is to let go. And that is what I have begun to do.
So much was happening in Turkey - constantly on the move, constantly seeing, living, enjoying; chasing moments, people, documents...so having the time to look back beyond the now was limited. Then China, Korea, Japan; a constant fight to stay in the game and not go home. The battle was on, the weather was cold and the nights came early and well nights are the hardest when you are alone and with out company or sensual companions. I desperately wanted to go home. So I hid, I recoiled and withdrew. Two months of fighting turned into time for a change, and well it was the warmth and the sun that would call my name to Bangkok. A city so vast, so infused with life and chaos and fooooood! There I was able to get some life back in me, some warmth in my heart - a joy to hit the road again.
There in Bangkok I was given the chance to explore the local side of the city by riding through the soi (side streets) that are often ignored, resulting in many a stares and giggles. But all was welcomed. I missed interacting with the locals. It was here I put down the technology, I let go of the past, the future and only was to focus on the now and mainly enjoying those morning iced lattes. I accepted that this blog had seen its day, seen its moments and well seen all that I could give it. So I put aside the time that I took to keep all this going and wanted to explore more, live more, breathe more. I traveled through the caves of north Thailand, through the rivers of the Mekong along Laos, hopped through the climates of Vietnam and returned back to where it all started on soi 4 in Bangkok. It was a complete circle; an eye opening circle. I gained a lot of great friends in this time as well as was joined by my love of my life who we battled through seeing how being a vagabond was, but only a few over night bus rides and the constant scheduling opened his eyes to a world far more than just the temples and the sunsets. For these breath taking views are a blessing backdrop to the amazing stories and memories that are made while traveling.
It was at this point when I was about to lose everything; both send my bf packing back home and take on a new adventure here in India that I discovered I missed the sharing of my days, my memories and my typical chaos. I want to share what I see and what I learned, keep in touch with those I feel I have grown so far from. In fact I fear returning to those I once knew as friends. I fear I will be different and they the same. I fear I will fall back in to the same submissive roll as a friend, where I often get taken advantage of. But what I know about myself now, is that I will not stand for this. I have learned what friends are and what friends will do. I have seen over the course of almost 300 days, who in my life will stay and who will just continue on with out me. And I hope these days they have learned that too.
I am full of so much right now - it has been two weeks here in India, I have already been in the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I have turned a year older, I have put myself out there and met far more people than I have ever tried to in my past. I have seen my growths and am proud that they have stuck with me.
[jaipur, india] The color festival has poured down. Holi has been a great experience with new friends from afar and near! Happy to have celebrate in this beautiful city with some authentic fun (at Jaipur, Rajasthan)
There were three days left between me and China, my month in Turkey was coming to an end - I sadly missed my opportunity to buy that turkish rug and to learn how to count to twenty, but one thing I was not going to let pass by was the chance to eat my chicken pudding one more time - tuvak göğsü. Well in fact I wasn't going to miss out on eating everything one last time - these three days were spent on the Asia Side of Turkey - I got my chance to experience the traditional side of the Old City and the rebellious side of Taxsim, but now, it was time for some legit turkish living.
In Kadiköy, it is flooded with markets, street food and university students just moving about living life as a youth in turkey, and well I got right in there and just wandered amongst them, eating what they ate, buying what they bought [well I only bought what the little old ladies bought - but thats how I shop in a market]. It was a great place, somewhere where a week would not be enough. I have spent a month now in Turkey, and oddly I didn't want to leave, there was so much more to learn and to see and to understand. I wanted to know it all, with the occasional salad would be nice, but I will take it however its severed.
I will miss Turkey, you were my home for a month, and will forever be a place I will come back to, I have learned so much, tasted so much, and been opened up to so much that I never knew I would get to feel, like tear gas. But I am thankful I got to end my days here in Turkey in the same place I started - Istanbul.
For the end was as chaotic as the beginning - but thats how Istanbul rolls. Crazy, loud, unique, but beautiful and mesmerizing.
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There was no better place to end my Turkish adventure than flying to Cyprus and visiting the Turkish side of a country that is so divided and confused that you need your passport to get from one side of the city to the next, but yet is only officially recognized by Turkey as being a divided state. Six years ago, I started my desire to travel and explore by visiting my best friend for my 21st birthday in the oddest of places, Nicosia, Cyprus. This was the first trip I ever took alone and out of the country. I am not sure why it wasn't London, or Paris, or Mexico like every other college kid, but I as different and 'special' as always took a trip to the edges of the Middle East.
What was different about this visit besides staying with the most beautiful, caring and hospitable hosts [last minute of course] I could have imagined, was the opportunity to revisit a site that I feared six years ago. When I approached the boarder between the Greek and Turkish side of Cyprus, I was so out of my suburban middle class - white picket fence bubble that I was in awe and fear of everything unknown.
We crossed over [me and six girls] all clueless on how to get to our destination, but we did and we succeeded, but the domis ride, and the asking for directions and keeping the fingers crossed we were heading the right way struck excitement in my soul, now I am accustomed to these sketchy buses and possibly paying a little extra - I have learned the tricks of the trade and how to get my way. But six years ago, we were at the mercy of the game.
I didn't once step foot on the Greek side of Nicosia or Cyprus for that matter, I stuck to the turkish way of living and sadly missed my hourly glass of çay and not so delightful turkish delights, but was an eye opening lesson to see what has remained and what was changed due to the european conflict. When you are in Turkey - you live and eat like a Turk, here one day you can and the other you don't have to. It's different.
My good friend Cain - was a wonderful tour guide, showing me around and giving me is inside [get me the fuck out of here] perspective on Cyprus. This lead me to my new found wonder of the world, my new thesis, my new let me live here and understand wtf happened - the town of Maraş. Completely abandoned post war, never repaired and only surrounded by guards, barbed wire fences and signs of no pictures. This beach front property could be as long as South Beach, with hotel and ex resorts just towering in the distance - looking more like limbo in the movie Inception - personally I was baffled, architecturally I was inspired, hungry, curious and interested. This is the place to learn and understand and re-invent. But clearly something is going on that is not supposed to be known. But should that matter? God dammit - once again governments fucking up.
Thankfully I got to see and experience and see Cain, even if all of this was just to escape taking one more bus back to Istanbul.
This is the last place I wanted to have to spend the majority of my time in Turkey, but oddly its one of the few places that I learned so much from. Ankara is certainly seen as the wound of Turkey, both for its attractions and for its politics - this capital is noticeably the most undesirable place to live/visit/pass through in all of Turkey - yet we all seemingly have to go there at some point. But the magic here did not lie in the attractions, the night life, or the crazy amount of guns in this highly fascist/nationalistic capital. It is the people that keep people here - friends. You step one block off the main streets of government owned bull shit and fear and you see so much life, energy and passion.
There is a labyrinth of people opening the doors, hearts and hands to you - its incredible. It incredible to witness the clash between society and government, because here in Ankara, they are neighbors, just sitting on the porch giving the "f" you to one another. Sometimes the people win, sometimes the government gains control, but there is this clash and respect/disrespect that I have never so blatantly seen before. It is an unreal reality.
I feel for those who make their living here, or who are here for education or for any reason, but once again, I am conflicted - for I am jealous their connections, friendships and lovers are so important and meaningful - an element that does not exist in NYC, for that is a jungle of temporary meaning; we all come and go, we are have our purpose and use. And it kills me, but what is better?
Living in a city where you can't be you and you live under someone else's rule?
or
Living the dream and being who you are where and when ever, but living a revolving live of
I believe we have hit the mecca of tourism and tour groups, this is one of the most incredible and historic ancient sights in existence, but I could not get past the weaving crowds of photo taking tour groups all blasting the same google search results in every language, but mainly Chinese, going from tour marker to the next.
It quickly brought me back to the days of Athens while visiting the Parthenon, as i regressed with disgust as I watched people disrespectfully climb, smoke and leave rubbish behind on some of the most ancient wonders of the modern world. But I did my best to focus through the crowds and appreciate the main wonderment of ancient architecture. The scale. The scale that for modern times is mammoth - yet alone when all they could do is chip away at stone and stack stories high to impress as well as show dominance over the land. A part of me is so frustrated I cannot to build like that and be around [even to be the one that builds] these monuments. I feel so distant as an architect now a days, everything is catalogued and specced, nothing is figured out for yourself or hands-on. It is the old souls of me coming out, but the modern world needs to learn some lessons for how things were done originally - there was craft, passion and drive.
