It was approximately six months ago that I uttered those immortal words ‘I need to go and find myself’, and subsequently boarded a plane to South East Asia with a friend, and half of the Home Counties. In reality, I had no such plans to ‘find myself’ but to make up for the distinct lack of stamps in my passport. It’s no longer enough to talk about your camping trip to France but instead ‘the time I was in Indonesia, singing to the locals and hugging squirrels’ complete with Facebook album. Arseholes. I can do that. I can go abroad.
Therefore with a fear of flying, and an underlying gastrointestinal condition (a recipe for success), I began my journey. How long did I go for? A year? Six months? No. I went for six weeks which I deemed long enough to be fannying around on the other side of the world, especially if I wasn’t going to be volunteering or working. No matter how many times I explained this to Tarquin, his beaded dreadlocks would always shake from side to side as he explained that he’d been travelling for nearly two years and that he was "always learning".
I spent my six weeks smothered in Deet and factor 50 sun cream, neither which saved me from the elements, and both which made me a real feast for the senses. But neither of them could detract from the real beauty that I saw in Thailand and Vietnam, from the turquoise water in Ko Lanta, to the dramatic hillside scenery on the coast of Vietnam.
And of course clear, warm water was a novelty to me, having been used to going on family holidays to Scotland, wrapped in hats and scarves on the beach. "See!" My father would shout through blue lips, "why go abroad when you’ve got beaches here!"
In true English style I spent every other minute giving everyone around me an update on the weather and my core body temperature- "my god it’s hot"-because clearly at 36°C they needed reminding. This meant that my vision of morning jogs in the hills was out of the question as I turned into a portable water feature every time I put a foot outdoors. In fact in six weeks, the only thing that ran was my mascara.
My favourite part of travelling was meeting such a huge variety of people, as each hostel seemed to be a huge melting pot of Australians, French and Germans, and the occasional American. The most interesting travellers were the women in their fifties who had suddenly got the urge to do something different. I met one such woman who was a curious mix of elephant trousers and regret, who loudly boasted that she hadn’t spoken to any of her children in three months. She later cornered me and made me promise that I wouldn’t get married before I was 27.
There is definitely a traveller ‘look’ that pervades the hostels, clubs, and carefully vetted Facebook photos: the various printed baggy trousers, and khaki shorts complete with an equally casual looking t-shirt. Those who wish to attain a higher level of kudos will require a cigarette, a bottle of beer, and must be in a seated position with a Penguin Classic. Unfortunately I missed this memo and was thus left to parade around Thailand in denim shorts exhibiting fifty shades of razor rash and a quarter-leg sunburn. No doubt this sight inspired one of Tarquin’s many poems which he would write using a stick of charcoal and recycled paper. Nothing excited him more than an enquiry as to what he was doing. "Oh this? Oh it’s nothing, it’s just my poetry…" I read his poems. They were shit.
When I finally started the return flight to England I thought about my trip and if I had learnt anything important during the six weeks. After all, I knew that I would be faced with the delightfully broad ‘how was it?’ and maybe ‘Thailand is hot’ wouldn’t cut it. No doubt I can think of something clever for LinkedIn but I think sometimes we try and squeeze every last drop of meaning out of every experience. Every moment has to be caught on camera or tagged in a status for ‘recollection’ but the only thing you can recall is trying to capture it in the first place. Sometimes it’s about joining up the dots so that the picture makes sense later even though, naturally, we’re always trying to look for a pattern. Just experience that moment in the moment, not later with jpeg.
Lucy Holligan – you can follow Lucy on Twitter @lucyholligan
