I’m in love with travel - the new sights, sounds, experiences to be had in an unfamiliar yet inviting new place enthrall me. I immerse myself in travel literature, sometimes, to soak in what others have experienced and want to express. I remember I was romancing Venice in its modernized tropical counterpart of Singapore by reading John Berendt’s excellent The City of Falling Angels last year.
Perhaps this love for visiting new locales has been encouraged as of late by my budding interest in photography. I certainly remember my trip to Nepal last November/December not least for the multitude of wonderful memories captured on sensor. Maybe it’s an euphoric feeling of adventure that accompanies every good photograph. I know it’s tough trying to draw inspiration from insipid, all-too-familiar surroundings such as what I experience in stuffy, pretentious Singapore. I feel a sense of liberation shooting in a different environment from my relatively boring hometown. Overseas, I don’t get the urge to shy away and hide my camera. I feel bold, confident; knowing that all my nosey faults can be forgiven with my invisible wielding of the tourist dollar. I just snap, snap, snap. And in the flood of photos, I know, there will be a few genuine gems.
Committing memories to memory card is not the only objective I set out to achieve when traveling. I really want to experience the culture, yes, that elusive term. Not just culture as defined by Lonely Planet guidebooks, but through the eyes of true-to-life individuals who have eked out, or perhaps, staked out livings in the most random and exotic of places. It’s beautiful when you know the people.
Notice how good travel literature usually entails lengthy portions dedicated to the authors’ interaction with locals? The best quality insight to life in a particular area is surely offered by its native or immigrant inhabitants. They know all the nooks and crannies and festivals and bargains and idiosyncrasies of their home - just like anyone would know theirs.
It’s also particularly interesting when someone you meet whilst traveling espouses a contrarian lifestyle to the norm in the area he/she is living in. Christian missionaries serving in a predominantly Hindu nation, perhaps. That’s exactly what Pastor Erick and his friends in the ministry in Nepal are. The knowledge of the titanic struggles faced yet overcome by these spiritual strongmen have been a source of inspiration for my faith which is, admittedly, shaky at times. All right, all the time.
Most of all, I think it’s the experiences of travelers who are trailblazers in paths or in their respective crafts that are the quintessence of the traveler’s life. Breathtaking photographs and prose and poems worthy of praise certainly make their mark on the aspiring minds such as myself.
Or maybe I am wrong. Traveling, especially not in a restrictive tour group, feels innately personal to me. The knowledge gained by the individual, not just trivial but the type that that widens the Weltanschauung, may be the most valuable thing a person ever learns. That defines the life worth living.
2 Comments
I want to go to Iraq, and perhaps Central Asia, and stay there for a month. Most people think I’m crazy, but I feel called to the place - I want to ask questions, how do you feel, what’s your outlook on life? Before the war, Baghdad was a very multicultural place, and it still is, to an extent.
I detest some kinds of tourists, namely those who treat going to different country like going to a zoo - things to be gawked at, rather than cultures to be interconnected with.
Yes, I too want to go to the Middle East, particularly Beirut and perhaps Dubai. (I don’t share your love of predicament.)
I say you should follow up on these dreams you have, and I hope you really do get that chance in the near future. Exploring this world of a multitude of cultures is just too amazing to let up on, before the inevitable homogenizing of our cultural stock.