Reminiscing about the last three months

I guess one of the most significant souvenir I bring back at Home is a tattoo I've done in Siem Reap, at the end of our trip in Cambodia.

It represents, in Khmer writing, three words and on the top, as a temple, stands the symbol of protection in the Buddhist culture.

The three words are :

C U R I O S I T Y

A D V E N T U R E

K N O W L E D G E.

The perfect trinity for my trip and the next ones in my life. What else but a strong Curiosity can lead you outdoor ? The wish to discover a new world, which is, in fact, still just a part of our World. Approach new cultures, new people, new structures, new food (even though it's not always easy !)... Bref, new. I wanted to see how people like me live on the other side of my planet. I wanted to know how it feels to be (long) on the other side. I needed to experience something different.

This wish, this need, HERE and NOW, with Tobias we were ready to go. From the first step, from the moment we passed the entrance door of the Cologne airport, the second word began... Adventure.

Adventure. I don't know if it's for you the same, when I hear this word I think about movies and impossible situations. I almost imagine shortly myself in a space shuttle (Interstellar) ready to fight Voldemort (Harry Potter, yes I'm taking you for stupid) with an arrow (Hunger Games). Without kidding, these last three months I finally felt what Adventure really is.

I have to say we had more than several occasions to realize it. First, it was my first time travelling so far without an "authority" (parents, youth camp, school). Then, the tours we booked, basically for groups of tourists, were, by luck, always private for the two of us. Finally, we did some loops and in general, riding a scooter in kind of random places brings you an incredible freedom. All these conditions made a true Adventure feeling. Let it be a calm moment in a boat through spectacular landscapes, a huge panic inside a cave when lights accidentally turns out, raising a traumatized monkey for few days, eating wild big frogs, riding our scooter by night under a pouring rain lost in the middle of nowhere, teaching English to Cambodian children,... The most important was to feel alive in any ways. Happiness, anger, fatigue, fear, excitement, ... so many feelings you're used to in your daily life but rediscover ten times stronger. It sometimes seems like you never felt before.

Seeing and living all that to the fullest, makes you feel free, for sure, and alive, as I said, but most of all, it makes you learn. A final phase, which lasts forever... Knowledge. That's the main reason of this blog : to not forget all this unbelievable moments I learnt from. I don't even know by what I should start the precious list of knowledge, this experience offered me.

The first which comes to my mind (I already knew it but now it's confirmed) is I'm not done to travel alone. Happiness is only real when shared (Into the Wild), and I couldn't have been happier than with Tobias. When you travel for three months, you better do to be sure that your company has a way of seeing and doing things which matches with yours. Tobias and me are, for sure, an excellent team, and would never have enjoyed it that much without each other.

Then, I have to admit that this trip made me growing up in my interaction with our World. I'm ashamed now to think that before I had some difficulties, not to understand, but to really feel a responsible conscience as for our environment - nature and animals. - protection. In South East Asia, lot of phenomenons educate you about it. For sure, it's easier to become more sensitive when you face directly and almost everyday, immediate problems to whose you already know the impacts. I especially think about the plastic use incredibly excessive in Thailand for example, but also in Cambodia and Laos. In Thailand,we saw it buying in Seven Eleven, they give you one plastic bag for each purchase, a bigger one to put then the smaller bags, even the plastic spoons are within plastic. Everywhere in the streets, towns, countrysides, each square meter of land has its percentage of plastic rubbish. We also saw a lot of forest destruction. And, as you may know, wild animals are seriously threatened by several kind of issues : tourism, poaching, detention as pet, mistreatment, ... Before going there, Tobias and me imagined us riding an elephant somewhere in the midst of the jungle. Now we know. Better than to know it or to understand it, we deeply feel how much is wrong to do so. I finally feel the aversion some of my friends already expressed as for zoos or aquariums, ... It sounds probably ridiculous, but even when it's about to kill an insect, my conscience changed. Let it be the 3-months-Buddha-philosophy or the deep disaster we saw sometimes there... Insect Farms, Snake Farms, Crocodile Farms, Monkey School, ... Only touristic attractions, except the crocodile farm which provides material to some shops specialized in expensive crocodile-skin goods (handbags, wallets, suitcases, ...)

Finally, I would like to end with speaking about Happiness, overall. Everyone is able to assert that it doesn't mean anything to keep living a life which doesn't make you happy. But, paradoxically, a lot of people do so, and it ends kind of bad most of the time. In South East Asia, I had the opportunity to wonder more about Happiness, seeing lives which differ so much of mine. Something I got to understand through this year, is that Happiness is not easy to reach, but it's worth it to fight for. I believed that freedom was a way to Happiness. I understood I was wrong. I, somehow, realized that it's when you're happy, you actually begin to feel Free. This last months I felt really Happy, and it's still the case. I don't know how to describe what is, in concrete termes, this powerful feeling. I only know that I feel differently and better than before, more enthusiastic, and hopeful also.

I learnt a lot about myself and about the History, the culture, the lives of the people we crossed paths with. I can not write everything here, I hope I shared two or three interesting things in some previous posts.

I spent three months to add new and fresh colors to my life, acquisitions which will last as long as I can remember them. There's not only beautiful colors, some come from a dark and sad picture of our World. But, anyway, I feel my life has improved.

And you ? How many shades are you ready to add to your existence ?