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There is so much going on which I am not blogging. Actually, all the time there is something going on, even when there's nothing going on. Like right now.
I left Indonesia ten days ago and took a breather in Malaysia. Why Malaysia? My VISA was about to expire and I had to get out without having any solid plan to move on. Malaysia is the easiest; A free 90 day VISA on arrival, no questions asked. For me and everybody else from the Netherlands at least. I am starting to understand the benefits of diplomacy.
Once in Melaka I decided to fly. I don't like flying. It cheapens travel. Airports are as strange as they are generic. It is more artificial than a shopping mall and there's not even a cinema. You stress over arriving early because you don't want the stress of arriving late. Once you are there nothing of interest is flying for some time, least of all time itself. No one is very social. We all just want to get it all over with, with as few memories as possible, so we can shove it all into the same compartmental box in the brain labelled 'airport memories'.
Even though there are bars to be found, the light is too bright, the selection too basic and too expensive. There is the lure of the beautiful bottles in the duty free shops, but the whole concept is a laugh. Well, unless you are permanently stuck in Malaysia or Indonesia. I think those may be the only two countries in the world where the duty free shops are actually less expensive than the regular liquor stores.
So by now you may be aware of the fact that I am not a fan of airports. Then there are the airplanes themselves. I could write quite a bit about the food, the toilets, the fellow passengers, etc, but all that has been done before and let's not spend any more time on that. But before I move on I just want to say that airplanes to me are just a sort of time capsule. You get in. Nothing happens for a long while and then you get out when you arrive. Even though we all end up waiting around for our baggage anyway, there's always an eager rush to get off the plane as fast as possible. People stand up before the seatbelt light is even turned off, reaching for overhead compartments and trying to be the first one off.
I could say that behaviour is pointless, but it just makes me wonder about the psychological aspect of it all.
Anthropology aside, I would prefer other means of travel. My romantic ideas about long train journeys across Asia haven't been shot to pieces by the reality of them yet, so I was looking into the possibilities, but it meant a lot of bus, train and more bus changing and my romantic ideas of bus travel were dead before they even had the chance to bud.
So I am flying for the practicality of it. It feels like a betrayal and a relief at the same time.
I booked a cheaper flight, allowing myself some time to kill. It's not an economic decision, because the days I spend before I fly aren't free either. Still, I was looking forward to having some time surrounded by the comforts of a city and having absolutely nothing else to do but read, watch tv shows on my laptop and movies in the cinema. Also, I delight in Asian food, but I am happy to have statisfied my cravings for Western food: Spare ribs, tenderloin steak, English breakfast. I am still on the lookout for a stack of American style pancakes with maple syrup, but I have given up on that mostly. To be honest, even proper English breakfast is hard to come by. The quality of the bacon and sausages is a sad affair.
My days in Melaka were spent in a hostel, until I figured out I wasn't really in the mood to socialize. Socializing meaning at this point being interupted in my reading constantly and basically talking about where I've been and listening to where others have been. That conversation does get boring after a while. The interesting part is where you manage to poke through that conversation into what is really motivating someone to trade all the familiarity of back home for a life without a purpose.
This is why one of my first questions is: "How long are you travelling for?" If it's up to a month, it's just a holiday. Up to three months is a break from studying or just between jobs. Up to six months is much the same, but holds more potential in uprooting someones view on life and diminishing the chance of returning to what most people consider to be a normal life. Longer than six months is something people never really recover from. They will return, but the bug has got to them. Once it becomes more than twelve months, there really isn't any time limit anymore. They don't have a plane ticket for anywhere. They are drifters and vagabonds, steering clear of the madness we call economy and politics. These are the people that inspire me. They have found the loopholes and somehow made life work without submitting to the demands of others.
The reason I find this interesting is because I know that working 40 hours a week or more for 40 years or more is not really the meaning of life. I know it's what we are told, but I never really believed it. And the more I see out here, the less I am inclined to believe it. The best I have managed so far is to live in two worlds. The normal one and the real one. What I haven't managed yet is to bring these worlds together. That is my great challenge right now.
So I am just going along with it. Vagabonding. Winging it. Following my heart. Whatever you want to call it. And my next target is Cambodia. To put myself in a rural village with no white man or woman in sight. To do something well out of my comfort zone and in which I have no experience at all. There's not bulls***ting there. I'll have no choice but to open my heart up to people I cannot fool with analytical rationalizations. My story so far makes no difference. All that will make a differences is what I'll bring to the table so I better make sure it will be genuine.
It feels good to step into the unknown.
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