The End
Well, this is it. We're now back at home in London. I'd certainly recommend travelling to anyone, its a completely different feel when you up sticks and actually pretend to be living somewhere abroad rather than on a two week holiday. Its cost about £6000 each, which is a lot, except when compared to rent in England for the same time or a new car.
The things I remember most right now are the unexpected connections. After a while, your eyes glaze over temples, mountains, cities etc. Its striking how similar every city was, we went from Seattle to Kyoto to Hannoi and they all had exactly the same grey concrete buildings. Yes, there were different monuments, but 99% of the people lived in very similar places. The shops had the main differences, from the huge supermarkets of America to the identical pristine air conditioned Japanese 7-11's.
Bolivia had millions of individual stalls, e.g. one for shampoo, one for conditioner that made it hopeless to try and find something but did employ lots of people.
No one, apart from the British (ok, Americans as well), seem to have any sense of personal space or queues.
South America was different in that we could almost talk to the locals as locals - bit more suntan and spanish lessons would have helped. Watching a pirated copy of Star Wars 3 and hearing the Emperor say "Goooooood" in English and seeing the translated "Bieeeeen" was quite funny. Watching a BBC program on Che Guevara's influence in Burma while in Bolivia right next to where he was caught and executed was spooky- is the world really that interconnected? The BBC's Top Gear was shown on every continent. The clear mountain air in the Andes and Himalayas was great, there's a serenity there that is hard to find in super concentrated accelerated condensed London.
Geckos and elephants are cool.
The knack is definitely to see yourself as a local, well, as far as that is possible. So you too think that displaying anger is a hilarious loss of face, or that shrugging your shoulders and saying "what to do?" is a course of action, or siesta-ing every afternoon is how it should be. Air con is evil, it makes you believe the midday sun is ludricously hot when everyone else just thinks its normal; for a 2 week holiday, OK, but for longer periods people will just laugh (maybe silently) at that sweaty westerner.
We thought we'd have lots of time, but it all seemed to disappear. Half the time was spent trying to comprehend and place the things we'd seen in the first half. We attempted to read various classics, the kind of book you like to claim is worth reading but you're far too busy to actually read it, but we got so fed up with the super heavyweight elephant stopping sentances that we gave up. Although after starting Don Quixote, we have noticed every other book in the world seems to quote it.
We had some massive journeys like 24 solid hours from Seattle to Kyoto and 30 hours Goa to Delhi on the train. It wasn't too bad, as the entire point of being out here was to travel.
Anyway, that's it for now. Where next? We'd like to go to China, but for now its time to get money, jobs and a house.
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. ~T.S. Eliot
Nope, same old Britain. ~Me.
The things I remember most right now are the unexpected connections. After a while, your eyes glaze over temples, mountains, cities etc. Its striking how similar every city was, we went from Seattle to Kyoto to Hannoi and they all had exactly the same grey concrete buildings. Yes, there were different monuments, but 99% of the people lived in very similar places. The shops had the main differences, from the huge supermarkets of America to the identical pristine air conditioned Japanese 7-11's.
Bolivia had millions of individual stalls, e.g. one for shampoo, one for conditioner that made it hopeless to try and find something but did employ lots of people.
No one, apart from the British (ok, Americans as well), seem to have any sense of personal space or queues.
South America was different in that we could almost talk to the locals as locals - bit more suntan and spanish lessons would have helped. Watching a pirated copy of Star Wars 3 and hearing the Emperor say "Goooooood" in English and seeing the translated "Bieeeeen" was quite funny. Watching a BBC program on Che Guevara's influence in Burma while in Bolivia right next to where he was caught and executed was spooky- is the world really that interconnected? The BBC's Top Gear was shown on every continent. The clear mountain air in the Andes and Himalayas was great, there's a serenity there that is hard to find in super concentrated accelerated condensed London.
Geckos and elephants are cool.
The knack is definitely to see yourself as a local, well, as far as that is possible. So you too think that displaying anger is a hilarious loss of face, or that shrugging your shoulders and saying "what to do?" is a course of action, or siesta-ing every afternoon is how it should be. Air con is evil, it makes you believe the midday sun is ludricously hot when everyone else just thinks its normal; for a 2 week holiday, OK, but for longer periods people will just laugh (maybe silently) at that sweaty westerner.
We thought we'd have lots of time, but it all seemed to disappear. Half the time was spent trying to comprehend and place the things we'd seen in the first half. We attempted to read various classics, the kind of book you like to claim is worth reading but you're far too busy to actually read it, but we got so fed up with the super heavyweight elephant stopping sentances that we gave up. Although after starting Don Quixote, we have noticed every other book in the world seems to quote it.
We had some massive journeys like 24 solid hours from Seattle to Kyoto and 30 hours Goa to Delhi on the train. It wasn't too bad, as the entire point of being out here was to travel.
Anyway, that's it for now. Where next? We'd like to go to China, but for now its time to get money, jobs and a house.
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. ~T.S. Eliot
Nope, same old Britain. ~Me.
posted by Matt and Lizzie at
11:53 AM
1 Comments:
Wow! Welcome back guys! I'm knocking around Oxford for the next three weeks with not very much to do. Drop me a line or stop by, it would be great to see you.
Vaniah
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Vaniah, at 12:51 AM
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