I spent my adolescent years planning my escape of the 9-5 life. I had always dreamed of travelling the world and experiencing culture, learning new things and developing my emotional and spiritual self through travel. With a keen interest in throwing myself into situations outside of my comfort zone I convinced my fiancé (with little work) that instead of having a wedding we should sell everything we own, save as much of our earnings as we possibly could and jet off to the cheapest countries to explore and adventure there for as long as our money would last.
I bought the ticket because I wanted to follow my dreams. I ached for something that wasn’t there and I didn’t know what it was. Suffering from anxiety and depression in a job I once loved and had been in for over 3 years my soul was craving something more and I thought that travelling would magically heal me as well as being super easy and 100% fun 100% of the time. What a cliché. 5 months ago I stepped onto a plane hoping travel would change my life. Here’s how it has: New Zealand > Australia > Thailand > Vietnam > Cambodia > India I have learnt that getting out of my comfort zone is essential for mental, emotional and spiritual growth: When Rhys and I first arrived in Bangkok we were both nervous as hell after everything we had been told. I vividly remember the first drive from the airport to our hotel both of us completely silent staring out the taxi windows at the extremely dodgy looking power lines crossing over hundreds and hundreds of tangled lines and wires while motos and cars zoomed past us weaving in and out of traffic. I remember the first time hoping onto the back of a moped and cruising along Laem Mae Pimh roads and begging Rhys not to go over 40ks and to stay directly to the side of the road out of harms way. Getting stuck and kicked out of our taxi van in the middle of nowhere 2 hours from where we had supposed to be surrounded by non English speakers. Having to visit a local hospital and being stared at by over 200+ people like I was an alien in Saigon, Vietnam. Arriving in Cambodia with $0 cash and no internet to transfer money onto our credit card at 10pm at night. Becoming more incredibly and painfully ill than I ever remember being in my life, more than once; just for eating food. Being scammed by professional hustlers and feeling pressured into doing something when someone starts getting angry at you. Getting pulled over by an extremely corrupt police force and standing up to them and getting away with it. These times that I have felt 100% uncomfortable are the times I feel like I have really learnt the most about people, places, systems and cultures while travelling. In the end they turned out not to be such bad things after all. I have learnt gratitude for a country I never wanted to return to, my home; New Zealand: How often in New Zealand do we take for granted that our streets aren’t overflowing with rubbish and plastic? Or that the water in our toilet bowls is cleaner than water available to entire villages? That our streets aren’t teething with skinny, hungry, stray animals covered in fleas, ticks and who have contracted rabies and who knows what else (adopt don’t shop!)? Most of our children have access to public education. The fact that freedom of speech means we can protest things that we don’t agree with without being bashed and even shot in the face by our own policemen and women. That it is illegal to rape a woman and communities will band together to push out the rapist and not the victim and their entire extended family. I took New Zealand for granted many times over and every time I tell someone in the world where I am from they always start with “wow!” and tell me that it’s the best country in the world, or that they have heard so from other people they have met. How lucky are we to be able to live in such a desired place that some people can only dream of visiting let alone moving to. By absolutely no means am I suggesting that all New Zealanders have it easy. I have learnt to be more patient, understanding and compassionate toward my fellow human beings: For a long time I had little to 0 tolerance for other people. I would get frustrated at friends and family for saying the wrong things and would end up feeling sorry for myself and falling into a pit of depression letting other peoples moods and words dictate how I felt about myself. Through travel you see and speak to so many diverse people with different backgrounds. Street beggars missing limbs who won’t leave you alone until you give them some money for food, tuk tuk drivers who don’t make more than a couple of dollars each day to support their wives and children at home, shop owners who try so desperately to get you to buy something, anything from them as it may be their only sale they have made in who knows how long, street kids trying to sell you postcards and bracelets that may end up giving the money to gangsters who are forcing them to be out there – my point is that we always see each other for who we are on the outside and it’s easy to see a pushy saleswoman who is being completely rude and annoying or a tuk tuk driver trying desperately to sell you a dodgy deal for sightseeing but what we don’t see is how these people got to where they are today. We don’t see the mental state they are in or their background and the obstacles that they have had to over come trying to live a better life. We have all had obstacles in life to over come. Every single one of us. There is no one on this earth who hasn’t been handed a harsh lesson by life but there is one thing that every being on this planet is seeking regardless of where they are in their life now: Kindness, love and companionship. Our experiences shape who we are as people and everyone has a different story to tell. Most of us are just trying to live a comfortable life by our own standards. I have learnt that my body is stronger than I ever realized: Everyone I talk to says I have had one of the worst run of illness they have ever heard of while travelling. Obviously I know there are people out there who have had it worse than me. There are people out there who can’t even afford the most basic of medical care but when illness happens to you it feels like the hardest thing to overcome. I have suffered food poisoning in Thailand that landed me in hospital hooked up to a drip and lasted 5 days after that interrupting my Yoga teacher training. I endured an endoscopy in a local Vietnam hospital and was diagnosed with mild gastritis. My most recent run was a trip to an expensive western hospital in Cambodia after a night of hallucinations, high fever, vomiting and diarrhoea being told I had a parasite eating the tissue inside of my large intestines. It was all of these times that I felt like all I wanted was to go home to New Zealand desperately and considered booking flights but at the same time something inside me was holding on to travelling. Pain is only temporary even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time. It is so incredibly hard to hold on to any sort of positivity when you don’t even have enough strength to lift yourself out of bed but with Rhys help I made it through and I’m so glad I didn’t give up and go home. There is still so much world out there that I have to see! I have learnt again and again why I sill never stop speaking up for animals: In a world where animals and people are constantly treated like rubbish it is easy for some people to point fingers at Cambodian and Vietnamese people and say “how disgusting that these people eat dogs!”. Unfortunately I had the heart-breaking experience of coming face to face with a pile of dead, skinned, dog bodies piled on top of each other when we were staying in the ghetto of Saigon and it only strengthened my belief that speciesism is another form of oppression used by humans to claim that we are on top of the food chain. How come it is ok to eat a pig that has been forced to live a horribly depressed life which is smarter than a dog but it is not ok to be completely poor and have absolutely nothing and eat a dog? There are 1.5 billion starving people in the world but in the western world we can grown enough food to feed 70 billion livestock to serve to people who are unwilling to accept that eating mass produced factory farmed meat is destroying us as a species. It is destroying our land, it is destroying our mental and physical health and it is oppressing and destroying innocent living, breathing, feeling beings. Ignorance in the age of information is a choice. Also, please stop riding Elephants! - https://www.thedodo.com/elephant-rides-trek-1132645600.html I have learnt that there is something to love about every country: There have been some rough moments in each country but over all the parts that I remember are the bits that I loved about each and every place. Every single new place that we travelled to became my new favourite and all for different reasons. The ease of getting around in Thailand made it a breezy place to travel exploring the Northern mountains and the beautiful South beaches, the delicious vegan cuisine in Vietnam filled my taste buds with delight, the gorgeous, witty children of Cambodia always made me laugh and smile and the experience of traditional Yoga and meditation in India has really made me feel like I am slowly but surely learning how to become a good Yoga teacher. There are so many other things that I loved about each country and I will surely be back to visit good friends in Thailand, motorbike trip around the full North of Vietnam, volunteer helping children living in poverty in Cambodia after the wet season and complete my 500 hour YTT in India. I have learnt how much I love to connect with people and how really special my friends and family are: Never have I enjoyed so much writing letters and postcards home to family and friends. Skyping and catching up with friends and family on a video call and seeing familiar faces – there is always too much to say in not enough time. I have seen how supportive loved ones can be helping where they can from miles and miles away. It’s friends and family who make me often miss home. I have met inspiring, lovely, helpful people who have great travel and life advice and just generally great stories to tell. I have met people who I will never forget and will plan reunions with just to be in their presence again. I have created a stronger bond and many incredible, breath taking memories with my love and captured fantastic moments through the lens of our camera. I have met my stronger self through struggles and perseverance. I have met my self worth and my confidence again. And I have met a me who can express my thoughts whatever they may be through writing – something I really never thought I would be able or confident enough to do. Alana xx
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