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A Traveller Returns: Struggling with the Post-Travel Blues

May 20th, 2013 | Posted by Hannah in Uncategorized - (1 Comments)

I have said on many an occasion that the hardest part of long-term travel is making the decision to go.

I guess I lied.

It turns out that the hardest part of long-term travel is coming home.

Three months ago, my best friend waited outside a tube station in London to welcome me back to the familiar world I had left behind six months previously. I was excited to see her. I was excited to sleep in a comfortable bed for more than a few nights in a row. The thought of having my own wardrobe to hang my clothes in made me spontaneously erupt into a happy-dance. No more insect repellent, factor 50, padlocks or money belts. I was coming home. Safe, predictable home.

I was upset that my adventure had come to an end.  I loved being on the road, bad moments included. I loved exploring somewhere new every few days. I loved that even the most mundane things became exciting. I loved the people I met, who went from strangers to friends in the space of twenty minutes and a bottle of beer. I loved who I was to other people – another traveller, a clean slate with her own interesting stories to tell.

But I was tired. Not to mention broke. It was time to go home for a while, recharge my batteries and top up my bank account.

I knew coming home would be tough. I didn’t realise how tough.

I thought I would spend many a night with my old friends, flipping through photos and telling them the stories behind the faces. I wanted to tell them about the cockroaches, spiders, snakes and rats that had crossed my path and shared my bed; the mountains, craters, lakes and all the amazing vistas I had seen.

But that’s not how it works. I invariably got out my skydive DVD and showed them a few photos before we moved on to different conversations. My friends’ lives had carried on while I was away and they had their own stories they wanted to tell. And that makes perfect sense – in what world would you want to listen to someone talk about themselves for hours?

For every story someone told, I found myself saying, “When I was in…”. I soon caught myself out in this and stopped. Ok, I still do it a little but that’s because I experienced more in those six months travelling than I have in my whole life so far.

And so over the past three months since I’ve been back, the traveller in me has become quieter and quieter. Most days I drift into a daydream, imagining I am off and away on some other continent. I find myself looking up the next place I want to visit, even going so far as looking at flight prices and thinking maybe… just maybe… I fantasise about being the traveller I was again. Sometimes I am wistful. Mostly, when I remember those six months, I am sad.

When I came back people asked, ”How was it?” How can you possibly summarise ‘it’ in an answer short enough to finish before their eyes glaze over? So now I say, “It was amazing!” I smile and leave it at that. That’s good enough for everyone.

How was it? I could tell you all about the places, animals and people but that’s not the first thing that comes to mind. Rather, my travels ended up becoming about how I changed and grew as a result of all the amazing characters I met and situations I found myself in.

I started out a timid mouse, dizzy after my first ever long-haul flight and almost regretting what I had got myself into. Within days I was on my way to becoming the person I have always wanted to be. I was alive. So alive. I was Present in every conversation. I challenged myself on a daily basis and truly gave 100% in everything that I did. I pushed myself beyond what I thought I was even capable of. I lay down on rock hard ground every night and slept like a baby. The longer I was away, the less I was afraid to show how passionate I was about… well, about everything and anything I wanted.  I became more assertive. I learnt to look people in the eyes and understand that they can tell you more about them than any words in any language can.

I learnt to be proud of myself and unapologetic of the fact.

I am still proud but now it feels like I am proud of someone else. Not me. Not the girl who sits in an office all day and replies with “not bad” when asked how she is.

It is hard to describe the yearning I feel when I think back to those six months. I feel a deep, leaden emptiness sitting in my chest. It makes me not want to even talk about my travels (a problem when you run a travel blog and the reason it’s been quiet here lately).

And yes I know I can focus on the next trip and plan short getaways to lessen the mundanities of everyday life. But that’s like telling a newly-single friend that there are plenty more fish in the sea.

Allow me to be a ‘little’ self-indulgent here. Perhaps in another month’s time I can counteract this with a ‘how I beat the back-home blues’ post.

Kristen at HopscotchtheGlobe does a much better job of tackling this subject than I can right now – So You’ve Returned Home After Traveling the World, Now What?

Moments of Muse: Bite-Sized Travel Inspiration

May 17th, 2013 | Posted by Hannah in Muse - (0 Comments)

travel inspiration

Moments of Muse: Bite-Sized Travel Inspiration

May 10th, 2013 | Posted by Hannah in Muse - (0 Comments)

travel inspiration

Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it.

- Eudora Welty

Hannah’s Top 25 Inspiring Travel Quotes

May 4th, 2013 | Posted by Hannah in Muse - (0 Comments)

Regular followers of HannahandtheWorld.com will be familiar with Moments of Muse: Bite-Sized Travel Inspiration, a series of weekly posts in which I share an inspiring travel quote or other travel-related food for thought. Last Friday I posted number 52 – that’s a whole year of travel inspiration!

A number of my lovely readers joined me after I started Moments of Muse and so I want to share my favourite 25 inspiring travel quotes from this year’s Bite-Sized Travel Inspiration posts.

1. “You don’t choose the day you enter the world and you don’t choose the day you leave. It’s what you do in between that makes all the difference.” - Anita Septimus

travel quotes2. “Accept that cars aren’t necessary and that some meals take hours, that we can now fly to space, that there’s nothing wrong with crashing on couches if you’re on an adventure, that three outfits are enough, that sunrises are free, that the first time you see Machu Picchu it will break your heart, that being alone in a country with no money and no return ticket will teach you more about yourself than any therapist ever could.” - Aric S. Queen

3. “The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.” - Author Unknown

4. “The sight of the huge world put mad ideas into me, as if I could wander away, wander forever, see strange and beautiful things, one after the other…” - C. S. Lewis

5. “When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.” - D. H. Lawrence

6. “Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.” - Frank Herbert

7. “Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” - Helen Keller

8. “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” - Howard Thurman

9. “We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” - Jawaharal Nehrutravel quotes

10. “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” - John A. Shedd

11. “They say no land remains to be discovered, no continent is left unexplored. But the whole world is out there, waiting, just waiting for me. I want to do things— I want to walk the rain-soaked streets of London, and drink mint tea in Casablanca. I want to wander the wastelands of the Gobi desert and see a yak. I think my life’s ambition is to see a yak. I want to bargain for trinkets in an Arab market in some distant, dusty land. There’s so much. But, most of all, I want to do things that will mean something.” - Lisa Ann Sandell

12. “It is in all of us to defy expectations, to go into the world and to be brave, and to want, to need, to hunger for adventures. To embrace the chance and risk so that we may breathe and know what it is to be free.” - Mae Chevrette

13. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” - Mark Twain

14. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain

15. “I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.”  - Mary Anne Radmacher Hershey

16. “Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” - Miriam Beard

17. “I haven’t a clue as to how my story will end. But that’s all right. When you set out on a journey and night covers the road, you don’t conclude the road has vanished. And how else could we discover the stars?” - Nancy Willard

travel quotes18. “The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between.” - Norton Juster

19. “And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.” - Pico Iyer

20. “When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

21. “I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” - Rosalia de Castro

22. “The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” - Rudyard Kipling

23. “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” - Scott Camerontravel quotes

24. “Only it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don’t talk English and don’t even want to.” - Thornton Wilder

25. “When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” - William Least Heat-Moon

Moments of Muse: Bite-Sized Travel Inspiration

May 3rd, 2013 | Posted by Hannah in Muse - (0 Comments)

travel inspiration

When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.

- William Least Heat-Moon

Is India Unsafe for Women to Travel Alone?

May 1st, 2013 | Posted by Hannah in india - (1 Comments)

Here’s a piece I wrote for The Sunday Times last week about whether or not it is unsafe to travel India as a solo female.

solo female taj mahal india

One Woman and India

The issue of sexual violence in India has dominated the headlines of late, with harrowing reports of assault on local and foreign women alike being brought to light. Since the rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus in December last year, the number of female visitors to India has dropped by as much as 35 percent. Just how unsafe is it really to travel India as a solo female?

I made my choice to travel alone around India before the events in December happened. Even so, the initial reactions of friends and family when I told them my plans varied from, “That’s amazing!” to “Don’t be such an idiot!”

The nay-sayers thought of India as a dangerous place for a single female, and worried about me being mugged, or worse. Personally, I wasn’t too concerned, knowing that most people think of foreign lands, particularly developing ones, with needless trepidation. I knew that the reality is generally nowhere near as scary as the idea of it.

What did put me slightly on edge was the furrowed brow of a friend who had travelled to India herself. She strongly recommended that I find a travel partner, particularly for train and bus journeys, in order to avoid being harassed by local men. On the other hand, a woman I met, who had visited India many times, reassured me that it was perfectly safe so long as I kept my wits about me.

There was nothing to it – I would have to go to India and find out for myself.

My first few weeks were spent in Goa, India’s smallest state and probably the most Westernised area in the country. It was here that I had my first experience of being photographed. Lying on the beach with a group of girls from the hostel, I noticed a man crouched down taking photos of us. He then brought his toddler son over and sat him down in front of us, without the slightest acknowledgement of our presence, and went back as if to take more photos. The only thing that stopped him was our shocked protestations. It was the first time, but not the last, that I felt like a sideshow attraction; one that could be ogled and prodded without question.

Travelling alone had its benefits; I could change my plans on a whim and never had to make compromises. I also found that I fully immersed myself in the experience, more so than if I had a friend to depend upon.

Unfortunately, there were also many drawbacks. I never felt safe walking around alone after dark, so my day generally ended at sunset. In the more traditional Indian states, such as Tamil Nadu, I sometimes felt uncomfortable even during the day. I also found that it was difficult to get to know any of the locals; I mostly met men (the women were almost invisible, but there’s a story for another day) who mistook friendliness for flirtation and invariably tried to take the conversation one step further.

I met a number of women travelling alone like myself. Sadly, most had at least one story of a moment when they felt unsafe. One woman told me how a group of men had attempted to get into her hotel room, while another spoke of a lecherous rickshaw driver who took far too many liberties. I myself experienced a few roaming hands on busy buses, and a night-bus inspector who did his best to make me feel uncomfortable.

The horrible incident in Delhi happened two weeks into my stay in India, while I was still in the South, and naturally made me quite nervous about going up North. It didn’t help that I met a few Indian families at train stations who were shocked that I was travelling alone and warned me to be careful. These same families went out of their way to look after me on some long train journeys and helped me to see a wonderfully hospitable side to the country.

Despite the story on the news and other backpackers’ talk of how unfriendly the people in the North can be, I ended up having a much better time there and felt less conspicuous than I had previously. This proved to me that every place is worth trying, no matter what others have said of it.

Travelling alone as a woman in India was tough. My time there helped me to appreciate the freedom I have in Western society and made me more passionate about women’s rights than I ever have been. It is certainly easier and safer there with company but I would never discourage a woman from travelling India alone. The thing to remember is that the more difficult situations tend to be the ones from which we learn most about ourselves.

 Tips for Staying Safe 

  • Cover up. Even better, invest in a salwar kameez or sari. Bare shoulders or legs are a big no-no in India and will create even more unwanted attention.
  • Don’t go out alone after dark.
  • Plan travel so that you arrive at your destination at a reasonable hour. If this isn’t possible, book your accommodation in advance and request a pick-up.
  • Know where you are and where you’re going.
  • Carry a whistle. It might seem silly but it can act as a deterrent.
  • Know the emergency number. It often differs from one state to another.
  • Carry a padlock. Most accommodation will provide you with a door lock but they are also likely to have a duplicate key. Using your own padlock ensures you are the only one able to get in.
  • Trust your instincts. If a situation doesn’t feel right, get out of it.

Moments of Muse: Bite-Sized Travel Inspiration

April 25th, 2013 | Posted by Hannah in Muse - (1 Comments)

travel inspiration

They say no land remains to be discovered, no continent is left unexplored. But the whole world is out there, waiting, just waiting for me. I want to do things— I want to walk the rain-soaked streets of London, and drink mint tea in Casablanca. I want to wander the wastelands of the Gobi desert and see a yak. I think my life’s ambition is to see a yak. I want to bargain for trinkets in an Arab market in some distant, dusty land. There’s so much. But, most of all, I want to do things that will mean something.

- Lisa Ann Sandell

Solo in India: Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram) Dance Festival

April 24th, 2013 | Posted by Hannah in india | Tamil Nadu | The Big Trip - (0 Comments)

I can’t really claim to have planned out my ten weeks in India very well. I had a rough route in mind – down along the south-west coast, then up long the south-east … easy! – but not much else. There was only one town I had marked on the map as a must-see: Mamallapuram, a.k.a. Mahabalipuram.

Mamallapuram is a small town about 60km south of Chennai. Lonely Planet dubs it another “backpackistan” and rightly so. The main roads are lined with shops selling the usual Ali Baba-style pants, floaty tops, colourful bracelets … tie-dye as far as the eye can see. Sometimes while in India, I wondered what sort of mental image the average Indian has of Western countries. Judging by the clothes they try to sell to foreigners, and the music they like to play (choice of trance or reggae) in touristy spots, I reckon they think of us as a bunch of stoned ’70s-throwbacks. Actually, that’s not quite right. I’m not convinced India has left the ’70s behind yet. But anyway, there’s a story for another day.

So – why did I want to visit Mamallapuram when it was much the same as any other tourist hotspot? The stone carvings were pretty spectacular but that wasn’t it. No, I was there for the dance festival.

Every year, from the end of December until the end of January, Mamallapuram is host to a traditional Indian dance festival. It’s put on by the Tamil Nadu tourist board and every evening for four weeks you can witness all sorts of traditional dance, music and cultural displays.

I have been belly dancing for six years and practised various other styles before that; dancing is a big part of my life and as soon as I learnt of the Mamallapuram dance festival, I knew I had to go. Information about the event is quite sparse online so I’m not even entirely sure how I stumbled across the first mention of it. Somehow I managed to find out the dates for the 2012/2013 festival and set aside a whole week for it.

The dancing started at roughly 18:30 every evening down by the Shore Temple and went on for two hours. Walking down the beach road to get to the venue, the place was absolutely ram-packed with Indians who appeared to have travelled from various parts of Tamil Nadu for the festival. There were about 100 seats set out in front of the stage and, given the crowd, I expected them to fill up quite quickly. Weirdly, most of the locals stayed out in the street and milled around the various knick-knack and food stalls instead of coming in to watch the performance.

Every night for a week I found a spot and watched the show, mesmerised by the costumes, music and intricacies of certain dance styles. Some performers were clearly amateur, while others took my breath away. The most common styles of dance were the classical Indian Bharata Natyam and Odissi.

Bharata Natyam is the combination of: ‘Bha’ - Bhavam (means expression), ‘Ra’ - Ragam (means music), ‘Ta - Talam (means beat or rhythm) and Natyam (means dance) in Tamil.

mamallapuram dance festival

mamallapuram dance festival

As with all good dancers, these girls made it look incredibly easy. I tried my hand at Odissi dance later on in Pushkar (Rajasthan) and let me tell you now – it is the hardest, most physically demanding and tear-inducing dance style I have ever tried my hand at. Basic dance stance is chauka: knees bent and facing outwards. Within a few minutes of holding this posture you will be shaking like a leaf, I promise you.

The dancers create beautiful shapes with their fingers, all of which mean something and tell a story. They do this while gracefully holding their bodies in mind-boggling poses and using their eyes to express all kinds of emotions.

The first day I watched the classical indian style, I could not make head nor tail of the story the dancers were trying to tell. By day three, I was starting to recognise some of the movements and gestures and by the end of the week, I managed to understand about half of an entire performance. How amazing is that?

The dance festival had its kooky moments too: a man dressed as a giant peacock, walking about the stage; a group who appeared to be having an argument mid-performance; and let’s not forget the man who spun a bicycle wheel on his head. All in all, a festival to remember.

mahabalipuram dance festival

Moments of Muse: Bite-Sized Travel Inspiration

April 19th, 2013 | Posted by Hannah in Muse - (0 Comments)

travel inspiration

Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have travelled.

- Mohammed

Getting Tyred: An Overland Adventure in Africa

April 18th, 2013 | Posted by Hannah in Africa | The Big Trip - (1 Comments)

Times article

Check out my article about overland travel in Africa featured in The Times of Malta travel supplement this week: Getting Tyred.