Let's Talk over Coffee....
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Let's Talk over Coffee.... |
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Sunday, October 21, 2007 What would be your first reaction if a friend came up to you and asked if you would be interested in going on a long overseas trip. More specifically a 6-month long journey in Tibet, Pakistan, Iran and India. For me, it was a tempting call to adventure. The trip was planned as a “working holiday” and an “immersion experience”. For half a year, we would live with the locals and pay for our food and boarding with work. We would be free to explore these exotic destinations with no curfews and no supervision. We will stay and go as we wish. We will meet and interact with people from across the globe. We will experience the festivals and culture of these people as only a local could. We would be like the wanderers of fantasy tales. We would have the time of our life!The initial euphoria soon evaporated when I realized it was all still a dream. There was no “plan”. The mentioned friend was determined to go for his “pilgrimage”, alone if need be, but he had nothing solid. His idea was go in cold, believing that he will find a local willing to help him on the ground. I suggested that he at least get to know a helpful local through email first rather than going in with no back-up at all but he was adamant about it. Without any friendly faces in a foreign and possibly hostile land, I felt it was possible suicide. The countries we were planning to stop in were not exactly known for their hospitality to strangers. Perhaps I just didn’t have the guts to do it. Real adventurers wouldn’t always have something to fall back on wherever they went. They were willing to risk it all to quench their thirst. No matter what kind of situation they found themselves in, they would find a solution. Parental consent would be another major hurdle. I don’t believe there’s a chance in hell they would let me go cavorting around in India and Pakistan for 6 months straight. Not without hourly updated GPS co-ordinates and full police protection anyway. Moreover, this would be 6 months of time I could put to good use. The trip would be the experience of a lifetime but it wouldn’t add anything tangible to my life. It is bitterly disappointing when something as wonderful as this gets killed in its infancy by conditions of the real world. I strongly believed in what my friend said, that no one can stop you from doing something you really want to do. He had valid points too. That this is probably the only time when we are so utterly without commitments and obligations that we can really disappear for 6 months and do something we used to only dream of. It would have been a crazy thing to go but it just seems like such a waste to let it go…. |
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