What am I doing with my life?
…is a common thought for many who come here, or indeed go travelling anywhere. Unfamiliar places, meeting new people of all nationalities, sensory overload or just too much cheap booze gets people all introspective.
Siem Reap can be an intoxicating place, and not just because of Free Beer Friday at the Warehouse. There is seemingly a strange and exotic mix of people, a cock-eyed version of reality, you can do anything you want with impunity, and it’s really cheap. In reality most of the people here are quite normal (only the occasional loony spends a few days here working out his disfunctions), everything seems to make sense after a while, you can’t get away with that much, and it isn’t that cheap if you go out every night or buy luxuries like Marmite.
Some of the loonies do stick around, but you really don’t want to know them.
I saw a lot of people in Northern India who looked like they expected to find all of the answers to Life, The Universe and Everything in the Himalayan foothills. All some of them found was a shop that sold good falafel, a grope from a dodgy yogi, and a headache from the local whisky. Some characters travelled on the trains or hung out in backwater spots, and seemed to have forgotten who they were, what they were doing there, or where they were going. Lost souls with deep tans.
I’ve had a few conversations with people here who are looking for a new direction, and to an extent I’m one of them, but what I’ve said to all of them is the same – don’t expect to find any answers here, go home and figure out what you want, then come back if this is really it.
Quite Random is the blog of Nathan Nelson, a human male who lives in the UK and is not entirely sure what he's going to do when he grows up but is interested in international development, photography, secularism, technology, music and movies and other things anyone of his age would be.
Ah, Grasshopper, those are wise words.
Fiona, my ex flatmate used to tell me about the reality of these travelling adventures. It didn’t sound at all like I had imagined it.
I’m sure there are loads of exceptions, but I got the impression there is now a real sense of conformity and routine to many of these trips to far-flung locations. Hundreds of people doing the same excursions, treading the same paths, taking the same photos and buying Red Bull in the same bars.
Indeed it seems that a substantial proportion of these wanderers are unashamedly uninterested in gaining any real insights into their ports of call, at times even failing to remember which country they were in. Rather they were seeking out uber-cool party beaches or areas saturated with people like themselves, where it was cheap to get wasted.
Please tell me it’s not all like that! I know it’s rather different for you. Not just because I know you better, but because this time you’ve gone to a specific place, to do something worth doing.
On the other hand, I kind of quite like knowing all this lark isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, as it makes me feel less deprived about not being able to do it for myself!
Lots of love, mouthy cousin, writing too much as I’ve lost my voice with a bad cold, and have to blab somehow!
Jen xxxxxxx
Marmite is indeed a luxury - and how could one live without it!?!