Happy Birthday Old Man

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  Kathmandu, Nepal
Sunday, June 22, 2008

After being misused by elephants and hassling rhinos, it was time to return to Kathmandu. I had purchased a plane ticket to Bangkok leaving June 23, the day after my birthday. My previous birthday had been in a miserable little border town in Tanzania where I spent my time recovering from an epic three day overland fiasco through western Tanzania involving breakdowns, refugees, cattle trucks, illegal timber trading, driving down cliffs, and into rivers in the middle of the night. I had spent it alone, writing up said story for this blog, and wandering around the town.

Fortunately this time, Michelle (a Canadian friend made in Pokara) was living in Bangkok, and was excited to celebrate with me. She had also made friends with others in the city during her time working, and I soon was bestest friends in the whole wide world with three others, Naya, Luce, and Benji (the young earnest American, not the bog). Much of the week after my return was spent showing them my favourite old haunts in Kathmandu, and hanging out with this trio. Because Naya's departure was before mine, it was decided to celebrate my birthday a day early. A nice time had by all.

June 22 I woke up 35 years old. As always since turning 30, I wonder how it is possible that the years are now flying by so quickly. The trip from 10 years old to 15 felt like a lifetime. 30 to 35 felt like I just nipped off to take a pee, and when I came back, five years had passed. That's a long bathroom break.

I'm 35 and still out here on the road. I was 33 when I started this trip. The other day someone asked me when I was coming home, and where home even was anymore. It's a good question. Despite what some think, nothing was missing in my life. I didn't take this trip to 'find' myself. Having said that, I've found more than I could ever expect or wish for. I've lived some people's lifetime in the time I've been out here. The experiences, conversations, sights, smells, and tastes will last a lifetime, and I will never regret the sacrifices made to experience them. I am incredibly lucky - how many people truly get to say that they were able to realize one of their deepest, most personal life's dreams?

There is so much to see out here, so much to learn. A lifetime of travel wouldn't even scratch what there is to see and experience. From a young age, curiosity was always getting me in trouble and late for dinner as I just wanted to play a little longer, or see what was over that hill, or if I could make it to the top of that tree. I sat in my classroom teaching young people about the world, and realized the best teacher is experience, and I needed to be a student again. When I return to the classroom someday, I'll still teach the curriculum, but think of all the tangents my students will be able to get me off on - it's a slacker's dream.

I truly think this experience will make me a better teacher someday. I certainly will try to sell it that way to my next employer. I can never teach about the Rwandan genocide the same way after living with a survivor for two months in Rwanda and walking the streets where for a short while humanity's darkest evils reigned supreme. When I teach about environmental issues I can conjure up images of looking into the eyes of a huge silverback Mountain Gorilla in the hills of western Uganda. I can contrast Western media's portrayal of the Middle East and Islam with my own travels and relationships made there. When teaching about the Egyptians, I can explain the detail and way the golden death mask of King Tut caught the light from the hour I spent admiring it in Cairo. I can talk about the impact of modern society on endangered indigenous cultures such as the Himba in northern Namibia, and even my own role in helping or hindering that process by going there in person. I have had the Hindu beliefs on life and death explained to me by Hindus in India and Nepal while a few feet away the body of a deceased people burned and melted on its funeral pyre. I have contemplated the legacy of the Khmer Rouge at the Pagoda of Skulls in Cambodia's Killing Fields, and witnessed the incredible embracing of capitalism in communist Vietnam.

I write this not to brag, but as a tiny indication of just how much I am thankful for and how much I have learned, and as an astonishing indication of how much more there is out here to learn.

There are times, a lot of times, when I am tired. When I berate myself for not pushing myself more, and experiencing more. But one of the most amazing experiences of travel is staying in a place long enough and living there until you realize you don't even pay attention to being woken up by monks chanting in the nearby monastery anymore, or snake charmers plying people for money in return for making their serpents dance, or being passed by motor scooters carrying an entire family of five and maybe a chicken destined for that evening's dinner. When the extraordinary becomes the commonplace, the delight of realizing how much you have changed your life, how far from home you are, and just how amazing the world is in its diversity and humanity is magnified that much more. This re-awakening of wide eyed wonderment is what keeps life on the road constantly fresh and stimulating.

So how much longer will I be out here? Well, as I write this, it is November of 2008, having been unforgivably tardy in keeping this blog in recent months. My bank account is nearing its end, and decisions will need to be taken soon whether to stop and work for a while or cash in the last of my retirement pension from teaching in Canada (which I've already dipped into so what's left is minimal). Money is only one part of the equation however. There are family and friends back home I will love to see someday. And I'm no longer alone. Traveling with someone you are in a relationship with adds new dimensions to your decision making process. The short answer - a little bit longer.

Anyway, I'm rambling. After a wonderful birthday and four months in one of my favourite countries in the world, I finally headed to the airport and soon I was off to my next country - Thailand.

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