It's all about...
Trip Start
May 15, 2007
1
65
Trip End
Dec 10, 2007
Seattle,
Washington,
United States
Friday, May 4, 2007
Is there a way to be a backpacker without being a dirty, gross hippy? Not that there's anything wrong with being a hippy, but seriously, they're gross. I mean, get a life granola freaks!
This is what I want to do on this trip: see cool stuff, ride bicycles, eat exotic and interesting food, challenge myself (but in a very basic, low-impact way). These are not reasons why I am going on this trip: to form a community of fellow backpackers, to drink a lot, to mate with fellow hippies, to live out some utopian dream of freedom, to establish a one-ness with the world.
Really, I just want to see cool stuff and wake up everyday feeling excited for the cool things I will see. I'm a tourist and proud of it dammit. I make no claims to "know the authentic people." I mean, we are all children/prisoners of our upbringing, and I am an American girl from Washington. It is arrogant for me to claim to know the authentic people unless I plan to live somewhere for years, learn the language, etc. And even then, those 30 years of your life before your two years in *insert random backwater here* have left a powerful imprint on you that will forever define you. I don't want to do cheesy tourist shit either, mostly because it may prevent me from seeing cool shit or it may water down my "seeing cool stuff" experience, if some asshole tour guide is blaring in my ear.
It's all about the stuff people!
I have had to make painful choices by taking this trip. For some people, leaving their friends and family is easy, but for me, someone who has always known the comfort of friends and family, it is not -- especially at a time when my friends and/or family need me. But part of what this trip means to me is living out a dream. I am a realist, not a dreamer. I've had goals but not dreams per se. So to permit myself to have a dream, to admit it, and then to follow through with it, is huge to me. I found my thoughts always returning to this theme (I'd say on a two-year cycle), and I get the feeling that I will have a hard time really moving on with life until I do this. So even the act of leaving is a challenge. I don't need to climb mountains or be adopted by some Thai village to feel challenged.
Back to making lists and checking things off lists... and hopefully sleep.
