Last Taste Of Freedom

This weekend I celebrated my birthday in Britain once again. After spending three birthdays and Christmases on the road their importance has paled for me and I don't see them as being any different from other days. In fact I was going out with some friends from the south America days of my trip on my birthday and didn't realise that it was my birthday until halfway through the evening. Personally I think the best present one can have is to spend time with friends (copious quantities of mulled wine, beer and cocktails just make it that bit better). Apropos of friends I got to see an old friend from school in France last week. Marina and Guillaume were flying off to New Zealand for a belated honeymoon and had a three hour stopover at Heathrow. Seeing as I hadn't seen them since 2002 I took some time off to go and snatch a few hours with them for some quick reminiscences and updates before they jetted off to to escape the European Winter for a few weeks.

I am trying to take advantage of my final week of freedom before my job starts next week to sort out my life a bit while I still have some free time. My main task (and it's one I won't be finishing for some time) is to get my pictures sorted. I've managed to get my photos that I developed from film annotated and put into albums (six of them). That covers my first year of travelling before I switched to digital. I've gone through all my other pictures on my computer and touched them up where it has been necessary and now I'm sifting through them to pick out which ones to actually develop. I took my first six months' worth in to be processed today and gave the girl behind the counter a bit of a fright when she saw I was developing 1162 photos (that's all that would fit on my memory stick). I thought it would be funny to get them done in 1 hour, but then decided against it to give the poor girl some time.

My other main task is to try and get on top of my finances (or lack thereof). I have come to realise that I now have 4 current accounts, 3 savings accounts, 2 debit cards and 3 credit cards. Maybe I ought to keep my cards apart in my wallet to keep them from reproducing! I mean just trying to keep track of all the different PIN codes and online passwords is a major effort in itself, not to mention trying to understand all the various accounts, taxes, pensions contributions, national insurance and other financial oddities. What strikes me as particularly shameful is that as students at school (both here in Britain and in France, and probably many other countries as well) we are not taught even the most rudimentary aspects of finance and so people are left blindly feeling their way alone through the financial maze.

No Longer Looking

Since I went to school in France I have many French friends, and as they graduated from university I would tell them to come over to Britain where employment opportunities are greater than over there (young people find it notoriously difficult to find jobs in France, which is one of the reasons for the numerous riots and strikes that paralyse the country with increasing frequency). Today I have proved how true that is. Without actively seeking it out I have been offered a research analyst position at the consultancy I'm temping at. It might not have been what I was aiming for (although I'm not exactly sure what I was aiming for) but after talking to the various partners, managers and consultants it sounds like quite an exciting job with plenty of scope to learn new skills and broaden my knowledge about the energy industry, not to mention the fact that the pay is very reasonable and well in excess of the positions I was looking at. I will let you know more about the details of the job once I actually start as the job description is rather vague and leaves a lot of room for improvisation. The one drawback of this stroke of good luck may be that it reinforces my rather laissez faire attitude towards life in general as things in general really have seemed to work out fortuitously for me with very little input on my behalf. But then again I am quite easily pleased so it doesn't take much to make me content.

Other news has been my recent return to the roads behind the wheel of a car. Despite having got my driving licence at the age of 18, 5 years of urban living followed by 3 years of travelling have meant that I hadn't driven in over 5 years and my total number of hours driving ever barely exceeds a dozen. It was no wonder therefore that I viewed a return to clutches, gearsticks, indicators and windscreen wipers with more than a little trepidation. To say that I don't hold much confidence in my driving skills would be a sizeable understatement. As it turns out I have driven the 8 or so miles to and from my brother's flat on three occasions now and not only am I still alive but I have neither crashed nor even damaged the paintwork. Nevertheless I still feel more at ease on my bike (despite the idiot drivers who haven't the slightest inkling what a cycle lane is) where I feel more in control.

Christmas fever has also reached it apogee some 4 weeks before the actual event with high streets jam-packed on weekends and television adverts extolling Christmas offers for the past month already. Some people even have their decorations up already. Not that I particularly mind though, what with the short days and the grim weather I am finding it hard not to just stay in and veg, which is of course what Christmas is all about (some misguided people think it may be about the giving of gifts, or even to celebrate the birth of some guy a long time ago, but in fact it is a celebration of weather-induced laziness and indolence).

Life In The Bus Lane

So I have been temping a couple of weeks now and the life of an office manager is actually quite interesting, although in this office midweek is rather slow as most of the consultants are away on assignment and so I was often alone stalking the corridors and talking to myself (so at least no change there then). I won't bore you with the details of the job, instead it has been the getting to and from work which will be the topic of my discussion. It seems that getting from A to B plays a far greater role in our daily lives than I had previously supposed, and isn't solely the preserve of travellers.

As I mentioned before I had decided to go green and use the bike, although my reasons for switching were more prosaic and centred around money and an increase in sleep time. There are, of course, other advantages to cycling. Personally I derive great pleasure in speeding past single-occupancy motorists who are stuck in jams and inching along nose to tail at a walking pace - it gives me a great amount of satisfaction and makes me feel not a little smug, especially as I weave in between the gridlock maze. I am lucky in that my route takes me through Richmond Park, London's largest urban park, complete with its own herd of royal deer. You don't really see them in the morning when the park is also open to traffic, but as the road gates are closed at dusk the park becomes a surreal cycling experience. As you enter, the lights that are omnipresent in the city abruptly stop and you enter into a surprisingly heavy darkness. And although you don't have to worry about getting run over by a car, you have to be extra vigilant for the deer that wander across the road and seemingly jump out at you in the darkness. And off in the distance lies London with a red haze from the city lights hanging above it as if it were on fire, obscuring the stars which are replaced by the planes coming in to land at Heathrow. The darkness is so deep that on my first foray homewards through the park I mistakenly took a wrong turning and ended up in Roehampton, thereby adding some 10km to my trip (suffice to say that it is not a mistake I am likely to make in the future!).

There are drawbacks too, of course, as there are to everything, the most notable being the delayed action saddle soreness (which I am feeling as I'm typing these very words) and stressed muscles that are unused to the exertion. The weather is also getting noticeably colder, which I feel particularly keenly as I set off in the morning when my body still isn't warmed up. The cold wind in my face also causes my nose to run so that I am always cycling with a permanent drop of watery phlegm dangling like some liquid bungee jumper, on the tip of my nose. Still, a small price to pay for trying to be carbon neutral.

Fire Works

I'm particularly fond of Autumn in the UK. Although it's not particularly warm (there's frost on the pavements in the morning already) I love the blue skies, the crisp morning air, the changing colours of the leaves and the eerie morning mist (though I'm rarely ever up to catch that) that adds a touch of magic to otherwise humdrum surroundings. It's also the season for explosions and fireworks, what with Guy Fawkes' night on the 5th closely followed by Diwali there was a steadily increasing nightly cacophony of bangs, whizzes and explosions culminating with Bonfire Night itself, when walking home in the darkness due to a local power cut I felt like I was in the Blitz.

The past couple of weeks have been rather busy for me. The most important thing to have happened to me has been my recent change of work status - I am now employed. Before we get out the champagne though it is only a temporary job to tide me over whilst I look for something more substantial. Just as it is the world over, it's not what you know but who you know, managing to get a job standing in for the office manager at my brother's office. It's not the most glamourous of jobs and neither am I earning big bucks, but it's better than nothing and the work itself is rather varied and so I'm not getting bored. The worst part of the job is the commute. Although I don't live that far, due to rush hour traffic it takes over 90mins for a journey that ordinarily takes less than 30mins by car. The trains aren't much quicker either as I have to go half way into London before getting a connecting train. So instead I have decided to requisition my brother's bike and cycle into work, thereby saving money, getting some much-needed exercise and allowing me to sleep for 30mins more in the morning (priceless!).

So that has been taking up all of this week, but the week before I got a surprise message from one of my ex-pupils who was going out not far from me and so we met up for a few beers. Although Rishi was by no means a star pupil and annoyed me occasionally with his sometime slack attitude to his studies he was always a genuinely likeable and cheery guy. So it was with great curiosity that I arranged to meet up with him to see how much three years of university had changed him, if at all. I was glad to find that he had lost none of his fun-loving charm but that he had gained in maturity and responsibility. It was particularly heartwarming for me when Rishi reminded me of advice I had given him back then, which he promptly disregarded, and that he has now come to see as pertinent and useful.

Also, following on from my Persian rap experience a few weeks back I went to see the animated film Persepolis, about young girl's memories of the Iranian Revolution and her time growing up under the Islamic regime, at the London film festival. Now it seems to me that animated features are viewed with a certain condescension in the English-speaking world, which is a shame as it can be an unbelievably rich and evocative medium with as much emotion and pathos as films with live actors (the works of Hayao Miyazaki and the animated sequences of Alan Parker's The Wall spring immediately to mind) and also allows a film to exceed the physical limits of reality. Be that as it may I can only recommend the film which not only gives a short, yet insightful, view of the political situation that led up to the Revolution but also the absurdity of the current regime, all the while maintaining a personal perspective and allowing odd moments of humour to pop in.

London Is My Marmite

I have a love hate relationship with London. Having spent my university years here I greatly appreciate all that it has to offer: entertainment, culture, whatever - if you want something you are sure to be able to find it here. But it'll cost you. A lot. London life certainly isn't cheap, even if you live in the forgotten depths of zone 4 south of the river, and especially when you aren't earning any money (my unemployment benefit still hasn't come through yet and I'm just grateful that I'm staying with my mum and getting fed and horribly spoilt). And so even when you don't want to money, and how to get it, keep it and not lose it too quickly, never seems to be far away from your thoughts. Getting away from this cycle isn't easy either, as once you are in London it has a huge gravitational pull in terms of employment: looking for a job outside of the capital isn't easy, although conversely, you can always find a job here no matter where you are in the country (or at least an advert for a job - getting it is another matter completely). So once you are here it's hard to leave. Then there's the sheer size of the city. No matter where you want to go it'll take you an hour to get there, regardless of the actual, physical distance. So I just try and stick to my local area which has pretty much all I need anyway. In the three weeks I have been back this weekend was the first time I had ventured into the world of debauchery and hedonism that is zone 1 - to see a concert of contemporary Persian rap with my mum (a bit more on that later).

But even without going into the centre of town and staying in the suburbs I continually encounter what I love most about the place. Whether I happen to be strolling through Sutton High Street, or just sitting on the 213 to Kingston, I can always hear people talking, and as often as not it won't be in English. Chinese, Polish, Vietnamese, German, Russian, Hindi, Spanish and many more that I can't even begin to recognise. London is a true melting pot, in the best form of the term. People come from all over the world to London to make a (better) life for themselves, and so they are all in the same boat and seem to get along well together, accepting each other with no difficulty. That's not to say that there are no race problems, there always are, especially with the British resenting the large number of Poles that have come over with the expansion of the EU (the vast majority of waiting staff in the capital are eastern European). Part of this multiculturalism is found in the diverse number of cultural events to cater for every taste and ethnicity. And so there I was, at the plush Southbank centre watching a concert of Persian rap to celebrate the 800th anniversary of one of Persia's greatest poets Rumi (not much publicised within Iran itself as he was more of a Sufi mystic, and Sufism, despite being a Muslim sect, is very much disapproved of under the current regime). The acts themselves ranged for cringeworthy to very good, with rap switching between between Farsi (which is a surprisingly good language for the medium) and English with frequent criticism of the regime. Though there were a few jabs at the British government aswell due to the fact that several acts were not allowed to attend the concert due to draconian visa resttrictions (despite the fact that they were allowed into other European countries).

Generally travelling has been greatly enriching for me, but there has been one aspect of my life here that has taken a turn for the worse as a direct result of it: I am taking far less pleasure in eating out. Not only can I no longer get a meal for half a dollar, but I find foreign cuisine less tasty than I used to. This is because I know what it tastes like abroad, and the stuff here just doesn't cut it anymore. Plus things taste much better when you eat them from a grubby little street stall on the dusty streets of a third-world backwater.

Showers And Dictators

So I'm trying to get back into things over here. I've started getting onto the whole job-search malarkey, though I suspect it may be a while before my efforts start paying off in interviews and offers.. Otherwise it has been somewhat hard to slip back into polite society, for several reasons I suppose. Renewing contacts with friends isn't always that easy because whilst I've been away they have carried on with their lives (which is self-evident) and so have their routines and it is difficult to slip seamlessly into their already well-arranged lives. Plus what do you talk about? I don't want to sound like a broken record talking about my trip all the time, but then it was the last three years of my life, so what else have I to talk about? Then there's the physical sorting of my belongings and accumulated junk. Unfortunately our house here in London is rather small and I share my room with a lot of my brother's stuff and so am unable to properly spread out and organise my flotsam and jetsam, much of which is squirreled away either in our attic or garage in piles of boxes. I therefore feel as if I'm still living out of my backpack somewhat. And finally over the course of my trip personal hygiene wasn't really much of a priority when camping and staying in tatty hostels (although people who know me would probably say that hygiene has never been a priority for me), but I'm having to make the effort to remember to shower more than twice a week. To help me somewhat I've gone ahead and shaved my hair very short, which makes it more manageable and easier to maintain (I hadn't cut my hair in over a year and it was beginning to show).

On a completely separate note, and somewhat belatedly, I was thinking about Burma/Myanmar the other day. It seems as if there are no problems there anymore judging by the number of column inches the newspapers and airtime the TV news channels are devoting to the situation there nowadays. I was mulling over the political situation there and how it compares to Iraq under Saddam, and honestly I can't for the life of me find any great difference. The repression of ordinary Burmese, their general quality of life (or lack thereof), the extrajudicial killings are quite possibly worse under Than Shwe and his clique of generals than what the Iraqis experienced with Saddam. So what justifies the very different ways in which the two regimes are handled by the international community. Could it possibly have something to do with the huge reserves of oil in Iraq? Well, that would be a far too cynical world-view, wouldn't it...

A Taste Of Cwm

Although my travels are ostensibly over I still managed to start my exploration of my own country last weekend when I went to visit a friend in north Wales. I met Liam on the south American leg of my trip and we became good friends keeping in touch throughout the intervening years. He is about to emigrate to New Zealand in a month (to try and reverse the trend and steal one of their jobs!) and so I took advantage of his presence to carry out my first visit to Wales. It's shocking I know, having travelled around the entire world and yet I haven't yet seen all of the Home Nations.

Liam's family lives in the village of Cwm in northern Wales, set amidst rolling hills, the stereotypical fields of sheep and forests filled with pheasants who strut blithely along the country lanes awaiting their turn to be shot by rich, upper-class people with shotguns. The village makes up for its unfortunate name with spectacular views across the Clwyd valley to the rugged peaks of Snowdonia (when the cloud isn't playing silly buggers that is). Liam took Rob (another fellow traveller) and myself on a ride through a labyrinth of lanes that criss-cross the Welsh countryside through the Snowdonia national park, along gushing streams bordered by trees turning golden in their Autumn splendour. The place was also filled with weekend ramblers in their colourful anoraks and raincoats fleeing the grim northwestern cities for a bit of natural refreshment before the coming Winter makes hiking an unwelcome proposal. We weren't really equipped for walking so instead we visited several of the castles, built by the English 700 years ago when they conquered Wales, that form a defensive ring around the country and were used to quell the numerous nationalistic rebellions. In that sense Wales has the dubious distinction of being the first country to fall to the imperialistic ambitions of the English, a conquering habit that carried on until they dominated a quarter of the globe.

Saturday night was spent out on the town in Wrexham, north Wales's only urban centre of any note. It started off with a couple of hours in a pub watching England take on France in the rugby world cup (much like the Scots the Welsh will support anybody who is competing against the English). From there it was off to sample the Welsh nightlife. My first impression was that there was a cloth shortage in the area, as none of the ladies out that night seemed to have enough material to make even the miniest of skirts. I suppose it must be a cultural thing...

All in all it was lovely to catch up again after all this time and renew old ties and the short introduction has certainly whetted my appetite to discover more of Wales, preferably with a backpack and tent (and a bit of sunshine wouldn't go amiss either). On a completely different note I have made the unexpected observation that friendships made whilst travelling seem somehow more intense, and can often be stronger than everyday friendships, despite the contact being of a short duration. I wonder why that is?

Dazed And Confused

When you're travelling there is a certain certainty in your life - you are on the road and therefore your worries only relate to the immediate future: where will I sleep, what will I see, how will I get there and what will I eat. Life on the road, although ever-changing and full of surprises, has direction (onwards). Now that I am back at home I have the luxury to be able to sit at home in comfort with all the conveniences I could wish for. This is all very difficult for me as I easily get distracted - and seeing as I have three years worth of distractions to catch up with they are legion - but I also have a lot of work to do, sorting through accumulated correspondence, files and folders of officialdom. I have to get my eyes checked (done), sign up to a doctor and get my teeth checked as well. I have a mountain of photographs to sort through (which is proving irritating as I cannot find the first thirty-odd rolls) and I need to get my act together and properly look for a job, because unfortunately living costs money, and nowhere more so than here in London.

It is this final quest that I am more than a little apprehensive about. In today's world there are just so many good options open to you that sometimes I feel like a bunny staring into the headlights of an oncoming car - blinded by the sheer immensity of possibility; the dilemma of choice. I would dearly like to try out as many different and exciting occupations as possible but that just isn't viable. I must choose one and stick with it (for a certain amount of time at least). Then there is my experience, or lack of it. I have a general degree from a very good university and I know that I am more than capable of doing almost any job given half a chance, but I have very few concrete skills or experience particular to a profession so I am fretting somewhat about not being able to get my foot in the door due to my lack of them. On the other hand, however, I am grateful that the job market is relatively flexible here in Britain as opposed to the Continent where your career is almost always dictated by your degree. But that is a problem I intend to defer, until after this weekend at least, as I'm off to see a friend from my travels.

Epilogue

[Warning, this is a rather long post, so feel free to take breaks in between paragraphs, go for a cuppa, have some biccies, have a nap, or even go on a weekend break to Stockholm.]

So here I am, back home and starting to reintegrate myself into everyday life. There's a stack of letters I need to sift through, I have to get a phone (because in today's society you can't exist without a mobile), I've contacted the job centre, I need to have a look at my finances (or what's left of them) and I had an eye check up yesterday. There's a whole mesh of networks that surround and cosset everyday life that you don't don't notice until you leave and try and reconnect to them. But I suppose that's an adventure in itself, and one that I will perhaps return to in later posts (if people still keep reading). Today's post, however, is to look back at the trip and see what lessons, if any, I have learnt, whether it was worthwhile, or whether I was just wasting my time and money on an expensive and time-consuming prank.

Well, from a purely pragmatic and prosaic point of view I have learnt a good deal of Spanish, a smattering of Russian and Arabic. I have learnt what I am capable of physically; I have tried many different activities that few people get the chance to experience; I have eaten a multitude of exotic foods (I particularly liked the spiders in Cambodia but don't need to try scorpions again) that would be anathema for most Westerners; I can manage to passably feed myself with chopsticks; I have seen some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world; I have learnt that Djibouti is a country to be avoided, if at all possible; and I have acquired the, not unuseful, ability to find a camping spot in urban areas. No bad for three years, and possibly more than I learnt during my three years at university! But that's just being facetious. In fact I would say that my three main subjects for this course have been sociology, geography and psychology.

First sociology. During the trip I've seen how people in different countries and cultures live, tried to understand how and what they think (not always possible I must admit), and get an idea of their circumstances and their past. I think that that is truly important in today's world where communities are interconnected and events on one side of the world affect people on the other. Before leaving I thought I was a well-informed and clever individual who was quite au fait with what was going on in the world, the issues, the grievances, the debates. And in a way I was - I was interested in current affairs and tried to inform myself, and I certainly knew more than most. However, as I travelled I quickly realised that the information that you get second or third hand from the medias gives a heavily skewed, parochial view of the world and its problems. In the same way that every cabbie knows how the country really should be run, it is easy to sit in ones armchair and expound upon the problems afflicting other countries and what should be done about them. But things are always far more complex and nuanced than they seem from a distance with every situation having a long and convoluted history hanging like an albatross around it and pulling it down into a boggy mess. Actually I think that's our biggest mistake when we look at various goings-on in the world we don't see it in the context of a historical continuum (not surprising for us Brits when we can drop history at school at the age of 14). Things are not made any better when you have people, who we ought to trust and really should know better, making black and white pronouncements such as "you're either with us or against us". Indeed, so many problems in the world seem to stem from an inability, or perhaps an unwillingness, to see the common humanity in all of us. A stubborn holding on of the us-against-them mentality that refuses to see that there is no them. I've certainly become more circumspect when it comes to passing judgement on other points of view, other people and other ways of doing things.

As a slight aside, it is interesting to note that many of the more long-term travellers out there have a hippy, romanticised, Noble Savage view of cultures in developing countries, idealising them and rejecting everything Western. Although I believe that there is a lot to learn from other cultures, especially with regards to how we treat others as individuals, there are things we have got right in my opinion, especially with regards to the respect of the rule of law and treatment of women. Actually that's one thing that has marked me quite deeply on this trip - I have become somewhat ashamed of my gender. In many places that I visited women would do the lion's share of the menial, back-breaking work, in the fields, in shops, in the home and even on construction sites, whereas men generally seemed employed with less demanding tasks like moto/taxi/tuk-tuk drivers or touts, but more often than not would sit in cafes smoking sheeshas (in the Middle East) or cigarettes (the Chinese), drinking tea, coffee or beer and possibly reading a paper or two (in the Subcontinent), taking care not to get lumbago. That is certainly one of the greatest blights of the developing world as they are depriving themselves of half their talent (probably more actually) and different ways of looking at things only because men are afraid of losing their iron grip on power. I think this also explains the huge taboo surrounding sex in many disparate cultures that share little except the lowly situation in which the women find themselves - sex is the one area of social life where women hold all (most of) the cards, and so men are beholden to them. Unwilling to accept such a state of affairs men have stigmatised sex so that they can maintain the upper hand. It is therefore not surprising that the countries in which sex ellicits the greatest public revulsion and antipathy one also finds the greatest proportion of prostitution because young men have so little opportunity to interact with the opposite sex. Though of course, sexual activity and promiscuity is almost impossible to detect amongst men and so you get schizophrenic attitudes of men who one day pay for sex and the next denigrate the very prostitutes that they visit (and I met several people like that, in different countries with different religions).

And geography? well you can't help learning where places are on the map when you need to sort out trains, buses and connections, or when you need to navigate mountain passes with poorly marked trails. Though that's not really what I mean when I talk of geography, but more the world around us - the natural world, landscapes and ecosystems. It has been my experience that the most beautiful thing in the world is nature. No matter whether it be mountains, desert, forest, coast or plains nothing we create can come close to the majesty of nature. As soon as we change it by building or digging it becomes less, perverted, defiled. The problem we face today is that not only are areas of true, pristine nature shrinking at an alarming rate, but people are also further removed from them because they lead urban lives. They have no contact with the beauty of the world (which reminds me of a girl I knew in London who was 18 before she saw her first cow), they only see dirty streets, open sewers masquerading as rivers and possibly a few lonely, bedraggled trees in a grey urban park, and so they have no love or respect for it. This leads to the disdain with which the environment is treated by many people (in the developed as well as the developing world), as a great big litter bin, where someone else will clear up the mess, especially if you're just passing through. On the one hand it's a perfectly natural response, the problem is that as a species our actions have a far greater impact than nature devised, and so we must strive to rise above our instinctive behaviour and make sacrifices for benefits that we will never see. It's all a question of education, integrity and will, and to be perfectly honest, from what I have seen I hold out next to no hope for us precisely because we are generally selfish and unable to see beyond our immediate surroundings and future. I fervently hope, however, that humanity will prove me wrong.

And as for myself, well this didn't really start off as a voyage of self-discovery, because I'm far too cynical for that. I just wanted to sate my curiosity of the world and my wanderlust, to see what there is out there, to taste and experience before it's gone (and as I mentioned above, I unfortunately think it will be). But I suppose that along the way I changed, and started to look at things differently. I opened up more than just my eyes, and started to look closer, ask deeper questions and take more of an interest into the why's. The long periods of time alone also gave me plenty of opportunity to just think, to go over problems and ideas and try to figure out my personal answers to my own burning questions (although the answer to the big one may be 42, there are still plenty of other smaller questions that still need answering). Walking through a high street in a German town looking at the shops brought it to the fore for me when I saw the following sign in the window of a shop that specialised in bespoke staircases, it said: "helping you get the stairs you've always dreamt of." I stopped and looked at it for a while. The stairs you've always dreamt of. Personally I have never dreamt of stairs (as an entity in themselves that is, I'm sure I have had dreams in which stairs performed an ascending/descending function, but nothing more) and it made me somewhat depressed. What sort of a society do we live in where people dream of stairs? surely there must be more worthwhile things to dream about and occupy our hopes and aspirations with. There must be something greater we can strive towards than hand-carved, solid pine ballustrades.

When trying to decide upon a set of values and standards I think being an atheist helps because for many people in developing countries it is such an unfathomable concept that you have to explain and justify your beliefs (or lack of them). Although it's not just developing countries where being an infidel raises eyebrows as I found out when I got picked up by a priest whilst I was hitching in France who interrogated me, in a friendly way, getting me to justify my convictions. So what miraculous conclusions have I arrived at? Religion is there to give people a meaning, a sense to their lives, what meaning does my life have without religion my priestly companion asked me. Well, I've come to the conclusion that life has whatever meaning you choose to give it. It is up to every individual to decide what is meaningful for them, whether it be the pursuit of happiness, money, contentment, knowledge or fame. People are not all the same and therefore what is needed to make their lives worthwhile (for themselves) varies as well. There is not one size that fits all of us, and seeking the answers from others is, in my view, a pusillanimous shirking of the challenge of life. Personally, I get my kicks trying to see, learn and understand this fascinating world of ours. Of course, learning is just half the story; knowledge which isn't used or shared is pretty damn useless, gathering cobwebs in the attic of your mind. Part of that sharing is writing this blog (thank you my faithful readers if you've made it this far by the way) and trying to incorporate what I have learn into my everyday life (without getting too preachy). Among the concrete conclusions that I've come to are that a lot of what we consider as important or necessary for happiness is superfluous, shackles us and weighs us down seeming only to serve to make us unhappy when we don't have it. Similarly I believe we in the West are far too engrossed in our own lives and don't engage enough with those around us. Now that doesn't mean that we're all callous bastards, but we just don't want to get involved, perhaps through fear, through selfishness or apathy. But not doing bad is not the same as doing good, and we certainly don't do enough of the latter. We shouldn't just not drop litter, but we ought to pick it up as well; we shouldn't wait until people come up to us to ask for help, but we ought to offer our assistance straight away. And then again it's easy for me to say that, sitting here in front of my computer and pontificating into cyberspace, but will I be able to practice what I preach. Well, I certainly hope so, but I've decided to make a conscious effort to do so.

I would be the first to admit that my revelations certainly aren't particularly new or original, I'm sure you could go into any bookshop and find a dozen self-help titles that would tell you exactly the same thing, although possibly with more psychobabble jargon. So what was the point of the whole exercise? it would have been considerably cheaper to have just bought the books, along with a few travel tomes. True, perhaps, but these same self-help books keep getting published and there seems to be an insatiable demand for them. Surely if they really worked then you would only need to buy one. The fact is that some things have to be experienced to be learnt, for them to be truly taken in, understood and internalised there is no other way than just going out there and getting your hands dirty. So my advice, in general, to anyone, would be don;t be too dependent on other peoples' advice (I wouldn't have much of a career writing self-help books me). Go out, see the world (and that doesn't necessarily mean touring round the globe, but going about with your eyes open and a spirit of curiosity), make decisions, make mistakes, and then make your own mind up.

P.S. That's the end of the trip, but I will be carrying on the blog where you can follow my (mis)adventures as I try and find a job and a niche in the 'normal world'. Those of you who would like to unsubscribe from the email posts just send me an e-mail.

Back For Tea

From Cornwall I hitched eastwards to Somerset where I have an old friend (Sarah used to be my boss at the lab I worked at part-time whilst I was at uni) who lives in the country close to Bristol. The hitching experience was quite odd in that when I tried to ask people for lifts at petrol stations (generally a good place to catch rides as it allows you to directly get in contact with people and show them that you are a normal person, it's less dangerous as you don't have to worry about traffic, and it affords shelter when it rains) many wouldn't even stop when I started talking to them, always with an "excuse me" or "I beg your pardon" and would just walk on by trying their hardest to ignore me. Twice I was even thrown off the forecourt for 'harassment' despite being as polite and humble as I could possibly be (you're never going to get a ride by being rude to people). And yet on the other hand my average wait was very short compared to other countries. It seems that while many people just really don't want anything to do with anybody else there are a good number of people who will go out of their way to help.

My last ride that day was particularly funny as I had reached to within 7km of Sarah's house but it was getting dark and I didn't want to walk along the dangerous country lanes where there is no room for pedestrians. Then it started to rain and I began feeling rather miserable (particularly as my shoes have holes in the soles and let in water) when suddenly a young man pulled up in a BMW (a rarity in itself because, as a general rule, the nicer the car the less likely a person is to stop and pick up a hitcher) and offered me a ride. I could tell straight away that he was foreign and I guessed Turkish. "No," he said, "I am from a small country called Georgia, have you heard of it?" "Had I heard of it?" I said, "I absolutely love it," I gushed, and proceeded to regale David (for that was his name) of my love of khachapuri, khinkali and Kakheti wine. I also impressed him by reciting my two phrases of Georgian that managed to hang on in the jumbled attic of my mind. Which just goes to show that learning a bit of local lingo can come in handy in the most unexpected circumstances.

Whilst staying with Sarah I took the opportunity to explore the surrounding area: the town of Bath, the classic spa town (actually the only one in Britain, which is rather poorly supplied with hot springs) with its harmonious, Palladian architecture that accommodated the rich and famous of Georgian Britain. Other attractions in the surrounds are Wells and Cheddar with its eponymous gorge, which, though the largest in the British Isles, is rather wee on the world stage. I have also discovered that being a tourist in Britain certainly doesn't come cheap with many museums and attractions costing about double what I was paying for similar places in Germany or France. Plus the public transport seems to have taken the worst from both countries with a paucity of service rivalling the French and prices on par with the Germans. I was not impressed I can assure you.

But that's enough of my grumbling. Somerset was to be my last stop on this trip and yesterday I said goodbye to Sarah and plodded down to the main road for the final hitch into London. I planned to surprise her by arriving unannounced but was myself surprised when it turned out that she had gone into town to catch a show with some friends and wasn't coming back until late that evening. Luckily we have friendly neighbours who let me in until she returned. A bit of a muddle perhaps, but one thing I've learned on the trip is that muddles can sometimes be quite fun. Anyway, today is my first day back and I'm using it to relax a bit before heading down to the job centre so that I can sign myself up for the dole as my bank account is looking rather anaemic and I need a new pair of shoes after these past 3 years (the photo below shows my long-suffering shoes and sandals that I've had with me right the way through the trip and which are on their last legs).