To my fellow Wanderers.

A friend of mine posted this picture on Facebook with a remark that brought back some cherished but distant memories gushing back...

I've often found it difficult to explain why two years in Kozhikode (Business School) left such an indelible, intense impression which would take some time to fade. It was like a bunch of 20 somethings had been given their teenage back but with the freedom that comes with your adulthood and for two incredible years stuffed with learning, fighting, drama and romance we got to pretend the world was all about today. So when it ended in a blur of confused days when I did not quite know how to react, a celebratory trip to Goa was a little too much to handle and I decided to cut it short. It was on the journey back to campus for one last time, in the sleeper class compartment of a train (a setting which we had spent two years preparing to earn our way out of) with two wanderers I'd never meet again, I finally found peace.

An American couple into their forties were sitting right across us with their Rough-Guide and a copy of Into The Wild and two small bags barely enough to hold a few clothes and essentials. Over the next few hours we had engulfed ourselves in a rich conversation about their experience in India and "that part" of the US which was wild and not quite New York, the part where nature was still your best friend. The couple, with income meager for an Indian family, had traveled around the world holding hands and setting off to one adventure after the other. But, as much as we admired them for this, it wasn't this but a simple gesture and an innocent little statement which would have the profound effect on me.

The husband offered us his copy of the book (Into The Wild) with a strong recommendation to read it. His willingness to simply give the book away (a book which sold to a second-hand vendor would have covered their trip from Goa to Kozhikode), for a person who was of visibly limited means giving it to two complete strangers struck me profoundly. It struck me so because it wasn't out of charity, it was a heartfelt gift by a fellow traveler to another, it mattered! It was a gesture to show, they understood and felt the same. 

A little further into the conversation which had careened into astrology somehow, we discovered that the woman was a Cancer. This surprised me because I recalled reading somewhere that the people from the sun-sign sought a sense of safety and traveling carefree like this was unusual. After musing for a while she replied.." I don't know...maybe its true...I guess I carry my safety in my purse." That remark, I guess sums up all travelers for me. That simple ability to be able to throw your stuff in a sack and just go, knowing that somehow...it would suffice, no matter where you are or what you do. The ability and incorrigible desire to simply get up one day, dust off your jeans, haul your safety on to your back and move on. That's being a wanderer.

Kampuchea

This post could have been about Bangkok perhaps as a tribute to its backstreets, vivid and eclectic in their flavors, scents and emotions that overwhelm your senses if you're willing to just open up a wee bit. For whoever you are a footloose wanderer searching for your life's mission or a barren artiste looking for inspiration, Bangkok truly has you.

I could also have spoken about Pattaya, that parallel world for which words fail me. The streets lined by people from the world, aged westerners struggling to stand, reeking of alcohol, supported by their young "Thai-lady" as they lurch around the umpteen streets. It leaves you wondering whether to feel pity for the young woman or for the sorry old man in search of a last refuge from his loneliness. The place questions your very conception of righteousness as your intellect struggles to wrap your brain around and comprehend, even accept and not judge what is pretty much a way of life.

I could have even started this with the whiff of emerald green waters of Koh Samui, the salty scent of which  lingers on in your senses. The umpteen beaches, and lavish margaritas in infinity pools while you caked yourself brown or the simple remark of a tourist-worn woman, running her own business whose honest trepidation thinly hidden behind hardened exterior was only too apparent, all of which leave you exhausted and fulfilled at the same time.

Young Khmer painter pouring over his English Learning Guide

But not the hustle bustle of Bangkok or what could may well be called a counterculture of Pattaya and even the green eternal serenity of Samui...nothing prepares you for Siem Reap. Spend your days walking around the temples of Angkor, awed by the imagination of our forefathers, the sheer geographical scale to which they sought to stretch the portrayal of this living paean to their mythological fathers.Or just sit by one of those umpteen moats with a book on the fascinating character of Pol Pot (Saloth Sar) and the horrible legacy he left in this fragile fledgling nation. Only then, when you have a backdrop of a glorious country with a lavish enviable history which had a few decades and a fourth of its population simply wiped out in a jingoistic 5 year rule of the Khmer rouge. Only then would you be able to comprehend the earnestness of a boy sitting amongst the ruins of one of them temples trying to sell his paintings. As you walk away, one of the umpteen tourists who is merely interested in looking at his amazing work, asking for the prices knowing full well you'd not buy them, he simply returns to his silent attempts at learning English from his guidebook. That look of silent determination and an untarnished humbling simplicity which leaves you rattled for days after. Coming from Thailand, where tourist-hardened hawkers struggle to hide their ill-will, most Cambodians are yet to discover their ugly side. Perhaps it is an illusion, but a happy one which leaves you contended when you leave.

And then there is pub-street. After 9 days of holidaying, just when you have slowly reduced the tempo so you can adjust back in the drudgery of a routine life....the last thing that you want to happen to yourself is the pub-street. With pubs that play music loud enough to rouse the sleeping gods of Angkor and consider selling anything smaller than a pitcher of alcohol a shame, a street that is lined with these pubs and people simply spilling over so much so that the whole street is filled with dancing hoards who simply revel as if there is no tomorrow. People of forty different nationalities and beliefs. Or simply one people. This post had to be about Kampuchea.