Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.

When we go on holiday, when we go ‘travelling’, what is it that we learn?  Are we there just to see the sights or is there more to it?

A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to cycle through Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam and there were many things that I learnt.

  1. Most people are kind, some are kind beyond belief.  I fainted on the plane coming home and I was so touched by all the passengers who helped me and cared that I was alright afterwards!

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    Buddhist monks engage in charitable acts – but many other ordinary people commit great acts of kindness everyday.
  2. Human kind is capable of great feats.
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    Angkor Wat, Cambodia

    Sunrise over Angkor Wat?
    Sunrise over Angkor Wat?
  3. The cruelty of human beings to each other is beyond comprehension

    Killing Fields, Cambodia
    Killing Fields, Cambodia
  4. Being still, and watching a world you don’t not know is as valuable as rushing around visiting all the sights.

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    Nature has beauty that is easily missed when we rush around ticking off the sights
  5. Meeting people from other cultures can teach you things that you didn’t realise you needed to know.  A guy I met in Thailand had spent 13 years as a Buddhist monk.  He told me there were only three things I needed to know about life:
  • do good
  • do no (intentional) harm
  • we are each responsible for our own happiness

Simple really, but wasn’t I looking outside of myself for my own happiness, all of these years?

Different cultures help us to learn more about the world, and about ourselves
Different cultures help us to learn more about the world, and about ourselves

6.  Food:  something that is so easily taken for granted in a world of plenty.  But what do you eat when there isn’t?  And how does it become a ‘delicacy’?

It is easy to reject food (and indeed, ideas) that are not familiar or sit within our frame of reference.  Spiders are to be feared, surely, and yet here is a culture eating them.  One way of dealing with the fear?

A Cambodian speciality - fertilised eggs are boiled before hatching at 21 days
A Cambodian speciality – fertilised eggs are boiled before hatching at 21 days

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Tarantulas waiting to be fried
Tarantulas waiting to be fried

7.  People are very creative and strive hard to create solutions to problems, even when their solution means great hardship

Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam - it is incredible that people lived in these conditions
Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam – it is incredible that people lived in these conditions

This list is just the beginning.  Everyone takes something away from each trip away and for each of us it is different.

Please share your thoughts and experiences!