We return when it gets too dark and scary.
Or we’ve run out of Oreos.
For some, that’s where the fantasy ends. But for me, there was always more. My run-away story, fueled by the books I was reading, movies I was watching, and information I was fed in elementary school, was much more complex. So whenever I set out to flee from my cruel and unreasonable parents, I plotted my escape to the rainforest. There, I would hollow out a tree and live a simple life in the depths of the woods, foraging for food and living off the land. I would have a hideout behind a waterfall. I would befriend leopards and elephants. I might find my very own forgotten kingdom in the jungle, filled with treasures and waiting for its mystery to be unlocked.
Apparently I was quite relentless in my desire to go – constantly running off to find my way to the Amazon or the Congo. And while I did eventually grow out of the youthful exuberance I must have conveyed, my desire both to a) run away and b) find my very own rainforest was never truly quelled. Until now.
I have successfully run away. Wherever I am, I have my world perched (albeit more heavily than necessary) on my shoulders; a haven of simplicity. The most difficult question I seem to face on a day to day basis is only “what should I eat.” Or, if I’m feeling particularly adventurous, “where will I go tomorrow?” People I’ve encountered in my travels seem to feel that they have left home to find themselves in the big wide world. But we are also running away from everything we know, and inevitably, everything we will come back and face when our journey ends. As a friend put it to me once in a very late night G-chat conversation a long time ago, “when ur traveling, ur always escaping, ur always moving to the next place and therefore always kinda looking and experiencing from the outside, and ur never really forcing urself to adapt because there is no need to.” As soon as you become remotely attached to a place, you rip yourself away from it. You try not to tie yourself down or make any meaningful connections. You become more and more adept. You quickly learn who you are interested in talking to. You learn how to engage without giving away too much of yourself. Occasionally, you deal with people you don’t like, just for company, but more often than not you’re able to escape from those who you don’t mesh with (the impermanency of travel has the potential to make you a horribly judgmental person). You become more comfortable with yourself, being alone and content in your own space. The company of others loses its import as you begin to turn inwards. And you find ways of prolonging your return home by becoming more and more transient.
When I left for Turkey, I was terrified at the prospect of finding myself alone. I clung to the people I met with vigor, enthusiastically joining them in endeavors I wasn’t really sure I was interested in. Joining my friend Santi as he ventured to the Sea of Galilee, for example, was not something I would have chosen to do on my own. But I did it anyway because I’d made a friend and didn’t really want to find myself friendless in Jerusalem. On the whole, I was incredibly successful in finding people to travel with throughout the Middle East, taking on their missions and making them my own. In India, however, I decided I was going to do things differently. And this has been both a blessing and a curse.
I set goals for myself, trying to get out and see as much as possible. Knowing I only had three months to cover a country that could take three years to explore, I have tried to pack in as much as I could. As a result, I’ve spent a good deal of time getting from place to place, and I’ve done a good deal of it on my own – booking bus and trains, wandering cities and being gaped at by passersby, finding accommodation and dealing with awkward and potentially frightening encounters (nothing I haven’t been able to handle but sometimes a little intimidating). As soon as you enter a hotel or hostel you can’t help making friends, but the in-between times are often a long and daunting process.
I’ve gotten better and better at running away from people, places, things. This makes it sound negative, but there are really positive things I’ve learned about myself in the process – while running away you do find out who you are. I like to think I’ve become more secure and no longer need the positive reinforcement of a second party to do something. I like to think I’ve learned to take the reins and stick up for myself, ask for help, and take advantage of any situation. I like to think I’ve learned patience, particularly in India, where everything takes longer than you anticipate. And I’ve learned to go with the flow, not to lose myself in expectations, because no matter how many times you’ve read the Lonely Planet review, looked at a picture, or heard someone talk about it, a place is not what you imagine. People are not who you imagine. First impressions are not as you imagine. Maybe running away and finding yourself are in fact one in the same thing.
Oh lord I’ve gone completely off topic... Back to rainforests. I left India on the 12th of February and flew to Sri Lanka. I tried not to have any expectations, but I was imagining a mini-India. Its close proximity to the continent was the only thing I had to work with. No Lonely Planet Guide for this little teardrop shaped island just off the southeast coast of India. Mum was coming to show me around, as she was born in the country while her father was a tea planter in the 1940s. I arrived in a clean, showy airport and was whisked away to a clean, showy hotel and no one hassled me. The streets were clean and no smell of urine. A day in the city and Mum and I made our way up north. We passed through small towns, quaint agricultural villages, paddy fields and “tanks” (huge manmade bodies of water used for irrigation dating back to the 4th century BC). Soon we passed into more desolate territory. And there it was. My rainforest. Emerald green and stretching for miles across the hills. As we drove along the ridge of a mountain we were engulfed by trees on one side, and had magnificent views out over the valleys on the other. Monkeys played on the roadside, and mongoose (not Swedish ones! :) ) scattered into the bushes as we passed. Waterfalls surged downwards into deep pools, with hideouts inexorably concealed behind them. Rivers formed at their bases, where monitor lizards paddled lazily along the banks and disappeared into their muddy brown depths. The verdant greenness of it all was overwhelming. The sound of birdlife was inescapable, ringing out over the engine as we motored up the hillsides. Our driver pointed out tracks where wild elephants had crossed the road and found their way into back into the jungle. We stopped enroute at Rajangane, the remains of an ancient Buddhist city, where rock cut temples and stone Dagobas are overgrown with trees and have merged with the forests to create a perfect jungle kingdom.
Only a small part of me fought to jump out of the car and run Into The Wild. To be enveloped by trees, to feel the leaves under my bare feet, to hear the wind whistling by as I ran. Having recently read Krakauer’s novel of the same name, I recognize that like Chris McCandless, there is a part of myself that yearns for the serenity of escaping into an untouched and unspoiled landscape. To be free from the chains of routine and “adopt a helter-skelter style of life... unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess” (Jon Krakauer, Into The Wild). But I concluded with a tinge of sadness that there was nothing that could persuade me now to pursue my childhood fantasy. While I might be running away, discovering elements of myself, and avoiding the inevitable return to reality, I’ve lost that urge to entirely escape from reality. Maybe I’m growing up.
As I sat on a rock at Rajangane, high above the tree line, overlooking a vast, forested panorama, I had a returned to an image I had of myself from youth, clad in Disney-esque Pocohantas-style skins, spear in hand, gazing watchfully over the land. It was a funny little dream, I used to have...
Now for the boring bits... just a quick synopsis of the trip. Traveling Sri Lanka with Mum has been magical. Not only a much needed catch up with my oldest and best friend, it has been a fascinating, whirlwind introduction to the country, particularly its Buddhist roots. Buddhism, which originated in India between the sixth and fourth century BC, all but died out on the continent and now accounts for only four percent of the population. However, in Sri Lanka, Buddhism remains the dominant religion, or perhaps a better term would be philosophy. As our driver Piyal was determined to sway us, long drives were spent listening to him describe the Buddhist belief system. It is a very peaceful religion that focuses on an individual’s spiritual development and hope of attaining insight into the true nature of life. The path to Nirvana is through meditation and by practicing and working to attain morality and wisdom. Much of the history of the island has Buddhist roots.
We visited the ancient capital city of Anuradhapura, built in the fourth century BC, filled with towering Dagobas, the sacred Bodhi Tree, and the remains of beautiful sacred pools and sanctuaries. We walked the steep slope to the impressive rock caves at Dambulla, filled with beautifully painted carvings of Buddha in many positions – standing, seated, lying, and “dead.” We climbed up (most of) the Sigiriya Rock, a hardened magma plug where the Buddhist King Kasyapa built a magnificent palace and monastery in the 5th century AD.
But it was not just the cultural elements of the country that made an impact, it is the unbelievable physical diversity of the island. From the forests of the north we went south to the center of Sri Lanka; tea country, where plantations stretch across the mountains. It was like entering a different world. Up, up up in the cool, fresh air and verdant green tea stretched across the landscape, where women walk with wicker baskets gathering leaves. Sitting in a courtyard at the Lookabellie Tea Plantation with a cuppa and a slice of chocolate cake, I could have been in England. It’s clear why the British escaped here when the heat of the lowland cities like Colombo became too oppressive. We spent the night at a beautiful bungalow that once belonged to a colonial tea plantation owner, where the ambience was English Garden meets Tropical Paradise. Pristinely manicured lawn and foliage, with the backdrop of the tea plantations and palm trees melting into the distance. It was heavenly. The following day headed for the southeast coast, to the Yala Nature Reserve, a hot, semi-arid region full of orange sand dunes, where you can spot elephants, water buffalo, wild pigs, and leopards (if you’re lucky, which we weren’t). Finally, we made our way to the southwest, and the world turned green again. Hot, humid and sticky with the warm Indian Ocean stretching out below us. A beachside hotel where the sun is hot but the breeze is cool. There’s no land beyond Sri Lanka until you hit Antarctica, which is a little bit crazy if you think about it. So much on such a small island.
It will be hard to leave this paradise, and even harder to say goodbye to Mum, but tomorrow we head back to Colombo and prepare for our separate flights back to separate worlds. All too short.