...travel....

When I look down at the colourful bracelets clasped around my wrist, I’m reminded of the adventures, smiling faces and twinkling eyes that I’ve encountered along the way.  The dyed pieces of yarn have morphed from a brilliant red to a dull crimson and have become tattered from life.

I remember the woman monk in white robes in Indonesia tying a prayer bracelet around my wrist while chanting and tying prayer knots and the Indian holy man with his wild beard blessing us and my friend eating holy candy from a stranger only hours after getting off the plane.  Or the children from Peru that spoke in Spanish to us on a bus winding down the mountain while I pretended to understand the magnificent horror stories they were telling with such gusto.  On the Amantani islands in Peru we stayed with a family that lavished us with more bracelets in trade for whiskey (and I was bartering with the wife!) and the children in the mountains that convinced us that we needed more, from them.  In Cambodia, the temples stared back with huge carved faces and in Malaysia we hadn’t even brushed the sand off our feet before we were swarmed with children selling their wares.

It is such a strange occurrence that all over the world it is the bondage on our wrists that tells the story of where we’ve been.  It is a reminder of how similar we all are, but how different the world’s landscape can be.

Part of travelling is that you remember the sicknesses, the people, the food and the reaction in your soul that binds you to the experience and keeps you wanting more….