It's been close to 7 weeks now and the post-travelling comedown isn't getting any better, it's just getting worse!! I'm going to sell all my possessions and hit the road again , this time for many many years of travelling and teaching english... Anyone else want to join me? I have an electric guitar, PS2 with a few games, an old NES, SNES, sega saturn with tonnes of games, dvd player, video player, tv, amplifier, a selection of clothes, a hi-fi, a bed, a decent flat screen pc, a star wars monopoly board game and a box of some very old wwf wrestling figures for sale. If you are interested in buying any. Any donations are of course warmly welcome, however small. Peter
Good luck to you. I have suppressed my travel needs for 5 years (I managed to eek by on yearly 1 month excursions), but two nights ago we purchased our plane tickets to Beijing. We'll be gone for a total of 14 months. It’s so difficult to focus on work right now… It took me about 2 months to land a "real" job in my profession when I got back from my last long term trip. Those were some tough times, mentally. The biggest let down was after the excitement of my return wore off. I was surrounded by people that were swallowed up by the daily grind. When traveling, you get used to making those instant relationships with often very interesting people, but at home it’s almost like I had a short attention span and got frustrated with my long term friends doing the same old thing. It’s almost like I needed a support group to help me get by. In the mean time, it’s off to Asia for me…. Where are you headed Peter? Drift
well ok i havent built the guts up yet to sell all my possessions (but its awfully tempting some days). I totally know where you are coming from with the let down on return to your native country... The hardest thing for me is that I just can't seem to gel with my old circle of friends anymore...I've realised that I need to move on and that they are actually holding me back in a fairly major way...I also just hate the wasted potential people have in this culture and society, the lack of vision. Some of my friends really do have the potential to be great people who could do great things if only they got the self-confidence and determination to get them out of the 9-5 'grind'. All in all it's totally changed my entire world view in major ways (though this also has to do with my introduction to buddhism and my practices, not just the experience of travelling) and so I seem to view everything totally differently to everyone else, I see potential and possibilities everywhere...It sucks because if I talk about it like this to most people they get the wrong impression and think i'm being arrogant or trying to act superior. This totally isn't the case. I don't feel contempt for those friends, I feel sympathy and at the same time frustration because if they could just open there minds up to the possibilities in life rather than just working in a 9-5 job that they hate all week, then just blowing all there cash on trying to forget about it at the weekend getting totally wasted, then they really could be much happier and lead meaningful lives... So I feel quite isolated because of all of this. It sucks. I just can't accept that 9-5 life anymore. Fuck that. There is much more to life than that. I don't know, do you have any idea where i'm coming from at all? It's like i'm stuck in the fucking Matrix! So that brings me to the where am I headed? question... Well i'm going to do a advanced TEFL, possibly bangkok, possibly saigon haven't decided yet...Teaching english is probably the only job I would be both good at and also get satisfaction out of and enjoy...Also it would be great because I could travel and teach and (technically) never have to go home again... Basically my plan is to start in SE Asia and accumilate money for a while before heading back to solely travel Nepal and India again...Then teach english in China and basically see where the wind takes me after that...I find little point of making any plans past that because they absolutely will change without a doubt...But I want to see as much as possible (of asia in paticular) whilst contributing a little back to the countries through doing a job I quite enjoy or at least find meaningful...Personally I can't really see a better plan... Pete
I know where you are coming from. You just spent ??months away from home, discovering new things about yourself and the world. You come home and nothing has changed. Your friends and family are all doing the same ole shit, and it just doesn’t click for you anymore. I was lucky enough to have my girlfriend travel with me for 3 months through SE Asia so she was able to relate to the experience with me. We also motivated another friend to travel, which gave us a bit of a support group when he got back. One thing that really screwed me up was that 9/11 happened one month after I returned. I was glued to the TV 24/7 and that got me really depressed. We’ve been looking into volunteer work in India, possibly one of those schools that take in children from the street. Also, in Mcleod Ganj, I met a few people that were staying in a Buddhist monastery for free room and board in exchange for teaching the monks English.
Yeah I know Mcloed Ganj well...I was going to teach english but stuff happened (as it often does) and I don't think I quite had the confidence then I do now... Now though that would be ideal for me. Damn I miss the mountains... So you are just doing 14 months in China? Or are you going to be tempted back to India?
Only a month in China, then on to Burma, India, maybe Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Papa New Guinea, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, by defualt. I've had India on my mind since I left. It was definately the highlight of my last trip. Was there still a place called the Shiva Cafe near Mcleod Ganj? I think it was up past Daramkat, in the hills near a waterfall. I used to spend every afternoon there, just hanging out with the shop keeper and his goat hearding "Girlfriend."
i know what you're talking about. since i started travelling and practicing sufism my life got on a whole other track, when i got 'home' i just didnt connect with my old friends anymore cuz they are on a whole different path, have seen and been through things i can't relate with or seem to still be stuck in the exact same place they were before! and they can't relate with what i have seen and been through. been thinking about my friends a whole lot when i was gone, but once back i realised it's time to let them go. now i just came back from canada, thought about getting a job here, being a meditation teacher -again- but when i was here for 12 hours i already had looked up all the cheapest flights to every place possible, haha, and early may i'm going away again.
sufism sounds really nice btw just looked it up on wikipedia, similar to buddhism in the sense that you're trying to find truth within yourself through your own experience(at least thats what i'm gathering)... Can I ask how you managed to cope with letting go of your attachment to your old friends? I too thought a lot about my friends here whilst away, indeed sometimes it was a source of strength, but not long after return it felt like a major dissapointment and let down...I was probably quite naive in believing that we'd all still get along like magic after how much i've changed...And at times I know they feel resentful towards me for changing, possibly jealous because i've had the guts to get out of this backwater town and now have a lot of ambition...So the question really is would real friends ever feel that way towards me? Do I want my life to be surrounded by people who feel that negatively towards me? Aren't they just totally holding me back? Hmmm...very hard times at the moment.
Great thread, I can relate to it all. I came home on december 17th after over 9 months in Asia (India, Nepal & Thailand) and had the same experience.I was on unemployment benefit for over 2 months and just sitting round the house like a bum or up in my mates house drinking. It was cold, it got dark at 5 everyday and nothing had changed apart from me. I couldn't get my head around everyone running around like headless chickens fully absorbed in the "rat race". It's hard to deal with the travel comedown but I find eating food from the countries you were in, travel books written about other peoples trips, tv programmes on travel and the like help me to get by. They arouse the memories and you can really relate to them. Also I keep in contact with alot of people I met travelling which is also nice. I went on an outing to a nature reserve aswell about 2 hours from where I live in Ireland which was a nice change of scenery. I think it's the monotony which is the hardest to take so doing other interesting thing while your home can help. At worst, just see it as time to catch up with friends & family and work to finance your next travels. Nothing in life is free and when you've worked hard for several months to get money to travel you'll enjoy it even more. On a more positive note I already have €1500 saved for my next travels which will be to South America in Oct/Nov. It's amazing how much my mood changed since I started getting a bit of cash saved!! Get any job you can just to get some money coming in. It gives you a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. As for friends, some I don't see much of since I came home due to the fact that I figured out we had very little in common but I still have 3/4 core friends and still get on with the others when I meet them but we've just grown apart a bit. Om Shanti
I'm pretty far removed from my last trip (five years), and have adjusted to my friends and there attitudes about the world and traveling. My current core group of friends grew up or lived in other parts of the world, so they don't seem too isolated and can relate to many of my travel experiences. I also did not move back to my home town, but rather the place where I attended University. In general, I have let friendships that were not as fulfilling drift apart, while maintaining or making new friendships based on my current interests. All people change with age and experience. The main difference for the people on this thread is that they left home, experienced life changing events, and then returned home to find everything as they left it. You can't expect your friends to completely understand or share your changes. We all chose to break free from our stagnant, sedentary lives, and now must live with changes in our attitudes and expectations. As far as Peter’s questions on dealing with friendships; it is up to you and how you want to approach each friendship. Since you are the one who has changed, can you find common ground with your old friends, downplaying some of your changes? If this is too difficult or something you are not willing to do, then maybe it is time to move on. Also, they can still be your drinking buddies but maybe you need to find additional friends that can meet your other needs. I have friends that are great for discussing and debating the most absurd and random topics, while others are good for going on hike some afternoon. Both are good friends, just in different ways. In the end you need to be happy with yourself and your surroundings.
lol@ the shiva cafe. Yeah I remember there being quite a few israelis playing chess in there smoking charras (surprise surprise)...I discovered two things there; I really suck at chess! and I shouldn't give money to Sadhus! Regarding the comments on friendships; Thanks a lot. You made brilliant points there. I sort of realised tonight after hanging out with a couple of friends at the pub that we can still find common ground between each other and get along and have a laugh...But whether or not i'll be spending massive amounts of time with them is another question...I do need to find new friends to fulfill the other aspects of my life, my spiritual side for one, and physical activities. I have a couple of best friends who i've known for years who I can fully trust and talk to about more or less anything which is of course great even though they live a long way away. I've always said stepping off the plane by myself at new delhi airport was the hardest thing i've done but coming back I now definitely consider was much harder! This has turned out to be a very cool and helpful thread. thanks loads.
well i really had to get over it, like when you break up with a boy/girlfriend. but i had to let go, because of all those questions you asked in the end of your post... it's weird, i learned to let go of possesions, places and so on, but friends? no... but it wouldnt be fair towards those friends -and myself- to hold on to that friendship while all this negative feelings and energy is the result of it. better to go away in peace than at one point break down and go away with alot of anger. when i realised that i could let go in peace. with good memories of the past, and forgiving myself for being so foolish and naive to think i could come back and it all be the same as it was as before. travelling after that was more of a challenge, somehow my friends were my 'safetynet'. 'if i have to go back and have nowhere to go, at least i still got my friends'. i felt really lonely for a while, but that was silly, cuz when you think about it i wasn't more alone than that trip before...
