It’s all around us

I was away walking my gorgeous Camino de Santiago in Portugal and Spain but now it’s time for another deep excavation of memories and sensations.

It’s January 2015, I am 19, in Russia, it is damn cold. My bike trip from Russia to Gibraltar was over three months ago and I had just returned from a short “hitch and hostel” travel with friends in the Baltic region and was back to work in Saint-Petersburg.

My mum had called me several weeks before saying “Lucy, I am going to Thailand, all-inclusive, I will have a double bedroom so you are welcome to come”. I was thrilled by the idea of traveling to another side of the world but of course, dreaded the idea of all-inclusive. Who doesn’t when you’re 19 right?! I got a ticket from Saint-Petersburg to (probably) Omsk and then to Bangkok where I met my mum and we headed to… the famous tourist hell called Pattaya.

I am really sorry for what is happening in such areas. Mass tourism is rearing its ugly head in such a disturbing manner. I believe that you will understand what I am talking about as there is a high chance that each one of us had at least once ended up in a place like this – completely “russian” villages close to Antalya, french “enclaves” in Egypt, Nha Trang in Vietnam or Pattaya/Phuket in Thailand.

All of this to say that I was horrified when we had arrived. My mum was totally okay with staying in the hotel and going to the beach 2 min away every single day, but I felt that it was lacking air for me, so I packed my backpack, said bye to mum and walked towards the road to find a tuk tuk a bus or an elephant (oh well) that would bring me to Bangkok.

Brought up in the monotonous steppes, having lived in the similarly monotonous part of the US and having cycled a more or less organised Europe, I wasn’t quite ready for what I would experience. My senses were instantly overstimulated – in a good way – like a toddler whose brain is so malleable, I was absorbing the visions, the sounds, the smells – my little grey matter friend was super happy. Monks, performers, people, kids, cats, dogs, dirt, ligths, everything and all at once – Bangkok was moving.

I had been practicing yoga (asanas and pranayamas) since the age of 12 and got interested in Buddhist philosophy at the age of 15. These interests had matured by the time I arrived in Thailand, so then it was a purposeful, I would say, Buddhism-oriented exploration. Again, without a sim card – thus, without maps – I asked the locals how I could get to the main temples of Thai capital and even managed to take a correct bus to get there. (Thinking back to these times, I see how simple and evident it was to do such things, just always ask people for help, directions, etc – we are losing this skill if we don’t practice it…) Walking from the bus stop I saw kids in boxes and seemingly homeless people casually living their days on the sides of the road.

Then there was Wat Pho with a huge reclining Buddha and then dozens and dozens of Buddhas outside the main chamber. Wat means “temple” in Thai. There is usually a Wat in even the smallest village. There would usually be monks living there, and the locals would bring offerings as well as give alms to the monks. Thai Wats are very special places where you can sit and meditate, talk to the monks or pet a dog – they are usual dwellers of gardens and areas close to Wats.

Absolutely mesmerised by the way of living in SE Asia, I started contemplating an idea about staying there for some time, travelling all the way to Vietnam and then finding a job there as a teacher of English (oh boy, if only I had known that in three years I would be doing exactly that). Entertaining this opportunity, I hitchhiked a motorbike out of Bangkok, returned back to Pattaya to say hi to mum and let her know I was okay, just to leave the next day to Cambodia, as I had heard that beautiful Angkor Wat was not far. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat

I hopped in a tuk tuk that would bring me to the main road from where with some difficulty I had hitchhiked a car and then another car across Thai provinces of Rayong and Chanthaburi right to the Thai-Khmer border. Locals didn’t quite understand why a “farang” – a foreigner – would be travelling this way, and I, have to admit, was a bit nervous as I didn’t speak any Thai and could barely read the behavior of the people as it was SO different from what I was used to back in Central Asia and Russia. However, it all turned fine, and after some hundreds of kms and several failed attempts of Thai-English converations I was at the customs. I had a very enriching exchange with the customs guys who were asking me for a bribe of 20$ to let me in Cambodia. I didn’t want to give any bribe and so they made me stay and wait while letting everyone else go – for an hour or so. After some of the customs guys asking if I was married – classic – I understood that it wasn’t wise to stay there longer and started tapping the glass behind which the main customs guy was sitting to attract his attention. 10 minutes of angry tapping and I was finally let in the country. Yes, that’s how it worked at the time. Another hitchiked car and I am in Siem Reap, the city located close to the ruins of a huge Buddhist-Hindu temple complex Angkor Wat.

Orange dust. These were my first impressions of Cambodia. Very very poor population, living in shacks, kids playing with makeshift toys, many people who had lost a limb (many kids too) due to stepping on mines. Cambodia remains a very heavily mined country all the way from the Vietnam War – there are estimations that there could be up to 6 million active mines on Khmer territory. You could literally blow up in your own backyard. So sad, so so sad. 3 years later, when I would cycle across Cambodia, I would find out that there are charities involved in demining the country – such a ray of hope.

I stayed in a lovely house with gentle folks from Belarus who I had found on Couchsurfing. Days were passing by and my big pastime was cycling around the area (staying only on roads and never going off tracks anywhere, though the Angkor Wat area had been mostly de-mined), going to the market and just oberving how people made their living, communicated with their families and interacted with the world and the elements.

I could see that the women were working as much or even more than men – they would sell flowers, food, pick fruit, weave backets, make clothes, clean the streets, the ponds, the temples. How inspiring, ladies.

Sometimes, I am thinking “Where are you now? Are you still alive? Are you still working? What are you feeling? What are your preoccupations and what brings you joy?” It is fascinating how many faces we see in our lives and how they fade away and how we will never meet or talk to these people again. Our paths will never be parallel anymore. The Universe is expanding year after year, destinies are dancing.

The ruins of Angkor had touched my soul auite deeply. It was and is a magical place where black-greenish rocks hold the memories of centuries – oh, they have seen so much. Mostly blood, but they also had witnessed at least several elightened humans and had heard many prayers. I was cycling, then dropping the bike, then wandering around, meditating and observing. It was a profound experience that I shared with other people from all over the world who were also wandering and observing in deep tranquility.

“The lotus is a central symbol in many Eastern cultures, which consider it to be one of the most sacred plants in the world. Lotus flowers feature in the oldest Egyptian hieroglyphics, antique Chinese ceramics, and Hindu folk stories. In Hinduism and Buddhism, the lotus flower represents the womb of the universe, where all things are born. For Buddhists, this flower represents enlightenment and the link between the universe’s soul and their own; it’s said that lotus flowers bloomed where the baby Buddha took his first steps.”

Inspired by Angkor, I wrote the following just several months later, still in 2015 –

“Here, my dear, now you are sitting in yet another city and you understand how good life is. How beautiful and multifaceted it is. You understand that tomorrow may not come, so you accept every day as a gift, you rejoice, jump and laugh until you cry. You want to hug everyone, smile at everyone. We really live in paradise, see?

I don’t remember when it all started. I don’t know when it will all end. I remember waking up in the middle of the night in different places of the planet, thinking for a couple of seconds about who I was and where I was, and then falling back into sleep, not finding a reasonable answer. I remember American ghettos with tattooed people in wheelchairs, with houses where there was only a TV in the room, water dripping on the floor, and the sky visible through a hole in the roof. I remember daily 5-hour-long workouts, when you run until it’s dark in your eyes, you run when it’s +40, -30, you run up, you run down, you run in the early morning, you run in the late evening and you breathe and live. I also remember how tears would flow from my eyes when I rode all day at a speed of 10 km/h somewhere in Denmark and the wind would push me and my bike under the wheels of cars. How I’d smile and swing rhythmically, looking at the Mediterranean Sea. I remember how a Spanish granny would put a seashell to my ear so that I too could hear that music. How the people you meet would share everything they have, just because they see the familiar fire in your eyes. How your fingers freeze in winter in the Baltics and how you and your friends warm up in the cathedral, mesmerized by the silence and candles. The faces of children in Cambodia, glowing at the slightest attention, wonderful in their simplicity. Faces made of stone in Angkor, looking at the world with a constant smile. The faces of people flying through my life. So different, so similar. I remember sleeping in a sitting position in a tent to at least keep the feet warm, and in the morning, boiling water for tea in a frying pan. How the silence would be so loud in the mountains and how you dissolve in everpresent time. How you shout the same phrase against the wind again and again, when seeing off a friend. How crystal clear it is in your head when you know that you have to move on in any case and that everything is always fine.

I was everything and no one. A little girl, a man, an old woman, an actress, a homeless person, a lover, a bird, a friend, a flower, the wind. But you always have to let go of everything in yourself and give it away. Always. There are no other meanings.
Freedom means to give everything away, yes.”

There’s been quite some mental and emotional excavation. I would end up in Cambodia again, this time with a bicycle, but that would be another memory string.
To finish up, here are some beautiful trees taking over the ruins in Angkor. I have no idea what they are called, just leaving them here as a beautiful visual of nature regaining control. 😊

If you have a chance to go to Cambodia, please do. Hope you find your own magic there, just as I once did…

The next story will be about hitchhiking and walking around the Caucasian region – Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and some part of Russian Caucasus (Chechnya, Dagestan, etc) – a big and insightful travel that also happened in 2015. ⛰️🏕️

☸️☸️☸️

While the wheel of life turns, be happy.

Lots of love,

Lucy