One of the questions we get asked a lot and also ask others as we travel from country to country is “Where is your favourite place?”. As you meet people who are travelling in similar areas and have travelled all over the world it is lovely to hear their stories of favourite places and why they meant so much to them.
For me there are two countries that really stand out. The first is India, for a million reasons. It has that marmite quality of love it or hate it. You speak to one person and they regale you with experiences of diarrhea, theft, con artists, torturous bus journeys, cockroaches and people who would steal the breath from a dying man. Then you talk to the next person who has been to the same places and they tell you of the greatest, loving caring people you could meet, acts of supreme kindness and generosity that bring a lump to the throat, and food so delicious you start slavering at the very thought of it. I am in the second camp. Great people, great country, great food and a scale of beauty and diversity it is hard for a boy from a small Island called Britain to grasp.
When I think of India I am fascinated by the colours, the immense sweat and grime, dirty streets, and more people in the scope of my eye than I knew could fit.
When you get off the plane you are thrown into the heat, the dust and the smell of people in all their raw reality. The food, the sweat, the rubbish, piss and shit and perfume of people living, sleeping, breathing, farting and fucking on top of one another in a crowded city.
People flow in every direction, walking, running and jostling their way through the heaving sweaty mass. Shouts, laughter, revving engines, growling rickshaw motors, and unknown phrases spat to and fro surround you.
The smell of sweat and spice concentrates the raw odour of humanity through the heat of the pavement. You have to find the rhythm, the ebb and flow of the crowd and your place in it.
The streets are part of life; not just walkways but homes, kitchens, shops and beds. Streets seemingly sweaty and damp with their own perspiration lubricate the friction of difficult lives played out on their surface.
India can be tough but just like anything worthwhile, to find the hidden gems you have to search in strange places.
The other place I answer as my favorite is Myanmar. I won’t repeat the content of the many posts we have already written about Myanmar. It is again probably a marmite experience. A happy, smiling, warm people who seem to approach their everyday life with a calm determination that belies the hardship that is forced upon them by an oppressive military regime.
A people who have every right to be depressed, angry, resentful and uncaring are in fact just the opposite. Their country is beautiful beyond words.
As I sit here in our lovely guest house in Bangkok enjoying the free wifi and overpriced veggie food I read yet another depressing story about the continued suffering of the people of Myanmar.
Myanmar is one of the poorest countries in the world and has negligible state spending on healthcare and education. However the Military leaders have recently banked nearly $5bn in offshore accounts in Singapore. This money comes from the gas pipeline project in Myanmar operated by French company Total, and as this article argues Total are complicit in supporting the military junta.
Maybe I have too much time on my hands to think at the moment but things don’t seem right with the world. Yet again here we are with something that should anger, offend, distress and disgust every single one of us, but it doesn’t really. We know it is wrong but some sort of weird mental process takes place that makes us quickly forget the anger and disgust and go back to our comfortable lives, afraid as ever to rock the boat.
Are we really more concerned with preserving the status quo and maintaining our economic stability than with standing up for the basic rights of our fellow human beings? Maybe we are… I am still here enjoying overpriced pumpkin soup and posting this blog on the free wifi.
