Lori from ITALY in NEIL Island
I started to backpack when I was almost twenty and since then I have never chosen another way to travel. I have always been fascinated by moving from one place to another with your home on your back without planning too much, where and for how long you are going to stay. You might travel just to satisfy your curiosity of exploring a new place, to find answers to your own spiritual questions, to find yourself or even to escape from it and for each journey you might have a different reason or maybe all of them. I had all!
In the last twelve years I have been travelling in many different countries and I always tried to dive as much as possible in their cultures and to understand the different ways of living and thinking of the people I met on my path. As a backpacker you are not a common tourist. You would probably buy your food in the local market rather than eating in a restaurant or taking the local bus rather than a Taxi. These small experiences will let you melt with the daily life of the place where you are staying. That is what I like the most. And that’s all not because of a low budget it’s just an attitude...
The more you travel and the more you realize how few things you need to live. However you will always have something in your bag that you don’t need and you will always miss something else. The goal is just get rid of what is not really necessary and learn to survive without those things you forgot back home!
I have always felt attracted for India and its colorful scenarios and I often dreamed of travelling to this country. However every time I thought about it, something inside me was telling : It ́s not the right time! I had the feeling that this would not be a normal trip as those I was used to and so I just let the right time to come by itself...
When I first came here, I got an overloading of smells, impressions, sounds and noises within few seconds that I almost collapsed. I went through an incredible mixture of feelings and state of mind from happiness, joy and compassion to sadness, disappointment and anger. I got sick and the physical pain was somehow deeper and stronger than usual. I hated and loved this country at the same time...I tried to find a reason beyond the contrasts and the contradictions. I experienced searching for an explanation for everything and even more difficult was for me to accept those explanations I found. India can be terrible and wonderful at the same time. But that’s how life is too. India shows you misery and richness, cruelty and gracefulness in the same corner leaving your thousand questions on how all of this might be possible with no answer.
But that’s how life works too.
In this chaos of emotions and impressions I slowly learnt how to find a balance inside me, above all, when the whole world outside seems to go crazy. I learnt how to listen to myself, to my soul and to my body. I realized that nothing or nobody but I can take care of them. Not that I was not able to before, but I always had the feeling that a ring in the chain between Me and Myself was missing. Well, something in India taught me how to find it, but this was not because of Yoga or because of some spiritual journeys I might have gone through. It was just because of being there, facing such incredible reality and experiencing my emotions in a way I have never done before. The funny thing is that I even didn’t search for this, it just came...
So now, if somebody would ask me if I would go back again, I’d say “yes!”
If somebody would ask me if I recommend to visit this country, I’d say,
Well, if your nose can smell sandalwood and cow shit at the same time without collapsing, you are ready for India!!! Namaste ;-)
(Neil Island is one of India’s Andaman Islands. The Andaman Islands are an Indian archipelago in the Bay of Bengal)
