Of connections and coincidenceds

My last post was pretty damn dark, but cathartic and necessary I feel to set some things straight. Its been a while, now I'm away again in India, studying a couple of IT courses, ready to face the big bad world again. I thought I'd have a sort of round up of the connections and happy coincidences that came my way, the good bits that made it all worthwhile :) here goes:

When deciding to go away, a good six months before, it felt like dark times were ahead. I spent a lot of time in meetings on issues of sustainability with concerned people:- Welsh Assembly members, Climate Change groups, University of Glamorgan and others working towards a Sustainability Collage of the Valleys while completing my studies at the Centre for Alternative Technology. Fuel, food and airline prices were shooting through the roof. The FTSE was falling by hundreds of points daily and gold was being bought up at ridiculous prices. My housemate feared that if petrol prices continued to rise as expected it would not be economic to get to work, even in his fuel efficient little Peugeot.

Personally the time of wandering and traveling was coming to a close, I wanted to settle in one place, and move towards build a resilient home using the design knowledge from CAT, but with no strong commitments and round the world tickets still bucking the trend of short haul price increases I could not resist having a last look see.

Round The World tickets come in a number of flavours, but usually mean you have to travel in one direction around the world, set dates of departure and the limit of a year. I did not like the idea of being tied to a route, and would have preferred to buy single tickets, but that is too expensive, some countries like Australia need proof of onward travel, and maddeningly its often cheaper to buy a return than one-way. There is usually the option to alter flight times cheaply and alter routes at greater expense.

Wireless networks, social networking sites and initiatives like Couch Surfing, Liftshare and Craigslist had reached a level of general awareness, even if few people outside the traveler or young urbanite used them. This to me suggested a new way to travel, I would vagabond about making use of these resources, my own skills of computer fixing, cookery, yoga and massage and see where it would take me. The route was set, but in between I'd no fixed plans, to be open to whatever presented itself, live cheaply, and never book accommodation in advance.

When like a pool game, life seems to offer no obvious shot, there is something to be said for cannoning the ball as hard as you can, so long as you can avoid snookering yourself. Its a gamble, but sometimes you get a feeling that the shot will come off - and saving a few scrapes it did. In nine months of drinking tap water, eating the weirdest things, wandering through dodgy areas, sleeping where I choose - the worst I suffered was culture shock, a sore throat and occasional hiraeth.

Back in Swansea I could not help thinking of Bob Dylan's Hard Rain falling as I recalled some of the many encountered on the trail.

I'd met women and men lost after the break up of marriages, putting on a brave face.

A drunk woman injecting food into the stomach of her cleft pelleted child.

Talked with a stabber, and the stabbed.

A psychiatric nurse who talked of angels.

Advocates of drugs, growers and campaigners against.

Been questioned accusingly by Daoists and Muslims on the same day

Cycled, driven cars, trucks and vans, sailed, motorcycled, hitched, walked long distances in the sun and rain, turned down lifts and been glad of them.

Slept in jungles and forests, palatial and grubby hotel rooms, sofas, floors, beside paths and fires on countless beaches.

Cooked meals in well stocked kitchens, on television and on discrete fires in the hearths of abandoned houses.

Met men with families in the past, or past family making age smoking their lives away in Asian fleapits.

People traumatized seeking solace in expensive therapies.

Met women and children for sale

Men who loved bought women, some worked out after all.

Sites of genocide and gazed upon confounding complex architecture.

Met up with friends from other travels, friends from home, and when people said to look me up if I was in their country I actually did!

Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist of the Manhattan project said the "The opposite of a trivial truth is false, the opposite of a great truth is also true" and so it seemed with the people I met, as soon as I entertained a prejudice its counter example would present itself within at most a day. I cannot in good heart make any sweeping statements - The travelers view is at best through a cracked looking glass.

As jarring as this may seem I also experienced incredible generosity and truly baffling life affirming coincidences, in every county I visited, I met someone connected with home.

Cambodia - I traveled with my former housemate, and met an outdoor education teacher who knew the staff from the University of Glamorgan. I met an Aberystwyth Graduate who had lived in the same Student Village house I had lived in two years after me!

Vietnam - traveled with a guy from Humboldt State

Malaysia - caught up with my Humboldt pal

Australia - stayed my first night with a CouchSurfer who had stayed with me in Swansea, caught a ride with her fella to Byron Bay, found work on an organic farm. Her architect knew CAT and was visiting Crystal Waters from Brisbane where I'd left my rucksac with my couch surfing pal. The lady whose farm I was staying at was travelling up to Brisbane on just the right day. Visited old family friends in Bundaberg.

I met a lady into partner yoga and permaculture online, and stayed with her, and met some of my heroes. Caught up with two travel buddy from Cambodia, bumped into someone from Nimbin in Melbourne.

Stayed with a colleague in Newcastle, dinned with the director of Celtic Studies, and met someone lovely.

New Zealand - Travelled with the lovely person, visited an old Uni friend, a guy who had been camping in my same spot in Three Cliffs Bay, found an antique shop selling a few items, but significantly the same wedgewood, doulton figures and a soapdish I knew from my grandmothers. A bookshop with five titles on display my authors I had met!

Cook Islands - stayed at a tiny resort, met a guy whose parents lived at Southgate Gower, and frequently wandered the Three Cliffs. Met a lady who invited me to stay at her cabin in the wilds.

US West Coast - Met up with friends from CAT in San Francisco, Stayed in the same hostel in the same bed, quite by chance.

Stayed in the Cabin near lake Tahoe, the girls uncle had met my ex in California through his work.

Stayed in a the room in the same hostel in Portland.

Caught up with friends made two years previously for a wild week of jeeping, sturgeon fishing and target practice in the woods.

In Canada, met up and stayed with the family of a guy I met in Cambodia. Most baffling of all was hitching outside of Merrit, Canada's Country Music Capitol. I had slept in the spare room of a couple who had arrived there after hitching also. After a long and boring walk in the sun I was picket Peter, who had worked not 5 minutes walk from my house in Romsey, new the same landlord, quoted the Autobiography of a Supertramp, a book which has been following me around like a shadow and many other coincidences you would not believe if I told you :)

I met a dear friend in Indiana, an old friend from Swansea flew out to meet me in New York. In New York He and I met Janelle to see a gig, we had met in Cambodia and again in Brisbane, with many stories to share.

What an amazingly small world it can be, the thank yous deserve a post all of their own, but I'll not begin at this hour - as I'll be up all night, have school in the morning and do not want to get all misty eyed and sentimental.