Letting Go on the Ganges 2

India - There it was. I’d never said it out loud before. Freed from a dark recess of my heart, the words seemed almost to vibrate in the daylight.

“But where do you want to go?” What was this paradise that could be so much better than the life we’d created?

At the time, I had no idea. I just knew I had always wanted to travel. In our first year of marriage I wrote three pages a day in my journal, more of than not trying to reconcile wedlock with the desire to pack up and hit the road. On our third anniversary, I’d given him one of those narcissistic we’re-really-a-couple books called The Book of Us. I’d answered the question, “What are your dreams for your life together?” in ballpoint ink: “to travel around the world.” Then I added “together” to bind words and hope.

There was nothing wrong with him, nothing wrong with me. But I wore despair and denial like a heavy winter coat—my dream, to voyage out like Freya Stark and discover myself amidst the sands of Arabia. I denied myself study abroad in college and backpacking through Europe, shuffling from school to a “good job” and finally a big Catholic wedding to a really nice guy who I loved and couldn’t see beyond.

By Kristin Zibell
 (to be continued)
photo: Janin

India - No Place For A Wish

We were offering our wishes, he explained, to Ganga—the goddess of the river that bears her name. A bath in her waters was the ultimate symbol of redemption and purification, and a wish was perhaps amplified here more than anywhere else.
I looked at the water. It was black. No place for a wish.
“If you can’t think of anything to wish for, wish for world peace.” Ganesh smirked, as if reading my mind, and then hustled to the front of the boat.
I heard his instructions but rebelled. I already knew I wasn’t going to make a wish.
Eight months ago, I was married with a comfortable urban apartment and a dual-income life. On a rare cloudy day in Los Angeles from my perch on the living room futon, I told my husband of seven years that it was over.
“Why?” he’d asked. Shocked. Baffled.
“Being married is not conducive to the life I want to live,” sounding like I was running a meeting.
“What life is that?” He tilted his head.
“I want to travel the world.”
By Kristin Zibell (to be continued)

India- Letting Go on the Ganges

India held her ticket to transformation.

Our boat dropped anchor in the middle of the Ganges, and a slight breeze brought relief from the October heat. Two men interrupted the live, languid sitar music by scurrying like beetles around our wide-hulled rowboat, setting out forty leaf plates big enough to hold a scoop of ice cream. Inside, rose petals cradled votive candles, which the men quickly lit. The light made feet and faces glow. Our tour guide Ganesh, a tall, gangly Indian from Bangalore, stood up, momentarily taking center stage away from the sitar player.
“Please take a bowl with a candle and place it in the Ganges,” Ganesh instructed. “When you do, make a wish. It is said that when you do this, your wish will come true.”
By Kristin Zibell  (to be continued) 

China travel - Point it

Lots of people will try and help, not always successful but they are insist on trying!

This is part of the charm of being in a country like China. Not everyone speaks English, in fact very few people outside of the major cities do, but there is always a way to communicate through gesture, phrasebooks and expression.

We also carried a small ‘point it’ book around with us, but to be honest we hardly ever used it. It’s still a pretty handy thing to have if you get stuck as you can point at a picture or drawing that symbolises what it is you’re trying to communicate.

One thing we would suggest when travelling in China is that you have patience. There is no point in getting worked up about people trying to push in front of you, or spitting their food out on the table beside you. This is all part of their culture. It takes a long time to get anywhere because the distances are so vast and there are so many people trying to get there.

A packed out metro car in the Beijing underground - of a claustrophobic experience, but it’s only 20p per journey in Beijing so it’s very good value for money!

China travel for us was a fantastic experience, a challenge and an array of cultural surprises and shocks, and getting by with our 5 little words made all the difference. Go and explore this vast, wonderful country. You will not regret it.

Helen & David

Catching a Train in China!

When we were buying train tickets the book again became very useful, we would push it over the counter and point at the exact phrase we were wanting to use. Eventually we’d always get our tickets. On several occasions we asked the hostel staff to write down which train we wanted to get, the class, and time of departure. Only once did we have to go back to the hostel and change what we were trying to do.
There is an amazing rail network to discover when traveling to China, which is by far more environmentally-friendly than internal flights, and although you may find yourself sitting or lying down on a train for 17 hours, the views are of very rewarding, the company can be fun and interesting and we always found that the locals wanted to chat or offer food even though the language barrier was so evident. Hand gestures and eye contact can go a long way!
 It's cheaper to get a top bunk (3rd bed up) on a sleeper train, but make sure you watch your head!

China Travel 2 Stinky Tofu

We did find a great vegetarian restaurant in Beijing at the bottom of Hou Hai lake but many street food vendors sell meat based buns and snacks, however the sugary fruit on a stick is quite a good little snack and not as sugary as it looks! As we travelled south we came across stinky tofu, this you can smell way down the street before you even pass it – not sure it’s for everyone and the smell was too off-putting for us to try!

You can also get a variety of beers and spirits to compliment your meal.
We found a mandarin phrasebook for £5 whilst visiting the 798 Art district which had a whole section dedicated to food and eating out. Not only was there a description of how to order and how words should be pronounced but the Chinese symbols were also alongside each word so we could show the staff directly what it was we wanted. Still this wasn’t always successful! Ordering vegetables, tofu and a pork dish equated into pork, vegetables and tofu in every dish! But they will taylor what you want especially in the street style open restaurants. Of this is an exciting part of travel, you can’t read the menu, it’s all in traditional Chinese symbols, and so we had to point at the book and see what would come! “Mifan” always got us the rice though!!
(to be continued)

China Travel – Food, Transport and the Language Barrier

Having spent 2 months traveling in China, by the end of our trip we’d still only managed to pick up around 5 words: Hello = “Ni hao”, Thank you = “Xiexie”, Rice = “Mifan” and Vegetables = “Shucai”. This is simply the phonetically spelt words and we haven’t even included the accents that accompany them which play such an important role in how a word is pronounced!
But anyway we’re not here to give you a lesson in Chinese grammar! What we would like to do however is talk about how we managed to travel China without being able to speak or understand the language.

Eating out in China!
Having had the experience of eating out in Japan we knew China was on a similar level when it comes to attitudes towards vegetarian cuisine. Not that Helen is a complete vegetarian, as she does eat fish thankfully, but if you are a strict vegetarian then trying to communicate this in restaurants is near impossible as 95% of everything is prepared in some kind of meat or fish based broth.
By David & Helen (to be continued)