I have now been traveling for 2 weeks...
The constant thought that keeps running through my mind is the fact that not knowing the language nor the culture is such a huge barrier to actually get closer to the South East Asian culture overall. It is a quite closed culture. Though people randomly ask you in teh street where you are from and what your name is, they dont actually push much further the welcome and cultural openess. THis makes it so hard to penetrate the culture and get to know its poeple from closer. Will I overcome this challenge soon? I sure hope so, but at the same time, am quite doubtful as well.
In some ways, this so far makes this trip a trip from the outside rather than from the inside...and what a pitty, because I truely believe that 75% of the wealth of such an adventure come from the actual inside layers of the culture.
I try to remain hopefull...and look forward to the rest of my adventure...for some reasons, I am just dying to get to Burma, Nepal and India, naively thinking that I might be better able to crack the cultural shells of these cultures...who knows?
I guess part of theadventure is also to get to know myself better from the inside, as well as through my interactions with other fellow travelers on the road.
So far, though Malaysia is a beautiful country, integrating incredibly well three of the most spread out and different religions in the world, it has not been making my heart vibrate the way I expected, nor the way listening to Salsa on my iPod, or hearing the call to prayer from a nearby Mosque does.
Life is full of curiosities, and the journey is all about hopping from one to the next in order to identify the ones that your relate to the best and with most joy...and well, each day on the road is a new story to tell my kids, friends, and family some day when I return. Stories are what makes one's life exciting and fulfilled...at least to me. :o)
On this note, my stomach is grumbling for food, it is 2:40pm, on saturday...while I patiently wait for my pictures to upload to Flickr so that I can share them with you on my blog.
Sleep well on the other side of the planet.
The constant thought that keeps running through my mind is the fact that not knowing the language nor the culture is such a huge barrier to actually get closer to the South East Asian culture overall. It is a quite closed culture. Though people randomly ask you in teh street where you are from and what your name is, they dont actually push much further the welcome and cultural openess. THis makes it so hard to penetrate the culture and get to know its poeple from closer. Will I overcome this challenge soon? I sure hope so, but at the same time, am quite doubtful as well.
In some ways, this so far makes this trip a trip from the outside rather than from the inside...and what a pitty, because I truely believe that 75% of the wealth of such an adventure come from the actual inside layers of the culture.
I try to remain hopefull...and look forward to the rest of my adventure...for some reasons, I am just dying to get to Burma, Nepal and India, naively thinking that I might be better able to crack the cultural shells of these cultures...who knows?
I guess part of theadventure is also to get to know myself better from the inside, as well as through my interactions with other fellow travelers on the road.
So far, though Malaysia is a beautiful country, integrating incredibly well three of the most spread out and different religions in the world, it has not been making my heart vibrate the way I expected, nor the way listening to Salsa on my iPod, or hearing the call to prayer from a nearby Mosque does.
Life is full of curiosities, and the journey is all about hopping from one to the next in order to identify the ones that your relate to the best and with most joy...and well, each day on the road is a new story to tell my kids, friends, and family some day when I return. Stories are what makes one's life exciting and fulfilled...at least to me. :o)
On this note, my stomach is grumbling for food, it is 2:40pm, on saturday...while I patiently wait for my pictures to upload to Flickr so that I can share them with you on my blog.
Sleep well on the other side of the planet.
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