G'day! I'm Chris. I left my home in rural Australia back in 2007 to pursue a life less ordinary.
I specialize in ambitious travel - bucket list worthy journeys such as the Great US Road Trip, the ultimate African safari, and following the length of the Silk Road.
This coming weekend myself and Roma from Roaming Required have the pleasure of being invited along to the Broke Fordwich region of the Hunter Valley to act as blogger ambassadors.
While the Hunter Valley has long been synonymous with wine and weekend escapes from the hustle and bustle of Sydney or Newcastle, the Broke Fordwich region has emerged as the ‘tranquil side of the Hunter Valley’ away from the more touristic portions of the area.
As part of this push to become a region synonymous with good food, good wine, and a little peace & quiet – the Broke Fordwich Wine & Tourism Association have invited a number of food and travel bloggers along to explore the region and spread the good word.
I’m only too happy to have the opportunity to see more of the region that my family comes from.
I’m a country boy at heart, and this looks like heaven to me!
A Confession About Wine
Anybody who knows me well will tell you I’m not exactly a wine connoisseur. My tastes and past experience don’t range much farther than the bags of Fruity Lexia I used to drink at college, in fact.
Armed with Wikipedia’s handy list of wine tasting terms, I’m hoping I’ll be able to at least pass muster as I try the best that the Broke Fordwich region has to offer.
Hmm… this has an oaky finish to it. Aromas of pine and… it’s earthy! How wonderful. *Cue droll laughter*
I quite fancy taking a moment to enjoy a drop of Whispering Brook this weekend.
Our itinerary for the weekend includes visits to Whispering Brook, Ascella Pure Wines, Mount Broke Wines, Nightingale Wines and maybe even a little chocolate indulgence with our wine at Stomp! Wines. We’ll also get to pair our wine with organic cheeses and locally grown olives at Ascella, just to really drive home the decadence.
While it’s true that I may not know how to talk about wine, I do have an appreciation of the art. I’m not only looking forward to sampling the local flavours, but also being able to meet with the winemakers who call the region home and hear their stories.
More Than Just Wine
While it’s true that the Hunter Valley is perhaps best known for the many wineries in the region, it would be unfair to say that it is only worth a visit if you like wine. With an abundance of quaint little towns and beautiful surrounding landscapes, the Hunter Valley truly is a place to find a bit of serenity without having to drive too far afield.
I never knew this smell had a name. It’s my favourite smell, too!
Just a few hours from Sydney and Newcastle, the Hunter Valley offers city slickers an opportunity to hike, go horseriding, take a joy ride in a hot air balloon, play a round of golf, or just soak in the peace and quiet while doing a bit of shopping.
Our own itinerary affords us the opportunity to visit the beautiful Baiame Cave. In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Baiame was the Creator God and Sky Father, and his depiction in this cave makes it an invaluable glimpse into the history and beliefs of Australia’s ancestral inhabitants.
Our visit will see us accompanied to the ancient site by Elders of the local Wanaruha tribe, which is a real privilege.
Oh, and did I mention food?
A Foodie Paradise
While I may not be an expert in the art of wine, it’s fair to say that I have a good appreciation of all things food. One look at me and you’ll know that’s true.
Broke just happens to be home to the Australian Tourism Awards 2012 Best Restaurant: Margan Restaurant.
In a country with more than a few stunning restaurants and cafes scattered across the map, that’s fairly high praise. I’m excited to say that we’ll be dining at this renowned restaurant on our second night in the region. The restaurant has won numerous honours, but I’m most intrigued by its status as the reigning Sustainable Restaurant of the Year.
I’m more than a little excited to be dining at such a well known and well loved restaurant as Margan Restaurant.
The quality dining experience doesn’t stop at Margan Restaurant, however. There are a number of well regarded restaurants in the region, and we’ll get to sample the food and wine alike at Nightingale Wines when we stop in for lunch on day two of our visit.
Our first night in Broke also sees us paying a visit to the Broke’s Promise winery, where we’ll be treated to the best local produce the region has to offer courtesy of Motty’s Farm Cuisine. I’m particularly excited by this opportunity, as we’ll have the chance to try locally grown and prepared foods!
I Can’t Wait!
In case you couldn’t tell from the above, I’m pretty excited about the opportunity. While I’ll be attending as a guest of the Broke Fordwich Wine & Tourism Association, I’ll be bringing my typical irreverent sense of humour and nose for adventure along for the ride.
Keep your eyes peeled next week as I review the weekend, the region, and the many places we’ll be exploring.
Your Say
Have you spent any time in wine country?
Got any tips for an amateur wine taster looking to make an impression?
It was with surprise that I received the notification (via the groovy TimeHop app) that yesterday marked four years since I embarked on this crazy ride and started sharing my travels, life, and innermost thoughts on this humble little corner of the internet.
I’d known that October marked the fourth anniversary of the site, but I guess I’d let the exact date slip my mind.
This is criminal. Given how hugely influential in my life this site has become and how many great friends I’ve made through sharing my stories online, you’d think I’d have been preparing something suitably epic to celebrate the birthday of my bouncing baby blog.
With that in mind, I’ve decided to reflect on the four years that have been and also cast an eye towards what the future holds for Aussie on the Road.
Read on, if you will.
The Story So Far
As I’ve said elsewhere, this blog started with very humble intentions. My girlfriend at the time had started her own healthy living blog (now long gone, may it rest in peace) and I’d hoped to share an interest.
While both the relationship and the healthy blog that inspired Aussie on the Road didn’t quite see out the year, I found the process of sharing travel stories and encouraging people to get out of the daily grind to be something I really enjoyed.
Over time, this enjoyment also translated into financial rewards and – most recently – the occasional ‘free’ trip in exchange for a review or a mention on social media.
While I’ve not hit the heights of a Nomadic Matt or an Everything Everywhere, I like to think I’ve carved myself out a nice little niche here. I’ve managed to interact with people from all over the world – from the Philippines to the Czech Republic, South Africa to Canada, and England to China.
I’ve even been recognized in a bar on two separate occasions as ‘that guy from Aussie on the Road’. The Paparazzi will be at my door any minute, I’m sure…
Favourites
Rather than waffle on with every up and down I’ve experienced over the past four years, I thought I’d instead highlight the ten posts that best summarize the journey so far. These are the posts of which I’m most proud or, in some cases, the posts that have earned the site the most notoriety.
Oddly enough, very few of them are directly related to travel.
Love, Sex, and Romance
With almost all of my romance (so far) having taken place abroad, it’s no surprise that it features rather heavily in the pages of the blog. From my time in China (and the US) with Nomadic American to the various other romances that I’ve had while traveling, I’ve always tried to tread a line between honesty and respecting the girl in question’s privacy.
So far, so good!
Nomadic American and I on her first day in Shanghai.
Often controversial, but always a blast to write – my list of travel blogging crushes was initially inspired by Will Peach’s irreverant ’10 Travel Bloggers I’d Go Gay For’. With a tongue-in-cheek view towards ‘ranking’ my favourite female bloggers, reactions have ranged from flattered to outraged.
While I’ve written a few posts on relationships on the road before, this recent post was one very close to my heart. Having loved and lost in romances with an expiry date on two occasions now, I felt it was finally time to share some of my thoughts and offer some advice for people who are in love, but know it can’t last.
Part tongue-in-cheek joke, part contest, and part desperate cry for human contact; my recent post about wanting to audition a (female) travel blogging partner with whom to romance my way around the world was more fizzle than sizzle.
Still, I enjoyed writing it.
Depression and Self Improvement
I like to think that people have responded to these posts because I’m very frank when discussing my mental health issues and the processes that I’ve used to cope with them while abroad. These posts have certainly been the most well received when it’s come to comments or ‘fan mail’.
The record holder for most views in a single hour, my ‘confession’ about my ongoing battle with depression and how it has shaped my life was met with a truly humbling wellspring of support. I still periodically receive emails and PMs from complete strangers who want to thank me for sharing my story, and it never gets any less flattering.
A more recent post I wrote upon reading some old blogs I wrote as a petulant, tortured 18-year-old. I remember really struggling to write this, because it dredged up some very raw memories of my earliest days with depression – even if I didn’t know it by that name.
Sharing one of my favourite stories from my time on the road, My Best Birthday talked about what it felt like to feel welcomed into my first expat community. While it has now been seven years since that fateful, heart-warming evening in South Korea – it still makes me smile whenever I think about it.
Travel
Last, but certainly not least, travel is obviously a huge part of the site. While the individual posts don’t generally draw as much traffic when they’re published, they’re the ones that slowly but surely keep building over time.
Sinking Paulaner beers at the Qingdao International Beer Festival.
My second most viewed post of all time, my ever-expanding bucket list and the motivations behind it seems to resonate with a lot of people. One of the first posts many people comment on, and one I occasionally get rather saucy proposals regarding.
My mother does not approve of many items on the list. Read at your peril.
A consistently popular post, my post on my favourite spots in Sydney is a quiet achiever. While it’s nothing ground-breaking if you’ve been to the Harbour City before, it’s got some interesting options if you’re visiting for the first or the fiftieth time.
The record holder for most views of all time (with 120,000 more hits than the next hit), this one gets press for entirely the wrong reasons. Written as a frank discussion on views of sex and sexuality in South Korea, it instead gets a lot of traffic from perverts looking for photos of naked Korean girls. They must be so disappointed.
Thanks largely to a retweet from Lonely Planet, this post written in my very early days in China got a huge amount of feedback. While I would later write a less successful follow up that benefited from my having actually traveled in China, this one remains a popular post with those heading behind the Great Firewall.
It’s rare that my posts generate much controversy, so this one was a real shock to me. While I knew listing the reasons why I don’t enjoy living in Australia for an extended period of time might upset some people, I’ve been surprised by just how many people have found and commented on the post. While many have come out to agree with my sentiments, there have been some… ahem… colourful comments from my less educated compatriots.
One of (if I may say so) the most comprehensive guides to Australian slang you’ll find anywhere. I spent countless hours compiling and editing this list for consumption, and I believe it’s one of the most complete lists of Aussie slang you’ll ever read.
My childhood visits to Green Valley Farm are fond memories, and revisiting it as an adult was no less fun. Writing about this quirky local attraction was not only a lot of fun, but earned me plenty of praise from the family who created and maintain this unique New England icon.
Somehow, this relatively innocuous post about my early impressions of Nanjing has become a bit of a cult favourite with Nanjing residents. No less than three people have told me that this post was a factor in their deciding to come to Nanjing – something I feel bad about when I realize they turned down the opportunity to live in Beijing or Hong Kong.
Drawing on a number of uncomfortable travel experiences from my past, I compiled a catch-all list of the traits you definitely don’t want in a travel partner.
The Future
Things are looking quite exciting for the coming months.
This weekend sees me heading to the Broke region of the Hunter Valley for a weekend of wine and delicious food as one of the region’s blogger ambassadors. You’ll read more about this tomorrow.
I’ve also got a week long safari in Tanzania coming up in November, and who knows what the future holds beyond that? While I’m home in Australia for the remainder of 2014, I can’t foresee myself sticking around here long term. Not when there’s so much to see elsewhere!
Your Say
Do you have a favourite post that I’ve neglected to mention above?
For those not familiar with this stinky, fermented cabbage dish from South Korea – allow me to introduce it.
Made from vegetables (typically cabbage, but also radish, cucumber, and others) – this dish is made by allowing the vegetable to ferment in a mixture of brine, scallions, ginger, garlic, chili, fish sauce, and various other ingredients. Traditionally, this was done by putting the ingredients in a jar and burying it for the winter; although these days many Korean fridges even come with a drawer especially for making your own kimchi.
With each Korean eating an average of 18kgs of this spicy side dish a year, it amounts to a large chunk of their daily intake for vitamins, iron, and calcium. Some Koreans even go so far as to believe that kimchi cures everything from H1N1 (avian flu) to cancer to AIDS, although there’s been no proof of this.
Fans don’t kill you while you sleep either…
Nomadic American and a piece of lettuce (?) “Say Kimchi” together.
The food is so popular that “Say Kimchi” is the equivalent to saying cheese before taking a photo.
The Gwangju Kimchi Festival
Every year in October, the city of Gwangju (my former home of two years) holds the Gwangju World Culture Kimchi Festival – a celebration of all things kimchi.
As I’ve said in previous posts about Korean festivals, this is a country who will have a festival at the drop of a hat. These range from the beautiful (such as the Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival) to the decadent (such as the Boryeong Mud Festival) to the downright odd (such as the Slow Walking Festival).
As festivals go, however, the Kimchi Festival is a wonderful celebration of an iconic staple of the Korean diet.
The kimchi prep station before the foreigners descended on it and made a mess.
As you would expect, the bulk of the festival is made up of kimchi, kimchi ingredients, kimchi making demonstrations, kimchi making lessons, and various characters wearing suits representative of kimchi ingredients.
There are also cultural activities, live music, and talent shows – as is pretty standard at any Korean festival.
Attending the 2013 Gwangju Kimchi Festival
It’s hard to believe it’s been a year already, but last October I had the pleasure of finally making it to the Kimchi Festival after missing the 2008 and 2009 editions. Despite living there at the time, weekends were generally reserved for the making of or recovering from hangovers.
I was young. Gimme a break!
As it was my last day in South Korea, myself, Nomadic American, and my friend Stacy decided to make a day of hitting the festival.
Team Ramrod posing with our kimchi prints.
Not only would we get to participate in the making of kimchi, but the local Gwangju English language radio station (GFN) would be running a scavenger hunt that we’d entered ourselves into.
Learning How to Make Kimchi
For me, the highlight of the day was the opportunity to make my own kimchi.
While the fermented vegetable dish can be a bit confronting to a Korean newcomer, I’ve yet to meet somebody who spent a good amount of time in the country and didn’t acquire a taste for it. I can’t even be at a table with kimchi on it without emptying the bowl.
Lessons in how to make kimchi were available for a nominal fee, and we gladly paid up for the opportunity to prepare and ‘bottle’ our own kimchi to take home with us.
While I wouldn’t be able to get my kimchi onto my flight back to China, I did sample a bit later in the evening and it was… acceptable.
The three of us hard at work at creating our masterpiece.
The process was both messy and fun, as we had to roll our lettuce in various spices and foul-smelling liquids before it was acceptable to our stern-faced but patient teacher.
After about twenty minutes of kneading and accidental splashing, we had finished and had our creations whisked away to be crammed into plastic bottles. They would be a rather pungent burden for the upcoming scavenger hunt.
The Kimchi Festival Scavenger Hunt
Our next port of call was registration for the scavenger hunt, where we were furnished with pens, paper, and bright orange t-shirts (pictured above).
From there, we were given a sizable list of clues and sent on our merry way. We’d have ninety minutes to find as many as we could.
Our frantic searching ranged from the inane (find the number 3) to the challenging, and I’m ashamed to say we didn’t even get halfway through our list.
This dog nearly bit my hand off, but we got the photo.
Part of this was that we had to complete certain challenges (participate in an archery game, make some craft, cook a pancake) and part of it was because – well – let’s just say Team Ramrod didn’t exactly cooperate well when put under pressure…
I dominated this children’s game! Bow before me!
Either way, we finished a dismal “somewhere in the middle”. It wasn’t all doom and gloom, however; while we didn’t win any prizes, every participant got a lunch of gimbap (a Korean sushi roll style dish) and a bottle of makgeolli (rice wine).
While I enjoyed my lunch, Stacy bogarted the Makgeolli…
The Korean bystanders were fascinated seeing a sea of foreigners in matching shirts, and requests for pictures and handshakes came thick and fast.
I’ll forever enjoy the feeling of being a ‘celebrity’/spectacle while in Asia, and couldn’t resist the opportunity to ham it up with the locals.
The End
Whether you’re a Korean culture enthusiast or just happen to be in the country’s south during early October, the Gwangju Kimchi Festival offers a fun and fascinating insight into Korean culture. While it has an understandable focus on this unique dish, it’s also got plenty of activities and typical Korean quirks to keep the avid people watcher entertained for a few hours.
While I can’t say I’ll be rushing back to experience it all over again, I’m glad I finally got to attend the most famous thing my former hometown does.
Your Say
Have you ever attended a cultural festival while on the road?
Have you got any kimchi experiences of your own to share?
I’ve been back in Australia for just under two months now, but I’ve only really started to feel settled since coming to my family home in northern NSW. There’s something about unpacking your suitcase into a chest of drawers, setting up your PC, and putting your passport someplace safe that feels terribly final.
I returned home after two and a half years away knowing that there would be post trip blues and that, if history was any indication, I’d be bouncing off the walls with cabin fever within a few weeks of being home.
The flurry of activity surrounding my best mate’s wedding, the bachelor party, and all of the catching up delayed the onset of it for a while, but it’s safe to say that I’m starting to feel the first few pangs of… how to describe it?
It’s a confusing cocktail of regret and sadness and happiness. A mix of nostalgia for the past and fear nervous anticipation for the future. Sadness for what has passed, but tinged with more than a little happiness for having had those experiences.
Jumping for joy in the Philippines. Good times, good times.
An Expert Opinion
It seemed fateful, then, that I read Post-Trip Depression over on Nomadic Matt. I went over expecting to find some handy tips on how to overcome the monster that is post-trip depression, but found it was a more introspective and emotionally open piece about his own experiences with the dreaded post-trip blues.
When the initial hugs are hugged out, the stories told, and the reunions over, many of us find that coming back home isn’t really coming home at all. Our true home is being surrounded by the unknown.
The road is where we belong.
And, because of that, our gaze will always be on the horizon, looking, dreaming, and wishing for another opportunity to get away again. –Nomadic Matt
One thing that stood out to me, though, was how different our experiences were. I’m not quite as well traveled (or well read) as Nomadic Matt, but I’ve learned a thing or two about being away from home for extended periods of time over the past seven years, so it was with genuine surprise that I read that Matt (and others) have found that they return home to find things largely unchanged.
While their travels have changed them a great deal, they’ve come home to largely unchanged friends. There’s this frustration and sadness as the traveler comes to realize that the faces and places that used to feel like home don’t exist anymore. Not because they’ve gone, but because the person observing them no longer exists.
I can certainly relate to the feeling that I have changed a great deal, but for me every trip home has also meant learning about the people in my life all over again. The shops and bars I used to frequent may still be there, but my friends and family have had the gall to go ahead and change while I’ve been gone.
They’ve gotten married or ended long relationships. They’ve had kids or promotions or career changes. Some have lost weight, while others have lost interest in something I’d previously defined them by. As they’ve grown up they’ve drifted away from the games we played together in high school.
God as my witness, some of them have even started to enjoy AFL.
Maybe this is exacerbated by the fact I’ve got four younger siblings.
My siblings and I on vacation in 1999.The family in 2014. We’ve all grown up!
I left with two of them just out of high school and one of them still in primary school. One of them now owns a house and seems well on the road towards a married happily ever after. Another has become such a gym junkie that it’s hard to believe we’re related, and the other has gone ahead and gone through puberty without me around.
I left him talking about cartoons and video games, and I’ve come back to a 15 year old boy who likes Dungeons & Dragons, girls, and video games.
Some things haven’t changed so much, I guess.
And don’t even get me started on the big changes. Two grandparents passed away in my absence, and the squalling babies that my sister proudly introduced me to are now running around grabbing things and saying words at me.
When I left, Ally was tiny! Now she’s walking and talking and chucking tantrums!
What Makes it Hard
The point is, there’s change on two fronts.
While home might not have changed a great deal, it’s naive to think you’ll come back to things exactly as you left them. Unless you made a superhuman effort at maintaining friendships while you were gone (no easy task), you’re going to find friendships have cooled off a bit.
Some friendships – not the strongest to begin with – might have fizzled completely. Maybe it’s resentment at you for not making more of an effort, or maybe it’s just that people do change and grow apart as they grow older. Maybe the person has a much more demanding job now or maybe they’ve got a spouse and kids.
Some friendships stand the test of time and distance. My best mate and I caught up while he was in China.
You may have left behind friends who got drunk every weekend and could play all day sessions of Halo at the drop of a hat, but you come back to find you need weeks of notice to get even the tiniest of social engagements locked in.
If those changes at home were all you had to deal with, you’d be laughing.
But it’s not just the people at home who have changed. It’s you as well.
Through your experiences abroad, you’ve changed more than you could possibly have imagined at the outset. You’ve learned about new cultures, broken down old suppositions, seen and done things that have altered your perception of the world, and (hopefully) grown into a more mature and rounded person.
The things that used to seem like the highlight of your week suddenly seem small and petty in comparison. The food you’d glorified in your head the whole time you were gone doesn’t quite measure up. Has the recipe changed? Or has your pallet been refined or expanded by the exotic tastes it has been exposed to?
It can all begin to feel like a bit too much. Whether you’re home for good or just for a brief visit, the post-trip blues can set in and the spiral into depression could very well follow.
Dealing with Post Trip Depression
This is my third time coming home after an extended period of time away. I’d like to say I’ve got post-trip depression licked, but that would be a lie. That being said, I have learned a couple of things that help a hell of a lot.
5. Start planning your next trip
A few people commented on Facebook to say that their favourite way to cope with post-trip depression is to start planning the next trip.
Solution? Book another trip, forget about these so called savings and run away to Australia for the next holidays. Right, I’ll be an adult another day. – PADIAlly
It can certainly help keep your mind off the past you’re missing so much if you’re planning for the future, but I’m of the belief that doing so robs you of the opportunity to fully experience the present. It’s all well and good to look towards the future, but don’t let the present and the opportunities it presents (pun intended) pass you by.
4. Catch up on all you’ve missed
The lovely Brianna, an expat who successfully made the return after years abroad, argues that it’s important to really make an effort to catch up with old friends. If you’ve been away a long time, many of these friendships may have been neglected – so take the time you now have to begin the process of building back to where you were.
The high school gang reunited earlier this year for my best mate’s wedding.
If you spent months or years pining for a certain food or a favourite place, go there!
Break up these happy reunions and homecomings so that you’ve got things to look forward to not just for your first days back in the country – but your first weeks or even months.
While I’ve caught up with my family and many of my best friends already, I’ve got other friends and favourite places that I’ll be visiting over the next three to five months. Spacing them out like this, I’ve given myself small things to look forward to – meaning that the big thing (moving abroad to teach someplace new) isn’t all that occupies my mind.
3. Explore your backyard
It’s a sad fact that so many of the globetrotting set have explored precious little of their own country. Before you traveled, perhaps it didn’t interest you so much or it seemed too expensive; but now you’re back and you’re a much more worldly and adventurous person (hopefully), so use this time to have new adventures!
I’ve really enjoyed reading yTravel Blog’s recent updates as Caz, Craig, and the girls make their way around Australia. It’s inspired me to want to see more of the country so many people seem jealous of my having grown up in, and which I’ve often taken for granted.
A weekend trip to a new beach or National Park might not quite match up to the dizzying heights of seeing Angkor Wat or spending a day in London, but if you’ve got the travel bug, it ought to keep the little bastard satisfied.
Exploring at home might be more expensive than a backpacking budget has prepared you for, but use that newfound nous for sniffing out a bargain to make it work for you!
2. Get active
This holds true for major depressive disorder as much as it holds true for the post-trip blues. Exercise produces endorphins, and those wonderful bastards do a better job of cheering you up than comfort food, medication, and therapy combined.
It’s amazing how good you’ll feel after working up a sweat, be it from a social sport or something solitary like running.
It’s often hard to summon up the motivation to exercise when you’re feeling blue, but I cannot stress enough the healing properties (however temporary) of getting out and getting your blood pumping. I’m far from peak fitness, but the best I’ll feel on any given day is right after I’ve gone for a run or played sport.
Team sports are also a great opportunity to meet other people, and new friends are never a bad thing.
Go Zorbing. Is Good.
1. Continue your growth
Traveling had a profound effect on you, I’m sure. You grew as a human being and learned so much about the world, yourself, and your capabilities.
There’s no reason that being home needs to mark the end of your development. Far from it!
Whether you enroll in a course, start learning a language in your free time, or take advantage of the stable location to revisit an old passion – it’s good to continue your growth.
While exercise keeps your body happy, it’s this kind of activity that keeps your mind occupied. Rather than sit and let it dwell on all you’ve left behind, exercise it with challenging tasks and engaging hobbies.
While home between Korea and China, I took a TEFL course to open more doors for me in the future.
If you’re planning to get back out on the road, start studying the language or the customs of the places you’ll go. If you’re home for good and at a loss for what to do, start building up skills that interest you and/or improve your job readiness.
Doing something is infinitely better than doing nothing.
So, your friend has the post-trip blues…
We travelers are often so caught up in our own post trip malaise that it’s easy to forget that those around us might not understand how to help.
Or, worse, they feel responsible for our sadness. I know I feel bad when my mother takes my sadness at being home as a slight against her or the wonderful family I have.
It’s very rarely the present that has a recently returned wanderer upset. It’s the past they left behind and the fact that, in many cases, ‘here’ is not their natural habitat.
That doesn’t mean they don’t love being home or that they don’t care about the people who they’ve been away from .
A traveler does not hate “home” any more than a fish on land hates the air. They just belong to a different world.
Like all mental illnesses, depression – whether post-trip or full time – spits in the face of logic. I could come home to nubile nymphets and a pile of video games, and still yearn for the open road. No amount of cajoling, good-natured encouragement, or tired pleasantries can change that.
The problem isn’t the people at home, even though at times it may feel that way.
Your traveler is lovesick and – as anachronistic as it sounds – homesick as well.
The best thing you can do for them? Indulge their nostalgia from time to time, try not to take it personally (although that’s like telling them to try not to be so sad), and get them out of their head. Whether it’s a board game night, a visit to an old favourite, or a weekend trip – get them out and about and they’ll thank you for it.
Remember, though: it’s not your job to “fix” them. Don’t beat yourself up if they take their time coming out of their funk or decide to jet off again. We’re a capricious breed.
Your Say
Have you ever dealt with post-trip depression? What methods did you use to cope with feeling down and out?
If you’re having issues with depression, don’t be too proud to seek help. Services like Lifeline and Beyond Blue are tremendous resources.
And then, as I drifted back off to sleep, I felt my face being sprayed… nay, christened, with a hot, stinking torrent of some Norwegian asshole’s piss.
Intrigued? Horrified? A little turned on?
I can honestly say that participating in ‘water sports’ or taking a ‘golden shower’ is one of the few things not on my ever expanding bucket list, but I became an unwitting and entirely unwilling participant on one fateful night in Manila.
I went into that dorm room an idealistic travel blogger with a week in beautiful Boracay awaiting me.
I came out the next morning stinking of another man’s piss, and the thing I was most excited for was a long, hot shower and using every last drop of my body wash.
The Scene
It’s 10pm on a Monday night and our last night in Manila before jetting off to explore Boracay for a few days. The others have already retired for the evening and I am – as always – on my phone checking Facebook and generally wasting precious time that could be better spent on sleep.
I’m in a twin room, but so far the top bunk remains empty. I am hopeful of a night’s privacy and some good rest after having shared a room with my travel buddy for the last few days.
As I’m dozing off, however, the door opens and my roommate for the evening walks in. We make small talk: He’s from Norway and just arrived in the Philippines a few hours earlier. Do I mind leaving the light on because he’s going out to get a bottle of water?
I don’t mind one bit. I bid him adieu and, knowing I have a 6am start waiting for me, I roll over and go to sleep.
The Plot Thickens
I woke at around 2am to find the light still on and my roommate still absent. Remembering the night of drunken debauchery that greeted me when my mate and I touched down in Makati and discovered a section of the city that never sleeps, I correctly fathom that he’s headed out to indulge in the Manilla night life.
I get up, flick the light off, and go back to sleep.
Wake Up Call
It’s around 4am when I wake again, and this time it’s to find my roommate being helped into the room by the hostel’s security guard. The tiny guy is struggling under the weight of a very drunk and very uncooperative Norwegian, who is borderline unconscious.
Between the two of them, they manage to get the drunk idiot into bed. I’m a little miffed at the rude awakening, but I’ve been traveling long enough to know that I could have had it a lot worse.
At least he’s in bed and sleeping, I think to myself, He could be drunk and wanting a deep & meaningful. Count yourself lucky, CWB
And so I drift off to sleep once again.
THUMP!
I wake up with a start this time. The lights are out, but I know I heard something heavy hit the floor.
As if to confirm my suspicions, my Norwegian friend begins to moan in pain.
The idiot has fallen out of his bunk.
“You alright, mate?” I ask, helpfully.
“Yeah,” he grunts in reply. I hear him getting to his feet and dusting himself off.
I’ll be back off to slumberland soon enough.
It’s then as I drifted back off to sleep, I felt my face being sprayed… nay, christened, with a hot, stinking torrent of some Norwegian asshole’s piss.
Well, not my face (thank God), but my arm and upper torso. Plenty of the stinking liquid bounces up into my beard, however, and that’s a stain that all the perfumes of Arabia could not remove.
Outraged, I shove him away from me as he continues to redecorate the room in yellow.
“Get the fuck away from me, asshole!” I shout, ready to strangle the guy with his own pecker if need be.
“What?”
He manages to sound both offended and confused by my outrage.
“You pissed on me, you fucking dickhead!”
“No I didn’t,” he says, managing to keep a completely straight face despite the fact his flaccid cock is still in his hand and piss is still dribbling fitfully from it. It pools around his feet.
“You’re still doing it!” I point out.
Murder is on my mind, but I decide to go and fetch the security guard rather than land myself in a Filipino prison.
“He pissed on me,” I explain to the guard, indicating the pools of urine scattered about the room and the general reek of the place.
“Listen, friend,” the Norwegian explains to me, his penis still out, but no longer in his hand, “I’m not the kind of guy who goes around pissing on people”.
A reasonable thing to claim. If he’s not that kind of person, I’d hate to meet somebody who did go around pissing on people.
“You’ve pissed on 66% of the people in this room!” I point out, indicating the dark patches on my t-shirt and the piss still clinging to his naked, hairy leg.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about”.
It’s at this point that I begin to wonder if maybe I’m being Punk’d. I expect to see Ashton Kutcher’s infinitely punchable smirk as he enters the room, preparing to take credit for the most disgusting thing he’s done since Two and a Half Men.
“You want another room?” the security guard asks.
No, I think to myself, I’m going to crawl back into the wet, pissy bed and go back to sleep.
I’m about to give him a piece of my mind for asking such a stupid question, but a glance at my phone indicates it’s 5.15am. I’m supposed to be up in 45 minutes anyway.
“Don’t worry about it,” I reply sullenly, snatching up my toiletry bag and making for the bathroom.
Enter Fetal Position
I’d like to tell you I manfully shrugged off the moment and went about my day unperturbed, but I felt strangely violated to have been given such a nasty baptism to start my day.
I didn’t quite slip into the fetal position and sob to myself in the shower, but I did use almost all of my newly purchased body wash scrubbing away at my poor, ravaged beard.
Much as it manages to hold onto food that misses my mouth, so too did it hold on to the acrid stink of the Norwegian’s piss.
I swear, it didn’t quite leave my beard until later in the day when I gave it a good, long soak in the ocean.
Your Say
What’s the most embarrassing or traumatizing thing that has happened to you while staying in a hostel?
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