Tag Archives: travel

Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India

by jose

Everyone told me ‘You have to go to the Taj Mahal – it is the most beautiful building on Earth… It is perfection. You won’t believe it. You have to go.’ But I was like, you know, okay, I’ll give it a look while I’m in India.

And then I saw it… Like you saw it! And I couldn’t believe how beautiful it is. I still cannot believe it. It is perfection.
(Saskia, traveler)

I had seen pictures of the Taj Mahal too. I knew what it looked like. I knew it was a major monument of India. But nothing, no, nothing in this world could have prepared me to what I felt in front of it. No description, no picture, no poem or prose, no story can replace the direct, brutal and intense experience of seeing the Taj Mahal with your own eyes.

That was the third time my mind was blown away in India. When I saw the Taj Mahal. Every time I saw it, actually. Every time I found a new spot, a new point of view, a new angle, a new detail, outside, from a field, on the other side of the Yamuna river, from a rooftop restaurant, from the Agra Fort, or, even more, inside the Taj grounds, a few dozens of meters away or close enough to touch its milky-white marble walls.

And the monument in the first picture is not the Taj Mahal, no – actually it is just here to decorate and give balance to the Taj Mahal complex, even though it would be a major monument if it were standing alone in another city – but do not worry, you will have plenty of it in the following, to saturation. Even though no photograph will ever give you the same, powerful and timeless feeling that grasps anyone who sees it for real. No one will take your breath away every single time you look at it, as it does in reality. No one will make you fall on your knees, overwhelmed by the intensity of the emotions pulsing from the tomb.

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Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

by jose

General laugh in the bus. I turn to Sajjad (Qatar) and stare at him inquiringly. He calms down, catches his breath and finally translates.

She just said: ‘You’re young, why are you wearing shoes?’

Er well… I come from a country where kids wear shoes. Parents buy small shoes to their children – and they need new ones after every few months, obviously – so that their feet are always protected from the clean floor of the developed countries, and that they never are wounded, never feel the ground, never learn to get stronger. So that when they become adults, they still are unable to walk without that piece of equipment, even only on a flat ground, because they still have babies’ feet and soft skins.

Yeah, well, I have no idea why either, Isu.

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International Departures

by jose

Le métro sort en fusant du souterrain, filant tel un obus inarrêtable sur le pont quittant Hong Kong Island à travers la brume hivernale du petit matin. Je me lève, stabilise mon sac contre les sièges, et m’approche de la portière afin de pouvoir admirer, une dernière fois, cette baie que je commence à connaître par cœur. Dans mes écouteurs, Silversun Pickups – Laze Eye entre, avec une synchronisation si parfaite qu’elle en paraît cinématographique, dans un instrumental mélancolique, subtil, raffiné, tachant et électriquement dégoulinant. Cette baie, je l’ai vue tant de fois, en partant en randonnée sur Lantau Island, pour retrouver des gens à Tung Chung, mais aussi et surtout pour aller à l’aéroport.

Pour quitter Hong Kong. Une fois de plus.

Cette fois, je suis seul dans le métro. Seul avec mes écouteurs et mon sac, ceux qui me suivent dans mon voyage. J’observe silencieusement, submergé par le déploiement sonore quasi-furieux du morceau, le bitume humide et froid du port, les couleurs vibrantes mais assombries des conteneurs, les nuages qui semblent avoir descendu plus près du sol, comme pour me cacher à dessein la vide immensité du ciel.

Le train s’engouffre à nouveau sous terre, alors que la piste touche à sa fin en une accalmie apaisante. Je retourne m’asseoir sur le métal. Et essaye de fixer mes pensées, de retourner à la réalité. De ne pas me laisser me noyer dans les souvenirs.

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime
(Eminem – Lose Yourself)

Benaulim & Anjuna Beaches, Goa, India

by jose

— This is Friday Coffee?
— Yeah!
— By Mango?
— Yeah!
— Remixed by Paul Keeley?
— Are you a DJ too?

And then I realized. Yes, I really was in Anjuna Beach, this now worldwide-known trance scene (thanks to Above & Beyond and their label Anjunabeats) which used to be bustling with loads of illegal night-time trance parties. And yes, I was in Goa, this now worldwide-known province of India where the electronic genres of… goa and psytrance started, thanks to an incredible number of crazy Israeli tourists coming there to have a hell of a good time on those amazing beaches.

Obviously, they were not really the type of tourists you meet in resorts or five-star hotels. They were backpackers, with almost no money but an incredible energy and no need for comfort. I, too, thought I was one, but really, I think India still lowered my comfort standards. Good thing I went there, I guess.

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Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

by jose

The ultimately free man is the Wise man, but he’s lonely.
(Tristan Raoult)

Now that I think about it, India was my first real lone backpacking experience. Not that I was alone, no; I met a lot of people, friendly or unfriendly, travelers or locals, backpackers or foreign students, in hostels, restaurants, streets, buses or even train stations. But I was always traveling alone. My itinerary was only mine, and when I had to part from new friends, I did.

Maybe it was because of the short length of my stay (only three weeks; I will have to come back, and this time for a few months, eh) which forced me to rush to my destinations at all costs – missing my flight from Delhi was not an option, and staying for too long in one place neither – and made impossible for me to follow other travelers. I did my best to visit the most of India I physically and mentally could, having unfortunately to rest at some places because of my weak human condition.

And yes, I felt free. Not free like we, the Donkeys, were back on the highway in Jordan. I felt free because every morning, when I woke up, I could decide what I would do, where I would go, how to do it, without talking to anyone, without having to explain it to anybody, taking my own decisions based upon my own criteria. I could go to uncomfortable, dirty or even scary places without involving anyone else. I could try the risky Indian street food without being a burden to other people if I would get sick. I could bear a heavy travel schedule (sometimes only one or two nights per location, when I was not sleeping in a bus or train) without making people suffer from its fast pace. To put in a nutshell, when I had hard times, I faced them alone, without making anyone suffer around me.

But yes, sometimes, I also did feel lonely. Because no one was here to share the wonders, joys and beauties of the places I saw, no one was here to share my excitation about moving, traveling, discovering this incredible country. No one was there to watch my back, too; it is not a big news that lone travelers are easier preys for thieves, muggers, swindlers, con artists or even just touts.

If being lonely is the price of being free, I guess at least it also made me stronger.

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Luxor, Upper Egypt

by jose

There is a reason if I travel. Or, I should say, there is a reason if we travel. Once I arrived in Egypt, I found I was not the only one who wanted to see things before I would die.

— What do you want?
— I wanna see beautiful places in Egypt before leaving it… I mean, I’m on a round-the-world trip. I can’t stay for too long in Sharm. I need to move.
— Yeah… Me too.

And so it was decided. Yes, it is the curse of the traveler to part from people they love, to put an end to beautiful things they just built up, to leave when everything in the world tell them to stay. Maybe not everything, actually.

Our passion for discovering the world and its wonders, our passion to jump into the unknown so that we can live our life to the fullest. Perhaps our fear of getting trapped in constraining bonds too. But, most of all, our dream of expressing both our freedom and our joy of living in this so, so beautiful world.

These are the reasons why we kept moving. And why I keep moving. Moving forward, without ever forgetting, but moving forward still.

Always forward, and never stopping, Inshallah.

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Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt

by jose

By simply looking at this picture, an overwhelming flow of memories assaults my mind. From the battle to cross the border in Taba, bargain transportations to Sharm, rest in a sketchy hostel for one night, and finally find this place, the mighty Shark’s Bay, thanks to the Lonely Planet (I love this book), to the epic days and nights we spent here with Ragab, Haram, then Julia, Karim, David, and in the end Lars, everything comes back in my head, as if I was living these happy days once more.

And again, finding such a haven was unexpected. We only knew that we would go to Sharm-el-Sheikh, this touristic destination on the coast, to join Karim and maybe other friends from Cairo. So we headed South from Jerusalem, doing everything we could to get to that “city” – in fact only consisting in an immense network of resorts and hotels so dense it created a town; and after our road trip in Jordan and Israel, we all wanted to chill out, but had no idea of where to go in Sharm.

By some kind of miracle, our guidebook had the answer to all our difficulties. Thank you, Lonely Planet, for transforming a harsh trip into an unforgettable time of my life.

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Jerusalem, Israel

by jose

— Crap, they dropped us in the middle of nowhere – we’re on the highway!
— I love it. This is freedom, Ant!

Freedom. This is the intense feeling that grasped me a few seconds after I jumped out of the minibus with my backpack between my arms, following the Donkeys that had just woken me up. I took a look around us, and yes, we were in the middle of nowhere, on the side of a highway, with no clue about where to head. We only knew we were in Jordan, somewhere not that far from the Dead Sea – we only had to find it.

Getting lost in a country you had not even thought you were going to, getting lost with your backpack on your back, getting lost with friends you basically just met but already know you are going to keep for your whole lifetime. Getting lost and decide to walk in the general direction you want to go to, with all the equipment you need, which means you never have to look back or go back to wherever you came from – simply walking in this breathtaking landscape, in this unknown territory, just because you heard that a place you need to see is somewhere ahead of you.

Welcome, freedom, this feeling I had never experienced before. Take a seat somewhere in my heart; I will keep it for you forever, so that you can come back and chill out here whenever you wish.

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Petra, Jordan

by jose

I used to hate taking pictures of people, and even more of myself. After all, if I am traveling, the purpose is mainly to discover places – not show my face with a changing background behind, as if to yell to the world “I have been there and not you, and look at me, I am smiling, I am happy.” Holy crap I hate tourists. No, what I prefer is to show my friends incredible landscapes and places. “C’mon guys, check this out, you have to come here and have fun with me, it is so awesome – travel more, it is worth it!”

It is worth it.

I used to hate taking pictures of people, until I met these guys, our travel group formed in Cairo and Dahab. Until I found that the ultimate happiness in traveling was the human adventure, the sharing, the joy of simply being with friends, doing things together, and sometimes facing hard times together. Let me thus introduce our happy Middle East party: the Donkeys.

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Dahab, Egypt

by jose

To be honest, I was not expecting anything like Dahab when I thought “I am going to Egypt.” Okay, actually I did not make any research on places worth a visit before taking off from Paris – no, I am not reckless, I just hate planning. Or at least I hate planning a round-the-world trip. No way I am going to do research for every single country I will visit. Too much effort and less pleasure in discovering unexpected places. And meeting unexpected people.

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