Bidish As children, we learn new things every day. We grow to understand day and night, food and taste, new sports, new language. We learn a little bit about how the world works every day. And it feels amazing and makes us more curious. As children, we are the most curious selves because we enter into a new world where everything registers for the first time. The first bath, the first game, the first friendship. Everything seems so raw and new, and makes a mark on us.
When we travel, we open ourselves to such new realizations that can make us perplexed and elated. We notice things that have never crossed our mind and we feel like a kid again. In this article, I will try to articulate such five naïve travel realizations of the world that I experienced and were able to leave an impact on me.
The Sun moves with us
I was about 8 years old. I was traveling with my family on a bus early in the morning. With no gadgets available to play around, I would just stare out the window to pass the time. There, I noticed that the Sun was moving with me. In that 1 hour bus ride, I kept staring at the Sun thinking I would lose it somewhere but I never did. It kept following me. So simple in its occurrence, I had a beautiful memory that stays strong with me until now.
We can travel to a different weather
In January of 2019, I made a trip to Hyderabad from Kathmandu. The weather in Kathmandu was cold and I had to wear winter jackets to keep myself warm. I was expecting Hyderabad to be only a bit warmer than Kathmandu so I had packed proper jackets with me.
However, when I landed and explored Hyderabad I was shocked to realize that it was scorching hot. I even had to take cold showers. To me, the winter in Hyderabad did not feel like a winter at all. This was an important realization which I make use of when I want to skip from one weather to the other.
It’s not just hills and mountains
My idea of vacation while living in Nepal was to go to a hilly place, or go trekking in some scenic mountain routes. That was my idea of a getaway and my mind was unconditionally bound to that box. I knew there was a world beyond that but I never felt it so strongly.
When I saw a beach for the first time in Pondicherry, that’s when the world opened up to me. A beautiful sight of the water for as far as your eyes could see. The waves, the pine trees, the colorful houses next to the beach, all of it was a beauty I had never seen before. So much that I started yearning for more of the world.
It is sunny at 10 PM
In Nepal, the maximum a Sun would stay up would be 7:30 PM. Normally, I had the idea that day and night is balanced. 12 hours of darkness and 12 hours of light. Sunset would mean a reasonable time to go back home.
When I started living in Germany, the sudden realization that the Sun is still out at 10 PM made me feel weird. I had heard Norway has sunlight until midnight and all that jazz, but the impression was never made so strongly into my mind.
It’s just normal life in different places
When we plan a trip to a faraway, exotic place, our perspective is greatly influenced by the media. We hear of the unsettled stories, about the pickpockets, the scams. These stories make us scared, or concerned at the least.
However, when you reach the place and go about your day, you see it’s the regular day as usual. Students going to schools, people going to work, vendors trying to sell. There exists no dramatic fear factor that our brain wandered upon. With a conscious mind, proper awareness, and humility, it’s only the excitement of being in a new place that awaits.
These are only a few collections of how travel made me realize the world differently and I keep learning exciting things everyday. From getting into underground metros, seeing the mountains for the first time, seeing unusual and beautiful sunsets, all of this teaches something new of the world.
As we grow old, life demands routine from us and as adults, we might tend to think we know enough of the world now. That’s where we are wrong. We should know that every time we travel, there’s a chance we will notice something new that has never crossed our minds. For every time we travel, the curious child in us comes back to life.
