"There is a crisis here"

1.32pm Thursday afternoon leisure
the bars have been full for hours
smoking, chatting, drinking beer and coffee
spending the money
that was
never
yours.

I sit here too, rainy Thursday
watching, wet, wondering
what you're all doing for this economy.
The next bail out
that will
never
come.

Beach bums

I have enjoyed the past week camping beside the sea, there are just a handful of guests, (three including myself as I write this) occasionally someone passes through, but they're on their way somewhere and only stay for a night. The two more permanent residents have something in common with me, both have left their regular jobs and come south to where you can still go sunbathing in November. Both are older than me and this lifestyle is part of the 'final plan' so to speak, they've figured out that in one case migrating south for the winter is good for all sorts of health reasons and can work enough via the internet to keep earning just enough. The other case involves a desire to make distance between lives here and at home in order to bring quiet to the soul. 
The animal inhabitants of the site are far more lively, especially two little characters who I have grown very fond of in the past seven days...

The puppies.

I'm not sure how old they are, where exactly they are from or for that matter who actually owns them but these two little troublemakers have made my stay here quite special. Over the week I've learned that (something that sounds like) 'Lookie' and 'Bookie' were found as abandoned puppies living in the closed beachside kantina by some campers over the summer and brought back to the site. These campers subsequently left and the puppies were 'adopted' by the owners, the workers and the campers on a communal basis. In short everyone feeds these dogs. The picture above is the typical turnout when anyone is eating.

I'm sooooo huuuuuunnnggrryyyyyyy, feed me plz?

The funny thing is, in spite of finding the neediness irritating and being kind of allergic to them, the puppies have really grown on me, the larger one has even adopted me and comes for long walks along the nearby peninsula. Last night she even tried to follow me along the 3km dark and dangerous main road to the supermarket and whimpered when I took her back.
So aside from the hungry pleadingly desperate countenance every time I as much as think about food and they way they try to break through the fabric into my tent in the night to make a puppy cuddle-pile with me I've grown really rather fond of them and them of me.

 They are either eating, playing or sleeping. Most games involve chasing after each other to gain possession of an object that is invariably some decomposing matter they found along the beach or under a bush. There are several stages to this game: the presentation of the object by one party, the acknowledgement of its value by the other, this is done by a series of nods. Finally the chase is initiated by the holder of the item waving the item and beginning to run. Wrestling and barking at strangers is also popular.

Then there's the gifts, in the past few days I have been presented with a rotting fish, an old sponge, a dead toad, two apparently drowned rats and the skin of a hedgehog. Usually these are presented outside my tent or on the kitchen step when I'm cooking.

I will be sad to leave these two behind tomorrow, the affection they show in exchange for the odd pat, kind word or a morsel of food is astounding. In a world that seems very daunting and unforgiving right now, the companionship of the puppies has been most therapeutic and no doubt has changed me a little.

Goodnight!

The first week.

It is one week to the day that I set out on my travels, though it feels like a month of normal time. I've experienced this shift in perceived time before and I've always been sceptical of the 'time dilation' phenomenon outside of a few set circumstances such as having an immediate threat to one's existence. I've always felt that the apparent lengthening of travelling days was due to some kind of heightened emotional/hormonal state or simply doing more with each day.

Looking at the photographs I took a week ago time seems to have stretched considerably.

For a start, when I landed it was summer, now it is definitely winter; as I write this a storm is raging across the beach from me, cold spray whipped into the air and made into a temporary sea mist that scatters light from the failing sun. 

Has time stretched or has the memory of the week's events taken more than it's regularly allotted space in my mind? Is this normal? It feels normal, and if it is indeed the norm and I assume it is as I can tell you what I was doing on Saturday morning for instance, then what is state of mind that I have left behind where I couldn't remember what I was doing yesterday of even what I had for lunch?

The answer is probably something to do with levels of consciousness and perceptions of external stimuli, I'm not sure what, yet.

From Heraklion I took the bus to Chania were I stayed for a few days with some couchsurfers. I was pleasantly surprised that I only had to send six requests to find some CSers willing to host me. I have been to Chania before, but a few years ago and only for a few hours so it was nice to explore and find I recognised a few places.

Chania harbour

I spent a lot of time wandering and exploring by accident, but also a lot of time resting my ankle which still resists if I walk for too long. Happily there was an excellent cafe in the park near my host's house. It made fantastic waffles and even better had free WiFi...

Waffle of the yoghurt and honey variety

Chania old town is a very picturesque city, having a history going back to the Minoan period but in it's current form displaying Venetian and Ottoman heritage in its architecture. I look for parallels and perhaps cultural continuity and saw some interesting glimpses of earlier times. Mostly however I saw a tourist economy in operation with large numbers of cafes and tavernas (has anyone worked out how many Chanians there are for each taverna/restaurant? Could the native population of the city all go out at once and get a table?) together with the time of my visit being very much at the end of the season gave the city a melancholic feel much like an amusement park at the end of the day when most people have gone home and all the rides are shutting down.

(nearly) Deserted streets

So after a few days of this I felt done with Chania and decided to head to the south coast of Crete to try camping. Wild camping (without permission) is illegal in Greece and a quick look around on Google Earth showed that most of the coast has some kind of settlement whose inhabitants could report me to the police. I decided that a good coastal campsite was the way to go (and to be honest, I'm enjoying the showers and electricity) and found one pretty quickly. The bus ride south through the mountain passes was breathtaking, I walked to the campsite with my two packs weighing around 25kg which sounds like a bad idea but is was good to soak up the scenery along the way.

The bus ride south

The temperature on the day was about 25 degrees Celsius which meant lots of breaks and lots of water over the 7km and luckily for you lots of photographs.

It was a nice feeling to arrive! The campsite is beautiful and located in a spectacular part of the world. The layout allows me to feel as if I'm living on the beach somewhere but with electricity and sanitation.
I have always wanted to do this part of the trip. There was a romantic notion of pitching a tent near the sea, going swimming twice a day, eating the local fresh produce and generally enjoying myself.

My camp before the calamity 

Breakfast view

This situation lasted approximately two days. See that little concrete wall on the last picture? Well, in exceptionally heavy rain water runs off the surrounding hills and through the campsite, this isn't a problem in the summer due to there being no rain, in the autumn however...
I was having my evening swim (in the rain) and having a lot of fun too as it happens, when the storm got much more intense, so much so that the splashes from the rain on the sea surface made it impossible for me to see. I ran back to the campsite (think 6 foot man running across 400m of open beach in a lightning storm covered in lots of lovely conductive salty water) to find the tent standing in a small lake held in by that cute little concrete wall. I made it just in time, the water was just below the join between the waterproof ground sheet and the water permeable fly sheet.  After carrying my backpack and front-pack to a dry place I pulled up the tent pegs and pulled the tent to higher ground saving my sleeping bag and other loose possessions in the process.
Disaster averted.
There has been a storm here for the past two days, the sound of the waves is terrific and has even drowned out an earthquake! 

The calm

The storm

So, not exactly what I had in mind for this week, but fun and definitely an experience! Soon I will head north and to the Peloponnese by ferry, before then I will post again about my new friends here.

The Plan

Ha-ha, got you!

The plan is there is no plan!

Here is a rough idea of where I want to go on the 1st leg of the trip:

Red Line
I only have one flight booked, so all the dates are very flexible. On the 30th of October I fly to Crete to start my travels where I'll stay for a few weeks before moving off to the mainland where I'll work my way place-to-place or island-to-island towards Istanbul where I'll spend.. well, however long I feel like, then I want to do a backpacking month around Turkey doing my thing. 

Orange Line
From Istanbul I'll fly to India as the route through Iran is still not quite possible for a person of my nationality. After a while in Mumbai I'll zig-zag across the country mostly by rail trying to avoid tourist hot-spots to Kolkata.

Blue Line
I'll get to New Zealand via one or two stops in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and/or Australia. To be honest I'll make my mind up along the way and buy the transportation a little in advance.

So that's it! Now you know as much as me!

Today I tried a variety of load configurations on my backpack, filled it up and walked around a bit. I'm trying to go as light as possible, however that looks like being 16-18kg on my back including a tent and 4kg on the front/carry-on luggage. I will send my first couch requests after finishing this post and I will try to get an idea of where I'll be spending a night about 4 days in advance of arriving there. I will research places in depth as I go and generally be my own guide. I will do my best to meet and befriend as many local people as possible and avoid tourists, fancy hotels and gap year backpackers, I will sometimes stay in one place far too long, skipping other 'must see' places altogether. Sadly I will be flying a bit, in my opinion too much but I'll be doing a lot of 'slow travel' between these. Which reminds me of a book that was a present from an amazing former student of mine:

I loved reading this because I had already come to many of the same conclusions as the author on the nature of travelling, he just put them in a kind of 'slow travel' manifesto/guide.
Do read it if you can, just don't ask to borrow mine, it's in a box somewhere....

Letting Go

If you are depressed, you are living in the Past. If you are anxious, living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the moment. - Lao Tzu

So far this has not exactly been a travel blog, that is about to change.

Which is just as well as I'm running late. Well, I would be if I had a schedule, or even a plan.

Some vague 'plans' that I had (more like ideas, see below) may have to change due to the weather being different or the campsites for tourists closing at the end of the season. Or maybe some ferries have stopped for the stormy Mediterranean autumn. It doesn't really matter. I'm still going travelling, I will still go on my own way, seeing all I want to and staying in a place as long as it feels apt. Meeting strangers as friends along the way and drinking in life as I go.

You see, I'm already on a kind of journey, part of this journey involves changing the way that I perceive the external circumstances of life and dealing with the rough times in a way to sidestep the negativity that arises. Travelling is great for this as the highs and lows come frequently, seemingly arriving as waves upon a beach and ever so vivid. Basically I expect to be tested.

I didn't quite expect to be tested quite so soon, especially before leaving the country. As I have said not-so eloquently to some; The Plan is there is no plan. The organisation is in that there is none. Except there is. I aimed to be prepared. Preparation>Plans by a thousandfold. Plans fall apart at the slightest disruption. Preparation allows for countless possibilities and so makes for flexibility.

 Problem 1. Physical preparation: Sprained ankle badly on second run in London, followed by re-spraining the same ankle on a rabbit hole hidden in some grass eight days later. Basically I've done very little exercise in the last three weeks.

Problem 2. Financial preparation: I was all set to sell my car to a private buyer and get a decent sum of money as a return for all of the time and money spent keeping the car in an excellent condition. It was going well albeit slowly until this happened last Saturday night:

Obviously someone doesn't like nice shiny cars parked in their neighbourhood.

So bit the bullet and started looking for dealers to sell the car quickly to before somebody broke the windows, slashed the tyres and poured paint stripper over the bonnet.  Eventually I found a couple of VW dealers who were prepared to look at the car and I wasn't surprised when they offered me thousands below my asking price. So I later that day I sold her to an independent car trader for a little more than VW were offering but still over a thousand less than my asking price. 

All of this has the potential for causing a lot of resentment and bitterness that I'd carry with me on my travels. Part of the purpose my journey is to leave a lot of the emotional and behavioural baggage behind somewhere on the way. The negative thought and behaviour patterns learned long ago that are very familiar to some. The feelings of bitterness and resentment from the last year of work and the end of my teaching career. The fear of loss, both of material things and of love. The anger at the unknown car scratcher and the money-grabbing car dealer for giving me such a raw deal. The melancholy that comes from change. The worry of the future.

It all needs to be let go, that is the ultimate preparation.
That's why I'm on this journey; to let go.
To lose myself, not to find myself.*
John gets lost.

Departure date set: Wednesday 30th October I fly to Crete

*I'm too old for that.

I'm still here.

I just went for a walk, it's what I usually do when that restless feeling creeps in from the edges. Dusk is usually the best time to take a stroll around a town as it's the time when people put their lights on but haven't closed their curtains yet.

Yes, it's time to confess; I like to look through other peoples windows.

Not in a weird way, unless ambling past and regarding other peoples interior furnishings and choice of wall art is weird. OK, maybe it is.

Then there's the empty streets, the cool air and the awe inspiring skies...
Except this is South London. The streets are not empty instead other uncommunicative and fearful souls make their way through the shadows between the pools of yellow sodium light dodging neglected hedges and the omnipresent dog poop and most definitely NOT making eye contact with anyone. The cool air is not that cool and carries a heavy scent of drains, distant burning tyres and jerk chicken. I'm missing Wales a lot at the moment.

Plans are hung up on one detail, I still haven't managed to find someone to buy my car, it looks as though I'm here until it sells. Today I gave it a hand wash and wax before taking some photos in the somewhat salubrious setting of Sainsburys car park.

Last Thursday morning I went for a jog around the local park and during the second lap my attention was distracted from the path ahead by a PE class from my former high school and I twisted my foot and ankle in a hole. A local alcoholic saw the whole thing happen from his bench and told me that the foot bent around quite unnaturally. I thought of posting a picture of my bruised and swollen foot, but instead here's the offending hole.

 No, the fried chicken box was not there when I had the accident, the scene is just how i found it.
My ankle is on the mend and hopefully the car will sell soon, then I'm on my way. Though I can't help feeling that in some ways the journey has already started.

Anyone wanna buy a couch?

Hello!
Well, I'm not entirely sure what form this blog will take eventually, or if I should leap in to the details of the philosophy of my trip at first or for that matter at all. What is certain is that this will be a travel blog and that I'm going on some kind of journey, physically, metaphysically, psychologically, temporally, (gulp) spiritually, culinarily and immunologically. 
Where I will go exactly, what I'll do there, what I'm going to do with myself along the way and especially what I'm going to do with the rest of my life are all to be determined along the way. I hope that by reading this public account of the journey you can join me for at least part of the way. 

It has been a difficult few weeks; the transition between a comfortable life in my little house in Abergavenny to a more nomadic existence has been hard on me and is still not complete.
Does anyone really know how much 'stuff' they have?  I thought I did, in fact I took a bizarre sort of pride in how little I had (Any of you who who have visited my house have witnessed the spartan nature of the kitchen, three knives, three forks, two dessert spoons, one doubling up for a cooking spoon, two sharp knives, two bowls, one side plate...).

The problem is that most of our belongings are kept out of sight in cupboards and the like and when emptied huge piles of miscellaneous things appear demanding to be dealt with. Then there's the furniture.... The original plan was to put most of my things into self-storage, that was ruled out on grounds of cost (think 20 something pounds a week and you'll get the idea) plan B was to sell most of the furniture to the next tenant, that fell through when no-one took over the house. Plan C was to sell as much as possible directly friends and acquaintances and to put the rest in a friend's garage and under the stairs with my parents.
Plan D involved a big fire. I'm glad it didn't get that far.

So after a weekend of cardboard boxes, forgotten possessions that re-awaken old memories, several ruthless trips to the dump and two trips to Hereford in the transit van the sum total of my physical possessions were crammed into two cars and the back corner of a garage. Instead of feeling light, free and liberated it felt terrible and very final. 

After nearly two weeks in London I'm almost ready to go, I have my kit together, my stuff stored, an Indian visa and a good idea where I'd like to go. Really all I'm waiting for is to sell my car. So far interest has been slow, surprisingly more so than in Wales. 

Life here has settled into a slow cycle of the same activities, shuffled into a different order each week. I'm becoming increasingly worried about selling the car, at the moment patience has to be the way to go and I don't want to slash the price to attract more interest as the money I get for it constitutes most of my travelling fund. They'll be more on this later I'm sure.