Sunday, March 11, 2012

reading things like this make me want to leave now. 
make me regret not learning skills earlier. 
make me wish i was more outdoorsy.
make me wish i could just leave and not worry about money. 
reading things like this pushes me closer to leaving. 
closer to buying a ticket. 
one way. 


"I had never heard of the Kaveri River until I decided to walk across India. I could only squeeze a 6-week trip into my calendar so I cast my eye southwards down India’s triangular shape until I reached a latitude I reckoned I could get across in the time available. And that is how I spotted the holiest of southern India’s rivers. This was starting to sound like an adventure: I would walk from the mouth of the Kaveri on the east shore of India to its source in the mountains, and then drop down from there to the sea on the other side.

And that was it. I deliberately chose to do no more planning or research than that. I flew to Chennai, asked someone which bus I needed to take to get down to the mouth of the Kaveri, and I began walking. Adventure is a state of mind. It is an attitude. I wanted an adventure, a journey, a challenge, not a holiday. By doing no research every day would be novel, unexpected and exciting. Every day I would need to seek out food and water, somewhere to sleep. I was travelling light too. Carrying your bag for 600 miles encourages you to pack light. But I also wanted to be travelling light as part of my quest for a simple, pure, uncluttered experience"
-Alastair Humphreys, Walking through India 

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