It all started with my childhood passion for India. Once my mother took me to a Bollywood movie, I was completely fascinated. I have since become passionate about collecting clippings, trinkets, and other small things related to India. I owe my first experience in yoga to a magazine about India that I bought by chance.
Years passed, I grew up and got an education. I started doing yoga and then became a teacher. In 2008, I visited India for the first time. The impression was so strong that I went to India again a month later! And again—the following year. And then again.
And a year later, I decided to stop going there and back. Under the slogan “getting rid of attachments,” I gave away my things and packed a backpack. Thus began my journey, which continues to this day.
The first six months were:
Kovalam Beach, Kerala — two weeks of my yoga seminar.
Arambol, Goa — a couple of months of life.
Baksu (Upper Dharamsala), Himachal Pradesh — almost two more months.
Then there was a mad dash: Dharamsala — Manali — Leh — Ladakh area — Srinagar — Jammu — Delhi — Gorakhpur — Kathmandu — Pokhara.
The journeys took from twenty-eight to five hours. I will never get on a bus again!
In this dash, I lost a laptop’s hard drive (it died, presumably, from some impact), a camera (the lens broke due to a dead battery), and a front tooth (twice). A new hard drive was bought. The old one was restored. The camera was repaired, and the tooth was fixed (twice). All this cost money, of course. Traveling is not a cheap activity at all; sitting in one place is much more profitable. I turned out to be an extremely inexperienced traveler!
Upon arrival in Pokhara, I found a house on the shore of a lake. There I could write, cook for myself (finally!), and put my things and thoughts in order. I spent about three months in Pokhara before heading off on the ABS trek. Then there was Thailand…
Continuous travel is quite an energy-consuming state, and you can’t be in it all the time. In the first years of the Asian trip, all my things did fit in my backpack, but it was a very large and very heavy backpack. Over time, I learned to find a balance between minimalism and comfort and I’m going to share my experience.
To be continued!