With a smile...

It is fast to get used to easy life. After the "cultural shock” of returning to a developed country, the worries of buying a train ticket vanished. Calmly, I went to the station in Ayuthaya. A village in an island of a river. The crossing was made by boat. Time to enjoy the wooden houses, and the serenity. The sunset reflected in water and painted everything around it. I smiled at my luck.

Just before reaching the station I'm greeted by the strong smell of food. My stomach opens his mouth and orders me to stop for a sticky rice and mango. With this boss of mine satisfied, I went to the little station in Ayuthaya. The white walls make me remember my country. And the order - and disorder - almost takes me back home. Only my eyes and smell the food - there are stalls everywhere - tell me otherwise. From question to question I reach the ticket office. In less than a minute I already have the ticket.

The next day - and with more 18 kilos on my back - I return to the train station. The letters written on the information board tell me that my train is on time. Of course this was only a matter of hours until “on time” became late. So the train arrives with a Thai punctuality. An hour after the scheduled time I board this metalic animal.

As I enter the hallway I feel a chill ... not of cold but of astonishment. I wasn't used to comfort and cleanliness anymore. It felt like a luxury hotel. Inside the compartment my traveling companions had taken their place. My astonishment became curiousity. Seeing the size of the bed, I didn't understand how I could fit the backpack. In that a pristine white room, it seemed that my backpack had no place. Seeing my inability, one of my colleagues points out the place of the backpacks. After India, I forgot where was the normal place of them: just above the door. Between smiles,II put my heavy companion to rest.

Time to relax and enjoy the trip. In the middle of this comfortable train, the landscape becomes even more beautiful. The journey goes across the mountain and through the typical jungle of this region. I can not help smiling as my eyes are intoxicated from the green trees, my ears filled with the symphony of the rails and my thoughts drift into the world of dreams ...

The streets of Bangkok

"Unique" is the word that I find to describe this city. By itself it means nothing. This is one of those adjectives that attach themselves to many different realities. The problem is that I can not understand very well what makes it unique. It's just a feeling I had while walking through the streets of Bangkok.

The people are the ones that make a place what it is. And the first thing you notice here is beauty. It's amazing how any woman puts a model in check. Typically wear short dresses to highlight the linear shapes of their bodies. Many with an umbrella to cover themselves from sun. And men don't lag behind. With more informal style in appearance, they cultivate the good taste of this city. Here I am like a homeless person.

But it's not only how they dress. It is also the way they walk. Certain of its destination without weights, they transmit a security that the city knows where it's going. And if you look at the sidewalks, it is going to heaven. There are many skyscrapers or mega-malls.

At each end of the metro the same feeling. A cosmopolitan and free city. A site which becomes independent of the country where it is. Here I enjoy a freedom that I already missed. As with everything, here and there we realized that this is not really deep, but the most apparent. After all, Bangkok is also the capital of Asian prostitution and right next to the night market - a set of street stands that sell a little bit of everything - is one of the oldest places of prostitution.

But this is not a city of unique realities. Upon entering the Chinatown Asian confusion finds its space on what seems a huge Chinese store. Here we can lose a lifetime. It took me half an hour to cross it in a straight line. In between, are the faces, almost all Asian, looking for a little bit of everything at the cheapest price.

In the meanwhile we can feast on any of the street food. And how the Thais know how to cook. My favorite is a simple one: a sticky rice with mango and coconut sauce. But not just here. The street food stalls are another iconic image of this city and you find them everywhere. From the most local place to the area of ​​the temples. The latter is the center of all tourism in Bangkok. A clean space touching the river. Any city in the world would be happy to have a space like this. The pagodas tell me I'm in another world, the rules have changed and now it's all about the tourist.

Not strange that here I am approached more often than any other place of Bangkok. The Tuk-Tuk's drivers try to convince me I need to go to some place. But I don't need. To feel the city it is only necessary to walk through its streets ...

Le moi errant: A Lucky Bastard ... or after six months

It has been six months since I left Portugal and I don't know what to feel. I look back and see the common thread that led me to this moment. Inside I'm torn between how much I've changed, and how much is going to change.

The question mark and exclamation continue to guide my life. A child's amazement I insist not to leave. My emotional yo-yo is also continuing, and I don't run away of my sorrows. The void exists, but I understand that it gives us space to fill in something.

The way I feel the trip has changed. Today the world is also my world and it changes everything around me. I don't look for the exotic but for the beauty. Wherever it may be. I try to feel the emotions of where I am. Recognizing that it will be more mine than of the places.

I don't know if I'm more adult or childish. I would say both. I learned to live with this duality. Ever present in me. I am often something and its opposite. Gradually abandoning the prison of being and transform me into what I was.

The journey follows its path. Never know where to go. I depend on what my "inner self" tells me. I hear that voice more clearly, though sometimes still I don't follow at the first word.

And, despite the time travel, I feel that I have not seen, done or learned anything. There is so much around me. So many experiences that go beyond me and make me humble. Today I am more ignorant than before, even of myself. I found that I have a long unknown road ahead of me.

And this is what the trip gave me in these six months. But most of all, I met many fantastic people that luckly crossed my path and that I learned to call friends. Unique and special lives. So special that make me be sure that I am, and perhaps always will be, a Lucky Bastard!

Story of a Picture: A simple photo

This is one of those photos that would be impossible a few months ago. This is because it was taken from a private dock at the end of a street of warehouses. Those that when we are alone in a strange place we don't like to venture.

At the beginning of this journey wouldn't think of putting there my feet. But now, that the streets of the world are also mine, this was just another one and I was curious to know what I would see on the other side of the river. Around me people were following their normal life. Loading goods, pausing for a meal or just relaxing.

In the end of the street is a market. Possibly a morning one because the stalls were already closed. When I cross it, a woman in her 60 years called my attention to something in Thai. We try to understand each other the best we could. After all we could only share a few common words. I realize that is private property and I ask to take a picture. She accesses with a face of rigor. It was the last step I had to overcome after months losing inhibitions and fears. So many to take a simple picture.

Women

A mere chance determined that instead of two X's I had an X and a Y. And because of this detail, doors opened, my life was easier and I walk through this world without the worries of many people. Nobody wants to touch me, spend hours staring at me or invite me to a "quickie". A reality so completely different that would change my trip.

That's what I felt while sweating profusely at two in the morning and chatted with Shyla. I knew her in Bangkok. We were at the door of where we lived - fruit of my addiction to nicotine - and the words flowed endlessly. Ironically, I got to know better a reality that I had physically abandoned: India.

And there - that little couch on the sidewalk of a Thai street – I recalled other places of the trip and my own country. I saw how the reality is still so cruel to women. A world of privileges for those lucky enough to have a Y in the genetic lottery. Another very different for those with X. More struggle, sorrow and disappointment. Even in Europe, the fight is still uneven. In the rest of the world it has just begun.

Traveling is also thinking about the reality that surrounds us. Today I dedicate this post to all women. At that, with a courage that I never needed, travel like me through this world. And to those who fight the hardest one: the struggle of daily life and of their dreams. They fight for a life they are entitled to, making sacrifices that I never even had to consider...

Welcome to Bangkok

Welcome to the organized airport, heat and air conditioning. To the flawless and cold metro. The directions everywhere so you won't get lost. Welcome to the smell of food everywhere.

Welcome to the mini-skirt and freedom. To the sexual and assexual tourism. To androgyny and transsexuality. Welcome to the waiting in the sideways until the pedestrian signal turns green. The wide avenues and skyscrapers. Parks within the city, trash bins and massages.

Welcome to the sympathy and the market. To the gentle negotiation that makes you quit the hard bargaining. Welcome to fashion, stress and the suit-and-tie. To the make-up and diet problems. Welcome to Facebook, tweet, iphone, ipod and others alike.

Welcome to the smile, gentleness and shyness. Welcome to a city that walks with pride to have a strong personality.

Welcome to Bangkok!

Lang Tang Trek

Between a rock and a hard place. An expression that I like, but not to feel it. But here I am. In that awkward position. Trying to find the best words to describe the trekking. I know, by the teachings of Katya, never to criticize a trip in a chronicle. Or rather, it is possible to do it, but it requires a good dose of humor.

There is nothing false in this rule. It's just a way of saying that "if you don't have anything interesting to write, then don't do it." The problem happens when having nothing to complain about - except my own stupidity - I cannot say that the trek itself was phenomenal. But the best is to explain what it was rather than what it wasn't.

In the Himalayas there are several circuits that you can do. By areas, the most popular are: Everest, Annapurna and Langtang. Of the three, my choice fell on the latter. Driven by Isabel Braz valuable tips and adjectives that seduced me, I didn't care much to see which was the best treks for me. For each region you will find many paths you can choose. In my case I ended up doing a little research on the net, to see which route best was more known (← the first of a few errors). The decision fell on the route that starts at Syabru Besi - a village near the end of the road coming from Kathmandu - until Kyanjin Gompa - the last village before we venture to the mountain peaks.

What I expected was a few days of climbing mountains and nature. And I cannot say I didn't have it. For I Had it. But I also had much more than that. This whole trip was more than just trekking. It was a huge challenge, and above all, a life lesson. I had to fight everything. The physical exhaustion, illness (did the whole route with paracetamol because of an infected throat and a fever which stubbornly refused to disappear) and above all against discouragement.

This appeared on the first day. To my surprise the trek wasn't easy. The route followed a himalayan logic that often consists of inclined uphills, to follow the subsequent drops that will lead us again ... yes, you guessed it ... to other sloped uphill. In between, the route follows the river which descends from the mountain. And although beautiful, there are two details that cause much impact: (a) the mountains are steep and close the landscape and (b) we never really move away from the river so we do not have the sensation of altitude.

So our physical fatigue tells us that we are going up, but never reach the notion of the altitude that we are. For someone with management background, it all seems too costly for the beauty that we behold. Oit is worse when you don't have a sporty profile like me. At the end of the first day - which I only reached half of my goal - my whole body was telling me that I was a masochist. Everything hurted and I was really tired. And this was just the first of the days that lay ahead.

And with the tiredness came the disease. At the first chill of fever, I knew what to expect: some long hours with the body shaking violently. I was a human blender. This made me fear I could not continue my journey. The higher I climbed, the further medical care would be. If anything got worse it would mean I had to walk all the way back and with no medications that were being depleted by the hours. If I had a crisis on the way, this could mean that I had to stop wherever I was.

It is easy to imagine that everything in my body told me to come back. Of course, if this had happened - or if the trek was only a few aches and landscapes – you wouldn't be reading these words.

The reality was very different from mere pain, an unmotivated mind or some tired legs. It was the company of a special person named Hannah. The motivation that came from America by the force of Miranda. Or the magical moments like the one where a crow landed on the wings of a flying eagle. Was overcoming our limits and continuing on. The certainty that, however much we go up, we would find one more peak to climb just to get a better view. It was the small details of Himalayan life camouflaged by villages that exist for trekking tourism. It was a small child who stole a piece of my heart and gave me moments of fun and wisdom. It was being in the middle of nowhere, without a single sound of civilization. Having respect for yaks and monkeys that were on the way. It was to go up just to get down again. Follow another path in the way back and seeing what I expected to see from the beginning.

By those paths, stayed another stranger. Something that went up didn't return. Something that was only possible by following this path. With the people I met and the effort that I took. I may not have had the best landscape in the world. Not have risen to the highest peak or choosen the worst way. But now that everything has been surpassed, I wouldn't change it for another route.

I conclude this chronicle in the same position I started. Still between a rock and a hard place. Not knowing whether or not I will recommend what I did. I think it's something I'll never know. Even to myself. I am sure that Iwon't recommend this route to my future self - maybe do the villages route or venture to the west of Nepal – I also know I wouldn't say to my past self not to do it. What I got was too precious to change for a more enjoyable trekk...