Just a quick update for you so you don’t all think I’m dead.
I’m out on Ko Pha-Ngan right now, which is basically where the party happens. All the time. It’s pretty crazy and I can’t seem to escape a hangover: there’s really not much to do here apart from drink lots and sleep. I suppose there’s diving and stuff too but for a poor traveler like myself it’s not financially viable.
I found myself in much better spirits by the time I got to Sydney airport. When I said goodbye to all my friends, something clicked and I got all excited about traveling again. My flight and the day surrounding it was mercifully uneventful and I met a couple of travelers at the airport who pointed me at a good place to stay, so I got myself settled into the country really easily, even if I was confused by the time difference, not sure that my watch was right, and running on 2 hours of awkward plane sleep.
I usually sleep uninterrupted but today I had a bad dream and when I woke up all that was in my head was the realisation that I was leaving Australia in 3 days. For some reason it never hit me before. I feel sick, and scared, and sad. It feels different this time around: when I left the UK I knew I was coming back, I knew that I had all my things there, waiting for me, some kind of investment in the country that kept me feeling like it wasn’t goodbye. When I leave here I’m cashing in my chips and leaving nothing, and that feels strange.
Last night, while I was cooking a rather delicious vegetable curry, my housemate asked me,
“Why did you leave your career and travel thousands of miles from home, just to work in a bar? You’re not using your education, you’re not advancing your career, what’s the point?”
She’s right to be confused, of course. Why on earth would anyone leave a career they’re trained in to earn roughly half their annual wage doing unskilled work on the other side of the world? I’ve often asked myself the same question, and while I can answer it with the simple statement “I was a bit bored”, it’s not quite that simple and I think that it’s a fairly interesting story so I thought I’d use words and punctuation to tell it.
Autumn is rolling on into Sydney now and it’s caught me by surprise in many ways: so far, it’s been warmer and drier than Summer, and
in a way Summer never really seemed to start in the first place. My sleepy little suburb, Kensington (home to a sign saying “Smile, you’re in Kensington, and very little to smile about) is now slowly being covered in brown leaves and I find myself wondering what happens to the tropical plants over the road at this time of year. I’ve never seen a tropical plant outside of Summer. I kind of assumed it was always Summer anywhere they would grow.