Back again

Over the summer, in the absence of any adventure of my own, I had, of late, taken to reading about others. Paul Theroux's The Great Railway Bazaar is an account of his 1973 journey by train from London to Japan and back again. Three decades later, Theroux boards the train in London once again, to retrace his cross-continent pilgrimage in his follow up book, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. Before departing, Theroux reflects on the journey ahead;

It is almost impossible not to return to an early scene in your traveling life and not feel like a spectre.

This time last year I had found myself back in the UK after half a year of blissful travel across Southeast Asia. There, I had found what I sought and in recording it had put to paper many travel clichés. For my final stop, I had found myself in the Thai island of Koh Lanta, helping out in a treehouse style hostel, where I made many of my fondest memories.

I turned the idea of returning to this little corner of the world over in my mind for a few months, caught between my desire to be back and my concern that what I might find there would not match the rose tinted filter of retrospect. Eventually, like all good travel decisions, I let my heart book my flight and in November I boarded a plane for Bangkok. I reasoned with myself to go with no expectations and to compartmentalise the events of the previous year. A good friend told me it will be the experience you are meant to have. As I disembarked in Bangkok, I whispered this under my breath as I retrieved the same backpack, headed for the same destination, almost exactly one year later.

Of all the eventualities, the one I feared the most was feeling like Theroux's spectre, the ghost at the feast. I walked back into Chill Out House, my circadian rhythm somewhere above the clouds between Heathrow and Suvarnabhumi, a bag of nerves, but all too soon the comfort of familiarity and the warm welcome of the Chill Out family soothed me. It was good to be back, to complete the circle. It's a powerful (and sometimes life-changing) thing. Take these two Lanta lovers, returning to the island four years after first meeting at Chill Out House, to do the thing and make a pledge of their everlasting love in front of friends and family.

The general pattern of both life and travel propels us forward, too often we find our minds jumping to the next location before we have fully accepted and appreciated the current one. Returning to Koh Lanta was, for me, a chance to be for a moment, to both reflect on previous journeys, and the one I am about to undertake, another 6,000 miles away.

Koh Lanta, you've been great. See you next week New Zealand.