So I’ve made it to the east of India, where I'm checking out the foothills of the Himalayas before crossing into Burma next week.
Whilst catching up on various bits and bobs this weekend I came across an excellent blog by Anna Lundberg about her visit to the London Adventure Travel Show.
Summarising a discussion with adventurers Sean Conway and Dave Cornthwaite on the importance of adventure, Anna writes:
“Sean identified a triangle of three factors that contribute to your happiness in life: money, relationships, and purpose. A lot of us forget about that last one….Dave Cornthwaite echoed the value of having a purpose also for your individual adventures.”
I was struck by this last sentence because only ten days ago I’d been mulling over this same point.
I’d hit a real low - India is an amazing, unique experience but it’s also been a real challenge.
I’d set out from Delhi and was looking forward to getting some good miles under my belt. But instead I found myself angry and frustrated.
The cultural shock of riding in India is way beyond anything I could have ever imagined. It’s notorious amongst the adventure motorcycling community. Many seek to avoid it for that reason.
I simply can’t find the words to describe the noise and sheer anarchy of the traffic here.
Basically if you had a ‘Where’s Wally?’ book when you were younger, dig it out, dust it off and open it up at any page - that pretty sums it up.
It’s an almost incessant melee of cars, trucks, buses, cyclists, pedestrians, beggars, rickshaws, tuk-tuks, cattle, stray dogs, vans, tractors, jeeps, horses, carts, food stall wagons and pretty much anything else you can imagine, headed any direction other than that they’re (theoretically) meant to be going, trying to barge everyone else out of the way in the process.
Mixed in with the constant attention you receive every time you stop (not all of it good), I was a walking powder-keg just waiting to go off.
In fact, I did go off. I let my temper get the better of me. On three occasions. And it just made me even more miserable.
I soon realised that the only way to survive - mentally probably as well as physically - was to change my expectations. Firstly about how much ground I could realistically cover; secondly to avoid the temptation to withdraw into a big black angry hole but thirdly, and most importantly, about what I actually wanted to get out of this trip.
I realised that to get the most of my time here I had to make the effort to engage with people around me, no matter how tired or frustrated I might be. Because when you’re faced with a culture that is so different and often feels hostile (even if it’s not), you need to ensure you’ve got some good experiences in the bank to outweigh the bad ones.
And here’s where Anna’s point comes in, which I found myself thinking about several days later.
If you’d asked me the exact purpose of this trip when I left, I would have probably told you something about wanting to do achieve something that I could look back on in years to come.
But actually, what India has taught me is that it’s purpose is something far more important than that.
The year before I left on this trip was not a pretty one for me. I had lost my Dad fairly recently - he was the bedrock of our family, a big source of confidence for me and a huge man both in his public and private life. At the same time many of the things that had provided me with a sense of purpose and success had, over the course of two years, ceased to hold that same value to me.
Almost everything that had given me confidence and drive disappeared. I was diagnosed with depression. Despite outward appearances to many of my friends, I lost sight of the things that made me, me. Anyone who has been in a place like that will know how scary that is.
Whilst motorbiking around the world solo isn’t a physical challenge, it sure as hell is a mental one. Because out here, on your own, away from home often stuck only with your own thoughts for company, you’re stripped bare. You can’t hide from yourself. And you have to be able to handle that. Which is why having a sense of purpose is so important.
What I realised is that the reason why the things that had given me drive and success in the past - mainly work and competitive sport - were so important to me was because they gave me a clarity of purpose.
And that purpose was to find new ways to challenge myself, to learn, to grow, to overcome and to move forward. As I’d fallen out of love with those things, so I’d stopped growing as a person.
And that’s what India has taught me - the importance of that purpose to me, how I hadn’t realised that and how this trip is an opportunity not to just see the world with my own eyes but to grow as a person, in a way that’s constructive and stands apart from any one thing, whether that be work, sport or travel.
Oh yeah - and that vegetarian food can actually be REALLY tasty.
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