What makes a home Home

On 22nd December 2009, I landed back in Old Blighty after 18 months on the right hand side of the road and of the world map, in lands where my colour and shape caused stares and comments, both innocent and intimidating, where I identified more with physical gestures than with wagging tongues and where people thought I was rich, because really, in comparison, I was.

Since sobering up after Christmas and New Year, I've been sifting through travel journal entries that never quite made it online (my excuse being the fact that for the majority of my time away I was situated somewhere amidst the arse end of nowhere) and rummaging through bin liners of my jumble sale life that at the time of departure I thought I would be parted with forever. Material objects that I knew I wouldn't need on my travels, but still held some significance which exempt it all from bonfire fuel or charity shop donations.

My whole trip combined certainly handed me many anecdotes of the material world - from visiting families living in dusty one bedroom concrete huts in Azerbaijan, villages in China where self-sustainability and community spirit were just a way of life, Hong Kong's metropolis of excessive shopping, partying and pampering, and India's spiritual message of detachment from emotions, possessions and people, where the enlightened way involves rattling around with a tin cup and accepting anything that karma throws at you, such as chapattis. Each society in itself has demonstrated human expectation and attachment and challenged my perception and distinction between what I need and what I want and what is necessary to survive.

If ever you've seen Peter Menzel's photographs in "Material World: A Global Family Portrait", where he travels about the globe somehow convincing families to drag all their possessions out in front of their house so he can photograph them to illustrate the scale of crap or lack of crap that different cultures accumulate, this is what was going through my mind as I was unpacking my bulging backpack and the life I had bin-lined up before I left for my trip. Menzel really puts into perspective how much we take for granted and how much space material objects take up in our lives.

Whilst I was away, less was most definitely more. The most frustrating part about my bicycle trip through China and Laos was everything that I lugged around with me. Every time I hit an uphill bit of road my mind frantically went through everything I could get rid of that might take a gram or two of weight out of my panniers and ease peddle pressure, until everything that didn't come under the category of absolutely key survival gear either got dumped, posted home or disintegrated into tooth floss.

At home, everything and everyone is so familiar it all forms part of a cushty routine even if you're not aware of it, but when you're away, every day is full of questions and inconsistency that can be alluring and exhausting, but always eye-opening. You crank up and challenge your intuition and learn to trust complete strangers in remote and alien places. The less crap you possess, the less you are at risk of losing it, and the more connected you feel to the people you encounter.

One of the plus sides of returning to my cocoon of material crap, is that I now have a laptop and reliable access to the internet, and I plan to celebrate this by actually posting stuff onto my long existing and previously abandoned blog and filling in from where I left off.

The ins and outs of opening chakras and entertaining orphans in India, Lady Boys and lazy days in Thailand, Tai Chi, cycle diaries and chasing goats in China have yet to be revealed...