Expectant Days: The Lead-up to a Backpacking Trip

I’m about to leave Chengdu to go traveling for almost three months, but in some ways, I’ve already long since left town.

These weeks of planning and research are supposed to be the easy part, where I get all of my ducks in a row, my couches and hostels and tickets booked in advance, my visa papers in order, all ready to process.

Instead, I’m going in with only the barest of bookings made, three out of four visas still unprocessed (I have the one required first, however) and my plans only loosely routed out. Planning everything out from one’s living room can be daunting. And in a way: it seems to miss the point of backpacking, the room for spontaneity and—rare in today’s society--adventure. This will be very much a go-with-the-flow journey, and whether it leads me to spiritual clarity and memorable new international friendships or to sweaty lines and bureaucratic hoops of frustration or robbery, street side curry-induced illness, minor tragedy or simply traveler aimlessness is uncertain. Quite likely a mixture of equal parts up as well as down.

For a number of years, I’ve been looking forward to such a journey. Catching the travel bug, exploring far-flung history and culture, the tangible process of “acquiring worldliness,” the image of me reflectively looking out a train window upon some breathtaking image of unspeakable human poverty back dropped by a landscape of incredible natural beauty: “Mark the backpacker” has been on my self-inspired personality card for a long time.

But lately, rather than a steadily increasing level of excitement and buzz as my departure date draws nearer, I’ve felt mostly anxious. Over and over again, I ponder questions such as “What do you hope to get out of this?” and “Why are you letting whatever amount of post-graduation social-ladder-climbing-momentum slip further and further away?” I know my parents and peers who are already establishing successful lives are or would be asking such valid questions.

The answer, quite simply, is to meet other people. Of course, I’m looking forward to the Taj Mahal, to Imam Reza Shrine in Mashad, Iran and the Registan in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. But they’re not the main reason I’m going to these places. And whilst I’m hoping to spend some time meditating at ashrams in Kolkata and elsewhere, I’ll be quite at peace with coming home still yet to experience the fullness of nirvana. But getting to know people of background’s distinctly different from my own--their opinions and stories--their hopes and dreams…these are the things that travel creates unique opportunities for.

In particular, one website will open doors, quite literally, most everywhere I go. Couchsurfing, described by a fellow Couchsurfer as: “social networking that actually has a purpose.” Though obviously not as many couches can be found in the east as in Europe or North America, India has proved filled with potential hosts: Delhi alone has over 100 available couches. Iran’s cities have dozens of eager participants, and Uzbekistan lists some as well. Only Turkmenistan seems to have missed (so far) the Couchsurfing train of international-camaraderie-by-way-of-free-accommodation.

So, blessed with this opportunity to meet different folks from places like Iran and Uzbekistan—and better yet, have them cook local cuisine and take you out with their friends, the question now becomes: How could I not go?