Why are you so petrified of silence? Here, can you handle this….?
Did you think about your bills, your ex, your deadlines, or when you’re going to die? Or did you long for the next distraction? Honestly, everything of that (okay apart from the deadlines, they currently don’t exist for me), and much, much more has crossed my mind in the 10 days I’ve spend in total silence.
The heat sticks to my skin, like one of those fleece blankets I love to snuggle myself into during dark, cold winter days in this time of the year. Except that the blankets stayed in the Netherlands, and certainly would be a misfit in temperatures like this. It doesn’t fully resound in my head that I hear Christmas songs all around, while some of the palm tree leaves gently wave at us and we are gently melting. Are we sure we’re not somewhere in the middle of August instead of at the very beginning of a brand new decade?
The subcontinent of India, as people so wisely call it. We’ve entered it, and left my 60th country, which Pakistan was as I recently discovered, behind. We’ve left new friends behind, met, held and waived goodbye an old friend. For Ruben it was a coming back here, with endless gushes of recognition. His first big out of Europe trip brought him here. And now we get to discover it together. This country, of which I’ve expected the absolute worst, this big, weird but beautiful, chaotic but captivating, extremely polluted but deeply spiritual country, it embraced us.
Imagine this being said with the voice of Jon Snow. Half of you already did, I know. But that captures a bit of how stunning the north really was… I think I do not exaggerate when I say that it is one of the most beautiful pieces of earth I have ever seen. The time was nothing less but perfect, to witness those white capped giants, easily over 7000m high, hidden villages with gorgeous mountain people in endless valleys filled with the most beautiful palet of autumn colors.
Both in my head and in the country we are in, there is a current code red. Alarm bells ringing. For this country my governments advices: don’t travel. And my head, well, it exploded from the new impressions I’ve been given. And it couldn’t handle the freedom that was taken from us just to keep us safe.
Iran, here we are! I’ve been dreaming about you. I was both really excited and quite nervous at the same time to finally meet you. How would it be, to enter yet such a new and different world? Would we be able to adapt to the strict codes of behavior and way of clothing. I have to admit that I was a little afraid of getting stoned when I accidentally touched another man. And how would political instability and Thrumps’ magniloquence influence our journey? As it appeared, there was no need to fear, we weren’t sentenced to death nor was I caught by the moral police for flashing a little too much of my ankle. No need to fear at all. Iran and it’s people have amazed us limitless.
6:00 in the morning, an hour back I was woken up by some roosters. A little annoyed by the bed in which I’m not able to stretch my legs I discovered I really can’t sleep anymore. I’m not sure my head is still able to handle all of this.. So let’s write.
Yesterday I heard the sound of Rubens alarm again. I believe it has been some months since the last time it went off. It’s a quiet and relaxing song of Muse*, familiar to my ears, yet it seemed to come from a parallel universe. Another world, in which our alarms went off every morning at 6.45
And before we noticed two more weeks have past. I ended my last story in Greece, where I just became human again after feeling so terribly miserable. It wasn’t until I was fully recovered before Ruben started complaining about his stomach. It was his turn.
Two days back we drove into Greece. It wasn’t until the next morning that we realized we left the timezone of the Netherlands. We didn’t understand why we woke up that late (7:30, by all means, is ridiculously late!) until we saw the time on our dashboards: not the same as our iPhones quietly had shifted to. Time has been changing.