Guest post by @Kantankkerous
All rights reserved by Marian hushayan
The best aspects of travel involve the reflections and tale-telling of the amazing highlights of your holiday. People love to depict the finest details of how astonishing and impressive the locations were that they had visited. However, there is a greater form of adventurous travel that warrants story telling of a whole different benchmark – one of struggle and bewilderment.
What am I talking about?
The stories you hear of travelers finding themselves in situations so outlandish, one would think that it was a carefully crafted thriller written by a novelist. Stories of travelers whom somehow find themselves on the back of a maniacal rickshaw, or perhaps being forced to drink the urine from a holy cow during an Indian festival! These are the stories I want to tell! Not of how white the sand on the beach were, or how friendly the locals were or what amazing food I had for dinner.
That comes completely part in parcel with travel. It’s a given. It’s the unexpected that makes our trips memorable.
And in mentioning that, China almost felt too smooth.
Sure, I have plenty of hilarious stories from the trip that I’ve yet to share, but the little voice yapping in the back of my head tells me that I should have wandered a few more steps outside my box of comfort. Being fluent in the local language perhaps would’ve contributed to the lack of obstacles, however there were innumerable situations I recall throughout my month on the road where I had told myself, “Nahhhh maybe next time!” that may have helped contribute to my growing archive of travel anecdotes. Ultimately, there were more opportunities made available that I had failed to seize.
Travel reflection will forever be one of positivity and take this as important advice, that no matter how traumatic the predicament you find yourself to be in on the road, if you’re alive out the other end, it is a worthwhile experience. As cliche as it sounds – what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – can very much so epitomize how you can improve your travel experiences.
As one of my travel buddies would say, ‘live life a little!’. So the next time you find a strange Chinese man at the food market offering you goats testicles for a quid, make sure you accept and have it medium rare. I guarantee you that the taste will matter very little once you return home.
Have you failed to seize an opportunity in your travels?
Kan Huang
Kan is a current university student completing his major in Events Management, a photography enthusiast and a travel addict. He resides in Sydney, Australia and currently works in the hotel industry and hopes to one day be able to combine travel and work together. In the meantime, he hopes to share his experiences on his flashpacking trip to China and explore this enormous land of deep culture and economic prominence, combining his photography with anecdotal tales of his travel (mis)adventures. He keeps a personal blog Tales of a Globetrotter & you can also find him on Twitter @Kantankkerous.
