It was exactly 2 years ago (August 3, 2010), I was at Atatürk Airport with my Bangkok ticket in my pocket. When I started that journey, I didn’t know that my life would change so radically.. I had a lot of things in mind, my primary goal was to learn languages, so I was on my way with my New Zealand student visa in my passport, I had already paid the tuition fee.
If you are wondering about the world, If the information flow in a limited language circle is not sufficient and reliable for you, if you want to watch movies without subtitles, if the content on the channels you open to listen to news consists of 3rd page news, if you have to wait for the Turkish translation to read a book, if you do not understand what you see on foreign sites on the internet, you can find quality information outside of a few portals. and if there is no site that offers up-to-date, original content… what you need to do is learn English, and I was intending to do so while I had the opportunity.
I talked to a language school in Pattaya and I made a deal with an American there, had the longest uninterrupted vacation of my life and had the opportunity to practice before New Zealand.. Afterwards, the New Zealand adventure began for almost 7 months.. After 1 month of uninterrupted backpacking in New Zealand, I realized that my whole life had changed.
Actually, here are the processes that brought me here. My name had been lived and I had learned so much on this first long backpacking trip that my whole world, my future had changed.. I couldn’t stay away from the excitement of learning any longer and I was where I needed to be when school was over; on the road.
My first camera was Russian made Zenith. In 1985, I bought it under very difficult conditions due to financial pain.. I would chase the bees, wait for hours by the flowers, take pictures of them.. Now, I was traveling the world with a big camera in my hand (August 3, 2012).
Only once in my life, I vomited from a food I choked on, you know what? Pasta, backpacker food! I love pasta very much and I have cooked more pasta than I have ever eaten on my trips to New Zealand and Australia.
I smile when I look at the content of the articles I added years ago in the notes section of my Facebook profile.. Ahmet Telli says that great loves begin on journeys and adventurers fall on the roads. Oruç Aruoba had a poem about missing and leaving. Orhan Veli, on the other hand, used to say “Go wherever you can go” in his poem “Hurriyete Doğru”. I shared these and similar things about going and being on the road, traveling.
Atlas, National Geographic, Voyager magazines were the only magazines I subscribed to. , because it was telling far.
I can understand how many events and processes in my life are preparing me to go on the road.. Destiny is about making dreams come true.
As I find myself in the following lines of Khalil Gibran, I am often asked when will you come back? He gave the best answer to the question:
My house says, “Don’t leave me, because your past lives here.”
My way says, “Come and meet me.” watch, because I am your future.”
And I say both home and road,
“I have neither a past nor a future. If I stay, there is a departure in my stay; If I go, it’s a stay on my departure.”
Only love and death can change everything.
Khalil Gibran
SkyDiving in NZ
Cover Photo: Tioman Island, Malaysia
August 3, 2012
