#7 - Risks

(#7 is a laundry list of crazy awesome risks that I took in southern Asia.  Never say never…)

I’ve been reading the Matador online travel magazine lately and I stumbled across these two articles: ”10 Travel Risks Worth Taking” and ”Are Risk-Takers a Dying Breed?”  They made me think about how my personality has changed over the past couple years, and the various risks I took while abroad in southern Asia.

Now, as people get older, they tend to get more risk-aversive, meaning they take fewer and fewer risks.  I’ve found that as I’ve grown older, I have lost my risk-aversion.  Maybe it doesn’t apply because I am still young, but I am light years away from the little girl that couldn’t climb a tree or scramble up a pile of rocks.  Now, not only am I a bungee jumping, elephant riding, crazy food eating fiend, but I am regularly taking a huge risk by moving halfway around the world to places where I don’t know anyone, I don’t speak the language, and I basically know nothing about the area.

Fun, right?

I think it’s harder for people to take risks these days.  I often have people telling me that while what I do is admirable, when am I going to settle down (read: live a “normal American life”)?  What about things like building a good credit score, paying off my student debt, finding someone to marry and buy a house with and have kids with?  It’s easy to tell people I will do this while I can, while I have no big attachments, but what if this continues to be my life… forever?

I’m okay without having a credit card.  I’m okay with having a little student debt.  I’m okay with making very little money.  I’m okay without having good insurance.  I’m okay with doing things outside the norm.  I love my life, and I love what I’m doing.

So, what are some of things I did while I was away?  What were the travel risks I took?

Putting my trust in ropes…  I kicked off my winter break in Nepal in style.  At the Last Resort, I went bungee jumping for the first time ever.  It was a 160 meter (over 500 feet) free-fall off a suspension bridge into a gorge over the Bhote Kosi river.  Hellooo beautiful!

The bungee was seriously a religious experience.  I remember being terrified all morning long – during the four hour bus ride, the safety talk, watching other people do it… but as soon as I stepped on the bridge to wait my turn, all my fear left me.  I became numb, and barely spoke while they harnessed me.  I wordlessly followed their expressions, stepped up to the ledge, put my feet half-way over the edge, and… fell forward, arms spread, eyes wide open.  At the bottom of the bungee my numbness finally snapped, and I shouted out my adrenaline rush and gladly rode out the bungee bounces.  Loved.  It.

Jumping off the platform, a view up the beautiful gorge and Bhote Kosi river, and looking down from the ledge itself.

My friends, a Frenchman, and I also went canyoning the next day.  Canyoning is basically repelling down waterfalls: you’re harnessed to a rope that is attached to something at the top of the falls, and you scale down the slick rock walls till you reach the bottom.  Canyoning actually shook me up more because it not only requires guts, but some technical expertise.  I am totally looking forward to doing it again one day.

Going solo down the waterfall, and our great group at the bottom (photos courtesy of Michel - check his travel blog!).

On the backs of the beasts…Winter break also provided opportunities to do a little more than just horseback riding.  In southern Nepal, in the Royal Chitwan National Park, fellow volunteer Sara and I got to ride on an elephant through the jungle.  Elephants are surprisingly silent!  While I do not approve 100% of how the elephants were treated, I do understand their reasoning and also like that they use these elephants to patrol for poachers.

 

 My little friend (he eats cotton!), and train of elephants through the jungle.

 

In the Thar Desert outside of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, India, fellow volunteer Jessi and I took a one-night camel safari.  That safari dispelled many myths I had about camels and deserts… all camels are nasty bitches that bite and spit, deserts are hot, and if you have a padded saddle, it won’t hurt the next day.  My camel was perfectly nice, I was freezing cold, and my butt/thighs have never hurt that much in my life!

Feeling great at the beginning, and our caravan headed towards the dunes (photos courtesy of Jessi Hinz).

 

Gobble gobble…  The university ordered a turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner, and I was stupid enough to volunteer to cook it.  I had never done it by myself before, but I had seen my mom do it plenty of times – really, how hard could it be to cook an over-sized chicken?  Hahaha… oh yeah, right, it could be.  I was handed a frozen solid turkey in a box that morning, and somehow, some way, using not-so-familiar vegetables and a gas oven, I produced a delicious turkey for a dinner party of 40 or so people.  Wahoo!

My tasty turkey cooked from frozen, and in the kitchen of a Bangladeshi staff member.

While those were my main risks and firsts, I did several other things from that list.  Ayla and I traveled through Thailand and Cambodia for four weeks without a single plan; I trusted many strangers along the way; I stopped taking my anti-malaria medicine; brushed my teeth with tap water; tried a bunch of new foods; and I had a romance in Nepal.

Now… what will I do next?