The burning desire to travel and the scolding scars it leaves behind

The love of travel is everywhere, it may be concealed in the form of a daily commute to a favourite coffee shop or a complete culture shock where you throw yourself into an unfamiliar territory. The familiar or the unfamiliar? For me, this a question I asked myself at the age of fourteen before daring to delve into the unknown. It is so easy, almost too easy, to permanently situate yourself within a country that you call home, where the opportunity to travel presents itself as often as the full moon. Yet, I have never been able to cure the ‘travel itch’ and I do not wish to simply live out the rest of my life confined to one country.

Mid-September 2013 I decided it was time to take a plunge. After a morning of deliberating the sanity of what I was about to do, I came to the conclusion that the savings I had were not there to be sitting in a bank account waiting patiently to be spent. Suddenly, there I was, sat face to face with happy-go-lucky travel salesman Michael and my fingers wrapped around a pen where one signature amounted to very empty pockets. Once everything had been finalised, that was it, the beginning. I strolled out of the agency and felt exhilarated, it was as if I had been injected with a sugary substance of hope and a daunting realisation that I would be embarking on a trip from Malaysia to Singapore, alone. I will never forget the day that I signed that piece of paper, as essentially, I had signed myself up for something unbelievably invigorating that would leave me wishing I had considered it sooner.

A watery-eyed mother and a gargantuan red backpack are the two main features that strike out from the beginning memories of my trip. It was during the five hour flight delay that I had realised that it was all actually happening, even though I hadn't arrived at my destination yet, I already felt like a traveler. After sweeping in and out of various shops in customs and avoiding the darting glances of the perfume ladies, the monotone voice of the airport reeled me in and advised me that it was time to refrain from a third visit to Starbucks and to board the flight instead.

‘This is it’, those three words repeated over and over, the caffeine buzz of the lattes were evidently working their magic. The ticket was handed over, along with the stabilisers which I had relied on so heavily throughout western life, not knowing it, I was about to be reborn.