Travel

Katie Still

Having spent 6 weeks in Mongolia I made the decision to travel through China on my own. I had just got off the Trans-Mongolian Express train which had taken a couple of days going through the Gobi desert and I had woken one morning to look out my cabin window to see the sun rise behind the Great Wall snaking it's way over mountains. Those weeks in Mongolia with my friend Peter, the train journey and now finding myself alone in Beijing turned out to be a pre-requisite for what I'm about to describe.

I'll now fast forward a few hours...

I found myself a bed in the basement of the Jing Hua Hotel, a 2 hour cycle from Tiananmen square. It was dark and basic, but I was delighted, it only cost 50p per night.

So here I was, very much alone in the Chinese capital, in the dark basement of a hotel. No one knew who I was, no one I knew had a clue where I was. I picked up a map, and decided that in a few days I would go to Chengdu.

And suddenly I had this rush of sheer joy. That's the only way I can describe it. I was elated, I had never felt so free. It was the first time I was truly alone and it was the best feeling I had ever had.

That feeling of absolute freedom and anticipation of what lay ahead. It was just me, all I had was my back pack.

I have never been the type of person to make rigid plans, and that's how I travel, I wake up and see what I feel like doing, then do it. I had a little money which I knew I could stretch for months if I kept to a very small budget, and I had no need to go home.

This feeling changed my life.

I went on to have one of the greatest adventures I've ever had on my own; travelling through one of the most amazing, hospitable and vast countries. I learned more about myself in those months than I had in my life up till that point.

But it hasn't stopped there, it continues to change my life -

It's a sensation that I have tried to re-capture, like seeking that ultimate high. I have since continued to travel around countries either on my own or with someone, and I get little ripples of that feeling of utter freedom. In seeking that coveted feeling, I have the thrill of watching sunsets in Africa, hearing monkeys follow me all through the jungle in Borneo and smelling the rain dry from the streets of Hanoi. I also benefit from that all important geographical and spiritual distance from my life back in Scotland.