Bryn Kewley:
They say to know another language is to own another soul. I don’t know any foreign languages but learning Cyrillic rocks! It’s like being a kid again and trying to decipher some secret code, only it won’t lead to a simple message; it means you find your hotel or order a tasty meal and not something nondescript, possibly once living and invariably covered in dill.
Release from the long hours of work and the grind of repetition has prompted in me, a period of metal alteration, or maybe amendment. To my surprise, when this trip started I found myself talking in volumes about random and tedious subjects, uninteresting observations on the road and long self-serving anecdotes. I’m not sure quite where this need to talk originated but maybe I was apprehensive about the trip or felt uneasy about travelling such a long distance with people I barely knew.
As time has passed I have become accustomed to my travelling partners and relaxed into a new rhythm which is far more engaging and leads to new things every day. Soph I’ve known since infancy but we have scarcely seen each other for the last 10 years due to distance, university and her ‘Tracing Tea’ adventure through the Middle Wast. I recognise in Steve things about myself that I hadn’t realised were there and enjoy his command of language that has come in helpful time and again. Jo’s outbursts of beautifully tuned singing and playful verse are a recurrent delight, as is her partnership in attempting to prevent Steve winning Harkem yet again! Steve and Jo are married and I vicariously enjoy their intimacy as it reminds me of my girlfriend who is currently teaching in China. We like to play interesting guessing games with the menus, naming a tiny minority of what's available and ordering the unfamiliar. This typically leads to interesting, tasty but occasionally unidentifiable dishes.
This release of mental pressure has lead to me begin questioning everything again like I did as a child. Landforms and city layouts have become areas of intense interest to me as I try to fathom why trees of that type seem to grow in that area but not another, what might have lead that river to dry up or what has lead the Russians to introduce such spectacular numbers of traffic lights?
We reached an interesting point today as we arrived in Oral, just over the Kazakh boarder with Russia. The latitude and longitude of this city is 50°35 North and 50°40 East meaning we are geographically further east than north. The line of latitude originates in Greenwich, London where we started, and the line of longitude is at the physical equator. This means that if we had travelled the same distance south rather than east we would have passed the equator into the southern hemisphere. My travel partners find this fact a little trivial but as a geography graduate I think it’s fascinating!
One aspect of the trip we should work on is interaction with the indigenous people. Having gelled well into a tight knit group and encountering few problems along our route, we have had little need to relate to the people we see. Hotel clerks, petrol station operators and restaurant staff seem pleasant and helpful, yet tangible relations are limited in our time together. Language is the biggest barrier as I have yet to learn more than a couple of basic phrases which limits me to English speakers of which we have found few.
This need to communicate has sprung, I think, from the raw experience of the surroundings at and between each place we visit. I’ve found this to be fundamentally different to arriving by air. Some might argue that to arrive by plane or car makes little difference; it’s the same mechanics drawn up a different way. But the vehicle is inconsequential, it’s the difference in me, the trials and difficulties faced and conquered along the route that generate this view. It has found me on increasingly playful terms with the world and a sense of my place within it.
They say to know another language is to own another soul. I don’t know any foreign languages but learning Cyrillic rocks! It’s like being a kid again and trying to decipher some secret code, only it won’t lead to a simple message; it means you find your hotel or order a tasty meal and not something nondescript, possibly once living and invariably covered in dill.
Release from the long hours of work and the grind of repetition has prompted in me, a period of metal alteration, or maybe amendment. To my surprise, when this trip started I found myself talking in volumes about random and tedious subjects, uninteresting observations on the road and long self-serving anecdotes. I’m not sure quite where this need to talk originated but maybe I was apprehensive about the trip or felt uneasy about travelling such a long distance with people I barely knew.
As time has passed I have become accustomed to my travelling partners and relaxed into a new rhythm which is far more engaging and leads to new things every day. Soph I’ve known since infancy but we have scarcely seen each other for the last 10 years due to distance, university and her ‘Tracing Tea’ adventure through the Middle Wast. I recognise in Steve things about myself that I hadn’t realised were there and enjoy his command of language that has come in helpful time and again. Jo’s outbursts of beautifully tuned singing and playful verse are a recurrent delight, as is her partnership in attempting to prevent Steve winning Harkem yet again! Steve and Jo are married and I vicariously enjoy their intimacy as it reminds me of my girlfriend who is currently teaching in China. We like to play interesting guessing games with the menus, naming a tiny minority of what's available and ordering the unfamiliar. This typically leads to interesting, tasty but occasionally unidentifiable dishes.
This release of mental pressure has lead to me begin questioning everything again like I did as a child. Landforms and city layouts have become areas of intense interest to me as I try to fathom why trees of that type seem to grow in that area but not another, what might have lead that river to dry up or what has lead the Russians to introduce such spectacular numbers of traffic lights?
We reached an interesting point today as we arrived in Oral, just over the Kazakh boarder with Russia. The latitude and longitude of this city is 50°35 North and 50°40 East meaning we are geographically further east than north. The line of latitude originates in Greenwich, London where we started, and the line of longitude is at the physical equator. This means that if we had travelled the same distance south rather than east we would have passed the equator into the southern hemisphere. My travel partners find this fact a little trivial but as a geography graduate I think it’s fascinating!
One aspect of the trip we should work on is interaction with the indigenous people. Having gelled well into a tight knit group and encountering few problems along our route, we have had little need to relate to the people we see. Hotel clerks, petrol station operators and restaurant staff seem pleasant and helpful, yet tangible relations are limited in our time together. Language is the biggest barrier as I have yet to learn more than a couple of basic phrases which limits me to English speakers of which we have found few.
This need to communicate has sprung, I think, from the raw experience of the surroundings at and between each place we visit. I’ve found this to be fundamentally different to arriving by air. Some might argue that to arrive by plane or car makes little difference; it’s the same mechanics drawn up a different way. But the vehicle is inconsequential, it’s the difference in me, the trials and difficulties faced and conquered along the route that generate this view. It has found me on increasingly playful terms with the world and a sense of my place within it.
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