"Strangers" by The Kinks
The prompt for the IndieWebClub meetup #8 was "Respond to a blog that you read recently."
https://hallowelt2016.blogspot.com/2020/03/eine-reise-nimmt-sein-ende.html
Background
In 2016, my family took me on a trip to North-East India. On the second day, we were in Darjeeling. The tour organiser had taken us, along with a few other families, river-rafting. On the banks of the river, I saw a really cool looking 1000cc BMW bike parked. Awestruck and starry eyed, I walked to the bike. The cargo container had writings in German on them. "Happy Journey" is the only phrase I could transcribe.
The owner walked up to the bike and I mustered up the courage to talk to him. His name was Matthias (it took 2–3 attempts of "Sorry? Could you please say that again" to obtain). Matthias said that he was from Switzerland, and he had travelled through Germany, France, the Middle East, and the central plains of Asia, before shipping his bike to Mumbai and touring the north-east on his way to Tibet.
This guy had instantly become my hero. He was the coolest person I had met and had a sick bike — what else could a 16 year old need to know about life to decide what he wants to do when he retires?
In my broken German, I said to him: "Die Welt ist ein Buch, wer nie reist hat nur eine Seite davon gesieht" which translates to "The world is a book; those who have not travelled, have seen only a page of it."
It was the only complicated sentence in German I knew, and it can still be found in SSC grade 9 German textbooks.
Given my pubescent voice and a Marathi-German accent, I don’t think he understood what I said (despite mutual "Sorry? Could you please say that again"), but he was encouraging about the whole interaction regardless.
He said that he had saved up for a significant portion of his life while working as a mechanic to travel the world, and would continue to do so until his funds ran out.
I asked him for any social media handle to follow him through his journey. He tore a corner of a page from his diary and wrote down the name of his blog: hallowelt2016.blogspot.com.
Throughout the years, I read his blogs. I saw him travel through the world in a caravan, meet people from all over the world, travel with them. Even a global pandemic could not stop him.
March 20, 2020
A journey comes to an end.
"Dear readers, My story of my, for me almost incomprehensible, journey ends here."
This is the last post on the blog.
Reflection
To Matthias — I want to thank you, for making me curious about travellers, hostels, and the culture that ranges from hitchhiking to picking up hitchhikers. Though I have not travelled as far and wide as you have, the people I have met, the conversations I have had are something that have influenced me in becoming the person I am. It has shown me the beauty in people, the joy of confessing secrets to strangers, to share fully, because there isn’t a chance or any hope that you will meet again.
I got my brother’s old bike repaired recently, and I have been feeling adventurous.