So the bags are packed for the last part of my journey: getting home. After flying 10.000km from Kuala Lumpur to London, now it’s time for the last segment, to Bucharest.
I remember my excitement 2 months ago. The adventure ahead looked so amazing. So many places, so many people and cultures, so many miles. Now I am at the end of the journey and I still get the feeling of just getting started. Because I only managed to scratch the surface in these 2 months. The time was incredibly short and during most of the journey I was on a train, a bus or a minivan, trying to connect 2 distant dots on a map. I think it was something like two thirds transportation and just one third seeing places. Actually, 2 of the countries I traveled in are in the top 5 of the biggest in the world, with Russia being at No. 1.
Yes, that was crazy. To try to see such gigantic countries in just 2 months is, of course, foolish. And the transportation is gonna cost you more than you’d think, even if you’re going backpacker style, always choosing the cheapest options.
In my defense, I can blame it all on the curiosity and the long wait. I’ve been wanting to do something like this for many years and now perhaps I got a little greedy. It’s hard to resist the temptation. The further away you are from home,the more often you’re gonna find yourself saying “I made it this far and now that other country is so close. It would be a shame not to see it. Who knows if I’ll ever come this way again”. It’s a powerful thought. It occurs even before the start of the trip, when you’re just looking at a map…
So, I barely scratched the surface in terms of seeing these countries,let alone photographing them. That is a mission impossible kind of thing in this time span. When you spend, on average, 2 days in a location, it’s pretty clear that the photos you’re gonna get, if any, are not yours to take credit for. They only belong to luck. Of course, being prepared for that luck is another thing. And trying to foresee it and going the extra mile in expectation of that is what makes the difference in the end.