Halfway

“Pilgrimage is not just walking and walking through unknown lands to a sanctuary; it is to make you better every day that you walk. The Camino is not a race. Therefore: ‘Don’t run, Walk.'”

Before we went to Spain, I told a friend that I was really looking forward to the Camino. Why? Well, partly because I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. There is a whole genre of books and movies that chronicle people’s transformations on the walk – how the walk enlightens, gives people new insights and so on. In short, how the walk makes people better; the quote above being an example of such genre. I’m not one to subscribe to magical thinking, but like every good agnostic, I’m always open to the possibility of the unknown supernatural

Now that we finished the Walk, earned our compostela, and went back on the road, I can safely say that there was no flash of transformation I could recall, no exact moment of enlightenment.

That is not to say that the walk was a bust. I enjoyed each day, spending quality time with Gabriel and Pilar, and having the time to be lost in reflection. 

Watching the sunrise on El Camino

Though I wasn’t disappointed by the lack of enlightenment on the walk, I was a little bit worried at some point that maybe we were doing it wrong, as if the Camino is a medicine you’re supposed to be administered in a very specific method and dosage or else you don’t get the curative benefit. What if the moment of enlightenment only happens when you do the “whole trip”, whatever that means. But hey, no magical thinking!! So, right, maybe that’s it. We did the Camino, we had fun, and that’s that.

Besides, in the last few weeks I’ve decided that our whole trip this year is in essence a long walk, broken up into many smaller walks in different corners of the earth. Many lessons that we learned from being on the road in the last few months have undoubtedly make the pilgrimage walks we did much easier, in a sense that we are already accustomed to the reality of living full-time on the road with all their constraints and perks, and perhaps this is why the Camino was not as ‘transformational’ as I thought it would be, because many of the lessons that one learns on the Camino, are lessons we have slowly gained over the past six months. 

For one, we learned early on that to be on the road is to let go of material wealth and comfort. When we sold our belongings, when we gave up our apartment which we had lovingly decorated and turned into a cozy home, when we quit our comfy corporate jobs and put our careers on hold, when I packed up my collection of shoes and clothes into storage, when Gabriel disassembled and gave away all the furniture he had painstakingly built from scratch,…  we had to confront our attachments to these material things and embrace that for the next 12 months or so, we would have very little in term of possessions. Just whatever fits in our bags.

In terms of clothes, we each have three sets of tops and bottoms, a week’s worth of underwear, few pairs of socks, a warm pullover, a pair of swimsuit, and a waterproof windbreaker. I won’t sugarcoat it and will say that there are days when I wish I had more fashionable clothes. When we’re in the city and go to a bar or a nice restaurant, I would glance around the room and wish I was in my skinny jeans, a nice tank-top, and a fashionable jacket instead of my hiking pants, linen shirt and pink Patagonia jacket. But style is a luxury we couldn’t afford on this trip. What matters for us now is practicality and comfort, and the three sets of clothes we have can be worn in the stifling, heat of southern Thailand to the chilly highlands of Scotland, lightweight enough to dry on a clothesline in less than 24 hours even in humid weather, yet modest enough to wear in Muslim and conservative countries. It took a while for me to be okay with looking like a hiker all the time, and I counted it as a personal victory when I was able to go dancing in a club with our friend in Copenhagen wearing a pair of hiking boots and pants, and not felt out of place.

And so far we’ve limited our purchases only to daily necessities and toiletries, or gear replacements to avoid adding unnecessary weight to our backpacks. As much as I would love to collect souvenirs from different places, I don’t want to carry these tchotchkes around the world, so pictures and memories are all we can take from each place we visited.

When we go on pilgrimage walks, like the Kumano Kodo in Japan, or the Camino in Spain, we had to shed even more items from our already minimal possession, since we couldn’t carry heavy loads on foot for that many days. We took only what we absolutely need for the walk and a few days after: water filter, cooking stove in case we needed to cook, a change of clothes, towel, books, and games (deck of card and chess), slippers, the tent and sleeping bags if we’re camping. That’s about it.

At the first albergue we stayed in, Gabriel asked if we need to put anything in the locker. I did a quick inventory of all the things in our bags and realized we have nothing valuable in our bag worth stealing.

A moment of joy.

Apparently “when everything is gone, one can be rich in loss.”

We have nothing, yet I felt perfectly content. And it struck me then that for a while now, I have always had everything I need, and want.


Another lesson we quickly learned in our first month of travel is to let go of wanting to be in perfect control of our lives. Because when you’re on the road, you’re at the mercy of the airlines, the bus drivers, the guesthouse owners, the weather, the always monosyllabic immigration officers (an exception being the super-friendly immigration officer in Muscat, Oman), the transportation routes of the country, the national holiday schedules, the local customs, and a million other local quirks.

On the Camino, our options are further reduced. There aren’t a dozen options for accommodation or restaurants at each town. Sometimes, there is only one albergue with so-so bathrooms and a slightly smelly dormitory room. Sometimes, there’s only one cafe in town with one thing on the menu, based on whatever grocery the owner is able to get from the market that day. Sometimes there’s a café nearby where we can get breakfast, and other times we have to get bread and cheese from the nearest gas station because everything only opens after 10 a.m. Sometimes the room is clean and warm, and other times it’s noisy and full of mosquitoes and cold. In times like these, we have learned to accept what’s available and be grateful to have a shelter and food. 

A few times during the walk I had to remind myself that, while Gabriel and I are already accustomed to making do with what we have on the road and have given up on having any routines whatsoever, Pilar is not. This was probably a 180-degree change from what she’s used to in Tabio. And as I watched her on the walk day by day, I continued to admire her resolve and her ability to give in to the rhythm of the walk, even though I could see that things must be uncomfortable for her. I told her how impressed I was that she was able to travel with us. I couldn’t think of any of my family members or my friends (well, maybe my sister), who would be able to do the same itinerary without complaining even once.

I don’t want to give out the impression that our life on the road has been a series of unfortunate events and uncomfortable guesthouses. Like everything else in life, it varies from place to place; we live like paupers one day and royalties the next. If I have to average our experiences so far, I’d say that things have been mostly good. Or perhaps our definition of what’s good and acceptable has changed over the course of this trip? Regardless, we’ve learned that once we give up the notion of wanting to always be in control of the details of our lives and go with the flow, life on the road is pretty comfortable.

One of our homes in Japan’s Kumano Kodo walk. Spacious living room adjacent to the kitchen and laundry room, with a spectacular river view.

As we become more and more adept at adapting to the rhythm of our nomadic life, I’ve been asking the question if I’ve started losing myself on this trip (i.e. my identity) and if that’s a good or a bad thing.

Transformations 11 by Jo Spence (1934-1992), at Wellcome Collection, London. It really resonated with me as I contemplated how our identities intersect with our desires.

We often think of someone who loses themselves as a tragedy, conjuring an image of someone who is so weak that they are easily swayed by external forces or someone with an identity crisis. We think of someone who lacks a strong core. At least that’s what I used to think: one needs a strong sense of identity, and knows who she is and what she wants. But now I wonder if a “strong sense of identity” is just another word for someone who easily succumbs to her own ego, and if that is the case, what if one’s ego is just as volatile and cruel as any other masters? 

I’ve been questioning every single intense desire and negative feelings that arises – be it anger, jealousy, fear, regret, embarrassment, sadness, shame, guilt, anxiety, etc. When I felt depressed about being in a hostel with a sub-par bathroom and inconsiderate roommates, and was on the brink of booking another place, I asked myself: Where is this feeling coming from? When I’m annoyed because we have to settle for a cheap meal from a grocery store instead of a proper sit-down restaurant, I asked myself: Where is this feeling coming from? Or even just questioning where my preferences come from: Why do I prefer French Impressionist paintings to Italian Renaissance? Surely I wasn’t born with this preference. Where do these lists of ‘What I Like/Dislike’, ‘What I Want’, ‘What I’m Supposed To Do’, ‘What I Fear’ come from? When were these things decided, and are they set in stone?

Floating Heads installation by Sophie Cave (Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow)

Month by month, I’m coming to the realization that we often mistake our preferences (desires, fears, and thoughts) as synonyms for who we are, while forgetting that they are remnants of our upbringing, our past experiences and are constantly influenced (knowingly and unknowingly) by the media and our peers. So when I am depressed about being in a hostel with a roomful of twenty year old hippies, it’s because I’m buying the narrative that “I’m a grown-up with a career and savings account and I deserve a better place than this”. When I am ashamed about only ordering appetizer at a fancy restaurant (even though we’re not hungry), it’s because my past makes me feel I need to prove to strangers that I am not a poor person. Each time, I’m reminded that these desires are not “mine”, and I am not my desires. They are inconsistent and fickle, and can make me so miserable when they aren’t fulfilled even though rationally speaking, we’re talking about inconsequential things – a meal, two-night stay, a two-hour bus ride – that shouldn’t stir up so much negative emotions.

One facet of myself where I’ve noticed the biggest change is my relationship with food (more on this in another post). I used to be a self-professed foodie who prided herself in her exquisite taste, who didn’t mind driving an hour across town to satisfy my cravings and would get in a bad mood if I didn’t get what I wanted. Now I can be perfectly content with a simple bread-and-cheese sandwich, or whatever is available, because I finally realized that I no longer want to be a slave to my taste buds. I can still appreciate good food and can differentiate tasty ones from bland ones, but I’ve learned to not let my appetite control me or make me feel bad when I don’t satisfy them.

Found when windowshopping in Seoul

The useful thing about travel is that it forces us out of our routines and to do things differently in different places – from which side of the road to drive on to what to eat for breakfast – that we have to learn to live outside of our comfort zones. We could have chosen to be obstinate and demand everything to be just the way we like it, “the way it should be done”, but I doubt we would have made it this far if we had insisted on that. Also, it’s often cheaper to live like locals vs. a Western tourist. So in a way it’s a necessary survival strategy for us to confront our discomfort and realize that our desires are not as immutable as we often made them out to be. And as we let our preferences dissolve into softer and softer voices, we eventually wake up one day realizing that we’ve drifted away from our old self, which isn’t entirely bad. For one, I’ve become less stubborn (though I’ll let Gabriel confirm this ?), and a whole lot more open to the possibilities of what comes after our trip as I realize that I’m not tied to a certain standard of living, or a certain life path.


Even after being unshackled from this sense of self, I still grapple with the expectation of a “perfect” trip. I have this idea of meeting new people and becoming fast friends with them in every place we go to, being invited to people’s homes and learning the local cultures in every city, being invited to go sailing across the Mediterranean or to some exclusive parties, finding ourselves in unexpected adventures and all the other fantastic dreamscapes we thought we’re supposed to do in our travel, or else we would “fail” our mission this year, or that we suck as travelers. It doesn’t help that everywhere we turn, there are all sorts of travel blogs and social media channels that showcased other people’s journeys around the world, and I couldn’t help but compare our travels to theirs. Is our travel as cool as theirs? As amazing as theirs? As original as theirs? As <insert adjective> as theirs? Like my fear after the Camino, that we had done it the “wrong” way, I worry that we aren’t doing this trip “right” even as I struggle with the definition.

The anxiety was stronger at the beginning, because I had believed that this sabbatical should be “productive”.

Before we embarked on our sabbatical, I had researched the etymology for the word sabbatical. It came from an old Judaeic tradition of letting a land lay fallow during the seventh year. During that year the land is allowed to be unproductive, to be grazed by wild animals, and overgrown with wild plants and weeds. One of the articles I read provided scientific explanations that “justifies” the practice: letting the land rest allowed the soil to replenish the nutrients that get depleted during the growing season. I grabbed onto this one particular insight and told myself: “See! Don’t be afraid about what this break would do to your career. Here is a sign that the rest will actually be productive to you. Good for your soil, and your soul.” Somehow I’ll develop new insights, gain new inspiration for my next ventures, be a better employee when I return to the working world, become a wiser person, etc. After all, it seems that everyone who comes back from this type of break is suddenly illuminated and write a book about it. Or they find a new vocation that has been their life-long dream.

It was actually quite suffocating; the feeling that somehow the trip needs to have a tangible benefit, otherwise it’s a waste of time and money. Who would’ve known that a vacation could be so stressful?

Then a stand-up comedian in Edinburgh accidentally made fun of my anxiety. “Only Americans can come up with the phrase ‘power naps’,” he said. “Who else would expect something as relaxing as a nap to have a purpose, or else it’s useless?” As the all-European crowd laughed at the joke, I laughed along with them and tossed out fifteen years of American capitalism into the garbage. I decided then and there that productivity is a word I need to banish from my vocabulary, especially when it comes to our trip.

Getting shot at by kids and their waterguns during Songkran (Thai New Year) in Bangkok, who are definitely not worrying about productivity

I suppose there’s nothing wrong with expecting that something positive will come out of this sabbatical. It’s called optimism. But the danger comes when the whole trip turns into a quest for something, and we become so focused on the end goal that we judge the value of our experiences based on how they help us accomplish the goal, instead of enjoying them for what they are. It doesn’t seem fair to let the value of our travel be judged by what ultimately happens at the end of our trip, regardless of all the joys, laughter, and all the silly moments in between.

Besides, what if the trip changes us in ways that cannot be measured? How do you measure progress when characteristics that we often wish to cultivate to be a “better” person – things like patience, kindness, courage, grace, wisdom – are intangibles that cannot be measured? How would Gabriel and I even begin to measure improvement in our relationship? Should we start counting how many languages we can say ‘Hello’, ‘Goodbye’, ‘This is delicious’ and ‘Where’s the toilet?’ in? It often seems that our societies have taught us, that what cannot be quantified cannot be valued, and therefore, are not valuable. And instead of resting in the inestimable mystery of life, we seek comfort in fake metrics (like all the social media metrics: Likes, Views, Page Share, etc.) to soothe our constant fear that life is meaningless.

In our travel we’ve been seeing more and more places – cafes, restaurants, hotels – advertise themselves as “Instaworthy” – i.e. good enough to post on Instagram / social media. It annoys me that this has become my generation’s yardstick, that something is valuable only if it can be shared on social media or if it looks good to others on social media or if it will generate ‘Likes’ on social media. It reminds me of that thought experiment, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

I believe that we are caught up in this cloud of existential doubt of fearing we might actually not exist if there’s no one to witness our lives. So we share everything online for everyone to see, to seek validation that we matter. And since everyone is so distracted all the time, we try to be as loud/noticeable as possible so we can collect Likes – that ersatz metric – by chasing the brilliant, picture-perfect, Instaworthy lives. I waver back and forth between wanting to share our pictures with our friends on social media and resenting the fact that I am participating in the stupid system, though recently I made peace with the decision to mindfully post some of our pictures online, if only to update our friends and family on the latest in our travel, especially for those who don’t have the time to read these long, rambling posts of mine. But these days I secretly want our trip to be as dull as possible, because I think there’s an important lesson in learning to be comfortable with mediocrity and not constantly chasing the extraordinary. 

Sun rays and airplane contrails at a rest stop along the Camino

Another truth that we’ve discovered on this trip, that the Camino reminded me of, as it took us 7 days to walk the 115km that could easily be done in two hours by car: to go slow is harder than to go fast, to wander is more challenging than to go to a defined destination, and to be still is more difficult than to run around. I suppose I had known this even before we started the trip, and had hoped that life on a slow boat will force me to learn to be still in the moment without worrying about what comes after and how it fits into the grand narrative we all try so hard to guess the ending of.

Road sign in London

In a way, our previous lives’ daily routines – much as we grumble about the drudgery – actually distracts us from having to confront the harder question in life: “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” Existential questions like these don’t crop up as often when you work 60-80 hour a week and fill the remaining time taking care of your family, compared to when you have the whole 24 hours to yourself for unsupervised free play. 

Inspecting the rabbit hole in a container hostel in Edinburgh, Scotland

Even on this trip, it’s quite easy to keep ourselves distracted. In fact, it’s easy to jet from place to place, visiting one thing then another, crossing things off a to-do checklist. What’s more difficult is actually to be still. It takes a whole lot more of inner calm to feel okay with being still. 

Whenever we have our “rest days” – days when we’re not traveling anywhere or doing any activities, or when we stay at a place for more than a week – we feel a bit restless and uncomfortable, like we’re wasting our time.  Which always makes us wonder: why is there this need to always “do something”? Sometimes I think all our anxieties to keep ourselves busy is akin to treading water to keep from drowning because we feel uncomfortable in water and haven’t figured out that if we just flip on our back, we’ll float on alright.

Dalmatian Coast, Montenegro

This is a long round about way of saying that I’m actually glad I didn’t find any enlightenment on the Camino. It’s a good reminder of my Big Fear on this trip – the constant anxiety to pin down the trip’s purpose and measure its worth – when actually, all the gems and treasures are right before my eyes. I got to spend quality time for three weeks with Pilar, who among other accomplishments, has raised four amazing children, one of whom is the best travel & life partner one could ask for. I got to brush up on my Spanish and plant/tree identification skills. We ate so many fresh fruit – figs, apples, pears, grapes, peaches, blackberries – right from the trees. We met some interesting characters along the way. I know that years from now I’ll look back on this experience with fond memories.

Too, the lack of enlightenment reminds me that one need not walk the Camino to find these basic truths of life. There’s nothing special about the Camino, or even about our trip. Sure, it’s easier to learn these lessons when you’re forced out of your comfort zone, but we probably would’ve learned them in time, just in a different way.

After all a journey like this is not about searching for something. It’s more about learning to let go and not hold on to anything too tightly, be it material possession, what we want to eat for our next meal, our expectation for the trip, or even our conception of who we are as individuals. After all, life is tierras desconocidas, unknown lands, and all we can do is surrender to the mystery and uncertainty of it all, with smiles on our faces, and keep walking.

One Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.