Travel – Page 5 – Natalie K. Martin

The safest way to travel

July 25, 2014July 21, 2014by NatalieLeave a Comment

As I’m sure most people across the world are aware, a Malaysian Airlines flight was shot down last weekend, killing everyone on board. It’s horrifically sad that those people travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur never got there. What’s more sad, is that there’s now a family in Australia who’ve lost two members of their family on that plane, having already lost a further two family members on the missing Malaysian Airlines plane back in March.

It’s bloody scary and my heart goes out to everyone affected by it.

But these things should never become a barrier to travel. I hate flying. Ok, maybe hate is too strong a word. I dislike it, very much. I can’t deal with turbulence, I hate travelling with other people, I rarely sleep and it drags on and on – but I still do it. It *is* technically the safest way to travel and the reason we hear about plane crashes etc in the news is because it’s so uncommon.

Even if you hate flying, even if you need too take a prozac tablet to get you through it, do. And even though planes can go missing from the sky and get shot down, still take one. Things like this should never detract anyone from seeing the world. Forget national service, travel should be compulsory for everyone. Think how much nicer the world would be if there was less ignorance, more understanding and more compassion? If more people saw what real poverty is and yet still seeing how simple things can enrich lives more than a beautiful house or car.

The simple fact is, everything is dangerous. Trekking through the jungle is dangerous, as is going for a wander on your own in the woods and having your heart stop when you’re followed by a group of Indian teenaged boys (more to come on that another time). But then again, so is stepping out of your front door every day. And we all do that.

It’s immensely tragic that so many lives have been lost in such a brutal way, but for anyone who’s put off travelling because they’re scared for any reason – do it. These kinds of things are news for a reason – they’re not all that common.

One more time (and definitely not wanting to sound like Nike at all) – just do it.

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My travel bucket list – Part One

July 18, 2014July 13, 2014by NatalieLeave a Comment

Last weekend, I met up with an old work colleague who I hadn’t seen in three years. We’d kept in touch, but personal circumstances on both sides had made it difficult to meet up. The last time I saw her, she was laid up in a hospital bed after back surgery and unfortunetely, it didn’t go as planned. While we were catching up, she told me she’d put together a bucket list of things she wanted to do and places she wanted to see, should anything go wrong in the future, which it might do. I’ve got another friend who has a bucket list, despite not being ill in any way. I’d always thought it was something people did if they were terminally ill, for example, so I havent got one myself, but it did get me thinking about the places I want to see before I die. So, here are the first batch, in no particular order:

Iceland

I’m a big fan of anything that has to do with the universe, and I reckon the Northern Lights must be pretty epic to see.

Amsterdam

I still can’t believe I’ve never been here. But then again, I only made it to Ibiza two years ago. What can I say, I like to take my time.

Mali

I’ve been getting into Malian music for a while now and that alone would be a huge reason to go. But also, I’ve been taking more of an interest in my ancestral roots and while I’m fairly sure they’re not in Mali (most likely Ghana), I still want to go to Africa. This is probably first on that particular list.

Jamaica

Which ties me in nicely to my familial home country. What’s not to love? Great music, great food and great weather. I’ve been there before, but only to visit family. Next time, I want to do the whole island, especially Accompong, which is like a little country of its own within Jamaica.

Egypt

Ever since we learned about the ancient Egyptians in Year 4, I’ve had a fascination with them. I would LOVE to see The Valley Of The Kings with my own eyes!

Brazil

I was planning to go in 2013 and ended up in France instead. One day, I will get there.

The Galapagos Islands

Another love of mine is nature. I’ve seen this place on so many documentaries and I want to see it for myself. And, I’ll take a podcast with David Attenborough’s voice on it or something, just to complete the link.

That’s it for batch one! Anyone ever been to any of these places?

Travel

Trainspotting

July 4, 2014June 26, 2014by NatalieLeave a Comment

I love trains. They’re probably my favourite mode of transport after driving. If I could take a train to Australia, I so would and in fact, I read somewhere that China have started building some kind of tunnel for a train to go all the way to the states. How cool! Now, I’m not an actual trainspotter, that’s not my bag, but I appreciate what they do. I appreciate the way they look, and how they’re infintely more comfortable than, say, planes, which make me feel like I might drop out of the sky at any given moment, so I thought I’d dedicate this post to the awesomeness that are trains and how I’ve fared on them so far when it comes to travelling.

France

Yes, that place again. In 2012, I was constantly on trains going to Marseille from London. A 2.5hr journey on the Eurostar, followed by about 3.5 hours from Paris to Marseille. Now. The Eurostar. I first took it around 2005 and was a bit unimpressed. I’d imagined something like the Orient Express (now that I would love to experience) but it was a bit shabbier than I was prepared for. Apparently, you need to travel first class where you get champagne and foot massages and all kinds of wonderful things. In France itself, I was blown away when I saw their double decker metro trains. Why don’t we have them in London? Think of how much roomier the commute would be! And it’s fun, being able to walk upstairs on a train (or is that just me?). Yes, some are dated and shabby, but who cares? Too cool.

The TGV’s were double decker too and I just loved the approach into Marseille, one of my favourite cities in France. Stepping off the train into blazing heat and knowing I’d travelled from London to practically the mediterranean…do it! You must! If only to experience the sing song announcements from the French train information centre.

Japan

Oh, what to say. Where to begin? Possibly the best trains I’ve ever been on. The train from Tokyo Narita airport was awesome, simply for the fact that the seats all turn around so everyone is forward facing. No backwards travel sickness happening there! The metro I was a bit disappointed with, mainly because it was older than I expected and despite staying in the business district of Shinjuku, I didn’t get to see that crazy business – you know, the ones filmed on YouTube where people are literally shoved into the carriage. What I did like though, was that the drivers wore white gloves and proper uniforms, with hats. Very tidy.

But, by far and away, the best bit of the entire trip was the bullet trains. If you’re a foreign national, you can get a Japan Rail pass that basically allows you unlimited train travel for a set period of days. You can only get it in your country of origin, so you need to sort it out before you leave, but it is sooooo worth it. Not only were the trains beautiful, but the g-force was pretty cool. I remember bouncing along when I went to the toilet, it was that quick. Plus, the views on the way west towards Kyoto were awesome, including a close up of Mount Fuji.

India

It just has to be done. India is bloody huge and it’s expensive to fly from destination to destination as opposed to the train. A 1500km trip cost me £7 -bargain! Ok, so it’s not luxury. At least, it wasn’t in sleeper class, but it was fun. I was scared out of my pants if I’m honest, having heard a million nightmare stories, so I genuinely didn’t know what to expect. Apparently, I was lucky both times because it was relatively quiet. Busy (some people sleeping on the floor) but quiet.Well, apart from the girl who spent most of her time vomiting out of the window, bless her socks. A few tips:

In sleeper class, you get to choose between a lower, middle or upper berth, and I would recommend you take an upper berth, reason being that during the day, the bottom berth is used as a seat and the middle one is folded down. The upper one is left well alone, so you can chillax to your heart’s content.
Take a pair of shoes/flip flops you don’t care about, same goes for clothes, cos it’s not the cleanest of places
Take some kind of blanket, better yet a sleeping bag liner. My silk one came in handy because at night, it was bloody freezing, and like I said, it wasn’t all that clean
I’d go for a fan carriage than an A/C one. Yes, it’s hot during the day but the windows are fully open and there are no doors on the train, so fresh air usually circulates
On the subject of air, take some fragrant smelling essential oil to dab on a scarf or something because, man alive, there are some sections of Indian countryside that hummed to high heaven for a good few minutes. And you know its bad when the Indian’s themselves are covering their noses
Try the food. It cost something like 70p for a biryani and it was one of the best I’d tasted
Take some toilet tissue. Because there just isn’t any
Book your ticket well in advance. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait til the day before to get a ticket through the thadkal system (think I’ve spelled it right) which involves queuing for ages in the hope of getting a ticket in a specially held quota for foreigners to where you want to go.

Thailand

After India, the Thai train system was an absolute dream. I used http://www.seat61.com for all the info I needed and never looked back. They were so unbelievably clean and with two berths instead of three. Again, I chose an upper berth and I slept a full 8 hours. There was a mattress with real sheets! And a real pillow! And a real blanket! And a curtain for privacy! You can see why I was excited. Other great additions were dedicated spaces for your bags that you can secure with a chain, and the toilets were all super clean with about 5 basins with SOAP. Heavenly. The only downside was that they come and turn the upper berth down and the lower berth into two chairs, so you pretty much have to be awake for that. It didn’t bother me, but if you’re someone who’s going to go and get wasted in the restaurant car, be prepared for an awakening. Speaking of, I’d highly recommend taking dinner or breakfast in the restaurant car instead of in your berth. It’s nice, usually with music or a film and obviously, you meet people too. In fact, I found that I met more travellers on the Thai trains than in India. Oh, and try not to be too rigid with your travel plans because they were horrifically off schedule every time. Apparently a 4 hour delay is quite normal – luckily mine weren’t quite that bad!

Man, I love trains. Might actually look at inter-railing, I’ll be in heaven! Have a nice weekend all!

Ireland, Travel

From inconspicuous beginnings…

June 20, 2014June 14, 2014by NatalieLeave a Comment

While writing Heart Shaped Bruise this week, I got to a part where my characters go to Westport in County Mayo, Ireland for the weekend. It’s obviously a fictional story, but Westport most definitely isn’t a fictional place. I went there for the weekend in 2012 with my friend and had a wonderfully, spectacular time. Little did I know that one weekend would be what set me off on the path to travel.

First things first, it’s Ireland. No offence to the Irish, but it’s practically on my doorstep and it’s not much different to England. It’s apparently known as the adventure capital of Ireland, and I could see why. There were activities like kayaking, caving, surfing and all sorts to choose from. The most active I got was making my way up Craogh Phadraig (St. Patrick’s Mountain), the rest was spent either in pubs or being hungover.

Beautiful for day for a spot of canoeing! (C) Natalie Martin

Some traditional music being played in one of the many pubs (C) Natalie Martin

Craogh Phadraig (C) Natalie Martin

Sheep!! (C) Natalie Martin

Sometimes, I sit and wonder how weirdly the world works. On the day we arrived, me and my friend went to find a bite to eat and went into The Helm. The music was good, the vibe was good, the food looked good…until we were told we’d have to wait 2 hours to be served. So, we left, looking for somewhere else to eat, but there wasn’t anywhere that had the same vibe and so we went back, prepared to wait it out. We ordered our food, and were then approached by a french guy, who asked if we’d managed to order. This then led to a conversation, which ended up with us eating together and spending the night drinking far too much alcohol until the sun came up. Happy days.

What came out of that was a six month relationship for me with one of them. That alone re-sparked my love of the french language and gave me the final push I needed to get into learning the language, and it resulted in me spending a lot of time in the South of France. The relationship didn’t work out, but it was what inspired me to spend the summer there in 2013, and it was that summer, in 2013, that I ended up in Uzes and met the people who persuaded me to go to India and then to Thailand, and meet the people I met who’ve inspired me for the next trip.

I’ve often thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great to be like Jim Carrey in Yes Man, and taking every opportunity that life throws my way. Who knows where I’d end up? I mean, I know I’m not alone in meeting one person, or going to one place, and having it lead somewhere completely unexpected. Of course I know things don’t always work out for the best, but for me, it was a perfect case of the stars aligning to put me where I needed to be, today, writing this post, on a blog I started to shout about my book.

Nuts. And it all started from one innocent (okay, it was never going to be entirely innocent) weekend. I still wouldn’t necessarily class my weekend in Ireland as travel in the broadest sense of the word. In reality, we barely even scratched the surface, but it was what started me off on this whole adventure. I’d initially thought it was my time in Uzes, but it was only while writing the scenes in Westport that I realised, that was where it really began.

It hasn’t been easy. There were times I felt like crawling under a rock and never coming back out again (Irish hangover), days when I felt like I couldn’t communicate effectively (less than fluent French in France) and times when I wondered, what the HELL am I doing here? (after experiencing my first time with an Indian toilet).

But, you know what? I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Travel

Next stop…Madrid (via Cumbria)

June 13, 2014June 9, 2014by Natalie4 Comments

Last week, I bought two lots of tickets – something that always makes me happy. In two weeks, I’ll be heading to the Lake District to see my friend and fellow writer, Caroline Batten. Last time I went was in 2011, and it was fab. This time, she’s threatened to make we walk up Old Coniston Man. I’m up for the challenge. It should be nice – not only to catch up, but to talk geeky book stuff. Her book, #forfeit will be out soon and I can’t wait to start shouting about it. We can have a pre-launch party in the countryside 🙂

I also booked a flight to Madrid for August where I’ll spend a couple of days before heading west to a centre to do my first ever Vipassana meditation. Gulp.

It’s funny, when I was in India, I met so many people who had done it. They all positively raved about it, but I’d scrunched my nose up and said ‘no, thank you very much.‘ I’d tried meditating at home before and it just didn’t work. I never managed to stop thinking and, if anything, I felt more stressed afterwards than before. And not being able to speak for 10 days? Get real.

And then, I went to Thailand. I started doing the Thai massage course, and after practicing on a fellow resident at my guesthouse, I felt…weird. Stoned – like I’d smoked the biggest joint ever. My limbs were floppy, and my head was….blissed out. It dawned on me that, while I was giving the massage, I hadn’t thought about much beyond the massage, passing energy from myself to them and focussing on what I was doing. That’s when it clicked for me. I wanted to be able to get that focus and feel that way without having to massage someone to do it. There was a girl on our course who taught yoga and was very much into meditation, and she taught me a few basics. Like understanding that meditation isn’t necessarily about emptying your mind, because your mind can’t really do that, but that it’s about quietening it down and being able to focus. With that explained, I got it. Using a technique she told me about, I started meditating and I’ve done it every day since. I looked online, read about Vipassana and some blogs of people who’d done it, and booked myself a place.

I would never, ever, have imagined that my next trip abroad would be to go and sit in a centre with no communication with anyone else at all for 10 days, while spending a good 12 hours of each and every day in meditation. Never. But, again, it’s all to do with travel. I’ve had my horizons broadened, and in this regard, it has to be for the better. I’m hoping it will teach me how to react to things in a different way and how to really, really focus. Every writer has procrastination as their bed-fellow.

I just want it to be a more casual relationship.