Suresh was my very last couchsurfing host
in Sri Lanka. At first I didn’t plan to stay with him as I could only stay for
one night. Normally I preferred to stay for 2 as it gave me more time to interact
with my host. However, some hiccups popped up, and I was glad I stayed with
Suresh and gotta know him even though we only hang out for a few hours
altogether. He needed to work night shift till midnight, but still he got up at
7am and did the interview with me.
Suresh told me he planned to “retire” at
the age of 35. He was 28, so 7 more years to go. It sounded like an idealistic
retirement plan for most people and I was so interested to know his plan in
details.
Suresh explained, he planned to take a
career break and go traveling at 35. At the moment he only does short trips. If
he were to have early retirement, he needed to have his means sorted, so that
he could have a proper traveling. After that, he could stay somewhere in Sri Lanka
where he can live a healthy organic lifestyle with clean air and water, a calm
place with waterfalls, thick forest, and no mobile coverage, not disturbed by
anyone. He hates fast forward culture and working late. He likes the nature,
hearing the birds and waterfall flowing.
What he needs to do before he could start
his big trip in 35, first he needs to make sure he saves enough. At the moment
he does small travels, not to expensive places though. In order to travel
properly, he needs to work on and have proper earning. He has 2 thoughts at the
moment, one is he can start putting up a business on his own. He will do what
he knows and he feels he is capable of doing it. He spent the past 6 years
working in outsourcing and trading and he has learnt lots of tricks. He could
apply his knowledge in other industries. If he starts his business before 30,
he will have 5 years to establish and hand over the business to somebody so
that he could go on for his trip while having constant income at the same time.
Another thought is continue working in the same company till 35, then he can
get a very good gratuity, but after that he will have no income source.
Suresh shared there were 3 big stages in
his life which affected his belief so much and made him who he is now. He
started working right after college and didn’t have any gap year. His first job
was a stock broker, it was an intense job and he lived a busy life. The tsunami
came in 2004, he didn’t know how bad it was when he watched the news. He took
on volunteering job and when he got there all he saw were ruins and dead bodies
everywhere. It was a traumatic experience for him. It taught him an important
lesson of what life is, no matters what we do or how much we earn, we never
know when it is time to leave. Then he changed to an Event Management job which
was a lot easier and his work life was not so intense.
The second stage was his mom passed away. He
quitted his job again and changed to his current job when he can work
nighttime, while his brother worked morning shift, so that there was always
somebody at home to look after his dad.
The third stage was when Suresh started
traveling alone. He went to India and Thailand. He didn’t have proper ways to
see things, he just ventured. Then he started hosting and slowly found out how
he wanna travel. He realized he could just live a life off his backpack.
For his big journey, he wanna travel to the
Eastern part of the world, like Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, etc because
the West is too expensive. It will also depend how much the trip will cost, he
needs to budget. He has done many
short trips in India and will finish off
the rest when he starts his trip. To him, India is like a half read book. India
is the first closest land to Sri Lanka, and is a big country and a world on its
own. There he could meet people from countries where he never heard of. It is a
good place to start his big trip and good way to learn how to travel.
Sri Lanka is a small country and he has
spent his life traveled around and have seen almost all of it. His passion is
burning inside he really wanna get out and see new things. He felt he is stuck
in a small island and he wanna fly out. He likes to travel to the destinations
by trains or buses more than planes. The moments experienced along the way are
more important than the destinations. He likes to meet people and see more
things, he prefers to travel day time because if he were to travel at night he
could only sleep. For buses, there are only one or two people sitting next to
him, trains, however, he can move around and connect with people and relax and
write and do whatever he wants. He likes to travel to places with untouched
nature and without phone coverage. He enjoys getting lost, and finds his way
back more than taking a map along.
He hosts people through couchsurfing to
remind himself not to settle down in a 8-5 job life because a lot of people are
traveling which inspire him not to let the fire burn down. He just needs to
have a proper plan. Through hosting travelers he could see the world through
other people’s eyes. He has learnt many things even without being there. Sri
Lanka is such a small island, but through travelers’ eyes, he could look at the
same things in a totally different way. Sometimes when he is free he would
travel with his surfers as well. So far he has hosted 25 different
nationalities, to him it was like a world class buffet. Travelers all have
different experience, some just started, some were used to couchsurfing, some
were new in backpacking, they would just sit down and learn about each other’s
culture and exchange different views. To him it was also like an educational
process, to prepare himself for his dream, a training period to get ready for
his big trip.
Suresh preferred to do solo travel because
he can learn himself within, how tolerant, respectful, or arrogant he is. People
has different thoughts, cultural or political views, if he is being confronted,
then he will know how he adapt, accept or react. It is a learning process for
him to discover himself. He would’t know all these until he is put under
different environments where people dunno him. People will react, question,
tell, explain and will make him think right or wrong. Friends always
sugar-coated the speech as they do not wanna hurt him and would not put the
facts out.
Suresh said he won’t use time to define how
long his trip will be, may be till he feels like getting home, or when he gets
sick of hostels, train travels, seeing things, always packing unpacking, saying
hi bye to people.
Suresh shared his favorite quote with me,
“All is well, that ends well.” from Shakespeare, meaning everything is good
when it ends good. He needs to hold on at the moment to buy bullets.
Interviewing Suresh was really an inspiring
experience to me. He was such a knowledgeable guy and had lots of interesting
thoughts. We also shared similar thoughts towards traveling too. He told me
being religious is not the same as being spiritual, which was something I never
thought of. Although he was born a Hindu, he didn’t want to tag himself with a
label because he believes he can get good things from every other religions. It
all depends how one interprets the messages and lives by the morals.
Suresh gave me a multipurpose knife as the
present in exchange. It was his first knife and had been with him for 5-6 years
and went to 3 different countries with him. It traveled with him and always
helped him out in emergency situations during hiking or camping. Once it was
lost in a trekking journey and he decided to walk another 2 hours and went all
the way back to look for it. It was a good memory for celebration after
hardship as he always used it to open cans. It also has a simple theory how
life should be, with so many different tools inside just like so many people in
so many different ways. He hope the knife can help the next person and taped
his love power, and will mean something as well.
8/6/2014
Written in a CS farm house in Mysore, India
夢想專訪8 – 斯里蘭卡男生的35歲退休夢
「他生於印度教的家庭，但卻不想標籤自己，因為他相信每個宗教都有好的東西可以學到，只看人們怎樣去理解箇中的內容和有否按著教義來生活。」
Suresh是我在斯里蘭卡最後一位借宿主人。本來不打算到他家借宿了，因為只能逗留一個晚上，通常我會至少住上兩晚的，起碼多點時間跟沙發主人交流。可是，人算不如天算，旅程有點阻礙，最後我還是很感恩能在他家借宿了，雖然大家只有幾個小時的交流時間。他要上夜班到零晨才下班，可是他第二天早上還是七點就起床和我做夢想專訪。
辭官 歸隱
Suresh今年28歲，卻有一個35歲退休的大計，聽起來是很多人夢寐以求的完美退休計劃啊，我也很有興趣知道他打算怎麼做，因為只剩下七個年頭而已。
他解釋很希望能在35歲的時候去一個長途旅行，然後，在斯里蘭卡某個地方安頓下來，過一種健康有機生活。清新的空氣，乾淨的水源，寧靜的地方，附近有瀑布、叢林，最重要的是沒有電話網絡，不會被人騷擾。他討厭城市快速的節奏和要捱更抵夜，他喜歡聽小鳥唱歌和瀑布流動的聲音。
要成功在35歲出發長途旅行，首先他要確保自己有足夠的積蓄，好好計劃來年和有一定的收入。他有兩個念頭，一是自己開始做生意，他只會做他懂的和有信心的事情，過去六年他在外貿工作學了很多技巧，可以把知識運用到其他行業裏，如果能三十歲前開始做生意，他將會有五年時間建立和把生意轉交別人打理，那樣他就可以出發長途旅行，還同時間有收入來源。另一個念頭是繼續在現職公司工作直至35歲，到時候拿取一筆很可觀的離職金，可以之後他再沒有收入來源了。
生命 無常
Suresh說他的生命中有三個很重要的階段成就了今天的他。他大學畢業就立即工作，沒有gap year這回事，第一份工作是當股票經紀，那是一份很繁忙的工作。2004年的海嘯，他從電視上得知情況惡劣得很，於是跑去報名當義工，但當抵達現場卻看見到處頹垣敗瓦和死傷慘重，那次悲痛的經驗讓他學會了生命的無常，就算做甚麼工作或有多少收入，永遠不知道甚麼時候自己要離開。於是，他轉工了，換了一份沒有那麼緊張的活動管理工作。
第二個階段是媽媽過身，他再次轉換工作，就是現在這份上夜班的，他哥哥上早班，所以家中永遠有人照顧爸爸。
世界 是一本百科全書
第三個階段，Suresh開始一個人旅行。他到過印度和泰國，他沒有特定的方式看東西，只是胡亂冒險。然後他開始接待借宿客人，慢慢找到自己喜歡的旅行方式，他發覺，其實自己只需要一個背包的東西便足夠過日子了。
至於長途旅行，他打算到東方的國家，像柬埔寨、菲律賓、泰國、緬甸等，因為西方國家太昂貴了，他需要好好預算到底整個旅程會花費多少。他在印度已作了多次短途旅行，當開始長途旅行時會先把印度完成。對他來說，印度像一本未看完的小說，那是斯里蘭卡最近最大的土地，在哪裏他能夠遇到一些來自從沒聽說過國家的旅客，那將會是一個很好的地方去開始旅程和學習怎樣旅行。
斯里蘭卡是一個很小的國家，他已經差不多把每一個地方都遊覽過了。心裏那團火在燃燒，他很想出外看新的東西，現在他感到被困在一個小島國內，他想飛出去。他喜歡坐火車巴士多於飛機，因為過程遠比目的地重要。他喜歡與人接觸和看新奇的東西，在早上他才可以做到這些，在晚上的話只能睡覺了。坐巴士只有身旁的一兩個人可以交流，坐火車的話卻可以隨處走動與人交流，做甚麼都可以。他喜歡到一些未被破壞的郊區和沒有電話訊號的地方，喜愛迷路多於拿著地圖，然後再找回自己的路。
透過借宿網站他時常接待客人，提醒自己不要安頓於朝八晚五的工作，不要讓心中那團火熄滅，因為到處都是正在路上旅遊的人，他只要好好計劃一下就好了。透過接待客人，從他們身上了解這個世界，就算他從沒到過那些地方，卻學了很多東西。斯里蘭卡是一個小島國，透過旅客的眼睛卻讓他看見不同的東西，有空的時候他會和借宿客人外遊。現時為止他已接待過25個不同國家的客人，就像在吃一餐世界級自助餐。旅客有不同的經驗，有些才剛出門、有些時常借宿、有些是剛背包出遊，他們會一起坐下來互相分享彼此的文化和交換看法，對他來說這些都是很好的學習機會，為他的長途夢想之旅作準備和培訓。
旅行 是為了成長
Suresh較喜歡一個人旅行，因為他可以發現自己更多。他有耐性嗎？他會尊重別人嗎？他自大嗎？人們都有不同的看法，文化的政治的，當被別人挑釁時，他才會知道自己怎樣反應，妥協還是回應。他不會知道這些直至他遇上那些情況，尤其是別人都不認識他的，才會跟他說真心話，讓他思考事情正確與否。朋友只會說包裝過的說話，因為不想傷害他，也不會告訴他事實。
要旅程多久，他不會限制自己，也許當他覺得要回家，或是厭倦了旅館、火車旅行、看東西、時常收拾行裝、與人說你好再見等。
Suresh跟我分享了他最愛的座佑銘，「一切都好只要結果是好的」(All is well, that ends well)，出自莎士比亞的著作。意思是只要結局是好的，過程中發生甚麼都是好事。所以現在他要好好堅持，好好儲備彈藥。
跟Suresh做訪問真是一個充滿啟發性的經驗，他是一個博學多才的人，有很多不同的見解，我們對旅行也有類似的看法。他跟我說原來religious和spiritual是不一樣的，我從來也沒想過這個分別。雖然他生於印度教的家庭，但卻不想標籤自己，因為他相信每個宗教都有好的東西可以學到，只看人們怎樣去理解箇中的內容和有否按著教義來生活。
最後他給我送了一把萬用刀作交換禮物，那是他第一把擁用的萬用刀，已經陪伴他五六個年頭了，也到過三個不同的國家。當他爬山或露營時候遇上緊急關頭，刀子常常幫得上忙。曾經他在爬山旅程中弄丟了，但卻決定往回走兩小時去把刀子尋回。他常常用刀子去開罐頭汽水之類，就像是紀念慶祝辛勞的完結。刀子還有一個簡單的人生理念，有那麼多不同用途的工具，就像人其實也很多元化，每個人都有他的用處的。他希望這把萬用刀可以幫助下一個追夢者，也能拿到他的能量。
8/6/2014
