The World of Hostels: Of Friendships and Beyond

“You never really travel alone. The world is full of friends waiting to get to know you”

Continuing from the first part of my travel blog, where I spoke about volunteering as an experience, I am excited to share my experiences around how hostel friendships go beyond hostels and unimaginable animation around it. 😄

But before we actually move forward into the narration, let me walk you through a transit hostel. All hostels are dormitory style setup, with sleeping bunks and 6 - 8 backpackers in each room. When one checks in, its customary for one to say a  hello to all the roommates and in return they greet you back. At this point, you may generally strike a conversation with someone or other in the room and a journey would thus begin.

The question is, how and when do you know that the stay and the trip would be amazing? When I checked into Lybeer Travellers hostel in Brugge (Belgium), a simple hello to Albert (from Germany).and Emilio (from Mexico) turned into a chat, which in turn became a conversation, and finally a dinner plan.

The answer is, you will know.

"One good conversation can shift the direction of change forever" Linda Lambert

The plot twist came during dinner, when we started discussing our next day’s plan. Generally, all backpackers are flexible with their travel plans as none follow the checklist based fixed itinerary. 

I was planning to go to Lille (in France) the next day. Emilio was planning to stay back in Brugge for a day more and Albert was on his way to Ostend. He was joining his sailing team there, which was about to set sail to London and back as a part of his holidays.That’s when Albert offered us a trip to Ostend in his car, and we could continue with our trips there on. Let me ask you here, who would say no to an opportunity for a road trip to an unknown town with new friends!!

"The true essence of travel is not in reaching the destination, but the journey itself"

Overnight, we changed our plans and set our sail together towards Ostend the next day.

The road trip was full of conversations and lots of music!!

Albert had to leave for Newport as his sail was waiting there. But considering that Emilio and I were planning to spend the day in the same city, we decided to first catch up with Salah who was a friend of Albert. He was originally from Libya, and now a resident of Belgium. Actually, he had found him on couchsurfing.

Take a moment here to appreciate this insane ensemble of cultural exchange which includes a German, a Mexican, a Libyan who is now a Belgian and an Indian! ✌

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot" Michael Altshuler

Following some more exciting conversations about our lives, some tea at Salah's place and another road trip to Newport, it was time to bid adieu to Albert for his sailing trip. I don't want to miss out on saying here that it was truly Albert's energy that had kept us all engrossed in the conversations. 

On our way back to Ostend, Salah's stories and experiences of his travels around the world kept us captivated till late evening, we finally ended up having Iftar (Ramadan breakfast) cooked by Salah and camped at Salahs place for the night.

Emilio and I left for Koln the next day, leaving behind the town of new friends and enriching experiences.

Special mention of Emilio here, we grouped together for a couple of more days of thrilling backpack travel. He always stood by as a great support, even during one of the times when there was a hurdle in my trip. 

And to think of it, all such exhilarating journeys start with a simple hello at the hostel room.... 😊

In Majrooh sultanpuri's words, it would be apt for me to summarize "मैं अकेला ही चला था जानिब-ए-मंज़िल मगर , लोग साथ आते गए और कारवाँ बनता गया".😄

Happy travel Guys! And do remember “If you never go, you will never know!” 😊👍

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A Backpacker's Saga - Small Joys of Volunteering

As a context to this blog post, it is mainly for people who understand the difference between travel and tourism.

Many a times I have heard people talk about how traveling is an expensive hobby and how it has been highly commercialized these days. This may be true if you plan to travel to touristy places or want to spend time with your family or friends. Today I intend to talk about travel in true travel sense when you are travelling for the experience of it, and not on a check list based itinerary.

I had planned my backpack trip towards the country side of western Germany. I may write a few more posts about various other experiences during this travel but today I want to start with talking about my volunteering experience on a farm.

I had applied for a few volunteering opportunities via workaway and got a prompt revert from Hof Zur Hellen farm. And at this point I didn’t have even a slightest idea of how memorable this trip would turn out to be.

The start to this trip itself was a memorable moment (out of the many yet to come). When I deboarded at the nearest railway station, I was the only one to board or de-board that train. I knew at this point that this was truly the place wanted to be. 😄

The farm was most picturesque landscape one could imagine. The place is owned by two brothers Ulrich and Alex, who lived on the farm with their families.

Daily we would meet in the morning with the whole team and be given tasks for the day. The meetings were all in German so it was hard to know what was being planned, and hence there was always some curiosity about the kind of work one would get for the day. But it was assured that no two days would be the same on this farm, with a variety of work available to be done.The work system was really relaxed, and volunteers did both shifts from 9.30am to 1pm and 2.30pm to 5pm.

Special mention here about my colleague volunteers, Miguel from Chile and Chiharu from Japan. As most of the time was spent with them, I got to understand the Chilean and the Japanese cultures too apart from German.  

I wanted to learn about organic farming so I spent most of my time working in the fields (weeding and also planting and harvesting) and in the green house (pruning and seeding). It was great to know how an organic farm works everyday (basically taking care of animals and collecting and selecting vegetables), also to get to practice the language, and to visit Köln and Düsseldorf in my free days, all beautiful cities nearby. Food here was great of course (everything was organic, healthy and tasted amazing). The kitchen was very well stocked and veggies could be taken from the cold store. There was also fresh milk and cheese everyday which was great.

One special incident which I would like to mention here is although the breakfast and dinner is prepared by individuals themselves, lunch however is prepared by one of the team member for the rest of the team and everyone has lunch together. I got a chance to prepare lunch once for the entire team and it was an experience of a lifetime to prepare food for 15 people without much prior preparation. Of course, I do prepare food at home sometimes, but never had made food for 15 people for sure! Such experiences only leave us enriched in our lives.

My room was quite big and in the attic, overlooking the picturesque landscape, which was a lovely and peaceful view. Both Ulli and Alex were very friendly, and I enjoyed spending time with their families in my spare time. I also spent some of my days off (weekends) at the café nearby, which had a nice atmosphere.

All in all, the two weeks spent on the farm would easily be one of the best travel times. The only cost of this trip was to reach Velbert railway station, and the rest of the accommodation and food was catered for. So at the end of my trip if you ask me have I seen the Berlin wall or Brandenburg Gate in Berlin or Frauenkirche in Munich or the Neuschwanstein Castle, I will say not really but I made memories during this trip and gathered enriching experiences 😊

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