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Go Discover- the World Might Be Different Than You Think
Go Discover- the World Might Be Different Than You Think
Go Discover- the World Might Be Different Than You Think
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Go Discover- the World Might Be Different Than You Think

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I sat on the beach in the Seychelles, after ten years of travel and discovery, I had done it – 195 countries and a lifetime of experience. I had the wounds. I had the prison time. I had the life-threatening fevers. I had the glorious tastes of authentic cuisine. I had the intense flavours of culture at peace and at war. I had the heart-stopping moments from interrogations and breathtaking moments from all the beauty. I had a whole new perspective; the world was so different from what I could have possibly imagined when I started out with a backpack and a train ticket, and not even a clue about what Ramadan was. Here I was and did not celebrate. I was empty for countries to visit, but with still endless scents to take in, friends to embrace and meals paid for by only kindness. So that beach wasn’t the end of my journey, instead just the very start.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 1, 2020
ISBN9780463096635
Go Discover- the World Might Be Different Than You Think
Author

Jørn Bjørn Augestad

1989, Norwegian born traveler and author- who had his debut in 2019 with the book "Go Discover- the World might be different than you think".

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    Book preview

    Go Discover- the World Might Be Different Than You Think - Jørn Bjørn Augestad

    Publisher: © Ajax Forlag

    Graphical Design: Omega Trykk

    Written by: Jørn Bjørn Augestad

    Translated by: James Ecendance

    Book Cover Illustration: Sunrise in Nepal

    The World might be different than you think

    With just a few dollars in my pocket, I tried to withdraw money from an ATM in Sudan, without knowing it was impossible with foreign bank cards due to western sanctions. I was alone and unable to even buy food. But I did not go hungry. I experienced being fed by the most generous nation on earth, where people do not eat before checking whether others might be going without. Something eye-opening and unexpected, but not standing alone by any means, as I travelled a world full of everyday marvels.

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    During my time travelling through Afghanistan in 2018, I felt safe and welcomed by curious new friends. I was called a naïve and reckless tourist by a journalist for couchsurfing across a country seen as the epitome of danger in the eyes of the media. There were military checkpoints and security, of course, but I found a different country hiding behind the headlines – one steeped in history, one full of wonder and warmth. Even in war-torn Syria, human spirit shone through, with dance shows, hitchhiking and restaurant visits, all amongst the ruins of Homs. Embraced, just as long as I didn’t pull out my Afghan Shalwar, worn to respect the culture when travelling in Afghanistan – now also popular attire for ISIS insurgents in Syria – or accidentally photograph military installations.

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    But it was also the countries rarely even seen on a world map that took my heart – island nations such as Sao Tomé, barely rising from the ocean, barely getting by compared to modern living standards, but gladly sharing all that they had, with pride and gratitude. As well as Kyrgyzstan, where a breakfast-date meant a neighbourhood gathering, overflowing glasses of vodka, the slaughtering of a sheep and lifelong friends.

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    I travelled lighter and lighter every year. But I always returned ever richer, knowing myself better and knowing the world around me more, so different to what I could have possibly imagined when I had gazed out as an 18-year-old, from my little Norwegian island across the water, not knowing exactly what lay beyond the fishing boats I had always seen. I visited every country in the world, collecting the stamps in a frayed passport, but what I really collected wasn’t defined by a number, something intangible, something far greater.

    Chapter 1: Summer in Finnøy

    August 2008

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    I was sitting on the veranda at my parent’s house on the island of Finnøy, an island I had grown up on and spent nearly every one of my eighteen years. The sun shone across the fjord in front of me; where a ferry and a couple of fishing boats drove by. Everything was peaceful. I had just put down my Science Illustrated Magazine on the table. The article I had been reading explained how people 15,000 years ago lived in small groups, never staying very long in the same place. Surprisingly enough these people only used 20-40 hours a week to gather food, find shelter and everything else you could class as work. The rest of the time they were free to wander around, or just sit and enjoy life – exactly the same as I did at that very moment.

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    The last few summers had been like this. Mostly relaxing, with just a part-time job at my father’s shop, so the rest of the time I could hangout with friends. There was also a family tradition of house swapping with people we found in catalogues that we received in the mail every year. This has perhaps made me always choose to live with locals when I’m travelling, instead of living in hotels. When I think about it, I surely have my parents to thank for me being the world-citizen I am, since I was surrounded by other cultures. We also had exchange students from different countries living with us for a year at a time. So even through the rest of the year we had the world at home with us in our living room.

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    It was perhaps going to be my last summer on Finnøy where I would have had a part-time job at the local shop – being able to hangout with old classmates before all of us would spread around the country at military camps, vocational colleges, and other places of study. I had applied to study a bachelor degree in International Communication at Østfold University College in Halden. It was especially the word ‘international’ which had drawn me towards that decision. Since the second year of Secondary School, where I had taken an exchange year in Austria and lived with a local family, I had felt an urge to live abroad again. In a way, I felt I had no roots. As if I didn’t only belong in Norway, but also desired to live in different places. I had barely come of age, but was already afraid to get stuck in a rut at home. Maybe after my studies I would have loads of student debt and need to go straight into fulltime work? Maybe I would then have a girlfriend who wanted to use our holiday weeks on all-inclusive package deals to Greece, Turkey and Spain? Or maybe I would have an apartment needing maintenance, or a dog that I couldn’t leave alone? I knew these thoughts scared me a little.

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    During that moment I made perhaps my best ever decision. I decided to do everything possible so that, after completing my education, I could take at least a year free to be able to travel on a one-way ticket and a pack on my back – until I was broke. Money, I thought, well, that I could always earn more of sometime.

    Chapter 2: The journey home from USA

    May 2010

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    People are like a flock of sheep, I thought, as the plane took off from Newark Airport in New Jersey. Beneath me I could see a grid of roads and houses becoming smaller and smaller the higher in the air I rose. Along those gridlines drove miniscule cars. Unlike anthills where ants would wander chaotically around, this was in perfect unison – products travelling on an assembly line.

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    Over the last six months I had been studying in the USA and become a part of this network, divided up as a grid of streets and avenues. I had visited houses out on the edge of cities and had thought that people had it good there, but right now I looked at these houses as chicken coops. Four walls where people raised children and spend their lives. I imagined how they would wake up early each morning to use an hour in traffic on the way to work, only to tire-out their eyes and heads to such an extent to then only manage to warm frozen food and watch TV for a couple of hours before going to bed. The last few years I had done well at college in the hope that one day I could get a job at a foreign embassy, but at this moment my whole end goal, and meaning for the last 15 years of school, was erased through the window of the plane, replaced by opaque clouds. The view soon changed into a clear starry sky and I began to think about what the reason could be for most people choosing to live this way. As children we run around like small camcorders, which are pre-programmed to record everything they see. Do most people stop and take a moment to make a definite choice on how they want to spend their precious life? For me, this moment in the air was where I realised that I needed to answer this question myself. I felt the urge to explore life outside of this bubble that I usually occupied and felt even more sure about the decision to be a wanderer after completing my education.

    Chapter 3: E. Coli in Costa Rica

    July 2010

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    I had spent the last four weeks at the home of my host family in San José, Costa Rica and was on my way to complete the last days of a six-week intensive Spanish course at Universidad Veritas. This study location had been chosen after hearing that the country was amongst the most developed and peaceful in Central America, in addition to clear and precise Spanish being spoken. It was Friday, and already the daily rain showers had passed over. Four of us sat around a table at a street kitchen, outside of the capital, sharing a large chicken Quesadilla, before we were supposed to strap on a bungee-harness and jump off a 90-meter high bridge.

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    I poked at my food a little on the plate in front of me, and discovered that the chicken inside was a gross pink colour. The others had pretty much already downed their portions of the Quesadilla and it felt petty to start digging that the chicken, most likely, was raw. It actually tasted pretty good, I thought, and downed the rest if it before we headed off towards where we were going to do the bungee jump.

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    Right from the moment I stood on the edge and looked down, I felt more and more nausea in my body. It was a loooong way down, but as soon as I heard them count Tres, Dos, Uno, I readied myself and plummeted headfirst. The river below rose up incredibly quickly towards me. Thoughts that I was possibly on my way to my death raged through my head before I realised I was already on the way back up. I hadn’t even noticed the rebound. It was a fantastic feeling. While adrenalin pumped around my body, I thought that this was something I wanted to do again. Preferably right away.

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    The instructor explained to me that once you have jumped for the first time, then you are completely free to do the next jump any way you like. He told me about a style called ‘The Elevator’ where you jump with feet first, therefore feeling the contents of your stomach move upwards through your body before meeting a more powerful rebound on the way up again. But I had a better idea. I stood with my back to the jump and hurled myself backwards. One, two, three somersaults, followed by four backward somersaults, before rebounding a little, and it was all over again. This time I felt much dizzier and sick. When I was back on the bridge I had to dash to a bush to empty my stomach. I was not tempted with a third go.

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    On the bus home I understood that I wasn’t the only one who had been a bit ill. Behind me I heard my mate Mike throwing up out of the window. This was repeated the entire way to his home, where we dropped him off. I was the next person to be dropped off and had to hurry up the steps. I fumbled, stressing with the key to the apartment before I got inside and to the toilet to empty my bowels. At the same time as I sat myself down, my body also began emptying my remaining stomach contents – gradually from both ends. I sat and vomited between my legs while sweat ran from my forehead. This was a sickness on a completely different dimension. I must have passed-out after a while since I only remember glimpses of the next hour in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. I was still throwing up when a couple of young nurses tore off my trousers. I was utterly exhausted and didn’t even manage to excuse the state of my trousers, which were full of excrement before I fell asleep again. The chicken Quesadilla had given me E. Coli poisoning.

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    I was bed-bound for five days. I wasn’t massively against this as it was almost like a hotel, where I could order food and snacks from pretty nurses who all spoke both Spanish and English. During my whole stay I remained lying down and watching TV right up until I got my energy back. However, if they had served me a Quesadilla where the chicken wasn’t totally cooked through, I would have politely declined. Nevertheless, experiencing the presence of a safety net and nice helpers in a country such as Costa Rica was a good experience to take onwards.

    Chapter 4: Freedom in a small motor home

    December 2010

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    During the last year of my bachelor degree in International Communication at Halden, I had decided to live in a motor home so I could save up for the travels I was heading out on when I was finished. It wasn’t a fancy caravan, instead a blue Ford Transit from 1990, which my uncle had kitted out. On the outside I had managed to have a license plate made which said ‘man cave’ – which was a highly suitable name for what it was. In an evening the van was usually parked in the city centre, where I could sit and drink with some friends, getting some Dutch courage before going to the bars across the street to try to get to know some girls. It was a fantastic time, where many days could pass without even opening a schoolbook. Every day I could just wake up in the morning and then decide what I was going to do with the day, apart from the days I was at work.

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    I had a little part-time job at Kiwi supermarket and often dropped in on a friend on the way home from work, as it wasn’t so cool hanging out alone in the van. One evening when I went to my mate’s place and entered the living room, it smelt strongly of whisky and homemade wine from a gigantic plastic can standing on the table. Heeey, there’s Jørn Bjørn man! I heard my mate Sebbe shout. Should we just take a drive to Poland, right now? he asked. I could tell he was drunk. The others in the room sneered at the idea and were waiting anxiously for my answer, as if this was something they had just been talking about together. I had already hung up my jacket on the wall, but it was still only an arm length away, so I took hold of it to see if he actually meant what he had said. Sebbe got to his feet quickly and excitedly, with his beer in his hand and headed towards me and the door. That was it. A couple of minutes later we were sat in the van and on the way to Poland. It was only when we had driven through Sweden and arrived in Copenhagen that I remembered that I had the van’s safety test booked in for Monday and we had to set course again for home. We could always do Poland another time. Something Sebbe also understood.

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    One of the evenings me and Sebbe had gotten started with a pre-party in the van outside of The King’s Pub and Bistro in Halden, before being reduced to all fours on a pub crawl around town. Driving under the influence has never been my thing, so when the pub closed I said goodnight to my mate and headed straight for bed in the van.

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    When I entered the van and closed the sliding door behind me, I realised it was freezing cold. I looked around and found a bag of tealight candles. I lit ten and waited, but it was still cold. After lighting ten more, I couldn’t even feel the difference, so I thought I might as well light all of the last twenty in the bag. The van must have looked like it was on fire to those passing by outside, but on the inside it was still just as freezing cold. I slid myself into my thin sleeping bag and wrapped a blanket around myself, managing to drop off eventually despite the cold, and woke up frozen stiff the next morning. My gaze was transfixed towards the ceiling, where I could see the sunroof was wide open, making the temperature identical inside the van as it was outside. Since then I have always

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