Someone's home... but no lights are on.

7th November 2019

Do you ever feel so disconnected with life? I feel like the lights are on but no one is home. In fact, I’m not even sure the lights are on. Someone is home, but the lights are off and the fuse has blown and I’m sat here waiting for an electrician to come round and fix it but they never arrive. So I’m just waiting… and waiting… and waiting for this spark to come back, for the light bulbs to switch back on, and for there to be brightness, clarity, happiness once again. To be able to see what’s in front of me clearly and to know where I am going, instead I am just banging into walls, cupboards and furniture because I cannot see where to go.

I know what you are thinking, fix those damn lights yourself. And believe me, I feel like I have tried. And of course, I will keep trying, but it feels like every light bulb I put in is a dud, it’s the wrong one, it blows up in my face.

You see, I get a light bulb and think, this one will do. This one will fix everything! But alas, the light quickly dwindles until it’s not more. How do I find a light bulb that works for me?

My first light bulb was Princess Cruises, even then incredible job but I was still lacking a spark. I thought that would be solved by leaving to go travelling and work in Australia. I thought being in Sydney would be certain to make that light shine bright.

But then working there, my light was even dimmer than when I was at Princess. Sure, the outside of work part was great (well, for the first few months anyway…) but the work part, awful. I was in a PR agency and everyone was nice, the clients were huge well-known names, but the work was mind numbing. It seemed like everyone else around me was so passionate and involved and I always felt like I was on the outside looking in.

Then I had odd jobs here and there for three months that truly sucked the remainder of my soul out of my body until there was no more.

I left Australia earlier than originally intended due to not being able to find work I enjoyed and losing sight of the reason why I was out there in the first place.

The light was completely out by this point.

I came home, back to England, back to Southampton, back to living with my mum. I quickly got a job, thank god, and I was back working with L who I worked with at Princess which I was over the moon about. Couldn’t ask for a better person to work in PR with as a manager, colleague and friend. The light started to turn back on slightly, but it was flickering, and the room was still quite dark.

I put this down to being back in Southampton and thought that the solution would be working and living in London. When a job opportunity came up to work back in the cruise industry AND be in London, it felt like the stars had aligned. Sure, I knew that the job would be a struggle at times as it’s for the cruise industry rather than a specific line, but I felt like it could be a good stepping stone – plus the job title was advertised as PR manager – so should open the door to opportunities more suited.

But of course that wasn’t the case. Sure, I feel like the light is definitely brighter than it was a year ago. That’s mainly down to the people I work with and being at cruise events where I see people I know from my Princess days. But without those two things, if it was just the job itself… then I feel like I’m back where I’ve been, where I feel like I’ve been for a long time now, in the darkness with flickering light.

All I want is to have a fire burn inside, to enjoy what I’m doing instead of staring blankly at my computer screen thinking – why? How did I get here? When will I ever be truly happy in my job? I’m fully aware that happiness is like hunger, it comes and goes, and lights sometimes blow, but usually you can satisfy your hunger, if there’s enough food around, and you can fix that light, if you have the right tools.

I feel like I look around me, at my friends and people I work with, and their light bulbs are shining bright. They’re succeeding, they’re passionate, they seem to know what TF they’re doing. Yet I have no clue. How many more light bulbs do I need to try before I finding the right one?

My thoughts on... SRI LANKA

MY FIRST DAY / NIGHT IN SRI LANKA STARTED LIKE THIS....

You can’t argue the value for money at the family villa I stayed at in Negombo. At around 10pound for my own bedroom with an en suite and breakfast in the morning, it was definitely a good price. Which is something I had to remind myself when I woke up in the morning feeling awkward about the fact I was staying in some person’s house of whom I do not know and where the communication barrier and culture differences were loud and clear.

When I arrived to the villa I am not going to lie when I say I felt rather awkward. Very awkward in fact. I was really thrown into the deep end of travelling solo in a very different country to what I’m used to. When my taxi pulled up to the house, I could see one girl who looked around my age and her mum standing in the drive way. I get out the car. “Hello, nice to meet you” I say. 

“Hi” the girl says, whilst her mum stares. No staring in a horrible way, kind of like an observation stare. But the mum doesn’t say anything. Instantly I feel awks. Like I must have something on my face or in my hair because I’m just being… watched. 

I make my way into the house and the girl shows me my room, her mother in tow still ‘observing’. I put my bags down and they’re just there, standing at the bedroom door, observing. I don’t know what to do or say, but all I know is that I am parched. I need water. So I walk out the room, the three of us stood in the lounge now, they’re both still looking at me. I’m thinking to myself this feels weird… the girl is welcoming and has a smile on her face but I feel SO awkward. I ask the girl if I can please have some water, as I daren’t drink from the tap, and I always go to sleep with water beside me. She doesn’t know what water is. Oh god. I find myself doing some kind of awkward action of pretending to drink water, like this is a game of charades or something. 

“oh, tea? Coffee?” she asks. I should have said yes at this point and left it there but I didn’t want tea or coffee, just a bottle of water… was that too much to ask? (Apperantly so..) 

“No, water. You know, in a bottle?” 

“Water?” she says

“Yes.. water…”

The girl stares at me blankly. She still has no clue. 

“A drink of water” I say, and point to the fish tank right beside her. Beause, you know, it has water in… 

Instantly I think to myself “why the fuck did you just point at a fish tank Charlotte? She’s either going to think I want to drink the fish water or she thinks I want to drink a fish…!”

The girl says to me “oh, fishing. Fishing tomorrow.”

NOT FISHING, I want to shout, JUST A GLASS OF WATER. But I poiletly say, no, I’d like a drink. 

Now I feel like I sound like an alcoholic who needs an alcoholic beverage at one in the morning whilst at a Sri Lankan family villa by myself. She must be thinking the same, typical Brit abroad, as she replies, “sorry, shops closed.” Ok. Great. 

I give up and tell her not to worry. No water for me. But she does bring me in a cup of black tea which was hugely appreciated. At least my thirst was quenched. 

I lay down on the bed under a massive fan that is circling round at an epic speed but it’s still so hot in the room. The ned cover they’ve provided is a Kung Fu Panda fleece blanket that I certainly wouldn’t be using. Fleece in this heat? I don’t think so. Luckily I was prepared for moments like these and had packed a sleeping bag liner. Which came into use on many nights in Sri Lanka. Actually I don’t think there was one night when I didn’t use the sleeping bag liner. 

MY SRI LANKA ITINERARY 

 The last week has involved moving around a lot, the only time I have slept in the same bed for two consecutive nights was in Sigiriya. Here’s where I’ve been so far:

I flew into Colombo, landing at just after midnight. I found a cheap family home (read above) to stay at for one night in Negombo. (Read about my stay here, awkward moments and a yummy breakfast). I didn’t see much of Negombo apart from when I took a quick stroll to the beach and left 1000 rupees down. Being a solo female I was clearly a good target for people wanting to sell me things or pull at my heart strings to get some money. (One lady told me about how her son was in hospital with as he had cancer, I felt like I couldn’t not give her some money to help her pay for her bus journey there and back each day.) 

Day two, and I had a private taxi driver take me from Negombo to Sigiriya. I found someone for a decent price, around 40pound for a 5 hour journey, through the family villa I stayed at. This included a stop at Dambulla Cave Temple. I don’t know if I would recommend going here, to be honest I think it looks cooler in the pictures than in real life and when I was there I didn’t actually know what I was looking at. Like what the significance was and the story behind it. And even though it looks like it’s been around for hundreds of years it hasn’t even been there for a hundred years, so for me it was a little underwhelming. 

I was glad I went though, because I actually didn’t do anything else whilst in Sigiriya apart from chill out at Jungle Vista hostel. Which I loved, because the last couple of weeks were non stop being on the Balintro tour, then flying to Sri Lanka with an 11 hour stop over in Kuala Lumpur. 

Most people climb the Sigiriya rock, but at 30pounds I couldn’t jusitfy it, I didn’t want to do it THAT much and the impressive landscape views fromt the top of Dambulla Cave Temple were good enough for me. There’s also the option to do what Jungle Vista called the ‘cheap rock’ for less than five pound but I had recently done Mt. Batur in Bali so wasn’t fussed about that either.

On day three I headed from Sigiriya to Kandy with a girl I met at the hostel. We took the bus which wasn’t very busy so I was buzzing to get a seat. It did fill up as the journey went on and I soon realised that Sri Lankans may not have any awareness of personal space as I had some lady basically laying on me for half of the journey.

All I can say about Kandy is don’t go to Kandy. I mean, of course go there for a stop over to get to somewhere else. But I would highly recommend not going into Kandy - arrive there in the evening, stay at your hostel and then leave for the train station in the morning. Kandy is crazy, and not a good crazy. The roads are mental, with buses, bikes, tuks tuks and cars everywhere, there’s CONSTANT beeping of horns, it’s so noisy, and the air feels dusty and dirty.  The whole atmosphere was too hectic for me and the place itself, in my opinion, isn’t nice. The only good thing about Kandy for me was that there was a KFC which served a pretty delicious chicken burger.

The next day we headed to Hatton. 

Ella is a stunningly beautiful place. Not just Ella, the whole central provence of Sri Lanka is beautiful. Nuwara Eliya and Hatton offer amazing views for miles that you can’t get bored of. In Nuwara Eliya we went to the Blue Field tea factory where you can have a tour of the factory as well as a cup of their tea for free and went to see a couple of waterfalls and Nuwara Eliya view point afterwards. In Hatton we went to find the Luxapama waterfall an  when we got there, we were the only people there at this incredible waterfall. We wanted so badly to climb over all the big rocks to get to the pool under the waterfall but although Say was a ninja and confidently jumped from rock to rock, I didn’t have the balls and didn’t fancy breaking a leg when my travels have just begun. 

My thoughts on... TURNING 25

 Well I can't fucking remember that now can I, I'm bloody 28 by the time I actually got around to writing this!

All I can say is that I was in Sydney when I turned 25, I was with Zoe and Emily, we went for pizza, then we went to Oktober Fest. Loved by outfit but the 'Oktoberfest' was a bit shite, they didn't even have steins.

FIN

My thoughts on... TRAVELLING SOLO

I'd say that my desire to go travelling came after I went to Tanzania to do the Kilimanjaro trek. It was a real eye opener to me, having only ever visited parts of Europe on hotel holidays beforehand. Everything was all brand new to me, experiencing a completely different culture, meeting and talking to people who lived there, trying new foods etc. I still remember the moment where I realised that there was a whole world out there and I only know of a fraction of it, and I had the burning desire to see so much more.

So fast forward four years and I'm graduating university and I know that I still want to go travelling. But I have no one to go with. I think that I can't go by myself and I either have to wait until I find someone who wants to go with me or give up on the dream.

Then I started a job which I loved and I forgot about the dream for a while but that desire was still always burning, like a flame on a candle that seems like it will go out soon but never does. 

I soon came to realise that if I didn't travel that I would not be happy or satisfied with my life and I would always feel like I missed out on something. I decided I couldn't rely on anyone else, if this is what I want to do then I must do it by myself. 

So, what was it like to travel by myself? 

After reading countless blogs and stories online, and having met girls who also travelled solo, I felt much more reassured and it no longer seemed like the impossible.

And on July 4, 2017 I stepped onto a plane from Heathrow to Bali and my solo journey began. 

There are many pros to travelling solo. 

- Realised I could put myself out of comfort zone, now confident enough to go up talk to anyone 

- Great way to make new friends have experiences 

- Can do what I like when I like 

- Had experiences I would never have had otherwise because of the freedom

- So many other solo travellers

- You're not really ever solo because you meet people and stay with them

But it is weird when you're going from place to place by yourself.

Am I glad I went travelling by myself? Hell yeah I am. But would I ever do it again? 

No. I will just have to wait til I find someone who I can experience new things with. 

(Unless I'm 40 and in a mid life crisis and want to escape the realities of the real world...) 

INTRODUCTION

New Year. New Blog. New Me (kidding) . 

I must start this post by putting my hands up and admitting that I am serial failed blogger, in that I start a blog and have every intention to keep it but that intention soon fades away and the blog is no more.

In July 2017, I left the UK to go travelling for a couple of months and then to Australia to work and live. I had the best intentions to blog about my journey along the way - I even spent money to have my own domain and a theme to make it look pretty.

However the reality kicked in soon after I left. Firstly, there wasn't much time where I could sit down on my laptop and write a decent blog post. Secondly, I just didn't feel like I had a whole lot to say that would be of interest to the general public. 

Then I came up with the idea of creating this blog... 'Charlotte's Thoughts On...'

This is a blog where I will document my thoughts, stories and experiences not only from my travels but my life in general (which may or may not be of interest to you) but gives me a reason to keep a blog. Finally. 

I wish you all the enjoyment you can muster.

Peace

x