A long solo journey, first stage Thailand, then perhaps Laos, then who knows? How many people dream of leaving everything to start a life of travel and adventures full of mystery? As children we all fantasized about exploring remote and exotic areas guided by novels by Verne or Salgari. But very few are those who, once they become adults, turn this dream into reality. Going alone on a mysterious journey requires courage and a pinch of madness, just like Flora Tondolo, Bolognese by birth and cosmopolitan by nature. Flora decided to leave with a one-way plane ticket and to tell her adventures in blog "Solo" helped in this by the editor Sarah Buono.
First of all why did you leave for this long journey full of mystery Flora?
Well, I'm basically going in search of a lost world. I do my personal "Journey to the Center of the Earth". Since no one ever told me “Get ready! Let's go on a long journey ”I told myself. And here I am. They are journeys in search of what I have read, of films I have seen, especially in childhood. Of the mystery. It is like going in search of something that I have known and then lost in everyday life. For example, I went to India, and I fell in love with it, for Kipling's story and for the homonymous film “The man who wanted to be king”. The truth is, I don't like progress, the modern world. Or to better explain it, I prefer chaos: old cars, battered bikes, ice cream carts, those that fry chicken in the street, dirty clothes, colorful wooden houses and so on. But it seems (I do not know this yet to confirm) that there is less and less of the ancient world. I have to hurry.
Do you think there are more or less important trips or what really matters is to leave?
Yes, what matters is to leave. It is very important to me not to have habits, to be able to take trains aimlessly, to walk a lot on foot, to have the minimum that is enough for survival in my bag and not to wake up always with the same landscape in front of me. The important thing is to leave! Need to go! Because, as Pasolini said: “(…) only alone, lost, mute, on foot, can I recognize things”. Traveling, walking, and (I know) alone, things are better recognized. That's all.
How do you feel now that you have left your old life of habits for the mysterious East?
First of all I am delighted to discover new landscapes, customs, typical dishes, smells, colors. To use trains with wooden interiors and above all without air conditioning, hand-painted buses, to see monkeys sleeping peacefully on the signs of the premises, rough sidewalks… and I could go on for hours. Unfortunately Thailand, unlike India or Nepal, is a long way ahead and is homologating to many realities familiar to us in the West. Obviously it is a beautiful country, with wonderful landscapes and people. I trust that the next stage (Laos) will be more exotic. However, the important thing is to see with your own eyes. And don't believe anyone's truths, much less mine, eh!
“All grown-ups were children” said the Little Prince “only then they forgot it”. Sometimes to make our dreams come true we should learn to be a little more children and a little less adult.
Have a good trip Flora, of course alone.
