Nameless Traveller

by Sigrún de Almeida (Spain)

I didn't expect to find Cambodia

I started a short novel about my travel experiences through South East Asia as a very young solo female traveler to "dangerous" places. At the pick of the suicide, with endometriosis and after a divorce being just 24 years old. In my story I found out many people from rich to the poorest countries who have empathized, helped me, joined my trip and so on. Names that they never told me. And names I will forget. Basically you don't need to know the name of someone to be helpful, kind and human. You don't need to give your name or to introduce yourself to act and help someone which name again you would never know. Language barrier, carrying trauma, emotional, psychological and physical pain turning someone without name at the border of the oblivion into a kind soul, a warrior and with a big willing to live, to feel, to experience what the world has to offer, what can she offer to the world. The trip starts in Iceland where I live, working with my whales and living in a boat, mostly issolated from the rest of the world. She comes from a big mixed family from Finland, Switzerland and Portugal. Raised IN Spain and always on the go. So "Nationality" says nothing to her. She studied psychology and cultural anthropology but ends up working in a whale watching boat in the land of the midnightsun, she's safe and stable but she misees life, she misses adventures. She is a bit weak and unhappy. And she feels she's alone in the world and she never had anyone her father (My father) died many years ago and her mom dissapeared. So she alone runaway to Iceland to start over. Also, she's never been "single" as she always had been with the same partner since she was 15. At 24 she suffers after the whailing protests in Iceland where she contributed trying to help to stop it. Her husband leaves her, as he just wanted to keep working for a music company In Sweden. She loses her only home she's ever known, her mental and physical health goes down and she's been under many meds for three years already. So she decides to take all her savings and runaway. She has friends in Japan so she starts her healing in there, in a remote village in the south mountains of Wakayama, where her best friend and guide lives in his tiny guesthouse. Afterwards she gets a little bit of health and starts a trip around south east Asia, on her own, with few cloth changes and a tiny backpack. She struggles and deals with many solo female problems, also meets many amazing people beyond the language barrier. She knows how to adapt quickly and she's smart enough to not be a target. Slowly she starts to open up in Vietnam, meeting younger travelers than her, totally fearless from many places. And she starts to enjoy and have fun. She starts to gain trust in herself. She gets stronger step by step. And by the end of the trip after 5 months on the road. She's a different human. She doesn't remember the names of the people she have met and her name is hard to pronounce so she doesn't thinks that no one is gonna remember. But that Christmas she goes back to Iceland. And tells her story to a very close friend of her who lives issolated in the mountains working as a traditional Icelandic shaman healer. Her story/My story had to be told. And I'm working on it. Slowly, copying from my notebook everything to the laptop. With every travel a new piece of my soul and strenght it's found. That's how I did to survive, to live. And that's how I felt freedom and happiness how I felt I had a family, with the kindness of people whose names never told me.