What the Traveller Sees - Shay

The quote, “the traveller sees what he sees, [but the] tourist sees what [they] came to see” relates to a speech given by my friend in English class this year. She stated the value of not setting goals for oneself. To prove her point, she showed a video of a few guys passing a basketball around. She told us to count how many times the ball was passed. Because we were all so engrossed counting the passes, many of us missed a man in a gorilla suit walking by, or the background changing color. The same goes for travelling. It is important to have as little premeditated notions as possible. Any expectations can cast a different light over something’s true colors. Yet having no expectations can prove to be exceedingly difficult, especially for such a large trip like India. I think that the best way to go about travelling is to actually not think too much about anything. We will have plenty of time to reflect on our experiences in the future, so while we are here, we should live only in the moment. We al want to see India in her true colors, but it is hard when we stand out so much as tourists in the eyes of the natives. But there’s nothing we can do to change that, so the best we can do is keep an open mind to all of our experiences.

Shay