Roaming Towards Myself

What’s the most interesting local custom you’ve encountered?

What’s the most interesting local custom you’ve encountered?

I’ve seen a few things travelling that have stayed with me.

In Varanasi, India, we were welcomed to watch a cremation on the banks of the Ganges.

Not from far away. Not hidden behind a screen. Right there, only metres away, watching the body being prepared with herbs and butter so the fire burned hot and clean. Watching the bones go into the Ganges at the end.

It was confronting, but it didn’t feel wrong or disrespectful. It felt like death was part of life there, not something tucked away out of sight.

Then, on a completely different planet of human behaviour, in Tupelo, Mississippi, near where Elvis was born, I found an Elvis church.

Yes. An Elvis church.

Because apparently humans can build rituals around death, rivers, music, grief, devotion, memory, gods, singers, ashes, rhinestones, and anything else that moves us enough.

That’s what I love about travel.

You realise what seems strange to you is completely normal to someone else. And what seems normal to you probably looks bizarre from the outside too.

The world is weird.

Thankfully.