What is it to be where you are?

I am for a few days now pondering the question of what it means to be somewhere and to live simply and my only answer is that this means something different for everybody! We see people who are schlepping around big suitcases filled with all their stuff from home, laptops, dvd-players, mp3-players, nintendo, the precise thing for this and that, so that their kids won't be bored and they won't feel too much out of their comfort-zone, is my guess. And then they're off, to watch the poor-minority-people in the mountains living their simple life-styles! Maybe we can start a business selling little travel-vacuumcleaners and it will be a hit? Lucky us, blessed with the idea that we think Salome doesn't need any of this, so she has a little lump of clay and 3 shells and many adventures with elephants, crabs and see and sun and people, that hopefully she will remember somewhere in her heart.
Expectations are undeniably what we carry around here, (I wonder if there is a relation to the size of your lugagge?), and what travel does to you is to force you big time to get in touch with how you think it ought-ta-be and throw all of this out in favor of how-things-are. Traveling with a small child displays the whole day a huge example of this and it is loads of fun to see the way that Salome simply surrenders to what is. I received an email that said: in that way being away from home can mean going home, and it really touched my heart! Travelling really shows how -Surrendering to what is- is the easy way home, when all unfolds under your feet, and that the more you hold on to your Self with all its expectations and needs, the more difficult it is to be where you are and to live simply. We are now on our way south to get back on the bike-route that we came here for, to see what's in store for us. Phuket here we come!
Love, Amira