SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT: A Documentary About Backpacking | How To Travel Alone – Solo Travel Stories

[Music] the past few years my Facebook and Instagram feeds are full fixtures and stories of friends are making the most incredible and crazy trips all over the world they call it backpacking and I didn't know much about his backpacking thing but every time I saw the pictures I wanted to know more what is the story behind us and evil moments where do they sleep how do they meet what do they do others days and how do they get in all those interesting situations and as all this traveling change then I really wanted to know what is backpacking life and there's only one way to find out just go and experience it for myself [Music] [Music] I had no clue what to expect but deciding to go turn out to be one of the best choices of my life after 16 hours of flying for the first time in my life I arrived somewhere outside of my own continent I arrived at the place where so many backpackers start their adventure with the unknown the overwhelming packed packed capital of the world Bangkok [Music] [Music] [Music] 24 hours before I was partying with my friends and now the life that I was going to live the upcoming nine months has started it took me some time to get used to describe change and I was doubting a little bit if I made the right decision to backpack and to backpack for such a long time but slowly slowly I was getting used to the craziness of Asia and even start to like Bangkok after all it was a great place to hang out as well but now it was time to start to travel make some friends and became my search on backpacking and [Music] making friends I did on my trip I spoke to many people to understand what backpacking is my name is I'm the senior Ishikawa from Japan 31 years old I'm cooking chef my name is Nathaniel Damon Capra I am 24 years old and so I came to Southeast Asia to look for a job and live with my uncle that didn't really work out so now I'm traveling that's kind of why in Hanoi at this point in time hello my name is frank kearney I'm from Ireland I'm 27 years old I'm Naomi Lucy 37 years old Japanese nationality my name is a carbonate I am 28 years old and my profession is a registered nurse I work in Canada and that's me it's 125 years from the Netherlands studying lawn and going to travel for nine months to see what backpacking actually is one of the first things I wanted to know was are my backpack friends experienced their last days leading up to the trip didn't know what to expect from eater anyone it's such a complicated time right I mean that's not sleeping because I didn't know what to expect when I went to Southeast Asia I left what I I think it's a 27 litre bag and that's it two pairs of underwear three shirts and one pair of shorts and some jeans a laptop the camera I figured I'd pick up the rest on the way so didn't do very well at planning because on the plane you know the what you do is take sleeping pills and sleep through the entire flight or you know go to the bar and drink too many very expensive beers I slept on my my floor for like barely an hour and then a morning flight and then I arrived in Bangkok and once you get your order to your destination it's not going to be nearly as as crazy as you imagined it because it's something only your imagination could do right yeah all the time I feel tense before get out of Japan yeah even I spend a lot of time in the foreign country yes till I feel no tents before before the part where will you be after one week [Music] and that's I guess one of the scariest and greatest elements I discovered that he start about backpacking my new life has started have absolutely no clue what to expect and when I enter Thailand I was a little bit afraid now you get in touch with other backpackers I even thought I might have a hard time to find other people but believe me this is no problem at all Thailand this is actually the perfect country to start your trip to get rid of all your travel fries and shyness why because there are so many possibilities to get in touch with other people in a country that's completely loaded with tourists and travelers really throw a rock and you hit a fellow backpacker okay about the traveling part in Thailand you could say with so many people who were visiting the country it becomes more holiday than traveling but it was perfect for me because everything was new for me and I wanted to meet other backpackers a meeting other backpackers you do for sure in Thailand [Music] you're forced to come into contact with people here a lot more your staying in hostels but you end up talking to somebody and you're talking to new people and being alone and travelling alone it's fun but it's he just is boring I think you're just forced to talk to the hook well my way I like to play in Suman obviously it makes people connect sometimes it's become good friend there may be trouble together just on the road we say hi each other and then we start talking yeah maybe we can have one join together or have a cup of coffee when you're going through the same countries you probably good chance you'll run into them again because the most of them we visit to this space would usually go like how long have you been travelling for where are you from purview bean where are you going etc etc everyone's very open and friendly and you can strike a strike up a conversation with like anybody you need sort of thing you know we're all on the same boat and we're all trying you know we all just want to do the same things and have a good time at it so it's not how to meet you some people it started with hi but we became very very close friends I never know when good coincidence happens and good coincidence happened I had no problem in meeting other travelers now afterwards I laugh about my knife thoughts I had back home being lonely and me having a hard time to find other backpackers it was so easy you were meeting people everywhere and one good chat could be enough to decide to travel together those are the good coincidences a good example of this are the new friends I met on the boat from Thailand to LA with who I decided after beer to travel the country together so we did we travel throughout the country that was last turistic much more untouched landscapes compared to the Thai neighbors during the trip to allow I was getting more used to the ASEAN climate and backpacking lifestyle most of the time I stayed in hostels and I discovered that the hostel life was also a particular kind of culture but people coming and going every day and it was time for me to get a crash course about the hostel life because living in dorms will be my new lifestyle the upcoming months with dirty war the curtain which is not enough to cover the window Walter always leaking in the bathroom but I feel positive I'm pretty easygoing when it comes to sleeping in a dorm with you know twenty other beds I don't really care about Fame luxurious I've heard the term flash packer before and that's someone who stays and like still backpacking hostels or hotels but they're a bit more upscale I don't really care about staying in more tingly place sometimes possible to get the bedbugs it was a small insect and even if it's one it can bite you hole your body sometimes cheap means the you take risk the atmosphere in the hostel is similar to my to the atmosphere and university you know you wake up whenever you want and go out go out and do your thing you get the people who go to sleep early maybe 9 or 10 o'clock get the people who come in at 3 a.

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a couple people who went to sleep at 9 or 10 most people get up at 6 7 you never really see you except in bed and or yelling at you my intent I mean that's that's kind of like the like the hustle around the clock my friends and I would want to just like walk around and explore and find out what the city is all about me where everything is and you know we always like to find like a good street food the average backpacker is the 25 year old male he's from Canada he has a lonely planet in his backpack he is finished his university degree he's probably worked a couple of years and he saved up some money to travel they care about snow money but they try to bargain as much as they can my back is that everything which belongs to me it's good recently a cat has been sleeping in it which just had kittens my backpack is good I keep it light just close and I have my backpack so all my important things going back yeah we travel one backpack nothing nothing at all if I treat the bag well it treats me well so so far so good [Music] certain people live to certain places Cambodia is very popular for for French people for German people for Dutch people Swedish people English people but it seems to be that they're the biggest travelers of English the English are everywhere so are the Australians they're fun people sometimes you don't want to have fun though thanks for trying to sleep and you're trying to be that asshole who's going to sleep at nine o'clock ten o'clock and they're coming in 3:00 a.

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both waking everybody up I think actually like most of the places that stand out to me in my mind or because of the people that were there with me at the time more so than just it was you know the place itself and what ouka said was true the last two months of traveling I met great people and didn't pay much interest to the places I visited and actually they started to bother me I did nice activities with other backpackers during the day and group partying in the night but did I really came to the other side of the world to do those things I could do back home as well I decided that I need to get advantage of the fact that I was in a different country with a different culture I start to understand that I wasn't gonna find a real easy on adventure if the travel agent arranged all my trips transport and activities so I decided to do things on my own again to visit the more unexplored area find the adventure and get in touch with the real Asian culture someone decided to go to me Amaru and I couldn't wish myself a better country to get my wishes served because Myanmar is completely not touristy at all what makes it much more easy to get in touch with locals who are more than happy to show you the beautiful country Waimea Mars not touristy that's because they open up the border since 2011 after being closed for years because of a crew Terry dictatorship and that I made the right choice was immediately confirmed when I got on the plane before him at ochre west be raised in Myanmar and left to the states with experience when he was a teenager he was now returning to me amar after travelling in Southeast Asia to visit his family again ochre and his family were so kind to adopt me and show me the country from the perspective of a local this was really the experience that I was looking for and I felt from this point on that the real traffic has started after two months of celebrating holiday [Music] [Music] things were bad things got worse then things got even worse and now things are getting a little bit better [Music] but [Music] I think that yeah the people are nice it's still it's still it's different in the sense that it's less developed compared to the other Southeast Asian countries but to compensate I think there's a lot [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah if you if you want if you want my highlight it was definitely meeting the three of you on the airplane spending a few nights at my aunts house introducing you to my whole entire family which there is many and then traveling all over the country [Music] yes this was really the experience that I was looking for and I felt really lucky to meet okar and his family and I felt ashamed to tell them that I wasn't sure if they're gonna get the same treatment if they would visit Europe so strange that those people have less than we do see even more friendly a thing that's also something that's really part of the beautiful Asian culture the culture that experienced my first two months of traveling and had been part of ami amar [Music] [Applause] [Music] I find that something very typical Asia is just the way they treat each other the way they work for each other the way their families work they just have so much love and beauty for each other and they just want to help they all do just want to help they just live such amazing lives and two people who have grown up in Europe America and stuff it's just so different the way their families were – what the way life works [Music] but the travel makes you lots of sync what's our about your life about your future about how you leave traveling is stepping away from your life and experiencing a new on experiencing many different new ones while trying to spend as little money as you possibly can to make this travel last as long as it possibly can holiday it's very limited like I have one week to do this two weeks of spending a lot of money and it's not seeing much just trout the whole thing is kind of relaxing get away from your career you know I'm away from bunk tower to Penn Thiet I seem to have lost both the people I was traveling with and so I was in a foreign country with a motorbike that I didn't completely know how to use and scared because I had planned to drive up to Hanoi and I was gonna do that by myself and so I I was sitting in a bar that's where you contemplate heavy decisions like this and three or four beers into it I decided to email my dad I get an email back and I had told him that I was thinking about selling the bike or given the whole project up and he said you can either have a vacation or you could have a story and I think that's what a backpackers kind of want is a story more than the they hate fun part you know when you're traveling you're doing you're doing it for the long term you're you know you're doing your laundry on the road and you want to learn a little bit of their their culture and their language and you know what makes what makes what makes them unique I like to meet with rocker also I like to go local place for eating yeah but I don't need you know Japanese food in India I just great I can't wait to come back yeah this is not the end no no not easy to see the the the culture in the short term with this advice of shin and my great experience in Myanmar still fresh in my mind the bus was driving me into Cambodia the country of the world-famous Angkor Wat temples well was entering my next country I immediately struggled with the change from being the only backpacker in Myanmar to be one of the hundreds again in Cambodia I want him to experience the country like a dead Myanmar instead of the holiday experience I had in Thailand and Laos it is difficult to experience the culture in the local life if a country is used too much tourists and backpackers self decided that from now on if the country itself didn't provide me adventure I would start looking for it [Music] and from this point on I took the boat to go to a completely different world a rope that was connected by a ferry that went twice a day a room where no paved roads exist only be chicks an island with only locals and backpackers who love the simple life go wrong island where people have no more worries than how to maximize their stay and I found my way to stay long around the island and to start every day with a swim in the beautiful sea I was going to move you work at the place and they provide you with free food drinks and accommodation and it's also where I met my coworker and backpacker Frank it's just so it's been such a good experience living the Cambodian village on this island and just living in the culture and just getting to know mother's father's grandmother's children you know just animals it's just a wild place but it's absolutely just amazing Asia's great I can't wait to come back this is not the end this island will change very much in the next 5-10 years backpackers don't necessarily have the money to turn the place into greed and you know but it's one sound like my family start coming it's like you know like tourists with money who want to stay in a place with a swimming pool [Music] I'm happy working for accommodation food and alcohol well like beers I'm happy to do that as long as I'm living a good life and I'm happy and I am I am happy working for no money I don't care as long as I've got a small in my face when I got a break I like to go down to the beach yeah and either I try sleep on the beach go for a swim and the beautiful beautiful water and then just yeah be uncomfortable on the beach all day because it's so hot [Applause] I am an amazing time on this backpack half an island at night that worked in a restaurant on the beach and party with the locals and the backpackers and when I wake up in front of the beach I spent a day with a book in the hammock and then the cycle started over again well was working the restaurant I got bitten by a dog nothing serious but I had to go to the hospital a few times and in the same week I got lost alone in the jungle for a few weeks before another tourist had been killed as they told me after they were major things but for the first time in four months I missed out but the good thing of backpackers is that they always see everything from the fun side even when times are a bit shitty the real great stories are happen when you know something is shitty and then it gets shittier and then by some act of God just spitting on you gets just shittier actually I was sleeping then they woke up on the train I got the follow-up on my pants then yeah I went to the toilet and wash my pants then you know even you have seat on the train India if you leave the seat thereafter come back it will be occupied most of times and this time also but it was full of my it's lonely especially staying in places off the tourist track here you're paying for a double room you have you know you it's it's like you know you're sitting at a table and there's dinner for two and you're just going for person you're kind of giving you there are many times when I was I was at a really nice cool place and I was thinking I wish I had someone to share this with I wish I had someone to talk to while I'm here and you know experiencing this this unique location that I'm in you can choose the way but you are you want to go you know if I want to get lost in a city one day I don't have to tell anybody hey I'm getting lost in the city I don't know what I'm gonna be back [Music] actually we all the time miss something right missing something because if you I I'm always with a friend and my family we don't see how much important they are you know Sheen was right all the time we feel like something is missing at this time of my trip I had to say goodbye this time to Frank and my other friends on the island and for sure I was going to miss them again I was by myself but with four months of travel experience I could comfort myself with the thought that I would make new friends real soon and while drove into Vietnam had one of Frank's advices in the back of my mind [Music] okay I've got a big regret in Vietnam he's not singing all over Vietnam I only saw halong bay and Hanoi so I if I was to do it again I would spend less time in Hanoi and more time on a motorbike driving safe which a lot of backpackers seem to do and I've only heard the most amazing stories from my friends when Frank told me this I was doubting this biking thing people were telling me that the roads in Vietnam are like Star Wars every day people die in accidents my insurance wouldn't cover any damage the Vietnamese only care about your money and the bike service scam you all the time I didn't even have my driving license back home but sometimes there are so many reasons not to do something but the one reason to do it can be decisive and I wanted to experience the real Vietnam and have a good story so me and Nate bought a bike and entered the roads and craziness of Vietnam [Music] [Music] if you handcuff each other you know then you can probably stay together [Music] [Music] that always possibility being naked is intriguing and interesting you want to leap in America of the idea I would like to get live somewhere other than but there is a girl that I liked the lives in America that doesn't want to say I'm Frankie school [Music] in Vietnam it seems like everybody has their own motorbike [Music] like Star Wars it's like like a battle [Music] can't see more of what the tourists don't see our or experience why is so important for backpackers to see more than a tourist why do we want to stroll around through the streets with our backpacks in the middle of the night after 12 hour train journey looking for our hostel that's a few dollars cheaper why can we just do it the normal way we spend a few dollars more why do we leave our homes beloved friends and family behind for months or even years to be with strangers in a strange country in uncomfortable situations seeing most of the backpacker who travel hello looking for something in the whole life yeah another part of traveling is trying to find myself and still searching something is I think for me something is the difference yeah because you are out of the normal life I suppose I'm not really looking right now I'm I'm just interested in seeing different cultures now they always say yeah I just want something peaceful or something nice but it's not only escaping from something I think they don't say exactly what it is I've worked in the family business for now since I was a child I was a kid and I was 23 and I could just see myself sitting sitting at that desk that my dad sits at for the rest of my life so when I was younger I was trying okay from the reality I was facing in my country but now I just I just walk after something comfortable maybe I'm trying to find the place to settle down as you said about career before it does creep into the book back in my mind sometimes that maybe I've got to take some responsibility and the job that I quit when I first started traveling was a family business I'm not still there so I'm not too sure if that's gonna be my career but I've got that option and yeah I feel slightly responsible to get into the business for some this looking for something that Frank and all the backpackers keep telling me about is actually running away from responsibilities culture or reality for others is just opportunity to get to know another culture during my travel I learned you can roughly divide two travelers into these two groups I consider myself to be someone who wants to experience something different but something different than the other Southeast Asian countries was the biggest shopping mall in the world where just arrived a tiny part of Western world in Asia Singapore [Music] after two nights I returned to the real Asia I start to spend more time with the locals again because in general Indonesia is a little less popular for backpackers compared to their party countries in Southeast Asia I enjoyed spending more time with the locals again they loved to practice the English and to share the things they have with you at this moment I was looking back on the first six months of my trip and started realizing that I already made a lot of changes I was becoming a backpacker in the beginning I was afraid of every Ice Cube fetch the ball or fruit that could have been washed with dirty water I was afraid that if I didn't move my hustle on it funds that there was a possibility that I would have no place to sleep I was afraid that every room contains spiders snakes or cockroaches and now six months later I didn't care about all this anymore I knew that if something would go wrong I could find a solution no worries as backpackers like to say in the end it's about the change of attitude that travelling brings to accept the unknown and get comfortable with losing your own comfort all those locals living in small huts sleeping on mattresses of bamboo and having barely enough money to buy food they live their lives and they look happier than most people back home I know it's a cliche but in the end I found out it's true by accepting their the situation they look more relief than we do they don't need too much to be satisfied and happy they live in incredible environments have tasty food enough place for the kids to play around and most of their relatives and friends live next door with them they can enjoy a beer and a sunset at the end of the day I know and might sound like a romantic but for me it was wonderful to see that life can be so simple I think the backpacking makes you see things in perspective it makes you appreciate small things a daily shower for example normal toilets are trains that only have a delay of 10 minutes instead of one day organizing a trip all by yourself and managing everything alone gives you a sense of independence and freedom traveling more men learning more [Music] after small stop in Malaysia it was time for a change of scenery it was time to see the beautiful peaks of the Himalaya so entered Nepal another sub continent of Asia home of the Buddha and the Himalaya where I didn't spend as much time as a shoe Dev because my actual reason to be in Nepal was to get my visa arranged for my next country a country where I wasn't really looking forward to at the beginning of my trip because of all the mixed stories I've read in the media but all this traveling may be more adventurous and I knew that this country would be definitely an adventure and something completely different from everything I've experienced so far in Asia some called the highest level to achieve as a backpacker I don't know if that's true but you're really on your own because the few tours to go there is sulphur to the gigantic mass of people took the bus from Nepal to drive to the most intense beautiful crazy and final destination of my trip maybe you already guessed it India [Music] [Laughter] I can say I hate India but at the same time I love in here [Music] but I still don't understand why I love this complex doesn't make sense at all [Music] there is no underground India everything up [Music] Indian people [Music] [Music] every kind of people in India [Applause] Indian never supply schedule is nothing we can never plan [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah it's just a wideness and we're in India who knows [Music] [Music] I'd be in there for maybe one year with something but there's not it was unbelievable how much these nine months of experiences far outside of my comfort zone changed me one of the most important things I learned is to get comfortable within certainty you can't always plan all the things in life especially not when you're traveling also backpacking made me see that borders are just bureaucratic lines that we draw maps and it doesn't matter if someone grew up on the other side of the ocean speaks a different language or looks different while traveling you don't always realize how much you're learning but when you get home and go back to your daily routine you start realizing you see things in a different perspective and home was near because my time in the continent that has started to love was unfortunately running out I try to take learning examples from everything that I do in day to day life even back home so when you're on a big backpacking trip and you're seeing so many new things how can it not be a learning curve can I find it a lot easier to meet new people and to approach someone who I've never met before and just start up a conversation I think after the death in my family I became very impatient and this trip was and I had noticed that in myself that I just became agitated very easily and this trip has taught me to just like be calm and patient and allow things to happen as they happen and not try and rush anything I can be kindly to other people because now I understand the difference then no tension you know in college I was muslin library you agreed to close at 11:45 and studying or reading or walking through the dials and I didn't have to talk to anybody it's nice you know get home my roommates drunk he's passed out on the couch don't have to talk to him just steal his food and that's it yeah I mean here's here's you talk to people and you want to talk to people because everybody's kind of of the same mind you know we're from different countries but they're still the same people looking to be open-minded and looking good looking for something to kind of alter the stagnant conventional lives that we maybe have seen ourselves leading and maybe don't want to lead first day step off the plane it's completely grey raining that's what I can picture and first days will be good because I can see everybody again I'll travel around and just say hello it's all my friends and family yeah seeing everybody brunch I will be cooking some Japanese rice with my lovely rice cooker obviously going back to like a stricter set of rules within my city it's always gonna be a little bit difficult to get used to but then maybe two weeks I think I will be probably unhappy I really start my business small bit small restaurant try to make success then I want to make environment to keep continuous repair when I go back home I have no clue I have no clue what I'm gonna do anything so I'm gonna I'm gonna find a job I'm I'm gonna see how I feel and if I'm feeling good I'll stay for a while if not all these lined up backpacking doesn't set you up for success in business law doesn't yeah doesn't it doesn't give you much of an education in that in that way that that can make them let you know help you make money if anything it's kind of opposite it gives you a whole bunch of ideas that opens your mind to a whole bunch of ideas that if you hadn't known maybe you would make a lot more money and maybe you would be able to be a lot more successful because he would just be that narrow-minded [Music] for me this trip was over I checked out for the last time and made my trip to the airport for my final flight I spoke about this moment with people many times and now the time has finally come as other travelers told me the feeling you have when you return home is a strange mixture between sadness and some kind of happiness nine months of exploring the world meeting so many people making new friends see incredible landscapes and experience things that I would never think about back home it all came to an end but at least I had some answers I learned why so many people straw all over the world in her sweaty singlets and with a loaded backpack I didn't know much about them before but in nine months I became one of them I became a backpacker and I learned what makes us backpackers we are all looking for something but the something is different for all of us we are all looking for the something far from home between people who are living in a completely different life we go to a country that's on the same earth as our own country but completely different we go abroad like holiday tourists but look for adventure instead of rest we are all forced to step outside our comfort zone and stretch our limits in the end we backpackers are all the same but do what we do slightly different and with different reasons same same but different to this trip Frank spent two years in Ireland after he moved to Canada because he liked the country and he was chasing an Australian girl he met on one of his trips in Australia with success they're currently living together the only recently got married were their Belgian husband and had a baby of the year they spent in Kuala Lumpur running a gemstone business the other half year are travelling with their family she told me she will keep traveling till the end Bronwen bravely went back to Canada but quickly left to Trevor in Australia for eight months after that she returned home where she got into in love photography and started studying again she is hoping to travel to Europe next year oka returned to Canada where I decided to work part-time as a nurse he started his own film and photography studio now without success this year is planning to fill this family in Myanmar again and he might do some traveling in Europe as well Shin opened his own Japanese restaurant in Madrid which is very successful and he's planning to open a second location in Spain he hardly has time to travel but for the time being he's enjoying Madrid and having his own business this documentary is dedicated to my friend Nate who unfortunately passed away way way way too soon after our travels together and they decided to work on a farm in Chiang Mai where he got his own motorbike again and had a fatal accident with a church tonight I still miss you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music].