Why didn't I introduce myself earlier?

Hey Steemers,

my name is Cosmin Saramet I'm currently 27 years old and traveling through Vietnam. Born in Romania raised in Austria I grew up bilingual, but now I speak English better then Romanian.

I consider myself a traveler, physical and spiritual. Looking for the answers to questions like: Why am I here? How can I make my life meaningful? What is right? How can I find long lasting happiness in my life? Is there a goal to this journey and when do I reach it?

I love nature and being around trees and animals rather then big cities and a mass of people. I like cats more then dogs and sometimes I am afraid of dogs.

I am afraid of many things especially silence, the kind of you find in a quite cave and that makes your mind run wild, but I seek out silent caves to become stronger then my fear. I do meditation every day and other exercises that keep me in the moment. Challenging myself almost daily and doing things I feel uncomfortable of to expend my horizon.

Last year I made the most important decision in my life so far: Come to China to train Kung Fu. It was the best year of my life until then. This year I made an even harder decision and that is to leave my Kung Fu school and start traveling, reason for this was the lack of freedom I felt at the school, after traveling for 2 months with my girlfriend and losing respect for my previous master when I became aware of his lack of integrity. I wasn't sure on where to go and what to do. Again I gave up a safe environment for an unknown future, but it was what my sense of what is right for me told me to do. So I ended up traveling through China for about 4 months and working in a Summer Camp for kids in Yangshuo for 6 weeks and then going to Hong Kong and Vietnam. Now after doing this, this year is the best of my life so far.

I am writing this Blog to share my story and my experience of what events have happened to me during my travel. I want to share pictures of the beautiful nature and landscapes I come across as well as share my own story and the challenges I am facing. I want to present myself honest in my struggles and become stronger during the process. It feels like I have overcome many obstacles that were holding me back, but I have so many more to face.

By traveling through these countries I get a view of the world from different angles. I have seen kids sometimes not older then 10 who were herding cows and other animals, driving Motorbike and taking way more responsibilities then I could have imagined at that age. Their life is very different from mine and it is very hard for me to imagine how it must be for them growing up here.

Right now I am in the middle of my Vietnam visit having seen the north and tomorrow heading to experience the middle and south parts of it. I travel per Motorbike, which I recommend as the best way of traveling this country.

I used to have strong depression starting when I was 19 till about 24. Sometimes I still feel sad, lately during my travel when I have no one to have a deep meaningful conversation with or share the beauty of nature, but I am very happy to have found people who inspired me on my spiritual path and listened to me when I was down. One other thing that helped me a lot get over my depressions was meditation. I can recommend it to anyone whether or not you are depressed. During my travel I have taught a few people how to meditate and they all said it has a very positive impact in their life. I'm very happy about that :)

My future plans include going back to Vienna in December for 1 month to see my friends and family again as well as getting a TEFL certificate to teach English to kids in Southeast Asia. I am poly-amorous and feel very supported by my girlfriend who lives in Russia. We will meet again in Thailand in the beginning of January and travel the country for 1 month after which I will be teaching English for one year.

The English education in most Asian countries is not very good, that's another reason I have decided to work as a teacher here.
Most of my posts will be about traveling and my experiences in Asia as well as my personal development and insights I gain from this experiences. I hope to reach as many people as possible and promote individual non touristic travel. This way it is possible to experience a country like it really is.

I am trying to reduce the waste I create and also other ways of reducing the negative impact on this planet and also bring smiles to children and sometimes adults(especially women).

Safe travel
Cosmin

PS: I have already written 21 posts about my travel in Vietnam so check them out if you are interested.