I remembered vividly the very first time that I felt it. It was around evening time, the sky was in a pale tint of orange, all ready for sunset. I looked out from the car towards the sea as though watching an old film from my windscreen with flickering burn effects mimicked by each passing lamppost.

We pulled over. Drawn by the roaring sounds of the sea, I walked, and with every step that I took, it amplified. I took deeper breaths, slower steps. It weakened my heart at the same time it made me feel alive. I finally stood there, as though they drew a line for me not to cross, the line where the sand was divided from the sea. There I was facing the Persian Gulf, an extension of the Indian Ocean. It was amazing.

Half of me wanted to jump right in and see what God had in store for me in the unknown; the other, just wanted to run back towards the car to feel warm and safe. A concoction of emotions, an adrenaline rush, ran through my scrawny sixteen-year-old body, making me shiver with a high as I looked up towards the vastness of the ocean.

I still get the same damn feeling. From the South China Sea in Brunei, the Persian Gulf in the Middle East and to the surfer’s paradise of the Bali Sea, are all great reminders that there are things out there bigger than us. To be able to feel small is truly a humbling experience and the very reason why I travel. Climbing up the temples in Phnom Penh Cambodia, the Sand Dunes in Mui Ne Vietnam and to the active volcanoes in Bandung Indonesia, all so to be reminded that I am nothing but just a fraction, makes me feel alive.