"The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes, in seeing the universe with the eyes of another, of hundreds of others, in seeing the hundreds of universes that each of them sees." - Marcel Proust


I want to get dirty. I want to get so dirty, I don't recognize myself. I want get down in the mess, up close and personal. I want dirt under my nails, in my teeth, and between my bare toes. Part of life is messy and frightening and hungry and exhausted bodies and unclean and mean, and I haven't experienced enough of that. I want to sleep in it. I want to wake up in it. I want to sink my hands into the warm muck. I want to shake clouds of grit out of my shoes. I want to feel the earth pour through my fingers--from the red dust of Africa to the gray pebbles of the Himalayas. I want the ground to pound into the soles of my feet as I walk. I want the Earth to change me back as I leave footprints upon it. I want to breathe it; I want it in my soul. I want to walk past the end of the paved road, as far my feet will take me, and meet people who are intimately dependent upon the land and the water for their existence. I want to end the day as they do: sweaty and physically exhausted. And when I finally return to our society and wash off the layers of grime, when I look in the mirror, I don't want to recognize the person underneath, staring back at me.

I wish to meet marginalized people in rural settings. In these places far from the cities, where the soil is arid, the winds subzero, or the sun mercilessly hot and humid, people exist. If they do not speak my language, then I will learn their language. If there are no showers, then I will be dirty. If there is no food, then I will be hungry. If there are no roads to drive on, then I will walk. I will use local transportation as much as possible: foot, horse, or boat. I want to avoid the luxury of insulation from the grittiness of travel--the elements, the discomfort, and the people. On this journey, I propose riding through the western depths of the Himalayas on horseback, immersing myself in small holy towns along the entire length of the Ganges in India, paddling around the lower Mekong River in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and getting muddy in the agricultural landscape of the Li River Valley in Southern China. Across an ocean, in Africa, I would begin by walking with the nomadic herding peoples of the Rift Valley in Kenya and Uganda, bumping along rocky roads into the remote Simian Mountains in Ethiopia, and finally ending my journey somewhere uncertain, in the south, as far as my feet will go...

In this era of new beginnings amid great uncertainty, I hope that I can join my generation emerging as a global generation, deeply concerned about the welfare of the rest of the world, passionate about our potential for positive impact, and aware that we are not morally, politically, or culturally superior by virtue of our birthright, privilege, or nationality. We can only embrace our potential for global participation by collectively moving beyond theories of our own superiority. Constructive discourse can only begin when we shed our static conceptions of non-Western cultures, immerse ourselves in the terrifying unknown, and insist upon forging living relationships based upon the inherent dignity and worth of all human beings. This requires deep humility, on the ground, in the dust. We each have a responsibility to try to understand the world from perspectives outside our own--and travel is the purest way to achieve humbling, direct experience.

Although it is impossible to be completely prepared to face the unknown, I believe I am ready to undertake this journey now. I am ready to test myself in a new way: no grades, no multiple choice, no fill-in-the-blank. The lessons that I have taken to heart in the last 22 years of my life will guide me into the unknown, and I do not know what will happen. I have learned that getting off the beaten track is dirty, difficult, and terrifyingly uncertain, but tenacity can lead to the most amazing experiences. I am tenacious. I have pushed myself and been pushed farther in four years than I ever thought was possible. My passion for discovery has taken me to many corners of this diverse institution, and this city. I seek the unexpected. I pursue the unexplained. I hone my mind. I take the academic and I expose it to the real world. Why am I ready for this journey? I want to see if what I think I know can withstand the most intense test ever, in an environment as far from an institution as I can get, and I am willing to risk everything. I will be open-minded because I have very little direct experience with life outside Eastern Washington and Seattle--everything will be new, challenging, and frightening, and that is why this journey will be incredibly transformational.

This journey would also be very difficult. Some challenges will be logistical: language barriers, staying healthy, finding food, water, a place to sleep, and transportation. The challenge of staying healthy will require malaria prophylaxis in West Africa, and an immunization against Yellow Fever. Avoiding Dengue Fever in Africa will require mosquito nets at night. Due to my possible proximity to rivers, I must prevent water-borne diseases such as schistosomiasis, cholera, and dysentery. I must be vigilant at all times to stay safe when I am alone. I am aware that risk is inherent in travel, but risk can be minimized by proper planning, communication with locals, being aware of my environment, and making sensible choices. I am also aware that some encounters will be very culturally challenging, and I will struggle in unfamiliar and disorienting situations. I seek these interactions. I look forward to challenging the way I normally interact with the world, and learning to interact with people on their terms. For example, in some cultures, people will get very close and speak very loudly to communicate. I would not retreat from this encounter. I would adapt. It will be messy. I am also excited for this journey's potential for positive impact upon the people and places I visit. By visiting places in developing regions where there is little tourist infrastructure, I would bring capitol away from the cities and back into the hands of the people in the margins, who live their lives in the dirt and the dust, people who experience the hardship and joy of life on the edge. I will try to learn from them. They will learn from me, too. I hope to build relationships on some level of mutual understanding, wherever we can find it--whether that exchange is money, food, laughter, or shared exhaustion at the end of a difficult day. As I meet new people, I would show them a new dimension of what Americans are like, and if they feel like enlightening me, I would see a new dimension of life in the eyes of a stranger. It may not be clean or pretty. It may be the dirty laundry of the human experience. That's okay--I want to get right in it.


ITINERARY
“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” - Lao Tzu

Flight: Seattle to Hong Kong (no visa fee): $800

>> CHINA – 8 weeks, July/August 2009 – Total Cost: ~$3200 (including flight from Seattle)
Visa: $130, Food: $15/day, Bed: $25/day (cheaper further West)
Train/bus (Shenzen, Yangshuo, Chengdu, Xi'an, Kashgar): $300
• Li/Yangtze River Valley by foot/bike/boat – 4 weeks, $1000
• Xinjiang Region (Western China, Gobi Desert, Uighurs, horseback) – 4 wks, $1000

>> NEPAL – 4 weeks – September 2009 – Total Cost: ~$1200
Visa: $40, Food: $10/day, Bed: $15/day
Flight from China: $300, Bus: $75
• Annapurna Trek to Sagarmatha (Everest) – 3 wks
• Chitwan National Park – 1 wk

>> INDIA – 8 weeks – October/November 2009 – Total Cost: ~$2000
Visa: $93, Food: $10/day, Bed: $15/day (more expensive around Pushkar Mela - $40/day)
Train/bus/jeep: $300;
• Source of the Ganges (Gomuki) to Kolkata, Ganges delta – 3 wks
• Ladakh, Leh – 3 wks
• Pushkar Mela (Camel Fair/Religious Pilgrimage) – 2 wks

>> VIETNAM – 1 week – December 2009 – Total Cost: ~$800
Multiple entry Visa: $85, Food: $10/day, Bed: $15/day
Flight: Kolkata, India → Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) - $400
• Mekong Delta, floating markets – 1 wk

>> CAMBODIA – 3-4 weeks – /December 2009, Total: ~$1000
Visa: $25, Food: $10/day, Bed: $10/day
• Ba Hon to Voen Kham (Mekong River)

>> LAOS – 4 weeks – January 2010, Total: ~$1000
Visa: $50, Food: $5-10/day, Bed: $5-10/day
• Si Phan Don to Luang Prabang (Mekong River) – go to Burma via Chiang Mai?

>> ETHIOPIA – 4 weeks – February 2010, Total: ~$3000 (including flight from Asia)
Visa: $70, Food: $20/day, Bed: $20/day
Flight: Ho Chi Minh to Delhi - $550, Delhi to Addis Ababa - $500
• Simien Mountain Range – 2 wks
• Source of the Blue Nile – Sakala – 2 wks

>> KENYA / UGANDA – 4 weeks, March 2010, Total: $2000
KENYA Visa: $50 / UGANDA Visa: $50, Bus: $40, Food: $15/day, Bed: $25/day
• Rift Valley – Maasai herding people

>> RWANDA – 3 weeks – April 2010 – Total: $1000
Visa: no fee, Food: $15/day, Bed: $20/day
• Volcanoes National Park – mountain peoples, gorillas

>> TANZANIA – 4 weeks – May 2010 – Total: $2000
Visa: $130, Food: $20/day, Bed: $25/day
• Serengeti, wildebeest migration

>> continue south with whatever funds I saved... flight back when I run out of money: $1600

>> MALAWI – Visa: no fee >> MOZAMBIQUE – Visa: $40 >> SOUTH AFRICA – Visa: no fee

BUDGETED COSTS: $20,000

by the way...

I had a bit of a traveler's epiphany the other day.

I had just finished applying for the most amazing Honors scholarship I could possibly imagine receiving (you know the one)... And I had to get out of my apartment.

The sun was going down, so I biked as fast as I could to Gasworks Park and arrived out of breath, exhilarated, blood pounding in my veins...

I meandered around and finally sat on a concrete wall at the edge of the water, alone, at the base of the hill.

I thought to myself, maybe the art of travel is learning to appreciate the place where you are: the people on the hill squawking about their lives... the gentle lapping of the water on a trash-strewn beach... the tinkling of dog collars on the path behind you... The funny thing about Gasworks is you don't actually see the sun set. What you see is the sun illuminating the downtown skyscrapers' glass... brilliant fire orange... blinding color, burning star in your eyes, flickering over the water, warming the colors, making brown buildings golden, making gray skies purple and pink... and the sounds! I wondered what it would be like to be deaf for your whole life, and then suddenly be able to hear! the sounds of the world are a symphony. i swear. In silence and alone, I listened to the sunset sing like angels -- nonexistent to the passerby, only appreciable to those who sit and listen to the undeniable beauty of life echoing and reverberating in the soul... watch the ripples on the water, watch the colors change... watch the boats drift by, watch the sails go down... watch the last beams of sunlight from our life-giving star glint off the windshields of cars on the freeway... watch the fire of a skyscaper burn into your eye sockets go right through your head melt down deep into the core of your being...
hear the symphony fade as the light dies... sink into the still sleep of night...

It is a show. We were made to experience it. I can come up with no other reason for why we exist.

I want to see as much of it as I can.

*crossing my fingers for this scholarship*

why I write...

"Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers."

Salman Rushdie

Volunteer Park REDUX

It is cold today. It snowed last night and there is still patchy gray snow on the ground. The air stings your face and the bright sun shines weakly behind a thin screen of grey clouds. I thought the weather was getting better? I was wrong.

I was in a bad mood as I left an office-hour meeting with a professor and headed for the bus stop to Capitol Hill and Volunteer Park. This has happened before: I work so hard on a paper, I am fully committed to it, I turn it in, and it gets shot down mercilessly. He's right. When your best teachers are also your best critics, the relationship isn't always a pleasant one.

So I needed to get out.

The 49 to Capitol Hill stopped in front of a pizza place that was filled with high school students today. It's that time of day; they're just getting out of class. Almost a dozen stood outside the restaurant waiting for the 49. They traveled in groups of two or three, got on the bus, and chattered noisily. There was also a flamboyantly dressed young man with white cowboy boots and matching bleach-blond hair down to his shoulder. When a high school girl in a wheelchair got on the bus, he lifted the disabled seat so she had room. How considerate!

I got off the bus and released my bike from the rack on the front of the bus. I took the opposite way through Volunteer Park that I took the first time I visited. It was just as deserted this time around. There were about a half-dozen people with dogs wandering around, and another half-dozen joggers in jogging suits bouncing through the trees. I biked to a small playground and got out to take a look. I could see in the untouched snow that no children had played here today. Too cold. But there was an abandoned mitten, abandoned small toys. I could almost hear the echoes of kids playing here... I noticed an engraving in the ground: "Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dared to dream once do come true."

I biked up the hill to the Conservatory to explore it again. I couldn't wait to escape the cold for some warm air. When I entered the building, the humidity instantly hit me. I breathed deeply and smelled the sweet delicate scents of flowers. There were new orchids to gaze at, and I took my time examining the intricate flowers. I noticed little sticky nubs and basin-like petals covered in delicate, beautiful patterns. Each type of orchid was unique. I could smell the palm trees and it reminded me of Hawaii, lush and tropical, warm, sweet, earthy. It's such a treat to have this place to visit, an escape from a cold day in Seattle...

I overheard a conversation between two people about intelligent design... One man thought that there was no way these plants could exist on this planet in such diversity, with such great variations that had apparently no purpose, completely by chance. The other man said, if you had a giant workshop and hundreds of millions of years to play around, it's completely possible that all this could happen on its own.

I moved on to the perennial room and again located the gardenias-- my favorite flower. I smelled the luscious gardenia flowers deeply for several minutes, relishing in the silky sweet scent, missing spring. I noticed there were many new types of flowers--including a type that was like a carpet of bright flowers. There were several pots of these flowers in different colors.

There were other people wandering around in this area, so I went to the cactus room. People looking at plants are interesting. Some snap dozens of pictures and look hard at every specimen. Others are more interested in talking to their companion, and only point out the most interesting plants. Others visit the conservatory with their kids. One little girl was so excited she kept reminding her parents, "Don't touch the sharp things!"

I left the desert room to visit the plants in the opposite wing. This time I took a closer look at the collection in the middle of the room: they were air plants! I had some of these a long time ago. They have no roots, and instead get all their nutrients from the air and rain. They send off long stems where other air plants bud off. In the wild, these plants drop their buds and the plants then grow on other parts of the host plant where they are attached. How cool!

It was getting late and I decided to head out...

I visited an art sculpture up the street that looks like a giant tractor tire. I climbed inside the middle of it and was amazed by the beautiful view of the Space Needle, the water, and the setting sun over several islands in the distance. It felt nice to be outside. Then I visited the koi pond, and noticed a man with a bag of old bread feeding the ducks and taking pictures. The man had a weathered face and old, broken-in clothes. He had a brown rucksack, and he took out his film camera to take pictures of the ducks eating the bread he gave them.

I left them in peace and decided it was time to go home and get started on my homework. So I biked down the hill, going as fast as the cars, narrowly missing potholes and wondering what it would be like if the front wheel of my bike fell off unexpectedly...

The Frontier

Ran Hennes said some interesting things in class on Wednesday that got the wheels turning in my brain, but I didn't have anything good to say at the time.

He asked us if there were any frontiers left for the traveler. There is no more honorable death at the top of the highest mountain in the world, or forging toward the South Pole for the first time. The only new frontier is space. Adventurers must go deep under the Arctic ice in the winter to find new adventures nowadays. Where once intrepid wanderers were automatically travelers simply by visiting foreign lands, today it has all been done, and we are all tourists. That is Fussel's view. Hennes said that he had friends who were so cynical of tourism that they refused to travel.

This is how I should have replied:

Yes, the frontier is changing. There is no more New World, there is no more uncharted South Pole. Every inch of the earth has been mapped by satellites and put on the Internet, where it is easily accessible in the comfort of your living room. The only uncontacted people only stay uncontacted because there are strict laws prohibiting the flood of tourism. Many economies depend on tourists, cater to tourists, and their culture revolves around the tourist industry.

So what is left to discover? Why travel?

I think in this era of increased human connection, we have an unprecedented opportunity to forge new bridges with people who were once inaccessible due to language or location. We have new opportunities to learn from people who can challenge the way we view the world. In this way of traveling, we discover as much about ourselves as the places we visit. It is a way of traveling that can give back to the places you visit--by discovering the humanity that unites us, by celebrating life, by sharing what we have and bringing joy in communion.

This frontier never gets old.

To the people who do not travel because they do not want to be tourists, I say, stay home. The anti-tourist is an elitist, incapable of discovering the joy of sharing a meal with a stranger, watching the sunset and the stars, swimming in the ocean or sleeping on a beach--finding your humanity outside your closed universe. If the world outside your home appears cold and dead, then something inside your soul has died. There is always something to find, something to learn, something to inspire--if you look. But looking requires humility. It requires accepting that your bounded life is not a monopoly on the human experience. Once this is accepted, millions of worlds blossom...infinite encounters, infinite spaces to discover, infinite opportunities to go where no one has gone before--because the world changes in the blink of an eye. And suddenly, the world opens up...

So what if you aren't the first European to venture into the Far East?
So what if you will never plant the first flag on the South Pole?

You are the first YOU to visit those places -- and the only question is, what do you do with your only opportunity? Anything is possible. You are a traveler, your life is your journey, and that is your frontier.

Travel Quote

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure - self-determined, self-motivated, often risky - forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind - and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.”
- Mark Jenkins

"There is no happiness for him who does not travel... Living in the society of men, the best man becomes a sinner... Therefore wander! The fortune of him who is sitting sits; it rises when he rises; it sleeps when he sleeps; it moves when he moves. Therefore wander!"
- Aitareya Brahmana (600 BC?)

"Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen."
- Benjamin Disraeli

"May all your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you."
-Edward Abbey

"The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes, in seeing the universe with the eyes of another, of hundreds of others, in seeing the hundreds of universes that each of them sees."
- Marcel Proust

"Yes there are two paths you can go by
but in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on"
- "Stairway to Heaven" , Led Zeppelin

"Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of food, your closet full of clothes - with all this taken away you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That's not always comfortable but it is always invigorating."
- Michael Crichton

"So many people live with unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each new day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear crazy. But once you have become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and incredible beauty."
- Alexander Supertramp, aka Chris McCandless

John Lennon: The Lost 1969 Interview on Peace

1969 interview of John Lennon by a 14 year-old kid who snuck into Lennon's hotel and asked him about the meaning of peace.

My generation will be the institution someday. What will the world look like? Will we be fixing the problems created by our parents, who were trying to fix the problems created by their parents? Will we make the world a better place? What would that look like?

thoughts

Does the history of travel writing illustrate the history of Western expansion and perceived moral, political, and cultural dominance?

These are people going to places where fresh European and American minds have never been before, experiencing places, telling their tales, profiting from their tales, and moving on to bigger and better journeys... Gradually expanding Eastward, and Westward, until the entire planet has virtually been conquered by travelers. What are they seeking? What do they learn? Is there ever any critical feedback into their home cultures, do they ever absorb a different way of living and bring it back? Or do they just seek visceral gratification in sights, sounds, tastes, perpetuating the system of elite/servant?

Why doesn't Fussel include travel writing from any perspectives other than European and American? What might the 'other' side of travel writing look like? What would it look like if a Saharan nomad won $20,000 and the freedom to travel the world?

I would read that book.

Links!

I just stumbled upon this and am quickly getting sucked into the writing... Brave New Traveler

Also, in case anyone is looking up budgeting for rail journeys or ship journeys, this site is quite useful: Seat 61 - How to travel by train or ship in many parts of the world

Travel Pod! - Read thousands of blogs of people who have gone almost everywhere.

WikiTravel! - The Wikipedia of travel information. Of course whatever you find here is dubious, but it's definitely a great starting point. They have pages on lots of places!

And then if you hear of a cool place and want to see what it looks like...

Flickr! - Type the name of the place you want to check out in their search. Can be biased toward pictures that people with cameras would take - for example, I was looking at Kinshasa, Congo, a while back and was surprised to see lots of nightlife pictures. This site really puts a human face on a lot of travel destinations!