Just Sit Right Back and You’ll Hear a Tale – A Tale of a Fateful Trip

That started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship. Well, ok it wasn’t tropic and not exactly aboard a ship. In fact it was out of Munich aboard a 777 in Business Class on the way to Delhi. Word up. If you’re going to do it, do it in style. My entire trip was spent aboard luxury jetliners in comfort classes (not that Schweineklasse in the back), tin can propeller planes, rickety rickshaws, “pousse-pousses”, patched boats, bicycles, motorcycles, horses, camels or on foot. It’s all about variety, right? My auto-snooze turns on every time I hear about someone who traveled Asia on horseback. I also hear the sound of one hand clapping, but that may be due to some other malfunction. Travel is a sensory experience and I think should be done in as many ways as possible. Sure, do as the locals do as much as possible so you actually get to hang with locals instead of all the other ultra-independent backpackers herding together and clutching their Lousy Planets for dear life.

As I lead a blessed life, my dear friend, we’ll call her Michelle since that’s what her parents named her, extended certain shall we say benefits to me enabling me to travel the world in comfort classes at very low expense. So low you would literally have to sit on the ground and still look down. This played a tremendous role in my being able to experience the world in such vastness and for that I am very grateful.

With about a hundred printed tickets in hand I departed Munich for greater pastures (certainly not greener – if you’ve been to Munich you know they’re pretty green and of course choosing Delhi as the destination would make the idea of greener pastures quite ridiculous). There I sat in my business class seat – oh who are we kidding, that was only for meal time, otherwise I was fully reclined – and when I arrived in this great Delhi I was quickly invited into the chaos of life.

Once I arrived I met up with a couple other random travelers who were headed to the same part of town as me so we shared a taxi. After all, who could afford the $10 fortune on one’s own? A German, French and American sharing a taxi (who says world peas isn’t possible?).

It was glorious. We passed cows, elephants, tuk-tuks and pedestrians all while we were on the highway. In town was even grander. That’s the thing about India, it always gets better. So many people, such variety, the scent of spices, colorful saris and endless opportunities to get into trouble – and yet there it isn’t trouble.

The German got out at the clean hotel (Germans are raised to be very smart individuals) while the Frenchman and I continued on a short ways to that other part of town where hotel rooms were $3 and cock roaches were free. We were across from a theater. Oh, a theater you read. Well, if you read it that way, you don’t know a Bollywood theater. The lines, the amount of people that can be fit into one of those buildings. Of course the night we stayed there it caught fire – didn’t burn entirely down though so it was a successful show.

Delhi was just a couple nights and then more beckoned. It became time for Agra, Varanasi and soon Hyderabad.

Where have I been so far and when?

It all really started after I quit my job in Germany due to some German affliction called Wander Lust. I don’t remember the onset exactly, but my understanding this typically happens to curious people who have been chained to an office chair for too long under inhibiting conditions. Once I got underway I realized this Wander Lust also happens to a lot of people who reach 30 and muster the cajones/ovaries to take off. They call it a World Trip. It takes many forms. Sometimes a pod across Africa (or part thereof), going to Thailand and no further because it’s just so cheap, traveling in South America.
I was able to break free. So I did. Off I went to celebrate a friend’s birthday in Spain and from there on to India with a totally open mind about what could happen.
In about a year and a half I managed to cover 6 continents and 26 countries – whew! Along the way I managed to take a few pictures which I have uploaded here.
This was the “schedule”…
2005
April 11-13 London, England
April 14-17 Mallorca, Spain
April 18-20 Munich, Germany
April 21-May 4 India (Delhi, Agra, Varanassi, Hyderabad)
May 6-June 08 S. Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe
June 09- Aug 04 Madagascar
Aug 05- Sept 20 Australia and New Zealand
Sept 20-30 Singapore and Malaysia
Oct 01-10 Thailand
Oct 10-20 Philippines
Oct 20-30 Vietnam
Nov 1-Jan 1 US

2006
Beginning of January – San Francisco, New Orleans, Mobile and Miami.
January 16th – March 7th Brazil
March 8th – April 24th Argentina
April 25th – May 5th Bolivia
May 6th – May 17th Argentina – back in Buenos Aires
May 18th – May 28th Princeton, New Jersey, NYC, Washington DC and Baltimore
May 29th – Seattle
July 15th – 22nd Japan
July 23rd – 28th Taiwan
July 29th – 30th Seoul, Korea
July 31st – August 24th Mongolia
August 25th – September 15th China
Sept 16 – 17 Macau
Sept 18 – 20th Hong Kong
Sept 21 – Oct 8th Thailand
Oct 9th – 17th Borneo, Malaysia
Oct 18th – Nov 7th Philippines
Nov 8th – 10th Bangkok
November 11th – 14th Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Nov 15th – Seoul, Korea for the day and then back to the US!

I’ve been traveling recreationally since then and am including those photos and stories on the site as well.

They’ve Never Grown Coffee So High Before

Here begins the masterpiece. Hours upon hours of uploading photos – much more taxing than piling into a Toyota minivan with 15+ of your closest new friends and driving without end to a destination that somehow seemed not worth the effort. Alas, I finally put a website together with a little show and tell of my travels. Travels for fun.

I’m not much into Photoshop (can I declare myself a purist? I don’t like editing images and distorting the experience any more than the camera already did.) so these photos are raw and just put out there so you can get a feel for what some of these places are like. Of course you’ll miss the most amazing smell of the Amazon tributaries, the breath of camels, the stench of meat markets and all the sounds that go along with experiences – children squealing gleefully as they ride an old tire around town, the flapping wings of a Hornbill overhead, and the hubbub in cities. I’ll tell true tales and add photos as I can to my stories. I’ll tell you about my haircut by a former monk at a Shiseido salon in Bangkok, the hut I stayed in in the middle of nowhere in Madagascar, the beautiful people I met in Zimbabwe and the god-awful Mongolians.

I traveled for a year and a half and had more experiences than can be recanted here. But I will try. The story begins on a farm, at the bottom of the Ngong Hills.