FAQ
Trip Start
May 01, 2007
1
208
209
Trip End
Jun 17, 2008
Oakland, California
Friday, June 20, 2008
What was your favorite country? Why? Mongolia. Outside the capital city of Ulan Batar you are in a country bigger than Texas with just a couple million nomads roaming through vast tracks of rolling green hills, mountains, canyons and lakes. It's a lot like British Columbia, Alberta, Wyoming, Idaho, or Montana. The scenery's incredible and the people are unbelievably friendly and good-natured. Except for the capital city I stayed in felt tents (gers) the whole time. Many of my best memories come from Mongolia: Billgay my driver, constructing a family's ger, riding horseback at Lake Hovsgol, seeing Przewalski's horses.
Did you ride horses in Mongolia? yup
Did you stay with nomads in Mongolia? How did you arrange it? Yes. Any guest house in Ulan Batar can arrange an entire tour of Mongolia. I paid about $65 a day for our driver, the beloved Billgay, his 4WD Russian van, and fuel which I split three ways with two other travelers. We paid about $6 a day each to room and board in each ger which Billgay arranged for us.
How long were you gone? One year exactly. Coming back exactly one year from when I left was a coincidence. I had a very decisive urge to return and it just so happened that I found the best fare a year to the day from when I left.
What made you decided to come back? As everyone who has traveled for a long period of time tells me, if you're going to go away from home for that long the only way to really do it is to find a place to live for awhile during the trip. I certainly agree. I guess my obsessive compulsive nature kept me going up until about New Zealand. I thought that my visit with Ann and Chris in Auckland had rejuvenated me but really what it had done was made me realize how much I missed living in one place for a bit and how much I missed friends and family. After New Zealand, going to Myanmar really surprised me in a good way and so it gave me a little bit more motivation. Once I left Myanmar, though, and got back into the more crowded backpacker circuit of Southeast Asia, my enthusiasm waned. Combine that with the heartbreak I felt over Cyclone Nargis wreaking havoc on already havoc-wrecked Myanmar right about the same time, and I just couldn't justify traveling while not being in the mood to travel.
Is there anywhere you want to go back to? I want to go back to all the countries I visited. The first one I'd go back to is Tibet. Regardless of China's meddling and the difficulties they impose on Tibetans and independent travelers, I loved Tibet and Tibetans. I didn't see nearly as much as I wanted to see in Tibet and I had no idea how vast the region is. Outside the main tourist areas there are hardly any tourists and I can't wait to get back there and explore more.
Did you stay in hostels the whole time? No. I--like most backpackers--stayed primarily in hostels in China, Japan, New Zealand and a lot in Australia. That's because any other accommodation in those countries is too expensive. In Australia I also camped a lot. In Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, India, and Nepal, I stayed in private rooms in guest houses since accommodation is much cheaper there. In Mongolia I stayed primarily in gers.
What do you miss the most? Family, friends, and carne asada burritos from the taco shop at the corner of 13th street and Center City Parkway in Escondido. Oh, and my bed.
What's the most difficult part of traveling for so long? Two things: first, having to figure out how to live in a new place every day or 2 or 3. That means having to find a place to sleep every two or three days, learn new streets, figure out the affordable way to get around, figure out what there is to see and do and weigh that against what you want to see and do and what you have time to see and do, and figure out where the markets and affordable and good restaurants are. (On the other hand, I really took a lot of pride in how I had evolved so that every few days I easily adapted to a new town amongst sometimes stressful conditions). I have to say that I constantly met fascinating wonderful and fun people (and an occasional douche bag) every day of my journey. The second most difficult part of the trip comes from having to say goodbye to those people after you just get to know them and the resentment that you start to build up internally over having to force yourself to meet knew people everyday despite knowing that they're going to be fascinating and wonderful people.
Are you glad you made a travel blog? Yes and no. Yes because I would never be able to remember everything that I did now that I'm back. What I recorded along the way I hold precious. If I had relied upon me gathering all the memories, stories and photos in a similar fashion now that I'm back, it simply would not happen. It also was a great way to not have to repeat the same e-mails to family and friends. Countless people have told me how much they appreciated being able to see where I was and what I was doing. It allowed me to have meaningful interaction with lots of dear people while I was away. It also kept me motivated at times to make a conscious effort to remember and record colorful or fascinating experiences. I took a lot more beautiful (and even more crappy) pictures than I would have if I didn't have a blog to feed every few days. On the other hand, I did have to spend quite a lot of time parked in front of a computer uploading pictures at an Internet cafe when instead I could've been out sipping butter tea with a Tibetan monk or parasailing from a mountain top or hiking to the top of a hill or having a conversation with an Indian shopkeeper about the meaning of life. And, both a good and bad aspect of the blog is that I really exposed my personality, flaws, strengths and cherished memories to the world in a way I have never done that before. It can be rather startling to hear back from people in e-mail and in person as to how they perceived what I wrote, whether it's because they accurately perceived what I wrote and were somehow touched or offended or confused or whether they were a complete stranger and were surprised, like me, to find a picture of themselves in my blog.
Have you had reverse culture shock coming back? Oh my god, yes! Before I came back I just laughed and waved my hand at the suggestion that I would experience reverse culture shock upon return. What an idiot I am! Flying over LA and landing at and walking around LAX really threw me more than I expected. Even though I recognized the freeways and layout of Los Angeles, I was astonished at the sprawl and how uniquely Southern California it was. It was familiar yet a distant memory and also felt foreign which lent an eery quality to my familiarity; as if my memory was warped and from an earlier life. Familiar but different from what I remembered pretty much explains the rest of my culture shock. Somehow I had much fancier memories of all things American. Maybe while trying defend parts of America (no, not Bush, not the war, not our obsession with cars, especially not with SUVs) while I was away, I had forgotten about some of its rough edges. Or maybe it was that I had projected the niceness of Australia and New Zealand back onto the streets of America. Here streets and sidewalks are a lot shabbier than I remember. People are definitely fatter than I remember. We definitely drive way more SUVs and are far more dependent on cars than I remember. Everything is centered around roads and parking lots. On the other hand I recall a lot of conversations where I was trying to explain how diverse the population is in the States. Now that I'm back I see that the States are far more diverse than I even remember. I guess I just got used to the way life was before I left and I had to go away to really see it in new eyes. It's one of a thousand reasons why this trip was everything I ever dreamed it would be and more.
Did you find that you were treated worse being an American? No. And I'm proud to report that almost all Americans I met were open-minded, friendly, laid back, globally thinking, informed people. Is that because the bulk of tourists that I interacted with were independent backpackers and all backpackers, generally speaking, are open-minded, friendly, laid back, globally thinking, informed people? Yeah, probably. But the point is that the Americans abroad that I met fit in just as well as everyone else. I had countless European tourists tell me how pleasantly surprised they were by the many delightful Americans they had met. (And I had 3, yes, count them, 3, Brits tell me, "I didn't think Americans were funny.")
Are you glad to be home? Yup
What do you miss from being on the road? I miss the richness of new daily experiences.
Did you get sick while you were gone? Luckily, no, not really. I did get a cold every time I switched from a temperate climate to a hot, Asian country. And, like all the other travelers I knew in Darjeeling that day, I caught a flu bug there. It only lasted for 24 hours, though, so that's really not so bad. Other than that, I made it through without a single injury or even a minor illness. I am very lucky. Strangely enough, two days after I landed in the US, I got an infected bug bite which swelled up into a huge patch of cellulitis about the size of a gardening spade which is by far more painful than anything I've experienced in a few years and required my first doctor's visit in 18 months. Bizarre. I like to think that I stayed healthy because I stayed active, washed my hands regularly (and I refuse to use disinfectant or baby wipes) and regularly ate at road side stalls and a local cafes (though I certainly ate at a lot of tourist cafes and western fast food places). The last two might be the opposite of what others would say.
How many pictures did you take? My best guest: about 11,000
Should I bring a mosquito net? No
Anything unordinary I shouldn't leave home without? 3 pairs of ear plugs, about 40 passport size photos and a USB device to read your camera's memory card.
If you've never slept with ear plugs, then buy a few different varieties to get used to it. They're a must. You can make cheap passport photos yourself. You're going to need them constantly at borders or if you take any kind of course anywhere. Upload a picture to costco.com. Photoshop it ahead of time to make sure that your head's going to be about the right size, then just order a bunch of wallets from Costco and cut them down to passport photo size.
The next time I time I take a trip to a tropical area I'm going without taking any luggage whatsoever. Seriously. Board the plane with a pair of Chacos, a pair of shorts, a lightweight cotton collared shirt, a ball cap, an iPod, camera and cell phone in your pockets, a money belt with your passport, $1000 cash, an extra credit card, an extra ATM card, a regular wallet with $50 cash, a credit card, a drivers license, and an ATM card. Take a small day pack with sunscreen, bug repellent, a deck of cards, nail clippers, ear plugs, passport photos, a pocket knife, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a razor, shaving cream, deodorant, bathing trunks, a few changes of underwear, a couple extra shirts, a journal, a pen, a couple large ziplocks for papers and such, a small quick dry travel towel, a couple books to read (always keep a couple to trade), chargers for phone, iPod, and camera, USB card reader for your camera's memory card, iPod cable. Pick up Lonely Planets along the way. Except in China, you'll find extra, fake, and used Lonely Planets everywhere. Your pack shouldn't be more than about 9 kilos at the most.
If you're debating the need for something, leave it behind. If you desperately need something, you'll easily be able to get it along the way.
