Funny Travel Story

Hey Mister – wanna ride a camel?

By Gregory Rodgers

I thought to myself, “I knew this was a bad idea.”

I was officially stuck on top of a camel. Even after two weeks in this scandalous country, I had managed to fall into another obvious scam. A young boy had approached me at the base of the Great Pyramid in Giza and had sweet-talked me into climbing onto his camel for a picture.

It seemed harmless enough; camels are pretty docile, and I was not obligated to pay for a ride. Just a quick snapshot and I would hop down, right? Wrong. As soon as I positioned my bottom in the cloth saddle, the boy had issued a command to the camel in a secret language that only the two speak, and the blasted thing stood up. My feet dangled on each of its hairy sides a desperate 4 feet from the ground.

There was no graceful way to dismount or jump off; we all three knew that. So there I sat, with the boy standing on the ground a few feet away from me, holding my camera, and showing me his yellow teeth like a before picture in a tooth-whitening commercial.

Ten minutes later I was still on top of the infernal beast. Both of us were having a sweat marathon in the Egyptian sun, but there was no doubt his hump would win out over my beer-gut for hydration reserves. The boy refused to let me down until I committed to an expensive ride or offered the equivalent in a bribe known all over Egypt as “baksheesh.”

I asked the boy to at least take my picture as he had promised; he agreed. So I held the reins with as much dignity as I could muster and turned my head sideways to look at the camera. I did my best to hide my rising blood pressure for the picture and to look like I was having fun. I mean, after all, I was at the base of the Great Pyramid, on top of a camel in Egypt!

Prisoner on top of a camel, that is. The waiting game continued for another several minutes until finally the kid saw a look in my eyes that indicated an eminent explosion was about to occur. Hardly an exaggeration — I was about to go into survival mode, let out my combat howl, and start snapping necks.

I threw some coins at him after he let me down and wandered off to a safe distance where I could curse his mother properly without being distracted by someone else wanting to sell me something.

And so, having spent one month in Egypt, I would dig myself out of one predicament only to step into another one carefully laid within eyesight of the first. Sadly, I have always considered myself a savvy adventure traveler. I have managed to blunder all over Southeast Asia without getting myself killed or maimed; even surviving encounters with reef sharks, bamboo vipers, and Kiwi backpackers who had not washed their hair since the bungee operation had dipped them.

Egypt was different though. Egypt was tough. Hordes of low paid police officers walked around here fully equip with machine guns, black berets, and a standard facial expression portraying all the enlightenment of a cow. They all had thick black mustaches; I am convinced that Saddam Hussein is actually living in Cairo as a police officer now.

I learned early not to ask one of these guys for help. First, they spoke no English. Second, not only did they speak no English, somehow my request for simple directions to the bus station had been misinterpreted as something hostile. Was I that bad at charades: I ask for a bus and instead start a coup?

Oops.

I don’t smoke, but happened to have a package of Marlboro Red cigarettes in my day bag. I didn’t have to ask if anyone smoked: I could see lips quivering on the officers circled around me as I pulled the pack out. I passed the stale smokes around and instantly peace was made for whatever infraction I had committed earlier.

They were so happy at this point that I probably could have gotten away with doing something insane and harsh, like suggesting that women should be allowed to receive a proper education!

Walking home from the museum that day I met an Egyptian man wearing a stained gray robe. He spoke some English so we walked together and chatted a bit.

“Come,” he said, “let’s go smoke shisha.”

I am an addicted, idiot backpacker. My head would pop off if I turned down any new opportunity to do something cultural with a local. And so we went to a little side street coffee shop nearby with red, plastic tables and folding chairs nestled outside right in the best street filth that Cairo could provide.

Smoking shisha is the national pastime in Egypt. The Muslims don’t drink much, so instead they sit around and smoke themselves to oblivion through huge, decorated pipes. The smoke is flavored and has a sweet, pleasant smell. Only the men are allowed to smoke in public, but the women smoke every bit as much in the privacy of their homes.

I am convinced that the man across from me was a walking, talking shisha pipe. He had smoked so much that his teeth were nearly gone, his lips were black, and every now and then as he talked, a wisp of smoke would pop out of his nose like a dragon — even when he wasn’t smoking.

Luckily, he spoke good English so we enjoyed a great chat about the Egyptian people and culture. He ordered up our pipes with a twinkle in his eye, and when the waiter brought the tall, water-filled beauties, he insisted on paying.

“My treat,” he said proudly and with a hiss of smoke, “Welcome to Egypt.”

I thanked him many times and took a long drag from one of the pipes. I think my primary and my backup lung both decided to mutiny at that point, because I nearly coughed them out of my body.

I had been expecting the usual tourist, pansy flavors like vanilla or strawberry, but instead had received a mouthful of old-burning-tire flavor. I should have known that this guy would have graduated up from strawberry shisha a long time ago — probably when he was eight years old.

“It’s delicious!” I lied, trying to preserve our fragile new friendship. “What is it?”

I could feel the teeth start to loosen in my gums already. I can’t remember what his answer was, but he said that the shisha was his favorite and that it was very strong tobacco. No joke.

Somehow I finished the shisha and thanked my host between coughing spasms for the cultural experience. I decided that I had enough of Cairo and made my way to the train station to purchase a ticket for Luxor. Ancient Luxor is an archeologist’s dream way down the Nile in the south of Egypt.

A day later I was standing in the famous Valley of the Kings in Luxor. Every now and then a cough or a sneeze would result in the escape of more smoke from somewhere deep inside my chest. I had been transformed into a shishah-breathing dragon like the rest of them.

Valley of the Kings was an awesome experience. In fact, I enjoyed it much more than the pyramids, maybe because there were no touts or ill-tempered camels walking around. I became friends with two Swedish guys and we set off to explore the tomb of Seti I together.

Posted all over the outside were signs that read “no cameras.” The logic was that the paint in the hieroglyphics had not been exposed to light in thousands of years, and idiot tourists would never remember to turn the flash off on their cameras. The Swedish guys carried a nice SLR camera and had no intentions of leaving it in the hands of a stranger; so we kept our cameras as we went down the stone steps inside into the darkness.

Every inch of the walls were covered in colorful hieroglyphics and told a fascinating story. Call me the world’s worst backpacker, but there was no way I was bringing a camera in here without getting a picture. I made sure that my flash was off and started snapping sneaky shots of everything that I could. My buddy had the same idea with his SLR, and within minutes we had an angry Egyptian official standing in front of us and demanding our cameras. Busted!

I decided to take a gamble based on everything that I had learned in this country and said just one word.

“Baksheesh?” I said this powerful word in the form of a question and it worked. Instantly the man’s scowl was replaced with a smile as we traded a few dirty Egyptian bills for our precious cameras. Baksheesh is not treated as something corrupt; it is more or less just a daily business transaction for these guys.

Then the guy caught me off guard. I had assumed that we would have to leave the tomb immediately and that we were officially on thin ice. Not quite.

“Anything else you want picture?” He asked me in broken English. He pointed around the tomb at various places of interest and then it hit me: He wanted to make sure we got all the pictures we wanted! Now that is service. I chuckled a little under my breath and another wisp of smoke escaped my nostril. Dammit.

I decided that if there was ever a time to press my luck in Egypt, now was the time. I pointed to the official that had confiscated our cameras. He gave me a flabbergasted look, but now I know that it was a look of flattery and not disgust. He smiled, threw his arms around my two Swedish friends, and posed for the ultimate picture which I proudly took. Who else can say they have a picture inside a tomb, surrounded by ancient Egyptian art, standing next to the guy that gets paid to make sure no pictures are taken of that same art?

So, after one month of wandering around Egypt in and out of trouble, I learned to survive. Always keep cigarettes, a pocketful of baksheesh money, beware of camels and mysterious shisha, and keep your cool. People are people all over the world and a smile is the ancient secret to getting out of any predicament.

Meet the Author:

Greg Rodgers is the editor of Startbackpacking.com. He left Corporate America to begin traveling in 2005 and has been happily living from a rucksack since. His blog is www.vagabondinglife.com

Road to Shangri-la

Backpacking Story : Road to Shangri-la

Photos and story by Lee Hohen
Translated by Katia Wu / Banshee Fu for StartBackpacking.com
Fall 2003 – Feilai Temple, Deqin County, Yunnan Province

Brisk autumn morning, I stood in front of Feilai Temple, and before me, stretched out in the horizon, was the sacred mountain of Shangri-la, Meili Snow Mountain. With the target in sight, I could hardly contain my excitement as I hopped on the bus. For most travelers, to arrive at Meili Snow Mountain meant the end of their trip; but for me, it was only to be the beginning. This bus ride would take me to a foothill village, up 2600 meters on the slope of Meili Snow Mountain, and from there, I would trek over the Nazongla Mountain Pass at 3900 meters. Beyond that, several more days of trekking awaited me.

When I had first left Shanghai, I didn’t know what to expect from this trip. Before the vacation kicked in, I only concentrated on finishing up my work; hardly even had enough time to make adequate preparations for the trip. But as soon as the clock started to countdown my vacation days, I rushed out of the lights and the noise of the city.

Schedule? Sorry, not for me. Traveling is a way of living. Would you live your life by a time table and a checklist?

I had 16 days, a backpack, that was enough.

My overland journey started in Kunming. On the bus ride to Zhongdian in the highlands, truckloads of Tibetans passed us by. Now and then I would see devout families of pilgrims faithfully prostrating themselves in prayers towards the sacred mountain of Meili, elders and children alike. Watching them, suddenly I had a direction.

After hitching a ride with Haba, a Mosuo boy, we drove edged along the cliffs of Jinsha (Golden Sand) River and Lancang (Mekong) River, all the while keeping in sight that legendary snow mountain of Shangri-la, that imposing giant towering over the border of Yunnan and Tibet.

Then, I was on my way to the foothill village.

Outside, brilliant sunshine, fresh air, and the sky so strikingly blue I was tempted to jump straight into it. Inside, the bus was full of Tibetans from Yunnan, Sichuan, even from as far as Qinghai, and there were also several backpackers. A busload of strangers, yet not a sense of strangeness among us; conversations and laughter could be heard all around me. Every now and then, with strangers quickly joined in, folk songs boomed from the bus.

I had been chatting with Andong, a guy from Chengdu, when a girl’s voice sounded behind me: “Excuse me, are you guys also going for Kora?”

Turning around, a pair of beautiful limpid brown eyes had me lassoed in an instant, and a second later, I saw myself already drowning in them.

Belief

An ad hoc backpackers’ group quickly formed with members from all corners of the country: Andong from Chengdu, Lala from Beijing, Inn-keeper Petersue from Lijiang, two guys from Kunming, and Elfin, the girl with the limpid eyes, and her friend Fen from Guangdong, then there was me.

After lunch, we started for the Nazongla Mountain Pass.

At first, everything seemed easy; each of us with a backpack, chatting easily as we hiked. Along the way, we passed several Tibetan horse caravans, donkeys, and also an elderly couple; they were both well-over 70 years old.

The image of the elderly lady struck us the most. Completely white-haired, and with a bag as least 25kg strapped on her back; she was carrying all the family belongings. Her husband had bad knees, so she carried the bag alone. Completely hunchbacked in front of a path sloped at least 45 degrees, she heaved heavily after every few steps as she arduously proceeded forward.

Finally I reached out my hand to the lady, and signaled my desire to help. She looked at me, smiled, but firmly shook her head. In her broken Chinese she told me that everyone must walk her own Kora, her own pilgrimage. “To show true piety, I must also carry my own weight.” She said.

Watching the elderly couple supporting each other as they walked away, I was mesmerized. I started to think about those prostrating pilgrims, under the nature’s mercy, as they made their way through what seemingly endless journeys. I remembered the stories of those who died on their Kora. It was the power of belief which had led them through those formidable odysseys. Those who went in search of their beliefs often used their entire lifetimes to pursue the paradise of their hearts. Even if the journey meant a certain death, it was still happiness achieved.

Those who quested after their beliefs were the most enchanting creatures, full of life and spunk.

The Road

In search of belief was never easy, and neither was trekking along a sludgy mountain road just after rain. Horses had already trampled the road into a muddy pulp, and the further we walked, the higher the altitude. Slowly, chatters and laughter disappeared altogether. Except for footsteps, only heavy breathing sound could be heard.

The path had started to take on a nearly 60 degree incline as it winded upwards. Walking upfront, and making each stride as if mechanically programmed, I tried hard not to look up. To see the endless road up ahead would induce despair almost strong enough to make me give up. At that moment, I wished I could throw away absolutely everything I had on me, even the wrist watch. Several times I faltered and wanted to forget the whole thing, and just close my eyes, and let myself roll down that mountain. But every time I looked back, I saw Elfin, not far behind me.

I was amazed at her strength. How could such a wisp of a girl embody so much endurance? Carrying a bag almost as big as her, and with each small step, she slowly yet steadfastly continued forward. Her eyes no longer just limpid, but shone with unwavering tenacity: a determination which would make anyone believe that even in the darkness, she would not lose her direction. Looking into her eyes, I felt a surge of energy ran through me. I clenched my teeth, turned back around, and renewed my climb.

An eon later, trees with prayer flags started to move into our focus and the road slowly flattened out before us. We were close to Nazongla Pass. Suddenly cheering sounded up front, I rushed forward. Coming to an abrupt halt, I stared at the sight before me, completely speechless.

God is fair: something taken, something to give, and the sight before us was the best reward for the grueling climb we just did.

In front of us, clouds and mist played hide and seek with the snow-capped mountain peak, and cascading down the mountain side were rushing torrents of glaciers plunging from the highest summit. Parting the thickets of the lush forest, and sparkling under the sunrays, this beautiful picture leaped in front of us without warning.

Spell-bounded, suddenly I felt lightness in my heart: this was worth all the toils and troubles we had endured. Even if it were 10 times harder, I would still do it all over again.

Elfin came up and stood beside me. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement as she took in the scenery.

“Thank you, Holden” she said to me.

“For what?”

“On the way up, every time when I wanted to give up, I looked up at you and said to myself ‘I have to catch up with Holden, and as long as he doesn’t stop, I won’t stop.’ You gave me the strength…so, thank you.”

Yubeng

After 5 hours of hard trekking, we conquered the Nazongla Pass. On our way down the other side, we came upon another one of nature’s grandeur. In the valley below, specks of farm animals dotted the verdant prairie, and tillage appeared as purest jade pieces as they laid there in nature’s harmony. Above, several cloud wisps playfully tangled with curls of chimney smoke, wafting and lingering just above the village.

We walked straight into a painting that was the village of Yubeng.

By 8pm, we had settled into a traditional Tibetan home of the villager Aqing. Paired with Tibetan barley liquor, our dinner consisted of rice and bok choy. It was a simple meal, yet a delicacy to us none the less.

On my way to bed, I noticed Elfin in the main hall talking with Aji, a young worker for the host’s family. Walking over, I realized that she was teaching Aji to read. Patience was one of my strongest virtues, strong enough I had always thought I would make a good teacher. But after watching Elfin, I realized my patience was nothing compared to hers. Holding Aji’s hand to demonstrate writing concepts, she was undeterred by neither repetition nor tedium. It reminded me of the way she hiked up the mountain and the determined look in her eyes.

“Aji is 14 years old, and he has only finished third-grade. He’s been working since then, because his family has no money. I want to sponsor him to finish elementary school.” Elfin told me.

Aji shook his head vehemently after he had understood her request: “Thank you very much, but I can’t take your money. I’m a man, I can earn my own.” He thumped his thin chest proudly as he spoke. Soon, we were all laughing with him.

Shortly after, I also became Aji’s temporary teacher, and the three of us stayed up until well past midnight.

That night, the eight of us fell into a deep, undisturbed slumber, completely obliviously to the antics of ticks and the rats sharing our room.

Sacred Waterfall

Next morning, we continued towards the Sacred Waterfall. Going upstream, and passing through the forest, we savored the dewy morning air, and enjoyed the company of the animals as they scurried through their daybreak activities. Now and then, from the gaps high in the tree tops, we caught glimpses of the snowy mountain peak.

Yesterday’s hike had consumed too much of our strengths; the three girls and the oldest member of our team, Petersue, began to lag behind. Fen and Lala started to experience the highland altitude sickness. While the stronger one raced ahead, I decided to stay with the slower group, just in case they needed me.

We stopped by a roadside kitchen at noon. A combination of keeper’s haphazard Chinese and Petersue’s rudimentary Tibetan told us there were fork roads up ahead. Knowing that the faster group had no knowledge this, and therefore could easily get lost, I decided to go after them. I left my backpack with Petersue, and ran up the road.

After a straight climb on a cliff rock, and running madly for half an hour, I finally caught up with the faster group at the road junction. The moment after I shared the road information with them, I collapsed onto a boulder, hit by a dizzy spell. Another 10 minutes had gone by before I felt better again. As I was trying to calm myself down, I looked around me for the first time.

When you least expect it, you would find your heart’s desire. It would catch you by surprise when you are most tired out: a promising reward for all your hard work. Yet the essence of the reward can never be appreciated by those who have never labored to obtain it.

In the wide valley around me, I found extraordinary beauty. Sitting in the midst of lush foliage filled with rainbow-colored prayer flags, I could feel the vitality of belief surging through the air. Above me, melted strands of snow scattered down the mountain side like ribbons wafting against the cliff; some didn’t even make it all the way down before disappearing into a mist in the middle of its journey. Water flowing, birds chirping, nature’s music surrounded me. Enthralled, I closed my eyes and listened. A smile of contentment slowly curled my lips.

Suddenly a roaring sound of an instrument drifted in from afar. It reminded me of the steam whistle clangoring just before the ship sets sail; it was a resonant, steady, and a powerful sound. Coming closer and closer, soon the gigantic rumble resonated throughout the entire valley, enfolding everything, including me, into its vibrating embrace. The rumble was peaceful, yet it was coming through with unwavering power, as if it had passed through all the Ages of History to reach my ears, and like as a loving hand, it was trying smooth over the creases in my brows.

“Calm your heart” as if it was saying to me, “calm…”

Heeding the advice, I opened up my heart and allowed for the senses of my spirit to be soothed by that ancient sound. Peace and contentment filled my soul; and my spirit slowly lifted upwards.

Soon, a troupe of Lamas emerged from a fork road; I finally came face to face with that wondrous instrument: huge brass Suonas. The longest Suona was well over 3 meters, and required three Lamas to lift it up. It was almost unthinkable how the Lamas managed to carry these big guys along treacherous mountain roads.

“Tashi Dele” the lead Lama greeted me. His face lit up with cordial smile, and as he looked at me with those limpid eyes, I was touched by his kindness.

“Tashi Dele” I returned the greeting.

“Sacred Waterfall?” He asked.

I nodded.

“Come, God will protect you.” He extended his hand to help me stand up.

I followed these Lamas from Qinghai, a province hundreds of miles north of Yunnan, through seas of colorful prayer flags and together we climbed the huge boulder beneath the overhanging cliff. Here, the holy mountain hung down its side a magical waterfall. According to Tibetan Buddhism, only prayers from the most devout could receive holy mountain’s blessings, and after cleansing your body underneath the Sacred Waterfall, you would then receive the key to your Kora.

As the Lama troupe and the local Tibetans danced and sang in front of the Waterfall, succession groups dived into the cascading water. Suonas’ tempo picked up and became livelier. I was busy pushing the shutter, when a Lama came over and grabbed me. I only had time to drop my camera to the ground, before he plunged both of us into the waterfall, drenching us from head to toe.

Hands together in prayer alongside the Lamas, I walked clockwise three times around, before completing the sacred rite. Cleared my mind of all thoughts, I let the freezing snow water pierce my body. After I emerged from the Waterfall, and felt the chilling autumn air breezed through me, my body started to tremble violently from the penetrating cold.

I had left my backpack with Petersue, and the faster group had left already. I crouched down to the ground, and hugged myself as tightly as possible, but there was nothing more I could do. Just then, I noticed a familiar figure coming towards me. Elfin was just in time.

Elfin ran after me, after she realized that I had left without taking anything. But without any baggage, I was too fast for her, as she still had her backpack. But she made it just when I needed her the most.

She pulled off her technical jacket and wrapped it around me. But it was not nearly enough. My entire body was already icy and frigid, and my lips were turning blue, and even my stomach was cramping violently in protest against the cold. Without a thought, she slipped into the jacket, hugging me tight.

On that boulder in front of the Sacred Waterfall, we stood there embracing in what felt like an eternity. Little by little, warmth trickled back into my body, and then into my heart.

In a fierce embrace in the middle of magical landscape, and in the eyes of the passer-bys, we had become another stroke of brush in that beautiful natural painting.

Shangri-la

Elfin and I stayed together for the rest of the trip, and those days went by like a dream.

The day after our embrace, the two of us climbed the ridge of Miancimu Summit, and paid our homage to the holy lake at 4800 meters. That was the most challenging trek of our trip, but like always, the most gruesome sacrifice was awarded with the most magnificent paradise.

Next, we followed the mountain creek downstream, and then took the more untouched, yet treacherous path from Ninong. On the last day of our trek, we passed through Xidang and met up with the rest of our group back at Feilai Temple. Our group humbly thanked the Meili Snow Mountain before leaving for Zhongdian. Then, with Haba, the Mosuo boy, we horsed around the prairie of Shangri-la as our final goodbye.

By the time the journey finally ended, Elfin was already my girlfriend. The closeness we developed for each other did not waver after we returned to our respective cities.

Many years have passed, but we are still emotional and excited whenever we look back on our trekking days on Meili Mountain. It has been a quest for the heart, and the experience in Shangri-la has touched our souls.

The most enchanting paradise could only be found while on the road. Only those who are willing to make the journey can truly open their hearts to what the world has to offer, and appreciate its magic.

Everyone will find their own paradise, but paradise is far from just merely landscape, it’s about the people you meet, the faith you undertake, and your own spirit, it’s also about finding something purely unexpected.

On the road to Shangri-la, I have found the paradise of my heart.

Koh Phi Phi Tsunami Scare

Run for your lives

By Gregory Rodgers

I fought to control my trembling hands as adrenaline rushed through my body. I stood with my friend in the humid darkness, shallow breaths of the jungle air filling my lungs. All my senses were tuned to the horrific scene unfolding on the streets far below me. We stood huddled together with several others on a hillside in total silence, afraid to even swat at the insects feeding on our exposed skin.

Then, the screams came.

Faint at first, and finally drowning out the sounds of the night. The noises of panic and terror drifted up to us from the brightly lit streets below. A mass of human bodies was choking down the narrow streets in our direction and fighting toward the safer, higher ground. I watched intently behind the last rank of bodies for the inevitable first wave of water…

This night on Ko Phi Phi island off the west side of Thailand had started out like any other. My Dutch friend Suus and myself had enjoyed a lazy day of lounging around in the sand and enjoying the warm, shallow sea. The Andaman was an unearthly blue color, and so tranquil that you could see the reflections of puffy white clouds crawling across its surface. In the near distance Phi Phi Leh, the uninhabited brother of our island, rose up out of the water with gray rock sides and a lush green carpet. The scuba diving here was spectacular, life was abundant above and below the water in brilliant displays of creation. Suus and I watched the sea pull the sun under and as it drooped lower on the horizon, the water transformed from turquoise and inviting to dark and forbidding. Soon, night had doused all the pinks and oranges so we walked into the village of Ton Sai.

After a gluttonous dinner of sushi and rice, we walked the narrow streets in search of the party. March had brought quite a number of visitors to the tiny island and a strange brew of backpackers and suitcasers mixed uneasily in the restaurants and pubs. By backpacker standards, the island was expensive. By 1-week holidayers’ standards, the island was unaccommodating. The two groups seemed to meet in the middle to put aside complaints and to enjoy the amazing beauty.

It was hard to tell that a little over a year earlier, the 2004 tsunami had claimed over 2000 lives in these very streets. 1200 of those tourists and locals still belong to the blue depths of the Andaman. At the time there were only 10,000 residents here, so one in five people had fallen to nature’s hand. There was not a resident on the island that survived without loosing someone close to them. Restoration was mostly complete and the only signs that anything so dark had happened were the occasional monuments and swarms of Burmese construction workers piecing the island back together like ants. Miraculously the Thai people with their “mai pen rai” attitude had managed to put their famous smiles back on and welcomed us to the new island with open arms.

We chose one of the many open-aired bars that was at the end of one of the busy streets. On a crude wooden stage, a local band was playing Western covers like “Sweet child of mine” and “Summer of 69″. The singer spoke no English, but he did a good job of mouthing the words in the same tones as the songs. Memories associated with the songs brought a smile to my face. It was around midnight, March 11th, I was sitting in middle of the Andaman sea with a good friend talking about our scuba experiences earlier, life could not have been better. A pleasant breeze was keeping the savage Thai mosquitoes at bay. A very white moon looked down at us from above….

Then all hell broke loose.

A couple Thai men ran by the front doors of the bar. After a pause, another small cluster of people went by at full gallop. I looked across the round wooden table at Suus to see if she had noticed, and her eyes told me that she had. Both of us were watching now as more and more people ran by the front entrance. The first thought in my head was that maybe there was a fight. We were next door to a bar that boasted a regulation Muay Thai fighting ring and they encouraged tourists to climb inside and demonstrate how much liquid courage they had consumed over the evening. My light curiosity met reality head on when two Thai girls in their twenties ran inside the entrance screaming in Thai. The doormen, both grown men, turned around and the look on their faces froze my heart.

It was a look of a man about to die.

Whatever the women had said in Thai had caused these men to turn whiter than I was and to spin on their heels and run past us into the kitchen to my left. We sat completely bewildered until the owner of the bar, approached our table with a forced calmness and said “its time to go now friends”.

He led us quickly through the kitchen where woks of oil still gave off their hot aromas. There was a large hole cut in the wall, and a pile of concrete blocks at the bottom which provided a wobbly, crude set of stairs. I helped Suus through the hole, then I climbed through myself. We were the last two out of the bar, and ahead of us people were running blindly up a steep hillside lit only by the same white moon I had been admiring earlier. At this point we had no idea what was going on, but our innate human instinct to stay alive told us to run.

And that is what we did. As we struggled to catch up with the locals that had been drinking with us just moments earlier, knee deep vegetation cut at our bare legs and invisible vines tried to trip us. We were already drawing the attention of insects in the brush, I knew that it was going to be a long night.

When we stopped running, we stood close to some Thai people. There were maybe a dozen or so of us on the green hillside, everyone had ears glued to mobile phones and chatted nervously with friends and relatives all over the island. A young Thai girl told us that there had been an earthquake felt in Phuket, another island a quick boat ride away. Those same tremors were the only warning that any of these people had felt before disaster had struck the day after Christmas in 2004. The event was still obviously fresh in their minds, and the news report and calls from relatives had triggered a mass panic. Below us in the brightly lit streets, we could see dozens of people on the move. Locals and tourists alike were literally running for their lives, trying to reach the precious high ground where we now stood. I listened, but there was no siren wailing in alarm. Then again, the one in 2004 did not sound either.

When we heard the Thai girl’s explanation, I groaned in disbelief. I fought to recall news that I had heard about the last tsunami, what was I to expect? The skeptical part of myself said that the chances of another tsunami so soon were very obsolete, but then again, sometimes I wasn’t very lucky and nature worked in mysterious ways. Suus stood next to me, her body trembling. She was stricken with fear, but bravely stayed calm. I struggled to stay focused, to get into survival mode. I remembered that many people had lost track of friends and loved ones, so I knew that we had to stick together. My mind jumped around faster than I could absorb the thoughts. First it flashed to my passport which was back in my bungalow, I cursed myself for not having stuck it inside my money belt. I started thinking about my medical training that I had received in the Army, maybe it would be of use while we were stranded here on the island. Then I remembered how the survivors in 2004 had waited for days to get clean drinking water and food supplies, what was my plan…?

My thoughts were interrupted by an announcement over loud speakers from the streets below. It was only in Thai, not very fair I thought to myself considering the number of tourists on the island. We looked to our Thai girl for an explanation. She said that Bangkok had confirmed that there was no wave, but we were to return to our rooms and collect our passports in case something happened.

Fat chance. The government didn’t exactly have a shining track record in my opinion, and the command to retrieve our passports seemed a little dodgy to me. Suus agreed and so we stayed put another dreadfully painful 30 minutes, until the last local had slowly made their way back down to the street below. Soon, we decided that taking our chances with the water would be better than feeding the insect cloud that had come to feast on us, so we trudged down the moist slope and into the village below.

The time was almost 01:30am and the streets were buzzing with activity. There was not a prayer of going to sleep after such a dose of adrenaline, and people were actually filling the travel shops to book passage off the island. They had had enough of Ko Phi Phi. All around me travelers comforted their tearful partners. We went directly to a busy internet cafe, where I quickly checked every news website I could find. My fingers worked as fast as they could as I looked at weather radars, CNN, etc…..

I never found our tsunami, the sacrifice in 2004 must have been enough to sedate the Andaman. The next day, the island was nearly deserted. I did speak to an older English couple that had stood their ground and decided not to let the scare ruin their holiday. They showed me that our night had made the London Post, and that the earthquake had been felt as far away as Indonesia. The Post also claimed that geologists were concerned over all the seismic activity in the area, so the panic had not been completely ungrounded.

The night after our scare, we ventured out to a beach party where there was an amazing fire show. I had a good time, but my eyes always went nervously back to that black water just a few meters away and I wondered when it would grow restless again. I whispered a silent “thank you” and prayed that I wouldn’t be here to find out.

Meet the Author:

Greg Rodgers is the editor of Startbackpacking.com and left Corporate America to begin traveling in 2005. He’s been happily living from a rucksack since.  His blog is www.vagabondinglife.com

Backpacking Story: Easy as Pai

Easy as Pai

By gregory Rodgers

My motorbike screamed in protest as I made my way up yet another steep mountain.

The screaming was interrupted from time to time by a disheartening sputter as whatever petrol was left in my tank shifted so far to the rear that the engine couldn’t reach it. I tried to take in the gorgeous jungle and mountain scenery around me, but my eyes always ended up in the same place…

The fuel gauge. The same fuel gauge which I had watched over the last few hours make the transition from “F” to “E”.

I began my adventure in the Thai city of Chiang Mai, several hours earlier. A conversation with a French guy at breakfast (if I have to blame someone, it might as well be the French) had ended with an absurd idea planted in the dangerously fertile soil of my brain.

Rather than take the local bus up the mountainous road to the small village of Pai, I would hire a motorbike and make my own way. The winding bus ride was notorious for making all but the strongest stomachs want to empty their contents, and April is one of the hottest months in Thailand – not the time to be on a crowded bus with no AC.

Besides, what could be more manly than the wind blowing through my hair as I tackled the Kilometers Che Guevara style with a backpack on? There was only one minor detail:

I have never driven a motorcycle.

I convinced myself that it would be like riding a mountain bike with no pedals, and so off I went to rent one at the local shop. With Songkran, the Thai new year, rapidly approaching, the not-so-friendly woman behind the counter only had 2 scooters left to offer me – a pink Yamaha or a brand new lime-green one.

I had to sign a contract that would have made the Devil’s legal department cringe. Dings on the bike were punishable by caning of the feet, a dent could be punishable by death. After securing my passport as ransom, we stepped outside and she made a beeline for the scraped up pink one. I gave her a “don’t even think about it” look and sat on the green bike instead.

After all, one never knows when I may pull up at a biker joint in Northern Thailand. A respectable ride was worth the difference in Baht that she charged me.

The busy streets of Chiang Mai caught up in a festival preparation is one hell of a place to take your first ride on a motorcycle, but I soon got the hang of it. I decided against stenciling my confirmed pedestrian kills on the side of the bike (there may have been a few) – for fear of the contract. An hour later and I was dodging market carts and tuk-tuk drivers with an ease that would have made Neo proud.

After securing my heavy backpack which made the bike lean precariously whenever I turned, I grabbed a free map from my guest house and set off on my first motorcycle adventure.

I twisted the throttle to a comfortable 50 MPH and made my way north away from the hectic Chiang Mai and into the lush green hills. I was feeling very Guevara-ish until a giant, Southeast Asia sized bug decided to end its life across my forehead and nearly knocked me off the bike. Did Guevara have this problem or did they avoid him out of sheer respect? I’ll never know, but when I took my first break on the side of the road, it looked like I had measles from all the insect impacts.

The road was in fairly good condition and I was covering the kilometers quickly. The problem was that there were a LOT of kilometers to cover. Soon enough, it became clear that my petrol was going to run out before my determination.

I had not passed a soul on the mountain road in almost an hour, and there had been no encouraging signs. Around every corner, I looked for a house or some indication that civilization was approaching, but instead found only more trees. I began to doubt myself and wondered if maybe I had missed a turn…or had misread the map which had a giant disclaimer printed at the top “NOT TO SCALE”.

Finally, I hailed a couple of young Thai teenagers on bikes of their own and in my best slaughtering of the Thai language asked them how much further it was to Pai.

“Hok kilometers” he answered and I felt hundreds of pounds lifted off my shoulders…or was it the straps to my rucksack finally giving in? He had said it was only six more kilometers and confirmed that I was going in the right direction.

I thanked him and with a cheery wave as we parted ways. Six kilometers was nothing, I could easily make Pai. I could push the blasted thing that far if it quit on me! I gave the throttle a jackrabbit twist and left victory tire marks on the street. Ten minutes later and I was regretting those petrol-eating tire marks. I rounded a sharp curve in the road and a giant green sign read:

“Pai – 60 kilometers”.

My jaw dropped open and I stopped the gasping motorbike in the middle of the street. Somehow above the noise of our 3 rides, I had missed the Thai word “sip” which would have multiplied my friend’s distance estimate by ten.

Oops.

There was now no doubt in my mind that I was not going to make it. It felt like I had fumbled the ball on my own 5 yard line. So close, but not really. So much for the revolution.

I furiously thought back to breakfast. Why hadn’t the French guy warned me that Pai was out of reach for these little scooters? And where was he now anyway?

Probably on the bus.

The sun was getting low on the mountains, and the trees around me were beginning to cast longer shadows. I went into disaster recovery mode and began thinking through scenarios. I thought about chaining the bike to a tree, or hiding it in the jungle, then hitchhiking my way to town to get a can of fuel – but visions of the lady standing behind the rental counter with a bamboo cane soon took over.

I had heard rumors that the scooters would even run on Thai whiskey, but I decided against it because given my stress levels I probably would not have saved the bike any. One thing was for sure – I had to keep going forward, and that is what I did.

I took my hand off the throttle at every hill so that I would coast down with the help of gravity. I slowed my speed to a jogger’s pace in an effort to conserve precious fuel, even using my feet Flintstone style to kick off on the ground when I needed more acceleration. I made much more progress than I had expected, but I soon found myself with the throttle wide open and my bike barely moving.

Uh oh. The ride was up. It was time to insert another quarter, but I didn’t have any in my pockets.

I looked over and set out in a farmer’s field was a wooden shack with giant 55 gallon drums inside. I had nothing to lose, so I pushed my worthless rental up the dirt path to the house and was met by a toothless Thai woman, probably in her sixties. I pointed to the bike, and she gave me a smile like she had just hit the lottery and pointed to the shack.

Yes! I was saved! I fought the urge to do a backflip and rolled the bike over to where the cans were. She inserted a handpump and I watched as some sort of oily sludge made its way down the clear tube and into my tank. I didn’t care if I filled the tank from her septic system, if it made my cylinders fire then I was a happy man. When she told me the price, I understood why she had smiled – she HAD hit the lottery.

Oh-well, we were both happy and about an hour later, in a cloud of black what-the-heck-did-you-just-put-in-my-tank smoke, I rolled into Pai victorious. I patted my fiberglass steed on the side with a grin, and began looking for two things: Some Pad Thai and a mechanic, I knew I was going to need it.

Meet the Author:

Greg Rodgers is the editor of Startbackpacking.com and left Corporate America to begin traveling in 2005. He’s been happily living from a rucksack since. His homepage is www.gregoryrodgers.com.

Alaska Stories – Grizzly Encounter

“Adventure is just a romantic name for trouble”. – Louis L’Amour

Close Encounters in Alaska

By Gregory Rodgers

Two dark eyes, black as coal, stared at me from the river bank we had anchored beside of. The tall grass waved a rainbow of browns and violets in the breeze and for a tense minute there were only the sounds of the river rushing against the rubber pontoons of our raft.

Nothing but knee deep water and 20 meters of air separated me from a very large animal that had the necessary tools to swap places with me on the food chain – the same food chain which I had taken for granted as I ate my breakfast at camp that morning. I briefly pondered my options, which included finishing my half-eaten turkey sandwich, succumbing to the bear-fear and crying like a baby, or grabbing my camera and hoping for the best.

I chose to take pictures. It seems that most famous artists never saw success until they were dead anyway, so maybe this was my big break. Through a shaking lens, I watched a very large grizzly bear take a few probing steps closer in our direction. The bear was young, its shaggy coat still mostly blond, but it stood seven feet tall and was built like a Sumo wrestler on steroids.

My father and buddy from Alaska weren’t so glass-is-half-full about our given situation and had already moved behind the boat. They armed themselves with paddles in case the bear was still hungry after finishing me and my camera off.

Yes, I was in Alaska, surrounded by some of the most beautiful and untouched scenery still left on the planet. Yes, we had somehow managed to ring a grizzly’s doorbell and it now stood staring at us curiously. Oops.

Thirty tranquil minutes earlier, we had been fishing the famous Kenai River in Alaska. It was August, but the bluish glacier water was still frigid. We had floated for a full day to the mouth of Skilak lake, as beautiful and remote as North America has to offer.

We were the only humans for miles, the only way in or out being by boat or bush plane. As we waded and fished, we spotted an area where the grass growing on the banks had been mashed flat. My sensibility must have been numbed by a cold night of camping on the lake and the lack of fish, so we decided to explore. I hopped out of the water onto the muddy bank and made a brief foray down the trail. Along the way were huge piles of scat (that’s “bear crap” for us non-biologists) and more areas where a large animal had bedded down for the night.

The place even smelled like bear. A smarter mammal would have probably recognized that as an immediate threat, yet we forged on. We were, no doubt, standing in a bear’s living room.

The trail ended back in the river, but also at the favorite fishing spot of a young brown bear. We watched for a moment as he fished to see if he was having any more luck with the salmon than we did. With my heart pounding and images of a National Geographic job offer in my head, I low-crawled through the grass like a marine sniper and began taking pictures.

The wind shifted and the instant I felt it on the back of my neck, the bear stood up, did a perfect about-face, and locked his black eyes with mine. He gave me a surprised look that screamed, “What the heck are you guys doing here?”

I am not a bear expert, nor do I want to be, as alluring as it sounds. Spending my life freezing in the wild, trying to get a radio collar onto a gigantic and reclusive animal that could kill me in 200 creative and messy ways just doesn’t have a nice ring to it. I’m sure in Alaska it gathers more pub brownie points than telling people that I am a “writer”, but I’ll still pass.

We did not need an expert to tell us that we were probably in trouble. We quickly made a retreat back the way we came, slipping and stumbling down the muddy trail, with my buddy Skip in the lead. I glanced over my shoulder several times expecting the worst and gained an appreciation for what a gazelle on the Discovery Channel probably feels like. Before breaking through the grass into the river, Skip stopped dead in his tracks, turned around with wide eyes, and said “Go back! Go back!”.

It was another bear.

First of all, anyone telling you that you need to run in the same direction that you just saw a grizzly bear is frightening. When an experienced Alaskan sportsman is telling you to do it, things really cannot be good. A second bear now stood between us and the boat – an interesting situation to find yourself in on holiday.

After waiting for what felt like an eternity between the two threats, we made a wide circle back to the river. At the raft we slowly came down from our adrenaline high, laughed hysterically, and accused everyone of being more scared than the other. We had already begun exaggerating our stories for the women at home.

I’m still not sure what it was that made me stop laughing and slowly turn around, but there he was, less than 20 meters away in the grass. Blond hair was blowing in the cold breeze and an expressionless brown face stood even with mine. Like amateurs, we had been followed.

For almost a minute, the only sounds were that of my Nikon shutter clicking, three hearts pounding, and the bear sniffing. I watched through my viewfinder as he inched closer with curiosity. It took full concentration not to drop my wobbling camera into the water.

Convinced that we looked fatty and that our screams would probably frighten the salmon too much, the young grizzly (with fully developed teeth and claws I’m sure) turned around and lumbered off into the grass with a snort. Convinced that our luck had been utterly pushed beyond limits, the three of us decided to strategically withdraw and call it even in case the young bear had second thoughts.

We shoved the raft back into the river current which would carry us home and climbed aboard still buzzing from the experience. If our brown friend had been a little older, a little grumpier, or had not just eaten his fill of salmon for the day, things might have turned out a little differently….this story would probably be written by someone else!

Meet the Author:

Greg Rodgers is the editor of Startbackpacking.com and left Corporate America to begin traveling in 2005. He’s been happily living from a rucksack since. His blog is www.vagabondinglife.com

Vagabonding Chronicles – part 2

Vagabonding Chronicles – part 2

Hitchhiking from Canada to South America

Written for Startbackpacking.com by Cat Duval

Go read part 1 first!

All is calm on the highway.

The truckers are sleeping in their cabins, morning commuters still at their tables drinking coffee and reading the paper. I have been taking in a new morning since before sunrise. It has now taken on its usual bright blue shade and I’m curled up in my blankets wiping the remnants of a long night from my eyes.

My choice in a place to sleep wasn’t as good as I had expected, freight trains chugging by and as such, gusts of wind pulling me out of Morpheus’ arms every two hours. I pull myself out of the warmth because I still have the rest of Washington, Oregon and half of California to cross, and I need to be there by tomorrow evening.

Tiago and I commence our morning ritual, he does a downward dog that would make even a yoga master green with envy and I imitate a golf swing to get all the kinks out. I make sure he gets fed well before stuffing everything back into my broken bag, which after over a decade of use is now held together with various bungee cords. I cross the road with a smile and a stomach that is growling.

Thanks to the pastel pantsuit ladies I can buy a warm breakfast, a luxury I haven’t had in quite some time. The idea of crispy bacon and runny eggs smothered all over buttery whole grain bread after eating canned tuna and stolen veggies mixed in with Mac N´ Cheese is heavenly.

The waitress smiles at me and pours me a cup of coffee as I flip through the menu. There is nothing under nine dollars. That seems a little much to be spending on a meal with my budget. Goodbye, fried pig fat and scrambled chicken embryons, coffee and cigarettes it is. Nothing beats a healthy breakfast comprised of caffeine, nicotine and adrenaline.

The coffee is barely caffeinated water only drinkable once the contents of four creamers and five packets of refined sugar have been added to it. Ugh, fouler than foul, what else is to be expected in this tiny, sleepy desert town? Certainly not an espresso bar. I should have gotten some pre mixed specialty coffee from a coin machine instead – it probably would have tasted better and given me more energy.

I head back outside to my dog and my pack as it’s 7:30 and time is a wasting, let’s go. I walk down about a mile until I find a spot that looks inviting. Trucks and cars are speeding by with such velocity the wind almost knocks me over a few times. Maybe I should have stayed at the station. That’s what Ché B, my intrepid Argentine hitching companion, would have done. We flew through Patagonia together in March, sharing maté and good conversation until the truckers would leave at dawn. He swore by truck stops.

I swore by old fashioned signs and thumbs. Everyone has their method, I suppose, but the truck stop didn’t seem inviting, after my entrance last night. So I stick to the method of roadside thumbing.

After about an hour someone stops ahead of me on the shoulder, I run up to the window and ask if he’s going near the 97, the road I need to catch to get to Oregon. He can take me 20 miles down to a gas station which is the entry point so it’s perfect. I thank him for the ride and typical conversation ensues: Where are you from (a little bit of everywhere), where are you going, aren’t you afraid to be hitching out here alone?

I’m not alone, I say, I’ve got my little Bolivian canine here with me. People often don’t realize what amazing traveling companions dogs are. Why else would so many of us have one? It’s not just for safety. It’s a question of sanity.

Before he drops me off, he asks me if I’ve had breakfast, if I’m hungry. I try to turn down the offer by saying I have money and will grab a bite when I get into town but he insists.

That’s when I see the golden arches. I haven’t eaten at McDonald’s since I decided to never give them any money after working there and throwing a tray in a nagging customer’s face. This is different, though, as I’m not paying, and a free meal is a free meal, right? I leave my principles aside and order hash browns and one of those deep fried apple pies.

It turns out the McDonald’s is right next to the gas station, so once we’ve finished our breakfast, he thanks me for the company on his way to work and Tiago and I are on our way.

I follow the signs for the 97 south. I walk about fifteen minutes, cross a bridge and pick a spot a few metres further down, where there is a little traffic booth and a good, wide shoulder. Perfect for stopping without causing an accident or blocking traffic.

Ten minutes pass, and a big pick up with an Oregon license plate pulls up.

“Where ya going?”

“Cali!”

“Well, I’m going to the Oregon border and then on to Portland, so I can take you about 350 miles.” I lift my pack over my head and put it in the back of the pick up.

“Wow, that sure is a heavy load for such a small young thing.”

Yes, it is a big pack. And yes, it is pretty heavy. But compared to the 600 lbs of fruit I picked every day for a month and a half, this forty-five pound pack I walk around with is nothing – I have shoulders that would make Van Damme run for his money.

I jump in with Tiago, and for the umpteenth time in 24 hours repeat my story.

This man, I’m not certain of his name, Bob, or Bill, he’s older, early sixties. He runs some sort of business although it’s not clear what exactly, something to do with driving RVs across state lines. He tells me about the region, how he grew up around here on an apple orchard, and that we have fruit picking in common. It’s probably been about fifteen years since he’s picked up a hitchhiker, he says, and I really should consider deviating my route to go through the Columbia mountain range and then south from Portland. I’m not too sure I want to do that, hitching out of big cities is generally a pain in the ass.

I think about changing my route for a while as I listen to his stories and his reasons why I should follow him. Tiago jumps up on me and licks my face, the driver looks over and sighs.

“If only I were him…”

That seals the deal. The state line it is. I’m not comfortable with that statement.

We get to the interchange which separates Washington and Oregon. He offers to buy me lunch. I decide on a BLT and tater tots which I haven’t eaten in a good ten years. Tiago sits outside the diner, barking at anyone who even comes within three feet of my bag. I would feel bad about having an aggressive dog, except he’s doing his job and the old ladies who come near my bag, our home, should know better.

We finish our meal, yet another person met along my journey to wish well, and I wave at him from the side of the road.

Five minutes later, a woman in her forties picks me up on her way to her annual “just us girls getaway” weekend. She’s steering as she chomps down on her Mcmeal, flecks of special sauce and sesame escaping her mouth. Just as she’s about to drop me off, she pulls over and out comes a little bag full of green. She asks me if I’d like to roll a joint. I’m taken aback by this gesture offered by what appears to be a soccer mom happily integrated in American society. I chuckle and accept. We share a THC moment and I’m left in a ghost town in the middle of the desert, completely blitzed.

I lean on a fence and look around. Nothing. Abandoned everything. Just like in the movies, tumbleweeds lazily roll by. I wait. For a long time.

Down the two lane highway I spot a big rig. The first vehicle I’ve seen since I exited my last ride.It starts to stop.

I wave him past, I don’t like getting into trucks on the side of the road. Thirty or so minutes pass. In the distance, another blazes down towards me.

I tell him to go. This truck gets stuck, taking about ten minutes to back out on to the road again. I feel bad, and now I’m overly paranoid because of the puffs of marijuana. What if he’s really pissed off and because of me he won’t make his schedule? Is he on his CB talking to all his little trucker friends sending out my description? Am I on a trucker hit list?

Another thirty minutes without a soul. The sun is starting to get low, I guess four o’clock by its current position. I pray to get a ride out – sleeping in a ghost town, although devoid of cops and tickets, is a bit creepy, even for me.

A third truck stops. I figure anything is better than nothing, run towards it, jump in, and tell him to drop me off in the next town, 50 miles down the road.

He starts to enter something in his little trucker computer and my inner mother sends me red alert signs, HE’S SENDING MESSAGES TO THE LAST ONE TO SAY HE’S GOT YOU AND ARRANGING A MEETING POINT! I tell the voices in my head to shut up, the dog will know what to do, and I have a pocket knife which I will happily insert in the appropriate areas if needed.

I look around the cabin. No porno posters, no tractor posters, no empty beer bottles. Instead, a battered old copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Anyone driving around the country with Hunter S. Thompson in his truck can’t be bad, right? I’m reminded of Claudio, the trucker Ché B and I jumped in with at Trelew and who dropped us off, 2 000 km later, in Rio Gallegos. He had The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda in his truck, and he was a good guy.

Could it be that you are who you read?

Turns out that John used to work in computers and retired early to go hide out in Amsterdam, spending a year in a a cloud of smoke and an ethylic haze. One day he snapped out of it and decided the only way out was to get behind the wheel. Whenever he had a month off he’d go party it up in Vegas as a special treat, but he’d since sobered up. John is pretty cool, full of stories and we’re on the same page, so once we hit the next town indicated, I decide to continue on to California with him. He doesn’t hang out with other truckers, or sleep at truck stops: instead he finds places off the road so he can wake up surrounded by nature. I tell him about my fear of truckers, and he tells me about a hitchhiker who threatened to call the cops and falsely accuse him of rape if he didn’t take her where she wanted to go.

Seems that we mutually live in fear of each other.

A few hours later we stop to tank up and he buys me dinner, “On the road, I only eat Subway, because at least it’s fresh and not deep fried like at those trucker joints, but if you’d rather have something else…”

A veggie melt and a cookie sounds delightful, thank you… I’m not picky if someone else is buying my food. Actually when I’m hungry I’m not picky at all.

As I sit at a picnic table around the corner from where John is filling up on gas, I think to myself how weird to see how things have changed in such a short time frame. Thirty six hours ago I was sitting around in Oliver starving and now I’m sitting in Oregon eating something that wasn’t picked off a tree, donated by a food bank or fished out of a dumpster.

Back on the road happily chatting away about peyote and the tribes that use it, we cross into Weeds, California (How fitting?), John explains to me that he has a certain amount of hours that he is allowed to drive per day, but he intends to escort me all the way to Stockton before he sleeps. I don’t want him to get into trouble but the scales along the way seem to be in our favor and we speed down HWY 5.

He points out to me that he has a broadband connection in his truck and urges me to at least inform my parents of where I am. While I send emails, I manage to get a hold of my friend Carry in Argentina and tell him I’m talking to him from a truck on a highway California.

He answers, “Fucking first world people.”

He’s right but even to a fucking first world person, as he pinpointed, it’s still really, really neat.

It’s about three in the morning when we pull into a gas station so I can use the bathroom. I head straight for the women’s room but before I can make it, I bump into a dandy looking fellow who has a sign that says Stockton. He stops me on my way in.

“Hey! Are you going to Symbiosis festival?”

“Yeah, actually. But I hitched a ride, so I can’t offer you one. John’s cool though, so maybe he’ll accept another hitcher. There’s room anyway. It’s that blue truck over there”

“Oh that would be awesome! I’ve been here all day, and yesterday I was a town away.. it’s been hell hitching out here! I thought people in California were cool, but it turns out that… not so much “

He introduces himself as Blake, from Brandon, Manitoba. I tell him to talk to John and I run inside before my bladder explodes.

I walk back to the truck and John asks if I’m OK picking up another hitcher. Fine by me, we’re going to the same place so I’ll have a bit of company on the next leg of the trip, which is always nice.

Now that Blake is on board, I can finally get some shuteye. I curl up in the cabin with Tiago and in what seems like moments later, I wake up in Stockton just before dawn. We’ve reached our destination.

I exchange email addresses with John who invites me to come party in Vegas sometime.

“Thanks for changing my opinion about truckers.”

“Thanks me for changing his opinion about female hitchhikers. I hadn’t picked one up since that last one, about five years ago.”

He quotes a Mormon who fixed up his bike for free as his parting words: “If you can’t repay someone’s kindness directly, you can always help someone in a time of need instead.”

I like that. It seems like a good philosophy to live by.

The truck stop, which according to John was a skanky lizard lot, is dead. I’m pretty burnt out after having slept maybe two hours since the previous morning and my organism is in need of caffeine. I still have about twenty dollars left after coffee, cigarettes and one beer. Blake has just enough to get into the festival – my next problem. Getting across the border was easy, now I have to attempt entering a $150 “no dogs allowed” festival.

If I can cross into the USA, how hard can it be to get into a hippie fest with no money and a dog who has canine ADHD?

I offer to buy breakfast, so we settle into a Denny’s about a block away from the truck stop and order coffee that arrives looking like gray wash. The food here isn’t cheap, but we’re both starving and I can afford to at least buy one big plate that we can share. I get the biggest omelet on the menu and a chocolate milkshake.

We stay inside until the sun comes up, pack away our things and try to find the road leading to Angel’s Camp. It’s a long ways and we can’t seem to find it. We follow all the signs but after an hour circling around this dreadful looking place, we figure we should probably start hitching. A young Latino in a beat up car takes us to the appropriate road, outside of town, and leaves us in the middle of a field where traffic is scarce but at least it’s in the right direction.

It’s starting to rain. Nothing but buses full of convicts and fruit pickers zoom by. I write up a sign in two languages but it doesn’t seem to help. Thankfully the wait is short, about two hours. A mini van stops and we pile in.

I’m zoned out from little sleep and a lot of kilometres, so Blake talks to the driver and quickly the topic of conversation turns to politics.

They always say don’t talk politics with people you don’t know, and this is the perfect example… The things coming out of this man’s mouth are making me sick, as if he’d swallowed a biased CNN commentary and I was forced to listen.

“Muslims teach their children that violence is good, as opposed to the United States who have no such culture.” Am I hearing things?

“Because random school shootings that happen multiple times a year aren’t a culture of violence?” Like some sort of verbal diarrhea it just spilled out of my mouth.

New arguments come forth and I turn my tongue in my mouth, trying to bottle up my left wing, half-Muslim upbringing from getting me into trouble, or standing out in the middle of the rain..

Blake is looking at me in the rear view, thankful that I’m keeping quiet while squinting my eyes, so I decide to block the hate spewing from the driver and shut up for the rest of the drive.

Thankfully along the road, I see two Danes I had met the previous month in Creston and take it as my cue to jump out of the car. Blake continues up to the festival and I stay behind, waiting for people who are leaving to attempt using their bracelets to get in.

After a few unsuccessful and wet hours I decide to just go with a ride going up the mountain. I try to talk my way in but I’m required to leave my bag and passport with security as a promise to return and pay full fee, even if the festival ends in less than 24 hours and has been going on for three days already. As soon as I cross the gate I spot a fluorescent green tent, obviously Aprille’s, my pseudo twin, the girl I’d come down to see.

I walk up to it and see a familiar head of woolen striped dreads, sucking on a bombilla. It would appear I have arrived just in time for maté. Perfect! I cry out to her, OIGA PUTA!, and the look on her face shows her surprise. She can’t believe it. A mutual friend, Steve, who I had talked to the day before leaving Oliver, had told her I was going to try and come down but she never thought I’d make it. I point out the obvious, smiling proudly.

“If I made it to Ushuaia in 4 days, of course I can make it from BC to Cali in two.”

So I’m in the festival but now the problem is how to stay – my things are at the gate and I can’t sneak in without security keeping them. Money is scrounged up and finally I am allowed to retrieve my belongings and immerse myself in the festival. I happily accept some liquid LSD amidst the festivities and promptly pass out from having slept so little, only to wake up in the tent tripping balls.

Oops.

The festival suddenly seems like a mascaraed of corporate lies. It announces itself as a sustainable community of people who in fact are consumerists hiding behind eco-friendly and fair-trade, organic labels.

For me it’s all hippiecrite hogwash and it changes the feel of the gathering completely.

I spend most of my trip, and the day, hiding out in the woods with Tiago, furiously scribbling in my notebook. Everywhere I look I see a rainbow colored, scintillating mesh wire fence: in between tents, people, trees; it’s caging me in. I try to focus on the manzanilla trees with their tortured barks and textures like Japanese paintings instead of the negativity, but having paid for being out in the woods makes me even angrier.

I finally emerge from my bubble and attempt to find the good side but it’s just not there. I meet a girl from Seattle who came up with her live-in bus, the organizers made her park it down the mountain. It just confirms that this festival knows nothing of sustainable living and saddens me even more. I write down what I see around me. People are prancing around in multi colored feathers, leather and fur, looking like the bastard children of Jim Morrison and some random candy raver; their enormous SUVs quote Gandhi on their bumpers and their rented RVs are plastered with logos; the corpses of items bought at the local Eco-Walmart are piled high like totems of a civilization gone wrong. How is this sustainable living?

By this time the music is over and my friend is going back to Portland, and now I have no idea where I’m going or what to do. Go back to Canada? Stick around and try and find some work trimming marijuana? I really don’t want to go back to British Colombia so hitchhiking around California until the job in Prince George contacts me seems like the best possible option. It should only be a few more weeks, in theory.

I sit in the sun with Tiago and my notebook. All around me people remind me of ants – all have a task, a purpose. I feel like a cicada, wasting time as I sit on my backpack and watch everyone collect their things. Eternal observer lost in the masses, I scribble, with no discernible path, until I see a familiar head of dreadlocks and an unmistakable Quebecois accent.

It’s Julie, a girl I’d met picking cherries in Oliver and again in Creston. She’s going up to Ukiah, but first San Fran, and offers me a ride. I’ve never been to San Francisco, so why the hell not?

It’s not like I have anything better to do.

Meet the Author:

Cat Duval is from Ottawa, Canada and left home to travel Europe at age 17. She hasn’t stopped vagabonding and wandering without a budget since. Cat currently lives in Buenos Aires.

Vagabonding Chronicles

Vagabonding Chronicles – part 1

Hitchhiking from Canada to South America

Written for Startbackpacking.com by Cat Duval

Today I leave the picking world behind and embark upon a new adventure. The unknown is out there and the voices in my head are telling me to find it.

I’ve been sleeping in the park in Oliver, BC, for a week now, with a group of poor fruit pickers like myself who can’t afford to camp out at Loose Bay. Instead, we hide in foliage near a lake full of toxic pesticides which have seeped out of the neighboring orchards. My search for a job picking grapes seems endless, people keep streaming in and there are very few contracts available. I’m losing hope. Picking butts off the sidewalk in front of the 7-11, going to the church to pick up boxes of mac n’ cheese and eating cold Vienna sausages is starting to wear out my patience. The lack of funds is getting me down. The job I’ve been waiting around for since I left Creston, beetle probing at $200 a day up north in Prince George, was supposed to start this week, but now I’m told the season starts in November. Apples are killing my back and working 8 hours for $30 just doesn’t cut it. I have no reason to still be in Oliver, and yet I can’t find a reason to go back to my apartment in Montreal.

Every morning we wake up just after sunrise, generally startled by the noise of the sprinklers in the park a few metres away. This means people will start arriving soon, and if we don’t wake up, the cops will probably give us a ticket. Dew collects on my two sleeping bags (thank God for the wool blanket that I use inside them, or else I’d be freezing my ass off) and I struggle to leave their warmth, but this morning I know things are different. Today will not be spent at Work Zone calling orchards, nor will it be spent in the park drinking aimlessly, waiting for something, anything, to come and present itself.

I drag myself towards the parking lot, my dog Tiago in tow, backpack in place. Suzelle, who I’ve been traveling with for the past three weeks, has managed to scrounge up enough for a large coffee which we are all sharing on this crisp, wet September morning. I take a sip and sit on my bag, working swiftly on a piece of slightly soggy but still usable cardboard, writing in big, bold letters with a fat tipped black Sharpie.

“Well guys, this is it.” I take a mental snapshot of this group of people who I’ve just spent weeks with, singing, picking, hitchhiking, surviving. We hug, exchange email addresses, I promise if I find any kind of harvest work in Cali I’ll send for them. Suzelle hugs me and says I’m bat-shit crazy, that she’ll miss me, to take care. She hitchhiked alone on HWY 16, the infamous “Highway of Tears”, and yet she is worried that something might happen to me in Jesus-land. It’s true that even experienced Canadian and European hitchhikers such as ourselves always have a tinge of fear at the mention of a girl hitchhiking alone in the USA, but I’ve always been of the “do what you’re afraid of” mentality, and although I am scared, I’m confident.

Besides, the real challenge isn’t going to be getting to California in two days in time to see my good friend Aprille, it’s going to be getting into the United States with no money and a dog. I have all of ten cents to my name right now, even though I just spent two months picking fruit. I had bills, an apartment in Montreal that I continued to pay for, and Tiago’s shots to update.

Chantale hands me a few cents, Suzelle a couple cigarettes. Karine finds a dollar in her pocket. I’m up to $1.50, hardly enough to show the customs officer, but I have a canceled Visa which appears to still be valid, an emptied out ATM card and a paystub of my picking earnings, which reads $2,400, from only three weeks ago. Surely I can figure something out, I’m good at finding my way out of sticky situations.

I wave goodbye to my friends and start waking to the end of the town, thumb out, head high. I can probably get a ride into Osoyoos at least, we do this all the time to find work. I pass by an orchard and see some apples in a tree, they probably weren’t ripe enough when they did first pick and got left behind. I take them and stuff them in my bag along with the couple cans of tuna, veggie soup and loaves of bread I picked up yesterday from the food bank.

A car stops, the man is going to Osoyoos and offers to take me to the end of town, but please mind the wet dog on my clean upholstered seats, he says. It’s only a fifteen minute drive, but it’s better than walking it, which I’ve done before – and it’s long. We get to the edge of town and I thank him, he gives me a few cigarettes, and I start walking towards the border, some 10 km down the road.

The rain is really coming down now, and no one is stopping. I guess no one wants to go to the US today. Or maybe they’re scared that I’ve got several kilos of cocaine concealed inside me, or that I’m a wanted criminal and don’t want to risk being refused entry. It’s okay. It’s not far, and as long as I have my feet I will walk until they are broken and bleeding if I need to. Speaking of my feet, they are making squishy noises in my boots, thank god for socks, and my bag is drenched. Thankfully a few weeks ago I came across a poncho, you know the ones, transparent and fluorescent yellow, and had it stuffed away in my shoulder bag, easily accessible to be thrown over my pack.

I finally make it to the customs building and there are butterflies in my stomach. I hadn’t expected to be crossing the border on foot, and to be honest, I have a feeling that I’m going to be back in Oliver by the afternoon.

I walk into the building with my biggest, bubbliest, non offensive smile and put down my pack and tie up the dog. A customs officer barks at me, “NO ANIMALS ALLOWED INSIDE!”

I do as I’m told and bring the dog outside, he starts to whine. “shh, shh, it’s ok mi boli, I’m just inside, I’ll be right back.”

I step up to the desk, the sound of wet shoes resonates in the building, squish squish, and take out my passport. Once again, I flash my nicotine stained but heartwarming “I’m a nice person” smile and let out a squeaky “Hi!”. The customs officer stares at me, flips through my passport. Stamps from the US, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, France, Holland look up from the pages. If he notices that I recently traveled to these countries, maybe he won’t think I’m a penniless vagabond.

The usual stream of questions come out: Where are you from, where are you going, why do you want to come into the US, does your dog have papers?

I’m from Montreal, I’m going to California to meet up with a friend at a festival, then I want to go to Mexico. Here are the dogs papers, yes, I’m aware that some of them are in Spanish, he’s from Bolivia, but I had to get papers to get him out of there and as I’m sure you know, they don’t speak English down there.

Then, the question that kills: “Do you have any money? We require a minimum of $300 to enter the country.”

I have been thinking about what to say since last night, because I don’t have $300. I take out my wallet and show him what I do have, being my Visa, my ATM card, my picking stub. He asks for a bank statement. I explain that there are no branches of my bank in British Columbia, so I don’t have one. I can tell he’s trying to see if I’m lying. I put on my best poker face and stare him down with icy blue eyes.

He tells me to take a seat and wait. I wait. And wait. Forty minutes have gone by. Finally, he calls me over. His face is stern.

I’m screwed.

“You’re walking. How do you plan on getting to California? You can’t take a dog on the bus or train.”

“I’ll figure it out. I have a friend in Portland who I can call, maybe she can meet me somewhere at the Washington-Oregon border?” Saying train hopping and hitchhiking sounds like it could throw me back into Canada. I’m running out of options. The future looks bleak. I see myself waking up next to Lake Pesticides again and running through sprinklers as a sorry excuse for a shower.

He searches my bag for meat products. I’m scared he’s going to throw away my huge bag of dog food. He looks at the can of “Suitable for Vegetarians” veggie soup, puts it down, clears his throat.

“Well, if you’d like to go south, you can go out that door. However, you’ll need to leave us your can of vegetable soup, it has beef broth in it. And remember. You cannot, and I can’t stress this enough, work in any shape or form while in the US.”

A huge smile explodes on my face. I pick up my things, grab the dog and waltz out the door, rain pouring down on me, and set foot on American soil. I take care to walk a good two miles away from the border, so that they don’t see me hitchhiking and kick me out of the country that I just spent an hour and a half spinning the best story that I could to get into. I get to a gas station, ask to warm up some water, dump it into the contents of a cup-a-soup, and light up a cigarette. I figure I should stick around here to wait for a ride, I’m soaking wet and I can feel the skin on my feet pruning up – soon my feet will be itchy and my boots uncomfortable, I can’t keep walking to the next town. I’ve already walked some 15 kilometres today and odds are there is more walking waiting for me down the road.

I warm up, feed the dog, drink some water, slurp down stale, flavorless noodles and dehydrated peas that taste rubbery. After half an hour with no cars in sight, I realize I probably am going to have to walk into town. Great.

Finally, someone stops. A five minute ride gets me to the end of the next town. I stop in the library to warm up and send an email to Suzelle, Made it across the border. Can only go up from here. Tiago is well, my feet hurt from walking 15 km in the rain.

I walk a few more miles and a couple picks me up, drops me off at the next town. And this continues for a while, probably due to my sign, “AS SOUTH AS POSSIBLE”. People are bringing me as far south as they can, even if it is only town by town for a couple rides, which is fine by me. I get a ride in the back of a pickup for 30 miles through the desert, I make myself a sandwich, let Tiago lick the can. Take in the scenery, which hasn’t changed much seeing as it’s still, technically, the Okanagan, where I’ve just spent the past 2 months.

We arrive at the next town, I grab my stuff and thank them for the ride. The driver hands me $10, telling me to get a bite to eat and whatever it is I may need. I’ve got enough food to last me 2 days, but I’m out of cigarettes, something that can make standing on the side of the road for a few hours a lot more stressful than it actually is. A pack of Camels is of utmost priority.

10 minutes later, I meet a young woman, Rachel, who offers to drop me off a little further down the road, about 50 miles. We smoke and Rachel offers to buy me a beer and a sandwich. We sit down at the bar and she tells me about her kids, ten year old twin boys, and how wonderful they are. She cries a bit when she tells me their father died just a few days after they were born. I feel like I should be the one buying her a beer, and not the other way around. She opens up to me and treats me not as a stranger picked up on the side of the highway, but as a longtime friend. In the end, for lack of anything better to do, Rachel decides to take me to a truck stop just outside of Wenatchee about 100 miles away, where I’ll have a better chance at catching a ride into Oregon than where I started off. The road I had planned on taking, after looking at a map of the state, is apparently winding curves up the mountains and almost out of use. Places to sleep tentless are almost unheard of and it’s full of coyotes and rattlesnakes, so I accept her offer of dropping me off at the truck stop. I thank her immensely, she wishes me luck, and our time together ends.

She’s dropped me off on a very busy highway, on the other side of the truck stop. I cross the three lanes hastily and realize my boot sole is dragging on the asphalt. Shit.

Then, it hits me. TRUCKERS. Everywhere. Being a woman, truckers scare me. I’ve had a lot of luck in that department. Every time I’ve gotten into a truck, I’ve been accompanied by a another hitchhiker, generally male, so I have no horror stories to tell. I wish I could say the same for some of my girlfriends. It’s a hard world out there for a female hitchhiker, and truckers are one of the reasons why.

The only thing scarier than spending the night alone in coyote infested deserts is walking into a truck stop at sundown and having every fat, John Deere-hat-toting, grease stained t-shirt wearing trucker look at you like a piece of meat dangled in front of a hungry pitbull. I shake off the feeling of being a lamb thrown into a pack of wolves and walk towards the cash register, my sole making flapping sounds on the tile.

I buy some super glue so I can stick my boot back together, and I buy a beer (Bud Light, all they have in single cans, my god, this stuff is foul and I can’t understand how it can even be sold as a beverage), sit down with my bag and the dog out front and start to write. My sign is under me – I never hitch nearing sundown or after dark, and I don’t want anyone to offer me a ride to tempt me.

A guy in a car rolls down his window and calls out to me.

“Hey, kid, here’s 8 bucks. Go buy yourself a burger.”

I would like to point out at this time that I was not begging for money, nor did I particularly look starving or worn out. Tiago looked well fed and in good health, and was happily gnawing on a rawhide bone. I didn’t look like I had just crawled out of the gutter – if you look past the almost completely shaved head save a few multicolored dreadlocks and a face full of piercings, obviously.

I look up from my notebook, puzzled. He holds the money out the window. I smile, get up, and take it,

“Thanks, God bless.”

After the cigarettes, super glue and beer, I was down to my original $1.50, Canadian currency. The eight dollars are welcome at this point.

I buy another beer, light a cigarette and say goodbye to the sun: the sky is painted in shades of purples and blues, faint hints of hot pink and gray clouds scatter the horizon. The moon is out, overlooking a desert, rocky mountain and I decide to snap yet another picture of a sky from a gas station. A woman, absolutely grotesque in all of her stereotypical American splendor, stringy hair falling onto a scarred and acne ridden face, thighs that seem to scream “STOP THE HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP” and her wide-at-the-ass-tight-around-the-ankles acid wash jeans topped with a grease stained purple sweater of a wolf howling at the moon, walks by. She looks at me, then says to me in that western drawl:

“Beautiful country, ain’t it?”

I answer, before realizing the words pouring out of my mouth:

“Yeah….sure is.” (Oh my God. Did I just say that? I did. Amazing – Cat, the adamant anti-American advocate, agreeing that the US is beautiful.)

By this time, my notebook is 5 pages fuller and newly covered in scribbles: chap stick and superglue in a heart, a cup of coffee, a pack of camels, a sunsetting over mountains with the glowing Shell sign. A fat trucker munching on a donut. I sketch the outline of the US and A, framing it in its beloved piece of cloth, the Star Spangled banner, the flag that almost got me expelled from school, having refused to pledge allegiance to it fifteen years ago. I write fear in the middle, topping it off with a question mark. I’ve done pretty good so far, here’s hoping I manage to get through the night without getting arrested or attacked.

I’ve spotted an abandoned building next to freight tracks across the street. I decide this will be my home for the night – far enough away from the truck stop, close enough to be able to come back in case of a problem, hidden from the wind. As I’m collecting my things to cross and call it a night, a group of three old women with white hair the texture of cotton candy and pastel pantsuits approach me and ask me if I’ve run away from home.

I look up and smile, “I’m twenty three years old, I left home a long time ago.”

“Oh, that’s lovely dear. Are you traveling alone with your doggie, then?”

“Yes ma’am. I am. We’re going to California.”

“Oh, delightful. Well, we just had a wonderful dinner at the diner here, and well…we don’t have much, but here. Take this.”

In her hands, thirty dollars. I stutter, she insists.

“Please. Now go get yourself some help!”

They walk away with their arms linked, hunched over and taking small strides to return to their over sized gas guzzling SUV. At first, I chuckle. Then, I smile. What lovely little old ladies. Thanks to them, I’m going to buy myself a warm breakfast in the morning and drink some wretched filtered coffee. Maybe a nice piece of jerky for Tiago.

I cross the street and set up camp in between two buildings. Tiago curls up with me in my sleeping bags, I cover him with the wool blanket and give him a nuzzle. “We’ve had a long day, little one, and it’s only just begun.” The road is out there, waiting for us. I look up at the starry sky and think about the events of the day. I made it out of Canada and managed to get about 200 miles into Washington. I’ve made $50 today without even asking. I didn’t even have to hold out my hand, rather people extended theirs to me. I left this morning thinking I would be encountering scary monsters, instead the people on the way have been nothing but kind, helpful and reassuring.

Suddenly, being a girl alone with a dog, hitchhiking across the USA, doesn’t seem so scary anymore.

Now go read Chronicles Part II

Meet the Author:

Cat Duval is from Ottawa, Canada and left home to travel Europe at age 17. She hasn’t stopped vagabonding and wandering without a budget since. Cat currently lives in Buenos Aires.

A single Step

“A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step” – Lao Tzu

Vagabonding Story: A Single Step

By Gregory Rodgers

There is no feeling that quite describes being stuck in a corporate office, worse yet, in a cubicle, when the sun is burning through a cloudless blue sky. For 7 years, I miraculously managed to not throw a phone, flog away an intruder, or hang myself in the corner of my office with Ethernet cabling.

Like everyone else, I knew that there was more to life than waking up at the last minute and jockeying through traffic in a hurry to make a bunch of old men richer. However, a strange and powerful force kept me glued to my seat, sorting through corporate memos reminding me to file my TPS reports properly and that Friday was wacky tie day.

Bills. Lots of them. Always creeping into my mailbox when I least expected it. There were all the usual suspects like electric, water, and a mortgage on a place so over sized for me that I hadn’t even opened some of the rooms yet.

Then there were the really bothersome credit card statements that included all my internet purchases. Among the damages, there were expenses for high tech toys I thought would make work more bearable. My cell phone could play MP3s, games, movies, and open random gateways to alternate dimensions with the tap of a stylus.

Also included were new clothes that were sure to impress my dates and restaurant tabs in overpriced places that make you feel important. Being a well trained IT geek, I decided to do an analysis of where my money was going and constructed a simple spreadsheet where I recorded purchases for 1 month.

I have the attention span of a bored cat, so actually a couple of months passed before I found the spreadsheet again hiding in a dusty corner of my hard drive.

“Oh yeah…I remember this” I said and opened it with a snappy mouse click.  I nearly swallowed my tongue at the results inside!

Things needed for daily life, like groceries and Redbull, made up the lowest expenses. Not just a few, but a majority of my purchases were unnecessary and compulsive moves to keep me distracted.

I was putting at least one kid through college with my cable bill alone – all so that I could catch hot dog eating contests on ESPN 13 at 04:00 in the morning. Woohoo!

I went into work slightly more enlightened than I was the day before, but I wanted to be sure. Was I just being too negative about my job? Was I starting into some sort of just-turned-30 midlife/depression/crisis? Was I about to run out and purchase a red convertible and pierce my tongue in a desperate cry for attention from women almost half my age?

As an experiment, I decided to count the number of smiles I received around the office and cafeteria for one day. Other than one nearly mad and shaking engineer that was watching the coffee machine fill his 1 liter mug for the third time, the only smiling faces I saw on this beautiful June afternoon were the ones walking at a quickstep toward the door at closing time. Things were quickly beginning to make sense.

Like a twitchy convict that just discovered a tunnel under his bunk, I kept my findings to myself and starting building a plan. I made a conscious effort to slow the bleeding of money from my account on useless toys. When I was in private, I started researching exotic destinations on the internet.

Soon, I was quickly becoming consumed by my escape plans. For 7 years I had been a rat in a never ending race, and I had finally discovered that someone had left the door open on my cage. Quickly, my happiness and my bank account began to build up and on one bold evening I set a date.

My date was Jan 1, 2006. What a better way to start a new year than to start a new life altogether? In the 6 months between my enlightenment and the start of my new less paying yet more satisfying career as a backpacker, I managed to save money and sell my house myself. I picked up a copy of Rolf Pott’s book “Vagabonding” and realized that I was not alone. Many had made this walk before me. During my meetings, I was having visions of living on an organic farm, picking fruit in the sunshine, and meeting hippy girls to go surfing with. Was I heading for sure financial doom? The thought did cross my mind, especially when I started trickling news of my plan to friends and family.

Vagabonding and even gap years are not really popular concepts in America, so my announcements were usually responded to with less-than-positive enthusiasm. I did not care. I was determined not to spend the best years of my life while I was healthy, saving money to retire when I was too old to enjoy it.

In December, I gave myself the ultimate Christmas gift, I bought a one way ticket to Bangkok and turned in my letter of resignation.

When the wheels of my plane left the ground and it pointed its nose West toward the Pacific I breathed an enormous sigh of relief. Luckily, the 23 hour flight provided lots of time for decompression and contemplation, which I took full advantage of. I still had no idea where I was going or what I was getting myself into, but it had to be more interesting than learning new acronyms at a company whose name was an acronym.

As I sit here and write this, exactly one year has passed since I left the US for the first time. I grin when I read back through my early journal entries and blush slightly thinking of what an inexperienced newbie I was. I still do not consider myself a hardened traveler, but I do want to share my beginnings with others and inspire them to chew their way out of the maze as well. Anyone can do this, and I never met a single person out of hundreds of backpackers that had regretted their decision to give up the cheese and escape the rat race. I would not trade my adventures, experiences, and new friends for all the promotions, cable channels, or wacky tie days in the world.

One step turned into the journey of a lifetime.

Meet the Author:

Greg Rodgers is the editor of Startbackpacking.com and left Corporate America to begin traveling in 2005. He’s been happily living from a rucksack since.