Transcontinental flights from New York to Europe generate up to two tons of carbon dioxide. Feature photo by author. Photo by Almighty_Fotografie

1. Travel damages the environment.

Travel is, almost by its very nature, bad for the environment.

Even if you travel the Middle East exclusively on horseback, you still have to get there in the first place. And just one transcontinental round-trip flight – let’s say from New York to Istanbul – generates two tons of carbon dioxide. That’s 10% of the average person’s annual carbon footprint in just one afternoon.

Going to Phnom Penh to do some volunteer work? A round-trip flight from New York with two layovers consumes a full quarter of that yearly average in just a day or two.

The more you travel, the worse it gets.

Of course, if you don’t fancy riding bareback across Asia, getting around your destination will pump even more poison into the sky, especially since many poor countries lack the already questionable environmental standards of the United States or other developed countries.

Unless you plan on crossing the ocean in a sailboat, do the environment a favor. Stay home and drive a hybrid.

2. Travel commercializes a nation’s greatest monuments.

In the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul there is a room which only the Ottoman Sultans could enter. Even they could enter it only once a year. That room contains the holiest Islamic relics outside of Mecca: the mantle of the Prophet. His swords. A hair from his beard. His footprint.

In Ottoman times, this room was wholly holy. Now, hundreds of tourists tramp through it every day.

These religious relics have been commodified by travelers who legitimately and earnestly wish to see these pieces of history. Nevertheless, the very presence of non-Sultans drives away any chance of a truly authentic experience.

It is natural to want to see the wondrous with your own eyes. But when 10,000 people visit a monument every day – like at the Great Pyramid complex at Giza – they destroy the very wonder they set out to see.

The grounds around the Pyramid are no longer a fitting setting for those ancient tombs; it is not the remote desert plateau of centuries past. The grounds look like a trash dump. Years of refuse cast aside by careless tourists and locals have destroyed the pristine beauty that made Giza famous.

A few truly sacred sites remain scattered across the world: the Crown Jewels of Scotland, the royal memorabilia of King Tut. You will know when you are in one of these holy places because the guards won’t let you take photographs.

3. Travel turns culture into a commodity.

Fiesta Americana Villa in Cancun caters specifically to the tourist industry. Photo by Serge Melki

Unlike all those common tourists, you aren’t deluded by cute tour packages. Not you.

You travel far off the beaten path, the true spirit of a country. And when you get to one of these secret hinterlands, you will find entrepreneurs who are more than happy to sell you the authentic experience, complete with everything you perceive it to be.

You will sleep in the traditional housing that nobody actually uses anymore, buy the trinkets people maybe — maybe! — used to wear a hundred years ago. You will go home happy but none the wiser about what the locals’ lives are actually like. Wherever travelers go, a travel industry will arise to accommodate them and meet their needs. The only difference is scale.

How can you get the authentic experience?

Learn the language, live there for years, put down roots and become an eternal visitor. Everyone will know you and treat you well. But you will forever be the guest, the expatriate, telling stories of your home country late at night.

Might as well stay home.

4. Travel creates foreign dependence and promotes fragile economies.

Many smaller countries, especially the Caribbean and Pacific islands, depend almost entirely on tourism and agriculture for income. Both the people and the governments themselves become dependent on wealthy visitors like you.

In Cairo, seven year old boys will tug on your shirt incessantly and ask if you’d like to buy a hat or a bottle of water. Dozens or hundreds of enterprising merchants set up shop wherever foreigners go. And travelers flood the country with very easy money.

Tourists in Barcelona. Photo by Minifig

The trouble comes when the country is flooded by something more literal than money.

A strong hurricane. Or a terrorist strike, or a currency devaluation, or an increase in the cost of oil – the backbone of their economy dries up overnight.

It happened in 2001 when America suddenly became fearful. It happened in 2006 after the tsunami wracked the Indian Ocean.

Without tourism, many of these countries have no safety net. No matter how judiciously you spend your money abroad, you contribute to increasing dependence on this single industry.

Some places, like Dubai, reinvest the money to diversify their economy. Fiji has propped itself up by exporting luxury water. But most countries are not so farsighted.

Your dollars allow them to rest on their laurels, allowing a single disaster to plunge an entire nation into poverty.

5. Travel promotes crime.

It doesn’t matter how carefully you watch your wallet. The influx of comparatively wealthy travelers into a depressed economy guarantees that crime will flourish.

People everywhere pursue opportunity, and scamming foreign tourists is nearly as good a career option as legitimately servicing them.

Does the Egyptian Museum really need dedicated toilet attendants? Does an endless line of overpriced bistros add the same value as manufacturing or infrastructure development?

The vast majority of travelers don’t experience crime abroad. But every time travelers go to countries substantially poorer than their own, they allow crime to proliferate.

It is too great an opportunity to pass up in places where other opportunities, educational or vocational, are often far out of reach.

6. Long-term travel promotes broadly reaching but shallow experience in the traveler.

If you don’t care that your travel perpetuates a cycle of poverty and dependence, at least think of yourself.

It’s impossible to get even a semblance of an authentic experience abroad, even if you volunteer on traditional farms, shy away from metropolitan areas, or join the Peace Corps.

Your mere presence makes the experience inauthentic. When a guest visits your home, you act differently. Even an American who emigrates to Britain or Australia shall never have quite the same experience as someone born and raised there. It’s too late.

If you truly want an authentic experience of a culture, stay at home.

Immerse yourself in your native culture. Put down roots and forsake wandering. Experience the multifaceted joys of the one country you have most neglected – your own.

Once you truly join a community, you may find what you always sought abroad but never quite found. You will learn how other people live.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Do you agree that travel is unethical? Can any of the threats posed by travel be minimized or eliminated? Share your thoughts below.

Other articles engaging issues about the ethical dilemmas travelers encounter on the road include The Shameful Truth About Sex Tourism, and The Secret to Avoiding Beggars.

Photo by whatwhat. Feature photo by dbasulto.

The ad wizards at Crispin Porter + Bogusky have crafted “Whopper Virgins,” a campaign so absurd that it’s difficult to take as anything but a farce.

In one smooth motion Burger King has called to mind the spectre of imperialism, demeaned entire ethnic groups, and reminded the rest of the world that, even though we elected Barack Obama, there are still plenty of reasons to hate–or at least laugh at– America.

The agency realized that Americans are so saturated with advertising that it’s impossible to get an unbiased opinion of fast food from them.

The only way to get an “entirely pure taste test,” they reasoned, is to ask people with no exposure to the Big Mac or Whopper which they prefer.

The people they chose were Hmong minorities in Thailand, the Inuit of Greenland, and rural Romanians.

The documentary opens with an awkward justification of the hamburger’s importance, the epic swell of a string orchestra and, most importantly, people in wacky clothing failing to eat a big pile of hamburger.

Photo by renaissance chambara

The first part is a straight up taste test, with participants flown in from their homes to taste the freshest McDonald’s and Burger King food possible. Most prefer the Whopper. Then, it’s on to the villages themselves. The crew brings along an authentic Burger King broiler, grills some burgers and films the natives enjoying them.

Burger King probably didn’t do much actual harm to these communities by feeding them crappy American food – in fact, they actually donated educational supplies and funded a church restoration. The issue is how this documentary is presented to its final audience – the English-speaking world and Americans in particular.

The team’s discussion about their subjects is littered with liberal clichés and fake cross-cultural tolerance. The participants are “very difficult people to find” who are “really off the grid,” people who “don’t have television, who don’t have access to, you know, restaurants and what not.”

They’re given taste tests while wearing traditional clothes — which, you may notice later, few are actually wearing in their hometowns. Throughout its eight minutes, the documentary drives home the point that they don’t even know how to eat a burger.

They are “Whopper Virgins,” to be deflowered for our amusement and Burger King’s bottom line.

Americans already have a skewed image of poverty, foreign cultures and the rest of the world, and Burger King’s orientalist nonsense isn’t helping. They’re playing to poisonous sentiments and making money off of reinforcing them, taking on a new White Man’s Burden and playing missionary for American culture to impress the clients back home.

It’s exoticism on par with Ota Benga, and something modern anthropologists, travelers and journalists have been trying to kill for decades.

For better or worse, companies like Burger King are the face of America and the ambassadors of its culture. They wield an extraordinary amount of influence over the perceptions of Americans in places like rural Thailand, Greenland and Romania, but also in the rest of the industrialized world.

Photo by Sister 72

Their power has gone far beyond the average corner restaurant, and as we all know from Spider Man, with great power comes great responsibility. The world is getting smaller and smaller, and in the coming decades we’re all going to be exposed to people who think nothing like us.

Burger King and its ilk will be the ultimate arbiters of intercultural exchange, foisting American culture on the world and the world’s culture on us. It should be their duty to make sure it’s done in a way that is graceful, respectful and productive – this ad campaign was none of those and is an egregious failure to live up to that duty.

I know that by writing about this I’m giving Burger King more publicity. I know that’s exactly why they made it. But if things like Matt Harding’s dancing videos and Vice Travel (both of which I’m a big fan of) are any indication, documentaries like this are the tip of the iceberg.

In an increasingly globalized world, it’s important to open a dialogue about the way the exotic is presented to those that don’t have the will or means to see it for themselves.

Perhaps I’m not the right person to talk about this, though.

Seng Vang, a Hmong man from Minnesota, wrote a letter to the ad agency responsible and he’s not happy about the way they’ve handled things. Burger King responded with a typically sanitized corporate letter, stating its commitment to authenticity, respect and good taste.

Because if there’s one thing Burger King knows, it’s good taste.

Author’s Note:

Short of armed revolution, not much is going to stop Burger King from advertising how it wishes. That doesn’t mean we should all give up though; there’s plenty to be done. Letters are an old standby, and you can write them to both the ad agency and Burger King itself.

Tell your friends how you feel about it – part of the reason this ad is so bad is that most people accept it without thinking (it’s not their fault, though!).

And, of course, don’t eat at Burger King.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Matador doesn’t shy away from calling companies to task for advertising or business practices of the Burger King Whopper Virgins ilk. We’ve taken on Exxon and Ecko, and we’ve also written extensively about how more informed consumer practices can influence companies to be more responsible.

What’s your opinion of the Whopper Virgins ad campaign? Share your thoughts below.

Maarten Troost is the author of three books, all of them poignant and hilarious. Fans of his work know him as wry, witty and a little touched.

Troost’s latest, Lost on Planet China or How I Learned to Love Live Squid,
is a fantastic primer of a country that seems to ride a fine line between brilliance and absolute madness.

Photo by Steve Webel

Your two previous books (The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific
and Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu) have been written about periods of time when you’ve lived elsewhere. Lost on Planet China is about one trip, yet seems to pack more action per page. Is this just because China is so goddamned big and crowded?

Or it could be because more so than the first two books, which were about living in faraway places and kind of reflective and essay-ish, the China book follows the well-established conventions of the travel genre, where the movement of the author is the little engine that propels the book onward.

In the first two books I could linger for an entire chapter on something small – like the cannibalism that befell the canine community on the island of Tarawa, for instance – and use that to make some kind of larger point about the hardships of atoll-living.

In Lost on Planet China I felt compelled to keep things humming along, partly because as you noted China is indeed a big-ass country and to write a somewhat comprehensive book about it while trying to keep it – the book – at a manageable size necessitated a zippy pace.

Once I decided to write this book in a travel genre kind of way, the action-per-page factor was sort of preordained, if that makes sense.

Keeping notes in a communist country that doesn’t enjoy scrutiny would give me The Willies. Did you ever worry about being found out?

One thing that China does exceptionally well is that it has an uncanny ability to make individuals feel really, really small. I felt like a tick on a dragon in China.

Photo bychicchun

Everything about the country – its immensity, its enormous population, its architecture, its history – has a way of reducing an individual to near insignificance.

So I felt pretty free whipping out the old notebook whenever I encountered a noteworthy experience. Indeed, people were often drawn to watch as I scribbled what for them were the inscrutable lines and jots that constitute our letters. It was strangely gratifying knowing that my writing was as mystifying to them as their calligraphy was to me.

I learned quite a bit about spitting from your book. Could you explain to the novice just how much of it goes on in China?

Photo by zamario

No place on earth celebrates the loogie quite like China does. At any given moment in China, there are millions of people hawking enormous globs of phlegm and expelling them in great cascading arcs until they splatter on streets and sidewalks. It’s done for medicinal reasons, a way of expelling bad elements from the body.

The government has observed that westerners find the habit strange and more than a little icky and so they’ve undertaken a campaign to stifle the spitting. I can only hope that they fail.

Having grown up in a loogie-sensitive culture, to suddenly encounter a nation of hurling spitballs is one of those up-is-down, black-is-white experiences that periodically makes traveling so gratifying. I should note that I mean that in the broad, philosophical sense and not as an endorsement of spitballs and the like.

By page 50, you had pretty much predicted the financial crisis that was coming in America and done so (I’m guessing, given publishing deadlines) 10 months in advance. Yet most Americans seem dumbstruck about what is happening. Are most people just that ignorant or are you just that enlightened?

What to say here? I’m not happy with this. There is no gloating. In fact, this terrifies me. I–the C student in macroeconomics–could see this coming, while Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, Hank Paulson et. al. could not. Every American should tremble in fear.

But where I think I had the advantage in terms of forecasting accuracy was that from 2003-2005 my wife and I were homeowners in the greater Sacramento area (long, digressive story). This put us in the belly of the beast that was the housing bubble.

For two years we listened to baristas at Starbucks talk about their investment properties and hairdressers at Great Clips discuss their imminent retirement now that they owned twelve houses in California, Arizona and Florida.

I had begun to wonder where, exactly, was all this home purchasing money coming from, which led to some investigating of the mortgage market and the mortgage securitization process.

In no time at all I was studying the Credit Suisse ARM reset chart and the long term Case-Schiller home price index and that got me looking into the historical relationship between home prices and household income, and it wasn’t long before I came to the inescapable conclusion that we as a society, as a nation, are utterly scroomed.

But I wish I was wrong.

Yak: Delicious or disgusting?

Photo byucumari

Delicious. However, I have spoken to others who have become wretchedly ill upon the consumption of yak. I don’t think that was the yak’s fault though.

You’re kind of a big sissy when it comes to airplanes. How do you deal with the fact that you have spent so many hours on them?

The words “big sissy” kind of understate the problem. I have issues with airplanes and after many hours of discussion with flight attendants and pilots I realize it’s not going to get better. I’m just hard-wired that way. There’s nothing that can be done. It might be a fear of falling issue. It might be a loss of control issue. I’m not sure what the root cause is.

But in any event, after many hours of chatting with air travel professionals I realize that my DNA does not lend itself to panic-free air travel. So whenever possible, I drive or take the bus, or ideally, a train. But, of course, given what I do, I am often obliged to fly.

And so I get on the plane because the alternative – a hermetic, stationary existence – is unacceptable.

I’m holding your hardcover book in my hands. What do you think of the fact that the written word may go the way of The Kindle, no longer bound by paper and glue (and a honey mustard stain)?

Possibly because I was abroad for most of the nineties and therefore missed the great leap forward into the digital age, I remain firmly in the dead tree camp. I cannot imagine a world without physical books and I don’t expect to see such a world in my lifetime.

But hey, whatever. If others prefer to read book-length material on a screen, so be it. It’s not as if the book publishing industry can afford to be picky.

Do your kids have any comprehension of what you do for a living?

Yes and no. It’s more like a seasonal thing. For the most part I’m there to take the kids to school. I’m there to make lunch. I’m there to read stories before naptime. I’m there to help out with the legos and the homework. I’m there for goofing around. I’m there for dinner. And bathtime. And storytime.

And then I’m gone.

For a month, two months, three months, I’m gone, somewhere on the far side of the world. And then I come back and it’s all good. And then there’s the deadline, which I tend to miss, and everything goes to hell for a while. Finally, there is a book. And then we start anew.

You’ve just been to India. Is there a book coming? How do they rate on a worldwide phlegm level?

Phlegm is not an issue in India so I’m not sure if I can get a book out of it. I jest.

Photo by gluemoon

I was traveling in northern Vietnam when I first noticed the phenomenon of the dutiful backpacker.

It is nearly impossible to travel in Southeast Asia without parallels being drawn to what the locals call “The American War,” and my fellow travelers and I would often make jokes in poor taste about the duration of our “tours of duty” or going for some “R&R.”

But with some of my companions, I got the impression these were not entirely light-hearted remarks.

The “duty” part of their tour seemed to loom pretty large considering that none of them had been drafted against their will to take an extended budget holiday after college.

“I’ve got my photos,” one guy said to me over breakfast.

“I’ve seen the [Cu Chi] tunnels, I’ve fired the AK-47, I’ve taken the Reunification Express. I’m done.”

One girl I befriended confided that she desperately missed her boyfriend back home and wished she could go back to him.

When I asked why she couldn’t, she told me, “Oh, I could. I’ve got an open ticket, it’s just – there’s lots of stuff on my list that I haven’t checked off yet. I don’t want to go back with it half-finished.”

I gently pointed out that, presumably, she had decided to travel in order to fulfill some personal desire, and that if she was no longer happy then surely it was time to go home?

“But I might miss something,” she said anxiously. “Like, Laos is meant to be amazing and I haven’t got there yet. I couldn’t stand having everyone going on at me about how great it is and how they can’t believe I didn’t see it because I went home to see my boyfriend instead.”

I asked her if she thought she would even enjoy Laos, being so homesick.

“Probably not,” she shrugged. “But I’ve got to go, haven’t I?”

Photo by Aguapfel

I’d rather be building latrines…

I noticed the same attitude in an Australian friend, Maggie, who recently returned from teaching in South Korea.

“I’m getting out!!” was the subject line of the e-mail she sent, telling me she would soon be returning home. The first time I spoke to her after she was back in Australia she kept sighing gratefully and saying things like, “I’m so glad it’s done.”

“Didn’t you enjoy it?” I asked her.

She paused. “No,” she said eventually. “No, not really, if I’m honest.”

I asked her why she hadn’t returned earlier. Her contract at the school had only been for three months initially, and she could have left after that time with no ill will on either side.

“I told everyone I was going away for a year,” she said (by “everyone” she meant family and friends, not her Korean employers). “They would have asked me why I was back early, what had gone wrong, was it awful?

“And was it?” I asked.

“Not – not awful exactly, just…” she sighed again. “I’d just rather have been at home, you know?”

Photo by *Solar ikon*

Everyone travels now.

A gap year before or after college, once something guaranteed to make you the cool, interesting one at freshers’ parties, is now so commonplace as to be almost obligatory.

And there seem to be a growing number of people who are traveling as much to keep up with the crowd as out of any genuine desire to see new places or experience new cultures.

“I’m not a traveler,” Maggie admitted in the end. “I could have stayed at home and taught or done volunteer work, but then you run into someone from school and they’re all, ‘Oh, I’ve just got back from 18 months building latrines in Indonesia or whatever,’ and you feel such a dork saying, ‘Yeah, I work at an after-school club down the road from where we grew up.’”

“I guess I thought traveling would make me an interesting person, but it didn’t. I was really homesick and just used to sit in my bed, surfing the net and phoning my mum and all my mates. I don’t feel like I learned anything – except that I don’t want to go traveling again!”

Just don’t get left behind

Ask 100 travelers their reason for traveling and you will probably get 100 different answers: “to find myself”; “to learn about other cultures”; “to get some great photos”; “to get a tan.”

And none of these answers is more or less worthy than another.

Photo by dweely

But next time you ask someone why they decided to travel, keep your ears open for the telltale signs that their truthful answer might be:

“Everyone else was doing it, so I thought I should too.”

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Have you ever traveled just because you thought you should?

Or stayed longer than you wanted because you thought you shouldn’t “give up”?

Have you ever quit a journey sooner than you planned, but had misgivings about your decision?

Hal Amen did, and wrote about his experiences eloquently in the blog, Quitter, which inspired a conversation among other travelers who were grateful to Hal for articulating his feelings.

Share your thoughts and experiences below in the comments.

Feature photo by tarotastic. Photo above by Ryan Libre.

Loud voices jolt me awake. It’s past midnight and I’m here in the Himalayan foothills of northern Myanmar illegally. Adrenaline pumping, I roll under the bed as shouts shake my hut’s thin bamboo walls:

“Happy Christmas! Merry Christmas! Jesus Christ is born!”

I check my clock. 12:10 am on December 1st. Here in Kachin, the Christmas season has begun.

Unlike ethnic Burmese, who form the majority in Myanmar, the six tribes collectively known as Kachins are devout Christians. Their faith has bound the Kachins together as one people and helped them endure decades of repression, suffering and loss.

For me, a nominal Christian, living among the Kachins opened my eyes to the enduring power of religious faith.

Faith In Hard Times

Hardship is a fertile ground for faith. The world’s major religions were founded by prophets who sought out suffering in their quest for God. For Christ and Buddha alike, self-denial was the key to spiritual grace.

Religion provides comfort in hard times. Faith enables the devout to connect their personal tragedies to a broader sense of shared sacrifice. Religion is a prism through which tragedy acquires meaning.

I’ve heard cynics claim that religion is the cause of suffering in the world, but it seems more accurate to say that suffering is the cause of religion.

Photo by Ryan Libre.

At daybreak, cadets at the Kachin military academy stand at attention and recite the five oaths of the Kachin Independence Army.

Twice, they honor the martyrs who gave their lives for the nation and people. When the oaths are finished, they file into the canteen and say grace, giving thanks for the morning rice.

Martyrdom is the pinnacle of grace for many believers. While the Kachin never engage in suicide attacks, their faith helped them withstand the loss of thousands of young men in battles with the Burmese military.

A Political Pastor

Late one night, I spoke with a young pastor from northern Shan state whose hometown was recently destroyed in fighting. He had traveled far to meet me and spoke with care.

“A pastor has no business in politics,” he said. “But politicians cannot speak freely in Myanmar. In my sermons I can make implications about politics. I can organize my congregation. It is very dangerous, but I feel a duty to my country.”

The Kachins celebrate Sweet December on the last night of November. Before the midnight carolers jolted me from bed, I sang Christmas songs at the Kachin Independence Organization headquarters.

The hall where we sang was decorated red and green, the colors of both Christmas and the Kachin national flag. We stood in the pews and sang the same songs over and over.

“This is good for community,” said my Kachin friend. “This brings us together.”

Photo by Ryan Libre.

When the carolers were gone, I thought about the white church on the Common in Craftsbury, Vermont. My family goes there once a year, on Christmas Eve, but it’s been five years since I was home for Christmas.

My land, my future homestead, is just a two minute walk from the white church on the Common. I had never planned to attend services.

Dignity and Hope

There’s hopelessness in Kachin, fed by grinding poverty, brutal repression, a heroin epidemic and the constant threat of war. The Kachin Church is part of the social fabric that holds the nation together, that gives the people dignity and hope.

Destinations

Community Connection to Myanmar

The Kachins don’t have much, but their faith provides an excuse to dress up, to sing, and to meet the neighbors. When suffering comes, as it inevitably will, their faith provides much more.

Growing up, most of my friends were dismissive of religion, and of Christianity in particular. It’s easy to ridicule the religious right in America, and for coddled children of the ‘80s, flooded with Christmas presents, there was never much need for faith.

In my crowd, observant Christians were Jesus Freaks, a slightly suspect minority.

I thought about the Christians I had met in Kachin, their sincerity and goodwill, and I was ashamed of my dismissive attitude. I realized that although my friends and I never needed faith growing up, we probably will someday.

Are You A Christian?

On one of my last mornings in Kachin a man asked if I was a Christian.

“My family is Christian,” I said.

“I see,” he replied.

I thought I had dodged the bullet, but then he asked again: “And you?”

I pictured the white church on the Common in Vermont and heard the choir singing at midnight on Christmas Eve, the sound of the bells in the cold December air. I pictured the gentle smiles of Kachins who had nothing but their faith in God.

I made a decision and said “Yes.”

“Yes. I am a Christian, too.”

It wasn’t an awakening. There were no angels, no organ music, no slanting shafts of light. I simply decided to accept my Christian heritage for what it is – a community that will be there, waiting for me when I go back home.

Tim’s reporting trip to Myanmar was made possible by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

Feature photo and photo above by Robin Esrock.

I was stumbling around a music festival near Budapest when a young Serbian girl invited me into a warm tent for a cup of tea.

I’ll always remember her reaction when I told her I was traveling to several dozen countries around the world for a year. Her mousy nose scrunched up, and she asked, sincerely, “why?”

I have plenty of heavy ammunition for just such a question: different cultures, experience, yada yada.

But I’ve never quite found the real answer to that question, the reason behind visiting so many places in such a short space of time (although one year might not seem that short; two weeks in countries like Peru, Bolivia or Poland barely scratch the surface).

Perhaps something inside tells me this is my one, only and last chance to see the world.

No, that’s fatalistic nonsense.

This week I think I may have found the answer, and it’s very simple.

Photo by Robin Esrock.

Finding Laos

I had no intention of visiting Laos at all. It wasn’t on my itinerary; it wasn’t a place I had to see. I knew hardly anything about the country, and no clue what the capital was (do you?)

I know that the U.S. conducted a secret war in Laos in the 1960’s – knowledge gained primarily from watching “Air America” and “Lethal Weapon” with Mel Gibson. Frothing at the mouth, Mel told me Laos is a center for opium and heroin production, full of Vietnam vets heading up massive drug rings, and also contains thousands of tons of unexploded ordnance.

A landlocked country bordering Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, China and Cambodia, Laos is run by a communist government and is the poorest country in Southeast Asia.

Also, if one more cute kid smiles at me, I’m going to have to start adopting.

Luang Prabang, north of Laos, is the religious center of the country. I arrived at dusk and was jolted by the pace. The lack thereof. My ragatg group of eight walked through the night market where women sat by their colorful bags and cloths, chattering amongst themselves, or sitting back peacefully, playing with their children.

Destinations

Community Connection to Laos

No one yelled at us. No one tried to sell us anything.

We walked along the narrow market path, marveling at the quality and price of the goods on offer.

Patience And Beer Lao

We were fresh meat with backpacks, and yet the starving masses were leaving us alone. Could these people actually respect our right just to be? The Thais sure didn’t; in fact, not many people in third world countries do (and who can blame them?)

The tuk-tuk drivers descended on us like mosquitoes, but even they took “no” for an answer. A few minutes away, in a lush, paved neighbourhood, we found a guesthouse, handed in our laundry for 80c a kilogram, and investigated the rumour that Lao beer, named Beer Lao, is amongst the finest in the world.

The French influence is heavy in Laos, being a former French colony, and a French businessman setup the Beer Lao brewery with the very latest technology and brewing techniques. Beer Lao lives up to its reputation, which is why every traveller you meet in Laos is wearing a Beer Lao T-shirt. A big beer costs $1, about the same price as the T-shirt.

The locals appeared extraordinarily content with nothing, an attitude that seemed to rub off on travelers too.

Waiting over an hour for a salad, it’s just impossible to get upset with the guy in the restaurant because he won’t quit smiling. I got the impression that if he could serve the food for free, he would.

There is something tangibly beautiful about the people of Laos, most clearly evident when you see children playing in the streets. Their greeting of “sabadee” is yelled out with such enthusiasm it can break your heart.

Photo by Robin Esrock.

This innocence and warmth is all the more touching when you consider the violence of Lao history.

Half the country is waiting to explode; the US bombed the countryside into oblivion, in secret, for nine years (at a cost of $2 million a day), a civil war followed, a communist government still runs things into the ground, drugs are illegal, yet rampant.

There is little industrial development, no railways, the state controls all media, and the national highway is as smooth as a bowl of rocky cornflakes. This was weighing heavy on my mind, so it was time to chase the dragon.

The Golden Triangle

Like sex-tourism in Thailand, narco-tourism is strongly discouraged in Laos, but many people come here for exactly that.

In Colombia or Peru, you can buy grade-A cocaine for as little as $8 a gram (in New York or London, it can cost as much as $160 a gram). Laos is part of the Golden Triangle that supplies most of the world’s raw opium, later refined into heroin.

Opium itself dates back 6000 years and has been used as a powerful medicinal agent ever since, primarily in cocktails like morphine.

Quite simply, opiates take away the pain, but due to their highly addictive nature, quickly bring it back, and then some. Still, opium has inspired famous writers for centuries, and if Conan Doyle could puff the magic dragon, why can’t Modern Gonzo?

Although I had moved out my first guest house to escape screeching early morning roosters, the friendly young manager had offered to procure us some sticky opium resin, and quickly fashioned us a bong with a water bottle, tin foil, empty pen cartridge and candle wax.

We sat around taking hits while sweet smelling smoke filled the room.

Photo by Robin Esrock.

Although I got a slight buzz, after several inhales I saw no dragon to chase, and soon enough we had smoked all the black gunk.

Somewhat to my relief, my experience with opium did not lead me to some wet, back alley, where a leathered, hairy guy named Chang was ready to fill my pipe.

But if opium is so addictive and widespread, maybe that’s why everyone in Laos is so happy. I would investigate my “happy” theory later.

“Sabadee!”

Some locals have offered me some traditional Lao whiskey, made from rice, and I can’t refuse.

Their generosity and warmth are unnerving, and totally inspiring. “A top ten day?” asks my friend, Minesh, a fellow round the worlder. “A top three day!” I respond.

I have traveled to enough places and seen enough things to know when something is truly special. I don’t know how long Laos will continue to exist in its current, bizarro state, but I feel blessed to have discovered it at all.

To the Serbian girl: I travel because every once in a while I stumble across a universe so unexpectedly inspiring it can change everything.

Cultural understanding, beautiful scenery, wonderful people, food – it’s all important, but when new worlds blossom where before there were none, you cannot help but feel some of the magical power of life itself.

Feature photo by Swami Stream. Photo above by Liutao.

Western travelers have a propensity to romanticize the wisdom of the East. We often seek out places like India, China, and the Middle East precisely because their wisdom is older than ours. We visit their sacred places, their shrines and monasteries and wonder at the odd curves in their architecture.

By traveling East, we paradoxically yearn to connect outwardly with the most spiritual of inner truths. Perhaps it’s precisely that paradox which makes the East so compelling for Western travelers.

There is no overarching tradition that categorizes the extent of inner travel better than Eastern philosophy. Nowhere in the West has meditation and concentration been so ancient and connected with the spiritual and profound.

It’s in this tenor that I’ve compiled a shortlist of canonical Eastern thinkers to help inspire the inner wanderlust in all of us.

Lao Tzu. Photo by beautifulcataya.

Lao Tzu

Venerable author of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu was an ancient Chinese philosopher and the founder of Taoism. There are few books more inspirational to take with you while traveling than the Tao Te Ching. The Chinese character for ‘Tao’ even means ‘path’, or ‘way.’

One of the more refreshing tenets of Taoism is that humans don’t hold a special status within the natural order, being only one of many manifestations of the Tao. It is thus the goal of the Taoist to find their own place in the Tao, to seek harmony with the order of things.

And isn’t that essentially the same for any displaced traveler? Finding oneself and one’s place in the grander scheme of the world, despite its multifarious unfamiliarities, is exactly what the traveler seeks, whether that journey is inward or outward.

Lao Tzu was also well known for travel metaphors. This oft-quoted gem is a personal favorite: “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”

Prince Siddhartha Gautama.

Siddhartha Gautama

Siddhartha Gautama is the celebrated founder of Buddhism. Originally born a prince in a region of Ancient India, which we now refer to as Nepal, his early life was lived in relative luxury and obliviousness, far from the life of the great inner traveler he was to become.

As the story goes, his obliviousness was not his own doing, but rather his father’s, who wished to shelter his son from human suffering. But at the age of 29, Siddhartha defiantly left the shadow of his palace’s walls. In an event referred to as “The Great Departure,” he escaped in silence to seek the truth about life.

Thus, Siddhartha became the quintessential vagabond. Living frugally, he found wisdom while begging for alms in the streets. After eventually achieving enlightenment through solitary reflection and meditation, he traveled through India as a teacher.

At some crucial point, every traveler-at-heart makes their own great departure. We aren’t all founders of Buddhism, to be sure, but it’s that search that drives us– to see the world for what it really is, and to learn something about ourselves in the process.

Bodhidharma. Photo by Nemo’s great uncle.

Bodhidharma

Few brands of Eastern philosophy are as perplexing as Zen Buddhism, and we have Bodhidharma to thank for it. He began as a Buddhist monk in India, where it is said that he lived in a cave and meditated by staring at the cave’s wall for several decades.

Staring at walls undoubtedly inspired him to dream a lot about travel. Sure enough, he eventually left India and traveled throughout China, where he discovered that the Buddhist teachings there were filled with unjustified superstition and menial rituals. Thus, Bodhidharma developed a non-traditional path to enlightenment which was to become Zen Buddhism.

Although it is customarily very un-Zen to attempt to directly define what Zen is, I’d say that ultimately it’s about living life by the moment. It is about finding enlightenment through new perspectives, as each moment uniquely brings them, rather than relying on rules, habit or establishment as guides.

And I can’t think of better travel advice than that.

Zarathushtra. Photo by Christine K.

Zarathushtra

Zarathushtra, or Zoraster, was an ancient Iranian philosopher and poet who is credited with founding Zoroastrianism. Before Islamic conquests shook the region, Zoroastrianism was the dominant religious philosophy in ancient Iran.

It was also a key influence in the early development of Western philosophy, which goes to show that the line between the East and the West is not nearly as clear as some classifications imply.

At the heart of Zarathushtra’s philosophy is the belief that we must be open to all experiences life offers. Zoroastrians believe firmly in being an active participant in life. It’s our actions, particularly toward one another, which ultimately determine our own life’s meaning.

Travelers with a conscious respect for the cultures in which they’re traveling would do well to channel their inner Zoroastrian. That would be: to actively pursue every aspect of life, but always do it with good thoughts, good words, and good deeds.

Jiddu Krishnamurti.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Unlike the other four Eastern philosophers mentioned above, Krishnamurti is not an ancient thinker. He was born in India in 1895 died in California in 1986. Thus, although his thought has origins in India, he has had a worldly influence.

As a young man, he was christened by those surrounding him as the next great World Teacher, and was groomed from youth to take that role. But after a process of awakening he later came to disavow this title, choosing to foster his own path.

Krishnamurti eventually traveled the world, giving lectures focused on the power of the mind in meditation. He taught that the problems of the world, such as hunger and war, are primarily a result of our thinking. If we want to enact change in the world, then he believed we must change the ways we think.

Rather than clinging to beliefs dogmatically, which isolates us from others and causes us to choose our beliefs over the well- being of others, Krishnamurti encouraged independent, positive thinking.

His philosophy is a reminder that the line between inner and outer travel is always a thin and delicate one.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

What other Eastern thinkers would you add to this list? If you haven’t already read it, Bryan’s list of Western thinkers can be found here.

Years ago, I wrote a short story called “The Attic.” I had been reading too much Stephen King at the time, reflected in the subject matter of my own character (a homicidal maniac who kept forgetting his crimes).

But while the story is, sadly, forgettable, I still believe the theory I explored is sound.

“The Attic” is a metaphor for the idea that the human mind can only retain so much information. Sure, it can be packed away somewhere in the bowels of our brains, but our ability to retain, analyze, and process so much data is limited.

Eventually, we’re full.

This leads up to my own announcement: I’m stepping away as Editor of Brave New Traveler.

There’s simply too much to do. Myself and the rest of the Matador folks are planning some major site upgrades across the network, and it’s too much for me to handle at the same time. BNT would suffer my lack of focused attention.

As well, my co-editor Tim Patterson has been gallavanting in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

But take heart – replacing me is the talented and worldly Julie Schwietert, who also manages many of the other channels in the Matador Network. She’s promised to take the reigns with care, and continue publishing spiritual, provocative, and thoughtful articles.

I won’t disapear completely. I’ll continue publishing BNT’s Best of the Week and the odd article here and there.

As for our stable of writers, please submit your future queries through our submission form or directly to julie@matadornetwork.com

Thanks to all wonderful readers and contributors!