So Much Longer than 80 Days

After 169 days of roaming, I'm finally home. Private, internal applause. Now to work: tell the story, start the next adventure!

When relating any part of the trip, a question I frequently hear is, "Why? Why travel so fast? Why not use airplanes?" When I've traveled in the past, it has always been to one place: I would go to a city or country for a few days or weeks, then come home. When we stay in one place for a longer period of time, we gain a deeper understanding of its culture, but we also acclimate to it. Then, even if we only go one country over, we notice all of the myriad of differences between the two. Think about even traveling within your own country. Having grown up in Georgia, visiting Michigan was never an exercise in how unified Americans are culturally but rather a shock over what strange sodas "they" drink "up there." By increasing the speed at which I traveled, I was never able to acclimate to any one given place. The effects were two-fold: (1) I lost that pervasive focus on the differences and saw the similarities between cultures, and (2) I got a feeling for the gradient between all aspects of these foreign places. How do landscapes, faces, music, food, architecture, and language slowly change over distance? That kind of observation could not be made by teleporting with an airplane in a disconnected series of dots but only by crawling along in a line, emphasizing the importance of small stops and the view from the bus window.

All waxing scientific aside, on account of the daunting amount of material of which this story is comprised, I've decided to blog the basic breakdown and do something more substantial with the details. Perhaps publish? Unfortunately for you, dear Reader, the bullet points alone are a leviathan of information. Proceed at your own risk.

I left my home in Farwell, Michigan, on the morning of the 13th of September, 2011. This would serve as the beginning and end of my land travel, since I had flown in from Korea. I rode Amtrak to start with, going first to Chicago then to New York City. I hung around NYC at museums and restaurants with some old friends before taking a car to the shipping dock behind Newark Int'l Airport. My plans having slightly changed from when I posted earlier, I boarded the CMA CGM New Jersey to cross the Atlantic.

With a Filipino and Croatian crew hard at work, I sailed for 9 days, occupying myself with whale watching, Flannery O'Conner's collected short stories, writing my journal, exploring the bridge, engine room, and fo'c'sle, watching DVD's, and preparing myself mentally for the whirlwind to come. The conditions weren't quite as spartan as one would imagine. My cabin was comfortable and the food was delicious in the officer mess. On the next to last day at sea, we threaded through the Azores.

We approached Tangier, Morocco, in the middle of the night. One of the mountains stood out of the darkness, for written upon its surface in lights are three Arabic words: God, Homeland, King. In the morning, I hopped off the ship and into a small van with an employee of the shipping company. We drove through the windy roads and arid landscape. Roadside brush fire, no big deal. Once in the city, I chuck my stuff at a hotel and start exploring. Mint tea is fantastic, the hobos make excellent tour guides of the medina, and every city in Morocco has a casbah which one could rock, if thus inclined. Yes, I bought a rug. Perhaps a terrible idea given the fact that I don't have a home, but when I do finally settle somewhere the chances are high that it won't be anywhere near North Africa. Opportunity: seized.

On the 29th of September, I rocketed across the Straits of Gibraltar in a high speed ferry, in a mere 35 minutes finding myself in Tarifa, Spain. There, in a small surfers' hostel near the coast, I had a miniature panic attack. Time constraints were already beginning to feel like a Death Star trash compactor; I had to cover the over 5,000 kilometers between southern Spain and Moscow in just two weeks! Feelings of loneliness and inadequacy started seeping through my skin, but this was far too early in the game for a break down. I got it together and hit the road on the bright, making my way to Barcelona. The snaking roads throughout the craggy Andalusian mountains weren't the least of my worries: the police hauled me and another guy who looked like me off the bus in the hunt for a murderer. Never fear, they were looking for someone else.

Here begins a non-stop whirlwind tour of some of Europe's highlight cities. The pattern was as follows: arrive in the early morning to a new city and find lodging for the night. Tour for the rest of the day and all of the next, then take a night train to the next location. During this period I was in a new country every other day and literally never slept in the same place for more than one night. I allowed myself one awesome meal in each country and mostly ate bread and cheese otherwise. I took a free walking tour through the fun-house architecture of Barcelona, climbed up a clifftop castle overlooking Nice's Côte d'Azur, spent an evening among the fast cars and high rollers of Monaco, and got hopelessly lost in the acutely worthless city of Verona. It was at this point that I gave up hope of learning any language, and, wiping the linguistic soup broth from my chin, started to get smarter about communication (though it would not be until South East Asia that I perfected it).

When I jubilantly put Italy to my rudder, I also said goodbye to Western Europe. Although Prague was the harbinger of new and fascinating sights and tastes, it did not manage to slow me down. I was then only one week from my scheduled Moscow departure, and there was little time to indulge. Arrival in the Czech Republic did bring one important change, however. From this point until leaving Malaysia, I would exclusively couchsurf, a program that would consistently afford me some of my best experiences. For instance, my Czech hosts and I visited the overwhelmingly disturbing Sedlec Ossuary, a church decorated with the exhumed skeletons of an estimated 40,000 corpses. In Warsaw, I sang karaoke and watched Xena with an awesome couple of doctoral students. In Minsk, I saw a double rainbow sprouting out of the KGB building and cooked Belorussian with Andrei and his wife.

Finally, Russia. All feelings of dizziness aside, I had kept my deadline and still had enough time to prowl the capital with a few models, enjoy borscht, and attempt tightrope walking with my host. Finally, the Trans-Siberian Railroad was just a run-through-the-glittering-subway-station away. I would stop in the industrial town of Yekaterinburg at the foothills of the Ural mountains and at Irkutsk, the Siberian town on the edge of Lake Baikal, but my apogee was the people I met. Though I seldom understood their names clearly enough to write them down and we never once shared a common language, those days of watching the browning birches hurtle past the window exceeded my every expectation. Of course we boozed and stole, but we also miraculously grew to be friends across cultural, linguistic, and generational gaps.

After freezing my buttocks off on the banks of the world's deepest lake, I veered sharply south to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. My first few hours are recorded in great detail, but I went on to sleep in a yurt-like structure, climb a tortoise-shaped rock (under the guidance of a stray dog), ride a Shetland pony-sized horse, and eat meat-ish substances. Upon departure, I distinctly recall wishing I had had more time there, the first such occurrence. Be careful what you wish for, eh? Ah, the infamous deportation from China. Let's just say that I was promptly but not inhumanely pulled from my train to Beijing over visa issues, forced to spend a night in a hotel with two immigration escorts (not the fun kind), and then gently pushed back over the border in the morning.

Getting stranded in the Gobi desert with a 200 dollar Chinese Lisa Frank sticker called a "visa" in my passport and no clue what to do next turned out to be the best thing that happened to me on this trip.
           [SPOILER ALERT::: the story only gets worse from here]
I got the opportunity to spend more time in Mongolia, and I had an improbable experience with the benevolent local who helped me back to the city. Having to break one of my criteria and fly over China was rendered less disappointing by the fact that I got to stop over in Seoul for one night of rancid soju, delicious duck, and great friends. Then I picked up my route on schedule in Hanoi.

In Southeast Asia, my paced slowed somewhat. Rather than racing through a city in 36 hours then catching a night bus, I had  room to spend four or five days in each: still meager, but comparatively much calmer. Alternately avoiding scooters while on foot and pedestrians while on scooter, Hanoi was all the steamy chaos I could have hoped for. Moving west through a mountain border crossing, the food kept getting better. I met a few couchsurfers in the capital of Laos for delicious food and what passed for beer. Vientiane was more a flat, dusty-road jungle town than a city, and exactly the sort of place in which you could lose yourself for months. Thailand offered the unique experience to play a part in the ongoing flood relief, a welcome respite from egocentric tourism, photographing locals, and gorging myself. I mentioned this being the high point in the evolution of my skills at communicating sans langue. The truth of the matter is that I was making do exclusively with thank you and I'm sorry, which I found could handle most any situation that pointing, a calculator screen, or the name of the next town could not. I suppose some may deem that to be a low point, but I 'm judging on the principles of efficacy, rapid adaptability, and ease.

FAQ 

What was your favorite place that you visited? 

On peninsular Malaysia, on the northwestern coast, is the state of Penang, regarded by its countrymen as "food paradise." Made up of little more than an island and its adjacent strip of land, Penang gained fame for its once bustling Straits of Melacca. Now overshadowed in the shipping industry by Singapore, Penang boasts all the character that its neighbor to the south sorely lacks. A gorgeous, colonial town is spread along the east side, but not so dispersed that one can't bike it easily. The multiculturalism is fascinating. It's not uncommon to find an Anglican church, Buddhist temple, and Hindu mandir at the same intersection while prayer call floats over it all. The Indian food is tied for second best I've ever had worldwide, and the local cuisine incorporates Chinese, Thai, and Indonesian with their own twist, all for prices cheaper than vending machines. Looking for some downtime? Take a bus trip to the backside of the rainforest mountain which serves as backdrop to this whole paradise, where you will find quiet fishing villages. Condos are cheaper than my rent in Athens, so you can bet your socks I'll be living here in my lifetime.

Leaving Penang was hard, but I had a powerful motivator. On the road I made many friends, but in a lifestyle of hectic change, nothing compares to a familiar and established sidekick. To my great fortune, I was met by three such cohorts during my race around the world. The first of those was flying from Korea as I clacked south through Kuala Lumpur to the island country of Singapore. (If you're wondering why I haven't added a single picture to this lengthy summary of foods and locales, it's because I suspect that it was on this train that my first 8GB of pictures slipped out of my bag and into oblivion.) Once in Singapore, E and I made the best of a fairly lifeless pile of iron and glass. The night zoo was a terrifying time of flying fox rooms, angry elephants, and other untethered creatures. The cable car (brought to you by Canon) afforded beautiful views of towering convention centers and magnificent hotels. The ritzy attractions too costly for our meager budgets, we tooled around Little India and the botanical gardens.

The fun continued in Australia, where I met the second of three magnificent mates. D and I rented a Yaris and drove that little hummingbird from Brisbane all the way to Melbourne, camping in the bush as we went along. We cooked on the barbie (burgers you racist), stood on the both easternmost point and the shore first  claimed by Cook, pulled ticks from chests as nature got all up in our business, huddled in a phone booth to shelter ourselves from the rain, sought kangaroos, both alive and in pies, and saw old friends, space exhibits, waterfalls, and koalas. We totally smelled unbearable by about half way through, and then it only got more nose-hair-singeing. Still wouldn't have traded it.

New Zealand was next, and was all anyone ever says it is. Breathtaking, variety, wonderful people, blah blah blah you've heard it all before. I did the requisite hiking and cinematic location visits without the extreme sky diving or bungee jumping. Then I hightailed it to North Island and my trans-Pacific freighter. The Bahia Negra was much the same as the New Jersey, except at sea for twice as long and with Poles instead of Croats. Together, we celebrated Christmas, combining the Polish traditions of pescetarianism and taking communion with the Filipino ones of roast boar on a spit and karaoke.

Only a few days before the new year, I watched as the locks of the Panama Canal emptied and lowered our vessel, then shortly after I disembarked. From the valley town of Boquete, I did a 12 hour hike up Volcán Barú, starting at midnight. We arrived at the summit to greet a frigid, gale-force dawn and scurry back down. In Costa Rica, I got up close and personal with sloths, parrots, and leaf cutter ants, then walked into town for dinner to choose my own sea bass from a cooler. Of course, Nicaragua saw my college education put to full use as I volunteered on a permaculture farm on the island of Ometepe for two weeks. Lots of rice and beans, machetes, and nature ensued. On my weekends, I attended bullfights, went for a dip in the springs, or biked around the island.

Having burnt all my Honduras and Guatemala time living on the island, I had to hurry to reach Oaxaca, Mexico at the same time as my third friend. I had some ugly dealings with some exploitative Hondurans at the border and my stomach finally started giving way to the forces of Latin America, but other than that I made it to southern Mexico uneventfully. B and I enjoyed local delicacies like chocolate, mezcal, and tlayudas, and visited some impressive Aztec ruins. The color and character of Oaxaca was all the more charming for the fact that the rest of Mexico possessed neither of those things in such quantity.

When it was all through I was ready for the victory lap. I passed through Mexico City with the time to stop but not the interest. I bused directly to the border with Arizona, where I slipped into Tuscon in the early morning of the 31st of January. From there, I visited my brother in El Paso and moved east toward Atlanta. Amtrak stopped long enough at San Antonio for me to go see the Alamo, but not having taken a single photograph I guess I'll just have to remember it. I stopped in New Orleans for a fun-filled night of seafood, beer, jazz, locals, and late night beignets. A series of stops in Birmingham, northside-Atlanta, Athens, and the 'burbs allowed me to visit the bulk of my friends and family still in the region. Lastly, a few days in D.C. mark my first trip to our nation's capital. On Leap Day 2012, I rolled into Grand Rapids Amtrak station in the snow, successfully circumnavigating by the two criteria that define the feat if not by my third personal challenge of staying on land for the duration.

In two days time, everything begins anew. I will join the other members of Group 43 on a flight to Frankfurt and then Kyiv, the first steps toward my 27 month commitment to serving in the Peace Corps Ukraine program. I'm still unsure what that exactly means, but rest assured that this blog will continue to chronicle it. Many thanks to my family and friends for all the good wishes and help in preparing for this step. My next communication will be from Ukraine, but that's about all I know of the future!

Sneak Peak: Bangkok

10 November 2011

After sundown, I go with Pete and his family for dinner. There's a never-ending spread of food. Every time a dish is close to clean, the remaining food is placed on another partially clean platter and some new delicacy replaces the empty plate. My memory is unreliable because I blacked out from pleasure, but I recall rotisserie chicken, fried fish steak, spicy papaya salad, saucy laab, spinach omelet, crispy pork slices, and a sharp vinegar and fish soup. Each plate came complete with its own unique sauce, and we ate pinches of sticky rice like dinner rolls.

Tonight the moon is full, marking the second largest festival in all of Thailand. People have gathered by the river banks, where numerous food carts are set up and the smoke and crackle of fireworks is thick. Each person carries a painted foam lotus flower, the top of which is speared with a narrow candle and sticks of incense. Around the base of these are marigolds and irises, held on by the faux leaves of the lotus. The people light the candle and incense, then concentrate on all the sin and sadness they've experienced over the past year. Then, the shrine is launched into the river, hopefully taking all the misfortune out with it. The dark waters are filled with tiny pyres, each one a twinkling prayer passing silently toward the sea.

In the northern style of Chang Mai, some people are launching makeshift hot air balloons, a thin, rice paper cylinder turned upside down and lifted by burning fuel hung from the mouth of the bag. Now the river is reflected in the sky. Bright ruby stars float past the orange harvest moon up into the stratosphere, drifting and impermanent constellations that change the once familiar firmament into something alien and beautiful.

The festivities are somewhat grim in conjunction with the flooding in the west. Pete and I are discussing what to do with our day tomorrow, and he makes an original suggestion. He is going with the family to assist with the relief effort and invites me along. It certainly would be more interesting than another day full of temples, markets, and walking. Thinking it a great opportunity, I jump onboard. What Pete doesn't mention is the extent of the problem. Or the army presence in the district. Or the utter lack of other white faces, destining me to be a spectacle. Or the escape of hundreds of crocodiles from the captive breeding center.

Sneak Peak: Ulaanbaatar

The first hours of Mongolia.

20 October 2011

The train arrives in the dark of the early morning. We are all shaken awake by the sheet collector around 5 am and out in the cold by 6. Ben and I both have an address on Peace Avenue, so we decide to walk it together. With what little clues we have, we set out into the dim pre-dawn for what unknowingly will become a three hour trek.

Both of us carry poorly scrawled maps of places sprouting off Peace Avenue, and neither of those maps contain our homes-to-be. It wouldn't make a difference anyhow, since not a single road is labelled nor building numbered. Fortunately, when you're lost with another traveller, nothing seems quite as hopeless. The threatening situations of lost, cold, dark, illiterate, and getting mugged on a street called Peace are much diminished.

* * * * *

By now the city has come fully alive. The streets crawl with honking, dusty automobiles and over-laden buses, and once empty sidewalks are teeming with people. The staring is intense, but whether its the height, beard, whiteness, piercings, evident lostness, bulging backpack, or a combination of all factors, I can't be sure. Fed up with aimless wandering, we decide to stop someone. Who better to locate Gandan Monastery than two monk boys, geared up in their golden robes with sleeves hanging past their hands and maroon belts holding the garb together?

"Excuse me, can I ask you a question? Do you two happen to know where we can find Gandan Monsatery?" Ben asks. Silly British courtesy. I pick up the directions and point to the word Gandan and ask, "Gandan: where?" The gap-toothed monklets turn and point their droopy sleeves up the hill.

This particular hill is mounted by a major highway which runs along the eastern edge of the slums. As we climb up, a painfully obvious temple, reminiscent of pictures I've seen out of Bhutan, rises above the dingy hovels. Monastery? It has to be, but just to be sure we turn and look back down the hill to see if we've passed anything bigger and more Buddhist.

Jaws hit pavement. The sun has just crested the mountains in the southeast, turning a pale dawn into a golden painting. The city is like stacked sheets of gold, each further layer brighter than the one before it until finally the city fades into the sky. The dust rising off the now busy roads gives every roof, every corner, every antenna a golden aura. It's so magnificent that neither of us can move or speak.

For those who've heard about my Chinese...immigration complications...fear not, it's all sorted. Best thing that has happened to me was getting deported from that awful country. The universe works in mysterious ways.

Calendar!

Wow this is convenient. I've been using it since the start but only just figured out how to share...what's my age again? All entries begin October 2011.

Sneak Peak: Atlantic

I couldn't in good conscience leave everyone hanging for five solid months, so I've chosen an excerpt from my trip to share. Enjoy!

19 September 2011

After Marin's watch, he escorts me to the focsle, or forecastle, or that pointy front deck area. Because the weather is windy and the seas rough, we thread through the tunnels between the ship's hull and her fuel tanks. These are narrow but high ceilinged and protect those inside from the elements or pirate RPG's. Coming out into the sunlight again a few minutes later, I see the waves for the first real time. What I had been gazing down on all along from the fifth floor of the accommodation tower had seemed like the stuff of lazy rivers. In fact, this was not the kiddie pool. Undulations crested along the lip of the deck only to plummet back down into cavernous recesses. To look at them one would think they'd get air time on the crest, each wave a trampoline.

"Now we can play Leonardo," Marin instructs. We walk to the forwardmost point on the ship, peering off the edge while the freighter cut the ocean in two. The water, in protest, picks the focsle up until we can't see the horizon then drops us at terrifying speed toward the deep blackness. Marin begins to tell how dolphins play Frogger by jumping back and forth in front of the ship, when suddenly a massive sneeze of sea spray blasts over the edge and into our faces. I sputter and shake off like a Saint Bernard and we both laugh. Marin turns to me and says, "It's ok. This is baptism," and I agree.

The Eve of Departure

It's been a comfortable, satiating, relaxing 2 weeks, but my American vacation is coming to a close. My attempt at circumnavigation begins Tuesday, September 13th, at four in the god-forsaken morning. I will board Amtrak bound for Chicago and, ultimately, New York City, where I will catch a freighter across the Pacific and the adventure will truly begin. After 9 months of planning, paper work, and headaches, the route is finalized and the visas are in hand.

I will depart from Newark for Morocco on the morning of the 17th. From there, I will cross the Strait of Gibraltar into Spain. Easing my way through early October and Europe, I will pass through southern France, northern Italy, Slovenia, Austria, the Czech Republic, southern Poland, and Belarus before arriving in Moscow. From there, I will cross Russia via the Trans-Siberian Railroad, plunging down from Lake Baikal, through Mongolia, and into Beijing before Halloween. I'll spend the next few weeks whisking southerly through China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. When I arrive in Singapore or maybe Indonesia, I will ride a 21 foot crocodile to Australia (actually, this leg is still not tacked down yet...) where my pace will slow and I will sashay around with my friend D. Our traipsing will deposit us in Melbourne in time for my boat to New Zealand, set for November 30th. I will have a measly 3 days in NZ before I will again take to the high seas, this time for the long haul: Panama. Sometime between Christmas and the New Year, I will arrive in Central America, ready for a scenic January. I'll bus my way north through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, inching ever closer to home. After clambering through our increasingly hazardous Neighbor to the South, I will arrive at last in Texas. After that, it's a simple matter of getting back to Michigan by February first and thus completing my global circumnavigation by surface transportation alone!

Quick question: what foreign foods do Americans love best? I believe they are Italian, Mexican, Chinese, and maybe Thai as a distant 4th. Who is going to Italy, Mexico, China, and Thailand (not in that order)? Food trip extraordinaire! It only just occurred to me that this is what is happening. Maybe it's my subconscious at work.

Sadly, there will only be maybe one more blog post if that for the next 5 months. I will probably have the time and the means to post my trip through NYC and Chi-town, but everything else will have to wait. I would be remiss to share my stories without their accompanying photographs, and anyways the Internet access will be infrequent and unreliable. I will be documenting everything thoroughly, don't worry, and I intend to release the adventure day by day, as if were happening, except much after the fact. Believe me, you'll be glad for posts with pictures.

Also, big news for February! The international blur just won't stop since I will be shipping off to Kazakhstan for my Peace Corps assignment. Borat jokes: ready, aim, fire.

Decisions

40 days remain until my contract is finished. The Iran hostage crisis was 11 times longer; Justin Bieber toured for 9 times longer; James Garfield's presidency was 5 times longer; Even the Chilean miners were underground longer than I'll remain in Seoul. The immediacy of the end has crept up on me, and so the time has come for final trip decisions. When I depart in mid-September to attempt (and probably fail) an around the world land bound trip, I have decided that given the absurd difficulty of securing a visa to Saudi Arabia and the state of the rest of the middle east, my most reliable route to Asia is the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

I've already made reservations to take a two-week tour through the Urals, Siberia, lake Baikal, Mongolia, and finally arrive in Beijing near the end of October. This means that I will have to crawl down through China and southeast Asia in order to make my way back to the original route. I'll cross the equator almost as I cross into Vietnam, completing one of my two trip goals in early November. I will probably fail the second goal (my challenge to stay grounded) somewhere beyond Jakarta, as no viable route from southeast Asia to Australia is presenting itself. I've not given up hope yet, but, like many others before me, I do have to start considering that the dream will be dashed in Melanesia. There's a looming feeling that the rest of the boating and training and trekking becomes fruitless if it's only for a partial circumnavigation, but we'll see how I feel after the new year.

In the meantime, having decided to spend more than two weeks on Russian soil or tracks, I took the opportunity last week to acquaint myself with their cuisine. In the heart of the Russian district (it's real) of Seoul, a friend introduced me to Gostiny Dvor (Гостиный Двор! I've been practising my Cyrillic). It had been so long since I'd had rich beer, rye bread, or potato-laden cuisine. Quite a gratifying experience overall, giving me yet another satisfaction to anticipate when I arrive in Moscow (Москва!). Food recap below.

Russia Was Nothing Compared to This

In all of my traveling, I have never had to bother with visa applications. Thanks to my blessed blue American passport, Japan, Taiwan, and Bangladesh have all let me in without a second glance. Now it seems it is time to pay my dues. The greatest challenge to overcome in the execution of this trip is not the planning or even the financing; it's the paperwork. I had a taste of this bureaucratic madness when I attempted Vladivostok in February. You know, when I had to apply for an invitation to apply for a visa?

Everything before Turkey and after Australia is a freebie on account of my citizenship, but that whole middle zone wants a full visa application. This means during the final months here in Seoul at least 10 embassy runs. While many of these have proven annoying (like only being open 4 days a week or only for 2 hours in the afternoon), nothing holds a candle to getting into Saudi Arabia. Here's the break down so far:

The Plan:
My route has me going through the middle east and then on to India, but this is hindered greatly by the fact that seemingly everything between Algeria and Mumbai is either in civil war or hates Americans. Even the waters are unsafe due to dysfunctional Somalia and somewhat less than vigilant Yemen. Now with Syria falling apart and Obama screwing my chances in Pakistan, the noose is tightening. If I can't make it through Saudi to the UAE, I have no choice but to scrap it and reroute through the Trans-Siberian Railroad. I've been trying hard for a week to discover if that Plan B is necessary or if I can lock down a visa to the Kingdom.


Click to view Middle East North Africa in a larger map

The Process:
The visa seemed next to impossible to get, but I have an in. My good coworker E was born and raised in Saudi for 21 years, and knows several people still inside the country. The necessary invitation for a travel visa seems plausible, so I started hitting embassies.

1. I went out to the location that was throughout maps and the internet indicated as "the Embassy to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia." It seems they've moved locations over a year ago and this building is a husk. Also, visiting hours are exclusively during the hours when I'm working. After some finagling I manage to secure the new address as well as permission to come in the morning.
2. The next day, I approach a lady at the counter of the KSA embassy. She looks at me as if I were insane, then tells me I have to wait for the consular to come in. You see, they're not sure whether I even need a travel visa (which they don't do anyway) or simply a transit one. Don't ask me why the consular is not in the consulate nor ever once showed in an hour and a half. In the end I had little choice but to leave my number and a copy of the map.
3. The KSA secretary calls me back with the information that, while the embassy in Seoul could not grant me the visa I required, I could get the necessary transit visa from the consulate in Amman, Jordan. My fear is that this is not true. What if I arrived in Jordan to find a dead-end, no re-entry permit for Egypt and therefore no hope of backtracking, and a wasted booking on a freighter from Dubai?
4. By now it is Friday, and though I attempt to fact check with the Saudi consulate in Amman, I have forgotten that Friday is the Muslim Sunday.  Of course there is no one there. Instead I call the D.C. one, but then realize that the time zone math I had done isn't applicable to both Jordan and Virginia...
5. When I finally contact D.C., they tell me that a visa is not even on my list of concerns: I will not be allowed to take this bus because I am not a middle eastern national. I know for a fact that this isn't true, as it was recommended to me by an American. However, now I have to confirm that it's still available for whities.
6. In the meantime, E sets Plan A.2 in motion, which involves one of her friends applying to sponsor my transit through the KSA. I spend some serious time researching the TSR from Moscow to Beijing, as Saudi is looking more and more unlikely.
7. This morning, just as I'm warming up to thoughts of Siberia, Raed Haddad of the Jordan Express Tourist Transport Company, or JETT, writes me a very cordial email informing me that riding the bus will absolutely be "no problem at all" and that I should specifically acquire a land transit visa. All this to be back where I was before calling D.C.  Can I get the visa here in Seoul, by mail to D.C., on the ground in Amman, or not at all?

Something tells me that the struggle isn't through yet, but until I answer the question of whether I can or can not pass through Saudi, I can't book anything further or calculate the timing of my trip with any accuracy. This one visa will determine the character of the middle 2 months. Will it be Turkey, the Middle East, and India? Or will I instead be in Russia, Mongolia, the Gobi, and finally city hopping through China?

The First Leg

One of the defining aspects of my trip will be that I remain on the surface of the Earth constantly. As this rules out airplanes, it makes ocean crossing one of the bigger logistic hurdles to jump. Until they build a bridge across the Atlantic or a tunnel under the Pacific, this means boating the oceans of the world. Of course, it isn't as easy as it was in Columbus' century. Boats, though still quite common for transporting goods, are not so accessible to passengers as they once were. This is where a community of travelers and a butt load of research have come in handy.

For reliable and affordable* crossing of the big blue wet thing, I will be depending predominantly on cargo freighters. How is this possible? Since the mechanization of most physical labor, the personnel required for the loading and crewing of freighters has been significantly reduced. That means open cabins, which were wasted space until someone had the bright idea to hock them to travelers as a rugged cruise alternative.

Freighter travel is no walk in the park. I've had to jump through several bureaucratic hoops, including some very specific travel insurance requirements and a rubber stamp of approval from a doctor. The latter is to safeguard against the infirm boarding boats, since all cabins are up 3 or more flights of stairs and there is no physician on board. If you are not infirm of body, the greater challenge seems to be a weakening of the soul. With little to do for more than a week and few if any people to socialize with, a maritime path across the ocean means crushing loneliness and irreparable boredom. You must be braced to spend 10 days inside your own head, a book, or off the starboard side.

For a taste of what's to come, here's a shot of my first purchased and confirmed freighter. The CMA CGM Kingfish is shown here leaving New York City, as I will be, bound for my first foreign destination (Tanger, Morocco) almost precisely 1 year ago today.

* Let the record show that by affordable I mean in comparison to the alternative: the QE2.  Flying is still vastly cheaper than freighter travel.  At almost double the price of an airplane ticket, I am absolutely not recommending that you boat to save cash.  In addition, it is in no way possible to swab your way across the ocean.  Freighter crew do not ever accept work for transport.

The Next Step

It's true that I've been mentally checked out of Korea for some time now. I'm in the last four months of my job at Avalon. The food and culture are so normal these days that I can barely think of things to write about on this blog. I've hit a linguistic ceiling for someone not taking classes. There are few loose ends left to tie here, and considering that I've even done and seen all the things I wanted to before leaving Korea, I'd say it's been a pretty successful ride. While four months certainly leaves time for an adventure or two, most of my energy these days is consumed with the future, and Korea is more and more a part of the past. On September first, it will be completely so.

So what does the future hold? Well, right now I've been accepted into the Peace Corps, but the details are getting more vague with time instead of more concrete. At first, it appeared as though I were going to "eastern Europe or central Asia" (2,212,896 sq mi), but within a week I was renominated to "central or south America" (7,902,233 sq mi). Mathematically, assuming the increase in vagueness is linear and not exponential, I should be volunteering in "the world" by July 9th.

In the meantime, I am busily preparing for the stopgap. In the five months between the end of Korea and the start of some new adventure in [country name], I intend to do some traveling. The goal is to circumnavigate the globe. I have set two rules for this adventure. (1) I must cross the equator, and (2) I can not leave the surface.

The first rule is simply one of the governing concepts in the definition of circumnavigation. You must cross every line of longitude and you must finish in the same place you started in, but without the restriction of crossing the equator there is nothing to prevent you from heading straight north, skipping around the pole, then going home. While that would be an adventure in and of itself, it's not a valid circumnavigation. Crossing the equator is the simplest way to guarantee that the prospective circumnavigatee completes a "great circle," or a distance equal to the full circumference of the Earth.

As for the latter rule, I don't think there's any excitement in just getting on a commuter jet and showing up nine hours later in another country. A trip of this scale is about so much more than country hopping. I actually want to see the transformation of the land as it happens. Getting way up in an airplane is a fantastic way to skip over the weirdness, the run ins, and ultimately all of the fun of a "global road trip." Not to mention I hate airports, airplanes, and flying, as many do. I've discovered during my surface transport research an entire community of airplane boycotters, either because of health, phobias, or environmental conviction. While none of those apply to me, it is reassuring to discover that thousands of modern people every year travel on freighters, trains, buses, and ferries.

I've resisted the urge to romanticize this attempted circumnavigation, but just the very word conjures images of Magellan spliced with Indiana Jones. One of the great struggles is grasping the reality that this is not a camel ride montage across the Sahara or a pan out to a brown map with an animated red dotted line representing me zipping across the Pacific. Every moment of this will not be waking up outside the Taj Mahal or some other picturesque and magnificent scene. I have to force myself to accept that this will be exceedingly boring and lonely for the most part. I have to approach this realistically or I will not be able to achieve it: I will arrive on the other side of the Atlantic after 10 days on a cramped cargo freighter and think to myself, " This sucks." It will not be a cake walk, of this I am sure. However, I know that in a year I will either remember the experience exclusively in a positive light or I will not have survived it. In the coming months I'll keep you posted with as much concrete information about my trip as I have to share with you. For now and in the future, you can see the route as it develops here.