Happily married crazy father of two who loves traveling, diving, adventuring, exploring, and hanging with my family in different places all over the world.
I am in Luang Probang, Loas, editing photos of the boy’s encounter with the groundskeeper at one of the oldest mosques in China when I learn of the bombings in Paris. Much as the attackers of 9/11 hijacked planes full of innocents, these terrorists are hijacking an entire religion.
We came upon this kindly old man in the mid-afternoon in a quiet courtyard. We had wandered in from the adjacent alley as he was making his way across the open space. He stopped and admired the boys. He asked about the cost of travel from America. We debated which was farther Mecca, or California. He told us of his family and his eleven great-grand-kids. Our boys asked him questions and we all laughed when he made it clear that Aleix was clearly too young for me, with her beautiful smile and my white beard.
He had never been on Haj (one of the five pillars of Islam) as the cost was too great. Other than his travels to Xian from his village he hadn’t traveled in China.
I cannot reconcile our encounter with this gentleman at a beautiful and serene spot with the mayhem that men who claim to share the same beliefs are inflicting everyday elsewhere in the world.
We started our round the world trip in the western US in our converted school bus. We blogged a bit about the trip and some of our adventures, and I keep hoping to come back and put up a few more photos. We arrived in Laos from China last night, and I received this video from the team at riffreel.com As we travel through 25 countries on our family adventure my plan is to periodically upload video clips for riffreel to to turn into short video posts.
My father likes to say, “The difficulty with communication is the illusion it has been achieved.” In setting up our trip to The Great Wall we had asked to be taken to the least traveled portion of the wall that was accessible from Beijing. While we didn’t want to spend days getting to a remote section, we hoped that with a bit of effort we could get to a spot where we might sit quietly and ponder the architectural wonder in relative solitude.
Somehow what they heard was “we would like to see the most significant portion of the wall near Beijing.” As one might imagine, the “significant” section of something might be visited by a few more people than a “remote section.”
After a 90 minute drive we found ourselves in a traffic jam of buses full of tourists. A serious traffic jam, to the point where folks were bailing out of their buses to walk along the side of the road. As you can imagine we began to suspect we weren’t headed anywhere remote.
The guide explained that with all the VIP traffic to this section traffic can be a nightmare. Oh boy. Eventually we began crawling forward again. It reminded me a bit of arriving at the Disneyland parking lot but with more food stalls, no attendants providing directions, less space, and no lines painted in the parking lot.
After securing tickets, not a quick experience, we rode a gondola a short distance up to a higher point on the wall emerging into a crowd of Chinese tourists reminiscent of a group of SF Giants fans all in good spirits crowding through a tunnel jostling to get to their seats.
(As a side note, of the 1.3 billion citizens in China, my data indicates about 1/3 are armed with selfi sticks ready to be deployed at a moments notice.)
The guide pointed up the steep incline along the top of the wall (jam packed with folks making their way up) and said she would meet us “back here” when we were done. As she wandered off looking at her cell phone, we joined the masses (moving against the tide wasn’t really an option anyway) and slowly moved upward.
A light moment in the traffic flow.
I think Aleix’s face says it all.
About five minutes up the wall, I pulled everyone over to one side and we huddled against the railing. As the tide of happy tourists flowed around us I said, “Ok, clearly this is not what we envisioned.” Everyone’s eyes were a bit bugged out and Colin, being the shortest of us, was looking especially distraught. “We have two choices, we can be upset that this isn’t the experience we expected, which would be understandable. Or, we can decide to have a different experience, laugh at our predicament and embrace it.”
If I had hoped for a response along the lines of “Yes, Dad. Great idea, let’s do it!” I was disappointed. I could tell that if I called for a vote, option 1 was going to be a clear winner.
I tried again, “Look this is clearly a two on a scale of one to ten.” Colin’s quick response, “Really Dad, a two? I was thinking maybe one and half.” In my best Marty Feldman voice from Young Frankenstein I struck back with, “Well, it could be worse…could be raining.” That did it. We all laughed and the fun began.
Embrace the chaos!
We merged in with the crowd, exchanging “ni haos” with our jostling neighbors. We stopped for photos with the boys leaning out over the wall, talked about the poor air quality (we should have been wearing masks according to the US Embassy monitoring system) and posed for photos with folks.
Colin opted to embrace having his hair ruffled by the ladies who were declaring him cute, rather than groaning, and Bryce was a hit with the teenage girls asking for photos with him.
Aleix and I held hands (partly out of affection and partly to not get separated in the crowd) and I tried to take pictures of the portion of the wall not open to tourists so I would have them as a juxtaposition to the reality of our experience.
Hazy reality and “de-haze” filter.”
As we moved with the mass of humanity down the wall towards the exit we realized that we were headed away from where we had left our waiting guide. I mumbled to Aleix, “Holy cow, she thought we were going to go up the wall and then turn against the tide and make our way back to her? What the hell?”
We came to a juncture in the path along a large barricade and boy do I wish I had photos of what we did next. If we could only get over the series of barricades we could get back to the entrance and then “flow” with the new arrivals back to our guide’s resting spot. A Chinese gentlemen was standing next to me, clearly pondering the same thing. Our eyes met and he jumped up on the wall and around the first barricade. Not hearing a shout from an authority figure I turned to my team and said,”OK, what the heck…Geronimo!” to which Colin responded with a grin as he jumped up on the barrier.
We took a shot of the barricades on our way out, not during our escape!Just before the barricade jump
We all made it over the series of barricades! Not quite as fast as the other folks who joined us in our escape but with grins on our faces. The guide was a little surprised when she looked up from her cell phone to see us coming from the direction of the entrance.
We headed back down in the gondola to the parking lot area and started the search for our driver and his van. We asked the guide if this site was always this busy, “Oh yes, she said, very important to Chinese history, everyone comes here.”
A final note in the experience: As we made our way back to central Beijing we passed a section of wall that had only a few folks on it. Aleix asked the guide, who was texting in the front seat, “How come we didn’t go to that section?” Our guide’s response, “This part not so important.” The boys both giggled at their mother’s barley audible groan.
We are in Montreal–a quick stop between the Bahamas and Beijing. I acknowledge that this may be the first time anyone has typed the previous sentence. When we were booking our flights from the Bahamas one of the most cost effective routes was via Montreal. Once we determined that, we did a little research and discovered that adding a few days in the city, versus four hours in the airport, actually brought the ticket price down.
That resulted in my turning 50 here, instead of in Beijing. I can’t imagine a better birthday. We started the day with a brisk walk (in 22 degree weather) to the nearest metro stop, about 1.5 miles away, followed by a 5 stop metro ride and another walk to the Chinese Consulate where we stood in line for an hour to follow up on some visa issues. Once that was done, it was off to breakfast and then a metro ride across town to buy dust masks from the Canadian equivalent of Home Depot and mosquito repellent and bigger Teva’s for the boys at MEC, the Canadian version of REI.
At one point, as we walked along an industrial street on the outskirts of town, we stopped and took a picture of ourselves reflected in a dark window (above.) We were part way into a two mile walk from the metro station to the MEC store along a multi-lane highway. We were all telling stories as we walked along–no cell phones, no internet, and in no real hurry. I can’t imagine a better hour than that.
We returned to our AirBNB apartment, dropped the boys off and headed back out into the cold to buy gyros from the pizza/greek joint a couple of blocks away. After a couple of hours of working on reservations and language apps (it turns out the roughly 70 percent of the words in Thai and Lao are the same, but pronouns, negatives and a lot of common words are not) I am writing this and going to bed.
Everything that I did today, I did with Aleix by my side. I can think of no better partner with which to explore the world, relive and laugh about the adventures of the past, and dream about the adventures of the future.
The descent below the surface is what sticks with me. As my eyes transition from sky to blue water my breath catches as my face sinks below the surface. I take my first breath as I look down at the bottom 60 feet below. It is as if I have walked into a pitch black room unsure of its size only to realize when the lights click on that it is far larger than I expected and filled with unexpected things.
Far below me lies a ship, partly on its side surrounded by a sand bottom with a reef in the distance just beyond the stern. I remember as a kid having dreams in which I would float above the characters in the dream swaying gently much like a kite or helium filled balloon tethered in a breeze. This feeling is much the same.
I watch as Bryce and Colin descend below the surface for the first time. Within a minute you can see the joy coursing through each of them as they delight in this new three dimensional world. Bryce is spinning around while Colin has his hands out like Superman gliding through the sky. Their instructor, GiGi, signals them slowly to the bottom, reminding them to clear their ears by gently blowing against a pinched nose every few feet.
Aleix and I hover above them like thought bubbles hovering over characters in a cartoon. Every few minutes one or the other of the boys looks up and around, finds us, and gives us the “OK” sign.
GiGi taps gently on her airtank with her knife sending a loud sound rippling through the water and grabbing everyone’s attention. She signals the boys to sit on their knees and they begin “class” 45 feet under the water. The boys run through skills including clearing a flooded mask and most importantly sharing each other’s air should one of them run out. Later they will practice emergency ascents to the surface.
Once class is over we head as a group towards the ship. We fly above the ship, with the deck just inches below us. Small fish squirt out of the openings.
Swimming around the wreck the boys’ excitement is matched by ours. It is like being in a movie, either James Bond (the next day we dove on the wrecks used in Thunderball in 1965) or maybe the Discovery Channel.
When we pop to the surface, the boys are chattering almost before their regulators are out of their mouths.
I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that the thought of watching my kids jump off the side of boat into 60 feet of water along an underwater cliff that drops to nearly 7,000 feet is keeping me up tonight.
The boys have wanted to dive for years, ever since they experienced a few hours of snorkeling in Hawaii. That first experience was reinforced a couple of years later when they spent an hour in an introductory class for kids at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Since we live just over the hill in Carmel, we are at the aquarium every time a relative or friend comes to visit. During the class the boys put on dry suits and floated in an enclosed tide pool. I have video of Colin at eight years old desperately trying to kick to the bottom. He just couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t let him go to the bottom as that was the whole point, right?
We spent today in the pool with GiGi, the boy’s instructor, an amazing young woman from Romania who has been teaching dive class for four years, both here in the Bahamas and in Thailand. It was a long but satisfying day. The boys spent the last few weeks taking an “e-learning” class from PADI so they would be ready to go straight to the pool. We, and more importantly GiGi, were impressed with the recall of what they had learned.
At dinner tonight we reviewed the fun of the day and talked about the excitement, and fear, associated with tomorrow’s first open water dive. As a father one spends a lot of time saying, “listen to me. Do as I say.” But, tonight, I made the point that tomorrow, if told to do one thing by me and something different by GiGi they were to do what GiGi says. Colin smiled and responded, “yeah dad, we know to do what the instructor says but it still makes me feel safer to know you will be there to make sure nothing bad happens.”
I guess that is one responsibility that you can’t put onto someone else.
As we sit here in the Bahamas learning to dive (more on that in the next post) we were reminiscing about our trip to Costa Rica over Christmas last year. As a traveling family, Costa Rica had long been on our list of possible destinations and having finally made the decision to spend Christmas and New Year’s there we were not dissapointed.
The people are wonderfully warm and aside from a slightly increased likelihood of petty theft, Costa Rica is a safe and ecologically diverse country.
As our family travels around the world, we expect to run into flight and travel problems but flying towards a hurricane would not have been one I would have guessed in advance.
As is almost always the case with an around the world ticket, any change we make involves a fee and having the remaining legs of the ticket “repriced.” Even though we could see the Hurricane and Jet blue acknowledged that yes, the flight would probably be cancelled into Nassau, there was nothing to be done but get on the red eye flight from San Francisco and head to New York.
Once we were “in the system” in New York we would become Jet Blue’s problem, even though, as they acknowledged, it made sense for us to go south to Florida and swing in behind the Hurricane.
We arrived in JFK at 5:25am NY time and our flight to the Bahamas was still scheduled to fly. After a quick airport breakfast we boarded the flight….and then…they cancelled it. No one was terribly surprised.
Instead of dealing with us all at the gate JetBlue sent us off to their service desks…so we all scattered in hopes of figuring out the next step. Bryce, Colin and I were at one end of the concourse in line at a help desk while Aleix was at another. As the first group of us was discussing options with the desk agent, a panting jet blue employee appeared waving her hands while exclaiming, “quick if you are on the Bahamas flight get back to the plane! If we can close the door in 10 minutes you can go!”
Nearly 100 of us moved in mass at a quick march down the concourse. I have never seen a plane load so fast. Folks were cheering each other on, “let’s go!, “let’s go!” I was slinging other traveler’s bags into overhead compartments and folks were diving for their seats.
With a round of applause, the doors closed and we pushed back to get in a 25 aircraft line on the taxi way waiting for departure. We had made the push back deadline and as long as they didn’t cancel us in route we were headed south…
The flight was uneventful with about 5 minutes of turbulence. (Ok, so Aleix and the boys are telling me my skills at judging turbulence are way off. It was longer and much more dramatic than I perceived, and that I slept through most of it. Which might be true. Oh, and they reminded me the landing was fairly exciting.)
We landed at the nearly empty airport with 80 degree weather and a reasonable 10 knot breeze. As you can see from the photo, we were the last flight in….
From there we headed to the local grocery store to stock up as the government had ordered a shut down of schools, agencies, and non essential private businesses. While the store was full, folks were happy and everyone was confident the storm was headed north. The damage done to the central and eastern islands was looking substantial but reports were still coming.
We arrived at our beach front condo and settled in for the evening. Winds are still blowing this morning but the sky has cleared and it is looking like a beautiful day!
We are in the midst of a “Round World Trip” with our two teenage boys. A primary goal of the trip is to introduce our boys to difference cultures and show them the diversity of human experience in the world. As anyone who has been to Burning Man will tell you, Burning Man is a cultural and sensory experience unlike any other.
Each year a city of 60,000 plus inhabitants comes into existence and then a few weeks later disappears. The Burning Man organization has developed 10 principals which I have listed below , along with our thoughts on how they relate to taking our kids to Black Rock City (The name of the burning man city in the desert) and around the world.
Radical Inclusion Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.
We hope to raise young men who welcome and respect others, even those that might have different political views, cultural baggage, or religious beliefs. At Burning Man there were ample opportunities to point out that someone’s beliefs might be different from ours. This will no doubt be a recurring theme over the coming year.
Gifting Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.
The amount of research that supports the hypothesis that giving is a far better source of happiness than the collection of material goods is staggering, and yet our society/culture pushes kids in the opposite direction. In our past adventures we have often been the recipient of gifts (whether a ride, the offer of a meal, or a seat on a train) and the boys fully embrace this principal at Burning Man and beyond.
Decommodification In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising.
International travel opens one’s eyes to the advertising that is all around us, because it is different in other countries. Our boys get a kick out of how products are pitched in different places.
Radical Self-reliance Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.
This was a theme at Burning Man, and will remain with us throughout the year. Living out of four backpacks with long train rides, flights, jet lag, big cities, cramped quarters, language barriers, and a tight budget will reinforce the important of individual and family sized self-reliance every day.
Radical Self-expression Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual.
As any parent of a teenager will tell you, self-expression is typically not a problem. We are hoping to channel some of their self-expression into drawing, writing, and photography.
Communal Effort Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration.
We arrived at Burning Man two days before the “gate opened” to help build Kidsville, the neighborhood within the city where you must have kids with you to camp. It was a communal center of families and our boys loved their role in helping build it (even during the blinding sandstorms.)
Civic Responsibility We value civil society.
A few years ago we found ourselves in the middle of a civil protest through downtown Madrid. We were amongst thousands of Spaniards who were marching to protest the financial hardships of the middle class from what they considered a corrupt political system. While we paid close attention to our safety, and in what direction to head if the protesters or the police became violent, we were afforded an amazing hour of experiencing civil disobedience as a form of protest. That led into a conversation with the boys about the concepts of civil society that ran well into the night hours after we had left the protesters to sit in a late night restaurant and review the experience.
Leaving No Trace Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.
This principal speaks for itself and is one that our boys (and their peers) seem to be taught in school from an early age.
Participation Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play.
As I recently said to a friend, our boys over the last two months have moved from being passengers on our “ship” to members of the crew. On some days there is a measurable lack of enthusiasm about participating (doing laundry being an example) but for the most part they understand that this is a team effort and it takes all four of us to get it done, whether the task is fun (a hike) or a pain (packing and getting through an airport.)
Immediacy Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture.
Traveling for 12 months through 9 states in the United States and 25 countries around the world is certainly a set up for immediacy—every day.
Welcome to our blog, it isn’t actually live yet (hopefully in the next few weeks.) But in the meantime, a quick update of where we are and where we are headed.
We have traveled from Northern California, down to Arizona, up through Utah and over to Nevada.
We are in Sparks at the moment preparing the bus for our trip out onto the “Playa” for Burning man.
