Organizing Your Third World Trip

     I am frequently asked about how I put together one of my month or so long journeys to unfamiliar places. The first, and perhaps the most essential step, is deciding what area to travel to. There are so many interesting places in the world and so few opportunities to visit them that one needs to prioritize possible destinations to make sure the most important ones are the ones we travel to. The choice will reflect the interests of the traveler, the weather at the destination, money, and the pollitical situation at the very least. Once a site has been chosen, I begin a good bit of research. The internet travel sites, guide books, novels and other sources of information help me to select specific places that appear to be interesting. After that step, I generally put together a rough itinerary that includes my desired number of days in a particular site.
Very few guidebooks or internet sites can tell you just how many hours it takes to get from Mopti to Timbuctoo or Cuernavaca to Guadalajara so the next step is to approximate the time for your itinerary and to create a mock itinerary which will be used to send out.


      After I have my mock itinerary, I put it into an email together with a paragraph or two about me, my travel and my interests. I go onto the Net to look for agentss who live and work in the area I want to visit or, occasionally, agents in the States who specialize in the specific country I intend to visit. I explain to them that the itinerary is an approximation and I tell them how much I hope to spend and what kind of traveler I am. I request the agent look over this email carefully and respond to me with any suggestions or information they have. Out of about ten such emails I am likely to get about three back that indicate the agent understands what I am looking for and could provide the guidance and help I seek. The others do not seem to get it and so I have winnowed the field. Using whatever suggestions I have received at this point, I refine the itinerary to make it more realistic and I prepare the next step.


      It is time for the next email. In that message, I send the modified itinerary, give an indication of what hotels seem appropriate, request prices, and ask for additional suggestions. At this point, I let each of three or so agents know that I have made this request to several others and that I will choose the one among them who seems to be the most knowledgable and helpful and whose pricing seems most advantageous. It is important to let each of the correspondents at this point know that you may not select them to arrange the trip. An agent works hard to get timetables, make temporary reservations and find out detailed information to put a trip together. If they don't want to do that because they are not the only ones being asked to do so, they should have that choice. Like any business person they should have the information necessary to decide if they want to do the job.


     The final step is to select the agent I want to work with and which services I want from them. I may just have them take care of internal transportation and a guide, or perhaps make a few hotel reservations or arrange for a self-drive car. Depending on the available facilities, how crowded the season is and the language challenges, I have the agent set up whatever I may not be able to do. Voila! The trip is set and I am off and running. That preparation usually does the trick.

Goat Boat, Niger River, Mali

     

Strange Burials in the Third World

     There are seemingly infinite ways to honor ancestors; traveling in the Third World enables the tourist to observe a wide variety of funerary rites and even to occasionally participate in them. I am always amazed at how diverse man's accommodation can be to life's circumstances and to varied cultural beliefs about the nature of the world. Burials are an excellent example of such adaptations. I remember when my first encounter with exotic differences in this custom took place. I was in a Zoroastrian Temple in Mumbai, India. A guide pointed out a tower near the temple and explained that the Zoroastrian burial custom was to lay the corpse of the deceased person out in the open at the top of the tower in order that it be consumed by elements of nature.  We learned that the practitioners of this faith believe that the body becomes impure once the person has died and must not be permitted to contaminate the earth so they expose the body to the sun and to the birds of prey to be returned to nature. As one travels through the less known parts of the world, similarities between customs and beliefs in different and seemingly unrelated places turn up surprisingly. It was many years later on the island of Bali that we encountered an almost identical custom among the early settlers of that island. The Bali Agha, the oldest cultural group there, do virtually the same thing except that the bodies are laid out on the ground and covered with light cloths in order that they be reabsorbed into the earth from which they came. We were able to visit the Bali Agha cemetery in one of the small communities where they live but access was denied to the Zoroastrian Towers. Of course, the rest of the Balinese also observe burial practices which are colorful and interesting and distinctive, filled with dance and music, so those are exceptional as well. One has several choices on that little island alone.

     I have written earlier about the amazing funeral customs of some of the other peoples of Indonesia. The Toraja who live in the central part of the island of Sulawesi conduct perhaps the most elaborate of these ceremonies. If a person is important and/or especially wealthy, at death he or she is placed in a casket and buried in the ground much as one does in most of the world. The family saves its money for a clearly more important subsequent event, however, to which all of the townspeople and the deceased's family and friends and acquaintances are invited. The grand ritual occurs some year or two later. The ceremony may involve hundreds or more visitors from other islands and from neighboring towns who are provided  for in tents, served all kinds of food, and for whom many animals are sacrificed, etc. The expenses incurred by such grand ventures have bankrupted some families and these events are strongly discouraged by the authorities. They go on nonetheless.

     In Tana Toraja (the land of the heavenly kings) where these elaborate ceremonies are held, this event includes the placing of a carved wooden effigy of the deceased on the side of a cave in a lovely rice field covered valley to stand alongside equivalent dignitaries. These effigies are tended by the living relatives of the deceased including a regular changing of the dress on the effigy. The corpses are then interred in the caves behind each of these figures. Walking through that valley is quite a sight. In other places in Indonesia, the grand ceremony is followed by placing the coffin into a finely constructed miniature home that is a replica of those the people live in. Thus, the ancestors of the people have equal comfort in their afterlife. I have had the good fortune to be an honored guest at each kind of ceremony just because I was there to attend. My presence apparently lent additional gravity and importance to the event so I was welcomed with open arms.

     When I visited a small community of Sun Worshippers on the island of New Guinea, I saw another curious version of dealing with dead ancestors. There, on a series of shelves right in the middle of the tiny village, stood skulls of ancestors covering several generations. They had been decorated in the same fashion as the residents of the village do for themselves when they paint their faces to participate in joyful ceremonies. So the skulls are representations of those who lived earlier in the village. Many people in the Third World regard deceased relatives as the living dead, spirits that protect them from on high in the afterlife or guide them in their daily activities. They take care of these spirits out of respect but also out of fear that they could be harmed by them. 

     On the banks of the holy Ganges River in Varanasi, India, one sees many examples of the much more common crematory ceremonies for the dead. But the Hindus start early on these sacred shores. They bring their dying relatives to the riverside, construct pyres or use the ones that stand there and tend their loved ones as one might do in a hospice. After death occurs, the body is placed on the pyre and cremated with the appropriate ceremonial prayers and rituals. This is something many tourists are familiar with. Less well known is something I came across in Ghana in Western Africa. I was introduced to a common variation of burial that exists there- coffins are often carved to represent something of the person's life or the aspirations of the deceased. I have seen airplanes, bibles, books, race cars and other such items created by local carvers for the deceased to spend their eternity in. While I have surely not seen the full range of ceremonies that man has created to honor the dead, I consider myself fortunate to have experienced such a wide range of burial practices in my journeys. Such customs make travel in the Third World captivating, especially because they are so accessible to visitors who are interested in them. Not only can one observe what happens but often the visitor is deemed to underscore and augment the import of the ceremony. Doing well by doing good, I guess.

Boy in Market, Kashgar, China

What Do We Do In Response to Poverty?

     I was lecturing at a library the other day about the Third World and a woman who had been adventurous enough and curious enough to have visited India, my favorite destination, stated that it was dirty there and she was quite discomforted by the poverty. She did not enjoy her visit because of that. At least she had first hand experience because she chose to go there in the first place. Almost all the other folks who attend my lectures use those visceral aversions as reasons not to go. Are there great pockets of poverty in India and Cambodia and Yemen and Africa and many other places? Of course there are. First of all about a third of the world's people earn less than $2.00 a day. That is poverty. At that level most people can barely afford to eat or build themselves decent shelter or clothe themselves for protection against harsh weather. They are constantly in danger from epidemics or turbulent weather or other environmental events they cannot protect themselves against. They surely have little choice about where to live and very few have access to decent education. In some places poor people are more apparent than in others. In India, because of the dense population, poverty is especially visible.

      Yet few of us actually live very far from folks who are poor, who simply scrape by day to day if they are lucky. We usually protect ourselves from confrontation with that phenomenon by zipping past such areas in our car without stopping or by circumventing the "dirty" or "dangerous" streets by riding on expressways to our destination. Poverty is something that we read about but rarely are thrust into the middle of. Not so for the traveler. In areas of Cairo or Mexico City or Mumbai, we are more likely to be walking through neighborhoods where folks live outside or are clearly in need so we have to acknowledge the existence of aspects of life and society we can avoid at home if we are so inclined. As a matter of fact, travel is an opportunity if it is viewed as such. We can more safely and more genuinely interact with folks who are poor than is the case when we are at home. Travel provides a chance to sensitize ourselves to the existence of such life and to ponder the downside of society and its implications for us and others who do not have to endure such hardships. One of my earliest travel experiences and a true epiphany was taking a young woman to her home in the slums of Acapulco and seeing the conditions under which she lived from day to day-the unavailability of clean water, the sewage floating alongside unpaved roads, hungry babies crying under fragile tents. I knew that, from then on, I would work to help such people in any way I could.

     So that is another possible reaction. Maybe we could label it the Mother Teresa Conversion.  Each time I travel to places like rural Burma or some small African village, I become more and more aware of the hardships that some people have to endure just to go on living. We read about AIDS here but there are places where as much as a third or nearly half of the residents are infected; we are conscious of the existence of hunger even in America but distended bellies and skeletal figures abound in parts of the Third World reminding us how common and how painful hunger is; we see multititudes of children and adults living on the streets of overgrown cities in underdeveloped areas and cannot avoid those scenes intruding into our consciousness. These are people just like us, born in a less fortunate place, heirs to less opportunity, subjected to the whims of their weather or economy or cultures and trapped in their circumstances. Such images and experiences have impelled me to reevaluate what I consider important and what I take for granted. Such scenes can make us more human and help us to grow ethically if we allow them to do so. Visiting poverty can be an opportunity but only if the visitor takes as much interest in it as he or she does in the beautiful buildings or colorful costumes or captivating ceremonies one comes across all over the world. More knowledge and greater intimacy with all aspects of human life can have a greater effect on us than the easier aspects of world travel could ever afford. I don't like poverty either, at home or away. That's why I make an effort to diminish it in any way I can. Visits to India help increase my resolve.

                                                         Beggar, Mumbai, India

Why Do I Write About Travel?

     I don't get paid for the hours I spend writing about travel. Although I have sold quite a few copies of my travel book, What's an American Doing Here: Reflections on Travel in the Third World, I am donating the proceeds to Doctors without Borders, so I surely will never get rich on that project. My blog and the variety of on-line articles I have written are not a source of income either. Fortunately, that is not a concern for me but it still begs the question: "Why write about travel in the first place." Since I spend a good bit of my time on that activity, I do have to answer that question for myself so I'll let you in on it too.

     I know that part of the reason I write so much is that the very act of putting my thoughts and experiences on paper is a rewarding, creative activity. It is challenging to just write, to put information, feelings and opinions together in an organized, coherent way. It is also interesting to see how much of consequence I remember after a lifetime of travel and, perhaps, to test how complex and comprehensive those memories are. This is surely one motivation for me to spend so much time with words and revisions and distribution of ideas. But it is surely not enough for the hours I spend in this pursuit.

     Back to the book for a moment. Since I was not dependent on income from my book, I decided to use the profits to pay the Third World back for what it has given me, and to provide something for the people who have greeted me and made me feel comfortable, people who have been concerned about the quality of my experiences in their locales. It is clear to me that my writing is an extension of that goal but that, too, is only part of story. There were others who have contributed to my lifetime of joy and excitement and learning in out of the way places, namely the travelers I met along the way and the information I gathered from them to make my journeys richer and more successful. Their sharing of experiences helped me make intelligent choices about where to go and what to do. Their warnings enabled me to avoid unpleasantness and even dangers in some settings. Their joyful memories have enhanced my enthusiasm and desire.

      It was fellow travelers who convinced me that Sri Lanka was a wonderful destination even during their protracted civil war. They were so right. Others explained to me what facilities to choose and what to avoid in the Indonesian hinterlands. Thanks to them I missed resting places full of bats and rats for company. Still others pointed out places or activities I eventually stopped for and tried out but would otherwise have been unaware of. Thanks to them, I learned the value of sharing information about such things. Those stories made our travels safer, more comfortable and more rewarding than they would have been if we had not gained the knowledge fellow travelers shared with us.

      That is what I am trying to do for folks who read my blog, my articles and my book. I hope some of the information and observations you read in these publications serve as helpful guidelines or useful suggestions that make your travel richer. I have not been everywhere (although I have been to the places I most wanted to visit) so my blog is not totally comprehensive, yet there are probably places I have encouraged you to visit which you may have otherwise missed. My experiences and thoughts may contribute in some way to your future adventures and that is only payback for the joys I have had enhanced by those folks we met and shared stories with along our respective travel paths. I hope it works out that way. If so, my hours of writing will have been well worthwhile.

A Scene from China

It's Hard Not to Get Noticed

     Americans and other Western travellers in the Third World have trouble not being noticed. Even if we dress according to local customs, our manners and appearance are generally sure giveaways that we are not from the places we visit. Of course, this fact has consequences in how we are reacted to by the residents of those places. It goes without saying that, in locales where our country is unpopular, we may be avoided or snubbed or leered at at the very least. When I was in Pakistan, even before 9/11, I did not feel especially welcomed by the folks who passed by me. There were no outward signs of hostility evidenced but, except for the children, we were largely ignored by the people we saw along the street or in the buildings we visited. All of the folks I requested to take photos of, however, were quite cooperative and did not mind my doing so. Some groups like the Huli tribe in Papua New Guinea just don't like travellers in their midst. There were other areas of the world where it seemed that tourists in general were not especially welcome but that has been the exception rather than the typical reaction to the presence of Westerners. Responses to us did not usually seem to be related to the economic status of the folks we met as much as to the customs and the political outlook of the people. At the same time, I was always careful not to point my camera at scenes of poverty and have people assume that I was photographing their poorest neighborhoods or other things they may not have been happy to have me record. Red light areas, homes on stilts that were falling down, homeless people on the streets, disabled folks, beggars and the like were sensitive things and, even if I wanted to look at such things and photograph them, I either did so at a distance or very surreptitiously. My travel was not aimed at making people feel worse about themselves.

       But travelers cannot hide. I remember entering the courtyard of a large mosque in Egypt soon after Obama's election. The people were excited by that event and the question that folks there asked me often was whether or not I voted for Obama. When I responded by indicating I was a strong Obama supporter, I received cheers, approbation and even hugs in response. They were very aware of what was going on in the States and saw me as representative of those events whether I wanted to be or not. If we carry a camera or a fanny pack, we also mark ourselves as conspicuous and then we may even be regarded as potential targets, especially for those who have little and for whom our camera may represent a year or more of earnings. I wrote earlier about a robbery setup by a couple of peasant women on a back street in a small town in Bolivia as a clear example of this. There have been several others.

      And then there are the more common positive reactions, some quite heart-warming.  There are places in the world where America is popular and visitors reap the benefits of being associated with the country. People greet the Western traveler in such lands with curiosity and warmth. They want to know about you, they want you to take pictures with them, they even want you to visit their schools or their homes. They are interesting in sharing aspects of their own life to a surprising extent. I remember traveling along the Silk Road in Western China and telling my guide to ask at the homes of a few of the minority groups folks we saw along the way if we could talk with them or visit their houses. The answer was an unqualified yes.  We had worthwhile experiences and saw a lot because of the people we interacted with that day. At markets, folks generally smile at us and regard us with as much curiosity as we do them. There were even instances where we were regarded as special guests. In West Africa, we were often greeted as honored guests and invited to participate in ceremonies of importance to the people. In Indonesia we were asked for our our signatures on several occasions so that the people could collect them. Being famous was new to us but it was nice to sample it for the few moments we were in those places.

     The presence of Westerners in remote parts of the world is often as important to the people who live there as it is to the visitors. Our smiles, our flexibility, our respect for the folks we meet is part of the travel equation. We should be mindful of this. Let people respond to us as they may. We should leave them with the impression that we are there because we want to understand them and because we value them as fellow citizens of the larger world. Spreading good cheer and friendship is not only fun, it is a key ingredient of the traveler's footprint.

Driving Is Not Always Good in Karachi, Pakistan

Reading and Travel: A Pairing of Wonderful Activities

       When I was in my twenties, I had the enriching experience of living several years in Europe. I worked there, made friends, participated in all aspects of the culture, learned a couple of languages and immersed myself in the environment. Most of us do not have that opportunity. Such travel is more desirable and growthful than the shorter trips we take where we are mainly observers and rarely have the opportunity to be participants in the activities that go on around us. Living abroad (Peace Corp, foreign placement, study programs, and other such options) is the deepest and most informative kind of travel available because it enables us to become more aware of our own culture by truly experiencing alternative ways of dealing with life tasks and challenges.

   The problem with shorter trips is that it is hard to really get to  know the nature of the cultures where we travel; we tend to find ourselves looking in from the outside. If we do not work in our new locale, we can only watch other folks work. If we do not speak the language well, we do not have easy communication. If we do not stay with families, we do not learn what families do and what they value.

     Since the majority of travellers have to opt for shorter trips, it is important to make these as meaningful and enjoyable as possible. When I decide to go to a particular destination, one of the things I do very early on is seek out books by authors (for the most part, novelists) who write about the place I will be visiting. Good novels are wonderful sources of information about the nature of the societies the story takes place in.
Reading about other locales is a way to learn about the world even if we are not travellers but reading skilled, descriptive novelists also makes for deeper understanding on the voyages we undertake.

       When I was thinking about going to Bahia in Brazil, I came across novels written by Jorge Amado who lived in and wrote about that area. His books were an intriguing introduction to Afro-Caribbean culture, the religion and politics and music that characterize life in that part of the world. When I left for Bahia, I sought out to understand more deeply many aspects of the country that he introduced me to and I felt his writing had enriched my travel extensively. Llosa's War of the End of the World provided additional insight into that region of Brazil. In preparation for a recent trip to Eastern Turkey, I read Orhan Pamuk's Snow which turned out to be a fascinating story set in one of the cities I was to visit. As I travelled through one village after another in West Africa, I found it extremely valuable to have read the novels of Chinua Achebe, the wonderful writer from Nigeria. His characterization of the struggles of West Africa and the nature of life in the villages markedly enhanced my travels. Nagib Mahfouz led me through the streets of Cairo like an invisible guide walking by my side. My trips to India were likewise made more meaningful by an abundance of authors like Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiry and Rohinton Mistry.

     I could go on and on about the relationship between reading knowledgeable authors and traveling to the settings where their stories take place. That combination has helped me to partially cross the bridge between being a superficial visitor and travelling as an insightful observer. In earlier entries to my blog, I suggested a number of ways to make trips richer, more entertaining and more informative. Reading about your destinations is high on my list of recommendations for pre-trip preparation and also for productive activity while you are away. Just as reading before you go makes the travel more promising, reading as you go along makes the books you choose more relevant and enjoyable. It works both ways.

Niger River, Mopti, Mali

Follow Your Own Drummer

     We all carry our personal interests with us when we travel. For independent travelers the Third World provides limitless opportunities to indulge those interests. In an earlier blog, I wrote about my fascination with masks but almost anything can fit into this category. In the world of competitive photography, there is a whole section labelled travel. Almost any photo one takes abroad can fit into this category so if photography is your thing, the possibilities for worthwhile subject matter is endless. But that pretty much goes for just about any aspect of life. What is required is a knowledgeable guide and a traveler who knows what he or she wants to see. Most of us are accustomed to travel within the broad guidelines that travel agencies or "experts" have designed for us. It does not have to be that way. If you are specifically interested in music, you can probably find someone where you are going who can steer you to unadvertised performances. A cellar in Lisbon where aficionados gather to sing the local Fada music or a bar in Dublin that features high quality Irish folk music are available to the visitor if you find your way there. Those stops are unlikely to be written on your itinerary. A village in West Africa where the playing of talking drums or bands of coras will welcome you and provide authentic entertainment and often outstanding dancing. The gamelan groups in Indonesia or marimba players in Guatemala or Zulu singing in South Africa are other examples of musical treats for the traveler. The way to capitalize on these opportunities is to let your guide know what you enjoy most and that you will trade off other potential highlights to go where you want to go.

     You can select almost any focus in the pantheon of human activity to center your travel around. If cooking is your fascination, the opportunities are right under your nose. Again, find a wise guide and make your way into the kitchens of the places you eat or to the hearths of native cooks in their homes. Art is an obvious center of interest for those so inclined. Don't go to the tourist souvenir traps but make sure you do get to the out of the way places where budding artists and sculptors feature their work or to studios where their creativity is activated. Are you interested in cigar making or textiles or jewelry work or mining? Make your wishes clear and follow the expert. Do you desire to see the birds or local animals or insects where you go? You may need a specialist to lead you to such discoveries but such experts are not too difficult to find.

     Collecting is another activity which requires the traveler's asserting herself. First of all one needs to know what items are specialties of the place you are visiting and then find out where to go to indulge your interests. I remember being in the market in Chichicastenango in Guatemala and viewing the hundreds of masks on sale that had been made for the tourist trade in that popular market. They were not at all tempting. It was only after I had engaged a few folks in the market that I was able to get directions to a small store off to the side of the area which featured a much more interesting collection of authentic, older masks. If the specialty of the area is dolls or puppets or glass blowing, you can usually find a factory or workshop where such things are made. There you will see the process and you will have greater choice to augment your collection.

     I was an educator for many years and have an abiding curiosity about how kids are taught, how teachers are trained, and what the school environment is like. On trips to the Third World, I have discovered that, not only have I been able to visit schools, I have learned a lot, been very well received and delighted classes with an unexpected opportunity to talk with me and learn about life in the States. Such stops continually enriched my travel. As I wrote about in an earlier blog, it is important to make the trip your own. (You can't do that if you are travelling on a bus with thirty or so other people.) Do the necessary research beforehand, engage people to help you who really know the area you will be traveling in, and make sure your guide knows that you are not the general public for whom itineraries are pre-designed but a specific individual with particular interests who wants a trip that fits him as a person. You won't be sorry.

Pashtun Tribesman, Gilgit, Pakistan

It Can Get Scary at Times

     Flash floods, broken down cars, insect conventions, robbers of all kinds, and a few other distractions can be part of the Third World experience. These kinds of happenings make such travel both adventurous and dangerous at times. One should not minimize the dangers of independent travel in certain parts of the world. The only question is whether the risks are worth the anxieties. As one who comes down on the side of risk, I still marvel at a few scary events that came along on my journeys around the globe. There were at least two that were clearly life threatening but which I lived through and which became conversation at cocktail parties and items of interest in my book. At the times they occurred, I would have been quite happy to avoid them, yet they have been among my most colorful and interesting stories ever since.

      Quite a few years ago in the Province of Xinjiang in far western China, we were driving over dry, harsh hills toward the capitol of the area after many weeks of touring. We were coming from a town known as one of the most arid places in the world when we encountered a sudden storm that rapidly filled the ancient river bed which ran alongside the temporary, dirt road on which we traveled. It was not very long before the desert scenery was enveloped by dark clouds, heavy rain and the rising river. At one point, the river reached the roadside right in front of us and we faced a choice- either try to drive through a large, growing stream to reach higher ground, or sit there and pray that the rain would stop in the next few moments and we would not go floating down the river as did some other people as well as lots of trees and other flotsam. We decided to forge ahead and the motor stalled right in the ditch before us. We were trapped as the water began to engulf our car.  Fortunately, the driver of a van just ahead of us saw what was happening, got out of his vehicle and tossed a rope to our driver who had made his way to the front of the car. The driver tied it onto the bumper and the van pulled us up to higher ground where we were safe. We lived through the worst moments but were stranded with little food or drink along with dozens of Chinese cars and trucks as the road collapsed before us and behind us. As luck would have it, road workers got through to us two Americans and we were rescued and taken through the desert on a back road to a small city. We felt bad leaving our new Chinese companions stuck where they were but all of our pre-made arrangements required that we do so.    

      The only event that came close to that one was our experience in a van returning us from a rainy visit to Tikal in Guatemala to our hotel in Belize. We left late from the Mayan site and were driving slowly on a muddy and desolate road toward the border. All was fine until we saw a man in the middle of the road. He was wearing a red bandanna and pointing an AK-47 right at the driver telling him to pull over. The driver was clearly very frightened and told us all (we were seven tourists) to do whatever the bandits said and give them whatever they wanted.  The van came to a sudden stop; two men in similar guise came on board carrying machetes and guns which they pointed at each passenger in turn demanding all the valuables we carried. We were glad we had learned not to carry anything of value in our Third World travels, so we had little to lose besides our lives. They moved quickly, took whatever they could and all three quickly disappeared into the jungle alongside the road. It was clear that they did not want to spend any more time in that spot than necessary, and neither did we. No one got hurt and only one passenger had made the mistake of wearing things she valued.

      There were other similar titillating scenarios from an attempted robbery on a back street in a small town in Bolivia to a broken propeller on our houseboat on a river leading into the jungle of Borneo, from attempted pickpocketing in a couple of cities to encounters with folks who were decidedly unfriendly and threatening. These events were all part of taking chances in order to experience the Third World and learn about how others live on our planet. Were they worth it? I am not a mountain climber nor do I plumb the depths of our oceans by diving deep below. So the happenings I describe were about as close as I am likely to get to the adventures of people who seek thrills that way. But I did not pursue such experiences; they just occurred as I journeyed to discover the riches of Third World travel. And that is part of such exploration. You bet it was worth it. I would not trade a single one of those scary episodes for a week at the beach. What would I talk about at cocktail parties?

Onlookers, Pushkar Camel Fair, India

Stretching Your Limits in the Third World

     One does not need to climb mountains or explore deep caves to test personal limits and increase confidence and independence. Travel in the Third World alone offers the opportunity to check out your capacity for survival if you wander about independently and take some chances. One of the main differences in Third World settings and travel in industrialized areas is how much the traveler is protected by the surrounding environment. To put it simply, the Third World does not take care of visitors to the same extent; you are much more on your own. As I write these words, the first image that comes to my mind is a swaying rope bridge I crossed in a remote area in Southeast Asia. A small group of fellow hikers and I were told there was a lovely waterfall on the other side of the bridge so most of us crossed over, obviously one at a time. One man was afraid of heights but he took a chance and went with us. As we crossed, we became aware of an enormous drop below us where the earth had parted many years earlier. We saw the waterfall and made our way back to the main path. The man who feared heights stood on the other side paralyzed by his discovery of the distance to the ground below the bridge. With encouragement, he finally made his way across and we all went traipsing farther along. His trauma was partly due to the absence of any signs indicating that there was a gorge so far below but we all were nervous crossing the swaying, vine-covered structure. I could not help but think about what the last time might have been when an engineer (or even a local townsperson) inspected the bridge we had just risked our lives to cross for the sake of a waterfall. Rope bridges turn up in lots of Third World settings from treks through the Thai countryside to gaps in jungle trails in Indonesia or South America. One either crosses them or misses the fun or the view on the other side.

     Another similar challenge that I recall was boarding ships in Vietnam, Borneo and other places by walking on an exposed plank over water which was either deep or polluted or infested with some undesired inhabitants. I remember a day on the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea when we arrived at a village we wanted to visit and found a thin, fragile wooden bridge at the entrance which crossed a swamp. It looked very unstable and offered only one rope for balance. One crossed it or did not visit that village. After coming so far and being in such a fascinating place, there was really no choice. On another trip, a ride around a lake in Sumatra presented a similar challenge for us and for our car as well. A bridge consisting of a few loosely connected logs and very shaky side rails appeared before us along the road. We got out of the van while our guide helped the driver stay on the logs and we followed along on foot gripping tightly to the unreliable sides. I recall vividly walking along through rice fields in Bali another time and encountering a large log which connected a gap in the path we were on. It looked a bit too challenging for us initially and we debated retracing our steps until a local woman came along from the other direction carrying a large basket of goods on her head. She walked across the log without hesitation or nervousness at all. That inspired us to do the same although with significantly less certainty. We saved backtracking a couple of miles had we not done so. Such bridges and logs and other hazards exist in the Third World in reasonable numbers. The traveler is certain to encounter such obstacles.

      But there are many other challenges along journeys in out of the way places. We have witnessed stones and boulders blocking our path along "highways" in the mountains of Pakistan. We have driven on unpaved, mile high roads around curves with no markings and no way to discern oncoming traffic. We have come close to running out of gas in deserted rural areas where no one made sure there was a supply available anywhere near where we traveled. Of course all of these challenges exist in countries where the medical facilities are often minimal or absent. Should the traveler sustain injuries, he is on his own. That is just the way it is.

     Yet here I am. My wife and I made it through all those challenges and we are better off for the experience. We know that people can survive and even enjoy themselves without all the protections that customarily surround us to make our lives safer and our health more secure. We do not advise timid friends to follow in our path but we attribute much of our travel satisfaction to the confidence we have gained in surmounting such challenges just like the millions of people do every day who live in such places. We have learned that conquering obstacles is good practice for the daily demands of life and helps to keep our usual challenges in proper perspective.

Valle de la Luna, Bolivia

Surrounded by the Third World

     One more byproduct of travel in the Third World is the incredibly low price the shopper pays for intricate, artistic and representative artifacts in areas where workers are horribly underpaid and most appreciative of any cash they can get for their creations. That is an unfortunate and painful situation for the craftsman who commands so little reimbursement for his or her time and labor and talent. In some places, workers join in cooperatives and can get a fairer price for their goods but such arrangements are relatively rare. Whenever we shop, we seek out cooperatives for our purchases. Even then, the cost of interesting items is extremely low compared to the industrialized West. Bargaining over prices in the markets of the Third World is also fun so long as the traveler remembers that money means more to the sellers there than it does to the visitors.

     Yet we all want to bring home with us memorabilia of our travels, items which help us recall regularly some experience in another culture or which contribute to an interest we have developed along the way. Our own home is almost entirely decorated with artifacts we have bought abroad. Our walls feature batiks from Africa and Indonesia, weavings from Laos and Bolivia and Mexico, and, most of all, a fascinating collection of masks from just about every place where they are made. We have metalwork from tribal villages in India and from the skilled artisans of Western Africa, carvings from Ecuador, China and the Philippines, embroidered pillow cases from Thailand and Vietnam and India and old pieces from the Silk Road decorating our shelves and mantels. Each one of these items reminds us of the place it comes from and often we recall the experience of purchasing it or the craftsman we met who created it. These artifacts are constant catalysts for conversations and recollections that we enjoy immensely. You can see what I mean at  http://articles.philly.com/2011-05-01/news/29493351_1_diamond-home-travel-airy-couple

      Perhaps the most significant aspect of this shopping is how inexpensive it is for us dollar or euro carriers. Western currencies are valued in the Third World so the exchange rates tend to be very favorable. Aside from a lovely rug we bought in a store in Pakistan, our most expensive item is a wood and paper mache elephant from Kashmir painted in gold with a rat's tail brush. That finely crafted and unusual item cost us $150.00. These rewarding and attractive items have not added much to our travel costs. Our home is our travels. I can sit in a chair in my living room and look around me revisiting the world I have traipsed through. The Philadelphia Inquirer, our local newspaper, found the decorations in our home so intriguing that they just featured our house in the home section. It was probably the least expensive place I have ever seen written up in that feature. Much more importantly, however, is the joy we have in looking around the house as we move through it and seeing one reminder after another of the wonderful adventures we have been fortunate enough to include in our lives. Do not neglect this aspect of Third World travel.

Aidkah Mosque, Kashgar, China