Circumnavigation Summary
Itinerary: Los Angeles (2 days); Kauai (10 days); East Coast Australia (3 weeks); South Island New Zealand (3 weeks); Bali and Lombok (4 weeks); Kuala Lumpur (2 days); Thailand and Cambodia (3 weeks); Cairo (3 days); Istanbul (4 days); Athens and Cycladic Islands(3 weeks); Western Europe (2 months); Norway (2 weeks); England and Scotland (1 week); Iceland (4 days); New York City (2 days)
Countries: USA, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia (Bali, Lombok), Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Austria, Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, UK (England, Scotland), New York
Languages Encountered: Maori, Balinese, Malaysian, Thai, Khmer, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Italian, German, French, Basque, Castilian, Catalan, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, New Yorker
Languages Attempted: English, Spanish, Italian, German
Guilt for Relying on English: Excessive
Modes of Transport: train, plane, car, van, bus, tuk-tuk, ferry, fastboat, monorail, subway, feet
Number of Flights: 21
Number of Train Trips: 50
Number of Kilometers Driven: 4000+
Instruments Sampled: Didgeridoo, Baglama, Balinese Flute, Tibetan Long Horn, Chiang Mai Panflute, Gamelan
Instrument Not Played: Clarinet
Emergency Meals at McDonalds: 3
Emergency Room Visits: 1
***
Travel Reading, Part 1:
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
“But after all...when one is speaking of the essence of things, it often happens that one can only speak in generalities. Concrete things certainly do command attention, but they are often little more than trivia. Side trips. The more one tries to see into the distance, the more generalized things become.”
Travel Reading, Part 2:
The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“What matters is life, life alone, the continuous and infinite process of discovering it, not the discovery itself! What’s the use of talking! I suspect that everything I am saying now is so platitudinous that I shall most probably be set down as a junior schoolboy presenting his composition on ‘the sunrise’, or people will say that perhaps I had something to say, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t make myself clear. I would add, however, that in every human idea that possesses genius or originality, or in any serious human idea at all that arises in someone’s mind, there is always something that can’t be conveyed to others by any means whatever, even if whole tomes were written about it and thirty-five years were spent explaining it; something always remains that doesn’t want to leave your head for anything, and stays with you forever; you’ll die without ever having passed on the crucial point of your idea to anyone.”
Travel Reading, Part 3:
Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carol
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"to talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
Travel Reading Parts 4 and 5:
Saving Fish from Drowning, by Amy Tan and 1421: The Year the Chinese Discovered the World, by Gavin Menzies. (Traded in an expat bookstore before quotes could be extracted…)
Travel Reading, Part 6:
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way...”
Travel Reading, Part 7:
Freedom or Death by Nikos Kazantzakis
Travel Reading Part 8:
Birds Without Wings, by Louis de Bernières
“...the first casualties of a religion’s establishment are the intentions of its founder. One can imagine Jesus and Mohammad glumly comparing notes in paradise, scratching their heads and bemoaning their vain expense of effort and suffering...”
Travel Reading, Part 9:
The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco
“But we see now through a glass darkly, and the truth, before it is revealed to all, face to face, we see in fragments (alas, how illegible) in the error of the world, so we must spell out its faithful signals even when they seem obscure to us and as if amalgamated with a will wholly bent on evil.”
Travel Reading, Part 10:
Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
“Belief is both prize and battlefield, within the mind and in the mind’s mirror, the world.”
Travel Reading, Part 11:
The Castle, by Franz Kafka
“There is only one truth, but it is alive, and therefore has a vividly changing face.”