Never got a chance to review a copy of the Adventure Cycling Handbook by Stephen Lord. I really wanted to see it before I leave, I guess not. It was supposed to be out in January ‘06, then it has been postponed to mid-April and finally to June. Seems like it is out in the UK but not in the US. At least, it’s nowhere to be found in NYC bookstores. Not even Amazon.com has it in stock (LINK)!!!
If you ever have a chance to watch Michael Wood’s BBC documentary In Search of Myths and Heroes, go for it!!! It is great series. In the second part, Shangri-La, Michael Wood takes on a journey to India and through the Himalayas to discover the mythical place of Shambala, the paradise deep inside the Tibet, which inspired the 1933 novel by James Hilton: Lost Horizon (and the 1937 movie with the same title by Frank Capra). He eventually reaches ruins of the Guge Kingdom and Mount Kailash grounds, both places I like to see on my journey… I love Wood’s enthusiam and fascination.
Lastly, I bought a great paperback to read while in the air or waiting around airport lounges: The Places in Between written by Rory Stewart, a walking journey through Afghanistan during the winter of 2002. (And they say the age of discovery and exploration is dead. Don’t believe it. It’s just different!!) Saw it mentioned first at World Hum and reviewed by Tom Bissell in The NY Times (free registration required, or use Bugmenot.com 
Just from scanning the cover and first few pages, it looks like great read. Let you know later, don’t really want to start it now. I’m afraid I’ll finish it before I get to the airport;)
June 27th, 2006
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Rich |
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These are just a few maintenance tips before going off-line;)
I changed my Countdown Clock to how many days left ’til the end of my trip. Hope it’s not too premature;)))
When searching the blog, I’m using Google Blog Search BETA. It works beautifully, but… I have realized that when I change title of my post after it has been posted for the first time, it will be listed among search results but when I try to follow the link, I get “404 - Page not found”. The only way to get around it, it to go back to Google Blog Search results, find the date of the entry and navigate through the blog’s archived pages to the month of the actual entry. Sorry about it;((( I promise never again to rename blog titles!!!
June 27th, 2006
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Rich |
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I’m sure everyone who travels a lot has some technology-related tips how to keep blogging on the road. Obviously, if you decide to bring your own laptop, it all becomes lot simpler. I came up with a nice and simple solution. At least, I think so;) Given my mode of travel and places to be visited, it satisfies my needs to be as light and as electricity independent as possible. All I need is to have access to an Internet cafe/bar with a WinXP machine from time to time…
In terms of posting pictures, I can connect my PSD (photo storage device) through a USB connection, browse it like an external HDD and get pictures I need. I will save my pics in JPEG+RAW formats. A basic JPEG, i.e. 1024×768, will be uploaded to my Flickr account and linked to my blog. The best of the rest will be processed after the trip from RAW files. For basic photos adjustments of the JPEGs, i.e. resizing & cropping, or color adjustments, I can use Portable GIMP (see below) which I have installed on my USB stick.
To scribble my writeups, I will use a PocketPC iPAQ (with ThinkOutside portable keyboard) and save my entries on a SD card as text files. Pretty much every blogging software out there allows you to date-stamp entries, so they can be easily pre-dated and shown in proper order on the blog…
The ‘most important’ parts of my setup are the little pieces that interconnect my iPAQ, digital camera and PSD with host computers: a USB memory stick (USB2.0, SD card compatible) and SD flash memory cards which can be inserted into the USB stick and serve as its memory. I need to transfer my files between iPAQ and Interent Cafes’ computers, therefore I have separate stick and memory, rather than the more popular ‘key-chain’ USB sticks with memory already built-in. Besides, I had too many flash cards and they needed to be put to use;) It is also small enough not to raise too much suspicion from owners of the Internet places (Hey, you never know;).
The SD flash card is stuffed with useful selection of ‘portable’ open-source software applications (PortableApps.com): Firefox, ClamWin AV (Anti-virus) & GIMP (Photo editing). The software will run exclusively from the USB memory and doesn’t need to be installed on a host machine. So, there is no danger of leaving passwords and other sensitive info behind. Moreover, as an Internet junkie, I’m quite dependent on my ‘customized’ Firefox. I’m glad to report that it is extremely easy to transfer user settings (bookmarks) and some of my extensions (Sage RSS reader, Greasemonkey scripts) to the portable installation!!!
In addition, I added an almost 90Mbs large;) folder to the SD card with detailed satellite and road maps of remote parts of Western Tibet. The maps can be printed whenever needed rather then carried with me all the time. Plus, it certainly is faster than downloading them later from my Gmail, which already has plenty of emailed info there;)
June 19th, 2006
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Rich |
Blogging, Equipment, Preparation |
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Rolf Potts has great packing advice at his Vagabonding blog:
One of his recommendations is to carry a stack of business cards. It really is a good way to pass them out to fellow travelers, or friends at home, rather than scribbling email and blog addresses in my usually indecipherable handwriting. So, I ordered some from VistaPrint.com. They have plenty of decent designs with many customization options. On top of that, they aren’t that expensive;) So, here is my try:
June 15th, 2006
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Rich |
Blogging, Preparation |
8 comments
World Hum - Travel Dispatches from a Shrinking Planet is a great place for a traveler, even an armchair one;), to ‘loiter’ around and read… Recently, the site has posted the Top 30 Travel Books of All Time. Plenty of familiar authors. So far, I’ve read books by Paul Theroux,
Bill Bryson,V.S. Naipaul,Pico Iyer,William Dalrympleand Tim Cahill.But there are many I have never heard of, or haven’t gotten around to read…
Unfortunately, the list is limited to ‘true’ (whatever that means) travel books and it doesn’t include better known ‘literary’ explorations as Travels with My Auntor Lawless Roadsby Graham Greene, Heart of Darknessby Joseph Conrad, On the Roadby Jack Kerouc or Henry David Thoureau’s Walden.They all had published books that weren’t maybe written with travel in mind but I’m sure they were read and have inspired many ‘restless’ souls…
I have been unusually productive today, FIVE posts. Must be my all-time daily high;) BTW, just when I decided to raise my blogging to another level, the Blogger goes down for maintenance due to an ‘unexpected problem’. Everything seems to be working OK now.
June 7th, 2006
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Rich |
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I guess the post by rickmoore from the travel forum mentioned in my previous write-up deserves a separate space. The quotes are from a book by Bruce Chatwin ‘Songlines’. I heard about him before, never though found time to get it and read it. It just climbed even higher on my reading list;) So, why do we travel again???
“That is a tough question, one which was well explored in a book I just finished reading. For my last birthday, my daughter gave me a copy of Songlines by Bruce Chatwin. It was well worth the read, as he visits Australian Aborigines and brings up thoughts on the subject from various other writers. What follows are quotations from the book:
- Men need to learn to live without things. Things filled men with fear: the more things they had, the more they had to fear. Things had a way of riveting themselves on to the soul and then telling the soul what to do.- The question of questions: the nature of human restlessness.
- Our nature lies in movement, complete calm is death. Pascal, Pensees
- A study of the Great Malady; horror of home. Baudelaire, Journaux Intimes.
- It is good to collect things, but it is better to go on walks. Anatole France.
- The Wayless Way, where the Sons of God lose themselves and, at the same time, find themselves. Meister Eckhart.
- Life is a bridge. Cross over it, but build no house on it. Indian proverb.
- They became nomads again (they became human again) The supreme value to them lay in the freedom to migrate, not in the circumstances that make it economically viable.”
June 7th, 2006
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Rich |
Blogging, Fun |
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While listening to Buddha Bar, Volume IV, Disc 1 CD (my all-time favorite), I’m reminded of a long-running forum thread on Travelblog.org: Why people feel the desire to travel and see the world? I’m re-reading it again… There are plenty of great responses. I couldn’t have said it better. It is always interesting to see what sparks travel lust in fellow wanderers and world nomads. Just a few are below, for more visit the thread:
“My wanderlust was probably inspired by watching Michael Palin’s 80 Day’s Round the World and Rough Guide to the World as a kid. Then one day everything was just right, no debts, end of a relationship where the other hadn’t wanted to backpack, and a really stressful/dull job that I wouldn’t miss. So I left on my first big trip - haven’t gone back…” Ali”
I travel because unlike anything else I have tried, traveling truly expands my mind. Every time I go somewhere I feel like I come back with a new outlook on life and a better appreciation of all that this world has to offer. Traveling makes me smile.” jamie
“I honestly believe that travel is something one either loves or hates. It either gets under your skin and into your blood or leaves you itching for the comforts of your lounge chair and DirectTV remote. At the risk of oversimplifying, I would say there are 3 main classifications of people: 1) Those who spend their lives in pursuit of material possessions, stability, and living “comfortably” 2) Those who feel uncomfortable with stability, who thrive on change and having their notions and ideas stretched, who believe that life is more than material possessions, and spend their lives in pursuit of what they think does matter in life 3) Those who would like to be in either group, but lack the courage to pursue the path.” Jennie Jen
“To explore the world and escape from the boredom of daily life” MissJ
“A couple of reasons:
- to work out who I was and what I wanted
- to escape from my comfort zone
- to see new and exciting things
Once you do it for the first time, it is addictive. When I travel, I feel free, without a worry or care in the world, which is strange and an uncommon feeling in the normal everyday world we live in. It has a strange liberating affect, which I think is why a lot of people are ‘different’ after they go travelling; it changes your perspective on life (i think so anyway!)” thebazz
“I was introduced to National Geographic Magazine when I was in second grade and I always loved reading about the different places in the world. I always liked the stories of exploration and adventure when I was young and I was constantly mounting my own expeditions into the forests, mountains and swamps near where I lived. I grew to love archaeology and nature and I started planning short trips to places I wanted to see in countries like Mexico, Peru and Nepal when I got out of college. Over the last few years I began realizing that the short trips that Corporate America allowed me to take were insufficient to fulfill my insatiable desire for knowledge and adventure and, since I never really fit in to the rat-race lifestyle that so many people hold dear, I put together a plan to escape.” explorer_keith
“Simple!!its the wanderlust…need not be exotic places all the time..u go to places nearby and u r already tavelling…u need to see the green trees,the cute tea shops,new cuisine…people and different cultures…its a case of itchy feet..on days when u feeling blue,u can flip thru the photographs and the smell of the air…u travel to survive” kancchi
“To understand the world and myself.” whereshegoes
“I decided to travel because I have never left this country and wanted to leave to see what else was out there. I think it was to find something “better”. I feel the urge to travel more now that I have done it because I have been depressed since I’ve been back. When I’m travelling, I am constantly learning, I am always intrigued, challenged, and stimulated. And now that I am back at home doing “home” things, it is very easy to ask “why am I here when I could be out there?” corrijene
“To see what’s round the next corner/over the horizon. An adventure. To learn. To see if the grass is greener. Because the mainstream British model for life of buying stuff and drinking ’til you fall over in the same place every week doesn’t seem that attractive.” Moving edgeways
… and many more quotes…
June 7th, 2006
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Rich |
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