Around the World in 50 Years (51 page)

Me with the Huli Wigmen in the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea. All their decorative feathers and cassowary nose quills come from indigenous birds that these so-called “ignorant” tribesmen have harvested for centuries in a sustainable manner.

Q. Of all you saw, what most concerns you?

A.
Five developments:

1) The increasing evidence that global warming is a fact, and one about which not enough is being done.

2) The spread of a radical form of militant Islam through the Muslim world combined with its hatred toward others. And the increasingly violent schism between the Sunni and the Shia.

3) Schoolyards—in South Korea, Japan, India, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Germany, and Switzerland. Schoolyards filled with kids who show, in their dress, deportment, attitude, and actions, that they (in contrast to American kids) take school and the education it offers seriously, and respect and value it as the surest path to advancement, a good future, and the opportunity to eat our lunch. I hope our new Core Curriculum will help correct this inbalance.

4) The increasing emergence and virulent nature of epizootic diseases, those that originate in birds and animals but infect humans as they push into the jungles in search of land and bush-meat protein. I am especially worried about those high-morbidity, quick-killing, fast-spreading new viral hemorrhagic fevers—Ebola, Marburg, Machupo, Nipah, and Lassa—all emerging from the forests in recent decades. These are diseases against which humans have no natural immunity, no tested and reliable vaccines or approved medicines, and no adequate public-health systems, enabling them to spread around the world with the speed of a jetliner and potentially devastate the planet with the worst pandemic since the black plague.

5) A band of hard-charging competitors—Asian tigers, African lions, and South American jaguars—increasingly becoming able to dine on our dinner. They have gleaming, efficient 21st-century infrastructure; abundant supplies of, or access to, raw materials; and, above all, citizens who are willing to work diligently, despite lower wages, to have a better and eventually more prosperous life for themselves and their children. If the work ethic I observed in the Western world continues to weaken, and we remain corpulent and complacent, we are history. Ancient history.

The third question most often asked is:
What do I wish had been different on these journeys?
And my answer is always the same:
Nothing.

I believe you have to take troubles, misfortune, adventures, disruptions, disasters—whatever you choose to call them—as life throws them at you, make the best of them, and, if possible, try to use the accidentally cracked eggs to make a nourishing omelet or a piece of abstract art.

I certainly would have been safer and more comfortable and have fewer gray hairs if many events had not transpired: if Murphy had not visited Kiribati and wrecked my plane connections, if I'd not been nearly lynched in East Pakistan, almost drowned in Costa Rica, detained by the police in Kinshasa and Hargeisa, jailed in Baghdad (for which tale, as for a hundred other adventures, there was no room in this book), attacked by the flying crabs in Algeria, broken my ribs and ripped flesh and torn rotator cuffs in many lands, and if I'd managed to avert or avoid all the other incidents, accidents, breakdowns, and derailments described herein.

But, to accentuate the positive, each of these events provided me with new coping skills, prepared me for the next rock or wreck on the road, and increased my confidence that I'd be able to extricate myself from almost any dangerous situation, to endure and survive, and gave me—I hope you agree—some great stories to recount.

Okay, to be totally honest, I would have enjoyed this quest far more if we had not crashed into the pig in Botswana, if I'd not been compelled to eat that poor monkey's brain in Hong Kong, if Steve had not been stricken with cancer, if that college girl in Malawi had not turned me down so effortlessly, if I'd made out better on my final visit to Oz, if …

Yet, at the end of the day, I was able to play the cards the world dealt me and survive to 196. Who else can say that?

 

COUNTRIES VISITED

In Chronogical Order

COUNTRIES VISITED THAT NO LONGER EXIST

Czechoslovakia, East Pakistan, East Germany, South Vietnam, USSR, United Arab Republic, Yugoslavia

TERRITORY: SELF-GOVERNING

Aruba, Curaçao, French Guyana, Guadalupe, Martinique, St. Maarten, Saba

TERRITORY: NON-SELF-GOVERNING

American Samoa, Anguilla, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Guam, Hong Kong, Macao, Northern Ireland, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands

 

I GRATEFULLY THANK

Peter Joseph, my wise, careful, perceptive, knowledgeable, skillful, and patient editor at St. Martin's, who vastly improved my book. While I wrecked his digestion.

Tony Outhwaite, the most positive, passionate, informed, savvy, supportive, and devoted agent any writer could have, for making my dream a reality.

Wolfenden, publishers of the paperback edition of
Who Needs a Road?,
for keeping it in print for more than 48 years after its first publication and for permitting me to use material from it for chapters 2 to 7 of this book.

Nan Prener, for her praise of my dispatches from the field, for her early enthusiasm for my doing a book, and for later thrice proofreading the entire manuscript, recommending many constructive changes, and catching many foolish mistakes.

Rick Guimond, my faithful secretary for 30 years, who input my hundreds of corrections and edits on sixteen drafts of the manuscript.

Polly Whittell, for recommending Tony, and for convincing me to cut certain parts of the book that were, believe it or not, far more offensive than those I retained. And the others who helped me search for an enthusiastic agent and a top publisher: Peter Finn, Steve Zimmerman, Harry Petchesky, Larry Sutter, Neil Goldstein, Beverly Hyman, Larry Birnbach, David Hahn, Keven Danow, and Andrew van den Houten.

Harold Stephens, for inspiring me with a love of travel and adventure, for first getting me on the foreign road, for urging me to write this book, and for encouraging me to complete it.

Bob Prener, PhD, and Larry Sutter, J.D., the former for his scientific sagacity, the latter for his lawyerly logic.

David Smith, for a decade of giving me excellent advice on obscure airlines, arcane geography, little-known routes, and potential political problems and dangers along the way.

Professor Jon Surgl, for his painstaking ten-day review and correction of my 13th draft, which almost wrecked our friendship, but vastly improved the manuscript.

Nina Wehner Vitali, without whose vast network of helpful UN connections, I never would have reached 196.

Professor Jose Alvarez of NYU School of Law, for reading and correcting the chapter on what constitutes a country.

Sandy Krinski, one of the best TV sitcom writers, for improving my word usage and polishing my humor.

Melanie Fried, for skillfully organizing and comptently taking care of, a hundred details, from page proofs to photographs.

Paulette Cooper, author of 20 books, for taking time away from
Was Elvis Jewish?
to send me nine single-spaced pages of constructive criticism.

Dr. Todd Linden—for all the vaccinations, prescriptions, admonitions, and treatments that kept me on the road.

Keith Schwabinger, for devoting more than 100 hours to check and correct the facts.

Ira and Sandy Teller for reading my awful first draft and making sound suggestions short of suicide.

All the stalwarts who diligently plowed through drafts 7 to 12 and sent me comments and corrections: Jane Santoro, Stephanie Braxton, Peter Heinlein, John Crowther, Larry Sutter, Keven Danow, Claus Hirsch, Treva Silverman, Miha Loha, Jane Bieger, Chuck Hunt, David Smith, Betsy Brown, Nadezda Dukhina, Sylvia Law, Jeannie Forrest, Don Dunn, Sandy Krinski, and Treva Silverman.

Isaac Simon of UBS and Daryl Weber of Wells Fargo, outstanding investment advisers, for giving me several solid stock recommendations that enabled me to afford these travels.

Those nationals and expats who read and corrected the chapter on their countries:

Australia
—Jane Bieger: inveterate traveler, writer, owner of The Rock Shop in Brisbane.

Chad
—Karen and Carl Anonymous.

China
—Alex Miller: teacher, social media entrepreneur, and husband of Yan.

Ethiopia
—Peter Heinlein: fearless correspondent for the Voice of America.

Ghana, Benin, Togo, Mali, and Burkina Faso
—Godfried Agbezudor: head of Continent Explorer.

Haiti
—Johnathan Haggard: director of Beyond Borders, a charity focused on Haiti.

Mongolia
—Balthazar Emke: tour operator and guide.

South Pacific
—Tony Wheeler: founder of Lonely Planet and indefatigable traveler.

Russia
—Nadezda Dukhina: journalist and writer, recently relocated to the U.S.

Saudi Arabia and Yemen
—Ihab Zaki of Spiekerman Travel, Middle East specialist.

Somalia
—The owner of the place I stayed in Mogadishu, who has requested anonymity.

Southeast Asia
—Harold Stephens, who has lived there for the last 40 years.

Uganda and East Africa
—Miha Lohar, who runs the Edirisa hotel in the Gorilla Highlands.

And, most affectionately, Aline, Amy, Anna, Beverly, Carla, Cindy, Claire, Corrine, DeAnsin, Donna, Dori, Eileen, Ellen, Inna, Irene, Jamie, Jodie, Joyce, Lauren, Lora, Lynne, Mary, Nadya, Pamela, Ralitsa, Roberta, Sandy, Sara, Sue, Susan, Svitlana, Veronika, Vickie, and Viktorija, plus Alan, Andrew, Claus, and Dennis, for having the faith and trust to travel with me and for keeping me company on various portions of these otherwise long and lonely journeys.