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00:00:05.631Welcome to In Via, the podcast where we're navigating the pilgrimage of life.
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00:00:10.551We are all in via on the way and we are learning a lot as we go.
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00:00:12.707I'm your host, joan Watson.
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00:00:17.891Join me as we listen to stories, discover travel tips and learn more about our Catholic faith.
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00:00:30.231Along the way, we'll see that if God seeks to meet us in Jerusalem, rome or Santiago, he also wants to encounter you right there in your car, on your run or in the middle of your workday.
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00:00:40.293In episode 23 of Envia, you heard about Ben Hapke's future adventure around the world.
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00:00:43.689Well, he's back home and here's part two.
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00:00:45.615Welcome back, everybody.
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00:01:03.228I'm very excited about today's episode because it's a bit of a part two and we are going back to talk to Ben Hatke, who you first met in episode 23, where we talked about Ben's trip around the world literally around the world and he was about to embark on this journey.
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00:01:07.688The episode went live while he was in the midst of his j ourney and now he's back home.
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00:01:12.308He lives to tell the tale and we are going to talk to Ben about that time.
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00:01:13.412So, hi, ben.
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00:01:15.584Hello, thanks for having me back.
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00:01:16.789I'm glad we get to do this.
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00:01:24.563Yeah, it's fun to kind of circle back and talk about what you thought would happen and what might have happened and that you didn't expect.
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00:01:33.632And but um, we were chatting right before we pushed record about how, whenever you come back from any trip or have any big experience, I feel like people ask you how it went.
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00:01:37.912Yeah, and some people don't really care, they just feel like it's a nice thing to say.
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00:01:43.450And other people care, but are they ready for the hours that you want to tell them?
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00:01:46.495And it's hard to distill these experiences.
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00:01:53.447So I know that this next half hour or so will not capture your entire time, but I do want to say how was it?
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00:01:56.525No, it's good and it's it's.
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00:02:12.967You're pointing out something that that took me by surprise, which is that the whole thing opens up an awkward social situation where you have to kind of or, I feel, when I am asked that and have been asked that many times like, like, what does this person want?
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00:02:15.687What is the context of this question?
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00:02:19.489Because some people, you know, you, you meet them in passing and they're how was your thing?
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00:02:21.906And you don't.
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00:02:23.691Yeah, exactly, it's exactly that.
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00:02:25.122And you don't yeah, exactly, it's exactly that.
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00:02:28.271It's like do you want to say like, buckle up, now we're going to talk, or do you want them?
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00:02:29.723Do they want you to just say fine?
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00:02:39.584So I've come up with like, if it's, if it's, I'm coming into this conversation knowing that we're going to sit down and talk for a little bit, which is great.
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00:02:41.490So I know now.
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00:02:47.801But when I meet people in passing, I've just started saying well, you know the Uh.
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00:03:48.695But when I meet people in passing, I've just started saying well, you know, the flat earthers will never get me now, um and but which, which is which is uh yeah, it's kind of a glib answer, but it also uh, it also brings up that um, very truly for me, um, moving, life-changing, perception-changing, I think, moment of this entire trip was the last couple of miles, walking down the railroad tracks Wow, the railroad tracks, because I had, some months earlier, left going one direction on foot and found myself coming back from the opposite side on foot, and it was, I think it was like, you know, it was visually how I imagined it in my head, because it was a summer day.
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00:03:52.028It was these overgrown railroad tracks that I know.
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00:03:56.950My family, my girls, came down the tracks halfway to meet me.
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00:04:07.332I kind of expected all that, but in my mind I thought I'd be trudging down these tracks very tired and worn and all this stuff.
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00:04:08.175And I was not.
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00:04:13.090I was walking down these tracks and just muttering to myself like I can't believe this.
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00:04:14.072I just can't.
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00:04:17.562I can't believe this, I can't believe I'm closing this loop.
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00:04:27.252Uh, like, felt in my bones the the roundness of of the world.
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00:04:38.802Um, because I went East and I never stopped going East, uh, with the sun setting behind me, right, uh, and um, then here I come from the other direction.
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00:04:43.750It was so crazy, so, um, so I, so that's my.
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00:05:05.605My simple response to people is also uh, kind of touches the, the, uh, the part that I guess moved me the most, um yeah so so yeah which is is interesting because I think when we had our first discussion and I thought about you walking out of one door of your kitchen and walking in the next door, like that was the picture we could all picture and that was what I thought would be really poignant.
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00:05:11.144But so it's interesting that in some ways the poignant moment didn't surprise you, but it did surprise you.
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00:05:12.567And I think that's.
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00:05:13.711That's sometimes in life.
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00:05:27.083We correctly assume what's going to be the life changing moment, but we still can't see how we will have changed and and like we know what's going to be the moment that life changed.
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00:05:27.884So we don't know.
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00:05:30.250Yeah, yes, yeah.
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00:05:32.055Yeah, can you?
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00:05:35.045Can you speak a little bit about your route?
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00:05:41.005Because when we first talked you know you were kind of keeping something secret and you know, can you?
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00:05:42.670And you said you might be following the Silk Route.
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00:05:48.963But the Silk Road, but can you talk a little bit in general, just as we start, before we get kind of in the nitty gritty?
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00:05:59.711In general, like you say, okay, you always headed east and we know you obviously started across the Atlantic and then you know what kind of countries, vaguely, did you kind of track through?
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00:06:04.233Okay, so so this was it's.
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00:06:05.634It's funny cause I'm at dual purposes.
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00:06:10.658I was at dual purposes with this trip, like like it's a book, right?
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00:06:18.853So there are some pilgrimage type questions and there are some historical questions that I was asking Right.
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00:06:26.271And some of the history questions were some of the like.
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00:06:49.805The fundamental history questions were that, you know, um, nellie, like we talked about last time, nellie Bly did this route and as I'm working on the uh, turning this into a book, I kind of start by saying now, Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland, the other lady who did the same travel at the same time, and elizabeth bisland, the other lady who did, did the same travel at the same time.
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00:06:58.406They had, uh, three things going for them that allowed them to do a fast circumnavigation in real life, and it was fast transcontinental communication.
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00:07:11.146So those telegraph wires were running under the ocean at that time, 18, you know, night, by the 1890s, we had underground cables in the oceans so people could.
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00:07:12.348It was the internet really.
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00:07:15.264It was like the internet is that old in a way?
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00:07:28.721Right, it wasn't coming out of computers, but we were like she was writing articles as she went on this trip and it's like we don't, I I don't think, I don't appreciate enough that that.
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00:07:37.627That it was, you know, 150 years ago, that you could be on one continent, write a newspaper article and that newspaper article could go out that week.
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00:07:39.511Yeah, that's that's.
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00:07:43.425That's not what we think of the victorian times, right, yeah, um.
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00:07:57.872And then so they had fast communication, they had readily available steamers like passenger ocean liners, and they had British colonialism, essentially.
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00:08:03.812So my route changed because I didn't have those other two things.
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00:08:05.627Oh, fascinating.
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00:08:06.824There, there is not.
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00:08:17.403We do not have the same kind of passenger ocean travel available to us that they did, and you know she was able to Bisland and Bly.
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00:08:23.021Both were able to not really have to worry about not speaking English.
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00:08:32.341They, they, everybody in the ports that they like singapore and hong kong, you know, uh, those were like british ports and they, they didn't have to not speak english there.
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00:08:47.124India, the idea that, like the sun, doesn't set on the british empire was true time yeah, was true and worked to their advantage because, they could essentially, in a sense, stay in england, yes, the entire time around the globe, and you didn't have that luxury and yeah, and I didn't have that.
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00:08:59.187So, um, but in a way, you probably experienced the world much better than they did, in a sense, because you're experiencing the culture and and dealing with the hurdles that they probably didn't have to hurdle.
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00:09:09.741So I think it's kind of cool that you experienced it in a different way than they did, because you're experiencing the cultures of the place, not cultures that have just been superimposed with British colonialism.
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00:09:19.384Right, very true, and um, and we also have, uh, like our that first of those three things, that that fast communication.
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00:09:23.240Um, we have like like a, like a hyper version of that.
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00:09:27.091Right, so you can look up changing bus schedules in your pocket.
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00:09:29.708And that's kind of a big deal.
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00:09:37.754So I did a little less overseas travel and more overland travel.
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00:09:47.669So what I did was we crossed the Atlantic in the Queen Mary, then I went from London to Paris by train.
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00:09:57.325I was able to wiggle all the way through France and Italy on the hospitality of friends, nice.
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00:10:21.674I had just this great network of friends, which that's the part of the book that I'm sort of transcribing now, and, um, it's, it's, it's fun, and uh, from the, the, from the boot of Italy, uh, I got a ferry across the um, the Adriatic, to Greece, uh, and I changed my route on the fly a bit.
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00:10:31.928Um, I was going to circle down through um, through Athens, and then across to Izmir and Turkey, but instead I went through northern Greece.
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00:11:11.149Took a long bus through northern Greece, stopped at Kavala and Corfu, and then to Istanbul, then overland through Turkey along the black sea coast and then into Georgia, and then a long bus down from through Northern Georgia down to Tbilisi, which was one of the highlights I think Tbilisi was I got I ended up, by scheduling or whatever having to stay there an extra day or two days, and I was not worried about that.
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00:11:13.249It was a neat place to be.
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00:11:20.472Then on to Azerbaijan and Baku.
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00:11:36.658Baku then down to Baku's port where I caught a like a trucker boat across the Caspian Sea which was probably like the like the most exotically grungy part of the trip.
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00:11:37.682Like that was like.
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00:11:39.048That was like the real deal.
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00:11:45.530Yeah, to be like it was like a truck full of like eastern European truckers, I was the only person who was like a guy with a backpack.
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00:11:50.110I was the only person who was like a proper passenger, who didn't have like a truck full of scrap metal on the boat.
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00:11:51.373That's awesome.
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00:11:55.548Yeah, You're like I tried to do this the whole way, but at least you got it.
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00:12:07.754Then Well, that's the thing I was grumpy about, the Queen Mary, but it's historically great because it really is the last passenger liner doing that Atlantic crossing.
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00:12:13.003It's the last man standing and I was like, wow, this is too.
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00:12:14.006It was like there's tea.
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00:12:17.830You wear evening dress for dinner.
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00:12:20.649It was a little bit like Titanic cosplay.
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00:12:24.985And I was like a little bit grumpy about this and if I could go back, I would.
00:12:24.985 -->
00:12:25.486I would.
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00:12:30.955If I could go visit myself in that past I would be like ben the, the, the grunt.
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00:13:06.735The grungy part is coming just just wait you'll have something to compare it'll be great um, because even the um, even going back, like like the the ferry from brindisi to corfu or to to greece anyway was, was also like completely different from the queen mary, like like brindisi port, uh, ended up being um, just like a little bit worn down at the edges, like like this is not something everybody does anymore and you could tell that the the ferry was used to be very nice.
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00:13:16.649It had like, but had like um little glory days yeah, it's glory days were like the 70s or something right like it had bars on it, but they were plywooded over and
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00:13:33.769it was just like it was just and and um, I think there there were cabins, but I just got like the, the second class, where you get a, a seat and it's an overnight, and everybody just brought sleeping bags and slept on the floor Like a whole boat full of people sleeping on the floor or staying up all night drinking on the deck.
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00:13:37.625It was just like, okay, and that was a great part.
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00:13:47.775So from Turkey to Georgia, to Azerbaijan, and then that boat took me to Aktau in Kazakhstan.
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00:13:56.779So that was the part where I felt a world away from anything that I'd known.
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00:14:05.297And then I got on a long 30-hour train across just the no man's land of kazakhstan.
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00:14:05.857It's just a.
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00:14:14.721It's just a vast desert, uh, that stretches away to to the horizon and full of camels and and stuff like this did you take a camel?
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00:14:15.926I did not.
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00:14:18.094I just spotted camels in the distance.
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00:14:28.551I wanted to take a camel so badly because, uh, just looking at them out there, like with their two humps, it was so exciting and and, like I know they were owned, because I saw some of them had bells around their neck.
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00:14:36.791But it was so vast and so unfenced that I was like some of these must just be wild and live in their lives.
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00:15:25.736But the train across Kazakhstan was one of the moments where there was a kind of a recurring theme of the trip was just how much I was relying on human kindness and just abandoning myself to the idea that people are decent, and because that came up many, up many, many, many times through the course of the trip, where I was maybe a little bit more in my head and either either there would be I would find friendly, great people who wanted to help or, um, a friend of a friend would be in that city, right, like where it'd be.
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00:15:36.171Like well, in Kazakhstan it happened where, like uh, an Italian friend was, like, you know, I have another friend who works in Almaty with, like uh, handicapped children.
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00:15:39.783Uh, I'm sure she would want to help, okay, sure, sure, she can help me out.
00:15:39.783 -->
00:15:50.395And then, um, and then it was just like, if that had not happened, how out of my depth would I have been in Almaty, right?
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00:15:51.056Yeah.
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00:15:56.115Stuff like that kind of kept happening.
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00:16:00.884And then it happened a lot with people I didn't know.
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00:16:08.544So on the train across Kazakhstan, getting on the train, all happened not how I had expected, so it happened very suddenly.
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00:16:19.994I had ended up in the port outside of Aktau and I had kind of planned on getting to the town and staying the night and then finding the train the next day.
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00:16:31.147But this young driver who was taking me into the town was like let's stop at the train, like I had no money, and so I was like where's that, where's in?
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00:16:32.110Is there an ATM?
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00:16:34.417You know, he's like well, there is an ATM at the train station.
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00:16:45.304Okay, sure, and this is all like a lot of my like conversations with random people came through the translator app, so I was gonna ask you that this was mostly translator app.
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00:16:51.495Okay, so there's a, there's a, there's a the ATM at the you know train station.
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00:17:10.146So we stopped at the train station and by that time I've sort of explained what I was doing and how I was going to be trying to get this, this train, this 30 hour train across the country, and he went up to the ticket offices and was like, oh, that train actually leaves in um 20 minutes.
00:17:10.146 -->
00:17:15.346Uh, and I didn't know, like it wasn't clear, if that train was an everyday train.
00:17:15.346 -->
00:17:16.190I don't remember.
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00:17:22.426And but I was like I probably better get that ticket now, even though I have only slept for two hours in the last 48 hours.
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00:17:25.612Fine, um, then he, I.
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00:17:28.483So I paid him for his ride and then he kind of disappeared.
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00:17:40.002And then when I got up to the ticket office they were like, yes, again, I'm, you know, passing my phone through the little little ticket booth and, uh, again, you know, yes, that train.
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00:17:42.086So my driver guy has left.
00:17:42.086 -->
00:17:48.124And that the lady at the ticket booth was like, well, yeah, the train does leave in 20 minutes, but it's full, there's no tickets.
00:17:48.124 -->
00:17:53.027And I was like, oh, and then I had gone a little bit.
00:17:53.027 -->
00:17:55.288I had gone through this script once before in Turkey.
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00:17:58.267So I was like, okay, I'm going to try this again.
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00:18:01.924So I went to the next person down and there were only two ticket booths.
00:18:01.924 -->
00:18:05.862I went to the next ticket booth and I just begged.
00:18:05.862 -->
00:18:09.511I just was like, look, I'm just one traveler, I just have this one bag.
00:18:09.511 -->
00:18:12.845I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't get on this train.
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00:18:35.432Uh, you know, like and and I'm traveling with a story like um, I actually was bringing my, my, my art with me and I realized at one point that the most I had drawn this page for the journey, the most important page in my sketchbook turned out to be this page, which I could show to people and it would explain what I'm doing.
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00:18:47.189You don't need the English language, no, and then I could go back to the beginning and like, show them, you know, pages of just explain, like what, what I'm doing and how and how far I've come.
00:18:47.189 -->
00:18:52.492And it was a powerful thing traveling with a story like that.
00:18:52.492 -->
00:19:02.904And so the next lady was like did the same tired sigh, like okay, hang on, just hold on, type, type, type.
00:19:02.904 -->
00:19:09.163And then this guy shows up and she's like just follow him, he'll find you a seat on it.
00:19:09.163 -->
00:19:12.672Right, no ticket, she didn't print me out a ticket, just follow this guy.
00:19:13.160 -->
00:19:16.289We walk out in the train yard and there's two like really old trains.
00:19:16.289 -->
00:19:35.515We walk onto one train, through it, off that train onto the next track, and then he puts me on this other train and he like sits down with the conductor guy and like I hand him some cash, which I think turned out to be like 30 or something like this, but I still hadn't done the conversion.
00:19:35.515 -->
00:19:36.960Right, like you get, I'm also hopped through currencies.
00:19:36.960 -->
00:19:44.849So I was like, and there's a wonderful little app that will, um, you know, tell you immediately, but I just I wasn't there yet, like I had.
00:19:44.849 -->
00:19:46.381Just I wasn't there yet, like I had just gotten there.
00:19:46.421 -->
00:19:53.145I had just gotten this I had just gotten this money out and I was like I have not like gotten my head around Kazakhstan money yet.
00:19:53.145 -->
00:19:56.874But so I just handed him the bills and they pulled in.
00:19:56.874 -->
00:20:06.615It was like a very, very full train car and full of families and like little kids and just really crowded.
00:20:06.615 -->
00:20:16.099I was like, okay, this is like I feel sticky and gross and it's really, really hot and I'm going to be here for like a day and a half on this train, oh my gosh.
00:20:16.099 -->
00:20:22.730And also I didn't bring food, and it's clear that everybody else has food with them.
00:20:22.971 -->
00:20:24.321Oh no, and I was like shoot.
00:20:24.321 -->
00:20:25.970It's clear that everybody else has food with them, oh no.
00:20:25.990 -->
00:20:26.773And I was like shoot and uh.
00:20:26.773 -->
00:20:40.233But then as it went on, like I like I was definitely in a place like so from from Georgia and Azerbaijan that once I crossed that Caspian sea the dial flipped to Asian like very very strong.
00:20:40.273 -->
00:20:49.334This was like very much Asian now and everybody just started was very like I stuck out really a lot on this train, like I was like it was very different.
00:20:49.334 -->
00:21:06.835Uh, because these were all families, like traveling from one city to another for a wedding or something like like local normal life business yeah and so um they probably don't get a lot of backpack travelers not there yeah not on that train.
00:21:07.080 -->
00:21:09.244Americans with you know yeah.
00:21:09.285 -->
00:21:27.656So people wanted to know, like, what my deal was, and that moved very quickly to um, everybody sharing food, um, so a lot of like, um, homemade naan and um, just what all did I have like dumplings and cup after cup of tea.
00:21:27.656 -->
00:21:36.759This train had like a samovar in it so you always had like boiling tea water and it was melon, and it was really.
00:21:36.759 -->
00:21:43.891It turned out to be really, really great and and it wasn't, it wasn't foodless because as the.
00:21:44.070 -->
00:21:58.095As it got into the evening it would stop at the smaller like villages or towns or whatever, and there would be banks of people lined up like at the station, just selling meats and pastries and fruit and all this stuff.
00:21:58.095 -->
00:21:58.902So there was always.
00:21:58.902 -->
00:22:08.403You could hop off every three or four hours and get something, and that was really great.
00:22:08.403 -->
00:22:23.221And then this one young guy, uh, who was a, a teacher, uh, he turned out to have like quite a bit of english and he would just, he, just like, he just like, took me in hand and was like I am going to get you where you need to go.
00:22:23.221 -->
00:22:25.779Wow, get you set up with how you want to, like, do it.
00:22:25.779 -->
00:22:27.463He called um when I got.
00:22:27.624 -->
00:22:38.882So this train took me to scheimkent, which is like one of the two big, uh, east, eastern edge of kazakhstan cities, and he was just like I'm gonna get, like he found the hotel for me.
00:22:38.882 -->
00:22:42.189Um, he, just, he just did everything for me.
00:22:42.189 -->
00:22:46.930So much to the point where, like, I was like like the next night, I was just like let's go to dinner.
00:22:46.930 -->
00:22:52.492So Musa and I ended up going out to dinner and that was really great.
00:22:52.492 -->
00:22:59.273And then I got a long bus from Sheimkent to Almaty, which is where I was saying friends of friends would step up and help.
00:22:59.380 -->
00:23:13.211So this is the Italian lady who was also a teacher and that was interesting because she ended up giving me like a nice tour of Almaty and that's where I tried fermented mare's milk and horse meat.
00:23:13.211 -->
00:23:19.528And in Kazakhstan I had Kurt, which is these little, very hard.
00:23:19.528 -->
00:23:25.479It looks like a, like a white biscuit, but it's actually a cheese.
00:23:25.479 -->
00:23:30.344It's like a traveling cheese and that has its own like really interesting history.
00:23:30.344 -->
00:23:31.286But that.
00:23:31.286 -->
00:23:44.651So that was a day Like I also was thinking like oh, you know, of the two languages I have is English and Italian and Italians it's basically useless unless you're in Italy.
00:23:46.240 -->
00:23:46.641But then here's this.
00:23:46.661 -->
00:23:51.051Like Italian friend's, like, here I am in kazakhstan, speaking only italian and getting this tour.
00:23:51.051 -->
00:23:54.806It was like very odd and interesting experience, um.
00:23:54.806 -->
00:24:29.308So then from uh eastern kazakhstan, uh got a long bus into china, so I ended up in western china, um, and that uh, I ended up talking to some teenagers on that bus, for um, it was a through the night bus, long, long and like 19 hour bus ride, uh, and and the teenagers were, they were, it was a cassock a, a girl going into her senior year traveling with her father, and then, um, a young guy who was probably just out of high school, um, and they sat up talking to me like on the bus all night.
00:24:29.308 -->
00:24:46.499It was really funny because they both had like a lot of english, yeah and uh, but they were also talking um like western china ended up being really difficult and um that's where you just to navigate uh, for me to navigate and because it's a totalitarian place.
00:24:46.559 -->
00:24:46.720Yeah.
00:24:48.020 -->
00:24:48.882And I had not.
00:24:48.882 -->
00:25:01.396I had done like I had talked to probably three different people to prepare, but was not prepared Right, like I don't know.
00:25:01.396 -->
00:25:04.061There are things I wish I could have done differently.
00:25:04.061 -->
00:25:10.587There are things I wish I could have done differently and one is taking that more seriously and prepared more for that, or found somebody to travel with.
00:25:10.929 -->
00:25:38.588Because, mostly I was following my nose around the world and I got there and I was like, oh Well, anyway, as I was traveling in by the bus, um, the kids were talking about uh, they started telling stories that made me nervous, right, like like they were kazakh kazakhs are a little bit um, second class in china, like they're, they're not, uh and.
00:25:38.709 -->
00:25:44.930And she was like, oh, I don't like going with chinese customs because they always make you feel like you did something wrong.
00:25:44.930 -->
00:25:54.354And they started talking about the Uyghur people and how that's just one of the great human rights problems going on right now.
00:25:55.200 -->
00:25:57.965Massive and we don't hear about it, and we don't hear about it.
00:25:58.039 -->
00:26:03.660And I was under-informed about it and hadn't realized I was going right into that area.
00:26:03.660 -->
00:26:10.183So much of this was revelatory about the world and could go on forever about it, honestly.
00:26:10.183 -->
00:26:13.157But, but I was.
00:26:13.157 -->
00:26:58.025But anyway, a lot of those things converged and I wasn't prepared, so that when I got there so and I also was like I was just writing this morning and thinking about when I was talking to you to say that I wrote down this phrase, that there was this bowl of noodles that's going to haunt me, because when the bus first got, we got through Chinese customs and a couple hours after that, before we got to Urumqi where the bus was going to leave us, um, we just we stopped at a smaller town and I had no idea where I was, but I was with these like traveling friends now, like um and there, and the dad was like we should just let we're.
00:26:58.266 -->
00:27:05.556Like they stopped at like a noodle house, um, and we all just sat down for a meal and he was like just go sit with us and he got them.
00:27:05.556 -->
00:27:23.606Like the dad got the, the food for us and we all sat and had noodles and they were like fantastic, it was like I, I felt like, oh, it lulled me into this false sense because I was like this is china, this is what I'd hoped for I'm I'm way far from home.
00:27:23.667 -->
00:27:47.286I'm having like, like having this meal with people I've met on the road, um, and it's and it's fantastic, these really spicy noodles and um, I just had this feeling like I hope for it can be like this, yeah, and then when they took, when we finally got to the city of orumki and they took off because they were all I think they were visiting family they had she had grandparents there.
00:27:51.060 -->
00:28:13.328And then I was just in Urumqi on my own and there was high, high, high security, even for a train station, right when it's, you know, full bag checks and pat downs and papers and all this stuff and, crucially, no, suddenly no cell signal at all.
00:28:13.328 -->
00:28:15.593Oh goodness, like no, like what.
00:28:15.673 -->
00:28:29.365Whatever my phone was would not let me on any network oh, dear okay and so I've lost maps, I've lost a translator app, I've lost the ability to text my family or anyone, um, and so I was just like.
00:28:29.365 -->
00:28:47.771This is suddenly very hard, and I was aware a lot of times already that the phone was like a miracle tool, but also a slender thread, um, because you can wander really far and still have a viable map right there in your pocket.
00:28:47.892 -->
00:28:48.113Right.
00:28:48.339 -->
00:28:57.112But then as soon as the map, as soon as it runs out of batteries or something you're like oh now I've walked like three miles across the city and now I don't know where I am.
00:28:57.112 -->
00:29:02.169So you actually made me start paying attention with my brain more.
00:29:02.630 -->
00:29:02.849Yes.
00:29:03.852 -->
00:29:13.071Which is great, but also when you're in a smackdown in a brand new place, I was like I I don't know now if anything happens, I'm stuck and I don't know what to do.
00:29:13.071 -->
00:29:18.708And um, and this time I was extremely tired.
00:29:18.708 -->
00:29:26.422So, um, so I like was getting out of stuff out of my bag in the grass and, like, didn't put my toiletries back in my bag.
00:29:26.422 -->
00:29:28.828So now I've lost my toiletries because I'm just like I was.
00:29:28.828 -->
00:29:30.361I could feel that I would.
00:29:30.361 -->
00:29:41.670I was getting hungry and tired and starting to make bad decisions yeah, and uh, I got this train ticket but they were like it's full.
00:29:41.869 -->
00:29:43.473I was like, no, is there anything, anything?
00:29:43.473 -->
00:29:44.256And they were like it's full.
00:29:44.256 -->
00:29:45.278I was like no, is there anything, anything?
00:29:45.278 -->
00:29:49.887And they were like, well, there's standing room only, but it's like a 40-hour train ride across.
00:29:50.061 -->
00:29:53.346China and I was like I don't think I can physically do this.
00:29:53.346 -->
00:29:55.020So I started walking and looking.
00:29:55.020 -->
00:30:03.376So protocol in that instances for me was to get a room and figure it out.
00:30:03.376 -->
00:30:04.968You know, sleep and then figure it out.
00:30:04.968 -->
00:30:08.215And I just couldn't find a room.
00:30:08.215 -->
00:30:10.750In a room I couldn't make heads or tails of the city.
00:30:10.750 -->
00:30:12.455I couldn't search for a place.
00:30:12.455 -->
00:30:33.056There was like no, like almost no English speaking, maybe like one or two like of those unofficial cab driver people, but um, anyway, uh, and then I fell asleep on a bench and got prodded by, uh, uniformed people.
00:30:33.056 -->
00:30:35.465Don't, you can't sleep, okay.
00:30:35.465 -->
00:30:36.768Well, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
00:30:36.768 -->
00:30:46.266So I finally grabbed a, found a saw cab, I hopped in, I drew a picture of a plane and I was like, can I go to the airport?
00:30:46.767 -->
00:30:47.588they were like sure.
00:30:49.393 -->
00:30:59.970I got to the airport and I found a desk where these nice ladies spoke, uh enough, english and I did some and and I feel like I must have gotten some kind of did I get a signal in the airport?
00:30:59.970 -->
00:31:04.146I can't remember, but I was able to be like is there a flight to Shanghai?
00:31:04.146 -->
00:31:19.164Now, yeah, they were like yes, so I got a flight to Shanghai and I was like um, I was like rocked to my core, though I was like, I was very, and it was, and it was because it felt.
00:31:20.247 -->
00:31:38.513I felt like it, I felt like um, and that's like the hardest part of the book right now to put into words um, even my, my editor, like I've written like a like a 25 000 word um sort of script for this book and he's like it really drops off at china.
00:31:38.513 -->
00:31:42.210It's like you didn't write that part, you just like put.
00:31:42.210 -->
00:31:44.606You just like put a couple lines in, like I'll get to this.
00:31:44.606 -->
00:32:05.098And I was like, yeah, it's hard, um, because it was the authoritarianness of it and it was, and it was sort of like peeled me back and I was and showed me like how anti-authoritarian I am right, um, and that so, so.
00:32:05.098 -->
00:32:12.046So I got to shanghai, um, and things started getting better.
00:32:12.046 -->
00:32:31.665I had a contact there who was like a another teacher, a french guy who'd lived there since um 1995 or something, so he'd'd been in Shanghai forever, and that was fascinating because he could explain to me how China has changed and the city has changed all this.
00:32:31.665 -->
00:32:36.857He'd been there long enough to really really give me a good feel for it.
00:32:37.681 -->
00:33:04.451But when he asked me about Western China and Urumki and stuff, like that and I started talking about it, in the parts that were starting to upset me, he like actually, was like well, probably not say anything, and he was like padding his phone and then I was like, oh okay, it wasn't just me, it really is what it felt like.
00:33:04.471 -->
00:33:08.625Yeah, um, so, anyway, if you want to get home, ben?
00:33:08.625 -->
00:33:11.192Just stop talking and just get no yeah, well, it was.
00:33:11.252 -->
00:33:12.717It was just like he was not.
00:33:12.717 -->
00:33:27.000Let's not talk about that yeah, and he was just like yeah, probably best not to talk about it, and also for him too, because he lived there, right, he didn't want to have all that, he didn't want to have any trouble coming from a conversation overheard on his phone, right, that's rough.
00:33:27.000 -->
00:33:46.642And then so, just to tie up the loop, I was going to take a ferry straight from China, from Shanghai, to, I think, osaka in.
00:33:46.682 -->
00:33:47.082Japan.
00:33:47.082 -->
00:34:05.920And then another thing that kept happening was the discovery Two things One, that the global, these global apps, which are so handy for finding transportation and stuff like this, are not 100 percent.
00:34:05.920 -->
00:34:10.532Um, they will come up with buses that don't lines that no longer run.
00:34:10.532 -->
00:34:13.605Uh, times that have changed stuff like this.
00:34:13.605 -->
00:34:23.460And one thing that happened was, um, the covid seems to have uh closed down some ferries that are just not coming back.
00:34:23.460 -->
00:34:34.364One of them was the car ferry that I had planned to take from Shanghai to Japan and that was like apparently had closed in 2022.
00:34:34.364 -->
00:34:41.474Still comes up on all the internet stuff, but when you get there, nobody can make heads or tails of it.
00:34:41.474 -->
00:34:42.498It's not there anymore.
00:34:42.498 -->
00:34:47.248Get there, nobody can make heads or tails of it, it's not there anymore.
00:34:47.268 -->
00:34:59.277Um, also, the like, early, early on in my research, the ferry from uh, from italy to like to like alexandria right, that southern route to, through to egypt or whatever that's um, that's gone too.
00:34:59.277 -->
00:35:08.755So there are these little ferries, these like, so like sea travel, it seems like, has also kind of scaled back, and a lot of that's, I think, since COVID.
00:35:08.755 -->
00:35:24.494So this ferry didn't exist anymore and I had already like flown through China and I was, I feel it, feeling really bad about that and and I was like, am I going to have to fly to Japan too?
00:35:24.494 -->
00:35:34.005And then I just was like, well, let me search, not ferries from China, japan, just ferries out of China, just to see what there is.
00:35:34.005 -->
00:35:42.673And I was like, oh, there are ferries from Northeast Chinaorea.
00:35:42.673 -->
00:35:52.567So my, my friend in shanghai was like, I'll help you, let's look, let's look this up, let's try to see if we can get tickets.
00:35:52.567 -->
00:36:06.159Um, so I had to go to chingdao in the north and we could get a bus ticket for that, but, um, non-chinese citizens couldn't get a ferry ticket in advance.
00:36:06.159 -->
00:36:11.498You have to just go to the office and get your ticket, for whatever reason Interesting.
00:36:11.498 -->
00:36:32.179So we got me a train ticket, I don't know, probably like a five-hour train up the coast to another city where I knew nobody and had to find the port.
00:36:32.179 -->
00:36:32.702Now in Eastern China.
00:36:32.702 -->
00:36:33.605I had a signal again, so that was good.
00:36:33.605 -->
00:36:35.887So I had maps and things.
00:36:35.927 -->
00:36:42.139But that was like this unexpected adventure of like I'm just going to go to the port and see if there's space on this ferry for me.
00:36:42.139 -->
00:36:52.987If there's not, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
00:36:52.987 -->
00:37:27.782Um, but there was and, uh, I took the ferry to to korea and it was another highlight of the trip was getting on that ferry boat, because it was a korean run ferry and like the vibe went korean like immediately and it was so I don't know, it wasn't like there was nothing like fancy about, it, was just so fun and and it was like and also like kimchi and quail eggs for breakfast and like that was one of the parts where I was like extremely glad that I'd started packing like, um, coffee crystals because, um, uh, of the unexpected things.
00:37:27.782 -->
00:37:35.838You know that like I did end up in certain places where I realized how much I want to have coffee in the morning and if it's not there.
00:37:35.878 -->
00:37:39.789I was like, oh no, so, yeah, so coffee crystals.
00:37:39.789 -->
00:37:41.952And then, um, yep, so then.
00:37:41.952 -->
00:37:44.594So then to Busan, to Seoul.
00:37:44.594 -->
00:38:03.436Took a train down to Busan, which was amazing, loved it, had a good walk around and explore in Busan, which felt like a real, like a weird modern pirate town in a way, which is that was really fun.
00:38:03.436 -->
00:38:07.693And then it took another boat from Busan to Fukuoka.
00:38:07.693 -->
00:38:09.958Then a train to Osaka.
00:38:09.958 -->
00:38:12.873Had a big, long bike ride through Osaka.
00:38:12.873 -->
00:38:17.777That was extremely adventurous.
00:38:17.905 -->
00:38:29.219I just like I was really tired and homesick at that point and I was texting Anna and I was like I think I'm just going to go to bed and she was like you should go do something.
00:38:29.219 -->
00:38:30.806You're not going to be able to do this again, okay.
00:38:30.806 -->
00:38:36.371So I was like I found a bike rental guy and rented a bike and just took this long.
00:38:36.371 -->
00:38:39.824Oh, it's really great, yeah.
00:38:39.824 -->
00:38:43.610And then so never did hack the Pacific.
00:38:44.576 -->
00:38:46.465So, uh, flew to la.
00:38:46.465 -->
00:38:50.211Uh, found comics, all my comics friends there.
00:38:50.211 -->
00:38:52.436Nice, uh, rented a car.
00:38:52.436 -->
00:39:11.679Drove to, um, las vegas, a circus friend there, uh, so I went to this like I'd never been on the las vegas strip before, but he runs this circus show called absinthe um, it's 100, like it's.
00:39:11.679 -->
00:39:16.588It's very raunchy but also an extremely impressive circus, like combined.
00:39:16.588 -->
00:39:18.373So it was delightful.
00:39:18.373 -->
00:39:20.996Uh, drove from las vegas.
00:39:20.996 -->
00:39:22.559Uh, um, went.
00:39:22.559 -->
00:39:24.590I think I ended up going almost a whole day of driving out of my way to go to the grand, delightful.
00:39:24.590 -->
00:39:25.130Drove from Las Vegas, Went.
00:39:25.130 -->
00:39:28.338I think I ended up going almost a whole day of driving out of my way to go to the Grand Canyon.
00:39:28.940 -->
00:39:29.340Oh nice.
00:39:33.208 -->
00:39:59.893Which was Like nobody told me I had never had no idea, and my takeaway from that was that it, like you know, the Atlantic Ocean is enormous and you get this sense of bigness of things, but the Grand Canyon floats at this scale that your brain just isn't able to like make sense of.
00:39:59.893 -->
00:40:01.655It's just crazy.
00:40:01.655 -->
00:40:20.858Um, and then on the way back from that, you end up in um reservation territory, so you're sort of sort of not in america anymore and, um, that was super interesting and another part of the world that I just want to like learn more of my own.
00:40:20.858 -->
00:40:24.197Um history about, Right yeah.
00:40:24.844 -->
00:40:30.615It's neat that, like you also with the Grand Canyon and the reservations, you also, like you, saw the world, but you also saw America.
00:40:31.077 -->
00:40:39.152Right and there was like I had never done it, Like I saw America in a way that like I'd missed, like I I'd never been through the Southwest before.
00:40:39.152 -->
00:40:47.936It was enormous and that was the first time I felt the roundness of the world was doing that, because it was like like in the atlantic all the way back.
00:40:47.936 -->
00:40:55.626When I started out it was flat all around at the sun setting behind me and I was like, okay, we're, I'm coming out back the other way.
00:40:55.626 -->
00:41:04.155Um stopped at clear creek abbey for the night um in oklahoma, then wiggled up to Lafayette, indiana.
00:41:04.945 -->
00:41:05.286Return.
00:41:05.286 -->
00:41:07.815You know, stay with Denver, stay with my family.
00:41:07.815 -->
00:41:10.291Return my rental car.
00:41:10.291 -->
00:41:15.456I took the Amtrak train that I had taken in college, same old line.
00:41:16.206 -->
00:41:16.990Oh, wow.
00:41:17.246 -->
00:41:18.150Back to Virginia.
00:41:18.150 -->
00:41:24.054Friend grabbed me in Staunton, dropped me off near Strasburg and I walked back home.
00:41:24.054 -->
00:41:26.059It's incredible, and that was that yeah.
00:41:26.425 -->
00:41:27.989Wow, I have to say.
00:41:27.989 -->
00:41:37.157What was it like coming back to the United States, landing in LA, and all of a sudden it's a culture that is more your own.
00:41:37.157 -->
00:41:37.777I mean, it's not.
00:41:37.777 -->
00:41:50.077Obviously Ben Hedke doesn't live in LA's not, it's not virginia, but what was that like, like to come out of especially these very asian experiences, and then to like, drive a car.
00:41:50.077 -->
00:41:59.728You haven't driven a car and yeah, yeah, yeah um did you feel like you were coming back home, or did that feeling not happen really until you?
00:42:00.391 -->
00:42:01.853no, I felt like I was coming back home.
00:42:01.853 -->
00:42:09.452I felt like, um, like, I had this uh like sense of like, uh, like scripts.
00:42:09.452 -->
00:42:21.938You know that life, like life works in these scripts that we have built, um and one was, and, and these, these cultural shifts like.
00:42:21.938 -->
00:42:34.487The other thing is like, there's these scripts and there's borders, and borders, like are imaginary, but but really cultural, cultural switches get flipped almost immediately when you cross them.
00:42:34.487 -->
00:42:43.900Which is it's, it's such a weird thing like, uh, it very, very noticeable going from Turkey to Georgia.
00:42:43.900 -->
00:42:52.949So I was on this long ride up along the Black Sea coast to, because that was like the I think that was the.
00:42:52.949 -->
00:42:54.835Well, it wasn't.
00:42:54.835 -->
00:43:02.373It was one of the very, very small border crossing stations that I encountered and it was a walk across.
00:43:02.373 -->
00:43:04.103So, yeah, so I was in, and it was a walk across.
00:43:04.123 -->
00:43:04.344So fun, yeah.
00:43:04.344 -->
00:43:06.331So I was in this little town called Hopa.
00:43:06.331 -->
00:43:19.871It's like a little black seaside town, but very Turkish, and felt very culturally different to what I was used to.
00:43:20.414 -->
00:43:20.534Yeah.
00:43:22.264 -->
00:43:26.987You know just everything about it, but also the call to prayer.
00:43:26.987 -->
00:43:29.556I went out and got fish.
00:43:29.556 -->
00:43:40.755It was really nice to be able to talk to young people who are servers at small street establishments or whatever.
00:43:40.875 -->
00:44:08.471And this one kid I just sat and talked to him for a while but like he was very strongly islamic but also had like a kind of a global perspective, he was a kid, he was a good kid, yeah, um, yeah, and so, and hopa was just, uh, 10 or 15 miles from the border, so, um, so I got a, a cab, or there were, there were cabs that would run it, run you up to the border.
00:44:08.751 -->
00:44:25.199And so I got that and then they just drop you off at the border and you kind of do, um, you walk through the border station and then you're on the other side and there's all these um, another, like like swirl of, like vulture, like cab drivers who come right up to you and either want to change money or give you a ride somewhere or whatever.
00:44:25.199 -->
00:44:47.106To georgia it felt like like the.
00:44:47.106 -->
00:44:59.157The dial turned very quickly back to europe, back to european, back to um interesting, like an eastern european script, but like much more um, but, but again like a script that that I was more acclimated to or familiar with.
00:44:59.157 -->
00:45:06.128Right, yeah, you know they don't speak, you know I don't speak russian or um georgian or any, anything like this.
00:45:06.128 -->
00:45:10.867And russian was the, the lingua franca of that, all those post-soviet states.
00:45:10.907 -->
00:45:15.746Right, everybody speaks russian yeah like everybody's second language, if they have a second language is russian.
00:45:15.746 -->
00:45:19.170Yeah, um, but it was still.
00:45:19.170 -->
00:45:22.474It was like suddenly, like certain things got easier.
00:45:22.474 -->
00:45:26.237And especially then, once I reached Tbilisi.
00:45:26.237 -->
00:45:35.780But that switch flipped very quickly, right, and so that's what it felt like coming home.
00:45:35.780 -->
00:45:40.516It felt like the switch flipped, like the first feeling was like the switch flipped immediately to the easiest setting.
00:45:40.864 -->
00:45:52.913Like I am traveling, but now I'm on the easiest setting possible for me, because this is the exact baseline that I've grown up with and know how to do, and it's like something that would have stressed me out.
00:45:52.913 -->
00:46:09.876Renting a car and driving across the United States is suddenly like not a problem, right, like super easy, and so that that was like yeah, was like yeah, and some of that was like I really did get pushed way out of my comfort zone in a lot of places.
00:46:09.876 -->
00:46:14.414Um, but that was kind of empowering in a way, yeah.
00:46:14.414 -->
00:46:19.068And then getting back to la, uh, um, I stay with comics friends.
00:46:19.128 -->
00:46:54.755A comics buddy of mine and he is one of the most like like laid back guys around and he does storyboards for animated shows and stuff like that, and so it was just it was nice to be able to just sail it and he like just took me on his his route of like food stuff and oh, and Ana had sent him a package with like cookies in it and a spare pair of contact lenses for me and stuff like this, and so it really felt like okay, it did feel like coming home.
00:46:54.755 -->
00:46:56.610Right, I'm in the home stretch at least.
00:46:57.070 -->
00:46:58.135Here I am with friends.
00:46:58.135 -->
00:47:05.606Let's go get pizza, you know, yeah, let's go get pizza.
00:47:05.606 -->
00:47:06.849You know yeah, um, and then driving across country was just.
00:47:06.849 -->
00:47:27.197Uh, I hadn't made a like, a like a tom petty playlist for that, so that was just americana yeah oh and yeah, it was americana, because I I traveled a bit on route 66, which uh which was really neat, like they're like uh, kitschy americana memorabilia type stuff, which was I really appreciated.
00:47:28.639 -->
00:47:31.632So yeah, Does some of it feel like a dream?
00:47:32.105 -->
00:47:33.509Like when you're even recounting it.
00:47:33.548 -->
00:47:36.476Do you feel like somebody else did it in a sense.
00:47:36.916 -->
00:47:38.690Yeah, for sure, yeah, it's.
00:47:38.690 -->
00:47:59.875It's weird in that way because, uh, cause I was going solo, and yeah, it's, it was and it was, um, and it was a dream in the way that I um, I would get antsy if I had to stay in one place for a long time.
00:47:59.875 -->
00:48:09.356I really liked being in Tbilisi, but having to be there for like four or five days, um, I could tell what I wanted from the trip was like a moving meditation.
00:48:09.878 -->
00:48:12.018Yeah To be in motion for that long.
00:48:12.018 -->
00:48:16.295Yeah, and in a lot of ways it really was a moving meditation.
00:48:16.295 -->
00:48:27.668Those experiences, it's exactly what you're you're saying.
00:48:27.668 -->
00:48:31.556It's like, um, it does seem like like a pocket full of memories that could have been somebody else's memories.
00:48:31.577 -->
00:48:43.949Yeah, um, it's neat to process it, yeah you have a way to process it yeah, with writing the book, and so I mean a lot of people have experiences and they never take the time to really process them.
00:48:44.610 -->
00:48:45.572Or they don't have.
00:48:45.572 -->
00:48:53.532Like, you have to build or be given tools for it, and there are.
00:48:53.532 -->
00:48:58.853I guess there are different outlets for that, but I've like my work is definitely mine.
00:48:59.416 -->
00:49:15.996Yeah, we encourage people to journal even after they've come home and to really and some people aren't journalers and so they might not feel that but I think writing it out and really taking it to prayer, thinking about it like rehashing it in your mind, yeah.
00:49:15.996 -->
00:49:19.295You need to do it because it's too much when you're experiencing it.
00:49:19.605 -->
00:49:21.411Yes, yeah, it's too.
00:49:21.411 -->
00:49:39.221Yeah, you have like a lot of intense experiences, like very close together, and things happen more quickly, I think, than you can decide what you feel about them, or you know.
00:49:39.440 -->
00:49:41.871Yes, or learn the lessons that are there?
00:49:42.065 -->
00:49:47.550Yeah, so the lessons there that are yeah, so I, I, I, um, oh, I mean like this is product placement, placement man.
00:49:47.550 -->
00:49:51.690But I brought um a foldable keyboard with me.
00:49:51.690 -->
00:50:03.375Oh, it uh folds out, Cause I, I don't know, like, like, but a lot of people type with their thumbs pretty easily now, but I don't do that at all, so I folded out this key.
00:50:03.375 -->
00:50:04.791I would use this fold out keyboard.
00:50:10.485 -->
00:50:11.628It's got a battery that lasts forever and I found my.
00:50:11.648 -->
00:50:13.451My phone has a little kickstand on the on it, so it just sets up.
00:50:13.451 -->
00:50:13.652So, um, wow.
00:50:13.652 -->
00:50:29.054So I tried drawing as much as I could while I was on the road, but the main thing I did was I kept a journal as I went yeah and I think if I had a helpful tip for that, it would be um, don't um.
00:50:29.653 -->
00:50:39.001I think that kind of journaling, whether it's in a book or in a, in a file, um, it's good to just make notes A lot of the journal entries.
00:50:39.001 -->
00:50:41.862I didn't worry about them having to be finished pieces.
00:50:42.186 -->
00:50:42.967Right, just be like.
00:50:43.530 -->
00:50:49.146Bullet lists, Lists Like don't forget you did this, or don't forget when that lady yelled at you for eating the dumplings.
00:50:49.146 -->
00:50:52.855Wrong, Right, Like, uh, like stuff like that.
00:50:52.855 -->
00:50:53.998That that you're like.
00:50:53.998 -->
00:50:55.512You will have thoughts about this.
00:50:55.512 -->
00:50:57.769Remember that you will have thoughts about this.
00:50:57.929 -->
00:50:59.213Yes, I love it.
00:50:59.876 -->
00:51:00.257I love it.
00:51:08.105 -->
00:51:09.431Where would you want to go back if you could go back to one place?
00:51:09.431 -->
00:51:09.831One place, one place.
00:51:09.831 -->
00:51:13.326Maybe it's to take your family, maybe it's just to go back to relive something, maybe it's to see something you missed.
00:51:13.326 -->
00:51:15.090Can you pick one place?
00:51:15.090 -->
00:51:24.871If I could give you a boat ticket to go back, or a plane ticket or, even better, just transport, we will just just beam you up to that place.
00:51:25.331 -->
00:51:32.561It would be a toss-up between Tbilisi and Kavala, but I will pick Kavala, because Kavala was in Greece.
00:51:32.561 -->
00:51:40.831It was on the Aegean, it's the northernmost tip of the Aegean Sea, it's a little seaside town.
00:51:40.831 -->
00:51:52.351I pick that one as my main one because it was because it was because it was not on my original route, so it was a surprise.
00:51:52.351 -->
00:52:04.769Um, because I picked it as a stopping place specifically because I I looked it up and it had like 60 000 people and was on the sea and, um, thessalonica was intimidating.
00:52:04.769 -->
00:52:13.081So I was like I'm stopping here and I got there and the evening I got there I was like, oh, this is where I would want to bring my family.
00:52:13.081 -->
00:52:24.954I was like it's chilled out, there's like it's a seaside town but it's just Greek people, it's like it's definitely people having summer fun time, you know.
00:52:25.396 -->
00:52:39.476But it was like not overrun touristy and uh, there were fishing boats that were coming like right up to the harbor and, uh, good, swimming good, exploring good fish, it was great.
00:52:39.476 -->
00:52:42.326And so that was the part here in the book.
00:52:42.326 -->
00:53:00.813Um, I was thinking of putting a scene in the book where because I would say, like it's the part where where, like I would be tempted to just run away and have a different life, because there was a fishing boat and I was like walking along and I could smell like something cooking.
00:53:00.813 -->
00:53:10.907And I looked over and these guys were in the boat, like like in the like the closed, in part of the deck, and they just had a table set up and they were getting, they were done for the day and they were cooking their dinner.
00:53:10.907 -->
00:53:18.416And if they had waved me over and said, come be a fish, come work this fishing boat, I'd be like bye, I'm going.
00:53:19.206 -->
00:53:21.673Like the reverse of Simon Peter right.
00:53:21.673 -->
00:53:27.789Like be the reverse, ben's going's gonna go be a fisherman, don't be a fisher of men just come go fish every day.
00:53:28.751 -->
00:53:34.929Um, and I would have like in my, in my mind, if I hope I get to this scene, I want to have like the, do you remember?
00:53:34.929 -->
00:53:44.893In the wind, in the willows, when, uh, it's the end of summer and that sea rat comes and he's like tempting, uh, the river rat away.
00:53:44.893 -->
00:53:51.391Like I would have sea rat come and appear in the book and be like ben ben, come have a life on the sea.
00:53:51.391 -->
00:53:53.795Um, so that was.
00:53:53.795 -->
00:53:56.168It was a really great place and if I could return somewhere, I would.
00:53:56.429 -->
00:54:23.320I would go there yeah, I think it was really nice and you could feel like it was a mix of like, uh, eastern churches and and castle walls tumbling into the sea, and also you could still feel like that hint of the grease that you read about in classics you know, like the golden water and Homer's wine wine, dark sea and stuff like that.
00:54:23.320 -->
00:54:25.081It was a good mix, good mix of stuff.
00:54:25.081 -->
00:54:27.329Yeah, that's really neat.
00:54:27.429 -->
00:54:29.655I bet your passport looks pretty awesome.
00:54:29.755 -->
00:54:31.389Yeah, it's all stamped up With all your stamps.
00:54:31.389 -->
00:54:32.052That's exciting.
00:54:32.273 -->
00:54:36.635You're like one of those people that needs extra pages now, probably because all your pages have been filled.
00:54:36.635 -->
00:54:37.980Um, I'm.
00:54:37.980 -->
00:54:39.666I'm not used to traveling Like.
00:54:39.666 -->
00:54:48.512I just travel mostly to European countries, and so a lot of times, border crossings are nothing like we when I recently went from France or Spain to France.
00:54:48.592 -->
00:54:49.875We weren't even stopped Right.
00:54:49.875 -->
00:55:25.367And so this idea and I think I will be thinking for a while about your comment about borders, because they're invisible but they're there and there's also a difference between the borders we've driven or we've drawn arbitrarily- yeah um, I mean seemingly, sometimes arbitrarily, and the borders that already exist but maybe don't exist officially, um, with cultures, and I mean I think of, like the post-world war ii, um, that we just, you know, the superpowers just, drew these borders right and it doesn't fit with the people and it doesn't fit with the history, and that we're seeing the effects of that Right.
00:55:25.748 -->
00:55:31.016And so to experience borders in these different ways that you were able to, I think I'll be thinking about that for a while.
00:55:31.456 -->
00:55:32.038Yeah, me too.
00:55:32.918 -->
00:55:33.579Those lines.
00:55:33.579 -->
00:56:02.451Yeah, the other thing I really loved that you spoke about was the relying on the kindness of others, and I think there's also that lesson that you had to sometimes ask for help, and I'm somebody who doesn't ask for help easily, and so I think a trip like this would be difficult because I would want to be self-reliant and I would want to just you know, don't look at me, I'm fine and to have that vulnerability to be willing to ask or just even accept help when it was given.
00:56:02.451 -->
00:56:13.106I think there's a huge life lesson there that give and take, allowing people to help you right and being open to that and being reliant on it and not being self-reliant.
00:56:13.106 -->
00:56:14.931That probably was a huge theme.
00:56:15.632 -->
00:56:19.268It really was and I wouldn't say I was really good at it, at least not going in.
00:56:19.268 -->
00:56:24.114I think I just got into situations where I didn't have much of a choice.
00:56:24.114 -->
00:56:38.847So I got a little better at it, you know, a little better at talking to people or you know, when people expressed interest, talking a little bit more, you know so.
00:56:38.847 -->
00:56:40.014So that was that was good.
00:56:40.014 -->
00:57:06.612But yeah, that was a big, huge lessons in in human kindness and um, uh, so like with various ghosts that that are gonna show up, ghosts meaning like these, these historical characters who kind of their voices are kind of in in this book, in the text, and they kind of show up as my mental projections of who these people were right, like I do.
00:57:06.612 -->
00:57:11.036Like St Francis is one of them, like he's cause he was like a person of the road, right.
00:57:11.097 -->
00:57:11.478Yeah.
00:57:11.818 -->
00:57:13.219He was good at like that.
00:57:13.219 -->
00:57:17.257Like their poverty is very much in accepting food from strangers.
00:57:17.963 -->
00:57:18.085Yeah.
00:57:18.804 -->
00:57:22.273Poverty, which is how I felt, maybe on the train right.
00:57:22.273 -->
00:57:25.865And then there was, like there was another weird theme of the book.
00:57:25.865 -->
00:57:28.869Um, it's hard.
00:57:28.909 -->
00:58:16.851It's hard like I'm there's so much of this, I like, I'm unpacking and now I'm feeling the um, the press of of, uh, actual publishing, career deadlines and stuff like this and and and also honoring the, the time that it might really take to truly unpack some of the stuff and truly, like, do it in a methodical, proper way, but, um, but there was another thing that kind of came up from time to time and it was like I'm really hesitant to paint things with a broad brush, but the difference between, like, regular people and official people.
00:58:20.554 -->
00:58:26.202The most striking example of that was on that trucker boat across the Caspian sea.
00:58:26.202 -->
00:58:42.510It was all these kind of like rough trucker guys, right, and they got chatty on the last at the end of the trip.
00:58:42.510 -->
00:58:44.168I mean, it wasn't, I'm going to say the last night.
00:58:44.168 -->
00:58:51.088We was dinner, breakfast, lunch, dinner and then into the evening, so so that's, that's how long it took.
00:58:51.088 -->
00:58:53.052So it was just an overnight, um, but at the end, you know, it's dark again.
00:58:53.052 -->
00:59:03.346Dinner's been the second dinner has been eaten and everybody was out on the deck and started to get chatty so like 20 guys on the boat, 25 guys, something like this.
00:59:03.925 -->
00:59:07.369And then it got to like well, who are you and what is your story?
00:59:07.369 -->
00:59:16.556And I got my book and was explaining what I was doing and I was like, oh, and I'm an American.
00:59:16.556 -->
00:59:24.842And the one guy was like, oh, american, jean-claude Van Damme, you're Belgian, but okay, that's hilarious.
00:59:24.842 -->
00:59:36.737And when they got the idea of what I was doing that I was going to be getting into ACT-TAL and trying to get across Kazakhstan, two guys who were on the younger side were like, we'll take you.
00:59:36.737 -->
00:59:42.097And I was like, oh, you will take me across the country in your truck.
00:59:42.097 -->
00:59:44.192And I was like like a cab.
00:59:44.192 -->
00:59:46.713And they were like no, you don't have to pay, we'll just take me across the country in your truck.
00:59:46.713 -->
00:59:47.335And I was like like like a cab.
00:59:47.335 -->
00:59:48.840And they were, no, you don't have to pay, we'll, we'll just take you across.
00:59:48.840 -->
00:59:49.443Oh, my gosh, like this is okay.
00:59:49.443 -->
00:59:50.425And then, um, this didn't happen.
00:59:50.967 -->
01:00:02.592And but I, I there was one guy in my the little, the cabins that you get, like I had one bunkmate guy and he was like sort of like a grandfatherly guy.
01:00:02.592 -->
01:00:16.110He was on the older end of the trucker spectrum, um, grizzled like super strong dude and I was sort of talking and sort of um translator apping back and forth with him and he's like those.
01:00:16.110 -->
01:00:22.536Those guys said they would like give me a ride across kazakhstan and he was like, yeah, sleep on the truck, you sleep on a train.
01:00:22.536 -->
01:00:30.483And I was like um and he, he ended up saying like I'd probably see more if I went with them and I was like you think it's a good idea.
01:00:30.503 -->
01:00:30.985And he's like yeah.
01:00:30.985 -->
01:00:32.809And I was like, oh cool, it's a good idea.
01:00:32.809 -->
01:00:47.771And then the reason it didn't happen was because when the boat got into port, um, the everybody's checking out and they're all getting their papers and they're ushered right off the boat, but we're in a different country.
01:00:47.771 -->
01:00:49.717And then they were like, no, you stay.
01:00:49.717 -->
01:00:53.650And I was like, oh okay, I don't know why.
01:00:53.650 -->
01:00:57.302Okay, fine, sit, sit, stay on the boat, sit down on the couch here.
01:00:57.302 -->
01:00:57.965Okay, interesting.
01:00:57.965 -->
01:01:02.373And they, they got somebody else to do my passport.
01:01:02.373 -->
01:01:11.175I was like different from these other guys and it took hours, like for somebody to arrive to to check my passport out.
01:01:11.175 -->
01:01:20.746And by that time, like they couldn't wait, the truckers were long gone, yeah, yeah and I hadn't, like, I hadn't made any like shaking hands official plan.
01:01:20.786 -->
01:01:28.016I was just like, yeah, I'll come, guys, okay, and then they went down to their trucks and where's where am I, nobody knows.
01:01:28.016 -->
01:01:56.469Oh no, I got stopped at the thing and now I have to wait for these guys and it was like three hours and now the trucks have been moved off the boat and that's why I want to, and like, the people who came to do my passport were young guys in fatigues, right they were like uniform guys and they're not there to help you and they're also like 12, like, and that's like the guys in fatigues who are like 12.
01:01:56.570 -->
01:02:03.210It was rough and so yeah, so I lost like regular people who you think are like yeah like rough.
01:02:03.210 -->
01:02:05.777We're like, we will totally help you, let's do it.
01:02:06.266 -->
01:02:30.338And then people who are there to stamp you in they don't care, really want, yeah, yeah yeah, and so that kind of came up a few times yeah um, so anyway, yeah well, as we kind of wrap up, I guess this is another big, like open-ended question, but but can you think of maybe, what surprised you the most in all of this?
01:02:30.338 -->
01:02:33.594I mean, some things seemed to happen as you expected.
01:02:33.594 -->
01:02:53.472You had a lot of changes in itinerary, the whole experience that surprised you, that you wouldn't have thought, when we had this conversation a few months ago, whether it's something that you learned or some way you've changed or, um, is there something that surprised you?
01:02:56.945 -->
01:03:01.436Um, I don't know, that's a good question?
01:03:01.436 -->
01:03:02.106Uh, I think.
01:03:02.106 -->
01:03:08.440No, that's a good question, I think.
01:03:09.766 -->
01:03:10.547I don't know Too hard.
01:03:10.967 -->
01:03:12.550Yeah, I'd have to think a lot about that.
01:03:12.550 -->
01:03:17.759I mean because, like, the whole thing was just the whole thing was surprising, just a big surprise.
01:03:25.902 -->
01:04:23.233Yeah, oh, there's so many surprises um, in there I think, okay, how much I didn't know, or or don't know about the world, and how much, um, how much I don't know about, how much I didn't know about everything beyond Europe, which seems like obvious, but, but there were but, but, and those are layered surprises, right, like what it means to travel through like post-Soviet controlled areas now, and what that the ussr has left behind as its legacy, um, how, how, the the scale of enormous things that happened that I didn't know about or or don't get reported on or told as much um yeah.
01:04:23.994 -->
01:04:32.873The train through Kazakhstan went through the region of the Oral Sea, which was one of the largest.
01:04:32.873 -->
01:04:39.425Like it was a sea, it was like one of the largest bodies of water in that part of the world.
01:04:39.746 -->
01:05:13.032that is gone now, but it had like fishing villages right and now there's just boats in sand oh my gosh, and it was because, um, of a lot of different environmental things, but since the 70s it had gotten smaller and smaller and smaller and now it's gone, um, but it's also because, like, like, uh, the soviets controlled dams and waterways and stuff that was feeding it and stuff like that, so it was like it's an ecological disaster that who knew about, right?
01:05:13.032 -->
01:05:45.114Or that in northern Kazakhstan is the area where the most atomic explosions have ever been detonated, and that's because, again, now I'm just talking about russia and russia, russia, but like, it's the area where they went to do atomic tests and, um, so they went outside of russia to do the atomic tests and they still sort of rent, apparently they still sort of lease that land from kazakhstan, and it's just sort of an uninhabitable zone.
01:05:45.114 -->
01:05:48.878Yeah, a lot of stuff like that.
01:05:48.878 -->
01:05:57.916Yeah, how little I understand political relations, yeah.
01:06:01.085 -->
01:06:04.896Yeah, I think that would be one of the things the world is bigger than we think in a lot of different ways.
01:06:04.896 -->
01:06:16.588Yeah, I mean like you're naming cities that I was like I have no idea what he's, what, what, like I don't know where you're talking about, right and yeah, but then I also don't know how big kazakhstan is and I don't know the history.
01:06:16.588 -->
01:06:24.072Like I know they were under ussr, but like ninth largest country in the world, and also like like about half the size of amer right.
01:06:24.152 -->
01:06:26.157It's incredible, it's enormous.
01:06:26.157 -->
01:06:41.958Yeah, it's just broadening our own understanding and our own yeah but there's so much and there's so much more to do, and I can't learn politics and geography in any other way.
01:06:41.958 -->
01:06:47.936I've taken political science classes and I'm always just like I have no idea what anybody's talking about Right yeah.
01:06:47.936 -->
01:06:53.606But then you can go and talk to people in a place, but that's who gets to do that.
01:06:53.606 -->
01:06:57.237Maybe me one time, yeah.
01:06:57.304 -->
01:06:57.972But there's so much more to do.
01:06:57.972 -->
01:06:59.045You haven't even touched Africa and South America.
01:06:59.085 -->
01:07:13.385I haven't touched most of the world, and it's also how, how thin that thread is right yeah like, like, I went around the world but I've seen almost none of it, because your perception, your is is such a tiny, tiny thread.
01:07:13.385 -->
01:07:16.271It's like, um, we think the atlantic.
01:07:16.271 -->
01:07:23.391You look at shipping lanes on maps and you think like, oh, the atlantic's super crowded, it's small, full of ships and stuff like that.
01:07:23.391 -->
01:07:26.818Then you get out and there's nothing to the horizon Right.
01:07:27.039 -->
01:07:28.762And you're like oh no, it's really big.
01:07:28.762 -->
01:07:33.996And these lines are just the thinnest, tiniest lines and you can see it's still big, it's still big.
01:07:36.905 -->
01:07:45.780It's like somebody who has only grown up in New York City or in Shanghai, right, and then they go to Iowa and they're like wow, the world is a lot like.
01:07:45.780 -->
01:07:52.668There's all this open space that I didn't know existed, and you've done that in a lot of different levels of your brain.
01:07:52.668 -->
01:07:53.570You've done that.
01:07:53.570 -->
01:07:58.686You know both with the actual land, but you've also done it meeting people.
01:07:58.746 -->
01:08:35.118But you've just met a few people, right, and so how you're there's so many and it's just so crazy and um, and there's also like the thing of um yeah, I made it through, mostly without you know I had I took a couple of big flights, um, but it did help me, like I was sort of reinforced this idea of traveling without um airports, because you really do hop into the middle of a um sort of a set place, right like like you hop into the middle of what is designed for you to see um and like I think a lot about.
01:08:35.265 -->
01:08:44.927Like that bus ride down from batumi to tiblisi in georgia and how long that was like four or four and a half hours down through the countryside and it.
01:08:44.927 -->
01:08:56.421It was like if I'd flown right into Tbilisi I would have seen an Eastern European city full of people in nice clothes and antique markets.
01:08:56.421 -->
01:09:20.172But to take the bus through and to see all the the land in between you know, like abandoned nuclear power plants and farms and villages and all of it, then you get like a different look or a different view.
01:09:20.273 -->
01:09:20.573I don't know.
01:09:23.377 -->
01:09:24.479It's hard to do, you're like it's.
01:09:24.645 -->
01:09:51.935It's a difficult thing for anybody to pull off, but I think it's good spots of your life where you're like allow yourself to be surprised, be present when you are out and about and see people and talk to people, don't just look at your phone.
01:09:51.935 -->
01:10:00.530Be, I mean, like you can take some of the lessons that you've learned in accepting hospitality, in being vulnerable, in being open to new cultures.
01:10:00.530 -->
01:10:12.310We can take that even just in our everyday lives here in America, and so I think it's easy to listen to your adventures and be like, oh, I'll never do that, like I'll never find myself in Kazakhstan, bigness and its fullness and approach that living life that way.
01:10:28.685 -->
01:10:34.390Because I think so often we do curate our lives too much, you know, yeah, and I think you can make it a practice.
01:10:34.390 -->
01:11:13.436And I guess, to close, I would like I did write one thing in my journal as I was going about like, like, what if this was like the modern face of of, of pilgrimage, right, um, of of doing a long trip, um, cause so much of it was like on old buses and you know long stretches where you're sitting and watching the world go by, um, um, but also like I was trying to figure out what, I was trying to get at it, and it was like what if you know you can't require people to do things, but what if you required?
01:11:13.436 -->
01:11:28.457Like, like, what would it look like if the ultra rich people were able, you know, like the mark zuckerbergs or whatever, were able to get on that train and rely on regular people's kindnesses?
01:11:28.658 -->
01:11:36.453to get a place Like what, how would their perceptions change, right, I don't know.
01:11:36.453 -->
01:11:38.697Yeah, I just don't know.
01:11:39.297 -->
01:11:41.320Yeah, Well, thanks Ben.
01:11:41.320 -->
01:11:46.390I think you gave us a lot to think about and I'm just grateful that you were able.
01:11:46.390 -->
01:12:06.807You know that you were willing to share and to share kind of a very intimate life changing time to share the ups and downs with us a little hard to unpack.
01:12:06.828 -->
01:12:07.550I'm still working on it.
01:12:07.550 -->
01:12:22.050It's a hard thing to talk about, but, um, I think it's a good thing to talk about and, yeah, like, I'm hesitant to say that I like have any concrete things that I learned, or answers or anything like that, but, um, but it was definitely, uh, enriching and revelatory I suppose.
01:12:22.289 -->
01:12:24.814Yeah, yeah and sometimes we're not like.
01:12:25.115 -->
01:12:28.126The search is the answer in a sense, yeah very much.
01:12:28.185 -->
01:12:39.707Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I talk a lot about how sometimes the pilgrimage is more about the disposition than the destination yeah and you know, sometimes it's more about, yeah, just those those moments alone with ourselves on the train.
01:12:39.728 -->
01:12:40.488Yeah, that's perfectly, it truly is.
01:12:40.488 -->
01:12:42.331And that's perfectly it, it truly is.
01:12:42.331 -->
01:12:45.395And that's the kind of thing where you're right, like it can be anywhere.
01:12:45.395 -->
01:12:53.161God, yeah, like well, yeah, I don't know.
01:12:53.161 -->
01:13:10.011I can tell you one last very sort of thing that happened, sort of intense thing, but it was that on that boat, that again the trucker boat, right um, but that's, oh you know what.
01:13:10.011 -->
01:13:35.036One reason I keep coming back to that is that was one of the one of those moments where, like, oh, you're out in the middle of the big water, there is no cell signal now, so you're, you're a little bit more on your own, even, um, and that's where, one of those places where I felt like, okay, I'm alone with myself you know, guys on the boat but there's a language barrier.
01:13:35.117 -->
01:13:39.551I'm, I'm on my own, um, uh, I'm out.
01:13:39.551 -->
01:13:40.613Like I don't have.
01:13:40.613 -->
01:13:43.177I didn't bring like a lot of entertainment with me.
01:13:43.177 -->
01:13:43.905There's no entertainment.
01:13:43.926 -->
01:14:28.201I had like a book, but it it was Kafka and it was really boring and so I ended up going through photos of my daughter, ida, who died, and finally sort of organizing them and working through the photos a little bit and it was like, okay, it's been some years and I had to get half a world away, you know, to get to a place where I could do that and um, and I think it didn't have to be halfway around the planet, but it did have to be something where you like make yourself alone with yourself, yeah, to to kind of like turn off.
01:14:28.201 -->
01:14:45.658And we talk about it all the time, turning, turning off and tuning out, but like, I think there are ways to do it all over the place yeah, sometimes I think what you're saying is like this to you yeah, it's more of a you had to yeah, but it's also more of a a thing where you um, it could be a practice.
01:14:45.677 -->
01:14:55.675But I also think you, like, there are probably ways to to make it feel like, um, like you jump off a diving board, like, okay, I went on this trip now there's no going back now.
01:14:55.675 -->
01:14:57.139I am stuck with this thing.
01:14:57.139 -->
01:15:03.453You know, like you, you burn a little bit of a bridge behind you and so you can either do the work or ignore it.
01:15:03.453 -->
01:15:05.055Yeah, I don't know.
01:15:05.996 -->
01:15:29.771Yeah, yeah, well, thanks, ben, thanks for sharing that, and I know that people, yeah, like I just challenge, I guess, our listeners to figure out what this means to them, and they can't replicate this, but there's something in here that they can replicate and they can learn from your experience, and so I'm just grateful for hearing your stories and we look forward to seeing the book when it comes out.
01:15:30.212 -->
01:15:32.698Yeah, hopefully, hopefully 2026.
01:15:32.698 -->
01:15:38.293Okay, it got a lot bigger, like the page count grew and that was a surprise.
01:15:38.293 -->
01:15:43.015But but I am really grateful to sort of have had this experience.
01:15:43.015 -->
01:15:52.635To kind of bookend it, I may actually go back and listen to the first one and see, see, that naive little boy that had all these dreams.
01:15:52.635 -->
01:15:55.890Oh you poor fool.
01:15:55.951 -->
01:15:57.730Yeah, I actually think you'll find.
01:15:57.730 -->
01:16:00.931I think you'll find that there's a lot that you thought would happen.
01:16:00.931 -->
01:16:01.412That happened.
01:16:01.412 -->
01:16:02.574Okay, good, good, that's good, that's good to know.
01:16:02.595 -->
01:16:04.579Well, thanks, ben so good, good, good, that's good, that's good to know.
01:16:04.579 -->
01:16:06.122Well, thanks Ben.
01:16:06.243 -->
01:16:06.845Thanks, listeners.
01:16:06.845 -->
01:16:12.418Share this episode with someone who might enjoy it and say a prayer for Ben by 2026.
01:16:12.418 -->
01:16:17.126We're going to read all about what you just heard about, so, but thanks so much, ben.
01:16:17.126 -->
01:16:17.827Talk to you soon.
01:16:17.827 -->
01:16:18.606We'll talk to you.
01:16:19.287 -->
01:16:23.210Bye, thank you.
