AN UPDATE...

It was not quite as I had planned. October 11th became October 10th. 15 months reduced to five days. A languorous circumnavigation of the planet scaled back to what essentially is a long weekend in Chicago.

There are two options. Arrive in Chicago as planned, enjoy the book release party, then fall back into the resigned and defeated state I have existed in for the past month or more, watching my spirit continue west from the Windy City towards Seattle on Amtrak's "Empire Builder" train. Or the choice I know I have to make: let it all go and come back home ready to fight.

To be honest, the former choice sounds like the better option. I do not feel ready to move on, wherever "on" takes me. I still find it hard to breathe some days. Small things trigger emotional breakdowns I have never had to deal with before. Avoidance still seems favorable to facing the music. For the first time in my life I do not feel like I can overcome. I can tell myself that all the extra preparations with research and languages will make the eventual trip even better, and that might even be true, but the only thing I feel is numb.

Originally I had invited all my friends to join me at Penn Station, to wish me goodbye before a very long journey. Instead I arrive discreetly and alone, just wanting to slip away unnoticed. Early enough to catch a train to Washington, D.C. scheduled an hour before mine, I change my ticket quickly and escape the terminal earlier than expected to find myself seated on the "Northeast Regional" to the nation's capital.

In the beginning it is just like a ride to Newark Airport, but the train to D.C. slides by most stations without stopping and is soon in Trenton and then Philadelphia and then Baltimore. The capital arrives without incident, as the train passes and forgets the toughest neighborhoods of the cities it traverses. In rural parts of the country the train station is the center of town, right on Main Street, and everyone knows when the train pulls into town. But in urban centers, the train station usually exists in the part of town that probably makes a lot of passengers wary of alighting.

In D.C. this is not really the case, as a five-minute walk brings me to the Capitol Building. I am unable to take in any of the Neoclassical gems of this grand old structure though, as two nutcases are spewing hate under the cause of spreading Jesus' word. This being the weekend of a gay march on Washington, it was them that these two monsters were using their megaphone to hate. Hate with the goal of love, war with the goal of peace. We are a supremely misguided species.

The rest of my meander down The Mall is less eventful as I waste time between trains, walk some city streets, and take the Metro back to Union Station. Another 45 minutes pass and I am on the "Capitol Limited" to Chicago.

My fellow passengers are a mix of retired couples, people who can't afford planes, and people who do not fit on planes. The fat people mainly keep to themselves. The poor people enjoy themselves with games and jovial conversation amongst their traveling companions. If solitude is what you seek, the retired couples are the people you must avoid eye contact with at all cost. They spread out their maps and ask everyone around them "Where are you going?" The question is usually geared toward showing off their own itineraries and getting involved in history lessons. I hear bits and pieces about the various landmarks, waterways, and towns we are passing.

I am also surprised by the sheer volume of people that seem to be taking their very first and realize the comfort and joy involved in this mode of transportation. But in mid-October night arrives fairly early and as we are crossing the mountains along the Maryland-West Virginia border the sky explodes into bright oranges and pinks shortly before extinguishing until the next morning. The lounge car quickly empties of everyone now that the view is gone and becomes a very peaceful place to spend a few hours before attempting sleep.

I am back before dawn as sleep never comes easy in an upright position. A symphony of snoring from people more successful than me surrounds my seat and becomes unbearable. As light of day finally arrives, a thin blanket of frost covers the fields and cars near the Ohio-Indiana border, fitting foreshadow for my destination city stereotyped for cold temperatures. The Midwest is always somewhat monotonous by interstate but train travel brings you close enough to enjoy the details of each town or pasture you cross.

These and more photos from the train/DC/Chicago are available on my travel blog:

http://jaredcohee.blogspot.com/

DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS...

I apologize to anyone that has actually missed my posting recently. I've spent quite a bit a time the last two weeks in bookstores copying out minute details from Lonely Planet guides and the like, and none of that is particularly interesting like stories of places and people accompanied by photos can be. I've also had some other things on my mind recently, and not this. I'm steadily working hard though. It's coming together. I started my first Russian lessons last week and kicked myself in the ass to work harder with Mandarin.

The good news though, is that I have a gigantic spreadsheet now full of information about schedules and such for all the places I will travel in Asia, Europe, and Africa, the culmination of a lot of work! I still need to work on all of Latin America, but I feel momentum on my side.

The realities of all this detail has caused a couple small changes in my routes, and put into higher definition some other places that I only vaguely thought about, especially in Africa. As stated before, I am hoping to avoid large cities as much as possible, and Africa is by far the best continent to do this, as rural life is altogether more interesting than urban, not to mention more genuine in my experiences so far. It will be hard to limit myself to the four months I have alloted to reach Cape Town from Tunisia, mainly because of all the interesting possibilities I have read about and most certainly will run across when traveling.

Movement has to be a priority though.

BODIES OF WATER

The first time I ever crossed a border on a boat was in 2002 during a North American road trip, taking a car ferry from Victoria, on Vancouver island in Canada to Anacortes in Washington state. Besides the beautiful scenery, the feeling of boarding a boat in one country and alighting from it in another has a certain delight. Before boarding, the over-sensitive US customs officials asked us questions, then took our bananas. They searched us on the other side too, as I drove the car off the ferry and began driving through Washington's coastal islands.

(On route to Morocco at sunset)

Ever since, I've relished any opportunity to do this again, whether it be on the Mediterranean ferry from Spain to Morocco and back, or traversing Lago O'Higgins between Chile and Argentina.

(A ferry waits for passengers and vehicles in Aisén region, Chile)

Naturally, I have tried to think ahead and plan for as many border crossings by water as possible on this upcoming trip, in addition to the cargo ship voyages over the oceans. Here is a list of the crossings that I will be on my itinerary:

Vancouver (Canada) --> Hong Kong

The Pacific Ocean

Budapest (Hungary) --> Bratislava (Slovakia) --> Vienna (Austria)

Danube River

Zadar (Croatia) --> Ancona (Italy)

Aegean Sea

Genova (Italy) --> Tunis (Tunisia)

Mediterranean Sea

Kampala (Uganda) --> Mwanza (Tanzania)

Lake Victoria

Mbamba Bay (Tanzania) --> Nkhata Bay (Malawi)

Lake Malawi/Nyasa

Cape Town (South Africa) --> Santos (Brazil)

Atlantic Ocean

Copacabana (Bolivia) --> Puno (Peru)

Lake Titicaca

Iquitos (Peru) --> Manaus (Brazil)

Amazon River

Cartagena (Colombia) --> Colón (Panama)

Caribbean Sea

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER ON THE WAY HOME

After at least 14 months of travel, the majority of which will be on the move, my body will probably be ready to take the Mississippi River all the way back to New York if it could. I'm not sure what my mind will feel, probably a mixture of mental exhaustion and a sour realization that this great journey is about to end, knowing full well that the next part of the challenge lay ahead of me when I get back home and start trying to publish a book.

I probably will not have all that much time on the Mississippi to think about these things, as cruises from New Orleans to the north just are not available. I might only be on a dinner cruise in the end. If there is a substantial amount of money left, maybe I can find a boat to charter to Memphis, a city that will definitely be a stop.

(Memphis. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons/Magnus Manske)

I already have my eyes on the VIP tour at Graceland, the former mansion of Elvis that is now one of the country's most famous tourist attractions. I would love to show up in Memphis on the river that connects it to New Orleans (not to mention a total of 10 states), arriving rested and ready to tackle the city and continue my travels northeast. The river is by far the largest in the United States, and actually the second longest in the world. It does not have any of the mystique that the others profiled this week do, but it remains right at the heart of this country, splitting east and west in our minds. When I say goodbye to it after Memphis, I will be only a few days away from completing what I had started well over a year before.

RIO AMAZONAS

Most likely some six months after my journey down the Nile, I will be leaving Ecuador via the Río Napo and entering Peru, meeting up with the Amazon at the city of Iquitos. The Amazon is the second longest river in the world, but the world's largest in terms of volume. Get this: its river flow is larger than the total flow of the next eight rivers combined!

From Iquitos, Peru it is a 10-hour speedboat ride to the 3-way border post (Peru, Colombia, Brazil) at the frontier.

(Amazon boat. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons/Pontanegra)

After re-entering Brazil, I will take a 4-7 day journey on a riverboat like the one above. I want to enjoy the river and avoid the crowds (HA!) for a few days, so I was thinking of "splurging" a full $80 or so for my own cabin, to rest, read, and write as much as possible. Who knows what I will actually be thinking when it comes time to take this trip though.

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons/Elias Bizannes)

I will alight from the boat in Manuas, Brazil, from where it is a overland journey north to the frontier of Venezuela and onward on my trip, with only the Mississippi left to round out the top four. With countless other rivers to meet, cross, and journey down, my mind will probably be a little further south than that.

DOWN (UP) THE NILE

The Nile River puts an image into the head of even the most geography-ignorant person on Earth. It's amazing length and location put it at the center of human interaction and development since the beginning. Kingdoms and empires have fought for it and its lands as far back as history goes. The pyramids and treasures of Egypt will keep it on the tourist trail for as long as tourists keep touristing.

(Dhows on the Nile. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons/Jerzy Strzelecki)

It will not be hard to travel on the Nile in Egypt, for there are plenty of tourist cruises and hopefully less fancy boats further upriver. The Nile and the Egypt-Sudan border might create the most problematic aspect of this trip, but one that I cannot avoid. Even if I am able to secure a visa to Sudan while in Cairo (a process that could take weeks), the whims of a border guard could also set me back. And according to state department advisories, I should not even be thinking of such a thing to begin with.

(The greeting on WikiTravel.org)

Now, I am never one to listen to state department warnings, I feel like half the countries I have visited have had these blanket warnings on them from a racist and ignorant government bureaucracy just trying to cover its ass. I'm obviously not going to Darfur, but the Ethiopian border is one that I also have to cross, so I am guessing I will just have to do this by bus and not on any boat like I had originally thought to explore the possibilities of, at least up to the border.

Khartoum is a place I look forward to seeing, for sure. But I think I might actually consider getting into it from Egypt and out of it to Ethiopia as quickly as possible. More research is in the offer of course, and situations on the ground will ultimately dictate what happens, but for as much of its length as possible I will be in a boat traveling upriver.

THE DANUBE AND HYDROFOILS

So the plan was to take the hydrofoil from Budapest to Bratislava, and then onto Vienna a few days later. But the interests of reality have reared their ugly heads. The first sailing yearly is in April, and I will pass through these capitals in February most likely. Does the Danube freeze?

(The transportation I crave)

Europe's longest river only ranks 29th in the world in length, a poor showing for the continent. But what it lacks in length it probably makes up for in importance and history. Meh... as if the Nile has none.

The most interesting section of the river to me will probably be its time spent as the main artery of Budapest, one of those European cities I just have not made it to yet.

(Danube in Budapest. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons/Heinz Albers)

To the west of Budapest, the river creates the border between Hungary and Slovakia after beginning its journey in the mountains of southern Germany and flowing through Bavaria and northern Austria.

But back to the hydrofoil... it looks like unfortunately crossing borders by boat, which I will do whenever possible, will in this case be impossible. Trains and buses will have to do their job and save me a bit of money at the same time.

長江 YANGTZE RIVER

As part of this journey I have decided to spend as much time as possible on the world's largest rivers, and will use at least the largest river in every continent as a significant route of transportation. This includes the world's four largest rivers (Nile, Amazon, Yangtze, Mississippi) and also the Danube in Europe.

The first of these great rivers that I will come into contact with is the Yangtze in China. I will cross its path a few times, but the first time will be in Yunnan province at Tiger Leaping Gorge. I hope to use the river as a means of transportation between places here in Yunnan, as well as later in Hubei and near Shanghai.

(Tiger Leaping Gorge. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

Here at the upper reaches the river still runs fast through some amazing scenery. I think I will be able to take a boat from near Lijiang to Panzhihua where I can take the train north to Chengdu and say goodbye to the river until I see it again at the Three Gorges Dam.

Each of these rivers has a special meaning to its country and to the world. Locally, regionally, and globally, their significance is unquestionable.

More to come on the other four later this week!

BORN TO BE AROUND CONTAINERS

As the Staten Island Ferry heads south and passes nearby the Statue of Liberty to the west, I am usually the only person on the east side of the boat, watching the container ports of Brooklyn pass by as the tourists snap their photos of the green lady.

A cargo ship going by always grabs my attention. I can easily picture myself wandering amongst the stacks of containers or watching the cranes pull them off in a port.

(Container port in Valparaiso, Chile)

I've been known to wander around the exterior fences of container yards and snap photos if I am lucky enough to get inside ones without tight security. I've been turned away from three different entrances to the container ports in Elizabeth, New Jersey. These facilities are some of the best in the world, but unfortunately are keeping a tight lock. Go figure, the Department of Homeland Security is doing its job keeping out the riff-raff like myself.

A SIBERIAN JOURNEY

It is certain to happen with every book I pick up, but my recent acquisition of Bryn Thomas's Trans-Siberian Handbook is affecting me a great deal. I have just added a full two weeks to the time I am planning in Russia, and will mostly use this in cities and towns along the route of the train from Vladivostok to Moscow.

I am looking even more forward to learning Russian and practicing with some friends at every opportunity here in New York before departure so that I can get the most from my time in places where English is very rare in Siberia.

The only view I have ever had of Siberia was from a plane from NY that flew over the north pole in route to Tokyo. I was wide-eyed the whole time as we flew over the white and nearly featureless land. It is not any specific beauty, but rather the unknown and mysterious that makes Siberia what it is in our minds.

After the Ice Festival in Harbin, China, I will cross the border to the east to Vladivostok, the Russian city on the Pacific Ocean that is the end of the main rail line. There are shorter routes to Moscow, but this seemed more fitting to start at the end and go the whole way. There are also a few towns to the north of it along the rail line that look great for a stopover.

(Novosibirsk - Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

Breaking a 6-day journey up into many small segments of rides (the longest being 30 hours) serves many purposes besides being a great way to know more of a country and its people. The journeys on smaller segments can be done with more local trains which will obviously have more local people aboard, and will also make buying tickets more simple as I will not have to stick to any pre-determined schedules. Most tourists end up buying the entire journey from an agent, including any stops they want to make, and have to stick with their plans or forfeit their tickets. In winter there will be no issues with availability, and I can stay or go in any city as I please. I like the sound of that.

I think I will make these stops:

Vladivostok --> 13 hrs -->Khabarovsk --> 3 hrs --> Birobidzhan -->10 hrs --> Belogorsk (side trip to Blagoveshchensk) --> 30 hrs --> Chita --> 10 hrs --> Ulan Ude --> 8 hrs --> Irkutsk --> 20 hrs --> Krasnoyarsk --> 12 hrs --> Novosibirsk (side trips to Tomsk and Akademgorodok) --> 9.5 hrs --> Omsk --> 7 hrs --> Tyumen (side trip to Tobolsk) --> 5 hrs --> Yekaterinburg --> 21 hrs --> Nizhny Novgorod

This will be followed by some visits to some outlying cities near Moscow and then to Moscow itself before heading southwest towards Ukraine. The idea of so much Siberian snow and old Soviet architecture already gives me the chills.

THE CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR

Leaving once a day from Chicago's Union Station, Amtrak's California Zephyr passes through the heartland before reaching Denver and becoming one of the most scenic rides in North America.

(Image courtesy of Amtrak)

After a day in Chicago, I will board the Zephyr and head further west for two days. I can already vouch for the trip through the Sierra Nevadas and close to the Tahoe area, but I am also looking forward to the Rocky Mountains and desert plateau of Nevada, which I have driven through many times but never had the opportunity to cross through without at least one eye on the road.

(Photo courtesy of breakthroughgen.org)

Because I am ultimately trying to reach Vancouver, I will get off the train in Sacramento to meet up with a northbound train for Seattle. More on that later...

THE LAKE SHORE LIMITED TO CHICAGO

My first leg of the journey will start from Penn Station in New York City on Sunday, October 11th at just before 4pm. Will you be there to send me off?

(Image courtesy of Amtrak)

From NYC, it heads north to meet up with the main line that travels the entire distance from Boston to Chicago. I do not think that this leg of the journey holds inspiration views, but I am excited about it not only because it is how my trip begins, but also that it was the starting leg of Paul Theroux's epic train journey south in The Old Patagonian Express.

I'm booked on a simple recliner seat for this part of the journey, a ho-hum overnight trip of about 20 hours. In Chicago, my friend Joshua of Blindsided Books has spoken of planning some sort of author meet and greet at a small local bookstore to promote my upcoming book about Senegal and Mali and also speak about the plans for this new journey and book. I'm looking forward to (not to mention petrified of) this immensely.

I think the lack of amazing scenery will not be any disappointment, as there will be about one million emotions swimming through my mind for at least the first few hours. I doubt I sleep at all on this the first night of over 400.

THE SPIRIT CAUGHT ME...

...But hopefully I will not fall down.

I just finished a book concerning one Hmong family that immigrated (although not from desire) to the United States after the Vietnam War, and the ensuing culture conflicts that came with this move. One of their daughters was severely epilectic, and treating her in the American system was problematic for all parties involved, family and doctors both. The Hmong culture and western medical system have absolutely nothing in common, besides maybe a desire for health.

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons/Cristophe Meneboeuf)

While the medical parts were sometimes very clinical and hard to get through, the history of the people and especially their treatment by various groups wanting to control them really got me interested. I've since thought more about my upcoming time in both northern Vietnam and Laos and adjusted some things to spend more time seeing things in person, and hopefully learning as much as I can. I am often times fascinated by groups of people that have such strong heritage but never a country to call their own. For the Hmong in fact, the idea of a country and political system and borders would not even function, and this "ancient" way of thinking is probably what has let them to be the punching bags of the region for some time. It's amazing how they can preserve so much though.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, by Anne Fadiman. Recommended.

HARBIN ICE FESTIVAL

I have always wanted to attend this event in northeast China.

On January 5th, 2010, you know where to find me, even if the temperatures might be approaching -40...

More photos available here.

CHINA BY RAIL

One of the things I am looking forward to the most about this journey is extensive travel by rail. On many trips with time restraints, I end up taking more buses than trains for reasons of scheduling, as it is often much easier to go on one of many daily buses. In most countries outside of Europe, the train is often much slower than buses as well, creating a dilemma.

China has a lot of people, and a lot of trains. From all accounts, half the country is always seemingly boarding the same train as you, no matter what your destination and no matter what time. I can deal with this, as the reward of train travel starts when the train pulls out of the station. You can enjoy the scenery more peacefully, many trains are open air, and taking photos on or of trains is about a million times more successful than any taken aboard buses.

The map above shows the various lines in the China rail system, of which I plan to spend about six weeks hopping from town to town. My roommate from Shanghai will probably snicker when I say my Mandarin is improving, but one of my most important goals for this trip is to be able to speak as much with people in China as possible. Mandarin obviously does not guarantee me conversations with everyone, but I think it will give me better insight when talking with some people. I would hate to only have the perspectives of those that have learned English.

I will be writing about these adventures to no end, but to those with an interest now, I recommend checking out Paul Theroux's Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China. 

WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT

It's not that I don't like planes. Actually, I cannot think of much better than sitting in a window seat while a plane emerges from the clouds and glides gently above them. It is also a necessity for international travel. We do not have weeks to travel back and forth over oceans and overland to our destination. When we want to be in India, we can be there tomorrow.

But this eliminates the validity of the old cliché that purports to claim that there is more fulfillment in the journey than in the destination itself.

There have been a lot of instances in the past where I have drawn lines on maps, charting possible overland journeys that I could attempt in the future. The origin of this movement project probably lies in history almost a decade back, but the first serious logistical brainstorming came after pulling the map out of the flight magazine on my way back from Helsinki in April 2007.

As shown in red, my initial thoughts were that I would travel first south through Latin America and circumnavigate the globe to the East. I was not sure about shipping lines, so the thinking was that I would either get from Brazil to Senegal or South Africa in major ports, make my way to Europe and/or the Middle East and through Central Asia to China, Southeast Asia, and Australia before heading back home across the Pacific. I also pulled a blue pen out and made an alternate northerly route that passed through Greenland and northern Europe.

Through reasons that I will document to come, Central Asia and Australia became such troubling unknowns that I had to rework the route around them, and now am traveling west around the Earth to be in the best places during the seasons I want.

I feel like my ability to observe and write about the things I come across excels the most when I am on the move, on various forms of transportation, crossing borders and transitions, and trying to solve headaches involved with it all. You get a glimpse of what is best and worst of a country and its people in these situations. There is always trouble in the form of bureaucracy or hustler, but the complete stranger that is willing to help you without question is 90% of what you remember in the end. The world is an amazing place, full of amazing people with vast differences, but there is something that ties all of this together in a kindness that is very small scale. When we think about people as a faraway group, we tend to generalize and stereotype, and for many people this leads to the misguided ignorance and passive bigotry.

We can never know this world or even come close to figuring it all out, but it is only through travel and firsthand experience that we can catch a glimpse into the hearts and minds of the people on the other side. Through movement around the world, passing by so many different regions, countries, and continents, I hope to see all the beautiful differences of this human race but more importantly hope to catch these qualities that we all share.