Left BehindAt the Speed of Light
&
Almost Speechless
Circus
of Life RTW Air Ticket - 6 Month Update
April 1st, 2004
Copyright
2004 Wayne Chen
If you want to see the photos first click the button.
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Left Behind At the Speed of Light The scientists say that if you travel near the speed of light (Say 99%) toward another point in our universe, then what might be a year for you, could be about 7 years to those you left back on earth. The factor grows ever higher the closer to the speed of light you get - say 99.99999%. While the theory has been proved on a simple level, I don't think this theory will be proved definitively in the flesh anytime soon on this scale/speed (Build a ship first), but this is the best analogy I can think of at the moment. If this is the case, then it seems like I have been stuck on earth for awhile while many of you have continued to travel ahead at near the speed of light. While for you 6 months have past, speeding toward some unknown destination (Death?) - "3.5 years" have passed by for me. Traveling has a way of "extending your life" - so to speak. What might have been a relatively routine and predictable period of time for some of you where the days blend together at times (I know the feeling all too well), making one wonder what happened or changed (For example: The media is still talking about Iraq WMD and a host of ignorant folk are accusing each other on TV of the same things as when I left) - it has seen me immerse myself in a wide variety of places and experiences that defy categorization. While not everyday has been memorable, it is alot more than while on a regular routine. As I get set to return back home, at least for a little while, I wonder how soon and how close I will approach the "speed of light" again. I think most of you upon meeting me again would agree that I am essentially the same person as I was before I left on my travels. However, infused with a mass of direct and indirect knowledge and hands-on experience of our world. It still isn't clear where it will all lead, some time to decompress is in order. I might have to speed up again, in order to slow down. Unique Moments When I reflect on life, I think of it as just a collection of unique moments. Large parts of life - whether rich or poor - can be quite repetitive and somewhat unmemorable. If I were a betting man I would think that the unique moments of your life stand out above the day to day drudgery / routine. The day you got married, the days your children were born, days when you were sick, that first kiss, that special vacation, first day on the job, and so on. Supercharged (with all my tech gadgets) and aggressive traveling (# of countries and terrain and variety of experiences in given period of time) like I have just completed, has added a lot of unique moments to my life. I feel much older from an experience standpoint than I really am. Or I might just have an old soul, like those who believe in reincarnation have said to me. :) I hope most of you reading this might take some time out to "get a little older," in the head, if not body.
Links on Time Dilation and Travel at the Speed of Light http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/timedilation.html |
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Almost Speechless As predicted, the last few months since my last update have been a whirlwind of activity and unique experiences. The first "3 months of 2004" (It's year 2547 in Thailand, and 2060 in Nepal) has seen me go from: Island of Bali, Indonesia - Jakarta, Indonesia
- North and South Thailand - Sri Lanka
- Chennai and Bangalore, South India - A short
stop in Manila, Philippines - Palau
- Overnighter in Hong Kong, China - Returning
to India, to sample the Northern major cities -
Nepal - Varanasi, India - [In April:
United Arab Emirates - Qatar - Oman
(tentative) - London, United Kingdom] While the spread of the Internet has reduced the # of postcards travelers send, I still like to send them. Something about writing a personal message with a pen. The last time I sent postcards was to thank people for letting me stay in their homes in the US during my road trip. I didn't get around to sending them again until recently in Nepal. I mailed about 20 from Nepal with another 10-20 going out soon from India or Dubai, UAE. I usually only mail them to people whom I know more than just casually. There are a a lot of people on my e- mailing list so if you want to be sure to receive a postcard, send me an email with your address and I'll be sure to send you one if I haven't already. As I began to write my first postcards I realized I wasn't quite sure what to write about. Writing on a website for general readership about recent travel experiences is easy. Writing a personal message to someone who you haven't spoken to in awhile is much more difficult. Especially trying to encapsulize the number of things I have seen over the last "more intensive" 6 months and to some extent the last 15 months. It was then I realized that I was almost speechless. The sheer variety and form of the societies that man has found to live under and environments he has adapted to is more bewildering than I could have ever imagined. Add in the worlds of our fellow creatures / wildlife and I almost begin to wonder if what I have experienced is actually real. A flick of the wrist will expose us to this world on television or in a book / magazine easily enough, but the impact of experiencing it first hand is countless # of times more intense, and more importantly makes each place I have been to undeniable, and often enough - unforgettable. I did a recent count, when I return to the USA in a few weeks I will have set foot in only 33 / 190+ countries - mostly over the past 6 years, in combination for business and self-discovery. Of those, some have been more thoroughly covered than others, some just a sliver or a few points on a map. It boggles my mind of how much I haven't seen. It boggles my mind of how much I have seen. While the basics of what people do to live are similar, the how (Tools) and why (Beliefs) is amazing. Despite the presence of "modern technology" of some
sort in most places, many places harken back to an age long past
in more developed parts of the world - which is the world I have
known all my life. Or a world that is alien, past or present.
I don't see some of these places changing any time soon. They
are waiting for you to discover. I've crossed new places
of wealth and places where the words faded glory kept coming
to mind. I have been to tourist places well on the beaten track,
and some places where few outsiders venture, let alone know about.
Regardless, your personal link to some of these places
may be much closer than you think. I have been
both an active and passive participant. I've experienced feelings
from great disappointment and shock to extreme wonder and joy.. Major Questions Answered I set out on my travels with plenty of questions, some that I have articulated on the COL website, others that I have not. I am happy to report that most, if not all, of the major questions I had --- I have answered to my satisfaction, far ahead of schedule. I still need some time to decompress and organize what I have seen, but that will happen soon enough. Needless to say, this would not have been possible without all the organization of ideas and thoughts that you see on the COL website and a lot of behind the scenes work that I have done, as well as the many books I read prior to the travels I am now undertaking. Sure, I have a bunch of little questions - but none that I can think of at the moment are particularly in the big picture. - A brief note on coincidences that I mentioned earlier, while there have been some more, some more improbable than others, nothing has occurred that I would consider attention grabbing enough. I now consider it background noise and it does not factor that strongly into my travels. If something major does occur, you may or may not learn about it. That I will leave to the future. I have never actively looked for coincidences, they just happen. If collective coincidences have any meaning my interpretation at this point is that the Aboriginal belief system is the one to believe in! Cultural Overload - Time to Go Home I first noticed it in SE Asia, my pace of traveling was slowing
down. Possibly due to my intensive
2 weeks in Japan but more likely the harder effort required to get
around and in general "tougher" traveling due to weather,
chaos, or less modern and / or organized infrastructure. The result has
been my spending more time in certain places than I expected too
and my tendency to not fully immerse myself into some places as
fully. It
isn't all bad, by staying in certain places longer I have immersed
myself more in other aspects of some of these places. Reflections
in troubled lands can bring new insights. Future I have definitively answered the question on whether I am a nomad - and the answer is I am not. For the remainder of my travels I am changing to a hub and spoke model. Which involves renting an apartment and taking short trips to the surrounding areas. This will also allow me to begin my next "life" outside of traveling itself. This will also allow me to travel with much less equipment and shorter durations which in turn opens up more flexibility of travel. Roughing it is more possible since I know the trip will not be long. One hope Whatever your belief system, profession, or political leaning I would hope that you take the time or "get the courage" to see some of what I have seen for yourself or even better - things that I have not. "The truth is very much indeed beautiful and ugly." I suspect with the way the world is now or the way people think it is, many would rather live in a fantasy world of television, movies, books, sports heros, etc... With a few exceptions, the beauty I have seen has been worth the price of realizing the ugly. And the beauty is greater than most any fantasy that I have seen. Besides, even for those places where I don't think the "Ugly" has been worth it - going to those places makes me appreciate my place in life that much more. For those with the ability to travel - which in some parts of the world is very low - I hope you would venture forth and start to see with new eyes.
PHOTOS!!! I've managed to pick out 200+ photos of my travels out of thousands and present them in the order in which I took them. Do they show everywhere I've been? No. Are they the best photos I have? Some are for each area are, some aren't. A hodge podge of photos, some a little random, but there are at least several from each country and from most major regions I believe. All with a location identifier and brief comment / description. I don't recommend looking at them all at once, maybe a couple of index pages at a time then going away, otherwise, it will be too much and basically meaningless. Behind every photo is a much larger story/environment which admittedly is difficult to grasp unless you have been there or experienced something similar, or a VERY GOOD picture - of which only a very few of the 200 fall into. It is easy to get a distorted impression of a place based on an image or set of images, or even video. Alot of these photos I would like to use as part of detailed stories with detailed research about some of these places, but that will have to wait. All photos are at 640x480 but do show enough detail. Enjoy. 200+ photos of our Circus over the last 6 Months from Oct.1, 2003 - Apr.1, 2004: Click Here Copyright 2004 Wayne Chen
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