Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/13061
JULY 2010 HEALTH & HAPPINESS 48 and we hope to continue to do so every few years for the rest of our time on this planet. The majority of questions I am asked begin with 'how'? How can I do this? How can I afford it? How do I not feel irresponsible? It is human nature to pull at what appear to be the threads of deficiency within a plan before complimenting the stitch-work. I myself do it — second guessing the implications of an extended trip. Especially when the plan seems so loosely — almost recklessly — composed. Yet, therein lies the allure of true foreign travel, exploration of the unfamiliar, circumnavigating challenges and growing exponentially as an individual and as a human being. It is this 'growth' that continues to motivate my passion for exploration. The satisfaction as a result manifests itself in a deep and profound joy and a balance in body, mind and soul. One's body is immediately challenged when traveling. From changes in diet, temperature and drinking water, to long and often thoroughly uncomfortable plane, train and bus rides, in order just to get from point A to point B. Let alone moving around once you arrive. It is almost a rule of thumb that the more attractive and affordable the location, the more discomfort one will have to endure to get there. O u r travels through Asia clearly fall into this category. Hellishly long transport legs on machinery that likely had its last service on the build-date. A discomfort endured that makes one immediately grateful for what we've become accustomed to accept as 'coach-class' in our first-world havens. A sense of personal space that truly challenges each word in that phrase, and a climate that cannot be adequately related, but likened to a volcanic, wet stupor. Without enduring this, however, we would not have soaked in countless sunsets of a hue that a Renaissance artist could not imitate. We would not have felt the reckless abandon of leaving some things 'up to the Gods,' and we certainly would not have had the privilege of diving Sipadan National Marine Park in Borneo — a veritable underwater sanctuary revered by the scuba community and rated within the top three dive sites throughout the world. After 11 years of diving, I have never experienced something even close to Sipadan, and the memories I have swimming with schools of giant turtles, and the most diverse array of sea-life imaginable, will be with me forever. Along with physical hurdles, a traveler will confront and overcome mental challenges that could never be replicated on home soil. The intensity of issues abroad always feels so much greater. A lack of understanding, bureaucratic disparities, and things simply getting 'lost in translation' all compound to make mountains appear from mole hills. The lack of social equality was a particular struggle that Shelby confronted in Northern Africa and the Middle East. An almost unspoken — but very overt — treatment of women as second-class citizens surely infuriated my wife, who has a proud and strong feminism within her. Yet, she dealt with it hourly, and understood that there were certain strengths in doing so. Strengths women are so often expected to silently endure, and do so, the world over. An appreciation of equal rights fuses with an awareness to embrace one's ability to be more accepting of things vastly different. To accept even when you lack the understanding. There was another lack of social equality that we witnessed in Nepal. Poverty. Poverty at a level that would be considered 'extreme' within the United States. Seeing people live — and live gracefully — in the foothills of Nepal, without running water, without electricity and with an arduous walk, several days in length, to get to medical attention of any description. Initially, feelings of guilt swelled within us both. Guilt at the obscene levels of first-world excess. Guilt at the fact that by the lottery of birth, we had been dealt seemingly a much easier lot in life. Yet, gradually we realized that a significant number of the indigenous Himalayan peoples enjoy a profound happiness that I rarely recognized in our country of every convenience. Broadcast in a brotherly intimacy, bad jokes and thousand- watt grins that are shared daily. The Nepalese had a genuine, untainted sense of morality. A sincere wish to help when needed, give what they can and expect nothing in return. I experienced this first-hand, when, stricken by AMS (acute mountain sickness), the lodge-owner and several locals gave me everything they could to aid my plight, including the services of a local teen to carry my pack down to a safer elevation where I could acclimate. This country is bathed in a pure, uncorrupted appreciation for life — one just needs to look beyond the surface to see it.