Well lets start with the good news first, I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago now and I have Social Anxiety and some Depression. I’m quiet but everyone always said I would grow out of it and I always believed it until now. In fact this trip was largely planned to help me grow out of it, hopefully it will still put me on the right path. If anything it is going to make this a real challenge for me. I have been put on medication only because I will be travelling, combined with a slight dose of food poisoning when I started it the first week made me feel pretty crap but now I seem to be getting back to normal and it only gives me the odd day of weird feelings.

I still don’t have anywhere for my dog while I am gone, it’s really stressing me out now to the point where I can’t even bring myself to try. I can’t give him away though.

I had almost forgotten about Visas until the other day and I looked for the Chinese visa application and found that back in April the requirements were strictly tightened for the Olympics, return travel and every night of accommodation must be booked and provided when applying. This really isn’t the way I want to travel in China so I have decided to delay China until after the Olympics when visas are back to normal and re-evaluate then. So instead of doing a sort of anti-clockwise loop through SEA, China, Nepal and India I’m thinking I’ll do India and Nepal before entering China. We’ll see how things go. I’m sending my stuff of for a Thai Visa today and an India one will probably be next.

I booked our day to start the Overland Track last night, 27th December. The booking system only opened on the 1st July and I found that January already had a few days with only a few spots left in the 3 days the system had been open. The cost was $300 for two, steep really. Plus we need to renew out parks pass in December. Earlier in the year the minister announced the fee would increase from $100 to $150, citing that it brought the cost in line with similar popular walks in New Zealand (Eg, Milford and Kepler Tracks), what she didn’t mention is how much better managed those tracks are and how you get your value for money. The huts on the NZ walks are of a much higher quality and in bad weather you even get choppered to the next hut, the tracks themselves are also apparently in better condition.

The track is also apparently in danger of being “loved to death” and so a new walk of similar length is being planned on the Tasman Peninsula called the Three Capes Track, there seems to be a few problems with this plan.

1. It’s a completely different type of walk, it’s coastal not highland like the Overland. People walk the OT because they want to do a highland walk.
2. They are planning a similar booking system and fee before the track has even proven itself worthy.
3. New huts to be $40 a night, for a bunk in hut!
4. It can be walked in sections for free anyway.

Obviously I’m not really convinced it will lighten the load on the Overland Track, by itself though I think it could be good. I know the new walk wouldn’t sway me to do that instead of the Overland and I think there are a number of other walks they could have simply improved infrastructure on. The $40 a night adds up to $200 for the walk, $50 more than the OT, this probably means we can expect further increases to fees on the OT in the future.

I think the Walls of Jerusalem are an alternative now because they are not far from Cradle Mountain are free, plus you are more free to explore. If there is one thing I can suggest to the Tasmanian government it is a “Tasmanian Card”, Tasmanians should at least be able to do these walks at a discounted rate if not for free. Tasmanians only account for 6% of OT walkers so it wouldn’t be a huge blow to the budget, plus it could be extended to businesses. There are far to many places in Tasmania where locals are forced to pay tourist prices. And why the hell does everything have to be Gourmet? It seems we call it gourmet here even if it’s far from it. Gourmet goes beyond presentation.

[tags]Tasmania, Overland Track, Three Capes Track, Tasman Peninsula[/tags]

The journal Science has published an report on the domestication of the planet. It was reported that as of 1995 only 17% of the world land area was still “truly wild” ie; no human populations, crops, road access or night-time light detectable by satellite. The Discovery Channel’s article on the report described some disturbing details.

• Half of the world’s surface area is used for crops or grazing.
• More than half of the world’s forests have been lost to land conversion.
• The largest land animals on several continents have become or are near extinction.
• In Europe 22,000 kilometers of coastline have been paved.

The 17% number is debatable, the researchers included many national parks in their domesticated areas as they consider them to be managed in a similar way farms are, although they may be wild it is because it has been decided that they will be. Regardless of definitions the report shows that humans do truly have a massive impact on the planet. It poses more questions on the problem of over population and hopefully will mean governments will make it more of an issue.

So why does China insist on constructing a road to Mt Everest? The only good I see coming from this is that some of the mess climbers have left behind will be cleaned up. What will it take for the worlds governments to look beyond the benefits of China’s booming economy and take a look at the ecological impact? Can anyone be blamed for a lack of confidence in the Chinese government with it’s track record? Tibet, the Internet Firewall, Human rights, Pollution, etc. Of course we have our own problems but few seem to acknowledge just how big the China problem will be. Now when individual governments are tentatively taking steps the conserve the environment we really need a plan for stewardship that goes beyond political borders.

Thanks to Mike at Vagabondish for tagging me for this, I like this one more than the first one that went around,

1. The Real World. I want to know the real world, how people live in other countries, what their world view is like, their history, how much of the world is occupied by humans and how much or little damage have we done. Of course we can read about all these things but I don’t think you can really comprehend the figures until you see for yourself.

2. Exploring & Experiences. For the experience of exploring. Who cares if the mountain you just climbed isn’t the worlds highest or that the ancient temple you are walking through at sunrise is about to be stampeded by package tourists, if it’s new to me then that is all that matters, most of the world might have already been explored but to almost everyone in it, it is completely foreign so with the knowledge of other explorers we can explore for ourselves.

“While my being in a place at a particular time may not be recognised and recorded by all, such visits do go down in one version of history. They become part of my own personal history. Though these records may never be written they will be with me always and turned to time and time again.”

3. To live. Somehow working, picking up a mortgage and having 2.3 kids doesn’t seem like living to me, that’s not to say that having kids, having a home or working are bad, just that for me right now it’s not what I want from life. I like the idea of a nice house overlooking a river with a mountain backdrop but hiking to a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas is lets face it, a lot more memorable and romantic way of spending my time.

“We do these things not to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping us”

4. Enlightenment. I think if you travel with an open mind and learn from what you see, hear, do, etc it will lead to a better understanding of yourself, others and the world we live in and with a better understanding of those things you can find how you should best fit in and find happiness.

5. Necessity. I have to, if I didn’t travel I think my brain would implode from lack of stimulation, I need that something more that travel gives us. I’m sure I could find other things to look forward in life but there aren’t too many more things with as much substance as travel. It seems instinctive that I should travel if I couldn’t I would be like a lion who can’t hunt.

So there we have it,  I’m looking forward to seeing more from the community and some new people and unique reasons, hopefully my own fit that bill. I can’t think of anyone to tag at the moment so any who reads this consider yourself tagged and expect bad meme karma if you don’t comply.

Of all the travel sterotypes the Anti-Tourist is possibly the worst, he is the traveller who as the name implies, hates with a burning passion the regular tourist, he is quite well defined here. He is the one who doesn’t just give advice on travel, he tries to tell you how to travel. He misses the worlds best attractions because there are to many tourists there and the location has lost it’s authenticity. The Anti-tourist’s main problem is that he has forgotten what travel is about, learning. He thinks he has learned it all and feels he is obliged to tell those he thinks are on his path how to get there faster, he has lost his patience with people. His original problem was simple he started travelling with a steadfast idea of what travel should be like and he charged ahead on that path.

Every traveller believes that they are travelling is the way travel should be. As far as travelling ‘right’ goes every traveller who feels they are travelling ‘right’ probably is (for them), maybe the best piece of advice we can all learn is to just let travel be what it is to each of us, (to each their own). Sterotyping travellers although a favourite pasttime of many travellers doesn’t serve anyone any benefit even if they are true. Travel is a subjective exeprience and it should be, the result is that even if different people experience the same things they experience as an idavidual and therefore might take very different things from it. There is an excellent discussion on boots&all travel forums about tourists here and there is a very good section in Rolf Potts’ Vagabonding about the ‘tourist’ ‘traveler’ divide. As Rolf says, travel is not a social contest, maybe tourist travel does leave something to be desired but if you look with an open mind you will see that in many ways ‘travelers’ are not that much different than tourists. Maybe a distinction between travelers and vacationers is more justified althought it is equally pointless because each are pursuing a completely different goal.

Most travellers want to imerse themselves in other cultures as much as they can and they aim to be as broad minded about it as possible, it would therefore make sense to extend that open mindedness to the travel culture.

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Quite possibly one of the ugliest tourist developments I have ever seen the Grand Canyon Skywalk opens to the public in 2 days. At $75US it’s not a cheap way to see the canyon eigther, in fact personally I don’t even think the whole development looks like it is worth $75. Still in a couple of days the carpark will be filled with RV’s, SUV’s and Tour Buses and the skywalk will be straining under the weight of overweight middle americans with wallets bigger than their brains. The walk is conveniently shaped like a horseshoe probably designed to point visitors straight back at their vehicles after they have completed the obligitory 500 steps after first stepping out of it.

[tags]Grand Canyon, Skywalk[/tags]

When you were a kid what did you want to do with yor life? Most of us had pretty grand ideas of what we wanted to be and do, looking back although the plans were grand and to reality of the what we wanted to do was very pure, very simple. I wanted to be a pilot, pretty big in the real world but thats not what I thought about all I wanted to do was fly. I chopped and changed what I wanted to do a bit, I also wanted to be a diver, just so that I could dive.

What really happened was I got into a physically hard job that I hated, then I moved into where I am now, IT, still a far cry short of the life I really want to have, but with the benefit of the potential to get me where I want to be. So why didn’t I become a pilot or a diver? I think I got sucked in, the idea that I’m just an average person and the people who get those good jobs we all wanted as kids are exceptional. Well for most of us that is utter bullshit, I know I could be a pilot now, I’m not as dumb as I thought I was, I could be a diver too, that would be even easier. When did I decide I had to [tag]work[/tag] for someone? The only person any of us are obligated to work for is ourselves, work for your own benefit but don’t be a slave to [tag]money[/tag], make money work for you it’s what ‘[tag]sucess[/tag]ful’ people do.

What do I want to be now? [tag]Free[/tag], to be a diver a pilot whatever, mostly to be a [tag]perpetual traveler[/tag], not have anything tying me down. So if your in a job where the [tag]office politics[/tag] or all the other stuff gets in the way of what you want to do or if you not even in the job you want, know that you can change it, it’s all up to you, you decide how you live your [tag]life[/tag] I’m sure you know that really there is a lot more to life than a [tag]career[/tag]. I mean does anyone think that the reason we are here is to work? But forget about everyone else, this is about you and your freedom, your life, you have control over it and you can do what you like with it, don’t let others decide for you. Don’t believe what you are told, decide for yourself and that includes what I’ve just said.

Think like an individual.

The other day I commented to my girlfriend that we have almost been living in our current residence for almost 2 years and she said “where has the time gone?”. It’s never really worried me before but I guess I’ve changed a bit in the last 2 years and no I do wonder where has the time gone, what have I got to show for it? We got a dog, I got a higher position at work, I gained some more possesions, nothng out of the ordinary really. But what makes time spent important? What elevates it above being wasted when nothing I do will last much longer than I will, on a grand scale there is no doubt to me that life is completely futile. However I think your going to find way to make your time worthwhile it has to suit you and it probably won’t suit others, someone else might find that trying to change the world with something that will last as long as possible is for them, just because I don’t see it that way doesn’t mean that eigther way is wrong, he I think the old philosophical statement “There are no absolutes” helps me.

“There are no absolutes” is self defeating the first rebuttal to the statement is “but that statement is an absolute” and of course it is. There are many paths you could go down from there but I choose this… “There are no absolutes”, I’m sorry if it breaks your logic but the fact that the statement is an absolute proves it, hopefully I can laymanise it “There are no absolutes, is an absolute proving that even an absolute statement denying absolutes cannot be absolute.” The fact that it disproves itself proves it. So you have to accept that eigther there are both absolutes and non-absolutes or their are neigther. Things are as they are and can be this and that.

Boy that was fun.

I don’t think anymore that there is anything that can give lasting satisfaction, but there are things that will satisfy me till the day I die and even with my philosophy those things are worthwhile if I approach them properly. Travel is that thing. To go further into this I’ll have to leave the topic of travel further and I don’t really want to here so I’ve created a subdomain, I was thinking the other day of making another so I could rant without it being part of this so thats what I have done and unimaginatively called it rants.thelostglobe.com. I’m not sure if it will last or not, at some point I’ll probably get sick of ranting, it’s happened before but the urge has returned a little.

Promise next post will be strictly travel, probably gear related again, hope it isn’t boring anyone.

Why not? It’s the biggest [tag]adventure[/tag] you could possibly take. It’s one of the most meaningful things you could possibly do in life. You should become a better person for it. Because to many people waste their lives working their butts off so they can sit in front of the biggest TV they can possibly afford. Because your life has no value unless you give it some. Because the planet is in a rapid state of change, culturally and enviromentally, things I want to see today may not be there to be seen in 20 years time.

I’ve lived in a pretty small area of the planet all of my life, haven’t left the country, haven’t really seen anything different. If that were to remain the same I think I’d go mad just knowing there was so much more out there. So most of us [tag]travel[/tag] for the same reasons, to see new things, meet different people and soak up the experience then add on from there. In additional to the two main things I’d add on avoiding some social norms (if only for a short while) and helping others how aren’t as fortunate as us. Also I might add scoping out countries as potential new homes, [tag]Australia[/tag] can be frustrating if I was to find my [tag]Shangri La[/tag] why wouldn’t you move there?