tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1 2007-10-03T01:56:20Z Movable Type 3.33 tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.74 2007-10-03T15:59:18Z 2007-10-03T01:56:20Z

Bangkok, Thailand March 22, 1985 Dear Folks, Another American traveler pointed out to me that my visa for Thailand was good only for two weeks, not the two months I had thought. Having learned this unexpected detail only the day...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com Bangkok, Thailand March 22, 1985 Dear Folks, Another American traveler pointed out to me that my visa for Thailand was good only for two weeks, not the two months I had thought. Having learned this unexpected detail only the day before the visa was to expire, it was all I could do to catch the next express train out of the country. Because of one of those bizarre quirks of foreign bureaucracy that I'll never quite learn to appreciate, one could not obtain a visa extension for Thailand in Thailand. Rather, one had to go to another country to obtain a new visa, at one of Thailand's foreign consulates. On the 36-hour train ride to the quite unMalaysian-sounding town of Butterworth (a vestige of Malaysia's days as a British colony), I discovered, to my pride's relief, that a large part of the packed train was made up of other foreigners likewise hurrying off to Malaysia for Thai visas. Indeed, I learned that the same train was continually rushing dozens of new visa aspirants to the otherwise lonely fishing village of Butterworth. It was to the point anymore that any Westerner who stepped into the Bangkok train station was automatically directed to the ticket window for the southbound express. Now maybe I was wrong, but I certainly couldn't help wondering if the Thai king's treasury didn't have a veritable genius when it came to figuring out how to make the railroads and foreign consulates pay for themselves. At $20 for each visa, it wasn't too difficult to understand how the consulate in Butterworth (actually in a nearby island city called Georgetown) could be housed in such a magnificent mansion. Still, his majesty's treasurers were mere amateurs compared to others far more experienced, like the Italians, who could make you smile broadly no matter how many traveler's checks fell prey to your signature. So I decided to let the others do the huffing-1 would settle down and make a point of enjoying what otherwise seemed to be a very special sort of journey. does happen. More than once I'd read of bandits in the same part of Thailand stopping and robbing the tour buses. Why, only the previous week, the police had found another foreigner's slain body--headless at that!--beside the road I'd be walking along for the next several weeks. Who knows? This very evening, in the dining car over a glass of wine and a flowery vase, I might meet some enchanting and sophisticated lady. Perhaps, just perhaps, she might even give my heart a good jolt by leaning over the tablecloth and asking softly if I, too, might be heading to a quaint and romantic little place called...Butterworth. I sighed, leaned back against the top step, and let my thoughts be carried away by the rhythmic clickity-clack of the train over the tracks. Americans, by doing away with the long-distance passenger trains, are missing out on an invaluable opportunity to slow life down just that little extra bit that is so necessary to fully enjoy it. On a train there is more freedom to strike out down the aisle and start up conversations with total strangers. And, in a setting like the dining car, who can help but come away with some good memories? Oh, to be sure, not all cross-country train rides are a joy. In Morocco the train I took from my month-long stay with the Jaquiths in Marrakech back up to Rabat, the starting point of my North Africa trek, was like a scene from an exaggerated disaster film. From the way the train station's mob in Marrakech rushed the incoming train even before it stopped--most screaming hysterically and shoving everything from babies to suitcases to wives through the open windows--one would have thought that that Sahara Desert city was about to join Pompeii and Mount St. Helens in the annals of great catastrophes! Stepping off that train after spending a bitter cold night squeezed between snoring soldiers was probably one of the highest moments of my life, although I crashed to earth quite abruptly when I found I was missing a pair of new shoes and my food. But, good or bad, one thing is sure to come out of any long train ride ... stories. After all, where do you think this one came from? Steven ]]> tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.73 2007-10-01T15:55:55Z 2007-10-03T01:51:14Z

Bangkok, Thailand March 8, 1985 Dear Folks, The thick Bangkok traffic rolled up to the red light. Engines roared impatiently. Drivers stared intently through swirling fumes like racers on some colossal drag strip. Along the edges of the six lanes...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com Pittsburgh Steelers, Laurel High School Wildcats," or--as one unknowing boy's did--such faddish cliches as Cute Girl. Red-- Yellow-- Green-- Vrooooom! The race was on again! Lurching and darting, the "racers" zipped along their tracks of concrete or asphalt to wherever it is that crowds are always scurrying. While some of those encased in the sleek Japanese steel and chrome bumbers of their cars might eventually somehow find a familiar garage or parking space, many of those on foot spun off into lush, multi-storied malls to be surprised by the latest punk designer fashions and bleeping, blooping computers. Yet others sped on tirelessly, peeling away from the pack only to replenish their stomachs with Big Macs, Kentucky Fried Chicken, A&W root beers, Dairy Queen banana splits, Shakey's pizzas, or, as one pit crew's sign simply put it, American Fast Food, Hot Hamburgers, Served With No Waiting. ]]> Cheatin' Heart, while the giant figures of Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds stared down at me from a marquee. Dumbfounded and soaked, I collapsed onto a lawn chair beneath an umbrella of Civil War flags. Why hadn't anyone told me America now had 51 states? Was this what the travel posters had meant when they had exclaimed, "Thailand--Asia's most exotic country!"? "Drink, sir?" purred a waitress straight off the cover of Cosmopolitanmagazine. I couldn't answer, at least not verbally: my eyes were pressing too tightly against my upper lip. On her tray, glaring at me like some haunting specter of a long forgotten past, was a glistening longnecked bottle of Budweiser beer. "Maybe you like watch American football?" she asked. Then, pausing as if she was waiting for my eyes to plunk into my lap, she added: "Today, inside on big screen, we have Super Bowl." Super ... Bowl?--The Super Bowl? In Pakistan and India hardly anyone had ever heard of such. But now, in a land I had expected to be the most primitive yet, I was being offered the most sacred of all American spectacles as casually as I might have been offered a cup of coffee in a Park Avenue eatery. "Ma'am, is this really Thailand?" I wanted to ask. What I had forgotten to take into account were the effects on the Thai society of a recent bit of history known as the Vietnam War. Though probably not well known by most Americans, Thailand was a major part of our military's logistics. Separated from the long length of Vietnam by only Laos in the North and Cambodia in the South, the ancient Buddhist kingdom, formerly known as Siam, was a strategic place to put bomber bases and supply depots and to provide recreation for battle-weary soldiers. Thailand is still an extremely popular "R&R" spot for the U.S. Pacific and Indian Ocean naval fleets. As such, the Thais have been subjected to a continuous influx of Western culture not known by most Third World nations. Like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, Thailand has taken eagerly to the overwhelming American culture. Unlike India and most of the Muslim countries I have walked across, the government here has not gone to any great trouble to stem Western materialism or influence. To the contrary, the Thais have taken to both the good and the bad of American culture with a fervor that makes most of their Asian counterparts seem mild by comparison. The more I explored Bangkok, the more that question I had wanted to ask the waitress kept creeping to my lips. As I roamed the interiors of what seemed innumerable new malls, department stores, jewelry shops, banks, and hotel/restaurant complexes, I was amazed to find a contemporary architecture and luxuriousness that often rivaled anything in the very heart of Los Angeles. Unquestionably the Thais' willingness to take Americans to their hearts and tills had brought them wealth that otherwise would have been unimaginable. Instead of the largely poor, chaotic, and backward society I had expected in Thailand, I was surrounded by perhaps the most modern, efficiently run, monied society I'd seen outside of Europe. Nowhere outside of my own country--not even in London or Rome or Athens--had I seen such a concentration of consumer and luxury goods from all over the world, particularly from the USA and Japan. It was almost as if those two economic behemoths had found in Thailand a perfect arena in which to do battle for the consumers' bank accounts. Without a doubt, Bangkok was the "great shopping paradise" of which I'd always heard, but had never really found. With the prices for luxury and electronic items reputedly being some of the very lowest in the world, Bangkok was filled with Europeans and Americans scurrying about exercising their credit cards. With their arms loaded down with everything from fake Rolex watches to alligator-emblemed country club polo shirts to fake gaudily-carved elephant tusks that would inevitably end up in an attic, these red-faced shoppers seemed to have an awful lot of "friends" back home needing presents. At the main post office, which conveniently had an entire department set aside solely for the rapid fire packaging and mailing of tourist purchases, the Western shoppers could hardly stand to take the time to scribble down their mailing addresses before rushing off again to load up on more 24-hour-made silk suits and whatever . For the serious shopper, Bangkok was a dream come true. From sapphires to Mercedes, they were there--and cheap, very cheap. To many Germans and Americans I talked with, flying to Bangkok to do several days' of shopping and bargaining (an accepted and expected part of any purchase) was as ordinary to them as it might have been for me to hop in my Jeep back home and drive to the closest shopping center. Steven ]]> tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.72 2007-09-28T15:44:20Z 2007-10-03T02:00:53Z

Calcutta, India February 23, 1985 Dear Folks, The slow waters of the river cast back the sun's last light like some old dirty mirror. This was, I pondered sadly, perhaps the final time our meandering paths would ever cross. For...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com Calcutta, India February 23, 1985 Dear Folks, The slow waters of the river cast back the sun's last light like some old dirty mirror. This was, I pondered sadly, perhaps the final time our meandering paths would ever cross. For behind me were the entire width of the Indian subcontinent and the 1,500 miles of the Grand Trunk Road. I was done, or nearly so. Calcutta, the "Royal Route's" eastern-most anchor, was but a few hundred meters away at the end of the bridge on which I'd paused. It was so hard to believe I'd actually done it, actually made all those supposedly "deadly" and "diseased" miles between the Afghanistan border and Calcutta on foot and alone. Gripping the bridge railing and standing tall, I looked back toward the land to which I'd just given so much of my time and emotions. A river breeze tousled my hair and tickled the stubble on my cheeks. I laughed aloud, causing a rainbow of parrots to stretch out over the river. How utterly absurd to think that all I have seen, learned and felt these past months could ever be put into ordinary words! There was nothing in any dictionary that could have described my time here. I watched in awe as the sun settled onto the lance of a poor farmer's rake and burst into the heraldic rays of a magic wand. Was not all I'd seen the greatest magic possible? Surely every second was a miracle. A rumble to my right caused me to turn. There, with its smokestack horns flaring and its dark labyrinth snarling, lay the "Black Hole" . . . Calcutta! With a never-ending poverty stirring restlessly inside its hulk, it looked to be the most evil of urban pain. But it didn't scare me in the least. If I am sure of anything, it is that fear is an unnecessary part of life. Oh, to be sure, there were dangers inside that beast, but I also knew from my journeys that they would quickly flee in the face of boldness. My walking has shown me that fear need be a reality only to those who don't care to see past man's false worlds and experience the universe as it really is. So much of what we have been told in ignorance is taken for granted, when all we need do is look for ourselves to see that what we had feared is really absurd. Why, I wondered sadly, do so many end their pilgrimage in life with empty eyes, when all those years they had been surrounded with so much wonderment? India had shared much with me, and not all of it was beautiful, particularly the widespread bribe-taking, police brutality and horrible public education and high illiteracy. Yet, I also knew that even those had been invaluable to me, if I realized that those things were not to feared, but to be viewed as a challenge. An infant democracy of only 38 years, India's philosophy for its nearly one-billion people is taken from Mahatma Gandhi, a simple villager who became a dominant figure in their war for independence from the British. As our Martin Luther King did later, Gandhi stressed non-violence and peaceful co-existence. Because of my being from the nuclear superpower America, I found myself continually having to answer for the current nuclear race madness between the United States and the Soviet Union. India, the leader of the Third World (or the "third superpower," as they like to say) forced me into being a sort of "backroad diplomat" more times than I cared for. All across this world, even in some of the most isolated spots, I have found the vision of a dead planet, charred by nuclear war, to be on most people's minds. Their sense of fatalism and their staunch conviction that nuclear destruction from the arsenals of America and Russia is a certainty is enough to shake the confidence of even the most naive optimist. In India that sense of doom was the strongest yet. Unfortunately, I had no answers for their worried faces. I have no clear idea why the superpowers keep building so many nuclear weapons. I could, however, share the words of a village sage I shared tea with one night: "My child," he said slowly, staring into a campfire, "if you want peace, look not at others' faults, but to your own. You and I and the rest must learn to understand that none is a stranger. The world belongs to all. When we seek only for goodness and the beauty God has placed in every single man and woman, then will evil lose its hold. Then we will know peace." Of all the treasures India gave me, surely that sage's words were some of the most priceless. They were nothing new, of course, for those same words have been said in a million other ways by countless men of peace. Yet, the truth in those words still rings out as crisply as ever. Now, if only more would have the boldness to live those words. Taking one last look at an Indian sunset, then at a garland swirling down the Ganges, I shouldered my heavy pack ... and continued my journey. Steven tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.70 2007-09-21T00:28:54Z 2007-09-20T02:08:16Z

Dhanbad, India February 10, 1985 Dear Folks, I shall never forget the roses: so large and so regal as to be from the pages of a tale, each flower a perfect sculpture of nature's poetry. Nor shall the kindly image...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com Baba (the Elder) be easily dismissed from my mind. His mysterious figure had guided me to those roses . . . and to the very special gift of love they watched over. Foolishly, I had wandered from the Grand Trunk Road to follow the banks of a small river channel that seemed to be paralleling the road. However, the river soon veered sharply to the south, and I had little choice but to plunge into a thick forest of bamboo shoots and banyan tentacles in the direction that I hoped the road still lay. Soon I was snarled in the vine and root cords of the leafy net draped about my stumbling figure, haunted by the approaching night and unseen wild cries. Worse, I was in the region of Uttar Pradesh, the home to India's most deadly cobras and many of the nation's man-eating tigers. Why just the day before I had read of a veteran British guide being killed in the bush of Uttar Pradesh by one of those tigers. As dusk became thicker and every trail I stumbled along led me only to more fleeting shadows and confusing swamp, I began to wonder if the maze in which I was trapped might be my last vision of this world. It was in a raffish jungle where my worried eyes first met the little citadel of silence and humility that others respectfully called Baba. At the time I was over 700 miles into India, and I should have been advancing toward my final destination of Calcutta--almost an equal number of miles to the east. Instead, I was hopelessly lost. ]]> splashed and splished our way over the perfectly square paddies to a distant roadway of asphalt and broad shade trees. At the road a divine scent enchanted my senses, and I looked across the empty road to be dazzled by the magnificence of roses growing prolifically on the front wall of a house. Leading me past the roses, through a tall gate and under an inconspicuous sign which read The International Guest House, Baba guided me up onto the columned veranda of a beautiful European-styled villa. Completely uninhabited, it was the quietest and cleanest home I'd seen along the Grand Trunk Road. Waving away my wallet, my guide-turned-host handed me the home's keys and wandered off. Inside the double doors I settled down in a luxury of wicker furniture and privacy, all the while marveling that such a beautiful place could be in such a secluded area, a place where foreign visitors were surely rare. I reclined onto the soft bed and was soon sound asleep. I took my bath the next morning in the same manner I have had to do all across India: quickly emptying pails of icy well water over my loudly protesting bones. But in this particular bath I had good reason to celebrate, and to even take an extra baptism or two--privacy! For the very first time I had no large crowds of gawking villagers for bathmates. Only me--me! It was the first bath in a long time that I came away from feeling totally cleansed. Awash in perfumed mist, warm sunrays, and the sparkle of watery diamonds dripping from the petals all around me, I set out to see who was responsible for this secret paradise. My answer lay but three strides away, around the nearest corner of the house in a little garden of gold roses. Beneath the sheltering branches of a wizened old mango tree stood two ordinary headstones. The one on the left was etched in the flowing script of Hindi, the one on the right in the stoic characters of English. Humbly and soon with tears stinging my eyes, I read its special message: The divine souls of an extremely simple couple of this area, who symbolized the ideal of love, compassion and selfless service to mankind, are resting here in peace. This place has been constructed by their son in the memory of his most ideal parents, as an expression of his extreme devotion and love towards them. Having founded this memorial he has made a meek effort to give concrete form to his parents' feelings of "welfare of all." What an honor to have been invited into such a home--one built entirely from love and devotion! And what a strange coincidence that the sole person who held its keys had been there in the jungle when I'd needed shelter the most. I picked two wildflowers and gently placed one on each grave. That day stretched into three, and never a single rupee of payment was wanted, or even accepted, from my willing pockets. To the Hindus, one of the saddest tragedies anyone can suffer is that of being separated from one's family, particularly one's parents. I have noticed that in India particularly, most sons never leave the area of their parents. And so it was that many farmers and villagers, some with small gifts of fruit or vegetables, visited me at the guest house to let me know in their own subtle way that I was still among a family of sorts. Some stopped by just long enough to ask where I was from and where I was going (as if they didn't already know), while they puffed on one of their crude and bitter bitas (cigarettes.) Others stayed for hours and took their turn trouncing me at chess, deftly capturing all the pebbles we had standing in for absent pawns and rooks. Usually in the background there were laughing children, playing another one of their unusual badminton games in which marigolds were substituted for birdies and hands became rackets. Eventually I learned bits and pieces about the devoted son who had built the guest house. He had lived in West Germany, having gone there many years before as a young man from a nearby village, and he had been fortunate enough to land a good job with the government. However, having found the material riches he'd hoped for, he was still plagued by homesickness. Acutely aware of how it was to be alone and in a strange culture, he'd had the home built to shelter and provide comfort to any foreigner who should need it. They would not, he hoped, feel so far away from family and friends as he had all those gray, rainy German evenings. The night before my departure I sat up late reading the messages of gratitude contained in the guest house's log book. Since the house was but three years old and unknown to all except the occasional foot or bicycle traveler who chanced upon it, there had been only a few guests inside its walls. Smiling broadly, I noted I was the thirteenth, a very lucky number in India, where many associate the meaning "giving to all" with it. I was also the first American, though most of the writing was in English, the common tongue of the world anymore. One passage held a particular fascination for me, written by another foot traveler, dated July 9, 1984. Shozo Nakamura, a Japanese from a city named Gifu, had written: I'm walking around the world. But yesterday I got sick. Maybe I caught cold. So when I reached this International Guest House, I was real happy, like oasis in the desert. The rest was in fluent Japanese, of which I know nothing. But then that hardly mattered...I had no doubt that the very same emotions and thoughts of joy that he'd gone on to express would soon be flowing from my very own heart and pen. Steven ]]> tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.69 2007-09-20T00:22:58Z 2007-09-20T02:06:28Z

Varanasi, India January 27, 1985 Dear Folks, Thunder boomed. Water drummed relentlessly against water. Rushing bodies and weaving bicycles, their movement intensified by the pitch blackness and angry horns, surged against and past me. It was all I could do...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com Varanasi, India January 27, 1985 Dear Folks, Thunder boomed. Water drummed relentlessly against water. Rushing bodies and weaving bicycles, their movement intensified by the pitch blackness and angry horns, surged against and past me. It was all I could do not to stop, turn my tired leached body around, and become another piece of human driftwood. How tempting to let myself be swept back down the Grand Trunk Road to the quiet little side pools of mud huts and banana trees where most of the mobs were undoubtedly heading. Those rushing past me were anxious not so much to escape the cold winddriven rain, as they were the mire of painted flesh, bad-sweet odors, and ankle-deep mud in which they had spent much of the day. Over two million Indians--all Hindu and mostly very poor--had made the pilgrimage to the holy city of Allahabad in the past week to celebrate the festival of Mankar Sankranti. From all over the nation they had come, most with babies in both arms and pots and blankets on their heads. "Mother Ganga," the Ganges River, had called their souls. It was the time of the new year to bathe body and spirit in her oily, muddy flow, to wash away sins and give the gods reason to smile once again. Krishna, Rama, Shiva, Ganesh, Durga--all the countless lords and goddesses of a Vedic past, dating back thousands and thousands of years--danced in all the brown eyes tumbling by me. Even in many of the lifeless eyes, so pervasive in India, there glinted a hope of new energy. Beneath a heaven exploding with lightning, the tumbling river of humanity and its many tributaries flashed intermittently into countless sharply-contoured details: ragged vagrants huddled between crumbling temple columns, broken-spirited horses, bent-back dogs, scavenging sows scurrying ecstatically from one littered shop front to another, their little piglets scrambling to keep up. In the darkness following each flash of lightning the vermillion tikka dots and candy-colored stripes on the foreheads of the pilgrims glowed with an eerie vividness. Like sailors with freshly-tattooed anchors, they wore their beacons proudly. It was their outward proof, along with their exhilaration, that they have journeyed somewhere special. Later, while slogging through flooded streets in search of a non-existent hotel bed, the haunting image of a pretty child leapt at me just before another crack of thunder. Behind a smiling face that could have been from a broken stick doll, she was dragging bent useless legs. As soaked and sunken as I was, I couldn't help feeling that the lack of bitterness in her eyes was the blessing she had received. Morning came cool, misty, pure, and rapidly changed into warmth under the usual spring-like sun. In late afternoon I wandered on, glad to be free of Allahabad's choked streets, but sad to leave the fatherly bearded Sikhs who rescued me from the stormy night. Very soon after leaving their fortress of a temple, I was at the Ganges herself. Already the bridge was choked with mufflerless three-wheeled taxis and rattling windowless buses filled with still more pilgrims, coming to catch the end of the month-long bathing festival. On the mud flats along the roiling river current was the largest number of tents I had seen in my life. The patched, angled canvases of Mother Ganges's brood left no gaps between myself and the far flat horizon. The notes of flutes and playing children floated up to me, along with the smoke of all the campfires. The squatting lumps ringing the fires took me back to the gypsies of Turkey. Those seclusive but friendly nomands never traveled as lightly as these Indians. Their camps had been of warmer teepees, grazing pack horses, and the smells of wool and leather and roasting corn. The gypsy camps had been small enough to be romantic, but such camps as these beside the Ganges were too overwhelming to be anything but a spectacle. I continued east, contented to leave such places to other explorers less loathsome of crowds and noise. Four days later, downriver from Allahabad, I came to Varanasi (or Benares, as most still say in deference to its ancient name). Where Allahabad was a place to renew the soul, or in a sense be reborn, Varanasi was reserved for the dead. Here is where the Hindu faithful have their spent bodies of this incarnation consumed by fire and then tossed into Mother Ganges. It is a returning of themselves to the All. And yet, ironically, the very magnitude and (alas) profitability of an industry as stable as that of Death has attracted to Varanasi a greater clamor of life than is to be found in most cities several times its size. Swept along by the tide of voices and crying babies, one nearly forgets about the pyres burning nonstop along the river. The wistful shouts of the religious paraphernalia vendors, the streets crammed with rickshaws, the children charging from everywhere to practice on me their school English made Death seem a "has-been." "Good morning, sir!" "What is you name?" "Sir, my name is..." Down at the river, at the smokey gate to Death itself, there is the greatest display of life anywhere: Curly-tailed monkeys screech from temple walls; Children rake embers from spent pyres for their mothers to cook their meals on; Cows savor marigols garlands that had decorated the deceased; Brightly-dressed old women cackle delightfully at each other's stories, their voices more vigorous than the logs crackling beneath the burning bodies. And, as if to show Deat once and for all that it is not be taken seriously, there are thousands of persons of all ages splashing merrily in the spots in the river where all the ashes and charred bones of the dead are raked. In the evenings in Varanasi, the sun becomes as a perfectly round dot of immense beauty, like a sort of celestial tikka dot. When it sets, it leaves behind a flaming world and a din that never softens until just before it rises again. The sky at dusk turns the color of the ashes around the pyres, and it reflects off a wide, slow Ganges etched with criss-crossing rowboats and junks. Silently, the black, featureless forms of the boats drift past the flaming pyres like restless spirits that have been freed by the pyres' fires but are still reluctant to leave behind all the laughter and merriment. On my final day in Varanasi I stepped from my back-alley hotel to take one more good look at a city that, much like India itself, is too lively to ever begin to know. Just outside the hotel entrance I was stopped by the smiling round face of what was surely one of the most exotic beings on my journey. The smile and eyes of this ancient holy man in saffron robes spoke to my imagination of mucj mystery and beauty. My heart pounded. What an endless source of delights this world could be! Politely, kindly, the Chinese-looking Buddhist monk told me in his halting English that he was a Tibetan lama. And that with him were two of his Buddhist devotees. They were the most compelling humans I had seen since leaving Europe. On their backs were crude packs of board and cloth. They had journeyed from the hidden heights of the Himalayas to learn more about the world below their solitary monastery. "What is your name?" the monk asked softly, as all three bowed toward their tattered sneakers. With the excitement of an excited schoolboy, my voice rang out, "Sir, my name is Steven!" Steven tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.68 2007-09-12T00:19:29Z 2007-09-10T15:12:33Z

Agra, India January 7, 1985 Dear Folks, My ears were struck by the shrill of a single cicada: brilliant, eerie, a sound as sharp as two finely-edged swords brushing in midair. Gingerly, I pushed a hand-stitched blanket of burlap from...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com shudra, and I wondered if perhaps the ox's bell had stirred in his subconscious a fleeting image of all the udders to be drained by his hands in the morning. The gentlest of breezes kissed my forehead. Mother Nature's sweet perfumes momentarily transfixed me. Images of the farm I had explored beneath a pink evening sky drifted into my mind: a bent and toothless ancient grandmother squatting barefoot on the cold, finely-swept dirt beside a broken clay pot, churning milk in the pot as she sings; a shy young mother plucking ripe guavas from branches bent to moist clay because of the sunny fruit's abundance, as her baby clings papoose-style to her rainbow-colored dress; lean beautiful children, playful and friendly, taking my hands and walking along, oftentimes stopping to burst into somersaults and laughter. ]]> Gopis, his almond eyes agleam with the sparkle of heaven and flowers. In many of the meticulously-cared-for farm fields, the time-darkened ruins of formerly graceful temples have stood as numerous as the stumps of an old and great spiritual forest. Many of the keepers of those temples, still topped with prayer flags, have somehow sensed my passing and had me go behind their walls to be fed and sheltered from the foggy nights. Never have I found heaven and its God to be of so many forms, nor so many confidently hopeful, happy, obedient devotees. The members of the various religions have been as different and colorful as the innumerable tropical birds swarming through the forests like winged kaleidoscopes. They have ranged from one group that dresses entirely in burlap sacks, to one that is heavily financed by American pocket change and whose well-mannered, cologned disciples live in spacious, sterile apartments and dance wildly to sequin-covered deities housed in an enormous palace built of the finest marble and crystal chandeliers dollars can purchase. I even had an audience with my first "saint," although I must confess that, after humbly raising my eyes from my bare feet to his gleaming white beard and gown, I could not bear to gaze upon him for very long. His nervous eyes revealed, all too painfully, the real reasons for his six automobiles and all the immense property he had lately felt in need of acquiring. India, it is said, is a religious experience. I can vouch for that. Self-serving saints and monied statue worshippers aside, there is unquestionably something here that plays with attentive minds and souls. This has been particularly true in the countryside, where the hard glare of technology is practically nil. There, mixed with the pastel shades of yellow mustard flowers and wispy, green eucalyptus leaves, a clear and subtle illumination of the oneness of existence does reach the spirit. As simple and uneducated as most are, the farmers and their families bear the calm of contented monks. They are happy, and Nature reflects that joy. The people laugh so naturally, so effortlessly, as do I when watching with delight the many wild monkeys and peacocks each day. What a pleasure to again see man and woman as equals, to not see the women cowering and hidden away like inhuman objects, as they are in the staunchly male-controlled Muslim societies. In this serene and indiscriminate domesticity, there murmurs a common pulse of being: there is no hesitation to tie up a loose blouse, or roll up a sleeve, and help another with his or her labor, or for the animals and their keepers to work together. My eyelids closed, heavily, slowly. Sounds of a world not quite asleep trailed across my fading thoughts . . . the soft rhythm of a baby swaying in a wicker basket; a dog's paws scampering to--or maybe from--a suspicious moon shadow; a field mouse scratching curiously inside my backpack; a housewife in the heart of one of the mud huts, clustered in the farm's center, chanting prayers before a simple altar, her prayer beads rustling nervously every so often. The sounds, as much as all the glories and love I've experienced in the past 8,300 miles of walking, assure me there is much more to life than the obvious. And yet the tears fall...again. My spirit is still so numb from the news I received on Christmas night that Dad had died, that he no longer will be anxiously awaiting my figure to come back up our long driveway. I cry because I loved him, still love him. Because in spite of all the miles between me and home, I can feel too strongly the void his sudden absence has brought to my life. As I suspect too many other children do with their fathers, I took him so much for granted. He broke down and cried when I left, so afraid he'd never see me again. His intuition proved correct. Now it is my turn to weep. I have plodded along in a state of amazement, sometimes smiling, sometimes weeping. One must have a stout heart to follow the unusual road I have taken, for it is long and full of sacrifice and decisions to be made. But something tells me the road I follow is no more "heroic" or difficult than that road the parents of a large family must take to see their children become responsible adults. Perhaps, like me, Dad also sensed there is a source for the deep restlessness that stirs the human soul, and that the path leading there is not a path to a strange place, but the way to our real home. Now perhaps he is walking the path home himself. Maybe he's already there. I hope so. For, God willing, we may yet embrace each other one more time. Steven ]]> tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.67 2007-09-11T00:09:17Z 2007-09-10T15:07:37Z

Choma, India December 31, 1984 Dear Folks, With 15,000 extra police manning the election polls in New Delhi on the December 24 elections, peace reigned in that crowded megalopolis over the Christmas season. Still, I cried. In a phone call...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com Choma, India December 31, 1984 Dear Folks, With 15,000 extra police manning the election polls in New Delhi on the December 24 elections, peace reigned in that crowded megalopolis over the Christmas season. Still, I cried. In a phone call to home on Christmas night, I learned my father is no longer with us. After years of struggling, his heart finally surrendered last Thanksgiving, my mother told me softly. Not wanting to talk, yet not wanting to be alone, I have walked these past six days in silence. More than anything, I have wanted to end what seems like a silly, stupid journey, and go home. As my family has become little more than a long-ago memory, I find myself increasingly gripped by terrible bouts of homesickness. I reflect often how all through South Italy and the Muslims' paternalistic societies, I had watched the close, lifelong bonds between the sons and fathers with a deep envy. Now, my own father is no more. He will not be waiting at home for me. And there is nothing I can do. crying. So soft, and yet so clear over all those months of distance. "Steve?" the trembling voice asked. "Steve? Is that you, son?" Then ... he was gone: our fragile connection blown away by the howling wind. It would be our very last contact on this world. He had cried only once before that I could remember. It was on the cool April morning that I began the Worldwalk. Though he was so weak he had been confined to his bedroom for over a year, he somehow found the strength to greet me standing when I entered his bedroom to say goodbye. We stood before each other, unable to speak and barely able to look at each other, when suddenly he reached for me, as if he wanted more than anything to hug me. I had had to grab him to steady him. He sagged into my arms weeping like a boy of 6, not a man of over 60. "Please promise me one thing. Promise me you'll place a rose on my grave when you come home," he said. I promised, hoping that such a scene would not come to pass. No one who watched me leave home that morning knew of the horrible pain and sadness gripping my insides. All they saw was a confident and smiling young adventurer-to-be. No one knew the truth...no one, that is, except for the gaunt little man behind the crying eyes I noticed peering down at me from an upstairs bedroom as I was walking away. Steven ]]> tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.66 2007-08-21T00:05:19Z 2007-09-10T14:59:01Z

Delhi, India December 26, 1984 Dear Folks, Someone struck a match and an oil lamp's wick flickered to life. Monstrous shadows leaped and loomed with the unsteady flame. I hugged myself. Hideous alien shapes seemed to throng about me. The...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com Delhi, India December 26, 1984 Dear Folks, Someone struck a match and an oil lamp's wick flickered to life. Monstrous shadows leaped and loomed with the unsteady flame. I hugged myself. Hideous alien shapes seemed to throng about me. The cold air was thick with dampness and musty smells that settled deep into the lungs. I stared, as if mesmerized, through the diffused glow at the darkly stained mud brick walls and dirt floor. My mind momentarily hesitated to believe I was still in the twentieth century, let alone on the same planet. Several hump-backed, horned beasts tethered to iron rings set in the wall upon which the lamp glowed made me think all the more of the Middle Ages. A tall, narrow figure wrapped in a ragged blanket pointed a long finger at me, then at five hempcord cots lined against a far wall of the stable. A dozen other similarly shaped and clothed figures clustered beside the cots, anxiously waiting for my shivering body to join their company. I sat down slowly on the middle cot. Their forms closed around me like the fingers of a giant hand. "It is a great problem for us these days," murmured one. most of the planet's inhabitants. That a very small part of the world could be instantly cooking entire meals with microwaves, doing much of their problem solving on computers, and even launching themselves and their robots into the solar system, while the rest live in a shadowy world largely unchanged from centuries before, seems to be more the stuff of science fiction than reality. Yet such is how it is, with the gap growing more profound each day. So great is that difference I can't begin to see it being narrowed or its growth arrested. At dawn, a shivering Ajad roused me from the depths of my sleeping bag. In his hands were a tin cup and a large pot of hot buffalo milk. I drank all of it, hoping it might keep some of the morning chill away when I left the stable to continue my journey eastward. While I drank the turnipy tasting liquid, dozens of village boys crowded among the cots and cud-chewing cows. Last night they had been overflowing with questions about American society, now they simply wanted to see that I had a warm send-off. As is my custom, I asked Ajad for an address to which I could send his family a postcard whenever I reached home. He wrote it down and handed it to me along with 20 rupees. "What's the money for?" I asked. "Please send a gift of your country to us, when you can. We want something from America we can show to our friends," he explained in a hopeful voice. "And," he added quickly, "I will pay any duty." I smiled. Twenty rupees was worth just under two dollars. Nothing it could buy would fetch any duty fees. "Sure, I'll send a gift," I said, shoving the money into my jacket. He told the others in Hindi, their native language, and they talked excitedly among themselves. Slipping into my pack, I worked my way through their midst and out onto a gray street of housewives with pots on their heads and children leading dull-eyed buffalo toward the nearby fields. Ajad and the others accompanied me to the Grand Trunk Road. "What should I send you? Anything you want in particular?" I asked Ajad, upon reaching the still quiet highway. He gripped my hand and held it firmly. "It does not matter. I only care to know that I have a friend who has made it back home." "You have a friend," I said, "and I'll make it home. Don't worry." Then I walked away toward the east and a future I knew could never again be ordinary. Steven ]]> tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.65 2007-08-20T01:42:57Z 2007-08-19T15:38:53Z

Delhi, India December 20, 1984 Dear Folks, The temple stood in a slight patch of eucalyptus and mango trees, just on the edge of a small lake that reflected a blue sky and several white hump-backed sacred cows. It stood...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com Delhi, India December 20, 1984 Dear Folks, The temple stood in a slight patch of eucalyptus and mango trees, just on the edge of a small lake that reflected a blue sky and several white hump-backed sacred cows. It stood on its own and looked out over a broad spread of dormant rice paddies. Not a remarkable temple in any sense: squattish, peeling, made of cement blocks, and with a veranda wrapped around a thick, steeple-like center. And yet, it was its utter simplicity that probably drew me away from the slow-motion bicycle riders, hopelessly lazy buffalos, and shade of the Grand Trunk Road in the first place. Places of worship, I've discovered, can be very much like cities and towns: In enormous cathedrals, like in cities, those one meets are often fidgety, rushing around with a great air of significance, their minds seemingly preoccupied more with tasks than people; In the simpler homes of God, as in little towns and villages, there is usually someone around only too willing to sit down to a cup of hot liquid and an earful of questions. In the small courtyard around the temple, I timidly kept my distance and intently observed the strange new scene that greeted me. Several beautiful young village women, barefoot and in plain cotton pants and dresses, were taking turns pouring water over the small statue of a resting cow at the temple's entrance. During this they also bowed three or four times to the statue, then circled the temple itself, sprinkling water on its sides and on the floor of the veranda. All the while, a very frail old man sat nearby on the temple's steps, in the warmth of the morning sun's rays, deeply absorbed in a book. prasada," he explained softly, a look in his eyes hinting that it would be most unkind to turn down such an offering. I tried my best to look quite honored and let her push several of the sticky things onto my right palm. She grinned broadly and gave the rest to the old man, who promptly passed them on to me. "Please, you drink tea?" he asked. I followed him to a two-room, cinder block hut that was his home. On the way he paused long enough to show me the inside of the temple. In its unlit, closet-like room stood, simply, a plain pedestal in the center. Set on top of it was a paint-streaked rock in a large bowl of flower petals and smoking incense. On the walls were several old calendars topped by faded posters of the flute-playing Hindu god Krishna and other deities, some sprouting many arms and one, an elephant trunk where his nose should have been. Resting peacefully at their sides were many of the animals familiar to India, particularly the cobra and the cow. Suspended from the ceiling, at the end of a long rope, was a small bell. The old man gave it a nudge. It made the same dull clang I'd heard earlier. "It is for calling down God," he said, with what I'd have sworn was a touch of jest. As it turned out, he was a monk and the religious caretaker of the temple. Hunched on the dirt floor of his hut over a tin pan of boiling tea and buffalo milk, he explained much of his lonely lifestyle. He was paid nothing to be a holy man, he said, adjusting the twigs flaming beneath the tea. He subsisted entirely on the charity of the temple's worshipers. Like monks thousands of years ago, he still spent each morning wandering from village home to village home knocking on doors and asking for food with which to prepare that day's meals. His knowledge of English came from the 37 years he'd served in the army, from which he received a small, almost negligible, pension. "You please stay for lunch?" he asked. "It is our duty to feed and give rest for free to any monks who pass by our temple." "But I am no monk," I replied. He rose and placed a cup of sweet, milky tea on the bench beside me. "Ah, but I think you are," he replied with an odd grin. He sounded as if he'd been reading some part of my inner soul, of which even I was unaware. I stole a glance over the rim of the teacup. He was smiling more than ever. "You can throw them into the fields if you want," he said with a nod toward my right hand, which was clenched tightly. The prasada...groaned a voice inside me. I stared down at the sweaty lump stuck to my fingers. Now it was my turn to smile, even if it was an embarrassed one. "What's for lunch?" I asked quickly. "Maybe more prasada?" He laughed. "The families today had much buffalo milk to give away." He paused, as if to think that over, then added with a sigh, "As usual. . ." The thought of so much raw buffalo milk made me a bit hesitant, too. But just then, as if a sort of omen, the bell inside the temple rang unusually loud and sharp. I involuntarily sat up straighter. "When do we eat?" I asked without further delay. Then, I cast aside all my foolish worries and sat back to enjoy the sweetness of the meal's first entree: the poor woman's sugar candy. Steven ]]> tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.64 2007-08-10T01:37:23Z 2007-08-09T18:58:42Z

Lahore, Pakistan December 4, 1984 Dear Folks, As long ago as the fourteenth century B.C. the road along which I'm walking from Peshawar, Pakistan, to Calcutta, India, was known as the Royal Route. It was for thousands of years the...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com Kim, perhaps best summed up that throbbing, ever growing vestige when he described this west-to-east artery of energy as a "a river of moving life, such as does not exist in any part of the world." Since continuing my journey eastward from Islammabad over two weeks ago, I have entered into a fertile plains region known to some as "the land of five rivers." Here I have found very true the words of the many who've told me that everything I see and experience will greatly multiply the deeper I progress toward Calcutta, the very womb itself. As the land grows more productive, so too shall mankind and all its trappings, good and bad. It is in this same area, what is now east Pakistan, that the Chinese pilgrim Hsuan Tsang wrote in 630 A.D. of one of the rivers, "The Sin-tu (Indus) is extremely clear and rapid. Poisonous dragons and evil spirits dwell beneath this river in great numbers. Those who embark carrying rare gems or celebrated flowers find their boats suddenly overwhelmed by waves." Hsuan Tsang spoke from experience. On his return journey the Indus claimed 50 of his manuscripts and all the seeds of exotic flowers he hoped to grow in China. The pilgrim, however, was spared: He crossed over on an elephant. ]]> Toward the end of these past 30 days I've spent crossing Pakistan, I've wished often that, like Hsuan Tsang, I had some sort of indomitable beast of my own to ride upon and keep me from the deepening poverty I am traveling through. At times like these walking can be a curse in that it brings me too close, for too long, to the elements of a lifestyle that is anything but healthy. Anymore, the dragon of overpopulation has reared amongst its litter so many things totally contrary to what my American mind considers civilized, or even sane, that I can't help feeling trepidation and much anger at times. Accepted practices, like having the homeless old and the crippled begging on the streets for money to survive on, the overlooking of flagrant corruption among the police and civil servants, the government not providing even such basics as garbage collection and sewage facilities, the right of men to have several wives at the same time (resulting in incredibly enormous households), the division of persons into caste rankings, and the widely practiced marrying of one's cousins (to keep the family's holdings intact) make absolutely no sense to me. Yet here they are as much a part of daily life as the crows scavenging through the garbage dumped unashamedly upon the streets and walks. As I stare incredulously at the uncontrolled pollution, the animal corpses, the millions of flies swarming over uncovered food and the people (who take no notice), I worry about my own health. There comes a point at which a society's clinging to the practices of the past goes from being exotic to being decadent and dangerous. Such has happened here. By nature I look for the goodness in people, and I completely dislike writing of ugliness. But when the ugly has become of such magnitude as to swamp all of my senses, I can no longer remain silent. Furthermore, there has reappeared the most consistent and maddening aspect of all that I've found in every underdeveloped nation I've crossed: the continual military presence. True to form, the soldiers, their rumbling convoys, and their weapons are everywhere. Many mornings I awake to the pounding of drums and of soldiers' boots marching crisply to the beat, the soldiers' voices drifting to my ears from some nearby compound. Then, for much of the day, there is the dust choking me from all the passing trucks and jeeps piled high with battle-ready figures and various implements of death. It has struck me that there are a lot of persons roaming about in search of a war. The main culprits, or "evil spirits," as Hsuan Tsang might have said, have been the same in Pakistan as in the many Third World nations I've journeyed through: overpopulation, illiteracy and just plain not thinking past one's own interests. I have noticed on my walk that one unmistakable characteristic of an advanced and mature nation is that its members, from the common man to the government, are always thinking ahead, always planning and building and researching, not so much for themselves as for their children and the unborn for centuries to come. That is why the controlling of such things as nuclear weapons and pollution of the environment has become so important in the policies of the developed societies. Some of the men here have told me that if they practice restraint, or purposefully have fewer babies, Allah would be greatly displeased, might even deny them entry into paradise (where, for sure, they will have several wives!). These men's thoughts are reflective of perhaps most of the others on the streets. They are of the opinion that any changes in their lives are totally up to fate. As I look about and see the very, very poor quality of life their way of thinking has brought them and their children, I wonder if perhaps Allah hasn't already passed judgment. What, I wonder, is to become of such societies as Pakistan's, which is a mirror image of the majority of the world's nations. Why do most still refuse to stand up and face directly the complexities of the twentieth century? Surely part of the reason behind their fear is a lack of the necessary education. Here the illiteracy rate is a shocking 70-75 percent. And yet the government, which is headed by the military, continues to allocate less than a handful of percentage points of the national budget to education, while over half goes to armaments. Even worse, General Mohammed Zia, the president since 1977 when he assumed power through a coup, is trying hard to gain ownership of a force even more unpredictable than his own subjects: nuclear weapons. Bad governments, poverty, and overpopulation are nothing new, of course. Undoubtedly these faults of mankind will always be around, for as we are imperfect so must be our societies. Still, I can't quite understand why in some parts of the world those things are allowed such free rein. I suppose some things are never meant to be solved entirely. Sometime ago, a housewife from deep in the Midwest wrote to me to tell me that the more I saw of the rest of the world, the greater my appreciation of being born in America would become. You know, I think she knew life pretty darn well. Steven tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.63 2007-08-10T01:32:52Z 2007-08-09T18:57:44Z

Lala Musa, Pakistan November 25, 1984 Dear Folks, The words of a stranger. How often I hear those, and yet how few I can still recall by day's end. Most are of the simple and ordinary things in life, like...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com mujahadeen (freedom fighters) in Afghanistan's battle-blackened Panjshir ("Five Lions") Valley, just north of that occupied nation's capital city, Kabul. ]]> Asiaweek and The Washington Post, the short and stocky writer speaks the Afghans' language fluently and is well-known to the mujahadeen's leaders. Three times he has risked his life to illegally cross the closed Pakistan-Afghanistan border and travel firsthand with the guerrillas to get the complete story of the fighting there. This latest trip was prompted by reports of a massive Soviet offensive on the Panjshir valley last April, the seventh of eight offensives since 1979. "We wanted to see just what was left," he said. Very much a "people's journalist," rather than one who just stays in an office and gets everything over the telephone or from bureaucratic spokespersons, Tony can truly feel for common, everyday people whose lives are affected by the wars he covers. Which is why he found the latest scene awaiting him inside Afghanistan to be "thoroughly depressing." As well as why he believes sharing their plight so important that he risks his own life. The destruction in the valley, now deserted by its former 100,000 inhabitants, was total, he said. Its villages stood as empty blackened shells. The once lush farm fields were reduced to scorched earth, torn apart by tank tracks. What had once been picturesque orchards and dirt cart lanes were little more than junkyards for destroyed tanks and armored personnel carriers. Where in the past there had stood grazing goats and sheep, there now lay endless spent cartridge cases and craters. The 100-kilometer-long valley's tranquility was but a memory, he added sadly. To more easily control the people, their rural livelihood had been taken away so they would have to move to the city to survive. Crowded together like sheep in a pen, the Afghans could then be kept in order by fewer of their Russian masters. Anymore, the valley was a killing field populated by the fighters of both sides. The songs of birds and the voices of children had turned to the screeching of shells, into the explosions of bombs. Or worse, screams. About the only ray of hope in the valley was the estimated 7,000 to 8,000 freedom fighters. In spite of having mostly old carbines for weapons and horses for transportation, the mujahadeen still controlled most of the area. The Soviet led force of over 20,000, with its hundreds of tanks and helicopter gunships, still hadn't figured out how to win that confounding valley. "It was the lesson of Vietnam all over again," Tony had said in a soft voice. Evidently the lessons of war do not seem as apparent to many others, as they do to persons like Tony. I haven't crossed a nation yet that hasn't had its share of such bloody lessons spilt onto its soil and streets, only to see them repeated again and again. If only more strangers would let their words be heard, perhaps those lessons would come fewer and further apart. At least Tony can say he tried. Steven ]]> tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.62 2007-08-10T00:56:19Z 2007-08-09T18:56:37Z

Wah Village, Pakistan November 15, 1984 Dear Folks, The road explodes into dust with each step. Every morning my tent is frosted with brown. Winter's rains have yet to venture down from their Himalayan nests. Each leaf is thirsty, each...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com Wah Village, Pakistan November 15, 1984 Dear Folks, The road explodes into dust with each step. Every morning my tent is frosted with brown. Winter's rains have yet to venture down from their Himalayan nests. Each leaf is thirsty, each face needs a bath. The towns are flash floods of faces, colors, sound, and movement. Mankind has become like an ant colony: always moving and going somewhere. Nothing rests, not even the invisible. Never would I have thought the air able to bear the weight of so many smells and sounds. Surely I am fallen into the orchestra pit of the very universe itself. An orchestra conducted by not one, but a million mad conductors! These musicians don't play violins or clarinets. Rather, they toot auto horns, buzz scooter engines, ting-ting-ting bicycle bells, clang hammers against glowing iron, crack horse whips, bubble curry over crackling wood fires, and thump bare soles over packed dirt and garbage. They are the music of life overflowing, of too many proclaiming to the very reaches of the universe the energies burning inside them. And what of the dance floor? Pakistan is a land decorated in the ugliest poverty but also with more color than a thousand springtime mountain meadows. Then, too, there are the singers, wailing the Koran from lotus-shaped mosque towers, chanting from overcrowded schools, and harping of their gold, silk, or rotting fruit from inside seedy closet-sized shops. Finally, there are the dancers themselves. As numerous as atoms they twist, roll, squirm, bob, and side-step from one spot to another with all the quickness of untiring sprinters. Most are dressed in turbans and mustaches. Many are young. A few peer over veils with eyes as seductively beautiful as those with which earlier civilizations graced their goddesses. Nearly all seem happy to be swirling with life's forces. How is it possible one tiny planet, let alone one nation, could be such a paradise of life? Everywhere there is a throbbing, a dashing and clashing and mashing of man and beast that won't allow the heart to slow. Even time must race to stay ahead: no sooner anymore am I shaking off the chill of dawn than dusk has again returned, and I am crawling back into canvas and down, to avoid bumping into those who prefer the darkness rather than the flames of twigs or kerosene. The warm smiles, the limp handshakes, the humble bowing of heads leave no doubt I am among friends--perhaps the gentlest yet. Still, my eyes dart about like caged animals. With so much energy loosed, one must be constantly attentive, or suffer the inevitable collisions with everything from bicycles to hand-pushed carts to arrogant camels. Five minutes in the market district of any town or city brings with it more speeding objects than a "Star Wars" battle scene. Unlike in western societies, where technology and strictly enforced laws have managed to direct each day's rushing masses into some semblance of channels, here man and beast and machine are always challenging the other for the right-of-way. Half a dozen civilizations have flourished here along the banks of the Indus River. It's tempting, with all the exotic foods and architecture and people, to think that none of those of the earlier societies have left. Yet the millions of graves and the tired soil say otherwise. Historically this land is one of the most ancient cradles of society. Cities thrived here before Babylon's first bricks were laid, and the inhabitants of those cities were supposedly practicing citizenship before the Greeks knew of such principles. "Love is life." So goes a popular saying in this almost exclusively Muslim nation of over 80 million. If that is so, then here love is greatly manifested. Certainly there is no doubting their love of life. Nearly three out of four people still farm the land. Even in the cities the side streets are more like barnyards than roadways. While in the markets, the caged chickens, pigeons, canaries, and parrots for sale add their squawking to the din. Though the present culture is Muslim, the vestiges of the prior one of the Hindus are everywhere. Not only is there the love of the soil and of nature in general, the temple-shaped mosques, the spicy rice and curry dishes, the long shirts and baggy, drawstringed, pajama-like trousers, and the sari wrappings, but there is also a love of color that borders on obsession. The most ordinary buses and trucks, with their skirts of wind chimes and their streamers and hand-painted panels of peacocks, jet planes, roses, tigers, and nature scenes make it appear as if everyone is rushing off to a Mardi Gras parade. Indeed, I'm still waiting to be served my first bowl of rainbow rice! Steven tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.61 2007-08-10T00:52:47Z 2007-08-09T18:55:13Z

Peshawar, Pakistan November 7, 1984 Dear Folks, After escaping from the brutal police commander in eastern Turkey, I had no choice but to make my way back to Greece. With my imprisonment by the Turkey police being but a stone's...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com Peshawar, Pakistan November 7, 1984 Dear Folks, After escaping from the brutal police commander in eastern Turkey, I had no choice but to make my way back to Greece. With my imprisonment by the Turkey police being but a stone's throw from Iran, I had in effect accomplished my goal of crossing all of Turkey on foot. In Athens, Greece, I rested and made preparations for the second half of the Worldwalk. I then flew onward to Pakistan. On the long flight aboard the Russian Aeroflot jet--first to a freezing Moscow, then to a steaming Karachi--bouts of frustration gripped at my insides from time to time. I was mulling over my failure to gain the permission I'd needed to cross Iran on foot from Turkey to Pakistan. I had visited the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, before my return to Greece, in the faint hope of finding a way to cross its interior on foot. But, alas, the results were as disheartening as ever. I was told I must wait up to eight weeks for a visa, and then I could only visit (not on foot) certain areas for a very short period. Any way I looked at the conditions offered, it amounted to a waste of my time and energies. Perhaps it is as well that I had to go around Iran, for while inside the consulate I had studied a map which showed that much of Iran's western area, even up near the U.S.S.R., had suffered attacks by the Iraqi army or air force. Also, there were posters and blown-up photos on the walls--dozens of them, all screaming of death and the glory of spilling blood. It was so saddening to think the once beautiful Persia had aged into something so wretched and devoid of smiles. Had she no more compassion or love or humbleness? If she did, they hid themselves well from my eyes. . . . a high incidence of nighttime robbery by bandits. Visitors should be certain to reach their destination before dark. Bandits have been engaged in robbery, abductions and shootings directed against road travelers in daylight hours . . . As I write these words to you, I am being mercilessly rocked about in the dusty carriage of a train taking me to the Khyber Pass on Afghanistan's northeast border with Pakistan. The land rushing past my window has, for the most part, been flat and hazy with dust being kicked up by camels, oxen, and the sandaled feet of what has seemed like a million fragile brown-skinned figures. Today the world has shown her age and her weariness in trying to support so many for so long without any sleep. Yet, I am not unduly worried. Soon the scenery will be young again. Soon, in only a few hundred kilometers, nature will once again sing and man will be reveling, not suffering. It is said that where I am going the snow on the distant Himilayan peaks rivals the sun in brightness, that the fields are full of fruit and the perfume of rare flowers, and that the people are so fiercely independent they have never been conquered by any army, from Alexander the Great's to those of the British colonizers. It is the land of the Pathans I dream of--the largest tribal society in the world. It is beneath their turbaned heads and handmade guns that pass the most famous routes from the Middle East and Central Asia to the Indian sub-continent. So great is their determination to live as they wish, that the military rulers of this young nation (formed in 1947 for India's Muslims) have not dared to wrest from those men their many guns. Perhaps some may consider me a fool for entrusting myself during the first part of my walk across Pakistan to so much pride and cold steel. However, I think it is my safest option in a nation filled with so much lawlessness. It has been my experience on this journey that those peoples whom others speak of with much awe and reverence are always societies in which law and order dominate, where there is a heightened sense of what is right and what is wrong. And, especially important in my case, such esteemed peoples generally are all too aware of the painful consequences to be suffered by any of their own who dare to act dishonorably. Steven ]]> tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.58 2007-08-09T00:43:45Z 2007-08-07T19:17:06Z

Athens, Greece October 15, 1984 Dear Folks, Turkey, in the remaining miles to the Iranian border area, was as desolate as my own boots. Dirt turned into restless dust, then into rock, then finally into cooled lava battered into grotesque...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com Athens, Greece October 15, 1984 Dear Folks, Turkey, in the remaining miles to the Iranian border area, was as desolate as my own boots. Dirt turned into restless dust, then into rock, then finally into cooled lava battered into grotesque forms by centuries of Russia-bred winds. Objects like farmhouses and grazing livestock, normally barely noticed in passing, stuck out from the earth's baldness as starkly as the subjects in a Salvador Dali painting. The people themselves often took on the raggedness and ugliness of those in a Charles Dickens' slum. From the hairy lips of many of the men there no longer came forth offers of tea and food but, rather, fanatical exhortations to the greatness of Allah and bitter grumblings about their deepening poverty. When the tractors turned into oxen and the stacks of firewood into high cone-shaped piles of cow dung, an uneasiness grew inside me. The villages had decayed into settlements nearly as primitive as those Genghis Khan's arrows had once targeted, and the dirty faces that stared at me from inside the smoking mud-walled homes had an intensity I'd not seen since Africa. There are many who say the Devil himself presently reigns in neighboring Iran, a beautiful and exotic land once known as Persia. Perhaps there is more truth to that than the rational mind is willing to give credit: From the amount of war-related material moving in that direction and the deteriorating state of nature and man as I drew closer to its borders, I was left with a strong impression that beneath the curtain currently draped over the Iranian society there are few rays of laughter and song. my power now." No, I thought sadly to myself, this is not Turkey, not the warm and gentle country of smiles and new friends I'd been walking through the past two months. This was something else, an extension of Khomeini's hell perhaps, but no, not Turkey. The rest of his profanities and mockeries seemed aimed at provoking me into some angry response or action that would give him a real excuse to toss this "enemy of his beliefs" into a cell to rot. But I remained calm. I had seen for myself, both growing up and in my walking, what my own society was like, and it was nothing like what he had so foolishly let others convince him it was. I became very much alarmed when the commandant placed me under house arrest, and I realized things were getting seriously out-of-hand, when two guards armed with machine guns marched me away to a separate, isolated concrete building. There they left me alone in the empty, darkened bunker. One of the guards remained stationed outside the front door. Much later that night, when I found to my amazement that a rear window was open and not being guarded, I took it upon myself to make an escape. My heart pounded, as I wondered if it was just a "set-up," where they were out there in the dark night waiting for me, so they could shoot "an American spy trying to escape." All the same, I decided that I must take my chances. I slipped out into the freezing blackness, then crawled on my hands and knees away from the jail and made my way out of town to some nearby mountain peaks. I walked all night, carefully avoiding the roads. When I arrived at Agri, 20 miles away,and on the backside of the mountain range, it was under the grayest clouds I'd seen in my 55 days of walking across Turkey. I was exhausted, injured from a beating at the hands of the police, and feeling sick. But at the same time I was happy: I'd escaped what I'd felt was certain death at the hands of that madman. And to make it all the better, I was now at the end of my walk through Turkey...and more than halfway home. Steven]]> tag:www.stevennewman.com,2007:/site//1.57 2007-08-07T00:37:32Z 2007-08-06T16:39:05Z

Erzurum, Turkey September 29, 1984 Dear Folks, Just before the one-quarter mark of my journey, I wrote the following from Spain to a friend: "The World Walk continues to provide me with more romance, excitement, beauty, and wonderment than I'd...

Steven Newman http://www.theworldwalker.com Can life really be this magical?, I've asked myself so many times. Let no man tell you that he is bored or that life is dull, for there can be no excuse for such feelings on such a paradise of activity as Earth. And, likewise, let no one convince you there is not heaven, for it is all about us."]]> Now, the halfway mark itself--7,500 miles--has become another ingredient in my memory's caldron. Those words I penned in south Spain ten months ago remain true. Still, with all the obvious benefits that have come my way through the walk, the question of why I'm doing it remains strong in the minds of many who've learned of my journey. The whole thing began innocently enough as a 9-year-old's whim to someday grow up and explore the entire universe. My inspiration was (and still is) that old killer of cats: curiosity. Growing up with the awareness that there's a whole world of strange things out there waiting to assault my senses was all I needed to keep my itch alive. It was to be one fantasy which refused to go away in the sobriety of growing up. Still, the dream might have slowly passed away if not for the disturbing words of my 80-year-old grandmother. Though her own legs were too weak to support her anymore, she always wore the world's firmest smile, and she had once told me: "Whatever your dream is, do it while the urge is strong. Don't put off the dream until a`better day,' because life never gets any better than when you're struggling to see your dreams come true." At the time of my grandmother's advice I was 23 and more tempted than not to follow the secure course of a 9-to 5 journalist. But the more I contemplated her words, the more sense my boyish fantasy made, as opposed to what seemed the "normal and reasonable" route to take. Taking the extra time and effort to explore in detail the world about me just seemed to fit. I loved learning, meeting people, exploring and traveling. So, why not? Traveling on foot, strange as it may sound, even made sense journalistically: when you're walking an area you are exposed to everything. Little misses your senses. Plus, I would be able to collect enough interesting personalities, settings, and stories to satisfy my writing needs for a lifetime times ten. I also felt there had to be more goodness in the world than the stories coming across the news wires were telling me. I disagreed strongly with my journalistic peers' pessimistic views of the world and its future. I knew from hitchhiking across the United States several times during my teens that, more than anything else, people love to help others. Many times they couldn't seem to do enough. Thus, all the more reason to travel on foot with only a backpack. In that manner I would be purposefully depending on the everyday common people to help me around the world. In a sense I wanted to test mankind, and if it responded as I thought it would, I might even, in my own small way, help to break down the popular conception that this is mostly a cruel, cold, selfish world. Depending on others forces me to meet many day in and day out. So, in my own subtle way, I was forcing myself to experience far more human encounters than the average traveler can ever have. And a greater variety, too. There seems to be a mystique about the young lone traveler with a pack on his back. It's as old as history. In the Middle Ages monks and people of the church used to go on long pilgrimages alone. For thousands of miles they would walk and people always took care of them. And it's still true. People--you and I--still feel an inner compassion for the lone traveler seeking nothing more than knowledge and friendship. All of which, as you might guess, suits this particular knobby-kneed pilgrim just fine. Steven