by Don George
“I am just a simple soldier,” Mr. Kim translated. “I have not traveled far or seen much in my life. But today is a very special day for me.” He looked directly at me. “Our honored guest is the first foreigner I have ever seen in my life, the first foreigner I have ever met. I am so excited and happy to have met you and talked with you. I cannot quite express what this means to my life. This makes me think how big the world is, and gives me a kind of hope. Please when you go back to your village, tell the people about the soldiers you met at Ta Krabey. And tell them about the peace you found here. I will never forget this day for the rest of my life.”
He stopped, looking embarrassed, but his comrades burst into applause, and I leaped to my feet, pressed my hands to my heart and said, “Agung! Agung! Agung!” Then I asked Mr. Kim to say that I would definitely tell all my fellow villagers about the kind soldiers I had met at Ta Krabey and the inspiring peace I had found there. And that I too would never forget this day.
Mr. Kim dropped me at my hotel in Siem Reap at 5:00 p.m., and we parted with assurances that we would see each other again. I had thought I would visit Angkor Wat one last time, but instead, I decided to have dinner at the hotel and spend the night in my room. I had a day’s worth of flying ahead, but even more important, I wanted to end my stay in the place where Cambodia had come alive for me, in Banteay Chhmar. So I sat in my room scrolling through memories of the days just past, until one scene stopped me.
On the second morning of my stay in Banteay Chhmar, I awoke before dawn to explore the main ruin where Sarun had taken me the day before. I made my way by flashlight along puddle-pocked paths to the eastern entrance and admired the bas-reliefs of warriors and dancers again. Then, just as day was breaking, I followed a footpath to the right that led past the collapsed wall and into the heart of the temple.
Alone in the ruins, I lost all sense of time. I picked my way over mossy rocks, extricated myself from clinging vines, slowly stepped up and over stairs and crumbling walls, butt-slid down precarious inclines, then turned to find a beautiful carved maiden encased in a tiny niche, an intricate carving of a Buddha under a bodhi tree, an ornamented head here, a shield-bearing torso there, a half dozen bodhisattvas buried among grasses and leaves.
I moved deeper and deeper into the ruin, sloshing through puddles, slashing through vines, clambering over toppled stones, avoiding millipedes, swatting at mosquitoes, parting branches, and plucking persistent stickers. At one point I stopped for a swig of water, and when I slapped at the whining mosquitoes that danced on my neck and hands, I slipped and slid over some tumbled pieces of rock, grabbed at branches to stop my fall, and landed just in front of a bas-relief of warriors, maidens, and fish alive in stone.
Sweat poured into my eyes, and as I mopped the stream with a sopping bandanna, I saw a stony face—lips, nose, eyes—at the top of a tower of tilting stone. I fumbled with my camera, and rain started to fall, first a pitter-patter on the forest canopy and then an insistent downpour that penetrated the branches and leaves.
I stood in the downpour and felt electrified, closer to the wild heart of life than I had been in a long time. I was sweaty, dirty, dripping, exhausted, utterly alone in the wild and connecting with things so far beyond me I could barely comprehend them.
Part of me was transported back to this same stony spot eight centuries before, gazing in wonder at that tower face in pristine splendor, wrapped in the awe this kingly complex compelled. And part of me was exploring the woods behind my childhood home in Connecticut, wondering at the stone walls I found there and the thrilling sense of communion with older histories and hands that they bestowed.
I thought of puzzles: the puzzle of the GHF archaeologists attempting to restore the ruins piece by piece; the puzzle of this enchanting, elusive country—its glorious ancient past and agonized recent past, the promise and peril of its present; and the puzzle of my own ruins, from the woods of Connecticut to the wilds of Cambodia.
Why was I here? Why had I chosen this path?
Now, in the jungle gloom of my Siem Reap hotel room, a glimmer of understanding grew. This is what I do, this was as close to the wild core of me as I could ever hope to get: I follow the compass of my heart, venturing off the map, making connections, asking questions, going deeper, trying to penetrate the essence of a place, so that I can understand it better and bring back precious pieces to share. Piecing together the puzzle of Cambodia was a way to piece together the puzzle of me.
I thought of the soldier at the Peace Temple, of the speech he had made and how he had waved and waved as we had driven away. I thought of Mr. Kim, Sarun, Sopheng, the towers of Banteay Torp and Ta Prohm, the Pol Pot Baray, the unforgettable face in the jungle, my stilt house home. Here I was, a temporary traveler on a spinning globe, alone yet connected to every single one of these: a piece in a puzzle of a journey whose design I would probably never know, but whose path had restored my sense of the whole, in the ruins of Banteay Chhmar.
Epilogue: Travel Writing and the Meaning of Life
This essay was inspired by a memorial service for a great friend and fellow writer, editor, and adventurer named Lynn Ferrin, who passed away in 2011 at the age of seventy-three. I had known Lynn for almost three decades, and the death of someone so close to me personally and professionally, the first death of such a close friend and colleague, spurred me to think about her legacy, and my legacy, and the point of what we do with our days. It gave everything a new clarity and perspective. Viewed in this context, the questions we should be asking suddenly seemed very clear: Why not dedicate ourselves to the highest goals? If we truly honor the planet and ourselves, is there any other choice?
IN THE FALL OF 2011, I attended a memorial service for Lynn Ferrin, a great friend and a great writer, editor, and adventurer who passed away at the age of seventy-three.
The service began with a procession of friends reading excerpts from Lynn’s own travel articles. Three of the pieces read were stories that she had written for me, for a quarterly travel magazine that I edited for many years called Great Escapes. All three of these pieces—one about exploring Morocco on an equestrian tour from Meknes to Fes, one about searching for tortoises on a grueling expedition to the rim of Alcedo Volcano on the Galápagos island of Isabela, and one about riding by horseback across the plains of Inner Mongolia—were magnificent; they were not only beautifully evoked descriptions of particular travel experiences, they were also meditations on the meaning of those experiences and by extension, on the larger meaning of life.
In the years since then, the lesson that service reaffirmed has resonated within me: Every piece of travel writing should be about the meaning of life. It doesn’t have to be the central theme of the piece—it shouldn’t be the central theme of the piece—but it should be a filament of the story. To my mind, this is the subject that great travel writing—like great travel itself—is ultimately all about: What is the condition of our journey, what is the point, what do we learn from each trip, what pieces of the vast puzzle do we bring back with us, what notes and hints and intimations about the broader picture of it all.
If, as a writer, you approach travel writing thinking this way, you can see how just about any story—whether a piece on the best taco stands in Taxco or an exploration of off-the-beaten-track Bhutan—can be about the meaning of life. It’s up to you, the writer: If you give yourself permission to think that big, to put your subject in that context, you create a richer, deeper, more meaningful experience for your reader. Your piece is about the best taco places in Taxco—and about the place of tacos in the larger worlds of Mexico, and eating, and humanity; about the role of craftsmanship in food preparation; about the importance of passion and adherence to high standards in any craft; about the value of the passionate enjoyment of a simple meal. All of these are filaments that tie us to a much larger story—the purpose of our lives, the meaning underlying our journeys every day, at home and away. These are filaments that only we as writers can spin, an
d to do so, we have to prod ourselves, and give ourselves permission, to spin them.
The greatest travel writers I know bring this larger sense to their writing, as did Lynn. She infused her pieces with the wonder that was at the core of her life’s journey, with the big-heartedness, big-mindedness, and sense of limitlessness that graced her days. She dared to bring these gifts to her writing, to reach far and dream big in her stories, to write about the meaning of life. And because she did so, she touched all of us in big, and deep, ways.
This is what we all need to do as travel writers. We need to dream big, think big, fling out filaments that tie our travels to a wider perspective. Our work matters only as much as we make it matter, and we need to write pieces that matter. We need to honor ourselves and our readers in this way. We need to honor the act of writing and the act of connecting—connecting with the world when we travel, and connecting with our readers when we write. In the same way that we look for the interlocking pieces of the whole, we also need to be those pieces—we need to interlock, article to article, reader to reader, becoming a part of the vast puzzle we seek to understand and replicate.
Now, as I think back on all the writers and writings that have enriched my life, I understand the truth that has paved and inspired—and still paves and inspires—my way: If we can make great travel writing, we can extend our world and our life beyond the limits of our temporary stay; if we put the words together right, we can transcend, connecting the precious pieces of our puzzle—curiosity, passion, dream, adventure, wonder, gratitude, love—into wanderlust without end.
Acknowledgments
Putting this book together has made me realize how blessed I have been throughout my life to have the care, support, guidance, and inspiration of a seemingly endless succession of wonderful people. It’s impossible to acknowledge everyone who has assisted and encouraged me along the way, but I do want to mention some people who have had an especially profound influence on my life and on this book.
As a teenager in suburban Connecticut, I found an exemplary role model in the Reverend Charlie Luckey, pastor at the Middlebury Congregational Church, who infused the world around him with the love he preached. During this same period, an English teacher named William Nicholson at the Taft School first fired my passion for literature. In college at Princeton, I was lucky to connect with a vivacious community of friends and teachers who widened and deepened my love of literature, learning, and life. I took my first steps on the professional path I would eventually follow under the guidance of the legendary and loveable John McPhee. I was a student in his first Literature of Fact workshop, and it taught me that great nonfiction belonged on the same pedestal as the fiction and poetry I had learned for years to revere—and planted the seed that would blossom into my career.
I’m indebted to Georgia Hesse, the renowned former Travel Editor of the San Francisco Examiner, who effected a quantum leap in my life as a travel writer by choosing me to work in her stead when she took a one-year leave of absence from the newspaper. I ended up working at the Examiner for fifteen fruitful years, and I’m grateful to my colleagues and to my readers there, who nurtured my fledgling efforts to spread my writing and editing wings, and to Will Hearst and the management team, who provided the resources and autonomy for me to publish the travel section of my dreams. I’m also grateful to the folks at Salon, who, in the heady early days of the Internet, invited and enabled me to create Wanderlust, a website purely devoted to great travel writing. And I’m profoundly grateful to Tony and Maureen Wheeler, co-founders of Lonely Planet and great global friends since the mid-1980s, who offered me the job of a lifetime as Global Travel Editor at LP from 2001 to 2007.
I’m thankful to Keith Bellows, former Editor in Chief of National Geographic Traveler, who contacted me as soon as he heard I was leaving Lonely Planet and asked me to write a column for the magazine. Working with the dedicated and insightful editors at Traveler has been and continues to be a great gift. And I’m grateful to Jim Sano, Jean-Paul Tennant, and all the passionate staff at the San Francisco adventure travel company Geographic Expeditions, with whom I have been happily consulting, writing, editing, and now tour leading since 2007.
I also want to thank Elaine Petrocelli and Bill Petrocelli, owners of a place that is sacred to me, Book Passage bookstore in Corte Madera, California. More than two decades ago, Elaine approached me with the “crazy idea” of starting a multi-day conference for travel writers in Marin. Twenty-four years later, it has evolved into the celebrated Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference, and it’s one of my proudest co-creations. I cannot imagine my world without Book Passage, and Elaine and Bill, and Karen West and Kathryn Petrocelli, who have become cherished friends and conference collaborators.
My life as a writer and editor has been immeasurably enriched by more friendships than I can possibly acknowledge here; so many big-minded, big-hearted, big-talented writers and editors have become intertwined parts of my journey. I do want to mention four writers who have integrally enriched my professional and personal life for decades: Jan Morris, Simon Winchester, Tim Cahill, and Pico Iyer all began to write for me when my career was just starting, and they have helped me grow as a writer, editor, and person throughout. They are truly treasured friends. Equally treasured is the magnificent Isabel Allende, a lusty saint who makes the world a better place with her personality and her prose, and the talented actor-turned-travel-writer Andrew McCarthy, whose generosity of spirit is both humbling and ennobling.
When I landed in the Bay Area—specifically, under the pear trees on the terrace at the Caffe Strada in Berkeley—thirty-five years ago, I immediately knew I had found my home. For me, the Bay Area is the best place in the world, and I feel deeply blessed by the enlightened, impassioned, and embracing travel/writing community here. The richness of this community is manifest every month at the Weekday Wanderlust reading series that I have been privileged to co-create and co-host with the effervescent duo of Kimberley Lovato and Lavinia Spalding, two former students who have become beloved partners in travel lit exaltation (and champagne celebration). And two people who have played profoundly important roles in my life here almost from the beginning are Jeff Greenwald and Larry Habegger. Jeff has woven through my world as my children have grown and my career has morphed and has been a steadfast soulmate through all my incarnations. Larry has been a sympathetic, savvy, sustaining colleague, confidant, and counselor for more than three decades; I cannot adequately express how exhilarated and honored I feel to have this book published as part of his and James O’Reilly’s laudable Travelers’ Tales series, and how thankful I am for their profound and wholehearted support.
A number of people helped me in the preparation of this book. I want to thank the great editors who first published these pieces—Sara Cuneo, Horace Sutton, Barbara Coats, Susan Shipman, Joan Tapper, Kaitlin Quistgaard, Keith Bellows, Norie Quintos, Amy Alipio, Leslie Magraw, Julia Cosgrove, Derk Richardson, Elizabeth Harryman, Grant Martin, Jim Benning, Allison Busacca, and Ellie Cobb. I also want to thank Kim Fortson, who helped me begin to collect all the material for the book, and Marguerite Richards, who read the entire manuscript and offered valuable suggestions.
I especially want to offer a huge thanks to Candace Rose Rardon. Candace persistently prodded me to pursue this book, efficiently organized all the story candidates to make the task as easy as possible, and then helped me to select and sort the final stories. She also created the enchanting, wanderlust-incarnating cover illustrations as well as the transporting maps and icons that enrich the inside pages. She has been an integral inspiration and support throughout the process of putting this collection together, and without her energy, enthusiasm, and expertise, this book would still be a glimmering dream.
My life’s journey began, of course, with my mom and dad, and my deepest gratitude and love go to them. They took me on my first trip abroad, to London and Paris when I was a junior in college, and they supported every step of my wan
dering way, from college to international adventures after college, to graduate school and post-grad explorations overseas. When I returned to the U.S. to start my career, they assuaged my doubts, encouraged my yearnings, and cheered me on my professional forays. Their unbounded love and support gave me the freedom and the courage to follow my dreams, and their lessons and love interlace everything I do to this day.
And finally, I feel inexpressibly blessed to share a life-path with three joyous, brilliant, sensitive, compassionate, and wanderlust-filled fellow travelers: my wife, Kuniko, and my children, Jenny and Jeremy. From far-flung family expeditions abroad to everyday adventures in our Piedmont home, through trial and triumph, setback and celebration, our journey together has been a source of endless wonder and delight; as they have from the beginning, they grace my days, every one, with the grandest magic, and meaning, and love.
Story Credits
Prologue
“Every Journey Is a Pilgrimage” originally appeared in Yoga Journal, April 2004. Copyright © 2004 by Don George.
Part One: Pilgrimages
“Climbing Kilimanjaro” originally appeared in Mademoiselle, November 1977. Copyright © 1977 by Don George.
“A Night with the Ghosts of Greece” originally appeared in Signature, May 1981. Copyright © 1981 by Don George.
“Ryoanji Reflections” originally appeared in the San Francisco Examiner, October 25, 1987. Reprinted courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
“Connections: A Moment at Notre-Dame” originally appeared in the San Francisco Examiner, October 2, 1988. Reprinted courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.