Hello, to wherever you might be at this moment

I stumbled recently on your online blog.. and.. well I know you must have heard this question a thousand times already, but I simply have to ask. How does one becomes a professional traveler? I would consider myself honored if you could drop me a few words about this
Blue skies and many more miles,
Gustáv Kyselica Jr. (a would-be-explorer (at least in heart for sure)

How to become an explorer? What does it take?

It is quite easy to answer. It takes passion, more passion than others, hard work, harder than all the others, a vision, bigger visions than all the others and an enormous amount of curiosity!

Every day I read about people, mainly young men, who do more or less spectacular adventures, get a lot of attention for a few years, they live on lectures and book sales, then they are gone from the scene of exploration. they just didn´t have what it took to stay in the business for a long time. Some of them have great jobs within the adventure industry, others, on paper some of them do “Expeditions” for a few months every five years and get the media with them due to earlier recognition, but they definitely doesn´t make any difference in the main reason to explore as I see it. Open horizons to other worlds, building bridges between cultures, creating a bigger understanding of this magnificent world we live in and explore the meaning of life. To survive as an explorer you need to have a personality which differs, have a clear vision reaching until the end of ones life and never stop exploring and always continue to be curious. On top of that, I think, there´s an issue to it which never can be taught or trained, either you have what it takes or not. And that has nothing to do with background, possibilities or environment. It is just there.

Just as an illustration to what I mean. If you walk up to the top of a building, walk out on to the edge when you reach the top looking down, do you want to jump? I have asked all my friends who are in the same line of work as me and we all say….yes.

How to become an explorer? Enough curiosity makes a difference!

These are earlier entries that I have written on this very important subject:

• http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2009/04/18/inspiring-explorers-inspiring-times/
• http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2009/04/06/a-note-on-two-explorers-thesiger-and-gienieczko-and-a-word-about-the-theatre-of-dreams/
• http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2009/03/21/a-major-reason-to-choose-a-life-as-an-explorer/
• http://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2008/10/14/what-is-the-reason-to-explore/

Regardless of where we were born, mankind’s urge to explore transcends all differences of nationality and faith. It remains an emblem of universality deserving of a wider global study.

Ironically, though the public has long yearned for fresh voices who could share their hard-won wisdom, in the corporate-dominated world, where finances always come first, meaningful dialogue with the world’s leading explorers has been passed over in preference to slick ads and predictable yearly awards.

That is why I am proud to announce the launching of this valuable new series.

The Voices of Exploration project is designed to be an ever-expanding data bank of interviews and wisdom. My friend, Basha O’Reilly, is one of the Founders of the Long Riders Guild, who has already launched the Voices of Authority equestrian educational program.

Camels in the Sahara when we crossed from Lake Chad to Tripoli

John Hare worked in Kenya for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). During this time he undertook a number of expeditions into remote parts of northern Kenya, travelling all the time with camels and frequently alone. This re-kindled a life-long passion for camels.

In 1993, he took advantage of a chance offer from a Russian scientific team to research the status of the wild Bactrian camel in Mongolia – the 8th most endangered large mammal in the world. The wild camel is a critically endangered species numbering no more than 1000, and only survives in four habitats in the Gobi desert in China and Mongolia.

In 1995 and 1996 John Hare became the first foreigner to cross the Gashun Gobi Desert in China from north to south and to reach the ancient city of Lou Lan from the east.

In 1997, John Hare founded the Wild Camel Protection Foundation (WCPF), www.wildcamels.com , a UK registered charity of which Dr. Jane Goodall DBE is the Life Patron. In 2002, the Chinese government agreed to the establishment of the Lop Nur Wild Camel National Nature Reserve in Xinjiang Province in the former nuclear test site. Measuring 155,000 square kilometres and almost the size of Bulgaria or Texas, the WCPF became responsible for helping the Chinese to establish one of the largest nature reserves in the world, protecting not only the wild Bactrian camel but many other IUCN Red Book listed endangered fauna and flora. John Hare is the sole international consultant for the Reserve.

In 1999 John Hare discovered an unmapped fresh water desert spring, deep in the heart of the Chinese Gobi, which contained a naïve population of wildlife. Wildlife, which had never seen man.

In 2001/2002 Hare crossed the Sahara Desert from Lake Chad to Tripoli, a journey of 1500 miles to raise awareness for the wild Bactrian camel. This journey was undertaken to raise funding and awareness of the plight of the wild Bactrian camel and lasted for three and a half months.

In 2004 the WCPF established the Hunter Hall Captive Wild Bactrian Camel Breeding Centre at Zakhyn Us in Mongolia with twelve wild Bactrian camels, which had been captured by Mongolian herdsmen. This is the only place where the wild Bactrian camel is held in captivity apart from two zoos in China and in 2010 the population had increased to twenty-five. With advice from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), there is a plan to undertake the first release of the captive wild Bactrian camels back into the Gobi desert.

In 2007 John Hare was the first person to circumambulate Lake Turkana in northern Kenya with domestic dromedary camels to raise funding for the wild camel.

John has just returned from an expedition in China which Prince Albert of Monaco’s Foundation for endangered species and Ran Fiennes’s Transglobe Expedition Trust generously supported.   In an email to Basha O’Reilly he wrote: “We encountered extremely low temperatures and two sand storms of considerable intensity and our head Kazakh herdsman (one of four) had his right arm removed from its socket by a kick from a camel. The arm was manipulated by the other three herdsmen and went back into place with a resounding ‘plop’ amidst a grind of gristle.”

John is now safely back at his home in Kent, and kindly agreed to answer Basha’s questions.

Voices of Exploration – John Hare

John Hare and favourite domestic Bactrian camel - Kum Su

Who do you think was the most influential explorer in history and why?

Ibn Battuta, because his journeys in the fourteenth century spanned nearly thirty years and covered almost the entire known Islamic world, extending from North Africa, West Africa, Southern and Eastern Europe to the Middle East, India, Central Asia and China He travelled more than 75,000 miles, a figure unlikely to have been surpassed by any traveller until some 450 years later with the arrival of the steam age.

Who inspired you to become an explorer and why?

Colonel Percy Fawcett, because as a young boy I was totally gripped by the story of his travels into the Brazilian jungle in a search for the Matto Grosso and Inca gold.

What is your favourite exploration book and why?

Exploration Fawcett (see above)

Lou Lan ancient city (we were the first expedition to reach it from the east in recorded history)

What is your favourite exploration film and why?

I do not have one.

If you were travelling to the South Pole in the “Heroic Age,” would you prefer to travel with Shackleton, Amundsen or Scott, and why?

Shackleton for his superior leadership qualities. I feel I could relate to Shackleton more so than to Scott or Amundsen

Wild camel and calf (the only photo ever taken of a wild calf under

What was the most dangerous situation you survived?

There are two:

(1)When our truck broke down on the brittle rock salt of Lop Nur in China. Our tyres were being shredded and we had to put cooking oil into the engine as we were burning oil faster than we were using petrol. I estimate we were at the time 250 miles from the nearest person in any direction.

Also (2), when 20 of our 22 camels ran off in a sand storm leaving us marooned on the dried-up lake of Lop Nur, shortly after the Chinese had exploded an underground nuclear device. We were separated from our vehicles by 280 miles of one of the most hostile sections of the Gobi desert during the season of extremely turbulent sand storms.

What is the single greatest change you have witnessed in the exploration world since you began?

The power of satellites and their ability to provide communication no matter where you are in the world

Crossing the dunes in the Desert of Lop China (former nuclear test site)

What modern technology or techniques do you find most helpful?

The Global Positioning System

What piece of equipment always goes with you?

A compass

Which book would you recommend to would-be explorers today?

Kim by Rudyard Kipling. I always carry it into the desert, not because it helps with exploration but because it is a very good read and provides great solace when times are tough.

What would you tell young explorers to be wary of?

Over confidence

Why is it important for humans to continue exploring?

If ‘exploration’ in the broadest sense ceases, then the human race will stagnate and eventually die out.

Which of your achievements do you think will be most remembered?

I hope it is the establishment of the Lop Nur Wild Camel National Nature Reserve which protects the wild camel in China’s former nuclear test site.

Books by John Hare:  Mysteries of the Gobi: Searching for Wild Camels and Lost Cities in the Heart of Asia

The Lost Camels of Tartary: a Quest into Forbidden China (foreword by Dr. Jane Goodall DBE)

Shadows Across the Sahara: Travels with Camels from Tripoli to Lake Chad

http://www.johnhare.org.uk/

http://www.wildcamels.com/

Please visit my sponsors Termo who are making it possible for me to write 2 blog reports per week. Just click the logo to find the best underwear on earth!

Regardless of where we were born, mankind’s urge to explore transcends all differences of nationality and faith. It remains an emblem of universality deserving of a wider global study.

Ironically, though the public has long yearned for fresh voices who could share their hard-won wisdom, in the corporate-dominated world, where finances always come first, meaningful dialogue with the world’s leading explorers has been passed over in preference to slick ads and predictable yearly awards.

That is why I am proud to announce the launching of this valuable new series.

The Voices of Exploration project is designed to be an ever-expanding data bank of interviews and wisdom. My friend, Basha O’Reilly, is one of the Founders of the Long Riders Guild, who has already launched the Voices of Authority equestrian educational program.

Christina was born in Nigeria, West Africa, and educated in England.  Her life of remarkable adventure began by chance in 1975, when she made a 20,000-mile journey round Africa by horse, camel and dug-out canoe.   She followed that up with solo journeys in Papua New Guinea, China, Siberia, Madagascar, Turkey and Iran.

Christina has made 3 television films and more than 40 radio documentary programmes for BBC Radio 4 – several have received distinguished merit awards. She has worked for the Consulate of Madagascar in London for fourteen years and in 1995 she founded The Dodwell Trust, a charity dedicated to the Third World.

Christina was awarded the Mungo Park Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in 1989.

Like Isabella Bird and Rosita Forbes, Christina demonstrates enormous courage, a keen eye for detail, an insatiable curiosity about the local people and great respect for their culture.

As Chris Bonington wrote, “Christina Dodwell continues the tradition of many renowned travellers, of Gertrude Bell, Annie Taylor, Isabella Bird, Freya Stark and Ella Maillart.”

Who do you think was the most influential explorer in history and why?

Isabella Bird, as I remember she was the first woman invited to be a Fellow of the RGS, and therefore opened the field of exploration to the wider world of women, making it acceptable and respectable for women.   She may not be one of the most famous explorers, but she was certainly among the most influential.

Who inspired you to become an explorer and why?

My mother, she told me often that it’s OK to be different, not to want a sedentary life was OK too.  She was born and raised in China, where grandpa worked while grandma rode horses and mules on distant forays of exploration through China  –  during the time of the warlords.  After their marriage my parents moved to West Africa for 15 years, where I was born and raised in the bush.

When I was 24 I told her about my plans for a few years of travel, she said she had complete confidence in my ability to survive.  Her confidence in me gave me the confidence I needed to handle many tricky situations.

As to what would happen if I disappeared without trace, we agreed to keep in touch by letter at least once every 3 months, and that after 3 months of no word she could think about looking for me.  In fact it happened twice, the first time was while I was on horseback in Southern Africa and, instead of calling out Search and Rescue, she used ‘the Grapevine’ and she sent a message through friends of friends to the South African farmers and fishermen, telling me to write home urgently.  The grapevine worked because no one forgets seeing a solo woman travelling on horseback.  Her message only took 2 weeks to reach me.

What is your favourite exploration book and why?

None really, maybe Tschiffely’s Ride by Aimé Tschiffely, which I enjoyed in my teens though it had no immediate impact, or maybe Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de St. Exupéry that I loved reading and is the desert.  Not that I like deserts.

What is your favourite exploration film and why?

African Queen with Katherine Hepburn, and Humphrey Bogart playing a drunk chap.

If you were travelling to the South Pole in the “Heroic Age,” would you prefer to travel with Shackleton, Amundsen or Scott, and why?

Whichever got back with the least horrendous suffering, so it has to be Amundsen.

After having had so many adventures in so many countries, what was the most dangerous situation you survived?

Would it be bandits or are they less dangerous than rivers in flood and airborne engine-failures in dust storms? Hard to know, I think that nature is more dangerous than people.

What is the greatest sacrifice you have made to be an explorer?

Nothing I would not give up, willingly.

What is the single greatest change you have witnessed in the exploration world since you began?

People’s expectation of how things should work.  Telephones that work.  And of course technology today.

What modern technology or techniques do you find most helpful?

It would be helpful to have a modern map of Madagascar, my most recent OS maps are dated 1951.

What piece of equipment always goes with you?

Camera and film.

Please tell us what prompted you to found the Dodwell Trust.

Lack of others.  I like to do what others don’t or can’t do  –  and let others do the things they can do.

Back in 1993 when I found the model for radio drama serials for social and economic development, and I knew I could make it a national radio top rating show because I’d experience of radio production and enough contacts, I was given an honest and capable associate in Tana, and funds were offered by UNICEF and USAid.

Which book would you recommend to would-be explorers today?

The oldest books, to learn about what was there in 1700s and 1800s, and go knowing what used to be there and is probably still there.

What would you tell young explorers to be wary of?

Nothing, only their fears.  And maybe scorpions.

Why is it important for humans to continue exploring?

Creating friendships in third world, and creating awareness in the West about development issues.

Which of your many achievements do you think will be most remembered?

The effects of the Dodwell Trust in Madagascar.

What’s your greatest concern for the future of exploration?

Trivialisation, or package tour exploration such as the South American travel tours which planned to find uncontacted peoples – there were no restrictions about people travelling with colds and flu, though germs can be disastrous for those with no immunity.

http://www.dodwell-trust.org/

http://www.classictravelbooks.com/authors/dodwell.htm

http://www.aimetschiffely.org/welcome.htm

http://www.classictravelbooks.com/authors/bird.htm

Please visit my sponsors Termo who are making it possible for me to write 2 blog reports per week. Just click the logo to find the best underwear on earth!

New Year – New Hope

by

CuChullaine O’Reilly a.k.a. Asadullah Khan

As if we needed any reminders of what a murderous year 2009 has been, a few days ago another deluded fool attempted to destroy an airplane in flight. This time the destroyer was from Nigeria, not England, and he hid the explosives in his underpants, not his shoes. Nevertheless, both would-be assassins not only attempted to massacre their fellow man, they added to their sins by daring to cloak their crimes in the name of Islam.

Ironically, in a world full of instant news, one which rings out every few minutes with the words “Taliban” and “al-Qaeda,” it would serve mankind well to remember that there is a vast portion of the Muslim world which has gone largely unnoticed. Unlike the chilling Puritanism of some movements, which helped inspire and finance the forces of political poison currently disguised as religion which are at work today, the Indo-Islamic civilization created the most tolerant and pluralistic example of Islam ever known.

The most important example of this alternative vision of the oft-misunderstood religion was the great Mughal emperor, Akbar (1542-1605). The hallmark of his reign was the emphasis he placed upon Hindu-Muslim unity and the concept of individual religious tolerance. Because he was convinced that spiritual truth was not the monopoly of any particular religion, Akbar organized the first global congress of faiths, fostered the spirit of enquiry and allowed every man and community to develop in its own spiritual manner.

Faith has no caste, nor national origin, taught this powerful ruler who placed the love of God above the rituals of religion. When a theocracy of Sunni extremists condemned Akbar’s spirit of Sufi generosity, he transported the belligerent mullahs to Kandahar, and exchanged them for colts.

“You should not allow religious prejudice to influence your mind. The propagation of Islam will be better carried on with the faith of love and obligation than with the sword of oppression,” Akbar warned his fellow Muslims.

This flowering of Mughal religious tolerance reached its crescendo on April, 4^th, 1934, when the city of Lahore witnessed the creation of the greatest literary treasure ever seen in the Indo-Islamic civilisation. That was the day upon which the scholar Abdullah Yusuf Ali released the first instalment of his English language translation of the Qur’an. For the princely sum of only one rupee, the first fifty pages of the revered work could be purchased. The resultant six-hundred plus pages were published as they were completed, in twenty-nine more sections over the next three years, thanks to a remarkable gathering of enthusiastic university students, calligraphers, printers and publishers, all of whom urged, and assisted, the Allama (most learned) Yusuf Ali to commit to paper the English language translation he had spent the majority of his life creating.

Born in India in 1872, Yusuf Ali was an extraordinary scholar, confident horseman and traveller par excellence. Thanks to his intellectual gifts, he was the first Indian to serve on Great Britain’s Indian Civil Service. A noted jurist, a devotee of Shakespeare, an expert on Alexander the Great, and a prolific author, Yusuf Ali was also an Islamic scholar of tremendous wisdom. Thanks to Yusuf Ali’s travels between England and India, he believed there was a vital need to translate the enduring message of the Qur’an into the English language, so as to offset the same forces of religious extremism which Akbar faced and which still threaten us today.

Yusuf Ali - "Though the English language translation of the Qur'an created by the famous Indian scholar, Allama Yusuf Ali, was rightly considered to be the most beautifully written version ever seen, it was altered by unknown parties in the late 1980s so as to fall in line with the more politically rigid version of Islam as practised by the Wahhabis."

“Although I am earnestly and sincerely devoted to my own religion, I have always advocated the desirability of a better understanding between Christians and Muslims in all spheres of life. Such an understanding is likely to become a great guarantee of world peace and international understanding,” the humble scholar wrote.

Like the great Mughal, Akbar, whose religious tolerance had inspired him, Yusuf Ali believed in what he termed a “progressive Islam.” By the mid-twentieth century Muslim institutions and patterns of thinking had become moribund and obsolete. Not only should Muslims cope with the challenges of the day, he warned, they should use their faith to rise above the prejudices of race. Islam, he said, should be a way to transcend narrow political interests.

Yusuf Ali admonished the Muslims of his day, reminding them that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) had abolished any hereditary and privileged priesthood, while instituting the right of private judgment, personal responsibility, equality in brotherhood, removal of racial or caste barriers and the selection of rulers by democratic choice. It was these principles, Yusuf Ali said, which were the true basis of Islam.

After years of work, when Yusuf Ali’s English language Qur’an was released, it was acclaimed a masterpiece worldwide. This revered book, he said, was not the legacy of one nation, it was the heritage of mankind. “Each verse represents something immediately applicable,” he wrote, “and something eternal and independent of time and space.”

No sectarian views were propagated throughout the extensive commentary. On the contrary, Yusuf Ali’s emphasis was on the spiritual dimension of Islam and its message of a common humanity. This search for God within liberated the seeker from the restrictions of a narrowly orthodox version of Islam, encouraging the devotee instead to look beyond the letter of the law to its mystical essence.

Sadly, power is a jealous mistress who tolerates no rival. This is especially true of those who wield the sanctity of religious authority.

Though many other authors have attempted to emulate his efforts, Yusuf Ali’s English language translation of the Qur’an became the most widely respected, and trusted, version ever known. “In translating the Text I have aired no views of my own,” he wrote, then went on to hope that thanks to this version, “a new renaissance of Islam will sweep away cobwebs and let in the light of reason.”

Alas, the message of tolerance, as practised by Emperor Akbar and Allama Yusuf Ali, has been one of the unmarked victims of today’s climate of political hatred. In 1987 unnamed “editors” bowdlerized Yusuf Ali’s magnum opus, removing various appendices, revising the commentary, diluting its message of compassion and ignoring its apolitical tolerance.

“Nothing can be more damaging than the admission of rough and tumble politics into the serene atmosphere of religious peace and freedom,” Yusuf Ali wrote before his death in 1952. The result, he warned, would be the rise of leaders who promote dangerously simplistic creeds designed to promote a spirit of political vengeance and narrow self interest.

Sadly, as the bleak religious war between East and West goes on, Yusuf Ali’s prophecy has come true, with political hirelings in clergymen’s gowns from both sides mistaking the shell for the substance.

“A foundation of hatred or hostility can never support any edifice of national life and will be subject to sudden earthquakes when the forces of disorder are let loose,” Yusuf Ali predicted. Recent events demonstrate that he was right, as the venom of one side continues to provide the lifeblood of the other.

As the year 2009 and this decade come to a close, what a cruel mockery it is then to dispute, on the religious plane, national ambitions, tribal allegiances and the need for personal glory. The fruits of this tree are intolerance, rancour and uncompromising hostility, nestled among the leaves of barren and bigoted sectarianism.

A Sufi once remarked, “Everyone lives on the same Earth. One reads the Vedas, the second the Qur’an. One is called a pandit, the other a mullah. They style themselves separately, though they are pots of the same earth. Neither have found God and both live in futile disputes.”

Yusuf Ali, who spent his life attempting to reconcile East and West, counselled that counting beads or wearing a hermit’s gown is no sure sign of faith. Service to our brethren is the only worship that counts. Likewise it is folly to believe that war can end war.

Before his death, this remarkable man of two worlds wrote, “Many new streams of wisdom were poured through the crucibles of noble minds and thinking men of action.”

I like to think that Yusuf Ali, the scholar and traveller, would have supported Mikael Strandberg’s idealistic goal of travelling on camelback, from one distant ocean to another, so as to draw attention to what we all share in common.

I know I do.

CuChullaine O’Reilly, a.k.a. Asadullah Khan, along with his wife, the Swiss equestrian explorer, Sayeeda Ayesha Khan, will be re-publishing Yusuf Ali’s 1934 Qur’an, complete with its original translation and unedited commentary, in early 2010. The royalties will be donated to victims of suicide bombings in Pakistan.

For me, proper exploration today has to do with connecting cultures, opening up horizons in other peoples mind, with the help of a camera, written words with the all mighty pen and by simple and genuine travel, e.g. not using a motorised vehicle. If an explorer turns up in a motorised vehicle, he or she has closed a door before it is even on the way to open up another horizon. By that way you build a new wall, not a bridge over the existing one. A true explorer shows other human beings first of all, this is the way, for example, that the great people along the Kolyma River in Siberia live. Exploration is about building bridges between people, not that ridiculous male theme, I am strongest and I can do this and that. Very tiring indeed.

Another important issue of today’s exploration, is to try through science to open up other peoples eyes about the realities we live in. And help to put together this eternal puzzle, concerning the meaning of life, our globe and why are we here.

Hmmm, lost a bit of my train of thought there….what I want to write, is to tell you readers, that one of the most fulfilling aspects of having chosen this life, is all the great people you come across, not only whilst travelling, but people doing what you are doing, exploring!

Two of my best friends, even though I have so far never met them in person, is CuChullaine and Basha O´Reilly. (See photo)These are some of the most intelligent, warm hearted and generous people I have ever come across. Everything they do is to make this a better world to live in. Two grand personalities and human beings who run one of the most prestigious Societies in the world, The Long Riders Guild. I have communicated with them a lot the last two years and they have in many ways done my life a lot of good. Some of the most inspiring people I have ever come across and CuChullaine has also written one of the best books I have ever read. They´re ready for one of the most compelling challenges in history really, a four year global ride! See http://www.theworldride.org/

They are exactly what a world full of copies need, two original thinkers and genuine human beings! I am honoured in many ways to be part in their team of advisers.

Basha as asked me to quote her, because she has a very important job to do and need help:

“Because you have travelled from the Pampas of Patagonia to the frozen tundra of Siberia, we are urging all of your friends throughout the world to check the master breeds list on the World Ride website. If their horse’s breed is not represented, I would ask them to print off the DNA form, complete it and send it to The Long Riders’ Guild with some mane or tail hairs. In this way, everybody who contributes will become part of the largest collection of equine DNA in history. Horse owners are rushing to represent their favourite breed, including White River horses from Mongolia, Manga Largas from Brazil and Marawaris from India. Yet there are still hundreds left unaccounted for, and we particularly anxious to obtain DNA from the fabled horses of Yakutia.”

Mikael, here’s the link to the Breeds page: www.theworldride.org/breeds/breeds.htm