Explorer Mikael Strandberg

Just came back from London and ended up at my brothers house in Dala-Järna. Which is where I am born, bred and educated. Kalle, my brother, is out of work, 60 and don´t know what to do with life. Any suggestion from me, which includes him cycling from Sweden to Oman, writing a blog about his thoughts and inspiring other people in his situation how to do with life, ends with:

“Am sixty for Christ sake!”

This is putting limits to oneself, just because of age. I don´t believe in setting any limits to what is possible or not. Neither does my friends Ollie, Jamie, Gunnar and Sam whom I have met during my visit to London, this cosmopolitan and great city. I will write a bit about all of them -these inspiring people- in the upcoming blogs, because the response from my blogging from Yemen, has been amazing, an average of 1200 readers a day the last three weeks, and it is still continuing. Let me start with Olly.

He is still only 33 or something, but mature like a 50-year old, extremely helpful and generous and I have a feeling there´s no limits to what he can do. It wouldn´t surprise me if he would be running Great Britain at the end of the day. He is that good. But most of all, he is a genuinly good human being who wants to make a difference. And he is every day of his life. I am very lucky and privilaged to have a friend like him. Or, as I say after I have entered the Arab World, he is a genuine brother. And I think, having good friends, is a major part of understanding the meaning of life.

Talking about the meaning of life, I went to London to meet a person with profound contacts, Gunnar, with the very exiting country called Saudi-Arabia, who after every new visit with people who have an intimite relation with this giant of a country, grows and I really want to go there more than ever! Next country to get into deepely as part of the preparation for the Big One, Anyway, on the trip over to London, on the plane, I started to read Mohammed Asad´s book, The Road To Mecca (photo at the top right) and suddenly I realised how simple it is to make a change in life. I started to think about my brother, who is suffering from not having a job, and that just be reading you can get very inspired to change your life. Mohammed Asad changed his dramatically, from being an Austrian Jew to a Pakistani Arab, and Mohammed Asad would easily be another brother had we met or he would be alive. The book is one of the most inspiring books I have ever read.

He is a true explorer in the sence of the word and his exploring, which I personally think should be the base of all explorations, is a cultural bridge builder and a search for the meaning of life. He found his version and he found in the Arab desert as so many others. Like the Prophet Mohammed and Jesus Christ. So, maybe even mine might become a pilgrimige than….This is the book I would suggest for any upcoming explorer to read, when to find out, why do I want to explore and what is true exploration. His prose is beautiful, adventures many, knowledge of desert great and his historical significance is amazing. I will bring his book on my upcoming trip, to bring out when I need inspiration, help and peace of mind at the same time and he wrote this strophe in his book about the eternal question, why do I and we travel, upon meeting a Kurdish Beduoin in the desert: (This will become my quote of life.)

“If water stands motionless in pools, it becomes stale, muddy and foul, only when it moves and flows does it remain clear.”

This will become my quote of life. Next I will write about Jamie.

What a mess of photos at the bottom you readers probably think….well, life is at times a mess, which it always definitely is when you once again break up and leave a relatively known and settled life, for something new and unknown, but so much more interesting! Settled life is not for me! Time to move into the unknown, Yemen, the Arabic world and language, gee, what a privileged life!

However, I still haven´t made it to Yemen. Right now I am sitting at the airport in Istanbul waiting for a delayed flight to Sanaa. I really left Stockholm 6 days ago to go and visit one of my very best friends, Barry Moss, in the UK, well, Barry is one of the nicest humans I know. What he has done, and still is, doing for me, is as good as it gets in life between friends. And this time, not only did he fill me with good, fat and tasty English food during my visit to him in Orford, but he also invited me to the best dinner I have ever been to before. At the Travellers Club in London. Barry is not only a statesman like person, but chairman of the British Chapter. The dinner, it was full of some of the globes most interesting people, of which one was another of my best friends, Ollie. Amazing lot of characters…I have read books written by many of these authorities regarding their own specialties, everything from the Inca Empire to deep water diving, well, a great dinner! One that I left me full of positive attitude, champagne, expectations and a perspective of life. Before the dinner I rushed through London to met another great guy, a person, I believe will make a difference in life, for me and many others! Sam!

After leaving London I returned quickly back to Stockholm to change planes and say goodbye to my very good friends, not easy. Never easy. It is a feeling of slowly dying inside. Every time.

So I set off leaving Stockholm midday yesterday ending up in this great city named Istanbul late midnight, where another one of my very best friends, Dogan, had set me up with a journalist friend of his, Andrés, who together with another friend of his, another journalist from Spain, both so clever, so full of insight and wisdom, that I just feel a lot of hope for the future! And I just thought most of the media were just ignorant….;-)

I feel stuffed, a tiny bit unstable, but very happy!

Below a bunch of photos describing it all, caught by the mobile of mine…so quality is poor…it won´t be from now on. Next report from Yemen!

“I think it will be hard for any future projects to compete with your Kolyma Expedition” , wrote Shane in an email I wrote her regarding assistance to find people with knowledge of camel travel. The planning for the next major expedition has begun.
Shane knows. She has had to do with more Expeditions than probably any other human being on earth. I agree, of course. When I reached Ambarchik Bay in April 2005, I felt like I had done the Expedition of a life time. It turned out bigger than I dreamt about once upon a time as a kid. In this email to my friend Shane, I also asked her to evaluate my new Expedition, by camel through Arabia. Meaning the Arabian Peninsula. Her answer was:
“I think it will be hard for any future projects to compete with your Kolyma Expedition”.
At the same time I recieved an email from one of my best friends, Ollie Steeds, one of the globes most adventurous blokes, and amongst a lot of positive wordings, he wrote a warning:

“Your plan sounds epic but I can see huge problems being allowed to travel through saudi and yemen is still incredibly unstable and potentially dangerous – even if you are travelling as and with the bedu.”
Now, this is where you mentally start to prepare for all the obstacles waiting, because it is alway the same story, every unique Expedition is full of obstacles mainly in the shape of bureaucracy, and of course, some physical hardships. But I know, from 25 years experience, especially in the situation I am facing and going through today, I have only one chance to turn things around, especially for myself, I just need to make an Expedition on the same scale as the Kolyma Expedition. Even though the Arabian Peninsula offers a very challenging and very difficult environment, it will not be on the same scale as the Kolyma. So, what then does a real explorer do? First of all, he asks himself, what is it that I want to do, more important than anything else?
Well, what I want to do, the foundation of the Expedition, the main reason, is to build a bridge between the Moslem East and the Western World. It is probably the most important mission I have ever had. I want the Arabs to tell their own story. Just as the Russians, Even, Evenk and Chukchi during the Kolyma Expedition. I want to put a face on the Arabs for the west, so that we can kill all this animosity which occurs at the moment. I want to make a film, a book, lectures and an Expedition to show the rest, very ignorant at times, of the world, this great part with some of the most fantastic people on the globe – Arabs and Arabia.
Secondly, you bring out the maps. Today on the Internet. Now, when you look up Arabia on the net and on the same time, check a map of the worlds deserts, we do get a different picture. And a different expedition. Woow! Now, when I as a professional explorer look at this new Expedition and evaluate it, the Kolyma Expedition looks like a warm up.
By the way, looking at the same map, I realise that I have actually passed through some of them on the ole push bike. The Thar Desert, Iranian Desert, The Sahara, The Atacama Desert, The Mojave and Sonoran Desert and also, on horse back, the Patagonian Desert. The photo is from the Sahara desert, which I crossed on a push bike in the 1989-90, the Tamanrasset Route. I did the most difficult part, the stretch between Tamanrasset in Algeria to Agadez in Niger together with two excellent chaps, Charlie, on te picture, and Mick James. I´ve lost touch with Charlie a long time ago, but I communicate with Mick on and off, who lives in Scotland. Now, what o you think about all that?