Vagabonding : 2009 September |

A few memories from my last trip

More »

“Time steals that which is most precious” - Napolean

It is hard to believe, but I have already been home almost one month. I don’t think I’ve stopped moving in the last 27 days spent in the US, but other than squeezing my arteries a little tighter, it has been a good thing. Now, my Colombia date (Oct 15th) has changed from something looming in the distance to a two headed juggernaut standing on my toes.

A two headed monster that speaks incomprehensible Spanish to me. Yikes.

So in my daily caffeine-fueled rage to sort out things like last year’s taxes (yes, I’m serious), I’ve noticed that I am already forgetting a lot of nuances, lessons, and experiences from my last trip. My travel journal sits on my desk a full 6 inches from this keyboard, but I haven’t had the time to open it.

Sad, because inside that brown leather cover is the ability to be transported back to Indonesia within minutes. I look at it every day, longing just to vanish back into the islands for an hour.

Just for fun (and to keep them alive just a little longer inside my head), here are a few very memorable moments from my last big trip….. [drum roll]

(Read more…)

Posted in travel |

Home!

More »

Twenty three hours in the air.

Three movies (Star Trek, Wolverine, Monsters vs. Aliens), 2 delicous Korean meals, 1 full IPOD battery, 10 games of chess against the computer, 2 sleeping pills, and 1 complete book later and I was walking off the plane only 10 minutes from my house in Lexington, Kentucky tired but mostly sane. Mostly.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. Sure, I was only gone a little over 5 months this trip, but every time I come back I am just a little bit more nervous than the last time. My body, a jetlagged piece of meat, had been carried back to the US, but my heart and consciousness were still somewhere in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand….

All those worries and reservations soon disolved as I was greeted by my smiling family in the airport.

Luckily, I came in during the afternoon on a sunny, beautiful Fall day. The first thing I noticed was how different the air smells here at home than in Asia.

My eyes were already itching with good old Kentucky allergies and when I dropped my 15KG rucksack into the back of the car, I knew that tomorrow I wouldn’t have to get up and pack it or strap it on. It was a strange sensation, but welcome.

I was home.

(Read more…)

Posted in USA, travel |

Not so nice welcome in Atlanta

More »

“Mr. Rodgers, please empty your pockets and contents of your bags onto this table.”

I watched as the armed US Customs officer unceremoniously started yanking things out of my daybag in front of me.

The groggy effects of my trans-global flight quickly wore off when I found myself spread eagle with a man patting me down like I was a criminal. While he did that, his associate was flipping through pictures on my SLR camera. My passport had already been confiscated as well as my boarding pass for my connecting flight home to Kentucky.

Not again!

“Sir, can you please type in your password?” One of the officers spun my laptop around to me. It had been booted without my permission. Beside me one of the men was swapping flash cards out of my camera and pouring over the pictures.

I had done nothing wrong and yet I was watching my privacy evaporate very quickly as pictures of my friends were scrutinized in front of me.

WTF?

My wallet was emptied and even the picture of my niece and nephew that I carry was examined. I typed in the password and when Linux finished booting (I don’t run Microsoft) the officer gave me a dumbfounded look as if to ask “what the hell is this?” I tried not to laugh at his helpless expression when a second password prompt for X-windows came up.

It probably didn’t help my cause that the book I read on the plane and now laying prominently on the stainless steel table was “Hackers” by Steven Levy.

Rather than learn a new operating system on the spot he chose just to ask me if I had any pornography on my hard disk. I answered of course not and told him that it was highly illegal in the Muslim countries I had just come from. I had no idea it was illegal in the US as well?

“What takes you to so many countries, Mr. Rodgers? Did you work while you were there?”

I stuttered out that I had lost my job and been living out of savings - not entirely true but this probably wasn’t the time or place to go into the nuances of vagabonding.

And so for the third time in 5 months, I found myself somehow in hot water in an airport. Maybe I SHOULD start smuggling things, I would probably get less attention! I had been in my home country for less than 30 minutes and rather than a hero’s welcome for doing dangerous things abroad and living to tell the tale, I was treated guilty until proven innocent.

Unbelievable. Not what one is expecting after a full 24 hours of travel to the country where I was born.

Am I giving off some kind of Howard Marks air that attracts uniformed buffoons? I don’t even want to think about what is going to happen once I get a Colombia stamp on my passport next month!

(Read more…)