Unkie Herb

I’m a little torn over this whole thing. What began as a break over the holidays has extended nearly to February. Why?

The most direct answer is: I don’t know. I’m not sure why I’ve stopped contributing on here. I have a few ideas, though they are unsurprisingly theoretical.

I’ve experienced some fairly encouraging growth in readership in the past four or five months. In August ‘07, I had 873 unique visitors and about 1900 visits, averaging out to about 60 visits per day. In October, thanks in part to the sudden public interest in Burmese issues, this bounced up to over 2000 unique visitors and well over 4100 visits, or about 130 visits a day. (A visit, FYI, is when an actual person behind an actual computer checks the site - robotic internet scanning programs, which exist to aid search engines, mostly, don’t figure in to the numbers.)

Needless to say this was encouraging. The growth in visits had increased slightly since then, though the unique visitor numbers, the number of individual computers who visit during the month, has since sagged. Now, to those outside the blogosphere these numbers might seem impressive. They aren’t, not really, especially considering the sheer volume of traffic that exists online. Technorati, a site that doubles as a search engine and community for bloggers, ranks my site 871,446th.

But wouldn’t it be incredibly vain and selfish of me to stop writing just because I’m not satisfied with my readership? Was I ever expecting to make money off this anyway? Was I really hoping to change the world?

Good questions, all.

I’ve given considerable thought to my life and career, and I still hope that, at least for a time, I can succeed as a freelance journalist/photojournalist traveling the world. Despite my inherent idealism, I understand that this is the dream of many of my contemporaries and, even without the competition, it will take a considerable amount of skill, luck, and perseverance.

As far as I see it, I have these things.

So the plan, loosely, is as follows. Set up a site, probably called evanherbert.xxx (my name, after all) and break it into three parts. One will contain my more professional stuff. Perhaps articles, interviews, news analysis, and so forth. Another will contain professional-ish photography; much of it will be geared toward the articles I write but some will be artistic, landscape-y sort of stuff. The third and final part will resemble what unkieherb.com should have been - a place for me to rant and tell stories and laugh and argue and generally get shit off my chest.

Alas this hasn’t been the case. Nevertheless I am undaunted. The aforementioned perseverance shines through.

This page will not disappear. I have it until next fall which is probably when I’ll begin to set up the newer site. I hope to throw some material up on here every so often, but much more infrequently than before. The months of five day a week writing (inspired by an excellent blogger named david) are over.

If you are reading this… thanks. Feedback is appreciated, as always, but it is enough for me if you smile and believe me when I say that the world will be a better place because you and I have made it so, not because you and I wished it so.

The time for shaking our heads at negative news is passed. The time to appreciate the massive impact, for good or ill, we all have on this planet and the life upon it is at hand.

In the immortal words of Bob Marley:

‘Give a little, take a little, give a little,

One more time, yeah, yeah. ‘

See ya around.

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A brief one here today.

Sometimes I think about writing a manifesto. I think about codifying all the brilliant and revolutionary (peaceful) ideas I have to change this country and this planet. I might start writing them here. Maybe.

I sort of already have, now that I think about it. I wrote about how labeling meat with the farming practices will raise awareness. People will be able to easily discern between ethically produced meat and factory torture. It isn’t right that the only option I have to avoid supporting the heinous treatment of living things is to become a vegetarian.

There, first policy announcement after I’m elected Prime Minister.

What about some other things?

I have some ideas on how to completely reinvigorate our education system. As I see it, the institution of public education has a major purpose: the leveling of the playing field.

By granting universal access to public education we are attempting to uphold a key democratic tenet. Equality of opportunity is essential to a strong democracy and fairness in the free market system. The problem arises when our education system fails to provide the balance.

Clearly, this has happened.

The hereditary nature of wealth is especially troubling because it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The poor would benefit most from improvements to the system but have the least amount of power to create change. The rich feel no pressure to revamp the programs and so nothing gets done.

Politicians, instead of being leaders, are followers. They suck up to public opinion and let the media help them frame the issues. They do not set the agenda or choose which battles to fight. They don’t make decisions that are the in the best interest of the people, they make decisions that are in the best interest of getting their party elected.

Self-preservation is the name of the game for most citizens and the politicians they elect. Making serious changes to a struggling system is beyond both these groups.

Maybe I’ll write another manifesto entry on that…

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Read Part 1 (Getting the Money) here.

Read Part 2 (Finding the Time) here.

This is the final installment of my three part lecture on how easy it is for you to take a multi-month vacation. You know, one of those four or six or ten month backpacking adventures that your buddy from college never shuts up about. You know the type. I sure do, I’m one of them.

But they really are as amazing as you think.

Think about it: You disappear from the life you know to spend months as a nomad. You meet people from across the planet. You travel by whim - nothing is booked ahead, you figure it out as you go - and when a particular city or village or beach seems perfect, you spend days or weeks longer than you expected.

You are completely and utterly free. You are limitless.

This portion is entitled Growing the Nuts, and is about confronting the fear and uncertainty that can accompany such a vacation.

Most of the time we book our trips far in advance - flights, hotels, tours, rounds of golf, etc. The thought of being in a foreign country without everything prearranged is intimidating and so we don’t take chances. Better safe than sorry, right?

Wrong.

I am adamant with friends who are considering this type of travel that they don’t book anything in advance. Okay, maybe a hotel for the first few nights in the region, but after that you play it all by ear. Guesthouses and bungalows are everywhere along the beaten backpacker path, and showing up and having a look around is a great way to pay less for more.

It works like this. When you book online or over the phone, they can give you their worst room at their worst rates because you have no clue what you’re walking into. By arriving and asking to see the rooms before you pay, you have the advantage in bargaining (I once got a bungalow on the Mekong for $1.50 a night).

Here are a few basics:

1. Plan a loose route: Find a path that will allow you to see the countries and landmarks that you want while minimizing backtracking. Retracing your steps costs time and money, and you’ll want to avoid it.
2. Find an entrance point: A major city works best for its international airport, large traveler scene (for meeting other adventurers, see below) and local transportation network. Some of the best East Asian entry points are Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Do some homework on where to start for other regions.
3. Go with the flow. Talk with other travelers and don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions. People love to share a beer, talk about their experiences help you decide what to see and what to avoid. By not booking in advance, you can take several different points of view and make decisions as you go.
4. Choose your means of transport wisely: You can save cash and experience the authentic scene by taking local transportation (trains, buses, taxis and boats) instead of planes. Some of my best memories after two years in Asia are from local buses and trains. Pressed for time, though, local flights can be found for cheap.

Knowing all these things doesn’t ward off the fear of the foreign place, though. I understand the worry people have, but it’s largely unfounded. Travel experiences are nothing like Babel.

Here are a few simple things to remember when on the road:

• Don’t be stupid: Traveling by yourself is an incredible experience. It forces you to have the confidence to meet people and it allows you incredible freedom to do what you want without compromise. Yet this doesn’t mean that solo strolling the back alleys of Rio at four in the morning is a great idea.
• Learn to speak: Memorizing seven phrases of the local language (hello, thank you, goodbye, delicious, please, how are you?, I’m fine) makes an incredible difference. It allows you to greet curious children and make them laugh, but also forces shop owners to take you seriously - and give you a better deal. I learned to say things like older brother, older sister, little one and it wowed the Burmese.
• Trust strangers: Something miraculous happens to people when they are backpacking and it results in a wonderful culture of trust and support. Whenever I felt lonely or confused, a walk around the touristy area of a town immediately produced a group of cool people who were looking to party. Here are a few pointers on meeting people abroad:
  • Look for a largish group from different places. If you hear several accents coming from a group of six or eight people, chances are they all met on the road and would be happy to add another to their crew.
  • Make eye contact with other solo people. Flash a smile and a nod, and if they respond with a smile just start the conversation. As eager as you are to meet people, that other solo person is, too.
  • Dance. That’s right. Dance.

I can’t really think of much else to tell you. I can assure you that for all the consternation that planning your trip might cause, it will melt away almost as soon as you step out the airport doors.

Don’t be afraid. Fear is a killer that stops us from doing the things we want to do. It is invented, false. It dwells only in your mind.

Get your confidence together, buy that plane ticket, pack that bag, charge your camera and get ready for an experience that you will thank yourself for over and over.

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Read Part 1 (Getting the Money) here.

People always express jealousy when I tell them about my seven month trip through South East Asia. Usually this is a result of several things they don’t think they have:

1. The Money
2. The Time
3. The Balls

Whenever they tell me this, I go on at varying lengths (usually dependent on how responsive they are) about how they have all of these things and just haven’t realized it yet.

Welcome to Part 2: Finding the Time.

Another big issue for people considering this sort of trip is finding the time to take such a long vacation. A week or two is easy. A month is possible. But six, eight, 12 months? Unless you work for a great company that values you highly, you’re pretty much quitting your job.

Getting the time off is probably less difficult than you think. I know people who have told their boss that they will be taking off for a six month trip only to be told that a job would be waiting upon their return. Don’t count on it, though.

So what you need to be willing to do is walk. Give lots of notice. Apologize. Express how happy you’ve been there (unless the job is shit) and how you understand they can’t keep a position open for you. You’d appreciate a reference, though.

Many people say they can’t do this, and it’s usually due to several pressures:

• Career-focus: That constant feeling that the position you have isn’t good enough and you need advancement. By leaving a good job that you’ve worked hard at for several years, you’ll lose all forward momentum. Your experience (and therefore your promotion-readiness) will be knocked back at least the length of your trip if not more.
• Resume Gaps: No one likes a big chunk of resume gap. When you come back home nine months later and start looking for work again, people will wonder why you’ve been unemployed for so long. This is a disadvantage, no doubt.
• Spontaneity: Some employers might look at your recent traveling as a sign that you’ll up and leave again, wasting the time and resources they spent on your training.

These are all legitimate concerns. You would have to be pretty talented, confident or stupid for these things to not affect your life decisions. That said, you need to consider some other perspectives:

1. A long time spent traveling is a very effective personal growth catalyst. Living abroad will allow you to immerse yourself in foreign languages, cultures and customs. This will put perspective on your own culture and society, which can help you become a deeper, more analytical thinker.

In our multicultural societies a culturally broadened individual is an asset. You can sell your sensitivity as a skill to be taken seriously by prospective employers. After all, when you are asked to head up a project and your team members are from Indian, Chinese, Polish and Peruvian backgrounds, you’ll need to balance cultural differences to get the job done.

2. I parried the resume gap questions by referring to my trip right in my cover letter. As mentioned above, I could argue that the time off is strengthening for certain positions - especially in sales or other areas where I would be dealing with Toronto’s extremely diverse population. This explains the resume gap without apologizing for it.

3. Reassure future employers that you have taken your trip and need to settle into something more permanent for a while. They would be unrealistic to ask for a guarantee of more than a few years, which is probably the exact amount of time you’d need to save up for next trip anyway. My current employer, a magazine publishing company, just wanted to make sure I’d be around for a year or two. I love this job and it’s paying me just enough to save.

That final financial hurdle to overcome is the what will I do for money when I get back? This is especially troubling for people who have outgrown the “parental move-back-in” manoeuvre.

Simply put, save a bit more cash and have a couple thousand waiting for you upon return. Crash on a friend’s couch or something until you have work and a place to live.

Or try subletting your apartment while you are gone - this pays the rent and allows you to move back in right away upon returning.

In the end, all of these things take figurative balls. You need to work up the confidence to just go for it, trusting yourself to make it all happen.

This will be discussed in Part 3 (Growing the Nuts), here.

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People always express jealousy when I tell them about my seven month trip through South East Asia. Usually this is a result of several things they don’t think they have:

1. The Money
2. The Time
3. The Balls

Whenever they tell me this, I go on at varying lengths (usually dependent on how responsive they are) about how they have all of these things and just haven’t realized it yet.

Here is the first of three parts on this topic:

Part 1: Getting the Money.

This is actually pretty easy for two main reasons: Travel is a lot cheaper than you think AND Saving is a lot easier than you think.

Travel is cheaper than you think in several main regions of the world:

• All of Asia (minus Japan)
• Central and South America (with the possible exception of Brazil or Chile)
• Africa
• Eastern Europe

So we can see already that avoiding Western and Central Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North America and certain other places (i.e. the over-touristed parts of the Caribbean) will allow you to travel for much longer on the same budget. While these places are no less interesting than the more affordable areas, perhaps you could see them when you are older and richer or when you have less time.

Taking SE Asia as a budgetary example, it is possible to travel there on about $20 US per day. This includes everything after the initial plane ticket. On a budget of five thousand US I traveled for seven months. Granted I was staying in some grungy accommodation with shared facilities, but even the more squeamish can get by on a slightly larger amount (say $10-20 a room nightly instead of $3-8) and enjoy a huge jump in quality of life.

Saving is easier than you think using one main principle: stop buying useless crap you don’t need. Stop saving for things and start saving for experiences.

Let’s break it down over a two year period of savings.

In twenty four months, you need to save $10,000 to get that comfortable six to eight month trip you’ve always dreamed of taking. I’m shooting for a few thousand more than you’ll need so you can do some shopping and stay in better hotels than I did.

When you do the math, this means you only need to put away $417 a month.

This can be done through will power without sacrificing your day to day enjoyment. I like using a form of personal meditation - essentially, every time I look at a new electronic toy or pair of shoes or whatever that I want, I close my eyes and picture myself off on some trip again.

When I get that image in my mind of me drinking on a palm lined beach or hiking some mountains with a local guide or taking photos of a foreign religious ceremony, I look back down at whatever it was that I wanted and laugh at myself. I walk away. No matter how fun and silly that little toy would be for a few weeks or months, it can’t compare to the experiences and memories that will come with months of backpacking. It won’t and don’t you even pretend that it could. Lots of people have that coat, that ipod, whatever; no one goes on the same trip and it will be yours alone.

Other simple things to try:

• Bring your lunch. Figure on $7-10 minimum for take-out, whereas making a lunch or even bringing frozen leftovers will cost $2-5. A five dollar savings daily equals $25 a week. Over two years, you are looking at over $2500 in savings. That’s two months abroad right there.
• Stop taking week long trips. Even though it’ll be tough to go two years without a week on the beach in Cancun, the airfare just isn’t worth it when you’re only off for a week. Take a trip within driving distance and save the thousand dollars you’d spend on the plane for the big adventure.

To summarize: Stop complaining about not being able to put together the money you need to do something you dream about and start making the decisions that will get you to where you want to be.

If necessary, open a second bank account (especially one that pays you to bank there, check out ING Direct) and start throwing a set amount (say $400 a month) in there. Don’t check it for a year. Surprise yourself after 12 months and see what you’ve got.

Read now:

Part 2 (Finding the Time)

and

Part 3 (Growing the Nuts) on how to take that multi-month vacation - we all need at least one.

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He came up behind me, passing me easily in his sedan. Just as he pulled in front he saw the parking spot.

He jammed on his brakes and veered right, sliding into the two car spot. I jammed on my breaks and veered right, sliding along his passenger side door. But he had pulled in too tight and I was moving too fast. The sidewalk approached in slow motion.

When my front wheel hit the curb my momentum carried me forward. I pressed down on my handle bars and spread my legs, vaulting over the front of my crashing bike and coming to a running stop on the sidewalk. It was a nice move. My bike collapsed like a sniper target, rattling to the ground. I didn’t hesitate. I walked around the front of his now stopped car and swung open his driver side door. He cowered back, straining against his seatbelt as he leaned toward the empty passenger seat. He raised his hands, warding off the blows I wanted to rain down on him.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” he whimpered.

“YOU FUCKING MORON YOU ALMOST FUCKING KILLED ME WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG YOU YOU PIECE OF SHIT!”

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

I spat on the road and slammed the door. I walked back around the front of his car and picked up my bike. I stood in his headlights adjusting my twisted steering column, daggers blasting from my eyes. He frantically tried to pull around me, swinging his car out into the road. Another cyclist was riding by at that exact moment, and had to arc wide into oncoming traffic to avoid him. He jerked to a stop and looked at me, his eyes wide with fear. I pointed at the other cyclist, who was angrily giving him the finger.

“OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES BEFORE SOMEBODY DIES!”

His tires squealed as he pulled away and quickly turned onto a sidestreet. I took a deep breath and swung my leg back onto my bike. My lights still worked, and my bike was mostly okay. I was a little rattled but more than anything, angry. I’m glad he was apologetic, things would have gotten ugly if he had have been confrontational.

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It works!

So, check out movember.com for the real deal, but essentially here’s the lowdown: you grow a moustache (Aussie slang for ’stache is Mo, hence the creative title) during November and get sponsors and donations. All the money goes to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Canada (or the appropriate charity in your country).

When I first heard about the deal, I was pretty excited. I’ve written a little bit about how I love my facial hair and general scruffiness. Not only do I think it looks good (some will disagree) but I’m generally too lazy and don’t care enough to shave regularly. Now, given the opportunity to charitably rock a big dirty Mo, I’ve suddenly rediscovered my shaving gel (it was at the back of the medicine cabinet, surprise). The best part about the campaign is that now I have an excuse to stay hairy. It’s an uphill battle, and I’ll tell you why.

The way I see it, we live in an anti-facial hair society. That’s right.

Think about it: gotta shave for that job interview. Gotta shave for the big the date. Gotta shave for the big party. Gotta shave gotta shave gotta shave. Do guys actually change their behaviour with a beard? Do guys really become pedophiles with a Mo? Silly. Of course not. But, in our suited up, wing-tip wearing western world, is bombing out a little facial hair an act of rebellion? You’d better believe it.

Women look at a guy with facial hair and assume several things: lazy, unkempt, probably unemployed, a hippie. While all of those things were (are) true about me and my beard (I’m working now, like now, like as I write this), that doesn’t mean it’s fair to stereotype based on physical appearance. I can’t assume that my Chinese buddy is a math whiz (he isn’t) just because he looks Chinese (he does), so how can all you conformist sheep assume these things about that bearded guy tapping on his laptop at the organic espresso bar? Jeez.

It’s not like growing a Mo or some other facial hair concoction is going to take over my life like that Kids in the Hall sketch, nope I’m taking over my Mo. I’m gonna groom it, and love it, and feed it, and care for it forever and ever. I’m gonna damn well be just as proactive and superficial as all those naked-cheeked chumps out there. So at least we can dump the lazy moniker (and the unemployed one, as I mentioned).

Girls out there know what I’m saying. They feel the social pressure to shave all sorts of different areas. At least we dudes only have to worry about the face. But perhaps that makes the pressure more concentrated and - as it’s the face, the one part of the body you can’t hide all day long - noticeable.

So don’t judge me. Don’t see me with my handlebars and assume something about me (I’m not a biker, a fireman, a male stripper or a douche). Nope, just know that I love myself, I am myself, and no male insecurity or social pressure is going to stop me from rocking the dirtiest Mo you’ve ever seen.

(Oh, and I’ll be raising money for prostate cancer research along the way.)

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Out of haste to vent my frustration with how poorly Thailand polices pedophiles, I ignored an important right.

Rereading the post some hours later, I had a moment of clarity. I heard my own tone loudly: I was implying that both suspected criminals were already convicted. I regret this. But instead of editing the post, I’ll correct myself.

The two men I spoke of are not guilty until they are tried properly. Perhaps even afterward they will remain free men. No matter the allegation, innocent until proven otherwise is a central guarantee. We’d all be pretty screwed if we lost track of it.

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