"I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

For some of you who've traveled quite a bit, especially as backpackers, you can probably relate to what I'm about to write here today. Last night, I went to Hermosa Beach to help Daniel celebrate his 26th birthday - a guy I've gotten to know over the past year through Jenn, one of the girls I met in 2000 while backpacking in Switzerland. Daniel is Jenn's long-time boyfriend. When I first met Jenn and one of her best friends, Haley, at a hostel in Interlaken, I almost instinctually knew that both she and Haley were some really amazing people. Little did I know that only after just two days of hanging out in Interlaken hiking and ice-climbing a private glacier in the hills, we would stay in touch and be friends all these years... and yesterday was a HUGE surprise when I found out that Daniel had proposed to Jenn while they were on vacation together in Egypt (they just LANDED yesterday afternoon). (Jenn - if you're reading this, I hope you don't mind me posting this news but I am SO very excited and happy to find out that you got engaged!) Yes, I was geniunely and incredibly happy for both Jenn and Daniel - two really amazing people. Maybe some of you may have read the book, The Celestine Prophecy, a bestseller a number of years ago where in it, the author talks about how there are just some people you meet in life that radiate positive energy all around as if in a halo... Jenn is very much like one of those people. And Daniel too - a great guy and one of the most insanely optimistic and positive person I know. If there was a more fitting couple that deserves the cliche label of 'made for each other'... these two would be it. They love to travel and have probably seen more places both as a couple and as individuals than anyone else I know. Jenn's probably seen well over 50+ countries, lived abroad in Japan AND in the African country of Niger for a short while, and did an entire Semester at Sea in college. Daniel's also lived abroad in Japan and at one time, road biked across the country from Boston all the way out here to California! Last year, their big adventure was biking across Ireland. This year, Egypt! Wow! Congrats you two! I am insanely happy for you both (and definitely jealous) :D

Thinking back, it is meeting people like Jenn that have been one of the best reasons for traveling and 'hitting the road'. I was never one to shy away from just 'winging it' or striking up conversations with complete strangers in a foreign place... and it has been more than rewarding, even more so than the many famous sights and sounds of noted places in guidebooks or 'hot spots'.

Another indelible memory is one of meeting Cary, an University of Maryland student and his female Israeli exchange student friend (Effret's her name I think). It was such a surreal experience having a 2 hour debate with Cary about US politics while his Israeli friend and my German ex-girlfriend were sitting beside us, chimming in occassionally. Cary is an ex-Army officer who went back to school after his service and is now, from what I last heard, serving somewhere in Jordan or the middle east with a 'US Strategic Relations consulting firm'. At the time, back in the US, the 2002 presidential campaigns were just starting to ramp up. I won't say which side I was on since this is not a political blog but let's just say it was 'surprisingly intelligent and civil' as Effret later remarked... imagine that an Israeli, a German, an ex-Army officer, and a US immigrant sitting together discussing politics on the old Silk Road. When Cary returned to the states last year and came out to Los Angeles to visit another friend last fall, we sat down and reminisced about that crazy day of how we met... it was definitely another memorable travel tale...

How I met Cary and Effret... It was part of the May holiday vacation period and my ex-gf and I were visiting this tiny town called Turpan, about 2 hrs east of Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Province in far western China. Turpan is one of the small towns along the ancient Silk Road. Turpan and it's neighboring village, Tuyugou, are like oasisses in China's vast, parched western desert landscape. Tuyugou is a beneficiary of a thousands-year-old underground irrigation system. It is one of the largest raisin producing areas in the country where summer daily temperatures routinely rose above 110+F... in May, when we were there, the temp was probably near 95F. At the end of our 2nd day in Turpan and Tuyugou, my ex-gf and I had wanted to head back to Urumqi, the provincial capital, in order for her to catch a flight back to Shanghai to return to work. It just so happened that a sandstorm was coming into town threatening to shut down all road transport out of Turpan - all buses were declared non-operational until the following morning. As we waited around the crowded, hot bus station wondering what we can do, I caught sight of Cary and his friend (one of the few Western faces amongst the worried crowd). They seemed both as distraught as we were and just as desperate to get back to Urumqi so they can move forward with their trips. We quickly struck up a conversation, with our mutual predicament serving as our bond. So, as is often the case when traveling in China, we had to improvise a solution and proceeded to negotiate with any cabbie that would risk taking us out to the nearest train depot (about 45 minutes from the tiny town... now why the Chinese never connected the train line directly into town, I will never be able to figure out...)... We probably flagged down at least 5 cabbies on the street and all of them thought we were nuts to risk driving into the sandstorm (realistically, the sandstorm was still about an hour away but the official news was that the government had shut down the main freeway connecting Turpan to Urumqi (about a 2.5 hr drive) so the only way to 'get out' was by taking the train. In the end, we found an enterprising cabbie (or some would say delusional) who was willing to drive us to the train depot. En route, about 20 minutes out of town, we got stopped on the main freeway by cops at the highway blockade and were told to turn back. So our cabbie drove back a few minutes and stopped at a nearby gas station/rest stop to debate the options... We saw many cars reluctantly return to Turpan... but no, not our cabbie - as so happens we truly lucked out because he was not going to take no for an answer (and he seemed to geniunely sympathize with my ex-gf's plight of missing the plane if she didn't get back to Urumqi that night)... so, as crazy as it sounds, our cabbie took the four of us in his tiny, beat-up, 4-door hatchback the size of a VW rabbit on for one insanely bizzare ride to get to the station for the last ride out of town... from the rest stop, he vierred off into the bumpy desert away from the main freeway and roadblock... at times, I thought we were doomed - what if the car breaks down? what if the sandstorm rolls in earlier than we thought, side-swipes the cab, and turns us over like a tumbleweed? what if the cabbie was truly criminally insane and doing this for his own enjoyment?... but... for 30 minutes, the cab sped down at no less than 50 mph over pebbled-stewn dry creek beds and rocky roads where flash floods had sporadically washed away their outlines... I wonder aloud a number of times as to whether our cabbie really knew where he was going... in the distant was a sandstorm and as far as we could see, there didn't seem to be anything but the lifeless, barren, rocky Chinese desert ahead... all the while, there wasn't a moment where we weren't desperately holding onto the car frame for dear life... and that's how I met Cary and Effret.... oh btw, the cabbie did make it to the station with 5 minutes to spare... the best cabbie ever! (too bad I don't have a picture of him!) For more pictures of Switzerland, China, or other places, click on the 'My Travel Pictures Map' icon on the top-left corner.

Have you met people on the road that you still keep in touch with?