Syria w/ Rolf Potts | You Be Trippin' with Ari Shaffir

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Yeah, it's funny when we're, we'll start in a second, but like, um, I was talking to someone in Thailand, like Sapong, it was like the Cave Lodge place I went, uh-huh.

And um, we started talking about politics.

It was 2017, right after Trump got elected, right?

Right.

And then it was like starting to come up a little bit, and they both looked at each other, like, let's not do this.

We're like, Yeah, let's not.

That's great.

It's so easy to do.

Yeah, yeah, it was so great not to.

Where you been, and where are you going?

This is our Reese Travel show.

Yeah, we're going to talk about travel today.

It's you be trippin'.

Yeah.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to you be trippin'.

It's a travel podcast.

It's the only podcast overthrown recently by Houthi Rebels.

We go to a different place every week.

And today my guest is fucking excited, man.

I'm excited to have you.

Rolf Potts, world-renowned traveler and travel writer.

My teacher, I guess.

And what does the teacher call his student?

It's not sensei.

That's the other one.

Yeah.

No,

Grasshopper.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

I'll be the Grasshopper for this.

That's great.

In the settings line today are two of his books, Vagabonding and The Vagabond's Way.

I respect how beat up The Vagabond's Way is.

That's been a good thing.

Dude, it's been places.

It's been to way more places than most of my friends.

Wow.

Yeah.

I've taped it already.

That is the

pre-copy.

Yeah,

that's the press copy of the advanced.

I love it.

It's such a good, like,

oh, I'm delayed 20 minutes.

Let me just read a couple chapters.

And you skip to random ones.

You could go all the way through.

They're just one-page meditations.

Don't read into that word as some reviewers do.

It's nothing to do with meditation.

No, just

dip in as you go.

Yeah.

It gets you right back in there.

When I started reading it, we'll get into where we're going in a second, but when I started reading it, I was like six chapters in.

I was like, I got to get out of here.

Yeah.

I got to get the fuck out of here.

That's good to hear.

Yeah.

I get way more feedback about that book probably because it's been out for 21 years.

But so it's good to hear about my new books as well.

So this was Vagabond is Vagabonder.

Vagabonding is way more of like a how-to.

Yeah.

And this is

you don't golf, do you?

I haven't golfed since maybe 1986.

You know, Harvey Peenick?

He wrote this book called Little Red Book.

Okay.

He was like a local municipal golf coach.

And then he ended up coaching like a bunch of randomly uh masters champions davis love the third i think and a few others and he just had these words of wisdom little red book each one kind of like that okay just like hey don't worry about a guy who has a bad swing uh and a good grip but definitely worry about a guy with a bad swing and a bad grip because he figured it out yeah uh things like that uh anyway vagabond's way it's available right now everywhere um

so where are we going today rolf we're going to syria fuck yeah yeah no chance

I'm going to have another guest to talk about Syria.

When'd you go?

Why'd you go?

Talk to me.

I went in the year 2000.

So as of the time we're taping this, it was like 24 years ago.

Damn.

But it was also, so that means it's a unique time to see a place.

I think sometimes we see things in terms of like the historical moments.

And so I think that like the revolution or that thing happened in.

2011, like the massacre and the crackdown, the protests and the crackdown.

And Syria was like the worst place in the world to be.

And there was all these Syrian refugees.

So this is 10 years before that.

It was actually before 9-11.

It was like a year and a half before 9-11.

And so even though it's like, oh, well, how relevant can that be?

It's like, well, Syrians were Syrians then and they're Syrians now.

And there wasn't a war.

And I went there as a dirtbag backpacker.

And I'd like to think that the people I met there are hanging on and doing well.

And that's, again, I don't need to preach this to you.

Just the idea that

travel teaches you the stuff that is beneath the headlines.

You know, it teaches you what kind of snacks you can get in the public square.

It talks about how

random people are interested in the weirdest things like NBA.

I

had an intense conversation about the Utah Jazz when I was in Commission, Syria.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

They follow it?

I guess so.

Why not?

I don't know how because at the time you couldn't get it on Hotmail.

I guess you could get on the internet, but you couldn't get like on Hotmail.

I'm dating myself in this trip.

It was like pre-Gmail.

So I couldn't log into my own email when I was in Syria.

But

news got around, and it's funny, like people, it's interesting what people are fascinated by across cultural lines.

And in this little town on the Turkish-Syrian border, there's enough guys who are interested in the NBA that that's what we talked about.

Well, did they have any players back then?

Turkey had like one or two.

Oh, no, but they were talking about, I don't know, Carl Malone, I forget who he played

back then.

But they were, this happened in Korea.

I lived in Korea for a couple of years, and a lot of my male students were just really interested in the NBA.

And there weren't any Koreans in the NBA back then.

They just thought it was interesting.

You know, American pop culture and sports culture is so influential that I think everywhere.

Yeah.

Also, back then, probably were still the dominant basketball

powerhouse.

Yeah.

Probably are to an extent, though maybe not in international play.

Like, I don't follow that.

I don't follow that sport.

I saw the NBA finals at your house, like, when the Raptors won, I think.

Oh, yeah.

But, like,

it's funny how geography determines what sports you love.

And so,

college basketball is a Kansas thing, but NBA isn't.

You know, I don't really have a team.

Like, I came of age before there was Oklahoma City, which is kind of close.

And, of course, I love the Bulls because I came of age in the 90s, but I don't really follow the NBA.

It's weird that geography will tell you that.

I was doing a show in Knoxville, and I'm like, your biggest sports team is a women's basketball amateur team.

Is it?

Okay.

Yeah.

The Tennessee Bulls are like always dominant.

Yeah.

And it's like, yeah, it's just the biggest sport there.

Women's college basketball.

Yeah.

Well, it's men's college basketball in Kansas for understandable reasons.

Yeah.

Bill Self, is he still the coach?

Bill Self is still the coach.

But

see, now we have, I spoke with Michael Jordan.

Like, there's kids everywhere because of Patrick Mahomes, who's the quarterback of the Chiefs.

There's going to be Chiefs fans in Idaho and Alabama in 20 years.

You know,

it's who they grew up with.

Yeah.

Okay.

So let's go back back to Syria.

Sorry, yeah.

So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm only good at this for interviewing.

We're keeping it back to the country.

So, this is 2000.

Okay, I mean, tons of questions.

How much are hostels?

Who'd you meet?

How'd you meet them?

What'd you eat?

Yeah, why there?

I don't know.

Well, I think that, and you've understood this in other contexts, that every part of the world has its own backpacker circuit.

And so information is coming back and forth on the backpacker circuit.

And then probably more than now, you can sort of default to your phone and see where to stay in any given place.

People are like, yeah, I was in Damascus and there's this place.

It's an old Ottoman home with a fountain on the inside and they've worn out the old mansion rooms into bunk rooms and it's $4 a night.

And so

I literally wasn't thinking of Syria as a geopolitical thing, but just as a cool place to go that was also in the backpacker circuit that people...

Egypt was sort of my hub back then.

So people are coming from

Jordan.

They're coming from other other parts of the Middle East.

I was going to say Israel, but after you've been to Israel, you can go to Egypt, but you can't go to Syria.

You can go to Jordan.

You can go to Jordan.

I don't think you can go to Lebanon.

Anyway, they do a thing now where they, instead of stamping your passport, they'll sticker it.

Yeah.

And they're like, we know.

Go ahead, rip this off when you're done.

Yeah.

Although when you get that Egyptian exit pass, sometimes they look for that in Syria.

And so I saved Israel for last that year.

But you and I have talked about Israel in our past, you know, for my podcast.

The idea of a hub is interesting because I didn't think of it until you just said it but like thailand is the hub for southeast asia you keep going back there and then other countries and back there in other countries totally like bangkok or chiang mai is the hub in southeast asia cairo is the hub in the middle east it just makes complete sense i mean maybe some people well if they if if tel aviv is their hub then they can't go to certain places so cairo just makes the most sense as a hub what is it in south america like maybe good question cusco or or

yeah i don't know it's so spread out ecuador well i mean there's there's different and again,

flights to lots of places.

It has to be that.

It has to be centralized so you're not having long flights.

Maybe Buenos Aires down in the Horn.

Yeah.

And then maybe

Cusco or Lima.

Could be Peru.

Yeah, I don't know.

Anyway, but like so many parts of the world.

In Central America, it's Costa Rica.

Right?

Right.

So you have a place where you go first.

Go to Colombia, go to Panama, go to Abu.

It's the easiest to travel in.

It could be Panama.

And in East Africa, it's probably Kenya.

And in South Africa, it's like Johannesburg, probably Cape Town.

Yeah.

And that probably has a different vibe of the travelers because of that.

They're probably trading stories and giving out information.

Totally.

Sydney, maybe in Oceania.

But obviously, we've sort of fallen into the backpacker.

uh rail here of travel because when you're a backpacker this is second nature you know that your information especially back then, but probably even now, is that you're sitting and talking to people.

And it's like, really?

You went to a monastery in Syria?

Tell me more.

And so that's one of the things I'm going to talk about is I went to this monastery that was amazing and it was full of backpackers, which I think annoyed the monks.

But

yeah, and then Damascus was a great travel city.

And it's a shame that you can't really recommend that anybody go there now.

Weird to the dead city.

in terms of what you saw.

It's no longer available.

Yeah, and I have no idea.

When we get into the specifics, I can sort of talk about what I saw and speculate on whether or not it might be there.

But in some ways, Damascus was like people talk about Havana.

I saw a lot of old cars, like really old Buicks.

In Damascus?

In Damascus, yeah.

Like I saw a Mercedes, where some guy had taken off all the Mercedes symbols and put in Batman symbols.

That's just how weird the world is.

You know,

you're talking about the NBA up by the Turkish border, and then some dude has decided to kit out his Mercedes to look like a Batman car.

But

I loved Syria.

It's one of my favorite places.

I like Egypt because Egypt is so easy to come in and out of.

It's all really cheap there.

But Syria was just using Syria was like Egypt, but they're less jaded.

Like Egypt sees so many tourists.

You know, everything from people flying in for a weekend to go to the pyramids to backpackers staying there for half a year.

Whereas Syria is harder to get to.

It has more of a dangerous reputation.

And so Syrians are just so excited to, they meet Westerners, Europeans, Americans less often.

And they were excited to see you?

Absolutely.

Like, give me some examples of like walking through restaurants and stuff.

Yeah.

And I guess this, this happens any place in the world.

But like in Damascus, I would go and

just sit down at a cafe.

And, you know, some guy who's playing backgammon would turn to me and ask where I was from.

And he was like, hoping Germany because he spoke some German.

And then you have a conversation.

I remember we had a conversation with some guy in Damascus.

He's like, Reader's Digest isn't as good as it used to be.

It's like,

how on earth do you know about Reader's Digest?

And so, I think that people everywhere want to be global.

And if you're in a place that's sort of been cut off from the rest of the world, like Syria sort of was and is even more now, they were just looking for news from the outside.

Oh, hi, everybody.

Ari Shafira breaking in to tell you a little bit about the guests.

I'm wearing a Yankees jersey because the Yankees, it's game day and it's the playoffs.

In New York, you represent your team.

You represent your team when they're in the playoffs.

Rolf's team, the Kansas City Royals, was ousted by my New York Yankees.

I hope he takes solace in the fact that the Royals have won a World Series more recently than the New York Yankees, even though we have a blow-to-payroll and a fucking two-time MVP that won't show up in the playoffs.

But I believe in you, Aaron.

The last game was good.

Let me tell you about Rolfe.

Oh, by the way, I've got, first I should tell you this.

I've got a pre-sale coming for my new tour.

It is January, February, March.

It's the farewell tour.

I'm doing January, February, and March only

one week in August.

I mean, in April, and then one one gig in June.

And that's it.

That's it.

That's the rest of 2025.

I'm not adding any cities.

I'm not adding anything in 2026.

That's it.

So on Wednesday, there's a pre-sale, 10 a.m.

local time, wherever you are, in the following cities.

Anchorage, Atlanta, Austin, Brea, Calgary, Chicago, Denver.

Edmonton, Fort Lauderdale, Nashville, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Portland, Providence, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Jose, Seattle, Tahoe, Tampa, and Vancouver.

Tahoe might not be ready for the pre-sale, but hopefully it will.

It's the farewell tour.

Pre-sale October 16th.

General sale, October 18th.

You want to get the best tickets during the pre-sale.

Promo code is ARI.

Get tickets now.

We'll start in

Tahoe.

It'll be in December, and Austin is in December, and then end in Anchorage in June.

And nothing in May.

Anyway, let me tell you a little about the guest.

Rolf Potts.

If anyone who listens on

Ari Shafir's Skeptic Tank definitely knows him, if you listen to that religiously, he was one of the most recurring guests.

I guess Ryan O'Neill was probably the most.

Jeff Daniel is probably second.

Big J was right there.

But Rolf was there, man.

I read his book, Vagabonding.

What a tremendous book if you're thinking of long-term travel.

Vagabonding.

I mean,

put it up or something.

But what, I mean, I read it on an island in Cambodia, and it just blew my mind.

It got me so deep into travel.

But if you're thinking of going, like, putting everything, we're going for a month to a year.

That's your book.

It's a little tiny book.

It's a Bible.

I can't find it.

I have a copy.

I can't fucking find it.

Easy reading.

It'll get you on to go.

Now, he has another book that just came out last year.

Called The Vagabond's Way.

It is different.

If you've already traveled, if you're already like places, it's just a kind of a page a day.

Easy going through.

It's not like a long narrative.

It's just a page a day with a quote about travel and about a specific part of the travel

experience, meeting strangers, getting lost, things like that.

Spend at least one full day walking someplace new.

No place is timeless, in part because you're there.

Wilderness imbues a journey with perspective.

Luxury diversions can provide a travel timeout.

Travel first.

Then, if you want, become a digital nomad.

Become an expatriate at some point in your travel life.

Whoa.

Travel offers new perspectives on the familiar.

Yeah, it's just a page a day with a quote.

Life isn't short.

We just waste it.

We waste it wishing for things to be otherwise.

We waste it by ignoring what's in front of us.

Ryan Holiday.

Never wish away a minute of your life.

Whoa, Jesus.

The most indelible memory I have of the bicycle journey I took across Myanmar in my late twenties

It involves a night-time ferry ride across the Irrawaddy River.

I've been on that river.

Since the journey involved a number of river crossings and places that didn't appear on my map, I'm not sure where exactly I was.

All I knew was that in the dim light, with the stars glowing above and the moon glittering across the water, I felt unmoored from the past and future, fully present.

I felt fully alive.

Perhaps it was because I wasn't exactly sure where I was when this happened that I recall, that I recall it as a special moment in my life.

I have since come to realize that travel is not the only time I can feel this way.

Tich Nhat Han's 1975 book, The Miracle of Mindfulness, asserts that even a task so ordinary as washing dishes can be an exercise of being fully alive.

At first glance, that might seem a little silly, he wrote, why put so much stress on simple things?

But that's precisely the point.

The fact that I'm standing there and washing these bowls is a wondrous reality.

Ever since reading this, I have, now back to him, I have come to regard the act of washing my own dishes as a kind of homebound traveled exercise, a reminder that life itself is an ongoing journey.

And the ever-present goal of the traveler is to appreciate the simple and eternal resonance of whatever task is before him.

That was just December 9th.

Every day is a different thing.

I am quoted in this.

What is this?

It's a bookmark from the Ljubljana Castle in Slovenia.

I go places, guys.

I buy things wherever I go.

This is my White's Wall.

I'm putting this back up.

Get the Vagabond's Way right now.

It's available.

It should be available on audiobook, right?

It's definitely available on paperback.

Oh, because I'm holding a copy.

This is an advanced copy.

How come I didn't get it signed?

If you don't know Roll from my old skeptic episodes, listen to him.

The first one we did was just all, I think, called Vagabonding in Tompkins Square Park.

The last one we did was

in Paris, all over Paris.

And I was videoed that.

I mean, that would be the perfect type of podcast for this podcast.

I mean, the first episode of

all around Paris, the Luxembourg Gardens,

right near the Louvre.

We did it in front of the Louvre on a bridge over the Seine.

God, that was a good one.

I got to import that.

Why waste it?

Anyway, pick up the Vagabond's Way right now.

Also, a book called Souvenir was pretty good, but that's like coffee table reading.

And he has a podcast called Deviate with Rolf Potts.

Oh, shoot, we got to get back to the episode.

It's been six minutes.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you about it.

And all this thing.

I got this shiki puma.

I got it in Guatemala.

This one I got it in like Oaxaca or Merida, northern Mexico.

Nope, nope, nope.

Sorry.

This is a Chinese magnifying glass.

I got it in China.

I think Shanghai.

I think Shanghai, not Beijing.

Yeah, I used it to find genital warts on my pubis.

Sometimes you can can get confused with ingrown hairs.

I mean, they were coming, which they were every few months for about four straight years, got in the way of my sex life for sure.

I wanted to know if I just had an ingrown hair, just sort of sort of like bump, a random bump, or if it was a genital award.

And the Chinese magnifying glass is the way to go.

Guys, don't forget that pre-sale on this Wednesday, October 16th, general sale on Friday.

And then from then on, all those cities.

Let's get back to the episode.

Buy Rolf's book.

Sign up for his podcast, Devi.

I've been on there multiple times.

A great one about souvenirs.

I gotta listen to so I can mark all these souvenirs.

Let's get back to the episode.

Syria, take us there, Rolf Potts.

I mean, it's sort of a dictatorship there.

Was it then?

Yeah, it was the father, Hafez Assad, he almost died.

He died like within a year of my visit.

And then one of his sons has taken over since then.

Do you think it's related to your visit?

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

But it was so weird that like back then,

it was the Bathist.

It was like the old socialist model of Arab nationalism.

Like Nasser in Egypt did this.

And so instead of like an Islamist

cultural identity, it was, I think they maybe aligned themselves with the Soviets when the Soviet Union was a thing.

And of course the Soviet Union was gone by 1990, not for more than 10 years, but they still sort of had people were walking around sort of wearing olive drab sweaters and

the propaganda was sort of old Soviet bloc style propaganda.

So it's weird.

This conversation is going to be about travel and place, but also travel and time, because I went to a version of Syria that doesn't exist, but I suspect Syrians are Syrians, and I thought Syrians were great.

Wow.

Like, yeah, friendly people.

Yeah.

Smiley.

Somebody told me, like, Russians don't misread it.

They just don't smile.

So they're not mad at you.

They just don't smile.

Well, I mean, Arab cultures are famously hospitable.

Hospitality is one of the pillars of Islam.

Abraham.

Although, yeah.

But I mean, it's multicultural.

I mean, I think Syria was like 10% Christian, and there's different sects of Islam.

And in fact, the Assad family is

Alawite.

They're not Shia or Sunni.

They're a different kind of Muslim.

Oh, wow.

And I don't.

The Baath is also Iraq, wasn't it?

Wasn't that Saddam's party?

Was it the Baath party?

Yeah.

Sorry.

Sorry, I said Egypt, but the Baathist, yeah, is Iraq.

They all had a little bit different flavor of it.

I think they had this idea to create sort of this Arab super nation, but but of course,

nobody was on board for that.

Dude, my half-brother was a captain in the army, I think a captain.

His job was to get a provisional government in Afghanistan after the war.

And it took a year of negotiation between the Sunnis, the

Shiites, and the Muslims on which percentage should be on whatever.

Well, Sunnis and Shiites are Muslims.

Okay, well, whatever.

I don't know.

That's a Sunni Shiites.

Yeah, Afghanistan is a bunch of tribes.

So, like,

everybody speaks a a different language.

And so

just the idea of a nation state is a pretty new idea.

It's like a 19th century thing.

It's like Europeans drawing a map and it's like, this is going to be a nation state.

This is going to be a nation state.

So Afghanistan makes no sense.

Well, we've been over it.

Anywhere there's a straight line,

that's a made-up border.

You know, these curvy ones are like, oh, a river, that makes sense.

You know, or a mountain range or something.

But like straight line was like some guy in a war room in London was like, it's here.

Robert Byron said there's something absurd absurd about a land border, you know, that, and actually this came, this came up in Syria because, let's see, I went up into this corner because that was a time when Iraq seemed really exotic because the war hadn't happened that long before.

And so I just wanted to go to the Tigris River and sort of look into Iraq.

Oh, cool.

And so I was sitting in.

the market or whatever in Kamishli, which is this town that's up by Turkey and Iraq.

And

actually, I quote this in the Vagabond's way.

The taxi drivers are like, yeah, no,

borders are things that exist in the minds of bureaucrats.

You want a taxi ride to Damascus?

I can take you there.

You give me 50 bucks.

They drove Ford escorts, too.

Like for some reason, the smugglers drove Ford escorts 24 years ago.

They're just like, we'll just do it.

And border towns, and that's a river border.

So you actually have to cross the Tigris to get into.

Well, actually, no,

you can cross the land border here.

Yeah.

Oh, weird.

And so it's just, I hung out with the dude who smuggled rubber sandals into Iraq for a living.

That's what he did.

Why would they not allow that?

I mean, taxes, maybe.

I think like embargoes, maybe.

Maybe there was some sort of European rubber sandals that weren't getting there because of some sort of

like, I don't know how far you want to get in the weeds this soon, but like this is back in the day of the no-fly zone.

And so the Kurdish part of Iraq bordered on that part of Syria.

And so I hung out with Kurds the whole time.

So it was different.

When I was in Damascus, I was hanging out with,

you know, Syrian Arabs, but like Sudanese refugees.

And

then when I was on the border, I was hanging out with Kurds because like Kurdistan is a place that didn't really win the nation-state game.

There's never been a Kurdistan nation because after World War I, they split up the Middle East and they decided not to make a Kurdish nation.

The cultural area is the size of Texas and it stretches into Iran and Iraq and Syria and Turkey.

And so, but the no-fly zone that the first George Bush established after the Gulf War meant that Saddam couldn't go up and kill the Kurds in northern Iraq.

So for at least 10 years, northern Iraq, they could just do what they wanted.

And so I was hanging out with these Kurds in northern Syria, and they had these magazines that showed like the Kurdish Basketball League in northern Iraq.

Like

they were very American-influenced back then.

And so I think just a lot of aid was happening back then, and Saddam couldn't touch them.

And so they were just doing their own thing.

You know, you leave people to their own devices and they start basketball leagues and, you know, it takes cool to see when it's like, hey, what would you be if not for interference?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you didn't, if you weren't trying to be repressed by somebody else whose geopolitical aims are in this part of the place.

When I was in Myanmar, we're in some northern city and it was like, we saw some stores and some cool people like kind of like graffitiing it on the inside.

But it was like their store.

Like, what is this?

And they were like, fashion store.

And it it was like the first, like, oh, you guys are just getting non-functional clothing.

Congratulations.

Yeah.

Way to go.

Yeah.

No, and that's a great thing that you see when you travel these places.

Most people don't give a shit about the geopolitical situation.

They want to put a Batman symbol on their car.

Are you scared at all going there?

Not really.

How old are you in this?

I was 29.

29.

Not scared.

Not scared because all these backpackers were coming back out of Syria and saying, go up to the mountains.

There's this monastery.

And

you have to walk the last 20 minutes and crawl into a three-foot door, but it's cool and it's free.

And all you have to do is shovel goat shit for a while.

What do you mean, to work there?

Yeah.

What?

It's an exchange, a hospitality exchange.

It's nominally a Christian monastery, but it's more of like a little hippie encampment.

It was founded by an Italian monk.

in the 1980s.

Yeah.

It's called Dirmar Musa up in the hills above Damascus, actually.

And then if you look at that map.

Yeah.

Do you have any pictures of that?

Where am I going?

Oh, the monastery.

Wait,

where is this called?

I'll look it up.

Deir Marmusa.

Is that what you said?

Oh, Deir Marmusa.

Yeah.

I'm not sure if it'll show up.

D-E-I-R, space,

M-A-R, space, M-A-R.

M-U-S-A.

Yeah.

El-Nabuk.

Yeah.

That's not it?

No, that's it?

Whoa.

Yeah.

That's it.

Literally, I stayed there.

What?

You stayed in there?

Yeah.

God damn, that's cool.

What is this?

Carved into the fucking mountains.

It's carved in the mountains.

And actually, that is more finished than when I was there.

So they were still building that when I was there.

And I stayed like in this little place that was above where the goat stayed, and it smelled like goat shit, but it was free.

And it was a bunch of dirtbag backpackers.

And it's funny because all the backpackers knew about it, Christian monks are obligated to give hospitality to whoever asks.

And so they just had this total channel of dipshit backpackers.

I say dip shit, but they were.

You're obligated how you got to right your god commands yeah and so um they just had all these and so like there was this swiss guy who decided he wanted to live in a cave and like renounce his possessions yes the monks are sort of like okay yeah there's a there's a swiss hermit living in a cave and we're gonna humor him but yeah no this is this is the the italian guy went there in the 80s and he restored this place um

and uh it was like uh moses the ethiopian or somebody it's dear marmusa musa means Moses.

And he was restoring the old frescoes.

And oh, really?

That was his passion?

Syria is just a mix of everything.

There's multiple Christian cultures, multiple Muslim cultures,

and multiple languages.

It's the crossroads of the world.

It's this silk route.

And so you could stay there for free.

I washed dishes and I shoveled goat shit and chicken shit.

And then

there's no electricity there.

So you have the oil lamps after dark.

There's like Korean backpackers and Argentine backpackers and like people from the village, Muslims in the village were hanging out.

Like the monk, his mission was like

cross-religious understanding, you know?

Yeah.

So they had a lot of conversations between the Christians and the Muslims.

And it was just sort of this little hippie camp that was just in the middle of nowhere of Syria.

People doing drugs there?

What's that?

People doing drugs there?

Backpackers?

It must have been hash around.

Probably.

I wasn't aware of it at the time.

I actually mentioned this place place in Vagabonding because there was some backpacker I say that she was from Canada but she wasn't really from Canada I give her anonymity but she's like she refused to go to the church services yeah and it's like so you hiked you you like drove way up into the mountains you walked 20 minutes and you crawled through a little door and you're staying with these monks but you don't want to be influenced by Christianity so you're not going to go to the church services it just seemed like a weird thing like back in Canada sure yeah there's religious people who are telling you what to do but you've come come all the way to this monastery and you're going to, you're, you're, you're going to say, oh no, I'm above religion, really?

It's also so funny that the religion you come from, you're like, I'm not doing that.

But then some, if some weird like 2,000-year-old, well, that is Christianity, but you know, some ancient thing, like, we have this thing you've never heard of, like, I'll do it.

What do I have to do?

It's pray incense, like, I'm down.

But your own religion, you're like, fuck that, I'm out of that.

Totally.

Now, you and I have talked this about it in the context of Buddhism,

which is, there's so many Judeo-Christian Buddhists in Southeast Asia where they go in and it's better than Christianity Christianity or Judaism, but they sort of have that same sort of rigid attitude toward it.

Or they sort of have a hippie-dippy.

People screw up religion.

Travelers screw up religion in so many ways.

And

I like to think to be open-minded about it.

But that was my point in Vagabonding is that this woman wasn't being open-minded.

She was being closed-minded.

Like, sure, back in Alberta, religious people are overbearing, but you've come all this way

and these aren't Canadian Christians.

These are like Syrian Christians.

And there's interfaith dialogue going on.

And so really, you're going to refuse to go to the church service.

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Was anybody

okay?

Toilets were holes, I assume.

Toilets were holes.

There was no refrigerator.

There's no electricity.

So it was really cool.

They had like a little screened-in cabinet.

And so they would, when they would fix something that you would normally refrigerate, you only don't save it for a week, but you may save it for a day, and it's behind a fly screen.

And so it's room temperature, but it's behind a fly screen.

So it does, so the insects don't get to it.

I saw a thing on why flies are more disgusting than you think because you're like, oh, some flies, they're just eating my food.

It's like they're not.

They're vomiting up like bile that disintegrates it.

And then if you screw them away, that bile is still, it's like way grosser than just like a dog taking a bite out of your stuff.

Right.

Yeah.

So I guess we have our refrigerated food.

So the supplies couldn't get on there.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah.

Any hooking up there with these backpackers?

It seems out of place to do that, but I assume also.

I was sort of non-sexual in Syria.

I just, it didn't really come to mind much.

In the Islamic world in general, I wasn't really...

even like with other backpackers, I wasn't really looking to hook up or anything.

I'm sure there was some hooking up, and I'm not sure how they like dealt with couples.

I know that in other parts of the Islamic world, they were really nervous if you were a non-married couple staying in a hotel.

And even once, where was I?

It was in Cairo.

I was staying in a hotel and a Norwegian backpacker friend wanted to hang out with me in my room.

And

the proprietor was really nervous because he thought we were going to have

unmarital sex or something.

And so it's funny, having very religious cultures, they don't really understand.

They think that because it's more sexually permissive in the West, that sex always happens all the time in the West.

Yeah, and the Westerners are just like hot to trot constantly.

Yeah, it's like, No, we're just talking,

we're just planning out our thing, yeah.

But also, like, could be right, could be right, but yeah, it was it was sort of an asexual situation for me.

I wasn't, yeah, that wasn't what I had on the mind.

What did you do?

Food-wise, here lentils, um,

homemade cheese, honey, um, pita, just great, fantastic Middle Eastern food, damn, olives.

They fed you, or you had to pay for it.

No, they fed us.

Wow.

And some of the work.

Some of the volunteers helped cook, helped clean.

How long did you stay here for?

Probably just three or four nights.

Wow.

And one funny thing I learned, it's almost like a parable about how, what it's like to be in a place where backpackers are constantly turning through, or any travelers are constantly turning through.

They put me in this little hut, you know, near the goat pens, and a Saint Bernard had just given birth to puppies

outside the thing, and she kept growling on me every time I would walk home.

Walked to the place where I was staying.

I kept telling the monks, you got to move the Saint Bernard because she's growling at me because her puppies are right there.

Either move her and her puppies or have them stay someplace.

They're like, oh, it's okay.

Because I was sort of a ghost to them.

Sure, I was there for a couple of days, but they knew her, the dog, much better than me.

Like, we're not moving our friend for you, you idiot.

Exactly.

No.

They cared way more for the Saint Bernard than me.

And then one day the dog bit me.

And I walk up to the main guy bleeding into my socks.

It's like, I told you the dog would bit me.

And so then actually, it wasn't until if I would have written a story, it would have been the dog that made me human because I was like a ghost until it bit me.

And then it's like, oh, yeah, sorry.

And so they cleaned out my wound and they remembered my name after that.

But that makes sense because

it means a lot to you.

It's like, it was probably the three most interesting days of my year that year, staying in this crazy monastery in the mountains above Damascus.

But for them, I was just another dude, just another pasty dude that was shuttling through and sort of speaking in superlatives.

And they were probably just happy I didn't, you know, sell my possessions and live in a cave next to the Swiss guy.

But at the end of the day, giving hospitality, and monks, a lot of monastic writing talks about this, is that it's not easy to give hospitality.

And there's this old joke where God, you know, says, he gives an edict that you must give hospitality to strangers because think of it as the

impersonization

as the embodiment of Jesus.

Like, treat all guests as Christ.

And one of these monks, you know, he said to his superiors, like, Oh, Jesus, is it you again?

You know,

like, another freaking Jesus is showing up.

Yeah, after a while, Jesus would be like, Hey, dude, you're getting to my nerves now.

Thanks for dying for our sins, but you're milking it.

Yeah.

And you read a lot of accounts, travel writing of pilgrims who traveled during that time, and they rave about the monks.

I would love to read the monks back in the day.

It's like, oh, yeah, another bunch of rich Europeans coming through in the 12th century.

We've got to feed them.

And they're going to talk about how much they love Jesus and yada, yada, yada.

You know, I went to the church of the Holy Sepulchre a few years ago, and those guys, you know, they're doing the chains with the incense, and there's all these tourists taking pictures, and they're so pissed.

They're like, they want to say it, get out of the fucking way, but instead they just bash them with the incense thing, and they're just like, they're just like, move, even though that's their only clothe because those people are coming in and paying.

Yeah.

Now, there's some serious grumpiness going on in the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

That's an amazing place.

Not in Syria, but close.

So, okay, so you go there.

Who'd you meet?

Are these pictures from there or are these pictures from another place?

Yeah, they're all mixed up.

So this is when I took a taxi.

I was trying to take a taxi to the Tigris River because I just wanted to look into Iraq.

This was back when Iraq was really exotic.

This is before the 2003 war.

So I just wanted to look in this forbidden country.

And so this dude, this was like an old Buick with suicide doors and like some sort of...

Where suicide ones go up?

The suicide doors are when the door handles are on the same side.

So the back seat has the handle on the right and the front seat has on the left.

And so you open it up.

I don't know why they're called suicide doors.

But it was like some, like,

and this, this was the beginning of this theory that like everybody in the world has a cousin in New Jersey.

Yeah.

Like I was driving across the wastelands.

I like I was way up in the corner of Syria and this guy is making conversation in his limited English and he showed me a picture of like his cousin lived in New Jersey.

Really?

Yeah, it's amazing how people get here.

Yeah, and it's not just New Jersey, but there's a lot of international people in New Jersey, the greater New York area.

And so, middle of nowhere, Syria, somehow, this guy had family in New Jersey.

Damn.

And so, yeah, so that guy drove me to the

Tigris River.

It was sort of a non-event, but I took a this is a selfie before selfie.

That's a film camera selfie, a picture I took of myself.

Oh my god, I have long arms.

So,

young there, yeah, look at those kissable lips, right?

I was not, I I was still in my 20s.

I was just barely in my 20s.

Damn, that's cool.

You did all this alone, huh?

Yeah, I was solo the whole time.

Yeah, so these are the Kurds that I met up in Kamishli.

I mean, if not for your smile, this is a hostage video.

These guys were amazing.

The guy on the right is Khalid.

I actually studied my notes before I came here.

All right.

Khalid is like a banana vendor, and he's like, I can get you to Iraq.

You want to go to Iraq?

I'll take you to Iraq.

And I'm like, really?

And he's like, yes.

And And so the KDP, which is like the Kurdish political party, which has a stronger presence in Iraq, but also an office in Syria.

He like takes me to the office of the KDP in Kamishli.

And he's like, this is my friend Rolf.

And he wants to go to Iraq.

Can we take him there?

And

like the guy behind the desk is like, Khalid, you're a banana vendor.

And he didn't say this, but that was sort of the vibe I got.

It's like, I think it's cool that you can take your American friend here, but I'm not going to take this dipshit into Iraq just because.

Not to come back.

Just because he's your friend.

Yeah, relax, bro.

He's this cool guy.

That's the guy.

Khalid is the, he's the one, he's the one who showed me the basketball of like the, or the magazine of the basketball league in northern Iraq, in Kurdish Iraq.

Where because of that flyover zone, it's almost like, like metaphorically, it's like the DMZ in Korea has all this wildlife because nothing, no people have been there for 50 years, more than 50 years.

All the trees have grown back and all these crazy wildlife.

Well, you have a no-fly zone over Iraq for 10 years and basketball leagues pop up.

So what does that mean?

Well, that meant that Saddam couldn't take heavy military

expeditions into northern Iraq or else they'd get bombed by American

Air Force.

And so the no-fly zone just meant that, yeah, good luck trying to have a major military presence.

Basically, it meant Americans were protecting the Kurds from Iraq when Saddam was still around.

And because

I guess we were trying to sort of normalize certain American ideas, they were promoting, I'm sure the State Department helped fund this magazine, but it was about basically the Kurdish YMCA and their basketball league.

I wish I had a copy of this because I tell the story.

It's got to be all guards.

I mean,

5'11 must be a center there.

Actually, not really.

I think Kurds,

it's not like East Asia where people are shorter on average.

Well, those guys are pretty short.

Yeah.

God, first of all, sick jacket on, what's his name?

Khalid?

Khalid, yeah.

Yeah.

Super sick jacket.

Also, banana what is he banana what he sells bananas no would you call him banana what banana vendor banana vendor yeah sounds sexual sounds like a fucking badass slayer

if you're porn star it's on your business card right i'm

amateur banana vendor professional walmart greeter

oh damn that's so cool do you have one of these candy bars i did maybe maybe i don't the thing of it is is that like the candy bars aren't the draw there like the the food like the strawberries or the bananas were okay, but like the the the fool and the falafel, like all that Middle Eastern food was amazing and dirt cheap.

What's cheap?

Fool is like this, those big-ass beans.

F-U-U-L, I think is how they transliterate it.

But it's just like big, hearty Middle Eastern beans.

And it's great for backpackers because it costs like 40 cents for a giant bowl of spicy beans.

I don't know what kind of garbanza.

I don't know what kind of beans they are.

Somali-style fava beans.

Somali.

Oh, is it fava beans?

Yeah.

Isn't that what Hamill Lectern ate his victim with?

Yeah, it could be Ethiopian.

I don't know.

But they had fool.

I ate fool all over the Arabic Middle East.

And actually had sheep's brain sandwiches.

No.

Really?

Have you had a sheep's brain sandwich before?

Not a sandwich.

I had one cow brain one time at a place in LA on Fairfax.

Oh, okay.

I had it.

It was like, I think it was called Animal.

But like, yeah, it's gooey.

Not gooey, but like jiggly.

Yeah, it felt like it sort of like was jelloy

in my experience.

That there was sort of no substance to the sheep's.

And I only got it because it was a sheep's brain sandwich.

Like I had all these options.

It's like, I'm going to eat this sandwich so I have a story to tell.

Will you do that?

Will you see a food?

I'm like, well, I got to try this.

I'm not going to be back.

Yeah, no, I ate bundegi, which is silkworms when I was in Korea.

I ate boshintong, which is sort of a dog meat stew when I was in Korea.

And it's like I had to have the sheep's brain sandwich because now I can talk about the sheep's brain sandwich that I ate in Damascus.

There's also like a strawberry smoothie.

Like the fruit was really good.

Oh my God, my mouth is watering.

So I'm sure those candy bars are fine, but the food was

good.

The Aleppo sandwich

is a little bit of a food.

And actually, this is something I've found in other parts of the world.

Poor countries, countries that don't have a lot of industrial output oftentimes have great food.

Like my sister went to Moldova,

Moldova, which is close to your ancestral homeland.

And she said the salads were amazing.

Like the salads and soups in Moldova were just lights out.

I was talking to my mom about this.

My dad just got

his Romanian passport.

No kidding.

After maybe five years of triad.

A lot of that, the COVID, like he was close and they were like, is that a you?

It is.

So you can get an EU passport.

So I put it in his mind because I'm like, hey, I found out they have a right to return for any child.

Nice.

I'm like, dad, you got to help me out here.

Yeah, name.

It opens up everything for me.

He just got it.

But I was talking to my mom about it.

She goes, Romanian food is terrible.

Nobody talks about it.

I'm like, it's just not known.

Yeah.

There's great food.

Yeah.

It's just not known.

And if this stuff, it's like, it's just what's known and what's like unknown, but still awesome.

Yeah.

No, Siri had grapefruit.

And not all the fruits.

Fried sheep's brain.

Oh, is that fried sheep's brain?

Yeah.

Was it fried when you had it?

Or was it some other way?

No, I think maybe it was boiled.

Oh.

But it did sort of look like it.

This has been 24 years ago, Ari.

I'm not.

Okay.

I remember the presence of, I don't know, the fact that I ate it more than the actual experience of it.

It's like I was almost writing it down in my journal as I was eating it because I was just so excited to be eating shoes.

Yeah, that's what it looked like.

That's what it looked like.

Oh, that looks like it.

For sure.

Yeah.

Was it good?

You remember?

It was okay.

It wasn't, it didn't make me crave sheaves break and sandwiches, but it was dirt cheap.

You seem honest enough, too, where it's like, okay, so you're going to have some weird thing.

Like, I'll never get this again.

Gotta, gotta try it.

Right.

You seem honest enough to go, this was fucking wild.

I loved it.

This was like, eh.

Yeah.

And this was one of those where like, it's fine.

This was fine.

It wasn't disgusting and it wasn't particularly good.

Like when I was in Thailand, not to keep bouncing all over the place, but I had like some

fried uh grasshoppers.

But I think they'd been cooked in like chicken fat or something.

They were delicious.

It was like eating chicken skin.

And then I got some crickets and it's like, these are disgusting.

So you just never know when you're eating weird food.

You never know what's going to be good.

Sheep's brain is maybe a C minus.

It was fine.

Damn.

Okay.

Cool, cool, cool.

What else to get into

in it food-wise or just just overall yeah i don't know yeah if there's more food you want to tell me about otherwise

one we're getting a little unchronological here one reason why con air i will have always have a place in my heart for the movie con air yeah is that i took the jet bus from that it's J-E-T-T, it's Jordanian something from Amman, Jordan to Damascus, Syria.

It was like a $5 bus, air conditioning, and they play movies.

And they played Con Air.

I'd never seen it before.

Have you seen Con Air?

Yeah, I have.

Yeah.

It's like, as if you take every action movie that was ever made and it creates an algorithm that just creates cliché after cliché.

It's a delightful movie.

It really is.

Even the Steve Buscemi, who's the most unsettling character.

He's like the Hannibal Lectern.

Yeah, he does stuff to children.

There was just a girl like, oh, please don't.

And then it's like, okay,

she didn't get.

It's okay.

We didn't do that.

Yeah.

No, you almost expect him to be Hannibal Lectern, but he's with the voice of reason in that movie.

He actually says, makes some decent observations in that movie.

But what was so delightful is that there's an ironic level at which you can see Conair.

And so I was laughing.

Yeah.

And everybody in this, every all the Syrians in the bus, they were watching it translated and they were just watching an action movie.

They weren't jaded.

They weren't like jaded hipsters sort of making fun of it.

Whereas I was laughing, because it is a funny movie.

I mean, it's, it's actually, it's a delightful movie, but I saw when it came out and I was like, sick.

And then like all those movies, like eight years later, like, this is ridiculous.

It's totally ridiculous.

Yeah.

He's landing on the sun

in Vegas.

it's so enjoyable yeah and the fact that i was laughing and the syrians were turning and looking like okay not sure why he's laughing

they were sort of rooting for the you know nick cage character and then pretty soon they're like handing me their babies and giving me food like i i was mr personality like i was having so much fun with this movie that to this day con air the movie reminds me of taking the bus to damascus and so that was that was my entree is that basically i met like 30 syrians because i thought con air was hilarious um and they were cheering like they were At the end of the movie, when Nick Cage lands a plane on the Vegas Strip and

Steve Gusemi gets away or whatever,

they were so excited.

They were into it.

I love that they play movies on these glasses.

And it's just like

it harkens back to the planes when it was like, the movie will start in 45 minutes.

The movie.

Not like your choice of movies.

And everyone's like, you better be on this.

Have you ever seen like a,

have you ever seen a movie in a weird place and you sort of remember a place because of the the movie yeah uh when i got to myanmar i got this hat where i first read your book nice i didn't wearing this hat um we went to see

i forgot the name of it but it was it was based on a video game and uh it was like nights of the templar and this guy was like like scaling walls and stuff god damn i wish i knew but yeah we went to see it and it was like it's burning my mind they serve kettle corn popcorn instead of regular popcorn everyone's talking it's a date night which is air conditioning it's the only place with air conditioning yeah um people were sleeping in there, and it wasn't like weird.

It was such a nothing movie that I can't remember it, but I will always associate it with that place.

It's funny, everybody was talking because you forget that these movies, people are watching them on the subtitles.

I watched Titanic in the Philippines.

And there was people like there were, there was...

A woman reading, she probably knew English, but she was like reading the Tagalog subtitles, but like explaining the subtitles to her grandma in her tribal language.

And so for half the movie, I'm like, would you shut up?

Like, I'm thinking in my mind, would you shut up?

And in fact, it was like this family experience where she's like helping grandma understand things.

Actually, I saw, not to get on, off on a tangent, but when I was hitchhiking across Eastern Europe, I saw

some art movie in like Budapest.

And my, my Hungarian friends were translating, who I met that day, were trying to translate the movie for me as it was going.

And so I was like the other Hungarians in the cinema are like, we can read the subtitles.

Why are you talking?

Well, they were reading the Hungarian subtitles, including in american and it's fun it's fun how communal movies can be like movie cinemas can be kind of cool communal places yeah and but this wasn't even a cinema it was a bus and so to this day i'll always think of syria when i when i watch conair i love the idea of them cheering like really getting into it yeah no i think there was this sort of guilelessness that um there's probably fewer entertainments in syria in general but they were just excited they were watching it was like an old-fashioned it was like watching a movie when when the sound came around in the 1930s.

They were just into it.

Wow.

They were all in.

Were there black people in Syria?

Oh, this is another thing.

This is actually really interesting.

I was walking through like the Christian quarter of Damascus and heard gospel music, like American gospel music.

And these aren't Americans.

They're Syrian refugees.

And so I walk into this church and it's like, holy, actually, I felt homesick because it reminded me of.

you know, the gospel music I would hear sometimes when I was growing up.

Syrian refugees where?

In Damascus.

So the Syrian Civil War was going on.

This is before South, I'm sorry, not Syrian, Sudan, Sudanese.

Oh, okay.

So Sudan, South Sudan hadn't broken off yet.

And so black Sudan was fighting against Arab Sudan.

And the refugees, Syria took in all these refugees.

And so on the street.

Wow.

And now we won't take their refugees.

Yeah.

No, it's crazy that literally on the street, I would go uphill and I would hang out in a cafe with the Syrian Muslims.

I would go down the street and hang out with my Syrian Christian friends.

I think a lot of these people resettled in Canada.

And

it was amazing.

These people are amazing travelers that basically, they spoke multiple languages.

They'd been living between places for years.

They didn't know where they were going to live the next day.

This guy was clearly a Yankees fan.

Clearly a Yankee fan.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Those infants are now, you know, in their mid-20s probably now.

And,

you know, as a good Christian or Muslim culture, these happened to be Christian.

They were very hospitable.

They thought it was weird that an American wandered into their church service.

How did they get the gospel music?

That's a good question.

Maybe because, well, Christianity is sort of a global religion.

Yeah.

And so maybe missionaries or maybe there's a big American influence on it.

Maybe.

I mean, the message is lovely in gospel music.

So it's like that translates to whatever you like, Jesus.

Well, I mean, gospel music was very heavily African-American.

So I'm not sure if they identify with like sort of the African-American side of American Christianity.

But I I saw there was a hymnal that had a hymn called I Get So Thrilled with Jesus.

And it's like, that's got to be a gospel song.

Like what kind of old German person is going to write a gospel, a song called I Get So Thrilled with Jesus?

And so literally I felt homesick hearing gospel songs.

And so I walked into this.

This is a great thing about not having too rigid of a plan.

It's like I was walking through the Christian quarter of Damascus.

I heard a gospel song and it's like.

Whatever I was going to do, I'm not going to do it anymore.

I'm going to go in and see what's going on in this church service.

Yeah.

I guess talk about that for a second.

This is not like your travel exactly, but like an overall like idea of travel of like, of like changing plans at the drop of a hat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're great at it.

I'm just like, oh, new plan.

Yeah.

Some days better than others.

Sure.

Okay.

That's fair.

It's easier to, it's easier to preach it than to live it, you know, because sometimes you really do want to get the things on your checklist.

Yeah.

But I was wandering through the city and I was also really involved.

I was still writing my travel column for salon.com.

This is before vagabonding.

And so I was sort of looking for stories and so maybe there's an extent to which it's like well the worst that can happen is i have an interesting story to tell that's nice actually for a way to get you moving yeah it's like this could be a story i think comics do that like it's gonna suck like it'll turn into a bit if it sucks it'll be a bit you're like all right i guess it's at least like creatively tax deductible yeah yeah

Totally, totally.

And I think that's both something we have in our toolkits as travelers is that at the very least, we have a story that will result in it.

That's why I tried to buy a donkey in Egypt.

And that was in Marco Polo didn't go there, my second book.

But

I never did write about this.

But this is the service they had.

And they shared it with like a Greek Orthodox church.

So like there's only so many, like the local Christians shared their church with the refugee Christians, even though they were a different sect.

So these are probably Protestants.

And it was like a Greek Orthodox church, but they had some band.

music and it was it was really interesting.

And I often say that these guys put most American travelers to shame, not because they've been on the best beaches or flying jets, but because they've been wandering the earth as refugees

by this point for multiple years.

We have these

refugees in my neighborhood now.

They showed up in October, a line around the block of dark, just like these guys, dark black people.

I thought it was a casting call.

They're just like a line.

It was like,

do you know where they're from?

Are they from Sudan or?

Mauritania.

Oh, interesting.

It took a while.

And I'm like, wait, they're here every day.

And now they're like darkshading being processed.

They're refugees.

Right.

And now

the area is kind of like split on the neighborhoods.

Like, well, who are these people?

Are these homeless?

And it's like, no, they're not homeless.

And if you talk to, they don't all speak English, but if you talk to any of them, it's like, like what you're saying, like, no, no, no.

They're like, I fled.

I was going to get arrested in the middle of the night.

I fled because I was trying to topple my government.

These aren't guys that are like, I'm just poor.

Right.

You know, I'm not a drug addict.

But it's like, they have stories to tell.

I'm trying to get to talk to them slowly.

Yeah.

You know?

No, and then

they're travelers like us, but

10 times as much.

I mean, obviously they haven't gone to as many places, but they've had to hustle.

They've had to make.

They never crossed a river in the middle of the night to get over a land

border.

Seriously.

Yeah.

It's hardcore.

That's the only picture I have from the monastery.

Isn't that crazy?

Those are the old frescoes.

That's the old.

hundreds of years old.

This is like the Kurds in Qamishli let me stay at their house.

A guy named Majid.

He had like eight kids.

He's like, Saddam Hussein killed 200,000 Kurds.

And so I've had eight kids.

I'm trying to repopulate.

Anyway, I just, again, hospitality in the Muslim world.

They fed me their best lentils.

I stayed in a guest room.

Crazy thing is that I didn't meet any of the female members of the family.

I was in their house, but by the Muslim strictures,

I was...

Not a family member.

I think maybe they came in.

I saw them when they were bringing food in, but I didn't really interact with the women.

So it was very traditional, yet very friendly.

And it was sort of a blessing for them.

Like it's, they don't get a chance to meet, obviously, very many Americans.

And so I was sort of this goofball who slept on their floor for a night.

Wow.

Yeah.

Zane had that story about like meeting one of the daughters and realizing he's like, oh, shit, they have intentions.

They have what?

Intentions for me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, right.

Yeah.

Well,

Zane, our friend Zane, is part Syrian.

His mom is Syrian.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

Yeah, but it's multicultural in a way.

It's just the crossroads of the world.

People have been coming through.

In fact,

you read travel writers.

Ibn Battuta, the great, the Marco Polo of the Arab world in the 13th century,

he mentions Damascus, and he mentioned there's, it's either him or Benjamin of Tudela, the Jewish Marco Polo.

There's like 3,000 Jews in Damascus when he was there.

So it's just, it's always been a multicultural city.

It's always been the crossroads of several continents of three continents.

Yeah, they always said like that there's like a misconception about like Iran where they're like, they hate Jews.

And it's like, they, they kind of more hate Zionists, but there's tons of Jews who live peacefully there.

I don't know if it's still, but to a, to a recent past, they were like, yeah, yeah, as long as you're not like into taking over like that one city.

Yeah,

Zephartic folks.

And yeah, I mean, that's, that's more 20th century geopolitics, actually.

Just what happened to the Jewish communities in all of these parts of the world.

And in Khmishly, in that city where we were talking about the NBA, some guys at the table claimed there were Jews in Kamishli.

I never met them, but there were Christians.

There were several sects of Christians and different kinds of Muslims hanging out with me.

They claimed that they were Jews or that there were Jews?

They claimed there were Jews in this little town on the border of Turkey and Syria.

The ones with the glasses.

Right.

The bald ones with the glasses.

It's like, it's probably them.

Did you do you ever feel bad staying in a place like this and like eating their food as like a, to them anyway, a rich American, even though you're a backpacker?

Oh, this, this happens everywhere in the world, that it's easy to feel guilty because you could afford 100 times this, you know?

Yeah.

But especially in cultures that value hospitality, it's a blessing for them, you know, that

it gives them a chance to honor God, but then also to show largesse to people who are much richer than them.

Right.

I think I might talk about that in the vagabond's way, too.

Not in the context of Syria, but just like, yeah, it's it's um so many parts of the world.

Um, hospitality is just what you do, and it's actually ruder to try and turn it down than to just simply accept it.

Yeah, or be like, let me give $5 to this.

And it's like, what the fuck, man?

Yeah.

I'm offering you a pre, like, if I hold the door for you, it's like, here's a dollar.

I'm like, I'm not a fucking doorman.

Yeah, we want to hold the door.

We've forgotten how it works.

We've forgotten how hospitality is just something that you

accept, you eat your food, you make conversation.

In Ecuador, I saw a fight because an American was like, I got this round.

And he was like, you think you're richer than me?

You think I can afford a beer?

And it's like, no, no, no.

We just, what do you mean?

We just cover rounds once in a while.

This happens when I was hitchhiking with the Hungarians in Eastern Europe.

I ran in and I filled their tank of gas, and the driver's like, what, what the fuck?

He was, he was, he was literally mad.

It was insulting to him.

In retrospect, I can maybe see why.

That I was, maybe there was something paternalistic.

And it's like, if you had done a deed, it probably would have been better.

If you were like, let me take the squeegee and wipe the

whatever, maybe that'd be like, oh, that's a friend of you.

But it's like, I almost had this American guild.

I don't know what it was, but it's like, I'm going to do these guys a favor.

I'm going to grab this round of gas.

And this guy was having none of it.

Plus, back then, you're like, I wish I couldn't really afford it.

I'm glad I was

to have done it.

It was misplaced by my budget.

Yeah.

What else did you want to tell me about Syria?

I don't want to guide you too much.

I know you probably have some stories to tell me.

Who are these?

Is this that same place?

Yeah, that's Majid, who has the eight kids.

I hope these people are okay.

I mean, Syria hasn't been a very friendly place to be for the last 10 or 15 years

Yeah, I talked about the smugglers

Yeah, I mean there's just there's so much you can talk about I talked about a con air

Let me see

something I want to talk about this chair Yeah that is in every poor country.

Yeah, it is a child's

It takes a place of a table a chair.

It's in every outdoor like seating area in Thailand China Myanmar, everywhere.

It's this plastic chair.

Yeah.

How does that get everywhere?

That's a travel book right there.

Yeah.

Be the person who travels, you know, just to find that.

Follows that chair around the world.

Yeah, there is a sameness, even like certain cinder block buildings, you know, some warm parts of the world, there's a sameness to

in developing worlds.

Yeah, so there I am with a couple of Iraqi taxi drivers or guys who did business with Iraq.

Hello, Jim.

What are you drinking tea?

Drinking tea?

Yeah.

What's the tea culture there like in Syria?

Well, actually, the coffee culture is amazing.

The tea culture, I'm more of a coffee guy, but I just remember, in fact, I wrote it in my journal, having like Arabic coffee with cardamom in Damascus and feeling super high.

Like it's like a cool morning in the Middle East and you get your caffeine buzz.

And I would write like

about someday I'm going to look back on this moment.

Well, now it is someday and I'm looking back on that moment.

And there's something really thrilling about

sort of having a caffeine high in a new place and just sort of looking around and thinking, I am here.

And this is amazing.

I think sometimes you don't need an intoxicant or some sort of upper or downer to remind you of this, but sometimes it's sort of nice.

You know, maybe you take the shot of Uzo or you have a really strong cup of Turkish coffee that's just rich with sugar and cardamom.

And then it's morning and you're sort of starting to wake up and you realize you know nothing.

You have no idea you're going to eat a sheep's brain sandwich.

You know, you have no idea the next car that drives down the street is going to have a Batman symbol on it.

And it's just, those are the simple, and you can appreciate this.

Those are the simple moments that make travel worth it.

There's the bucket list, but then there's also those moments where it's just like, I am in a, nobody knows where I am.

Yeah.

And I am wide awake and anything could happen.

And I'm, I just feel so lucky.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're drinking some coffee.

Right.

Exactly.

You're like, and the tastes are so full because you're like, this is different.

I'm noticing it as you're noticing everything else around you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're right.

Nobody knows who I am.

That's a good way to put it too because it's like, or where I am.

And it makes it more exciting.

Yeah.

It's that, and I think this happens less often now because we live through our phones.

But just like anything could happen.

Nobody knows I'm here.

Nobody knows who I am.

I'm going to walk down the street and it's going to be super interesting.

And it is.

Yeah.

God damn.

How long did you stay in Syria for?

Three weeks.

Three weeks.

Was that the

month-long visa?

Do you remember?

I don't remember.

I honestly don't remember.

A lot of these places are 30 days.

Yeah.

It's like the standard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's that's probably what it was.

And I had to apply for it in Egypt

and then it was sort of an out-and-back thing.

Went back to Jordan.

But it is, it's easy to say because now it's sort of an offlamous country.

It's just one of my favorite places just because

I guess, and this is any place that has a bad reputation probably has super friendly people because they're just not jaded by tourists.

And people don't see you in a geopolitical way.

You know, it's just like, oh, you don't see this guy every day.

Right.

Who in this neighborhood knows English?

Let's get that kid who's been studying English and let's find out what this guy wants.

Yeah.

And that really happened in Syria.

And I don't know, it's like the Syrians I met were really educated too.

It was a dictatorship, but they had good education, just a lot of engineers.

I mean, it's that sort of old Bathist idea of,

I don't know, Soviet self-improvement or something.

But, and maybe that, maybe there's a little bit of 2020 hindsight, but I just have really fond memories of Syria.

And when all that violence broke out in the early 2010s, I was really sad because I met some really cool people there.

Was Damascus

a cultural center?

Like the way they say Beirut before all that was like the cultural hub of the Middle East.

Yeah, and Egypt, too.

Like even like the, you hear a call to prayer in Indonesia and odds are it was recorded in Egypt, you know, that like that.

That's, I mean, there's a huge population density there.

Beirut, definitely, because Beirut is practically Europe, right?

Yeah.

Very, very global.

Cairo is less so, but Cairo is just

a it's the pop culture center of the Middle East.

Damascus, there is some.

Like you read an anthology of Arabic writing, there'll be a few Syrians, Damascus-based people there.

Did you get to Aleppo?

I did.

I did.

This was kind of destroyed, right?

That was destroyed.

I went to the, I bought, I bought some silks in that market that was destroyed in the war.

I wrote a story about it.

I was like walking down the street, and this is before, it's so weird.

Like 24 years ago, there weren't iPods, right?

Some people traveled with some cassette tapes and a Walkman, right?

I heard sex machine coming out of the hotel room where I was, and I had missed music so much,

like the James Brown song, Sex Machine.

I missed music so much that I just stood outside the room and listened to it.

Like, I was so hungry for songs.

Like, I remember watching Fight Club in Cairo, and they play a Pixies song at the end, Where is My Mind?

And I just felt

like you don't feel this way anymore because you can listen to a library of music on your phone at any time.

My heart was so full when I heard the Pixies at the end of Fight Club because I hadn't heard that music in a long time.

I stood in the hall like some kind of pervert outside of somebody's Aleppo hotel room because I heard a James Brown song in Aleppo.

It's so funny, just like listening to it.

Yeah, no, like I was like, it was like, I feel so good.

Yeah.

I felt so American.

It was like the Star Spangled Banner times 100.

It's like, I'm just so proud that James Brown is from America and I'm just going to stand here until this song ends.

And

the kids out there don't understand because it was great to immerse myself in the Arabic music.

And there's some crazy stuff.

I bought some Arabic cassette tapes in various parts of the world, including Syria.

But

the fact that I hadn't, well, you and I have talked about going to Israel after being in the Arab world.

And then you see a woman in a bikini and it's like going through puberty again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So because you haven't been exposed to that,

it's the same with music.

It's like I hadn't heard any of the rock music that I loved.

And so suddenly, or the soul music, so suddenly I'm listening to james brown and i'm feeling as patriotic as i've ever felt just because i hear it in a leppo hotel room in the hotel hallway yeah and i'm just like i hope these guys don't open the door but in a way i don't care because i i haven't heard this song in a while you were like i know this song i'm just listening yeah it's like you're not doing anything creepy you're just like it looks weird but um

this is it this is like where you went to get in aleppo yeah and i'm trying to think of i got some very like arabic merchants or so like you talk to one guy and you buy something from him and he'll nod to the other guys down the way.

And pretty soon, everybody is trying to hustle you in because you're seen as a guy who wants to spend some money.

It's crazy.

You're like, when they, like, you get a suit in like Hong Kong or something like that, and you're walking out with your suit, they got a 10-like, you want a suit?

I'm like, no, I, I mean, I just got a suit.

Like, come on, get another suit.

Yeah, I'm full.

And when I was in Thailand last December, I got a suit.

It's an amazing suit.

Yeah.

But yeah, I got some silks.

I got some, like, some Syrian silks that I gave, I think, my mom and my sister, and they were amazing.

Um, and that place is gone.

It's a shame.

Damn.

Yeah, war sucks.

I heard one time, it just reminded me.

And by the way, I've said this, and it's such a good writing tool that we figured out at the

Luxembourg Gardens.

We're like, tell a story, remind me of a story, tell that story, remind me of a story, tell a story.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah, we should do a podcast that way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's already happened because, like, we've talked about Thailand and

South America.

Yeah.

I was landing.

I was trying to go to East Timor.

I had to land in West Timor or whatever in Indonesia.

Yeah.

And from the airport, got a cab to the to the hostel, to the one hostel I heard about, and a song, a Guns and Roses song came on.

I was like, oh, sick.

Yeah.

And the cab.

And then that ended.

And it was like a 30-minute drive.

A second Guns and Roses conquer.

I'm like, oh, this is the tape.

You're playing the tape.

Or they're playing on the radio.

And I was like, take the long way.

This is the fucking rules.

It just takes you back.

You haven't heard that shit.

It makes it so much richer.

Yeah.

And you don't want, you don't, you don't know what you're missing when you have a whole media library on your phone.

And I'm not complaining, but I sort of am, you know, because the beauty of listening to James Brown in a hallway in Aleppo,

it was a way that I could only feel in the year 2000.

Yeah.

The beauty of watching Fight Club in Cairo, which is amazing in and of itself because that's such a crazy movie, seeing it for the first time.

And then hearing the Pixies at the end, and it's just like, yeah, I just felt so good.

It's like meeting, it's it's meeting a part of yourself where you didn't expect to meet it.

How did they take that movie in Cairo?

That's a great question.

I mean, it's all about overthrowing governments and the society in general.

I mean, when everything's blowing up at the end, spoiler, when everything's blowing up, you had your time.

Right.

It's just like, oh, yeah.

And the happy ending of the world being destroyed is like, yeah, I wonder how they took that.

I wish I remembered.

I wish I remembered how they took that.

And maybe there weren't that many people in the theater and maybe it only ran for a week or two.

I actually saw the Green Mile in Cairo.

Remember that movie?

Yeah.

And like every time the actor mentioned God,

some pious guy in the audience was like, holla.

He was like really mad.

They had sort of this new age science fiction Stephen King take on God.

And so some pious guy in his Jalaba was like, he was reminding everybody in the theater that we're not going to have this Americanized, you know,

Stephen King prison idea of God, but he's going to remind us.

I don't like how they rename movies in other countries because it doesn't apply.

I saw

Groundhog Day in Israel, and they just don't have that holiday.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it was called, I'll See You Again Tomorrow.

Okay.

In Hebrew.

Oh, that's not bad.

That's not bad.

It's pretty close.

That could almost be its own Yubi Trippin' episode.

It was like movies you've seen in other places.

That's an idea.

Let's go.

Ideas.

Ideas from new episodes.

There we go.

Seriously.

No,

it's affecting.

Yeah, I I saw Pleasant Villain, Riga.

Where's Riga?

I saw Dude Where's My Car in Bombay.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

Why would they get any of that?

I don't know why they were showing Dude Where's My Car?

I love a cadence movie translated.

It's like, you're never going to get this.

Yeah.

Yeah, I have no idea.

I laughed until I cried.

Again, it was in that era.

It was the same year.

It was 2000.

It was in that same year where it was like a heroin injection of American culture.

And like all the references in Dude, Where's My Car, I have to rewatch that movie.

It's a very silly movie, but

yeah.

Yeah.

But I watched it in Bombay and it made me so happy.

Damn.

I fucking want to go out to Syria now.

No way.

Can I get there?

Do you think it's safe?

Probably not.

Kids out there, don't try it unless you like have a family member there.

I met a Swiss lady who was going to Iran.

She's like an

environmental activist now.

But I I was like, Iran?

She goes, I mean, you got to wear a scarf some places.

But she's like, those dangerous parts are like three out of 40.

Right.

So like, it's.

Well, I bet Iran is really friendly, too.

I bet you meet.

Again, another Islamic country that doesn't get a lot of Western tourists.

Not a lot of Americans.

But again, everybody has a cousin in America in Iran.

Because there's so many Persians in the U.S.

that, oh, I would love to go there.

Yeah, you rate people for their governments and then the people have nothing to do with that.

Not at all.

I mean, a quarter of this country voted for Trump.

A quarter of this country voted for Biden.

So, like, 75% of us are not that government.

Well, I've said before that the people most likely to judge me as an American on the other side of the world are Canadians and Brits, you know, because they have a very strong sense.

They sort of define themselves in contrast to the U.S.

Like, well, at the very least, there's an American there and they've done more embarrassing things geopolitically than we have.

But at the end of the day, oh my God, like that my taxi driver in Syria was so excited, you know, that he had an American in his cab.

And that's all over the world.

And it's NBA.

I had one in somewhere, maybe Myanmar, maybe somewhere.

It was like they're from America.

They're like, Schwarzenegger.

And I'm like, oh, wow.

Yeah.

He's not American, by the way, but okay, I get what you're saying.

It's like movies is what you mean.

Well, I'm not surprised that they were into Schwarzenegger.

I was surprised that they were literate in the Utah jazz.

Specifically, they were talking about this guy was a Utah jazz fan in Kamishli, Syria in the year 2000.

Wow.

And

I just thought that was cool.

Because at the end of the day, that's what people care about.

Do we know who other countries' leaders are or what their foreign policies are or even what their histories are?

Oh, they were a bad team back then.

Damn.

Oh, wait, that's now.

That's now.

That's now.

Okay.

Don't go back.

I think they're pretty good.

Okay, here we go.

The Jazz got off to a 15-7 start.

Not bad.

55-27.

Damn, that's pretty cool.

That's a good team.

Yeah, that's what they were talking about.

Yeah.

Oh, and then also Majeed, the guy with the eight kids, he's like, Magic Johnson is dead.

And I'm like, no, no.

He got AIDS, but he asked that, he's like, no.

He's dead.

You don't know this, but he's dead.

And so, like, I was sort of in an argument with the Syrian guy who

was just convinced.

It's like, you couldn't convince him that Magic Johnson was not dead.

25 years later, he's still alive, right?

He died.

Exactly.

So, so Majid and Kamishi's Siria 24 years ago is like, no, no, you didn't know?

Like, Magic Johnson is dead.

It's like,

Reader's Digest, Batman, Magic Johnson, the Utah Jazz.

Majid rules, first of all.

Yeah.

I think that's Majeed.

Yeah.

I think that's Majid and maybe his wife or his mom or something.

Careful.

You're going to insult him if it's

his wife.

I should have taken more pictures.

That's the crazy thing.

You have a roll of film and

it's expensive to your dirtbag sensibility.

And the pictures don't come out that well anyway.

And it's months before you can see what they look like.

Yeah.

And so I took like, I gave you all my serial pictures.

How many of them, like eight or nine?

Seven, eight, yeah, something like that.

The weird thing with pictures is you have to stop and interrupt the day to do it.

But so it's like, I have a memory right now.

I don't need this right now.

You know, this memory of this, but you will, I I mean, 25 years later.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You weren't going to remember the tapestry on his wall.

Yeah.

Well, I think James Brown moved my soul.

And that was a technological,

technologically rich moment because I didn't have any other options.

But at the same time, I have fucking eight pictures of Syria.

You know, James Brown, I hadn't heard James Brown in so long that it made me feel patriotic.

Yet.

This is like my third best picture from Syria, and it's a pretty awful picture.

Where'd you get that jacket?

That's a Patagonia.

Oh, really?

I worked in an outdoor store in Kansas when I was in my early 20s.

I still have that thing.

You do?

It makes me look like a character from Monsters.

No way.

You have that jacket?

Oh, I still have that jacket.

Yeah.

I have a lot of clothes.

You're not that way.

I have a lot of clothes that I've had.

I mean, no, no, no.

I live in a closet.

You live on a farm.

So you have way more ability to store things.

That's true.

That's true.

Wow.

You still have that fucking jacket.

I don't wear it a lot.

Raw material.

So, like, I love that.

Yeah.

You know, that's amazing.

Actually, I could write the story of, I still have the shoes that I wore on that trip because I have a sentimental relationship to them.

Yeah.

And so I could write a history in clothes.

I wrote a book about souvenirs.

You've read that book.

Yeah.

Small, easy read.

Clothes are a weird,

like, um, signifier of certain times in your life, you know.

So I've lived that coat, just like that copy of The Vagabond's Way has been to more countries than some Americans.

That coat has been all over the place, you know?

Yeah.

And it's possible I'm wearing that on the cover of Vagabonding.

It was the same trip, same year I took the picture on the cover of Vagabonding.

No.

No?

You're wearing a warming.

Oh, no.

I'm wearing that shirt.

I'm wearing that.

That's like a, yeah, I think that's like a North Face vented shirt.

Hold on, I can look it up here.

Oh, yeah, that's Egypt.

Yeah, that's the shirt.

I have those boots in my closet.

No fucking way.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah, those boots.

In fact, if you.

What kind of boots are they?

I should auction those off for charity.

They're Oslo.

A-S-O-L-O.

There's a bunch of people who have gone on to

better financial things than when they needed to read this book.

I am.

And who would pay some money for charity?

I wouldn't like to buy those boots for charity.

I have them.

I don't wear them.

Wow.

Yeah, actually.

What backpack we're using there?

That's an Eastern Mountain Outfitters.

I worked in an outdoor store when I was 20,

after after my first Vagabond trip to the van.

So I was 24, 25.

I was selling outdoor gear for a living, and I really got the job so I could get a pro deal, a discounted outdoor clothing.

I still own a lot of

the gear, including sleeping bags that I got during that time.

But yeah, no, I.

You go to REI ever?

Oh, you were asking.

I think it's EMS.

My wife loves REI, but that's EMS.

And so that's...

The backpack?

Yeah.

It's way too big.

Zane, our friend, gave me shit about that because it's like, dude, why are you carrying that much shit?

Through the desert, too, by the way.

It's like, it's like

jettison some things.

No, there's a sleeping bag in there.

Like, this is when I was still a little bit naive.

I was still a little bit green.

And so I carried a sleeping bag all over the Middle East and I only slept in it like seven times.

Yeah.

When I went to Ecuador, it was like, it was like, hey, we might need to go camping.

Let's bring like tents and stuff.

And then it hit me like, am I going to travel around for months with a maybe?

Or they probably have, it's a major city.

I can get a a sleeping bag there totally if I need it.

Never did.

Went to Kenya last summer, climbed Mount Kenya, bought a backpack in France, rented hiking poles, rented a sleeping bag.

It's so much better to just rent.

I met a friend in Guatemala, a hiker, a real hiker, he's Australian, and he said all these people go to Chimborazo and try to climb it, but it's all these rich people and they're dung.

They're like, I don't want this stuff anymore.

And he goes, I want to start a business just getting that stuff and then renting it to people.

There you go.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think there's so many, I'm sure this happens more in Kilimanjaro.

I climbed Mount Kenya last year.

It was my pen cap.

Where people come with a very specific idea of what it's going to be like.

When, in fact, just show up and somebody will rent you your gear and you hire porters to carry your stuff.

You don't need that much stuff anyway in that type of situation.

But this, yeah, I was so green.

I slept in the desert that night.

Wow.

This is actually my story from Marco Polo Din Go There, Be Your Own Donkey.

It's when I tried to buy a donkey and nobody would sell one to me.

So I just, they said, they said, be your own donkey, asshole.

Go, just go walk in the desert.

You don't need a donkey.

So I had this adventure in the desert, way, way overpacked.

What a cool pick.

Yeah, that's an EMS.

I think it's like Eastern Mountain, something or another.

I got it on a pro deal.

I still have that.

I still have that bag.

I'm going to give it to my nephew.

Damn, bro.

But yeah, it's funny.

I have an old Gregory pack that I used in the 1980s.

And a buddy of mine sells, he flips stuff on eBay, and it's worth like $300 to $500.

Like this old really banged up because there's people who are really into Gregory backpacks which is sort of an elite brand it's like an OG Spire backpack my osprey just started breaking yeah that I had through Asia through everywhere and then they're like they will fix it they'll and if they can't fix it they'll schedule new but it's like eight weeks and I'm like well I gotta have they sponsored yet Osprey no what the fuck it's my favorite backpack you've given them free advertising damn again yeah but I gotta get a new one and it's like then you gotta like decide like what you got to get the exact right leader so you can fit it on overheads.

They made it like a slightly bigger model of the one I have.

And I'm like, no, no, that's not going to work anymore.

I was at that, I was at a limit right then.

I use Tortuga.

Actually, I know the guy who started Tortuga.

And it's actually designed for travelers.

So many Europeans you see, and again, this is free advertising, but I love Tortuga.

Like you see these Germans and they're like hike the Alps backpacks and they're in Sri Lanka.

Whereas Tortuga, it's made for travelers.

And so you fit it in the overhead bin.

Right.

It's 30 or 40 liters.

It's designed not for camping in the woods, but for traveling the world.

And so it's nice.

There's a different one for woods backpacking.

That's a different thing.

Yeah.

For hiking that where you need like, like, like, um, you know,

granola bar pouches that you can like or your canteens or your hiking poles or whatever.

And when you travel, when you go to Syria or Thailand or whatever, you don't need that much.

And so just have a nice cube that you can put in the airplane that isn't going to be heavy.

That's another thing.

We, dude, we should design a backpack because

at least they should ask you.

They'd be like, what do you want?

I want a top loading and bottom loading possible.

So you don't have to like unload everything to get some or a total unzip so you can like see everything.

Detachable day pack is huge.

Okay.

Some of those straps to like hang stuff on, like wet socks.

What would you put on there?

Oh, yeah.

No, this is, and it's been a while since I've been super dirtbag backpacking.

So they should do several different levels.

And by the way, Osprey, you guys should sponsor him.

If not, we can talk to Tortuga because I know that Tortuga Fred is the founder of Tortuga.

He can design the Ari Shafir, maybe.

Really?

Backpack.

Yeah.

Cover it up with a marriage.

Talk to him about it.

No, but totally.

Like,

how many times have you hand washed your clothes in the sink and they're not dry yet?

And you got to go.

Like a little rack.

You can hang your socks on the back.

Yeah, we'll have to think about this.

Take notes.

Next time you're out on the road, think what could be.

what could be better about my pack right now?

Yeah, right, exactly.

You need a camelback pouch, but also to not take up space if you don't have a camel back

for like the hikings.

You need some sort of something you can access, like a water bottle where you can be walking and just pull it out.

You know,

damn, there's so much.

And a lot of backpacks have this, you know, but you have a little slide where you put your laptop or your electronics or stuff like that.

And actually, I've talked to other designers, like this one company, they gave me a test pack and there's like a special cubicle for your shoes.

Well, I have size 13 feet.

My shoes didn't fit in there.

And it's like, don't

try to be too smart.

Yeah.

Because like you design a pack with too many snazzy cubicles and it's like they're doing your thinking for you.

It's like at the end of the day, just give me a stuff sack and I'll put my socks in there and I'll put the stuff sack where it makes sense to put it.

You don't need to.

hyper engineer this place with your special compression chambers and apartments.

Just don't be smarter than me.

Pockets.

I like pockets, but not for any reason.

And just like, let me figure out what I want to put where.

Yeah.

but some separators that are in there that i can use like

walls up here even ones that are a velcro that it can be a separator if you want it or it can just be a you can pull it out a neck pillow if you if you want that so

that could be the challenge yeah you ever use a vacuum uh sealer vacuum like like compacts all your stuff no no but they have versions of that they have compressors with a strap they have vacuum have you used vacuum sealer well there's these little pouches and you put your stuff in then you just squeeze it and it'll let the air out but not back in until you unscrew it.

And they're just like way smaller.

My philosophy on that is that that's just a trick to make you pack too much.

So one advantage of like a 30-liter pack is that you have to make decisions.

And that really, you know, I traveled around the world with no luggage 14 years ago.

God, it feels like yesterday.

And once you make the decision, you realize you don't need that much, you know?

Yeah.

And so, yeah, I'm sure that the vacuum packing thing works in some situations.

But as long as you're not afraid to wash your clothes regularly, you don't really need that much.

Yeah.

And like rent your climbing gear or whatever.

Yeah, Peck Smart.

Okay, so now let's wrap this up.

There's a few things I get to usually in these episodes that I try to do.

I'll come back to it, but it's travel tip, just one.

You'll be on this podcast multiple times.

So it's one.

And then also a place that's been calling you.

Ooh.

Travel tip.

I would say,

oh man, God.

Slow down.

There's a billion of them.

There's a billion.

Go slow.

I think we talked before this interview, we talked about how as a default, people overdo it.

They try to do too many things at once.

Slow down, let the place travel through you.

And then pack light.

We were just talking about it.

It's a little odd that get a small pack and force yourself to make decisions because otherwise

you'll dream of yourself with this cool little travel accessory on the other side of the world, not realizing that you don't really need the travel accessory and that, yeah, actually they sell socks in Myanmar too.

Dude, when I left for Asia, I was like, well, let me get like 10 things of toothpaste because I won't be able to fuck it.

I'm glad I didn't.

It was like, you're going to be able to find toothpaste, you idiot.

Speaking of toothpaste.

Slow down, though.

I'm going to give that as the one.

Slow down.

Slow down for sure.

Yeah.

See things.

What do you mean, like less itinerary?

Or just like...

Yeah,

just know that you're going to be smarter when you get there.

You're going to be learning things every day.

And so if you have this really packed itinerary that is trying to jam a bunch in, then you're not realizing that you're going to be smarter when you get there.

And just walking around and talking to people is going to give you more options.

And if you're rushing from place to place based on what you thought you wanted to see, you're not going to have time for what you really want to see when you see it, you know, when you get there.

I had two things I wanted to do in Southeast Asia for everything, two and eight months.

Uh, when I went, it was uh Bagon and what are those big islands that go right up at the edge of Vietnam?

In Vietnam, yeah,

Ha Long Bay.

I only got to one of those two in four months, and it was like fine.

Yeah, for years, my first vagabond bonding thing through Southeast Asia, I had like everything, I had all these ideas, including Malaysia and Indonesia.

And it was 20 years before I got to Malaysia and Indonesia that I that I realized that it was better to throw that research away for the time being and just enjoy Thailand and Laos and Vietnam and later Myanmar than to try and do something based upon what I thought I wanted to see as opposed to.

And those countries are still going to be there, right?

You know, just eat your vegetables and live long, and there'll be time to go to all those places.

Yeah.

All right.

What did you want to say about where do you want to go?

Like, what's going on?

About where I want to go.

Yeah.

Well, I am.

Where I want to go is where I'm going.

So I'm going to Vanuatu

and to Bali.

You've never been to Bali.

Vanuatu is

down by Papua New Guinea.

It's in Melanesia.

Okay.

Melanesia?

Yeah, it's.

I'll do this instead.

Oh, there it is.

Oh, wow.

That's out there.

Yeah.

Vanuatu?

Yeah, Vanuatu.

It used to be called the New Hebrides.

I'm sure.

Oh, there we go.

Melanesian.

Yeah.

There it is.

And there's like...

There's like 80 islands and 200 languages spoken in Vanuatu.

Like every valley has its own language.

The Solomon Islands.

I think that's where New Year's gets rung in.

Yeah.

First or something.

Yeah, I didn't realize how far south it is.

Damn, that is

nowhere.

Yeah.

I've never been to the South Pacific.

Edge of the world, really?

Yeah.

And so Hawaii's up there.

I mean, I've been to Hawaii and I've been to New Zealand and Australia, but I've never been to the small islands of the South Pacific before.

I've never been to Melanesia, so it's a Melanesian culture.

Wow.

Fiji, that's whatever.

Yeah, I'm going to go to Fiji.

I'm going to spend like four nights in Fiji and then three weeks in Vanuatu.

Vanawatu, I mean, damn.

Yeah.

Looks really like relaxing.

Relaxing, not sort of in a.

Well, actually, Vanawatu is like some Australians go there for like a relaxing holiday.

It's really primitive.

And I don't mean that in the pejorative sense.

I mean that there's entire islands where there's just a few flushing toilets.

Oh.

And that you're going from village to village on people who live very traditional lives.

Actually, the missionaries have made it there.

It's a very Christian place.

It's also very animistic.

Animist.

Oh, yeah.

That's what I am.

Okay.

If I pick my religion, I think it's that.

Yeah, it's not bad.

Yeah.

It's land-specific, so it might be hard to be a true animist and live in Manhattan, New York City.

Yeah, I think there's so little soil and wood that you touch.

Oh, but like

Werner Herzog, if you watch much, Werner Herzog, he has a

documentary about volcanoes.

Like the island of Tana has this volcano.

It's one of three in the world where you basically look down right into the lava.

There's no, you can always go down and look down into the lava.

And that's affected the religion on that island.

Actually, that's where the cargo cults are.

Have you heard of the cargo cults?

Uh-uh.

Where they believe, it was affected by World War II an extent.

They believe in this guy named John Frum, who was going to say, I'm going to bring you a lot of stuff.

And then World War II soldiers came and gave them all this stuff.

They were these wealthy people.

There's a lot of black soldiers, and Melanesians have kinky hair and dark skin.

And so they were so impressed that these soldiers that looked like them were there with all of these supplies and machines.

Look it up.

There's a Wikipedia, long Wikipedia plate where a cargo cult, where basically they think the Messiah is basically going to be an American.

And instead of bringing them eternal life, he's going to bring them crates and crates of cool stuff.

I'm sorry if you're a cargo cult member and I paraphrase the religion wrong.

The religious movement is cheating.

Wow.

Okay.

Oh, this is going to be a Patreon episode.

for sure.

Oh, my God.

I would love to talk about it when I come back.

Oh, yeah.

When you get back from Vanuatu, for sure.

That's an episode.

Nobody, nobody's doing that.

I do have a friend who was in

Kabul when it was a,

what are those things called?

Where the government hires people to build it up?

Government contractors.

It was a government contractor town.

And they were like, bring out whatever, but like, Yoshi.

So I will have someone else who will be on this with Syria.

But also of a time that's no longer there.

He goes, that city is gone.

As soon as they pull back, that everyone he knows is like no longer there.

I would love to go back to Damascus.

I'm not sure.

I'm sure some parts of it are the same and some of it are not.

But yeah, no, Vanuatu is going to be very, very new to me.

Damn.

I've never been to a part of the world that's quite like this.

Damn.

How come this?

How come that?

I'm traveling in the footsteps of some Kansas filmmakers, Martin and Osa Johnson.

My wife, Kiki, and I are following in the footsteps of Martin and Osa Johnson, who went there 100 years ago and made some of the first documentary films about these parts of the world.

What, you've just been following these people and then now you're like actually following them?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Were you reading their stuff or watching their stuff?

No, they made movies.

They haven't always aged very well.

Like their movies, they made a movie in 1917 called Cannibal Isles of the South Pacific.

And so they went to the New Hebrides, now Vanuatu, looking for cannibals.

And they didn't really find them, but they sort of pretended that they found them.

It's a fascinating story.

So you're Jesusing them?

Jesus him.

Jesusing them?

Following them around the world?

Yeah, just

like.

It's a cool way to get around.

Martin Johnson traveled with Jack London, like in the 1900s and he married

Osa Johnson, who was sort of a vaudeville performer.

And like, I'm a travel writer married to an actress.

And so we're both from Kansas.

We're both like the same age apart.

And so we were just fascinated with them.

And so, well, it's just like, so you're into rugby, you go to Fiji or New Zealand.

You have different pretexts to go to place there's no way I would go to Vanuatu had I not been fascinated with this old Kansas couple that are sort of similar to me and my wife in a certain way um and lived 100 years ago

and so that's that's why I'm gonna go to Vanawatu

And you can edit the shit out of this, by the way.

I always feel like I ramble a little bit.

We get excited.

All right.

And we talked about it.

I talked to my mom.

She listened to a few episodes.

And she likes, I'm liking some of the feedback because it's making me realize.

Also, your feedback on it was interesting.

My mom was like, she listened to a couple.

She goes, I really liked them.

I didn't like this one about one place.

I won't say which one.

And I'm like, why?

She goes, he didn't make me want to go there.

Oh.

The other ones made me want to go there.

That's a good, yeah, that's a good

frame of operation.

This made me want to go to Sierra.

Yeah.

I know.

And I wish, there's a second search engine that I have to use, which is, is it safe?

And then is it safe for Jews?

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But whatever.

Anyway, everybody, these are two books you should get if you're at all interested in traveling at all.

This one, you should just buy the Vagabond's Way and just put it in your backpack and then just have it for when you're gone.

It's every one is a fucking, you see this is like a different,

you know, one, it's one per day for a year plus a leap year.

But it's just random.

It'll just get you thinking about traveling.

This is more preparing to get gone gone for a while.

So get vagabonding and read it.

This vagabond's way, I would just say just keep it in your travel backpack.

Oh, these are U.S.

bonds I found for my Bermitzva.

Oh, nice.

How much are they worth?

It took them like 15 years to accrue.

They're 50 and 25.

Now they're worth like 51 and 26.

Okay.

Okay.

Almost nothing.

But damn, I didn't realize I probably have stuff in here.

Nice.

This is an advanced paperback.

It's also out in paperback now.

I just saw it at the Barnes ⁇ Noble.

Oh, really?

It was not then?

It was a hardcover for about a year.

And it's in paperback.

My advice is before you even start, tape up these sides so they don't fucking fall apart.

Rolf, buddy, thank you very much.

You still have to do your podcast?

My interview with you?

They're just in general.

You still do it?

Oh, no, I'm still doing it.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Deviate.

I'll put it in earlier, too.

Deviate with

Rolf Potts.

Check it out.

I'm on there four times, four times.

You're one of the all-stars.

I think you've been like seven or eight times.

Damn, really?

And sometimes I rerun them.

Like, I take your podcast and make them my own.

So, you, you, there's a lot of Aria on there.

By all means, go for it.

People love my Aria episodes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We really, we get into it.

It makes it, yeah.

Um, it's me and Tim probably.

You and Tim, maybe Andrew McCarthy.

Um, Andrew McCarthy, the actor from the 80s movies.

Yeah, no, he's a travel writer.

You didn't know that?

Andrew McCarthy, the actor from the 80s movies?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

He's,

He's written like two really good travel books.

They were thinking of the same guy.

I went through the same thing.

You're like, I'm seeing your face.

I know.

Like there's these awards, the Lowell Thomas Awards.

And one year it's like Andrew McCarthy won the grand prize.

It was like 15 years ago.

And I asked my friend, who's this Andrew McCarthy?

He's like, it's the actor guy, the pretty and pink guy.

And I'm like, no, not the pretty and pink guy, the travel writer.

Who is this guy who won the grand award?

And he's like, the dude is a travel writer.

What?

and um and i've become friendly with him and uh he he writes really smart travel books uh and he's and it's one and the same what where does he live he lives uptown he lives in manhattan what oh dude you got to connect us then yeah i'm happy to yeah he wrote a book i'm sorry i'm in the middle of my mind being blown i had no idea everybody knew this i thought everybody knew this yeah no i did a live event with him in wichita kansas like i like i the same childhood town where i would watch mannequin on the big screen i had

and we talked about travel.

Yeah, no, you should get him on your podcast.

Yeah, for sure.

For sure.

And it's not just like a celebrity writing about his travels.

He writes smart travel books and he travels in a thoughtful way.

Wow.

Yeah.

I'll come down from this in like an hour or two.

Yeah.

All right, Rolf, thank you very much.

The best episodes of these have always been the ones where I'm like

longing.

And this has left me that.

So thank you very much.

And I'm sorry it can't be for a country that's easier to travel to.

I cannot recommend Syria for everybody, especially people with an Israel connection, unfortunately.

But there are these countries still available and these places still available.

I just don't know what they are.

There's a version of it.

There's a place somewhere in the world that people think is dangerous, like Iran or some other place, where you go there and you meet an everyday person.

And it's.

I bet if you went to Oskemon, Kazakhstan, it might be okay.

I bet.

I went to,

where's the place?

Where's the main town?

Almaty.

I went to Amati.

Yeah.

Loved it.

Damn.

Yeah.

You've been everywhere.

All right.

Yeah.

All right.

Sorry.

I feel like we ramble a bit, but yeah, we did.

It was still fun.

Yeah, it was still fun.

All right.

Thanks for tuning in.

Please subscribe and check out Rolf's Podcast DVA where he talks about this in a far more thoughtful way than I do and less less dick jokes.

Till next week, everybody.

Thank you very much.

Well, that is the episode, everybody.

What a cool trip.

What a cool trip from Rolf Potts.

Cereal, like the right way, though, too.

God, can you imagine going like that?

Damn, if you think I'm a high-level traveler, I'm fucking, I'm like a six and a half.

I'm like a six and a half.

Maybe a six.

Maybe a six.

And Rolf was like a nine, two.

There's other guys that are even more wild.

They're just nuts, nuts.

Hey, I'm here on the guest side of the over over shoulder shot.

Check this out.

More souvenirs.

Oops, that's some money that I haven't put up yet.

Thank you, Rolf Potts, for coming in.

Don't forget to pick up his book, The Vagabond's Way, that's available right now.

You might also

be aware or already have a copy of Vagabonding.

That's a book you buy for a friend.

If you're ordering The Vagabond's Way, pick up a copy of Vagabonding for a friend.

That one's like 180 pages.

This one is 366 pages.

Handwriting a letter at home is an iconic travel right.

August 18th.

One can travel in a different modes on a single journey.

Yeah, yeah, true.

Improvised communication is part of the journey.

Buses bring you into the rhythms of local life.

June 27th.

Oh, hell yeah, you're right about that one, Rolf.

There are train

buffs.

There are bus buffs.

A bus is simply a way to get from

place to another cheaply.

Thomas Swick, the joys of travel.

Damn.

Nobody ever waves at buses.

Canadian novelists don't club equip.

They move more.

Oh, wow, yeah, you're right.

Away from home habits.

Your recept away from home habits, your receptivity deepens.

Ooh, here's a quote I fucking

marked for some reason.

In every long journey, there is a moment when you perceive that travel has truly begun.

It does not usually happen at the beginning, but when you feel that your soul has fled from the habits of daily life.

Javier Riverte.

Corazon de...

Whatever.

There.

Interesting.

What is it?

Ooh, Roger Waters.

Signed.

I did not seen that.

Signed ticket.

That's for Tony Hinchcliffe.

Don't tell him.

Anyway, get this book The Vagabond's Way right now.

Check out his podcast, Deviate with Rolf Potts.

These are all bills that I've gotten a lot from

people who sent in that I read on the Patreon.

Patreon.com/slash

You'll be tripping.

I should put that old episode of Rolf and me in Paris

on the Patreon.

I've moved over all the travel-related Patreons from the old one onto this.

So there's like a backlog of stuff.

Yeah, somebody sent me this one, which is, I don't even remember.

People's Republic of China, a bill they made during COVID.

I wish you guys could see it.

It's so cool.

What is this one?

I forget.

I did see a Cambodian one in a bodega on a mirror.

And I was like, what's that from?

And he said, Cambodia.

I almost gave him $5.

I might go back there.

I might go back there.

Egyptian money.

Yeah, people are sending it.

If you do want to send something in, a postcard from your travels, not from America, but from foreign, send it to

151 First Avenue, number 49, New York, New York, 10003.

This is a

shirt a fan sent me a long time ago.

I saw it at a cock rooster fight in

East Timor.

Futu Manu, the bound foot.

Yep.

It was a

whatever group.

Political group.

Frente.

Friendlin.

Excuse me.

It's such a fronte revolución de Timor-leste independente.

Yeah.

Independente.

Frente de revolución y timor

independente.

What's the L?

I don't know.

Today's episode was produced by Your Mom's House Network.

It was edited by Alan Caffey

and

some version of Alan Caffey and Chris Larson.

Chad's also probably involved.

Listen, everybody's farting around everybody there.

So

even if you weren't involved in making it, you were involved in the farting process that gets people creatively juiced up.

The editing they did you see the last week on the oh, I gotta tell you next week is the last week where they Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-liter jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called a truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.

I did an uh with Juicy Harvey with his poem.

It's Chad's idea.

Great idea.

Good editing.

Makes it more fun.

Juicy Harvey made me realize that we got to have a guesties.

At the end of the year,

we'll do like a guest awards.

It's coming up.

Best guess.

And fuck it.

For real.

He must be on that list.

Harlan.

Don't forget my pre-sale starts on Wednesday at 10 a.m.

local time.

Possibly 12, but probably 10 a.m.

local time.

Use promo code ARI.

These are the only cities I'll be doing in 2025.

It's just January, February, and March, and one week in April.

In alphabetical order.

Anchorage, Atlanta, Austin, Brea, Calgary, Chicago, Denver, Edmonton, Fort Lauderdale, Nashville, Orlando, Pittsburgh,

Portland, Providence, Salt Lake, San Antonio, San Jose, Seattle, Tahoe, Tampa, and Vancouver.

See if I know what.

January is Pittsburgh, Providence, Salt Lake,

maybe San Antonio.

February is Tampa.

What else we got?

San Jose maybe in there.

Denver probably.

March is Calgary.

No.

April is Seattle, Vancouver.

Edmonton, Calgary.

Calgary, Edmonton.

Anyway, whatever, guys.

The point is, go to ArishyaFear.com for tickets.

Please subscribe.

We're almost at 100,000 subscribers.

Pretty fucking cool on YouTube.

Or wherever you're listening.

If you're listening on Spotify, subscribe there, too.

I don't give a shit.

Next week,

the great Irish storyteller Tommy Tiernan comes on the podcast.

And we go to Somalia.

It's a dark one.

I did not mean it that way.

It is a dark one.

There's more money the guy gave me that I have here.

But what's this one?

I was trying to deepen it up.

Oh, yeah, that's already there.

It's tough.

You can't tell

where they're from because it's not written in English.

That's Korea.

That's North Korea.

Right?

Father and the Son.

I might be wrong.

But it's definitely the same as that.

Also, I only put one up.

I need some Indian.

Oh, I had rupees.

Somebody gave me rupees, I thought.

Could be this.

Could be that.

Ooh, no, that's Egypt.

Romania.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mexico, of course.

Okay.

Anyway, guys, that's the episode.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Please subscribe.

Sign up for the Patreon.

Patreon.com slash Ari Shafir.

Send me your postcards from wherever you are traveling around the world.

Postcards only.

Or something thin enough to just like be some bills.

Don't go crazy.

Don't fucking spend a lot of money on it.

But if it's like cheap, the Cambodian money was literally under a quarter.

I might give him five bucks for that one.

Because we're definitely going to do an episode in Cambodia.

I might be the guest.

O'Neill would be a good one for that.

Guys, hope you had a good time.

Until next week.

Oh, Syria.

Assalamu alaikum.

No.

Yeah, that's probably that.

I'll take him something.

All right.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

See you next week.