Backpacking 2007: Navanit Arakeri's travels

Backpacking 2007

Navanit Arakeri's travels through South America, Africa, and Asia.

March 7, 2007, La Paz, Bolivia

Mountain-biking

5000 meters above sea-level, the air is so thin you're left gasping for

breath at the smallest exertion. We started off at this hight and

ended up at almost sea-level after 70 Kms of high-speed biking on

the "World's Most Dangerous Road. "

This is almost the hight of Mount Kilimanjaro (5895 m) and it's

freezing.

The ride starts off on paved roads with beautiful S-curves that we

tried to take without using brakes. We had to lean in pretty heavily

for that and a couple of riders took a spill. One guy ended up within a foot off of a 100 meter drop.

That really ratched up his risk aversion, and he rode his breaks all the way down.

The gravel section began just as it started sleeting and a thick fog rolled in. That meant the trail was

much more treacherous than normal, so even the most intrepid gave the curves and the sheer cliffs

some respect. Once the clouds lifted, the real fun began. With unnerving speeds and little control we

negotiated curves that were slippery, sheer, and unbanked. There were at least a dozen instances

where I would have gone over the edge if I had not leant enough or if I had touched the brake a

fraction of a second too late.

This happens to be the highest mortality-rate activity I have participated in, with 11 deaths in 2

years. There are no backup chutes here.

The mountains here are rugged and young. The peaks are snow-capped and the cliffs are full of wa

terfalls with invisible bottoms. Classic tropical stuff . The beauty is staggering. The sides of the

mountains are covered with primary and secondary growth forests. These are home to many species

of monkeys and birds. Unfortunately, trying to spot animals while riding has killed many a rider, so it

was strongly discouraged.

After about 5 hours of hard riding and a few river crossing, we were back at sea-level where the

breathing was easier. We cooled off at a resort with beer, lunch, and showers.

Tomorrow I go off to the Salar De Uyuni which has one of the most beautiful landscapes in the

world. It's a 3 day excursion in a 4WD. Photos when I'm back.

Salar De Uyuni and the Dessert

This trip was my main reason for visiting Bolivia. It's a grueling 3-day excursion through the salt

fields of Bolivia and the dessert on the Chile-Bolivia border. It offered one of the most spectacular

and bleak landscapes I've ever seen.

I took the bus+train combination from La Paz to the small town of Uyuni from which all of the tours

begin. There I met up with the rest of the group who were to go with me in the Toyota four wheel

drive along with the driver and cook. My group had two Israeli girls (one of them was Sacha Baron

Cohen ' s cousin), a couple from Slovenia, a British girl, the driver, and the cook. The Slovenians and

the Brit were very experienced travelers, having been around the world over many years. All of them

were really cool, none of them complained about anything during the whole trip, and maintained

good spirits even during the worst parts.

From Uyuni we went into the salt fields themselves and entered a small town that processed the salt

and exported it out.

There we ran across playful baby Llama.

The town was pretty boring otherwise. There wasn't much " processing " of the salt. They heated it,

filtered it, packed it, and shipped it.

We went deep into the Salar after this. The girls wouldn't let me roll down the windows, so I sat on

the roof of the SUV for about 15 minutes. This was about 14 minutes too long and I ended getting a

cold the next day because of this ( or what everybody claimed was because of this ) . But it was the

greatest 15 minutes in the world at the time. There is no sense of scale on the salt flats. Everything is

flat and the horizon is identical everywhere. With the wind blowing and the Toyota traveling at 60

mph, lying on the roof was very exhilarating.

Soon we passed the salt flats and entered the dessert proper. This area of the world is the driest in

the world. The landscape is martian and beautiful. The sunset lit up the gravel and surrounding

mountains, lending a surreal air to the whole thing.

We stopped early at a small town the first day. The next day we hit the lagoons:

These lagoons are high up in the Andes and are filled with various minerals which lend them a dis-

tinct color. The surrounding mountains remain dry of course.

Then we ended up on the final lagoon. This one was rich in Borax which made it red in color. Evi-

dently the color changes with the wind, so it's called Laguna Colorado (I don't really understand how

the wind changes the color, but there it is) . Many more Flamingos here.

Also some Llama on the shore.

This is again at almost 5000 meters above sea-level. It's cold,

dry, and freezing. We ended up staying in a hostel near the

lagoon. Dinner was good, with an Israeli card game and wine.

The next day was even dryer with absolutely no vegetation

and wildlife. There were some rocks sculpted into weird

shapes. One of them into the shape of a tree:

We ended up back in Uyuni late in the evening, so I spent the night there and took the bus back to

La Paz the next day. Many of the folks I had met in La Paz were all doing the tours during the same

3 ! day period as I, so we would keep meeting at the different venues. Ultimately one of the Irish folks

even ended sitting next to me on the bus back to La Paz.

The experienced travelers usually take a healthy dose of Vallium on any long bus trip. This allows

them to tune out the bad stuff ( cold, vibrations, noise ) while still being able to snap into action if

there's an emergency. I declined the kind offer for a Vallium and still managed to sleep well.

March 20, 2007, Amazonia, Peru

I'm deep inside the Peruvian Amazon at the moment. I'm using a satellite link to write this ( the ping

to google.com is almost 2 seconds ) . The place is in the famous Manu Biosphere Reserve in eastern

Peru, close to the border with Bolivia and Brazil.

The drive here took more than 12 hours, even though we were only 100 miles or so from Cusco from

where we left. The roads are through the Peruvian Andes, and since it's raining, they are frequently

blocked by landslides. Luckily there are dedicated bulldozers that clear the debris.

I'm staying at the Manu Learning Center - a base station for researchers studying the rainforest.

There is no electricity here, except for brief bursts & such as now, from battery banks that are hooked

up to solar panels. Everything else is here is very comfortable though.

The rainforest here has both secondary and primary growth ( which is why it is of interest to re -

searchers ) . I love the primary growth forests. The diversity here is incredible, with more than a 100

species of trees in just a single 100 meter traverse inside the forest.

The birdlife is spectacular, with Macaws and rare trumpeter birds easily seen in the shores and for -

ests.

The animals are much harder to spot. The area is home to many Tapirs, Peccaries, and Jaguars. I've

trekked deep into the forest only about five times so far and I've seen footprints and other signs of

these mammals, but I haven't spotted a single one so far. They're usually active at dawn and dusk, so

we're planning a night time excursion this week.

April 16, 2007, Photoset from Amozonian Peru

A Bothrops Atrox we almost stepped on. This pit viper is the cause of more human fatalities than

any other reptile in the Americas. And a beautiful coral snake we did step on. It then proceeded to

rise and wave its tail at us & trying to make us believe it was the head. This was around midnight, and

the flash was used:

Sunrise over the Upper Madre De Dios. The river goes on to become the mighty Madeira, the long -

est tributary of the Amazon river.

A Tarantula in the bedroom and a three-toed sloth hanging on to a branch with one arm:

A wedge-billed hummingbird resting in the sun, and two woodcreeper chicks begging for food:

The really unusual Hoatzin, and home for a month:

April 18, 2007, Tracks,Amozonian Peru

Tracking animal footprints is really fun once you get to know the subtle differences between various

prints. We placed many track traps (specially moistened and conditioned mud) across the rainforest

and we captured many prints of rare mammals.

We would often go out in teams over different parts of the day. On slow days the advance team

would often create fake prints with their knuckles and fingers. The second team would then report

"Peccaries with unusual toe formations" etc. You had to be there.

Detecting and identifying prints is pretty difficult because they can be indistinct and/or washed-out

because of wind or rain. In addition to the print itself, one needs to look at the gait, stride length,

and how much the animal "dug" into the mud (thus allowing us to gauge its weight).

I have only included photographs below that were from high-quality prints that were easy to identify.

Jaguar. These prints were only a few hours old & we can tell because there is no rain damage, and it

stopped raining only a few hours before we recorded this:

An example of an indistinct print where we had to use gait and stride to make the identification.

This one is from an Ocelot:

Crab - eating Raccoon, and Capybara prints on the river shore:

Puma prints:

Those are the better tracks we found. There were also other animals such as Tapirs and Peccaries,

but they were so common, I didn't take photographs of the prints.

If you find prints boring, here's a Manu Poison - Dart Frog. These little frogs have one of the most

potent toxins on earth oozing through the skin on the top of their body. The poison comes from the

build up of Formic acid and other acids that are plentiful in ants and termites which make up the

frogs' primary diet.

April 19, 2007, Randomness and the Rainforest, Peru

I really enjoyed my time in the rainforest. I enjoyed it so much that I thought long and hard to ex-

tract the properties that contributed to that. This post is about those properties. Near the end I ex-

plore some career insights that derive from these properties.

It is very, very primal

Starting out on a trek, machete and flashlight in hand, the feeling that you are doing what one of

your ancestors did thousands of years ago is unshakable. Tracking the sounds, smells (peccaries give

out a distinct odor), and footprints of these mammals requires every sense to be on full alert. I don't

think my mind has been this stimulated in a long time.

Doing this at night is even better, every neuron in your brain is screaming at you to get back into

your cave (ultimately, this signal is accurate, the rainforest truly is a inhospitable place). The darkness

puts your brain on a even higher alert state and every sound and movement is magnified.

This feeling of "primality" never really leaves you. The tracking and hiking experience is probably

very similar to the hunting experience that our ancestors would feel regularly. It isn't too much of a

stretch to say that our brains have evolved to consume exactly this sort of stimulation [1] .

Non-Linear Stimulation

There's a large component of luck involved whenever you go out. Some days you'll see a string of ex-

otic animals, other days you'll be lucky if you see a wasp. This random, intermittent, and non-linear

stimulation contributed significantly to my enjoyment for two reasons:

1 . The simpler of the two reasons is that humans respond to irregular, non-linear reinforce-

ment much better than they do to regular, linear, reinforcement. See any major work by Skinner to

see this. He did some amazingly innovative experiments with Pigeons on this very topic (he did take

the idea too far though).

This is also one of the reasons that makes gambling so addictive [2].

2 . The second reasons is a little more ambitious and largely speculative. I'm going to claim that our

minds are non-linear systems that respond best to non-linear, intermittent stimuli. This is a much

stronger statement than the first one because it includes all forms of stimuli (danger, pain, stress,

etc.) and not just positive reinforcement.

There are various arguments to support this position. I will go over these in a separate essay (key-

words: habituation, evolutionary psychology, power-law, ...), but for now let's just take it as a working

assumption that non-linear, intermittent stimuli are what makes our brain tick.

Adventure

The sense of adventure is palpable every-time you go out. Going out alone to look for a 4 meter long

boa constrictor is not something that your brain is going to take lightly even if you don't care much

for snakes (I happen to like them) .

In some of the cloud-forests with extremely large ferns, it is very easy to imagine a dinosaur after the

next bend. As mentioned before, the feeling of danger never really leaves you. Add to this the spec-

tacular low-hanging clouds and emergent trees and the image gels into one that an explorer in the

days of the Incas would have seen.

Crossing angry streams (sometimes, needing to jump into frothing water hoping there is a rock un-

derneath) and deep crevices can be extremely challenging. All the while knowing that a single mis-

step and a broken ankle will leave you sprawling in the dark with help being hours away (I did a lot

of stuff alone).

Even while navigating the large rivers, there are fast-moving logs and well hidden sandbars that need

to be accounted for.

I've done a lot of adrenaline pumping activities (sky-diving, bungee-jumping, white-water rafting,

etc.). But for the sheer sense of adventure and awe, this beats everything.

Career Insights

Ok, so what? Well here's the thing: I hate doing anything on a regular basis or for a long period of

time. I don't like sticking to routines. But in the rainforest I was always eager to go back to the same

set of trails. Even after a long day of trekking, I would be happy to go out at night for hours at a time

, to the point of exhaustion. I did this for a month without wavering.

My theory (and the insight) is that earlier, in the regular world, I was trying hard to randomize my

exposure to a steady environment . I would try and break routines, keep irregular hours (ask my col-

leagues) , completely change areas of focus (in school) etc. That was the only way I could stave off

boredom.

In the rainforest, I had steady exposure to a random environment . And I couldn't get enough of it. This

combined with the non-linear stimuli argument is making me think about whether it is a good idea

to get involved in stuff that has a strong component of randomness built into it (sports, stocks, field

biology, etc.).

Of course, I haven't controlled for novelty, great company, and coffee. But I think it goes beyond

that.

Notes

[1] I believe this is one of the reasons men like to drive. Driving involves keeping an eye out for mo-

tion all around you, listening for horns and sirens (both of these resemble looking for prey), and all

the time making sure you're under the speed-limit and avoiding getting caught by a cop (similar to

avoiding large predators) . I can't speak for women, I'll just say that all the evolutionary models say

that, mostly, men hunted and women gathered (hunte-gatherer lifestyles).

[2] The resemblance to gambling is not all that far-fetched. The non-linear stimuli even resulted in

some superstitious pattern-recognition which shows up frequently while gambling. We got lost once

and ended up seeing some exotic animals. After that we started to try and get lost (on purpose )

going off trail without any markers in the hope that this had something to do with seeing exotic

animals. It didn't work of course.

April 25, 2007, Machu Picchu, Peru

Photoset from Machu Picchu. If you want historical details see the wikipedia entry.

April 26, 2007, South America Nuggets

These are some quick notes to wrap up South America.

1. Voodoo. There are many indigenous tribes in the rainforest. Some of these remain uncontacted by

western civilization, while others have been exposed heavily. I met a famous ethnobiologist and an-

thropologist at the research station and we had an interesting conversation about one of the tribes

he had studied well: the Machiguenga.

The concept of voodoo did not exist in these tribes before contact with western civilization. Back

then, the spiritual aspects of their life was intricately connected to the rainforest. In those days there

were relatively stable and equal communities. If there was any inequality, it was connected to such

things as how many more boars a hunter killed relative to his peers. The inequality was a couple of

standard deviations from the mean at the most.

Once the tribe was exposed to the western world and associated material goods, inequality increased

considerably and suddenly. The anthropologist gave the following example:

1. Person A goes to town and buys himself a radio. This is a highly desirable object and his social

status shoots up immediately in the community.

2. Person A sees Person B giving him the evil ! eye for some reason.

3. Person A happens to fall ill.

In the earlier days, the illness would have been explained away with the suggestion that the rainfor-

est gods were angry or some such explanation. Now, however, with his increased social status, Person

A invokes Voodoo and basically explains the illness by saying:

"Person B was so envious of me and my new found radio that he cast a voodoo spell on me."

This belief is held very firmly. When the rainforest gods were invoked, a quick herbal remedy would

be found to heal the illness. Now that Voodoo is considered the cause, no serious attempt is made to

cure the illness. Instead, Person A casts a Voodoo spell on Person B and a tit-for-tat revenge cycle

begins.

All this even though Person A will readily admit that he hadn't actually seen Person B do any real

voodoo to begin with.

Note that when inequality went from a well-behaved gaussian distribution to a scalable power-law

distribution (in fact a variation of a pareto distribution), the human brain's causal inference engine

seems to break down. The stock market and global warming are other examples where our causal

inference engines seem to be severely strained.

2. The Machiguenga people have words to describe counting only up to three (four is now getting

into the language) and they use the equivalent of "many" for anything higher than three. However, if

one of them has eleven chicken today and only 10 tomorrow, he " ll know that one is missing. While

the words for numbers aren't well developed, the rest of the language is very rich and complex.

3. Peruvian food is one of the most richly varied and tasty in South America. They have more kinds

of fruit than I can remember, many not found or even exported outside Peru. There are also more

than 50 kinds of potatoes alone.

4. High altitude decreases alcohol tolerance. I found this out the hard way in La Paz.

5. There's a cool bot fly in Amazonia that lays its egg in your hair. The egg hatches into a larva which

proceeds to burrow into your head and eat your flesh. If left alone, it will eventually become an adult

and fly away. However, the larva can be coaxed out using nicotine. Many people had these at the re-

search station. I got lucky, even though I went out at night regularly.

6. South Americans dance incredibly well. Every one of them claims they can't dance, but when the

music begins, they dance with such fluidity and grace of movement that you'll stop whatever you're

doing and watch. The worst dancers here are better than the best dancers I've seen in the US.

7. Clubs in La Paz are wild. After midnight you'll have people dancing on the very table you're eating

on.

8. I met a lot of travelers who had visited Argentina. Every one of them wanted to go back. Some

wanted to work and live there for an extended period as well. People who've been to Buenos Aires

cannot stop talking about it.

9. The most interesting travelers are at the more remote locations. Bolivia had lots of interesting

tourists who had been around the world.

10. The people of Columbia and Venezuela are pretty happy.

When I left South America, I felt I still had a lot to see and experience. Next on my list are Argen-

tina, Costa Rica, and Brazil. I'm continuing to learn Spanish and that should greatly enhance the

quality of my experience.

That's it from South America for now. Hope you enjoyed reading these as much as I enjoyed writing

them.

June 14, 2007, Zanzibar,Tanzania, East Africa

Historic Zanzibar, a mixture of Arab, Persian, Portuguese, Indian, and British influence, packs a lot

of culture and tradition in its two tiny islands. Zanzibar is only 20 minutes by air from Dar Es Salaam

and is easily accessed by ferry as well.

The first settlers arrived in Zanzibar in 1000 AD, and some of the historic trade routes are still ac-

tive while it remains one of the largest exporter of spices to this day. Swahili, the de-facto language

across East Africa has its roots in Zanzibar.

The ancient separation from the African mainland also led to high endemism in its animal and plant

populations.

Stone Town is one of the older cities in the world and is a World Heritage Site.The first day I visited

Jozani Forest, home to the endemic and endangered Zanzibar Red Colobus Monkey:

The next day I explored Stone Town:

Though I'm not sure it's really made of stone anymore:

There isn't much sense of history here anymore. The old alleys and buildings are nice, but even La

Paz, Bolivia has a stronger sense of character oozing from its streets and markets. Here the old slave

trading spots have been converted to souvenir shops or modern cafes and the old stone buildings

house internet cafes.

It was still worth the visit though.

June 26, 2007, The Lion and the Impala,Tanzania

One day a solitary Lion crept up on an Impala and was about to eat him when he decided to clear

something up.

"Why do I find that you are always eating? You begin the day at dawn and begin eating immediately

after visiting the watering hole with your herd. Then you eat all day, even in the hot mid-day sun!"

The Impala, shocked at seeing the Lion, decided to answer and stall for time.

"We need to eat all day to make energy and live, for that is our role, and the role of all animals!"

The Lion crept closer. "Ah, but you don't see us, the Lions, Cheetahs, and the Leapords eating all the

time. We eat once in a while and spend the rest of the time playing and thinking ."

The Impala thought he saw the flaw: "Yes, but you cannot survive without us! "

The Lion pounced and killed the Impala: "There's some truth in that. But we can always eat a Ze-

bra."

This is modeled on Aesop ' s Fables. Anybody who's been to the plains of Africa will notice this fun-

damental difference. I think there are some interesting parallels to the two models in different fields.

For instance, how does this apply to:

- Entrepreneurship

- Wealth creation techniques (sudden/intermittent vs. "picking pennies in front of a steamroller")

- Health & Fitness

- Generalists vs. Specialists

What other systems have this relationship?

June 26, 2007, Udzungwa and Ruaha National Parks,Tanzania

Udzungwa National Park

I didn't get to spend too much time here, but I got some nice photographs. Even though the loca-

tion is celebrated for its diversity, the numbers don't even come close to the diversity in Amazonian

Peru (locations close to Iquitos in Peru hold the world records).

With the reduction in biodiversity there is the associated increase in per-species biomass. This fol-

lows from energy conservation principles and is visible in most efficient ecosystems. Redwood for-

ests in California have very little diversity and the biomass is concentrated in the giant trees. At the

other extreme is Amazonia where the largest monkeys are about half the size of the average primate

in Africa - the biomass is distributed over a much larger number of species.

Ruaha National Park

I got to spend three wonderful days in the remote Ruaha National Park. Ruaha and the surrounding

protected ecosystem is driven by the Great Ruaha River. Unlike the northern parks, Ruaha has only

one rainy season and animals gather in high concentration at the river for water. This is the dry sea !

son. The combined area of Ruaha and the surrounding protected ecosystem is larger than France.

The park is also difficult to access, so it's mostly deserted and I ran into only four or five other vehi-

cles in the three days that I spent there. The landscape is arid and desolate. The road to the park

gradually began to descend as we headed into the Great Rift Valley:

I had hired a 4 0 4 Nissan and an experienced driver for the entire three days. However, this was a

common sight over the three days:

Luckily the driver was a mechanic who ran a garage back in town, so he always managed to get it go-

ing again. He would get extremely hot and tired everytime he went under the hood so he would ask

me to drive for a bit. Driving a 4x4 through the African plains is an experience that I'll never forget.

The sense of power combined with the stark beauty of the landscape and the underlying danger

around us made all my senses come alive.

We saw many animals:

One aspect of the landscape that really troubled my was how dry, desolate, and barren it appeared.

Here I was standing in an area not far from which the earliest signs of human evolution have been

discovered, and I could not begin to imagine how Hominids could survive here. There were signs of

course; plentiful herds of herbivores and healthy populations of carnivores, all with large biomass

comparable to humans. There were also parrots, which indicated fruiting trees nearby, though I

could never find any.

But, for the most part, this is what the African plains look like:

Only once I was back in Dar Es Salaam and reading Origins Reconsidered by Richard Leakey did I

realize I had made a classic mistake. Quoting Leakey:

"The images we all have of the great plains of Africa, darkened by huge migrating herds, are indeed

dramatic. So powerful are they that we tend to project them into the past, thinking that they must

have always been like that. ... [] ... In fact, the great plains of Africa and the immense herds on them

are relatively recent aspects of the African environment..."

Further reading showed that early-humans lived in gallery forests, close to water sources. It must

have looked a lot more like this back then:

I want to visit again in the rainy season when the area is lush with fresh leaves and flowers and mi-

grating birds alight on the river.

July 12, 2007, Looking Ahead

I just completed a class V white-water rafting stretch near Mombasa, Kenya. Mombasa is an old

coastal town in Kenya, with architecture going back to the 15th century and even earlier. Photos of

some of the buildings are coming soon.

The rafting was wonderful, my second class V after Peru. I managed to talk to the person who calls

the shots (I'm not sure what he's called, the "cox," I think) and controls the coordination and pad-

dling in the raft. Evidently, most of the paddling at any moment is not meant for the current stretch

of white-water, instead it's meant to position the raft correctly for the next patch of white-water.

This means he spends most of the time looking much farther ahead than the people doing the row-

ing.

The same is true for downhill mountain-biking. Again, the rider is encouraged to look reasonably far

ahead and to not worry about the rocks right in front of the wheel. Once there's enough momentum

on the bike, it will move in the direction that the rider's body and eyes want it to go. On curved

roads, this involves positioning the bike correctly to navigate the corners smoothly. In fact, if you

focus only on the rocks in front of your wheel, you'll probably go over the edge at the corner.

From the very limited skiing that I've done, it appears the same concept applies there as well.

I think this is a great perspective to take on health issues as well. With health issues, there are al-

most no short-term results and the best way to put oneself in a place to make good decisions in the

short-term is to look reasonably far into the future. Maybe even months or years ahead. While

there's incredible pressure from parts of your brain and maybe other people to focus on short-term

goals and measurement, it may be worth it to ignore the rocks near the wheel and focus on what

ones' health situation will look like a year from now.

This is difficult for people who are very goal-oriented and who work in business environments that

emphasize " smart" goals. But I think this perspective will optimize decision making and do away

with the frustration and impatience that may arise from the lack of short-term results in health re-

lated issues.

July 12, 2007, Mombasa, Kenya

Mombasa is a beautiful coastal town in Kenya. It's very different from Nairobi, which is bustling,

modern, and the economic powerhouse of East Africa. Nairobi has everything you can find in any

major developed city. Dinner at the Carnivore was incredible. It's considered one of the top 50 res-

taurants in the world. Mombasa is much smaller and filled with 18th century architecture and nice

beaches.

I didn't get a chance to take many photos in Nairobi, but it is a wonderful capital. The crowd at the

hostel was the best so far. It is a mere 60 miles to the equator from Nairobi, but the weather was

exactly like Seattle in the winter. Even in Peru, being close to the equator didn't really stabilize the

weather as much as I thought it would.

Mombasa was much hotter.

This is a Portuguese Fort in Mombasa. 18th Century:

Carved doors similar to the ones in Zanzibar show the early Arab influence.

The Indian Ocean and traditional Dhows:

July 12, 2007, Explorers and Mayors

Hostels are great places to meet interesting people. In fact, I would argue that they're the best. I've

been to business school mixers, conferences, and the like at Stanford. Good backpacker hostels have

all of them beat. Hostels have a huge self-selecting component going for them.

Every single serious backpacker I've met has turned out to be a generalist. I only realized this today,

so I wasn't running around looking for this pattern. I'm talking about people who've really traveled.

To many countries. Amongst these explorers, I haven't met a single true specialist.

Generalists are explorers in the sea of knowledge and experience. Asking a generalist to specialize is

like asking an explorer to settle down as a mayor of a small town.

August 12, 2007, Mauritius

View from the hostel at daybreak:

This is the "winter" season and it rained every night with howling, gale-force winds. But the clouds

were swept away every morning, leaving behind volcanic outcrops towering over lush fields of sugar-

cane and coconut groves.

I was staying at the excellent "Le Bamboo Hotel" in Mahebourg. Mahebourg itself is very beautiful:

Port Loise is the capital and main port. The waterfront is nice, and they also serve incredible es-

presso. Look at that crema.

Mauritius is incredible, and the photos don't really do it justice. I rented a bicycle and rode up along

the east coast for the first few days. The beaches are unspoilt and idyllic in the areas away from the

major tourist destinations (mostly along the west coast).

August 27, 2007, Naturally, A Manuscript, Thailand

In the Suan Pakkad Palace Museum in Bangkok, there is a letter. The curator wouldn't let me photo-

graph it, but I was able to copy it out by hand. It is a story of serendipity. Among all the stories that

I have come across regarding luck (and there are many since I began studying it seriously), this one is

the most multifaceted. See for yourself, but first some background.

The letter talks about a major archeological find in Ban Chiang, Thailand. It is now a UNESCO

World Heritage Site. It is a major site for understanding prehistoric settlements in Asia and an im-

portant source of clues for the cultural, technological, and social evolution of humans. The author of

the letter discovered the site.

The letter, to his family:

August 12, 1966

...Here is a short message about my feelings on Ban Chiang:

In reflecting on the Ban Chiang find, I became more humble and spiritual, less scientific and confident of human

dominance over fate.To use a Thai reference, some Theveda must have been responsible for the Ban Chiang find

for I did not consciuosly seek out ancient Thai history. In the summer of 1966, I was looking for villages in the

Isan in which to interview villagers for my senior thesis at Harvard College.A chance acquaintance sent me to

Ban Chiang. I could have gone to any of hundreds of villages.Why did I end up in Ban Chiang? Luck.

Then, I had been in the village, walking around, for some time and never saw the pottery in the ground. But on this

day I lost control and tripped right where there were many pots in the ground.When I fell forward, face down

on the ground, there was a pot just under my nose. I had to see it. It was as if some force outside me wanted me and

not somebody else to find the pots. So, as soon as I realized that they were beautiful and old, I became the recipient

of a sense of responsibility that it was my fate, my duty, to tell the world about this find.The important event, and

my task, had not been planned at all. Just so, many important things happen to people in life which are not

planned.

Stephen B.Young

Some thoughts:

1. Young was an american who made a discovery in Thailand about Thai culture. He stumbled across

cultures. In 1966, war was raging in neighboring Vietnam. The region was highly unstable and vio-

lence would soon spill over into Cambodia and Laos.

2. He was a Sociologist who made a major discovery in Archeology. He stumbled across fields. The

most common example of serendipity is Alexander Flemming's discovery of Penicillin. But Flem-

ming was a Biologist and Pharmacologist even before his discovery.

3. He identifies two components of luck in the letter. The first is his choice of Ban Chiang over other

cities to conduct his interviews. The second is his fall. In the first paragraph he attributes his pres-

ence in Ban Chiang simply to "Luck." The second paragraph talks about his fall and he attributes it

to a far more spiritual cause ("It was as if some force outside me wanted me and not somebody else

to ) nd the pots.") . While the fall is far more extraordinary, why didn't he encompass the spiritual

aspects to include his choice of cities as well? I suspect his choice of cities was made while in Amer-

ica. Or the acquaintance who suggested Ban Chiang was American. The fall itself happened in Thai-

land, a far more "spiritual" place. My hypothesis is that the context played a big role in how he

framed his thoughts. This is pure speculation, of course.

4. He notes: "So, as soon as I realized that they were beautiful and old, ... " It is interesting that he

uses "beautiful" before "old". Would he have been less enthusiastic if he didn't consider them beauti-

ful? Odd, for a Sociologist and scientist.

5. His move to a more spiritual perspective is interesting. I haven't studied the origins of religions, but

I suspect many of them began as sense-making exercises on random natural events. Floods (which

feature prominently in many major religions) , droughts, lighting, and rain are all chaotic events with

almost no predictable components (and no meaningful mean/average) . Furthermore, sense-making is a highly

effective technique to overcome grief ( D. Gilbert), so spirituality and religion must have had a highly

soothing effect on people after random calamities.

September 05, 2007, Photoset of Thailand

(

FrequentlyAsked Questions

1. Was it worth it?

Yes, enormously so. I plan to continue to travel. Knowing what I know now, I would do it all over

again in a heartbeat.

2. How expensive was it?

Not as expensive as you might think. The costs depend on the style of travel and the lifestyle you

want.

3. Where would you travel next?

I want to explore Argentina, Chile, and the rest of South America. Argentina in particular, was very

popular with backpackers. However, that will happen only a few years from now. In the next few

months I would like to travel to Nepal and the Himalayas.

4. Can I contact you with questions?

Yes, I will be happy to help in any way I can. Write to navanit@gmail.com

5. What do you plan to do next?

I'm working on building two startups. I also work in the area of quantitative-finance. More at

http://navanitarakeri.com