Processing the Journey: Circling Back with Ben Hatke

In this episode, we’re circling back with award-winning writer and artist Ben Hatke to check in after his round-the-world adventure. Inspired by Phileas Fogg’s “Around the World in 80 Days,” Ben embarked on a bold plan to circumnavigate the globe using (almost) only surface transportation.

In our conversation, Ben shares about some emotional moments, like the last few miles on familiar railroad tracks, and his adventurous eastward route. You’ll hear about a spontaneous 30-hour train ride in Kazakhstan that turned into a memorable cultural experience, reminding us how travel can surprise us in the best ways. 

You can find Ben, his work, and his travels here:
http://www.benhatke.com/ 
Instagram: @heybenhatke 
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/benhatke

Episode Transcript

Joan (00:01):
Welcome to In Via, the podcast where we're navigating
the pilgrimage of life.
We are all in via on the wayand we are learning a lot as we
go.
I'm your host, joan Watson.
Join me as we listen to stories, discover travel tips and learn
more about our Catholic faith.
Along the way, we'll see thatif God seeks to meet us in

(00:21):
Jerusalem, rome or Santiago, healso wants to encounter you
right there in your car, on yourrun or in the middle of your
workday.
In episode 23 of Envia, youheard about Ben Hapke's future
adventure around the world.
Well, he's back home and here'spart two.

(00:43):
Welcome back, everybody.
I'm very excited about today'sepisode because it's a bit of a
part two and we are going backto talk to Ben Hatke, who you
first met in episode 23, wherewe talked about Ben's trip
around the world literallyaround the world and he was
about to embark on this journey.
The episode went live while hewas in the midst of his j ourney

(01:06):
and now he's back home.
He lives to tell the tale andwe are going to talk to Ben
about that time.
So, hi, ben.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Hello, thanks for having me back.
I'm glad we get to do this.

Joan (01:17):
Yeah, it's fun to kind of circle back and talk about what
you thought would happen andwhat might have happened and
that you didn't expect.
And but um, we were chattingright before we pushed record
about how, whenever you comeback from any trip or have any
big experience, I feel likepeople ask you how it went.
Yeah, and some people don'treally care, they just feel like
it's a nice thing to say.

(01:37):
And other people care, but arethey ready for the hours that
you want to tell them?
And it's hard to distill theseexperiences.
So I know that this next halfhour or so will not capture your
entire time, but I do want tosay how was it?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
No, it's good and it's it's.
You're pointing out somethingthat that took me by surprise,
which is that the whole thingopens up an awkward social
situation where you have to kindof or, I feel, when I am asked
that and have been asked thatmany times like, like, what does
this person want?
What is the context of thisquestion?

(02:15):
Because some people, you know,you, you meet them in passing
and they're how was your thing?
And you don't.
Yeah, exactly, it's exactlythat.
And you don't yeah, exactly,it's exactly that.
It's like do you want to saylike, buckle up, now we're going
to talk, or do you want them?
Do they want you to just sayfine?
So I've come up with like, ifit's, if it's, I'm coming into

(02:36):
this conversation knowing thatwe're going to sit down and talk
for a little bit, which isgreat.
So I know now.
But when I meet people inpassing, I've just started
saying well, you know the Uh.
But when I meet people inpassing, I've just started
saying well, you know, the flatearthers will never get me now,
um and but which, which is whichis uh yeah, it's kind of a glib
answer, but it also uh, it alsobrings up that um, very truly

(03:01):
for me, um, moving,life-changing,
perception-changing, I think,moment of this entire trip was
the last couple of miles,walking down the railroad tracks
Wow, the railroad tracks,because I had, some months

(03:25):
earlier, left going onedirection on foot and found
myself coming back from theopposite side on foot, and it
was, I think it was like, youknow, it was visually how I
imagined it in my head, becauseit was a summer day.

(03:48):
It was these overgrown railroadtracks that I know.
My family, my girls, came downthe tracks halfway to meet me.
I kind of expected all that,but in my mind I thought I'd be
trudging down these tracks verytired and worn and all this
stuff.
And I was not.
I was walking down these tracksand just muttering to myself

(04:11):
like I can't believe this.
I just can't.
I can't believe this, I can'tbelieve I'm closing this loop.
Uh, like, felt in my bones thethe roundness of of the world.
Um, because I went East and Inever stopped going East, uh,

(04:33):
with the sun setting behind me,right, uh, and um, then here I
come from the other direction.
It was so crazy, so, um, so I,so that's my.

Joan (04:44):
My simple response to people is also uh, kind of
touches the, the, uh, the partthat I guess moved me the most,
um yeah so so yeah which is isinteresting because I think when
we had our first discussion andI thought about you walking out
of one door of your kitchen andwalking in the next door, like
that was the picture we couldall picture and that was what I

(05:04):
thought would be really poignant.
But so it's interesting that insome ways the poignant moment
didn't surprise you, but it didsurprise you.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
And I think that's.

Joan (05:12):
That's sometimes in life.
We correctly assume what'sgoing to be the life changing
moment, but we still can't seehow we will have changed and and
like we know what's going to bethe moment that life changed.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
So we don't know.
Yeah, yes, yeah.

Joan (05:30):
Yeah, can you?
Can you speak a little bitabout your route?
Because when we first talkedyou know you were kind of
keeping something secret and youknow, can you?
And you said you might befollowing the Silk Route.
But the Silk Road, but can youtalk a little bit in general,
just as we start, before we getkind of in the nitty gritty?
In general, like you say, okay,you always headed east and we

(05:52):
know you obviously startedacross the Atlantic and then you
know what kind of countries,vaguely, did you kind of track
through?

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Okay, so so this was it's.
It's funny cause I'm at dualpurposes.
I was at dual purposes withthis trip, like like it's a book
, right?
So there are some pilgrimagetype questions and there are
some historical questions that Iwas asking Right.
And some of the historyquestions were some of the like.

(06:26):
The fundamental historyquestions were that, you know,
um, nellie, like we talked aboutlast time, nellie Bly did this
route and as I'm working on theuh, turning this into a book, I
kind of start by saying now,Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland
, the other lady who did thesame travel at the same time,

(06:47):
and elizabeth bisland, the otherlady who did, did the same
travel at the same time.
They had, uh, three thingsgoing for them that allowed them
to do a fast circumnavigationin real life, and it was fast
transcontinental communication.
So those telegraph wires wererunning under the ocean at that
time, 18, you know, night, bythe 1890s, we had underground

(07:08):
cables in the oceans so peoplecould.
It was the internet really.
It was like the internet isthat old in a way?
Right, it wasn't coming out ofcomputers, but we were like she
was writing articles as she wenton this trip and it's like we
don't, I I don't think, I don'tappreciate enough that that.

(07:28):
That it was, you know, 150years ago, that you could be on
one continent, write a newspaperarticle and that newspaper
article could go out that week.
Yeah, that's that's.
That's not what we think of thevictorian times, right, yeah,
um.
And then so they had fastcommunication, they had readily
available steamers likepassenger ocean liners, and they

(07:54):
had British colonialism,essentially.
So my route changed because Ididn't have those other two
things.
Oh, fascinating.
There, there is not.
We do not have the same kind ofpassenger ocean travel
available to us that they did,and you know she was able to

(08:16):
Bisland and Bly.
Both were able to not reallyhave to worry about not speaking
English.
They, they, everybody in theports that they like singapore
and hong kong, you know, uh,those were like british ports
and they, they didn't have tonot speak english there.

Joan (08:32):
India, the idea that, like the sun, doesn't set on the
british empire was true timeyeah, was true and worked to
their advantage because, theycould essentially, in a sense,
stay in england, yes, the entiretime around the globe, and you
didn't have that luxury and yeah, and I didn't have that.
So, um, but in a way, youprobably experienced the world
much better than they did, in asense, because you're

(08:54):
experiencing the culture and anddealing with the hurdles that
they probably didn't have tohurdle.
So I think it's kind of coolthat you experienced it in a
different way than they did,because you're experiencing the
cultures of the place, notcultures that have just been
superimposed with Britishcolonialism.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Right, very true, and um, and we also have, uh, like
our that first of those threethings, that that fast
communication.
Um, we have like like a, like ahyper version of that.
Right, so you can look upchanging bus schedules in your
pocket.
And that's kind of a big deal.
So I did a little less overseastravel and more overland travel

(09:37):
.
So what I did was we crossedthe Atlantic in the Queen Mary,
then I went from London to Parisby train.
I was able to wiggle all theway through France and Italy on
the hospitality of friends, nice.
I had just this great networkof friends, which that's the

(10:01):
part of the book that I'm sortof transcribing now, and, um,
it's, it's, it's fun, and uh,from the, the, from the boot of
Italy, uh, I got a ferry acrossthe um, the Adriatic, to Greece,
uh, and I changed my route onthe fly a bit.

(10:21):
Um, I was going to circle downthrough um, through Athens, and
then across to Izmir and Turkey,but instead I went through
northern Greece.
Took a long bus through northernGreece, stopped at Kavala and
Corfu, and then to Istanbul,then overland through Turkey

(10:47):
along the black sea coast andthen into Georgia, and then a
long bus down from throughNorthern Georgia down to Tbilisi
, which was one of thehighlights I think Tbilisi was I
got I ended up, by schedulingor whatever having to stay there
an extra day or two days, and Iwas not worried about that.

(11:11):
It was a neat place to be.
Then on to Azerbaijan and Baku.
Baku then down to Baku's portwhere I caught a like a trucker

(11:32):
boat across the Caspian Seawhich was probably like the like
the most exotically grungy partof the trip.
Like that was like.
That was like the real deal.
Yeah, to be like it was like atruck full of like eastern
European truckers, I was theonly person who was like a guy
with a backpack.
I was the only person who waslike a proper passenger, who
didn't have like a truck full ofscrap metal on the boat.
That's awesome.

Joan (11:51):
Yeah, You're like I tried to do this the whole way, but at
least you got it.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Then Well, that's the thing I was grumpy about, the
Queen Mary, but it'shistorically great because it
really is the last passengerliner doing that Atlantic
crossing.
It's the last man standing andI was like, wow, this is too.
It was like there's tea.
You wear evening dress fordinner.

(12:17):
It was a little bit likeTitanic cosplay.
And I was like a little bitgrumpy about this and if I could
go back, I would.
I would.
If I could go visit myself inthat past I would be like ben
the, the, the grunt.
The grungy part is coming justjust wait you'll have something
to compare it'll be great um,because even the um, even going

(12:39):
back, like like the the ferryfrom brindisi to corfu or to to
greece anyway was, was also likecompletely different from the
queen mary, like like brindisiport, uh, ended up being um,
just like a little bit worn downat the edges, like like this is
not something everybody doesanymore and you could tell that

(13:02):
the the ferry was used to bevery nice.
It had like, but had like umlittle glory days yeah, it's
glory days were like the 70s orsomething right like it had bars
on it, but they were plywoodedover and
it was just like it was just andand um, I think there there
were cabins, but I just got likethe, the second class, where

(13:23):
you get a, a seat and it's anovernight, and everybody just
brought sleeping bags and slepton the floor Like a whole boat
full of people sleeping on thefloor or staying up all night
drinking on the deck.
It was just like, okay, andthat was a great part.
So from Turkey to Georgia, toAzerbaijan, and then that boat

(13:45):
took me to Aktau in Kazakhstan.
So that was the part where Ifelt a world away from anything
that I'd known.
And then I got on a long30-hour train across just the no
man's land of kazakhstan.
It's just a.

(14:05):
It's just a vast desert, uh,that stretches away to to the
horizon and full of camels andand stuff like this did you take
a camel?
I did not.
I just spotted camels in thedistance.
I wanted to take a camel sobadly because, uh, just looking
at them out there, like withtheir two humps, it was so
exciting and and, like I knowthey were owned, because I saw

(14:27):
some of them had bells aroundtheir neck.
But it was so vast and sounfenced that I was like some of
these must just be wild andlive in their lives.
But the train across Kazakhstanwas one of the moments where
there was a kind of a recurringtheme of the trip was just how

(14:51):
much I was relying on humankindness and just abandoning
myself to the idea that peopleare decent, and because that
came up many, up many, many,many times through the course of
the trip, where I was maybe alittle bit more in my head and

(15:11):
either either there would be Iwould find friendly, great
people who wanted to help or, um, a friend of a friend would be
in that city, right, like whereit'd be.
Like well, in Kazakhstan ithappened where, like uh, an
Italian friend was, like, youknow, I have another friend who

(15:33):
works in Almaty with, like uh,handicapped children.
Uh, I'm sure she would want tohelp, okay, sure, sure, she can
help me out.
And then, um, and then it wasjust like, if that had not
happened, how out of my depthwould I have been in Almaty,
right?

Joan (15:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Stuff like that kind of kept happening.
And then it happened a lot withpeople I didn't know.
So on the train acrossKazakhstan, getting on the train
, all happened not how I hadexpected, so it happened very
suddenly.
I had ended up in the portoutside of Aktau and I had kind
of planned on getting to thetown and staying the night and

(16:18):
then finding the train the nextday.
But this young driver who wastaking me into the town was like
let's stop at the train, like Ihad no money, and so I was like
where's that, where's in?
Is there an ATM?
You know, he's like well, thereis an ATM at the train station.
Okay, sure, and this is alllike a lot of my like

(16:39):
conversations with random peoplecame through the translator app
, so I was gonna ask you thatthis was mostly translator app.
Okay, so there's a, there's a,there's a the ATM at the you
know train station.
So we stopped at the trainstation and by that time I've
sort of explained what I wasdoing and how I was going to be
trying to get this, this train,this 30 hour train across the

(17:02):
country, and he went up to theticket offices and was like, oh,
that train actually leaves inum 20 minutes.
Uh, and I didn't know, like itwasn't clear, if that train was
an everyday train.
I don't remember.
And but I was like I probablybetter get that ticket now, even
though I have only slept fortwo hours in the last 48 hours.
Fine, um, then he, I.

(17:25):
So I paid him for his ride andthen he kind of disappeared.
And then when I got up to theticket office they were like,
yes, again, I'm, you know,passing my phone through the
little little ticket booth and,uh, again, you know, yes, that
train.
So my driver guy has left.
And that the lady at the ticketbooth was like, well, yeah, the
train does leave in 20 minutes,but it's full, there's no

(17:47):
tickets.
And I was like, oh, and then Ihad gone a little bit.
I had gone through this scriptonce before in Turkey.
So I was like, okay, I'm goingto try this again.
So I went to the next persondown and there were only two
ticket booths.
I went to the next ticket boothand I just begged.
I just was like, look, I'm justone traveler, I just have this

(18:08):
one bag.
I don't know what I'm going todo if I don't get on this train.
Uh, you know, like and and I'mtraveling with a story like um,
I actually was bringing my, my,my art with me and I realized at
one point that the most I haddrawn this page for the journey,
the most important page in mysketchbook turned out to be this

(18:29):
page, which I could show topeople and it would explain what
I'm doing.
You don't need the Englishlanguage, no, and then I could
go back to the beginning andlike, show them, you know, pages
of just explain, like what,what I'm doing and how and how
far I've come.
And it was a powerful thingtraveling with a story like that

(18:52):
.
And so the next lady was likedid the same tired sigh, like
okay, hang on, just hold on,type, type, type.
And then this guy shows up andshe's like just follow him,
he'll find you a seat on it.
Right, no ticket, she didn'tprint me out a ticket, just
follow this guy.

(19:13):
We walk out in the train yardand there's two like really old
trains.
We walk onto one train, throughit, off that train onto the
next track, and then he puts meon this other train and he like
sits down with the conductor guyand like I hand him some cash,

(19:33):
which I think turned out to belike 30 or something like this,
but I still hadn't done theconversion.
Right, like you get, I'm alsohopped through currencies.
So I was like, and there's awonderful little app that will,
um, you know, tell youimmediately, but I just I wasn't
there yet, like I had.
Just I wasn't there yet, like Ihad just gotten there.
I had just gotten this I hadjust gotten this money out and I
was like I have not like gottenmy head around Kazakhstan money
yet.
But so I just handed him thebills and they pulled in.

(19:56):
It was like a very, very fulltrain car and full of families
and like little kids and justreally crowded.
I was like, okay, this is likeI feel sticky and gross and it's
really, really hot and I'mgoing to be here for like a day
and a half on this train, oh mygosh.
And also I didn't bring food,and it's clear that everybody

(20:21):
else has food with them.

Joan (20:22):
Oh no, and I was like shoot.
It's clear that everybody elsehas food with them, oh no.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
And I was like shoot and uh.
But then as it went on, like Ilike I was definitely in a place
like so from from Georgia andAzerbaijan that once I crossed
that Caspian sea the dialflipped to Asian like very very
strong.
This was like very much Asiannow and everybody just started

(20:46):
was very like I stuck out reallya lot on this train, like I was
like it was very different.
Uh, because these were allfamilies, like traveling from
one city to another for awedding or something like like
local normal life business yeahand so um they probably don't
get a lot of backpack travelersnot there yeah not on that train

(21:06):
.

Joan (21:07):
Americans with you know yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
So people wanted to know, like, what my deal was,
and that moved very quickly toum, everybody sharing food, um,
so a lot of like, um, homemadenaan and um, just what all did I
have like dumplings and cupafter cup of tea.
This train had like a samovarin it so you always had like

(21:31):
boiling tea water and it wasmelon, and it was really.
It turned out to be really,really great and and it wasn't,
it wasn't foodless because asthe.
As it got into the evening itwould stop at the smaller like
villages or towns or whatever,and there would be banks of

(21:51):
people lined up like at thestation, just selling meats and
pastries and fruit and all thisstuff.
So there was always.
You could hop off every threeor four hours and get something,
and that was really great.
And then this one young guy, uh, who was a, a teacher, uh, he
turned out to have like quite abit of english and he would just

(22:14):
, he, just like, he just like,took me in hand and was like I
am going to get you where youneed to go.
Wow, get you set up with howyou want to, like, do it.
He called um when I got.
So this train took me toscheimkent, which is like one of
the two big, uh, east, easternedge of kazakhstan cities, and

(22:36):
he was just like I'm gonna get,like he found the hotel for me.
Um, he, just, he just dideverything for me.
So much to the point where,like, I was like like the next
night, I was just like let's goto dinner.
So Musa and I ended up goingout to dinner and that was
really great.
And then I got a long bus fromSheimkent to Almaty, which is
where I was saying friends offriends would step up and help.

(22:59):
So this is the Italian lady whowas also a teacher and that was
interesting because she ended upgiving me like a nice tour of
Almaty and that's where I triedfermented mare's milk and horse
meat.
And in Kazakhstan I had Kurt,which is these little, very hard

(23:19):
.
It looks like a, like a whitebiscuit, but it's actually a
cheese.
It's like a traveling cheeseand that has its own like really
interesting history.
But that.
So that was a day Like I alsowas thinking like oh, you know,
of the two languages I have isEnglish and Italian and Italians

(23:41):
it's basically useless unlessyou're in Italy.

Joan (23:46):
But then here's this.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
Like Italian friend's , like, here I am in kazakhstan,
speaking only italian andgetting this tour.
It was like very odd andinteresting experience, um.
So then from uh easternkazakhstan, uh got a long bus
into china, so I ended up inwestern china, um, and that uh,
I ended up talking to someteenagers on that bus, for um,

(24:09):
it was a through the night bus,long, long and like 19 hour bus
ride, uh, and and the teenagerswere, they were, it was a
cassock a, a girl going into hersenior year traveling with her
father, and then, um, a youngguy who was probably just out of
high school, um, and they satup talking to me like on the bus
all night.
It was really funny becausethey both had like a lot of

(24:31):
english, yeah and uh, but theywere also talking um like
western china ended up beingreally difficult and um that's
where you just to navigate uh,for me to navigate and because
it's a totalitarian place.

Joan (24:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
And I had not.
I had done like I had talked toprobably three different people
to prepare, but was notprepared Right, like I don't
know.
There are things I wish I couldhave done differently.
There are things I wish I couldhave done differently and one
is taking that more seriouslyand prepared more for that, or

(25:09):
found somebody to travel with.
Because, mostly I was followingmy nose around the world and I
got there and I was like, ohWell, anyway, as I was traveling

(25:29):
in by the bus, um, the kidswere talking about uh, they
started telling stories thatmade me nervous, right, like
like they were kazakh kazakhsare a little bit um, second
class in china, like they're,they're not, uh and.
And she was like, oh, I don'tlike going with chinese customs
because they always make youfeel like you did something
wrong.
And they started talking aboutthe Uyghur people and how that's
just one of the great humanrights problems going on right

(25:54):
now.

Joan (25:55):
Massive and we don't hear about it, and we don't hear
about it.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
And I was under-informed about it and
hadn't realized I was goingright into that area.
So much of this was revelatoryabout the world and could go on
forever about it, honestly.
But, but I was.
But anyway, a lot of thosethings converged and I wasn't
prepared, so that when I gotthere so and I also was like I

(26:19):
was just writing this morningand thinking about when I was
talking to you to say that Iwrote down this phrase, that
there was this bowl of noodlesthat's going to haunt me,
because when the bus first got,we got through Chinese customs
and a couple hours after that,before we got to Urumqi where

(26:41):
the bus was going to leave us,um, we just we stopped at a
smaller town and I had no ideawhere I was, but I was with
these like traveling friends now, like um and there, and the dad
was like we should just letwe're.
Like they stopped at like anoodle house, um, and we all

(27:01):
just sat down for a meal and hewas like just go sit with us and
he got them.
Like the dad got the, the foodfor us and we all sat and had
noodles and they were likefantastic, it was like I, I felt
like, oh, it lulled me intothis false sense because I was
like this is china, this is whatI'd hoped for I'm I'm way far

(27:23):
from home.
I'm having like, like havingthis meal with people I've met
on the road, um, and it's andit's fantastic, these really
spicy noodles and um, I just hadthis feeling like I hope for it
can be like this, yeah, andthen when they took, when we
finally got to the city oforumki and they took off because

(27:43):
they were all I think they werevisiting family they had she
had grandparents there.
And then I was just in Urumqi onmy own and there was high, high
, high security, even for atrain station, right when it's,
you know, full bag checks andpat downs and papers and all

(28:07):
this stuff and, crucially, no,suddenly no cell signal at all.
Oh goodness, like no, like what.
Whatever my phone was would notlet me on any network oh, dear
okay and so I've lost maps, I'velost a translator app, I've
lost the ability to text myfamily or anyone, um, and so I

(28:28):
was just like.
This is suddenly very hard, andI was aware a lot of times
already that the phone was likea miracle tool, but also a
slender thread, um, because youcan wander really far and still
have a viable map right there inyour pocket.

Joan (28:47):
Right.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
But then as soon as the map, as soon as it runs out
of batteries or something you'relike oh now I've walked like
three miles across the city andnow I don't know where I am.
So you actually made me startpaying attention with my brain
more.

Joan (29:02):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Which is great, but also when you're in a smackdown
in a brand new place, I was likeI I don't know now if anything
happens, I'm stuck and I don'tknow what to do.
And um, and this time I wasextremely tired.
So, um, so I like was gettingout of stuff out of my bag in
the grass and, like, didn't putmy toiletries back in my bag.

(29:26):
So now I've lost my toiletriesbecause I'm just like I was.
I could feel that I would.
I was getting hungry and tiredand starting to make bad
decisions yeah, and uh, I gotthis train ticket but they were
like it's full.
I was like, no, is thereanything, anything?
And they were like it's full.
I was like no, is thereanything, anything?
And they were like, well,there's standing room only, but

(29:47):
it's like a 40-hour train rideacross.
China and I was like I don'tthink I can physically do this.
So I started walking andlooking.
So protocol in that instancesfor me was to get a room and
figure it out.
You know, sleep and then figureit out.
And I just couldn't find a room.

(30:08):
In a room I couldn't make headsor tails of the city.
I couldn't search for a place.
There was like no, like almostno English speaking, maybe like
one or two like of thoseunofficial cab driver people,
but um, anyway, uh, and then Ifell asleep on a bench and got

(30:30):
prodded by, uh, uniformed people.
Don't, you can't sleep, okay.
Well, I don't know what I'mgonna do.
So I finally grabbed a, found asaw cab, I hopped in, I drew a
picture of a plane and I waslike, can I go to the airport?

Joan (30:46):
they were like sure.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
I got to the airport and I found a desk where these
nice ladies spoke, uh enough,english and I did some and and I
feel like I must have gottensome kind of did I get a signal
in the airport?
I can't remember, but I wasable to be like is there a
flight to Shanghai?
Now, yeah, they were like yes,so I got a flight to Shanghai

(31:09):
and I was like um, I was likerocked to my core, though I was
like, I was very, and it was,and it was because it felt.
I felt like it, I felt like um,and that's like the hardest part
of the book right now to putinto words um, even my, my
editor, like I've written like alike a 25 000 word um sort of

(31:34):
script for this book and he'slike it really drops off at
china.
It's like you didn't write thatpart, you just like put.
You just like put a couplelines in, like I'll get to this.
And I was like, yeah, it's hard, um, because it was the
authoritarianness of it and itwas, and it was sort of like
peeled me back and I was andshowed me like how

(31:57):
anti-authoritarian I am right,um, and that so, so.
So I got to shanghai, um, andthings started getting better.
I had a contact there who waslike a another teacher, a french

(32:18):
guy who'd lived there since um1995 or something, so he'd'd
been in Shanghai forever, andthat was fascinating because he
could explain to me how Chinahas changed and the city has
changed all this.
He'd been there long enough toreally really give me a good
feel for it.
But when he asked me aboutWestern China and Urumki and

(32:43):
stuff, like that and I startedtalking about it, in the parts
that were starting to upset me,he like actually, was like well,
probably not say anything, andhe was like padding his phone
and then I was like, oh okay, itwasn't just me, it really is

(33:03):
what it felt like.

Joan (33:04):
Yeah, um, so, anyway, if you want to get home, ben?
Just stop talking and just getno yeah, well, it was.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
It was just like he was not.
Let's not talk about that yeah,and he was just like yeah,
probably best not to talk aboutit, and also for him too,
because he lived there, right,he didn't want to have all that,
he didn't want to have anytrouble coming from a
conversation overheard on hisphone, right, that's rough.
And then so, just to tie up theloop, I was going to take a

(33:39):
ferry straight from China, fromShanghai, to, I think, osaka in.
Japan.
And then another thing thatkept happening was the discovery
Two things One, that the global, these global apps, which are
so handy for findingtransportation and stuff like

(34:02):
this, are not 100 percent.
Um, they will come up withbuses that don't lines that no
longer run.
Uh, times that have changedstuff like this.
And one thing that happened was, um, the covid seems to have uh
closed down some ferries thatare just not coming back.

(34:23):
One of them was the car ferrythat I had planned to take from
Shanghai to Japan and that waslike apparently had closed in
2022.
Still comes up on all theinternet stuff, but when you get
there, nobody can make heads ortails of it.
It's not there anymore.
Get there, nobody can makeheads or tails of it, it's not

(34:46):
there anymore.
Um, also, the like, early, earlyon in my research, the ferry
from uh, from italy to like tolike alexandria right, that
southern route to, through toegypt or whatever that's um,
that's gone too.
So there are these littleferries, these like, so like sea
travel, it seems like, has alsokind of scaled back, and a lot
of that's, I think, since COVID.

(35:08):
So this ferry didn't existanymore and I had already like
flown through China and I was, Ifeel it, feeling really bad
about that and and I was like,am I going to have to fly to
Japan too?
And then I just was like, well,let me search, not ferries from

(35:29):
China, japan, just ferries outof China, just to see what there
is.
And I was like, oh, there areferries from Northeast Chinaorea
.
So my, my friend in shanghaiwas like, I'll help you, let's

(35:50):
look, let's look this up, let'stry to see if we can get tickets
.
Um, so I had to go to chingdaoin the north and we could get a
bus ticket for that, but, um,non-chinese citizens couldn't
get a ferry ticket in advance.
You have to just go to theoffice and get your ticket, for
whatever reason Interesting.

(36:11):
So we got me a train ticket, Idon't know, probably like a
five-hour train up the coast toanother city where I knew nobody

(36:31):
and had to find the port.
Now in Eastern China.
I had a signal again, so thatwas good.
So I had maps and things.
But that was like thisunexpected adventure of like I'm
just going to go to the portand see if there's space on this
ferry for me.
If there's not, I don't knowwhat I'm gonna do.

(36:52):
Um, but there was and, uh, Itook the ferry to to korea and
it was another highlight of thetrip was getting on that ferry
boat, because it was a koreanrun ferry and like the vibe went
korean like immediately and itwas so I don't know, it wasn't
like there was nothing likefancy about, it, was just so fun
and and it was like and alsolike kimchi and quail eggs for

(37:15):
breakfast and like that was oneof the parts where I was like
extremely glad that I'd startedpacking like, um, coffee
crystals because, um, uh, of theunexpected things.
You know that like I did end upin certain places where I
realized how much I want to havecoffee in the morning and if
it's not there.

(37:35):
I was like, oh no, so, yeah, socoffee crystals.
And then, um, yep, so then.
So then to Busan, to Seoul.
Took a train down to Busan,which was amazing, loved it, had
a good walk around and explorein Busan, which felt like a real

(37:58):
, like a weird modern piratetown in a way, which is that was
really fun.
And then it took another boatfrom Busan to Fukuoka.
Then a train to Osaka.
Had a big, long bike ridethrough Osaka.
That was extremely adventurous.
I just like I was really tiredand homesick at that point and I

(38:21):
was texting Anna and I was likeI think I'm just going to go to
bed and she was like you shouldgo do something.
You're not going to be able todo this again, okay.
So I was like I found a bikerental guy and rented a bike and
just took this long.
Oh, it's really great, yeah.
And then so never did hack thePacific.

(38:44):
So, uh, flew to la.
Uh, found comics, all my comicsfriends there.
Nice, uh, rented a car.
Drove to, um, las vegas, acircus friend there, uh, so I
went to this like I'd never beenon the las vegas strip before,
but he runs this circus showcalled absinthe um, it's 100,

(39:10):
like it's.
It's very raunchy but also anextremely impressive circus,
like combined.
So it was delightful.
Uh, drove from las vegas.
Uh, um, went.
I think I ended up going almosta whole day of driving out of
my way to go to the grand,delightful.
Drove from Las Vegas, Went.
I think I ended up going almosta whole day of driving out of
my way to go to the Grand Canyon.

Joan (39:28):
Oh nice.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Which was Like nobody told me I had never had no idea
, and my takeaway from that wasthat it, like you know, the
Atlantic Ocean is enormous andyou get this sense of bigness of
things, but the Grand Canyonfloats at this scale that your

(39:54):
brain just isn't able to likemake sense of.
It's just crazy.
Um, and then on the way backfrom that, you end up in um
reservation territory, so you'resort of sort of not in america
anymore and, um, that was superinteresting and another part of

(40:17):
the world that I just want tolike learn more of my own.
Um history about, Right yeah.

Joan (40:24):
It's neat that, like you also with the Grand Canyon and
the reservations, you also, likeyou, saw the world, but you
also saw America.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
Right and there was like I had never done it, Like I
saw America in a way that likeI'd missed, like I I'd never
been through the Southwestbefore.
It was enormous and that wasthe first time I felt the
roundness of the world was doingthat, because it was like like
in the atlantic all the way back.
When I started out it was flatall around at the sun setting

(40:51):
behind me and I was like, okay,we're, I'm coming out back the
other way.
Um stopped at clear creek abbeyfor the night um in oklahoma,
then wiggled up to Lafayette,indiana.
Return.
You know, stay with Denver,stay with my family.
Return my rental car.
I took the Amtrak train that Ihad taken in college, same old

(41:15):
line.

Joan (41:16):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Back to Virginia.
Friend grabbed me in Staunton,dropped me off near Strasburg
and I walked back home.
It's incredible, and that wasthat yeah.

Joan (41:26):
Wow, I have to say.
What was it like coming back tothe United States, landing in
LA, and all of a sudden it's aculture that is more your own.
I mean, it's not.
Obviously Ben Hedke doesn'tlive in LA's not, it's not
virginia, but what was that like, like to come out of especially
these very asian experiences,and then to like, drive a car.

(41:50):
You haven't driven a car andyeah, yeah, yeah um did you feel
like you were coming back home,or did that feeling not happen
really until you?

Speaker 2 (42:00):
no, I felt like I was coming back home.
I felt like, um, like, I hadthis uh like sense of like, uh,
like scripts.
You know that life, like lifeworks in these scripts that we
have built, um and one was, and,and these, these cultural

(42:20):
shifts like.
The other thing is like,there's these scripts and
there's borders, and borders,like are imaginary, but but
really cultural, culturalswitches get flipped almost
immediately when you cross them.
Which is it's, it's such aweird thing like, uh, it very,
very noticeable going fromTurkey to Georgia.

(42:43):
So I was on this long ride upalong the Black Sea coast to,
because that was like the Ithink that was the.
Well, it wasn't.
It was one of the very, verysmall border crossing stations
that I encountered and it was awalk across.
So, yeah, so I was in, and itwas a walk across.

(43:04):
So fun, yeah.
So I was in this little towncalled Hopa.
It's like a little blackseaside town, but very Turkish,
and felt very culturallydifferent to what I was used to.

Joan (43:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
You know just everything about it, but also
the call to prayer.
I went out and got fish.
It was really nice to be ableto talk to young people who are
servers at small streetestablishments or whatever.
And this one kid I just sat andtalked to him for a while but

(43:44):
like he was very stronglyislamic but also had like a kind
of a global perspective, he wasa kid, he was a good kid, yeah,
um, yeah, and so, and hopa wasjust, uh, 10 or 15 miles from
the border, so, um, so I got a,a cab, or there were, there were

(44:06):
cabs that would run it, run youup to the border.
And so I got that and then theyjust drop you off at the border
and you kind of do, um, you walkthrough the border station and
then you're on the other sideand there's all these um,
another, like like swirl of,like vulture, like cab drivers
who come right up to you andeither want to change money or
give you a ride somewhere orwhatever.
To georgia it felt like likethe.

(44:47):
The dial turned very quicklyback to europe, back to european
, back to um interesting, likean eastern european script, but
like much more um, but, butagain like a script that that I
was more acclimated to orfamiliar with.
Right, yeah, you know theydon't speak, you know I don't
speak russian or um georgian orany, anything like this.
And russian was the, the linguafranca of that, all those

(45:09):
post-soviet states.
Right, everybody speaks russianyeah like everybody's second
language, if they have a secondlanguage is russian.
Yeah, um, but it was still.
It was like suddenly, likecertain things got easier.
And especially then, once Ireached Tbilisi.
But that switch flipped veryquickly, right, and so that's

(45:33):
what it felt like coming home.
It felt like the switch flipped, like the first feeling was
like the switch flippedimmediately to the easiest
setting.
Like I am traveling, but now I'mon the easiest setting possible
for me, because this is theexact baseline that I've grown
up with and know how to do, andit's like something that would
have stressed me out.
Renting a car and drivingacross the United States is

(45:55):
suddenly like not a problem,right, like super easy, and so
that that was like yeah, waslike yeah, and some of that was
like I really did get pushed wayout of my comfort zone in a lot
of places.
Um, but that was kind ofempowering in a way, yeah.
And then getting back to la, uh, um, I stay with comics friends

(46:19):
.
A comics buddy of mine and he isone of the most like like laid
back guys around and he doesstoryboards for animated shows
and stuff like that, and so itwas just it was nice to be able
to just sail it and he like justtook me on his his route of

(46:41):
like food stuff and oh, and Anahad sent him a package with like
cookies in it and a spare pairof contact lenses for me and
stuff like this, and so itreally felt like okay, it did
feel like coming home.
Right, I'm in the home stretchat least.
Here I am with friends.
Let's go get pizza, you know,yeah, let's go get pizza.

(47:05):
You know yeah, um, and thendriving across country was just.
Uh, I hadn't made a like, alike a tom petty playlist for
that, so that was just americanayeah oh and yeah, it was
americana, because I I traveleda bit on route 66, which uh
which was really neat, likethey're like uh, kitschy
americana memorabilia type stuff, which was I really appreciated

(47:27):
.

Joan (47:28):
So yeah, Does some of it feel like a dream?

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Like when you're even recounting it.

Joan (47:33):
Do you feel like somebody else did it in a sense.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Yeah, for sure, yeah, it's.
It's weird in that way because,uh, cause I was going solo, and
yeah, it's, it was and it was,um, and it was a dream in the
way that I um, I would get antsyif I had to stay in one place

(47:59):
for a long time.
I really liked being in Tbilisi, but having to be there for
like four or five days, um, Icould tell what I wanted from
the trip was like a movingmeditation.
Yeah To be in motion for thatlong.
Yeah, and in a lot of ways itreally was a moving meditation.
Those experiences, it's exactlywhat you're you're saying.

(48:27):
It's like, um, it does seemlike like a pocket full of
memories that could have beensomebody else's memories.

Joan (48:31):
Yeah, um, it's neat to process it, yeah you have a way
to process it yeah, with writingthe book, and so I mean a lot
of people have experiences andthey never take the time to
really process them.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Or they don't have.
Like, you have to build or begiven tools for it, and there
are.
I guess there are differentoutlets for that, but I've like
my work is definitely mine.

Joan (48:59):
Yeah, we encourage people to journal even after they've
come home and to really and somepeople aren't journalers and so
they might not feel that but Ithink writing it out and really
taking it to prayer, thinkingabout it like rehashing it in
your mind, yeah.
You need to do it because it'stoo much when you're
experiencing it.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Yes, yeah, it's too.
Yeah, you have like a lot ofintense experiences, like very
close together, and thingshappen more quickly, I think,
than you can decide what youfeel about them, or you know.

Joan (49:39):
Yes, or learn the lessons that are there?

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Yeah, so the lessons there that are yeah, so I, I, I,
um, oh, I mean like this isproduct placement, placement man
.
But I brought um a foldablekeyboard with me.
Oh, it uh folds out, Cause I, Idon't know, like, like, but a
lot of people type with theirthumbs pretty easily now, but I
don't do that at all, so Ifolded out this key.

(50:03):
I would use this fold outkeyboard.

Joan (50:10):
It's got a battery that lasts forever and I found my.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
My phone has a little kickstand on the on it, so it
just sets up.
So, um, wow.
So I tried drawing as much as Icould while I was on the road,
but the main thing I did was Ikept a journal as I went yeah
and I think if I had a helpfultip for that, it would be um,
don't um.
I think that kind of journaling,whether it's in a book or in a,

(50:32):
in a file, um, it's good tojust make notes A lot of the
journal entries.
I didn't worry about themhaving to be finished pieces.

Joan (50:42):
Right, just be like.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
Bullet lists, Lists Like don't forget you did this,
or don't forget when that ladyyelled at you for eating the
dumplings.
Wrong, Right, Like, uh, likestuff like that.
That that you're like.
You will have thoughts aboutthis.
Remember that you will havethoughts about this.

Joan (50:57):
Yes, I love it.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
I love it.

Joan (51:08):
Where would you want to go back if you could go back to
one place?
One place, one place.
Maybe it's to take your family,maybe it's just to go back to
relive something, maybe it's tosee something you missed.
Can you pick one place?
If I could give you a boatticket to go back, or a plane
ticket or, even better, justtransport, we will just just
beam you up to that place.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
It would be a toss-up between Tbilisi and Kavala, but
I will pick Kavala, becauseKavala was in Greece.
It was on the Aegean, it's thenorthernmost tip of the Aegean
Sea, it's a little seaside town.
I pick that one as my main onebecause it was because it was

(51:49):
because it was not on myoriginal route, so it was a
surprise.
Um, because I picked it as astopping place specifically
because I I looked it up and ithad like 60 000 people and was
on the sea and, um, thessalonicawas intimidating.
So I was like I'm stopping hereand I got there and the evening

(52:09):
I got there I was like, oh,this is where I would want to
bring my family.
I was like it's chilled out,there's like it's a seaside town
but it's just Greek people,it's like it's definitely people
having summer fun time, youknow.
But it was like not overruntouristy and uh, there were
fishing boats that were cominglike right up to the harbor and,

(52:33):
uh, good, swimming good,exploring good fish, it was
great.
And so that was the part herein the book.
Um, I was thinking of putting ascene in the book where because
I would say, like it's the partwhere where, like I would be
tempted to just run away andhave a different life, because

(52:55):
there was a fishing boat and Iwas like walking along and I
could smell like somethingcooking.
And I looked over and theseguys were in the boat, like like
in the like the closed, in partof the deck, and they just had
a table set up and they weregetting, they were done for the
day and they were cooking theirdinner.
And if they had waved me overand said, come be a fish, come
work this fishing boat, I'd belike bye, I'm going.

Joan (53:19):
Like the reverse of Simon Peter right.
Like be the reverse, ben'sgoing's gonna go be a fisherman,
don't be a fisher of men justcome go fish every day.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Um, and I would have like in my, in my mind, if I
hope I get to this scene, I wantto have like the, do you
remember?
In the wind, in the willows,when, uh, it's the end of summer
and that sea rat comes and he'slike tempting, uh, the river
rat away.
Like I would have sea rat comeand appear in the book and be

(53:49):
like ben ben, come have a lifeon the sea.
Um, so that was.
It was a really great place andif I could return somewhere, I
would.
I would go there yeah, I thinkit was really nice and you could
feel like it was a mix of like,uh, eastern churches and and
castle walls tumbling into thesea, and also you could still

(54:10):
feel like that hint of thegrease that you read about in
classics you know, like thegolden water and Homer's wine
wine, dark sea and stuff likethat.
It was a good mix, good mix ofstuff.
Yeah, that's really neat.

Joan (54:27):
I bet your passport looks pretty awesome.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Yeah, it's all stamped up With all your stamps.
That's exciting.

Joan (54:32):
You're like one of those people that needs extra pages
now, probably because all yourpages have been filled.
Um, I'm.
I'm not used to traveling Like.
I just travel mostly toEuropean countries, and so a lot
of times, border crossings arenothing like we when I recently
went from France or Spain toFrance.
We weren't even stopped Right.
And so this idea and I think Iwill be thinking for a while

(54:53):
about your comment about borders, because they're invisible but
they're there and there's also adifference between the borders
we've driven or we've drawnarbitrarily- yeah um, I mean
seemingly, sometimes arbitrarily, and the borders that already
exist but maybe don't existofficially, um, with cultures,
and I mean I think of, like thepost-world war ii, um, that we

(55:16):
just, you know, the superpowersjust, drew these borders right
and it doesn't fit with thepeople and it doesn't fit with
the history, and that we'reseeing the effects of that Right
.
And so to experience borders inthese different ways that you
were able to, I think I'll bethinking about that for a while.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Yeah, me too.

Joan (55:32):
Those lines.
Yeah, the other thing I reallyloved that you spoke about was
the relying on the kindness ofothers, and I think there's also
that lesson that you had tosometimes ask for help, and I'm
somebody who doesn't ask forhelp easily, and so I think a
trip like this would bedifficult because I would want
to be self-reliant and I wouldwant to just you know, don't

(55:55):
look at me, I'm fine and to havethat vulnerability to be
willing to ask or just evenaccept help when it was given.
I think there's a huge lifelesson there that give and take,
allowing people to help youright and being open to that and
being reliant on it and notbeing self-reliant.
That probably was a huge theme.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
It really was and I wouldn't say I was really good
at it, at least not going in.
I think I just got intosituations where I didn't have
much of a choice.
So I got a little better at it,you know, a little better at
talking to people or you know,when people expressed interest,

(56:35):
talking a little bit more, youknow so.
So that was that was good.
But yeah, that was a big, hugelessons in in human kindness and
um, uh, so like with variousghosts that that are gonna show
up, ghosts meaning like these,these historical characters who
kind of their voices are kind ofin in this book, in the text,

(56:59):
and they kind of show up as mymental projections of who these
people were right, like I do.
Like St Francis is one of them,like he's cause he was like a
person of the road, right.

Joan (57:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
He was good at like that.
Like their poverty is very muchin accepting food from
strangers.

Joan (57:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
Poverty, which is how I felt, maybe on the train
right.
And then there was, like therewas another weird theme of the
book.
Um, it's hard.
It's hard like I'm there's somuch of this, I like, I'm
unpacking and now I'm feelingthe um, the press of of, uh,

(57:41):
actual publishing, careerdeadlines and stuff like this
and and and also honoring the,the time that it might really
take to truly unpack some of thestuff and truly, like, do it in
a methodical, proper way, but,um, but there was another thing
that kind of came up from timeto time and it was like I'm

(58:06):
really hesitant to paint thingswith a broad brush, but the
difference between, like,regular people and official
people.
The most striking example ofthat was on that trucker boat
across the Caspian sea.
It was all these kind of likerough trucker guys, right, and

(58:37):
they got chatty on the last atthe end of the trip.
I mean, it wasn't, I'm going tosay the last night.
We was dinner, breakfast, lunch, dinner and then into the
evening, so so that's, that'show long it took.
So it was just an overnight, um, but at the end, you know, it's
dark again.
Dinner's been the second dinnerhas been eaten and everybody
was out on the deck and startedto get chatty so like 20 guys on

(59:01):
the boat, 25 guys, somethinglike this.
And then it got to like well,who are you and what is your
story?
And I got my book and wasexplaining what I was doing and
I was like, oh, and I'm anAmerican.
And the one guy was like, oh,american, jean-claude Van Damme,
you're Belgian, but okay,that's hilarious.

(59:24):
And when they got the idea ofwhat I was doing that I was
going to be getting into ACT-TALand trying to get across
Kazakhstan, two guys who were onthe younger side were like,
we'll take you.
And I was like, oh, you willtake me across the country in
your truck.
And I was like like a cab.
And they were like no, youdon't have to pay, we'll just

(59:45):
take me across the country inyour truck.
And I was like like like a cab.
And they were, no, you don'thave to pay, we'll, we'll just
take you across.
Oh, my gosh, like this is okay.
And then, um, this didn'thappen.
And but I, I there was one guyin my the little, the cabins
that you get, like I had onebunkmate guy and he was like
sort of like a grandfatherly guy.
He was on the older end of thetrucker spectrum, um, grizzled

(01:00:08):
like super strong dude and I wassort of talking and sort of um
translator apping back and forthwith him and he's like those.
Those guys said they would likegive me a ride across
kazakhstan and he was like, yeah, sleep on the truck, you sleep
on a train.
And I was like um and he, heended up saying like I'd
probably see more if I went withthem and I was like you think

(01:00:30):
it's a good idea.
And he's like yeah.
And I was like, oh cool, it's agood idea.
And then the reason it didn'thappen was because when the boat
got into port, um, theeverybody's checking out and
they're all getting their papersand they're ushered right off
the boat, but we're in adifferent country.
And then they were like, no,you stay.
And I was like, oh okay, Idon't know why.

(01:00:53):
Okay, fine, sit, sit, stay onthe boat, sit down on the couch
here.
Okay, interesting.
And they, they got somebodyelse to do my passport.
I was like different from theseother guys and it took hours,
like for somebody to arrive toto check my passport out.
And by that time, like theycouldn't wait, the truckers were

(01:01:14):
long gone, yeah, yeah and Ihadn't, like, I hadn't made any
like shaking hands official plan.
I was just like, yeah, I'll come, guys, okay, and then they went
down to their trucks andwhere's where am I, nobody knows
.
Oh no, I got stopped at thething and now I have to wait for
these guys and it was likethree hours and now the trucks
have been moved off the boat andthat's why I want to, and like,

(01:01:40):
the people who came to do mypassport were young guys in
fatigues, right they were likeuniform guys and they're not
there to help you and they'realso like 12, like, and that's
like the guys in fatigues whoare like 12.
It was rough and so yeah, so Ilost like regular people who you

(01:02:00):
think are like yeah like rough.
We're like, we will totallyhelp you, let's do it.

Joan (01:02:06):
And then people who are there to stamp you in they don't
care, really want, yeah, yeahyeah, and so that kind of came
up a few times yeah um, soanyway, yeah well, as we kind of
wrap up, I guess this isanother big, like open-ended
question, but but can you thinkof maybe, what surprised you the

(01:02:29):
most in all of this?
I mean, some things seemed tohappen as you expected.
You had a lot of changes initinerary, the whole experience
that surprised you, that youwouldn't have thought, when we
had this conversation a fewmonths ago, whether it's
something that you learned orsome way you've changed or, um,

(01:02:52):
is there something thatsurprised you?

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Um, I don't know, that's a good question?
Uh, I think.
No, that's a good question, Ithink.

Joan (01:03:09):
I don't know Too hard.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
Yeah, I'd have to think a lot about that.
I mean because, like, the wholething was just the whole thing
was surprising, just a bigsurprise.
Yeah, oh, there's so manysurprises um, in there I think,

(01:03:32):
okay, how much I didn't know, oror don't know about the world,
and how much, um, how much Idon't know about, how much I
didn't know about everythingbeyond Europe, which seems like
obvious, but, but there were but, but, and those are layered

(01:03:54):
surprises, right, like what itmeans to travel through like
post-Soviet controlled areas now, and what that the ussr has
left behind as its legacy, um,how, how, the the scale of
enormous things that happenedthat I didn't know about or or

(01:04:20):
don't get reported on or told asmuch um yeah.
The train through Kazakhstanwent through the region of the
Oral Sea, which was one of thelargest.
Like it was a sea, it was likeone of the largest bodies of
water in that part of the world.
that is gone now, but it hadlike fishing villages right and

(01:04:45):
now there's just boats in sandoh my gosh, and it was because,
um, of a lot of differentenvironmental things, but since
the 70s it had gotten smallerand smaller and smaller and now
it's gone, um, but it's alsobecause, like, like, uh, the
soviets controlled dams andwaterways and stuff that was

(01:05:06):
feeding it and stuff like that,so it was like it's an
ecological disaster that whoknew about, right?
Or that in northern Kazakhstanis the area where the most
atomic explosions have ever beendetonated, and that's because,
again, now I'm just talkingabout russia and russia, russia,
but like, it's the area wherethey went to do atomic tests and

(01:05:32):
, um, so they went outside ofrussia to do the atomic tests
and they still sort of rent,apparently they still sort of
lease that land from kazakhstan,and it's just sort of an
uninhabitable zone.
Yeah, a lot of stuff like that.
Yeah, how little I understandpolitical relations, yeah.

Joan (01:06:01):
Yeah, I think that would be one of the things the world
is bigger than we think in a lotof different ways.
Yeah, I mean like you're namingcities that I was like I have
no idea what he's, what, what,like I don't know where you're
talking about, right and yeah,but then I also don't know how
big kazakhstan is and I don'tknow the history.
Like I know they were underussr, but like ninth largest
country in the world, and alsolike like about half the size of

(01:06:23):
amer right.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
It's incredible, it's enormous.
Yeah, it's just broadening ourown understanding and our own
yeah but there's so much andthere's so much more to do, and
I can't learn politics andgeography in any other way.
I've taken political scienceclasses and I'm always just like

(01:06:45):
I have no idea what anybody'stalking about Right yeah.
But then you can go and talk topeople in a place, but that's
who gets to do that.
Maybe me one time, yeah.

Joan (01:06:57):
But there's so much more to do.
You haven't even touched Africaand South America.

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
I haven't touched most of the world, and it's also
how, how thin that thread isright yeah like, like, I went
around the world but I've seenalmost none of it, because your
perception, your is is such atiny, tiny thread.
It's like, um, we think theatlantic.
You look at shipping lanes onmaps and you think like, oh, the

(01:07:20):
atlantic's super crowded, it'ssmall, full of ships and stuff
like that.
Then you get out and there'snothing to the horizon Right.
And you're like oh no, it'sreally big.
And these lines are just thethinnest, tiniest lines and you
can see it's still big, it'sstill big.

Joan (01:07:36):
It's like somebody who has only grown up in New York City
or in Shanghai, right, and thenthey go to Iowa and they're like
wow, the world is a lot like.
There's all this open spacethat I didn't know existed, and
you've done that in a lot ofdifferent levels of your brain.
You've done that.
You know both with the actualland, but you've also done it

(01:07:58):
meeting people.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
But you've just met a few people, right, and so how
you're there's so many and it'sjust so crazy and um, and
there's also like the thing ofum yeah, I made it through,
mostly without you know I had Itook a couple of big flights, um
, but it did help me, like I wassort of reinforced this idea of
traveling without um airports,because you really do hop into

(01:08:23):
the middle of a um sort of a setplace, right like like you hop
into the middle of what isdesigned for you to see um and
like I think a lot about.
Like that bus ride down frombatumi to tiblisi in georgia and
how long that was like four orfour and a half hours down

(01:08:43):
through the countryside and it.
It was like if I'd flown rightinto Tbilisi I would have seen
an Eastern European city full ofpeople in nice clothes and
antique markets.
But to take the bus through andto see all the the land in

(01:09:06):
between you know, like abandonednuclear power plants and farms
and villages and all of it, thenyou get like a different look
or a different view.

Joan (01:09:20):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
It's hard to do, you're like it's.

Joan (01:09:24):
It's a difficult thing for anybody to pull off, but I
think it's good spots of yourlife where you're like allow

(01:09:48):
yourself to be surprised, bepresent when you are out and
about and see people and talk topeople, don't just look at your
phone.
Be, I mean, like you can takesome of the lessons that you've
learned in accepting hospitality, in being vulnerable, in being
open to new cultures.
We can take that even just inour everyday lives here in
America, and so I think it'seasy to listen to your
adventures and be like, oh, I'llnever do that, like I'll never
find myself in Kazakhstan,bigness and its fullness and

(01:10:11):
approach that living life thatway.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Because I think so often we do curate our lives too
much, you know, yeah, and Ithink you can make it a practice
.
And I guess, to close, I wouldlike I did write one thing in my
journal as I was going aboutlike, like, what if this was
like the modern face of of, ofpilgrimage, right, um, of of

(01:10:50):
doing a long trip, um, cause somuch of it was like on old buses
and you know long stretcheswhere you're sitting and
watching the world go by, um, um, but also like I was trying to
figure out what, I was trying toget at it, and it was like what
if you know you can't requirepeople to do things, but what if

(01:11:12):
you required?
Like, like, what would it looklike if the ultra rich people
were able, you know, like themark zuckerbergs or whatever,
were able to get on that trainand rely on regular people's
kindnesses?
to get a place Like what, howwould their perceptions change,

(01:11:33):
right, I don't know.
Yeah, I just don't know.

Joan (01:11:39):
Yeah, Well, thanks Ben.
I think you gave us a lot tothink about and I'm just
grateful that you were able.
You know that you were willingto share and to share kind of a
very intimate life changing timeto share the ups and downs with
us a little hard to unpack.

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
I'm still working on it.
It's a hard thing to talk about, but, um, I think it's a good
thing to talk about and, yeah,like, I'm hesitant to say that I
like have any concrete thingsthat I learned, or answers or
anything like that, but, um, butit was definitely, uh,
enriching and revelatory Isuppose.

Joan (01:12:22):
Yeah, yeah and sometimes we're not like.

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
The search is the answer in a sense, yeah very
much.

Joan (01:12:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I talk a lot about how sometimes
the pilgrimage is more about thedisposition than the
destination yeah and you know,sometimes it's more about, yeah,
just those those moments alonewith ourselves on the train.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
Yeah, that's perfectly, it truly is.
And that's perfectly it, ittruly is.
And that's the kind of thingwhere you're right, like it can
be anywhere.
God, yeah, like well, yeah, Idon't know.
I can tell you one last verysort of thing that happened,

(01:13:00):
sort of intense thing, but itwas that on that boat, that
again the trucker boat, right um, but that's, oh you know what.
One reason I keep coming backto that is that was one of the
one of those moments where, like, oh, you're out in the middle
of the big water, there is nocell signal now, so you're,
you're a little bit more on yourown, even, um, and that's where

(01:13:26):
, one of those places where Ifelt like, okay, I'm alone with
myself you know, guys on theboat but there's a language
barrier.
I'm, I'm on my own, um, uh, I'mout.
Like I don't have.
I didn't bring like a lot ofentertainment with me.
There's no entertainment.
I had like a book, but it it wasKafka and it was really boring

(01:13:48):
and so I ended up going throughphotos of my daughter, ida, who
died, and finally sort oforganizing them and working
through the photos a little bitand it was like, okay, it's been
some years and I had to gethalf a world away, you know, to

(01:14:10):
get to a place where I could dothat and um, and I think it
didn't have to be halfway aroundthe planet, but it did have to
be something where you like makeyourself alone with yourself,
yeah, to to kind of like turnoff.
And we talk about it all thetime, turning, turning off and

(01:14:30):
tuning out, but like, I thinkthere are ways to do it all over
the place yeah, sometimes Ithink what you're saying is like
this to you yeah, it's more ofa you had to yeah, but it's also
more of a a thing where you um,it could be a practice.
But I also think you, like,there are probably ways to to
make it feel like, um, like youjump off a diving board, like,

(01:14:53):
okay, I went on this trip nowthere's no going back now.
I am stuck with this thing.
You know, like you, you burn alittle bit of a bridge behind
you and so you can either do thework or ignore it.
Yeah, I don't know.

Joan (01:15:05):
Yeah, yeah, well, thanks, ben, thanks for sharing that,
and I know that people, yeah,like I just challenge, I guess,
our listeners to figure out whatthis means to them, and they
can't replicate this, butthere's something in here that
they can replicate and they canlearn from your experience, and
so I'm just grateful for hearingyour stories and we look

(01:15:26):
forward to seeing the book whenit comes out.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
Yeah, hopefully, hopefully 2026.
Okay, it got a lot bigger, likethe page count grew and that
was a surprise.
But but I am really grateful tosort of have had this
experience.
To kind of bookend it, I mayactually go back and listen to
the first one and see, see, thatnaive little boy that had all

(01:15:52):
these dreams.
Oh you poor fool.

Joan (01:15:55):
Yeah, I actually think you'll find.
I think you'll find thatthere's a lot that you thought
would happen.
That happened.
Okay, good, good, that's good,that's good to know.

Speaker 2 (01:16:02):
Well, thanks, ben so good, good, good, that's good,
that's good to know.
Well, thanks Ben.

Joan (01:16:06):
Thanks, listeners.
Share this episode with someonewho might enjoy it and say a
prayer for Ben by 2026.
We're going to read all aboutwhat you just heard about, so,
but thanks so much, ben.
Talk to you soon.
We'll talk to you.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Bye, thank you.