The Art of Non-Conformity: Unconventional Strategies for Life, Work, and Travel

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View previous “getting to” entries here:

Getting to India
Getting to Moldova
Full Trip Reports Archive

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As the Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong lands in Karachi, Pakistan, the purser makes the usual landing announcements. You can turn your mobile phones on but please don’t get up until we’re at the gate, be careful when opening the overhead bins, and so on.

Then she gives us some information I’ve never heard before: “The following is an announcement from the government of Pakistan. The trafficking of drugs into Pakistan is a highly serious offense. Penalties include capital punishment. Thank you for your attention.”

In other words, welcome to Pakistan.

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A few days ago I wrote about my misadventures in Mongolia—the primary misadventure in that case being evicted from my guesthouse after midnight. That experience was certainly not fun while it was happening, but in the end, things turned out rather uneventfully.

As a follow-up, today I thought I’d tell you about a misadventure that was entirely of my own doing. I can blame no one but myself for this (I’d love to blame United Airlines for being so inflexible, but that would be somewhat beside the point). This misadventure is pretty much the biggest mistake I’ve made in 80+ countries of traveling. Oh, and it happened about three weeks ago.

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Image by CG

This is the story in which I fly to Mongolia for $44, get kicked out of my guesthouse after midnight, and visit the Genghis Khan brewery. Sounds like fun, right?

Well, yes. But I should first explain that in my world, a misadventure does not always refer to a bad day or an unfortunate series of events. Some misadventures can certainly turn out that way, and I’ve had my share, but more often than not a misadventure is just something that did not really go as planned.

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Image by DDanzig

I head out in the morning for what I plan as a 6-8 mile run. I’ve never been here before, so my route is somewhat flexible. I Google “Warsaw running” and find a couple of ideas, but mostly what I decide is to simply head north. I’ll run for half an hour or so, then change streets and run back the other day.

If Erbil is a city on the rise, Warsaw is a city that has already rose. There is little here to indicate that Poland was once a very poor country. Instead, it looks like any number of other European cities—Frankfurt, Paris, Brussels, or even London.

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Hello everyone, here are the details behind my secret stopover while on the Baltics and Beyond trip. I had a stop on this part of the trip that I deliberately chose not to publicize in advance. The secrecy was partly for safety concerns, but just as much because I wasn’t sure it would work out.

Breaking off from my exploration of the Baltics and Eastern Europe, I traveled to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq last weekend. Yes, I made it there and made it back with no problems, and with even more of an appreciation for how people live their lives with profound optimism in the midst of all kinds of trying circumstances.

I was worried about how I would be able to take Iraq off the list, but now I can say with integrity that I’ve done it. Here is the whole story, but first…

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