The Great Trade Routes trip with TCS Expeditions visited the countries of Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, UAE (Dubai), India and Turkey. I gave lectures on "Oil in the Middle East - A Geologic Perspective" (in Dubai); "Asia - Earth's Supercontinent" (in Udaipur, India) and "Past and Future Trends in Global Climate Change" (while flying high over Saudi Arabia in our private 757 jet).

Most everyone we met along the way were happy that we were visiting and spending dollars in their countries. However, I continue to be amazed at the difference in character and quality of the printed news overseas vs. our press here at home. I actually learn things when I read articles in newspapers and magazines in other countries. Quotes from world leaders are included in articles so that the reader can make their own interpretations of what is really going on. Stories routinely "connect the dots" so that events are not seen in isolated events but as outcomes and results of previous ones. I am sad to say that the content of newspapers here doesn't seem to teach us anything - it's more of loud cacophony of "noise." What is up with the press and the manner in which it "informs" its citizens? I'm beginning to believe that we are being sold something rather than being informed.

Anyway, that's just an observation. I did not hear any negativity about America and the war in Iraq. That was refreshing. Enjoy the photos!

My trip began with a 12 hour flight to Beijing from San Francisco. All those years in my youth I had heard of Chinatown in San Francisco and had even visited there. But it never made me think of China - only briefly about things Chinese. Now I was on a 747 bound for a great unknown. I kept thinking on the outbound flight, "Just because one can fly 12 hours half way around the world, doesn't mean that it's a good idea!" I was tentative about such a long flight because of the 21 hour time difference and what it might do to my biological clock. No worries though, my luggage didn't arrive when I did and for 48 hours I wore the same clothes I flew in.

My trip included a 5 day pre-trip extension to Mongolia. I spent two days in Ulan Baatar the capital and 3 days in the Gobi Desert at the Three Camel Lodge. What a place! The Gobi had received it's first snowfall of the season in early September and the floor of the desert was green! Snow still sparkled in the Altai Mountains to the south. Visit's included a drive to the Flaming Cliffs where the first dinosaur eggs were discovered in 1923, canyons in the Altai Mountains, and a walk on a lava flow complete with petroglyphs of camels.

But China was the main destination and has been the single most focus of my post trip thoughts. It was an amazing whirl of hyper-construction in preparedness for the 2008 Olympic Games, non-stop streams of people, and a culture and way of life so different from our own. I entered the country with no expectations but increasingly became confused and disoriented as I learned more about this long surviving culture.

What I learned is that the Chinese today are still under the influence of people, events and religious thoughts that are over 2,500 years old. It began with Confucius who preached honor towards elders, especially parents and grandparents. From this sprang the many dynasties, instilling a sense of duty to community rather than our more favored sense of duty to the individual. If I had to sum up why I had such a hard time getting my head around China, it would be that they have little appreciation for personal achievement but unlimited admiration for work done on behalf of the nation.

It's too simply stated to say this is Communism because on the outside, the country is embracing a capitalistic economy. I never saw so many construction cranes and new interstate highways being built. Everywhere I looked there was growth. The air pollution anywhere near a city was blinding, even in the Gobi. The government has an incentive program to encourage masses of people to move west and when they do, they bring that pollution with them.

It was all so strange, so foreign. But not the food! I was told before I left that the food would resemble nothing like what I knew from a Chinese restaurant. But this was not the case and most in our group thought it was excellent! Many vegetables were presented as well as unknown cuts of meat. It was all served on a lazy susan in the center of the table which could be rotated as one snatched portions from the many offerings with their chop sticks. The breakfasts were surreal in their variety and originality of what could be considered "breakfast food."

Visits to the local markets were like a kid's first visit to Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors. Tea was sold in bulk and there were up to 100 different varieties. Spices were plentiful and colorful in their large sacks. Portions of whole animals - pigs, cows, chickens and sheep, hung gracefully in stalls with enthusiastic sellers and buyers. We never had enough time to just stroll leisurely - our schedule demanded efficient exploration - yet the sights and sounds of those markets are as memorable as any I have seen before elsewhere.

This was a trip of many highlights but I looked forward the most to seeing the Gobi Desert in China. My Mojave roots run deep and the word Gobi has held me spellbound for decades. Yet it was full of surprises that I could have never imagined before setting foot in it. I did not know that the Great Wall extended west into the Gobi and ended as a ruined adobe wall 3 feet high. I did not know that it was ringed with 18,000 foot snow-capped and glaciated peaks, that lay veiled in a haze of man-made pollution. I did not know that huge portions of it receive less than one inch of rain a year, making it one of the driest deserts in the world! Everywhere we looked there was something of interest to see - if one has a liberal range of interests.

We had a wonderful group of 38 travelers. Some came away with much different impressions than I had but no one I spoke to disliked the trip. It was a roaring success. And I find myself longing to return to China - an emotion I would have thought impossible before the trip began.

What is it that lures me to places with cultures so different from my own? I'm beginning to see that the answer is two-fold: That I long to learn about different people and various cultures, to see how they organize their daily lives. And I long to experience those cultural differences in landscapes I have not yet seen, but feel a kinship with because of my love for their geologic history. Geology binds it all together for me, no matter how different their religion, culture or politics may be. Travel is an education. Home is a blessing.

Exiting the aircraft in Flagstaff after 23 days scurrying around the Indian Ocean on a private jet trip, I spontaneously looked back at the small plane and wondered out loud, “Did that just happen?” I stood there in disbelief. It was difficult enough to comprehend that just 48 hours earlier I had been in Madras, India more than half way around the world. But when the reality hit me just how far away I had been and how fast I had traveled to get there, well, I just had to pause and pay my respects to wonders of jet flight in the modern world.

During those glorious 23 days there had not been enough time to digest the huge expanse and blurring speed at which I was moving. We had to be ready each day for what seemed like an endless barage of new adventures, set upon exotic landscapes, and framed through the eyes and lives of foreign cultures, spiced each day with their exotic foods. I was to travel, all told, through 11 different countries and more than 31,000 miles. That’s the equivalent of 1.25 times around the world! And when these reflections began to settle in, I was no longer surprised at my spontanous outburst on the tarmack at the Flagstaff Airport.

Meeting in London for one night, we then traveled seven hours in our private jet to the country of Oman on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula.

Truly one of the highlights of the entire trip was flying over eastern Turkey and western Iran. As a geologist, my face was glued to the window looking north and east to spectacular dome volcanoes, Mt. Ararat and the crumpled and folded edge of Iran. It’s the closest thing I’ve seen yet to a Colorado Plateau type landscape. I will go to Iran!

In Oman we drove through a desert dryer and more parched than our own Mojave and I immediately was pressed into service to convince some of our group that this was a good thing. “If I wanted to see this I could have gone to Palm Springs,” one lady blurted out. True, the bus ride to the old Omani fort at Nazwa was a bit long but the folded limestone mountains were huge and close and just seemed to be screaming at us, “ Hey, I just got bumped by another tectonic plate!” At a bathroom stop we searched the ground for fossils and the moment we found them, the landscape became just a bit less barren.

Flying off to Zanzibar, the Spice Island, we arrived in time for the national election. The tour operator, TCS Expeditions, had been watching the run-up to the election closely and had a backup plan in place since Tanzanians take their politics quite seriously. The winding streets of the Old Stone Town were quiet and peaceful during our stay but just days after our departure, they erupted in violence as the opposition party was once again thwarted in their attempt to take control. We watched it unravel on CNN from our hotel rooms in South Africa, Madagascar and Reunion Island. There had been some shooting, tear gas, throwing of rocks and even two deaths. It was weird in a way to have been that close to it - the place didn’t seem that volatile. I wonder if the after-election reporting didn’t amplify it more than it really was?

Our schedule called for one night in Maputo, Mozambique. I had been there previously in 1998 and wondered to myself why we were going there because back then it was nothing more than a collection of once grand colonial builings that stood like giant ruins in the wake of the French retreat from colonialism. But what a difference 7 years had made! The busy streets were full of cars where before there had been just a few.

There was a new optimism in the air as the 19-year civil war faded away to only a painful memory. For some in our group, this stop was a pleasant surprise in an African sort of way.

I say ‘African sort of way’ because Africa can be a hard place for some people to visit. It’s so different from anything else and can appear unkept. The roads are horrible. The trash is unsightly. The AIDS epidemic is a huge problem although you don’t see that when visiting like we did. There are challenges. But while there, I reflected in the presence of one of our guests that the reason I will continue to promote Africa as a wonderful place to visit is because of the spirit of its people. The individual I was talking to told me how she hated to see the trash laying around in front of peoples homes. She wondered how I could like it? I told her that I too despised it’s outward dirtiness but that this emotion in me was offset by the simple truth that there was a strength within the Africans’ hearts that left them affluent on the inside.

Next stop was Cape Town, South Africa. Since I had made a long visit here in 2001, I opted not to go to the top of Table Mountain but instead to Robben Island Prison, “home” of Nelson Mandela and other political prisioners of the apartheid era. It was moving experience.

TCS had arranged for a private tour with someone who knows it well - a former political prisoner named Y. Mohammed who is now writing the definitive history of the prison. He was an excellent guide, who not only took us around in his little bus but literally took us a trip back through time when the government of South Africa felt threatened enough to imprision otherwise law-abiding citizens. We were awed by the manner in which he wove his story—what a public speaker he was!

After this we flew for one night to a private game reserve just outside of Krueger National Park. Here we saw at close range some great elephants, lions, rhinocerous, and giraffes. If you have kids, you just have to take them to those African game parks! It is beyond belief. I don’t normally like to look at animals per se but seeing this big game in the wild brings out the kid in all of  us.

The biggest surprise of the trip was our visit to the remote island of Reunion, a piece of France in the South Indian Ocean. It is rugged, green, volcanically active and a hiker’s paradise. We took a scenic helicopter flight over two of the islands four “cirques”, huge canyons which disect the inactive volcano. They do not appear to be calderas, rather they appear as if they are features formed by groundwater sapping, a process whereby water running out of the ground undermines overlying rocks causing them to collapse. From our hotel beach, we saw the Green Flash at sunset on both nights of our stay!

We then retraced our route back to Madagascar for a three night stay.

Our group broke up into three separate packs, each visiting a separate part of the island. I traveled to Ananjavy along the northwest coast.

Here we saw many lemurs in the trees at close range. We also visited a small village including the school and the dispensary with our trip doctor. What a joy to see this native village which is not overrun  or changed by tourism. Another highlight was seeing the very strange rock formations for which Madagascar is famous - the tsingy. These are thin columns of limestone about 10 feet tall which formed when rainwater ate away the intervening rock mass. Our three groups made a redezvouz in the capital city of Antananarivo where I gave a lecture on Global Climate Change and the Indian Ocean.

Finally, it was time to go towards India and our first stop was the Maldive Islands, a paradise for all kinds of ocean sports. This is an archaepelago formed entirely by the growth of coral and the beaches are white coral sand and the water is the brightest turquoise blue. One of the highlights for me was trying to spend my $200 credit with the resort we stayed at. I indulged in a Balinese massage, foot scrub, reflexology and yogurt bath! Divine really! Then I went snorkeling off of a fantastic reef and saw all kinds of fish. Another highlight was the arrival at 5 PM every night of a school of rays who have learned to come to this beach to feed.

Our highest altitude at 41, 000 feet was made on the flight from the Maldives to Sri Lanka. We landed in the capital of Columbo and then boarded a vintage train to Galle. The trip took 4 hours and this was along the route that was hit hard by the December 26 tsunami. In Galle we visited a nearby village that had been hit especially hard and it was unbelievable to see the still present high water mark in homes about 10 feet above the floor! And this was 1/4 of mile from the shoreline! This must have been a tremendous tectonic wave. It was a highlight for me to visit the site of this tremendous natural event.

Too bad that many prospective guests on this trip were turned away by the thought of a tradgedy that happened 10 months before. What are some people thinking?

Regarding the tsunami, I made it a point to ask a handful of people about their personal experiences in the tragedy. In this way, I can make my own observations without reliying entirely on 2nd hand accounts. One of the recurring themes I heard is that no one knew what was happening when the waves came in. They had never even heard of the word tsunami. And since there was no electricity, they could not see a television for over 3 days and it was only then that they heard what had happened to them. I was amazed that geologic understanding is so limited in human populations.

Our last stop - India, ancient Bharat and the city of Madras. Here we saw where huge granite boulders had been carved to look like temples in the 5th and 6th centuries. I had come to this stop without understanding what we supposed to see (a common event on a trip of this magnitude) but came away with an amazing appreciation for how ancient peoples could carve solid granite. There was a wall of granite 30 feet high and 100 feet wide that had the most amazing carved mural of elephants, people and other scenes. This is the archaeological site of Maha-bali-puram.

On November 13 we flew from Madras to London, retracing our way back over western Iran and Eastern Turkey - Kurdistan essentailly. More recent snows had covered many areas since our overflight 3 weeks earlier. I was on my way home, not yet having digested the whirlwind of sights and smells and experiences. I feel so much enriched from the whole experience. Check back here for furrther updates to this text.