F E L I N E R S

This entry is kind of like a tribute to one of my favourite travel writer Pico Iyer. If you've never heard of him, Pico Iyer, born in 1957, is a British-born essayist and novelist. His essays, reviews, and other writings have appeared in Time, Conde Nast Traveler, Harper's, the New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, and Salon.com. His books include Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, Cuba and the Night, Falling off the Map, Tropical Classical and The Global Soul. They have been translated into several languages and published in Europe, Asia, South America, and North America.

So what is so special about Iyer? Well, for me I find his writings offer much to admire and emulate. He seems to approach the world with a fresh heart and wide open eyes - the two most important element of meaningful travel. People often asked me of my experience travelling alone in Southeast Asia; Was it dangerous? Wasn't I afraid?

I tell them of course you take standard safety precautions but the truth is, until you've learnt to travel with a fresh hear, your travel is unlikely going to be anymore meaningful than a compilation of photos in some faraway exotic land. As a somewhat jaded city-dweller, I was truly liberated when I found out that not everyone out there is waiting to rob me and that villagers on trains are more likely to share their lunch with me as oppose to stealing mine.

Going back to Iyer, I find that he looks closely and doesn't simply describe what he sees but constantly analyzes it, trying to understand what things mean and where they fit in the puzzle of the whole. As a traveler, I especially love his opennes, gentleness, kindness and vulnerability. I love the precision and music of his prose and his witty, insight-compacting turns of phrase. I love his relentless attempts to understand his experiences and encounters and his constant questioning of his own assertions and explanations, his ongoing quest for some deeper truth. Yes, yes he just absolutely amazes me okay.

Born in England, raised in California, and educated at Eton, Oxford, and Harvard, Iyer intrigues me in the sense that he has traveled widely, from North Korea to Easter Island, Paraguay to Ethiopia. He is the sort of global nomad that writes very interesting things about cultural minglings. The fact that he now base himself out of rural Japan and lives with his Japanese partner stirs my interest even more.

Definitely one to add to my 'people I'd like to meet' list!


"We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves.
We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate..
We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge,
to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed.
And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again - to slow time down and be taken in, and fall in love once more."

Pico Iyer