Mind wide open
www.tedxbratislava.com
Let me share with you one great adventure,
I had a pleasure to experience at the turn of 2008 and 2009.
Me and my cousin and friend Michael decided
that we want to travel as far as possible,
so we went from the town of Olomouc to the town of Olomouc again,
but from the other side.
We took a companion with us: a 40 years old old-timer car Skoda 1000 MB,
which we named Julia.
What I experienced on this journey, what lessons I took away,
and what it meant for me, that’s what I’d like to share with you in the next few minutes.
So, let me start appropriately – i.e. from the end.
It is May 11, 2009 and jolting towards the western border of the Czech Republic is a ramshackle Skoda 1000 MB.
It’s changed a little, and so we have.
We're tired and dirty and also Julia is not anymore
the charming old lady she used to be.
In short, I would describe her technical condition as follows:
wipers - gone, the carburetor dismantled and put back again hundred times, the speedometer - gone;
the exhaust gone and welded back again many times.
Some examples of our technical mastery:
For instance, the right headlight – a plastic foil instead of glass.
Here is the indicator taped to the chassis.
Hood and trunk tied with a rope to the chassis,
happily rattling on every pothole.
In this moment, shortly before the end of our journey, we've been on the road for 8 months,
we have crossed 4 continents, 21 countries and travelled 36,000km.
When I stop the course time in this moment and rewind the imaginary tape
three years back, this is all just one big dream.
There are a number of obstacles between us and the fulfillment of our dream.
Firstly, Michael and I have a big nil on our accounts.
Secondly, we do not really know whether or not the journey can even be done the way we plan it,
because we lack information about some countries we want to see.
Thirdly, we are not mechanics and we know nothing about how cars work
and what to do, when they stop working.
And finally, of course we fear embarking on something like that.
So, in the next two years we try to work on these issues.
We meet with travelers,
gather some information about the countries where we plan to go.
We find out about sponsoring options, which bank could possibly lend us money
or if there is anyone at all we could borrow from ... if such a person even exits.
We even get an amazing book "Skoda 1000MB - Repair and maintenance" from the Internet.
We browse through the book in the evenings.
After two years of our intensive efforts the status is as follows:
We have a minus $600 on our account.
We still don’t know if the trip can be done,
because as we found out, in many countries the roads may not be passable for us
- especially with the car we had chosen.
And still don’t know anything about how cars work
and what to do with them when they work no longer.
We have read about 40 pages of the book in those two years, which is not exactly a phenomenal achievement.
And lastly, of course, we are still afraid.
But at this point we are determined to do it and we want to get as far as possible.
So, we send out first press releases, we get first sponsors.
We are meeting people who want to help us,
mechanics, who service our Juliet free of charge,
and gradually we are getting closer to achieving our goal.
We scour junkyards, collect precious spare parts,
get vaccinated, obtain visas.
On September 1, 2008 most of our problems are solved,
except for the last one - we are still afraid.
So, we hit the road and head east - towards Baltic States and then to Russia -
with our heads full of scary visions of people being kidnapped in Colombia,
seven headless bodies found on the Mexican border,
or Russian bandits assaulting foreign trucks and cars with Kalashnikovs in their hands.
We are confronted with reality soon after.
We are located in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, in the European part of Russia,
when suddenly the engine looses it’s thrust, coughs and Juliet’s wheels stop turning.
We are on the outskirts of a city of two million, it’s about eleven PM and the street is deserted.
A number of dark silhouettes are slowly emerging from the adjacent park
and in this moment Michael and I are saying to each other: "And now we are in a deep ..."
"... problem".
Fortunately, nothing is as bad as it may seem on the first glance.
The silhouettes turn out to be some students
they help us to push Julia to the nearest gas station and they stop by the next day.
While we are leafing through the book, "Skoda 1000MB - Repair and maintenance";
one of them, a student Valer, diagnoses the problem - it is a carburetor – and he dismantles it
Then comes a trucker who was attracted by our car,
he blows the carburetor out by a hand pump
Ilya the policeman finishes the repair by white gasoline and showing us some tricks.
and after several hours the Julia’s engine ticks like clockwork.
And I write to my diary that night:
"There is a bit of a mechanic in every Russian."
We are leaving Novgorod and some 100 kilometers further the exhaust falls off
and again things work in a pretty much the same way.
With the help of locals we get where we need to
and we are in Timur’s workshop and he welds the exhaust back on
and to make sure that it survives the trip to Vladivostok, he adds a little „tuning“ touch to it -
he welds a large 17 mm wrench to the exhaust.
Hmm ...
This is how it looks like.
And I write to my diary:
"There is a bit of Russian in every mechanic."
Well, but I realize much more important thing:
the locals – rather than getting us in problems,
they are getting us out of them.
So the fear we had is a little smaller,
but they keep warning us: here we are in the European part of Russia,
it’s the Asian part that is really dangerous and we should really be cautious.
So, one month later we are in the Asian part of Russia, in the city of Chita,
we are not cautious and of course we get robbed.
Someone breaks into Juliet through a small window and takes away everything they find.
The car certificate, my driving license, passport, visas - everything that I "intelligently" left there.
So, I see myself on a plane home.
However, an interesting thing happens.
Our hosts somehow manage to persuade all local TV and radio stations
to broadcast a report about us and what happened to us – to appeal
to the thief to return the documents. A private detective agency in Chita and police gets involved ...
Basically everyone is alarmed and as a result a small miracle happens -
the very same night we have the documents back.
Someone slips them under the gate to the courtyard of our hosts.
What’s interesting about the story is that in addition to those documents that got returned
the offenders enriched themselves with ten liters of oil,
a nail clipper and a plastic bag full of garbage.
I could tell you something about each of these points that you see on the map.
In each of those dots something broke down.
By the way, this is also an answer to the question whether it’s a good idea to travel around the world in an old Skoda MB.
When I look at those dots, it reminds me of this children's game,
that I’m sure you know – Connect the Dots,
in which you connect individual dots to create a picture.
And for me it is something like that,
because these are the points from which I put together a picture of the world during our journey.
And when I look at it, I don’t see only points where something broke down,
or where we got ourselves in trouble - I also see points where we met the best people.
So, the final image that I see is not a picture of the world full of perils,
but rather a world that is very friendly. Much friendlier than I had originally thought.
I would like to show you the map once again from a bit different perspective.
Today I took it with me, because it reminds me of a very different map,
the map that hung over my bed when I was a boy.
In my children's room.
Similarly as this one, it was several hundred years old and it showed some unexplored areas.
I was always fascinated with these white spots on the map.
And I thought how wonderful it must have been to travel to those areas,
to parts of the world you know nothing about, where anything can await you.
Anything can jump at you – a crocodile or a dragon.
And when I look at the map now, two thoughts come to my mind.
The first is that you should be careful what you hang above your children’s beds,
because one day they may pack up and set on their way, for example, to travel around the world.
The other thought is that when I look at the map of the world today,
there are no white spots anymore.
So, it may seem that a journey similar to that we made with Michael
from "Olomouc in Olomouc"
is somewhat meaningless, because there is nothing new to discover.
I think it’s not true, because the world
as it was captured in the maps by Magalhaes or Columbus
is very much different from the world we saw on our journey.
And the world we saw, is very much different from the world
you’d see, if you embarked on a journey tomorrow.
And that’s why I think the world is still worth exploring ...
and discovering for ourselves. Because the world that I saw
was not the same world that Michael saw.
I believe the world is worth discovering again and again,
because it is ever changing.
And what better way ...
than through your firsthand experience
and what more beautiful way than through your own eyes.
Thank you.