The stories in this book are all true. Its author has been held up at gunpoint at night on a road in Guatemala and shot with a machine gun in the chest and shoulder in Vietnam. He's come close to dying of thirst in the Sahara and freezing to death in the Himalayas. He's contracted malaria and typhoid fever in Ethiopia and hepatitis in India. There have been accidents involving motorcycles and automobiles. He's had close calls involving lions (twice), elephants (three times) and a rhino (once). He's visited over a hundred countries, seen revolutions, famines, wars, and panty raids, feasted in palaces and fasted in caves. He's discovered paradises, been saved by dolphins, hopped freight trains, danced with an 108-year-old woman, swam with sharks, frequented whore houses and opium dens, and met a man capable of revealing God. In the pages of this book you'll meet the queen of the Ecuadorian prison system, the Dalai Lama, Dick Cheney, a swami from Katmandu who makes his living picking up large stones with his penis, yak herders, tunnel rats, 300 pound go-go girls, deep sea divers, drug dealers, stock car drivers, Indonesian princes, Bolivian miners, beanheads, powder monkeys, hookers and saints. Between the stories the author gives advice to would-be travelers, describes six tropical paradises where you can live comfortably on five hundred dollars a month, and includes his personal lists of the best things in the world.
How an Average Man Lived an Adventurous Life
Includes Lists of the Best Things in the World & Six Tropical Paradises Where You Can Live for $500 a MonthBy John LinnemeierAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2008 John Linnemeier
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4389-1279-0Contents
Foreword.......................................................................1Longest Night..................................................................3Getting Holy in McLeod Ganj....................................................7Advice to Travelers: Walk toward the Music.....................................9Best Things in the World.......................................................11Elephants 1....................................................................13Elephants 2....................................................................15Elephants 3....................................................................16Best Things in the World.......................................................18Amazing Grace (Part I).........................................................21The Dogon Country..............................................................24C-U-P..........................................................................27Opporknockitty.................................................................28Advice to Travelers: Pick Up One Piece of Trash................................30The Trees Were Weeping.........................................................32Best Thing in the World........................................................34Stage Fright...................................................................36Trouble at Tilicho Pass........................................................38Impeccable Gentlemen...........................................................40Hard Traveling.................................................................42Hyperinflation: A Lesson in Economics..........................................44Birdlife.......................................................................46Best Things in the World.......................................................48S and M in NYC.................................................................50Sous Les Ponts De Paris........................................................52Now It Is Clean................................................................53Advice to Travelers: Teach Me a Song...........................................55Scattered Memories of Vietnam..................................................56Get Out........................................................................59Yucking it up in the World's Saddest Country...................................60Two Way Street.................................................................64I Remember.....................................................................66The Tower of Gao...............................................................68Cyclone Tracy..................................................................70The Worst Thing I Ever Did.....................................................72Best Things in the World.......................................................73Amazing Grace (Part II)........................................................75Little Old Ladies in Tennis Shoes Who Know How to Live.........................77Advice to Travelers: Try Every New Fruit.......................................79Friendly Fire..................................................................81It Is Forbidden................................................................83Best Things in the World.......................................................85Beanheads Eating Smack-Sized Bites.............................................87The White Rose.................................................................91Advice to Travelers: Dig Deeper................................................93Everything You've Heard About the Sixties is (Mostly) True.....................96Fire in the Hole...............................................................98The Mayor of Fifth Street......................................................100Homesick Down Under............................................................103The Man in the Culvert.........................................................105Best Things in the World.......................................................107Amazing Grace (Part III).......................................................109Didn't You Learn Anything?.....................................................113Advice to Travelers: Trekking In the Himalayas.................................115The Chicago Marathon...........................................................116Bleak Moscow...................................................................118I Remember.....................................................................120Friendliest Country in the World...............................................122Ikebana in Tegucigalpa.........................................................123A Tour of Duty in Vietnam......................................................125Best Things in the World.......................................................127Up the Niger Beyond Timbuktu...................................................129Saved by Dolphins..............................................................132Life in the White Cocoon.......................................................134Advice to Travelers: Bargaining................................................137The Art of War.................................................................138Why I Love Holland.............................................................140Why I Love India...............................................................142Best Things in the World.......................................................146Driving a Cab..................................................................148Fishing in Goa.................................................................150Drugs..........................................................................152Advice to Travelers: Don't Give Out Sweets.....................................155The Jericho Bar House..........................................................156Racing At Sweet Owen Speedway..................................................157Best Things in the World.......................................................160Fear and Greed: Playing the Stock Market.......................................162I'm an Angel...................................................................172Cultural Adjustments...........................................................175Best Things in the World.......................................................177Advice to Travelers: Get Off the Rabbit Run....................................179Ram Rahim Nagar................................................................180Three Warnings.................................................................182Best Things in the World.......................................................183Professor J.S. Puri............................................................185Dev Das........................................................................187Slipshod Manor.................................................................189I Remember.....................................................................190My Life as a Hooker............................................................192Returning to Vietnam...........................................................194The One Who Brings Light.......................................................197Riding the Rails...............................................................199Advice to Travelers: Get a Haircut.............................................204Be Careful of Nicaragua........................................................205More to Life in Hong Kong......................................................207Best Things in the World.......................................................208A Fish Story...................................................................210The War through Vietnamese Eyes................................................212Muy Hombre.....................................................................215Panty Raids....................................................................218The Splendid Splinter..........................................................220Best Things in the World.......................................................223It Takes a Village.............................................................225The Jaguar Birdman.............................................................227The Fetishist..................................................................231Three Churches.................................................................232Trying to Die in Bed at 95.....................................................236Advice to Travelers: Every Paradise Has a Lifespan.............................237How I Might Have Been a Chief in Samoa.........................................240The Optimist...................................................................242Best Things in the World.......................................................243Working Off -Shore.............................................................245Winter in the Hindu Kush.......................................................247I Remember.....................................................................251The Truth Cannot be Killed.....................................................253Best Things in the World.......................................................255Queen of the Ecuadorian Prison System..........................................257Recovery.......................................................................259A Slum Tourist in Calcutta.....................................................263My House.......................................................................265Worst Hitchhiking: Six Days of Bad Luck in the Sahara..........................269Best Hitchhiking: La Dolce Vita in Algiers.....................................270Thanks, Xaxa...................................................................272Advice to Travelers: Making it Work............................................274Tokyo Skyline..................................................................276An Affair with a 300 pound Go Go Girl..........................................277Election Day...................................................................279Best Things in the World.......................................................282Stowaway.......................................................................284Working on the Great Gate......................................................287Me, Dick Cheney, and the Dalai Lama............................................289War Wounds.....................................................................291Best Things in the World.......................................................292Six Paradises..................................................................294I Remember.....................................................................296All the Good Times Aren't Over.................................................298Living in the Himalayas........................................................300Best Things in the World (which I hope to do before I die).....................302Final Advice to Travelers......................................................303Afterward......................................................................305Acknowledgements...............................................................307
Chapter One
Longest Night
I instinctively reached for my rifle when someone woke me around midnight. I remember the night as moonless, though after so many years, I wouldn't swear to it. It must have been hot like every night in the dry season. Thick dust softened my step as I walked the short distance to the perimeter of our night defense position. I was in a good mood; I loved the solitude of guard duty.
We were about a mile from the Cambodian border. North Vietnamese could cross the border at night, hit us, and be back safely in Cambodia before daylight. An entire company of ARVNs had been wiped out to the last man a couple of kilometers from us several weeks before. We drove past a large circle of their burned-out vehicles every day. It made us edgy.
Late in the afternoon we would move back to our small night defense position and circle the wagons. This particular NDP was a basic set-up with cleared land and rolls of razor barbed-wire extended concertina-style and stacked in a pyramid, forming a circle. Within this outer circle was a smaller circle of pushed-up earth, forming a berm. Facing outward on the berm were about twenty armored personnel carriers (APCs) sitting with their tracks tilted slightly upwards. Each had a machine gunner on top silently staring out into the darkness.
I have no explanation for what happened next. My friend, Frito, was atop the APC manning the gun. I called out from the ground that I was there to relieve him.
"Everything quiet tonight?" I asked.
"Yeah, real quiet, no problems," he replied.
I climbed up the ladder, directly in front of the M-60, three feet from the barrel. Frito's face and expression are lost to me, nor do I remember the impact of the bullets, but I distinctly remember the flame that shot out of the muzzle.
The first bullet missed my heart by a centimeter and lodged in my left lung, collapsing it. The second bullet entered my left shoulder, making a small entrance hole. The bullets were designed to wobble. When they hit flesh, they'd start to tumble. The exit wound tore out most of my scapula.
When I regained consciousness, I was aware of the stars above me, jewel-like and radiant. Foaming blood was boiling out of my chest with every breath. A medic was working over me with a wad of plastic, desperately trying to plug the hole.
The first person I remember talking to was our Buck Sergeant. I don't recall his name. As he looked down upon me his eyes were wide with fear.
"You took five rounds!" He paused. Then, like he knew it was something you were supposed to say, "You're gonna be alright."
Before this moment I'd never so much as broken a finger, but I knew with certainty that if I had been shot five times, I would be dead in sixty seconds. It was difficult for me to speak, but I needed to have a clear moment - no bullshit. I could barely get it out, but I told the Sergeant to go away. Then a friend of mine, a Hispanic guy who didn't speak much English, held my hand. That was a true thing.
I had been reading a Bible the chaplain had given me a few weeks before, and I knew I couldn't put it off any longer. I had to decide if I believed in God.
The answer came to me in an instant:
NO!
Nothing had been revealed to me and I wasn't going to crawl out of life pretending that it had. There were people I loved and that was as high as I could get. I could go out on that.
Just after I was shot I remember being terrified. I existed, but soon wouldn't. I had taken the miracle of being alive as if it were nothing. My actions while living seemed shallow, contemptible, driven by egotism.
As I approached death, however, all this was left behind. A peace settled on me. I could die or not die. Either was okay. The only question was - had I done what I needed to do? I don't know where it came from, but I flashed that I hadn't had a son. This was a peculiar idea as I didn't even have a girlfriend at the time. But the decision was made and that seemed to bring me back.
I remember feeling strongly that I had no reason to complain about my fate. I had made a series of decisions which had put me precisely where I was under those blazing stars. Months later, in a hospital in Japan, a fellow patient who had stepped on a mine said that he remembered thinking just after it happened, "You play with fire, you're gonna get burned." I knew what he was talking about.
Since I had a sucking chest wound, nobody wanted to give me painkillers, as that would depress my breathing. Not even an aspirin. It was a long night, and I went in and out of consciousness many times. The only way I can gauge the pain now is by remembering one thought I had. Despite being young and full of the juice of life, it hurt enough that I figured that it wouldn't be all bad if I died.
Once I regained consciousness while flying in the back of a Huey slick. I must have been on my way to a field hospital. I clearly remember the loud beat of the rotor blades and the rush of the wind through the open door. I couldn't get enough air; I needed oxygen. The bored medic absent-mindedly handed the tube to me as he gazed out the door at the lights scooting beneath us. For him, this was just another run.
The first chopper took me to a field hospital. It must have been very late at night. In true army fashion, there was paperwork to be filled out upon arrival. I must have had to tell them how to spell "Linnemeier"-I always do. Next thing I remember, I was being worked over by a very nervous doctor who must have just gotten in-country. He was assisted by an old battle-axe of a nurse. She was a bitch, but I can hardly complain; she probably saved my life.
They were trying to drain the blood and fluid out of my chest through plastic tubes sticking out of my back. The tubes kept coming out and had to be re-inserted. Each time they fiddled with them I had to be turned over. The pain was unspeakable, and every time they rolled me over I cried out, "Oh, God, Oh God!" Each time I swore, the woman admonished me. Finally, in exasperation, she asked the doctor if he could make me quit cursing. Obediently he mumbled, "Please, you're in the presence of a lady."
Sometime later during that long night they moved me to another hospital. The doctor there had seen it all and seldom talked. He may not have thought much of me one way or another, but he knew his stuff. He was competent; I could sense it and was grateful for it.
At one point someone was saying a little desperately, "If he gets worse, we'll have to operate." I remember praying to get worse; the pain was unbearable. And I did.
Next morning I woke up covered with a solid sheath of bandages from my navel to my neck, with an IV in my arm and a body pumped full of glorious painkillers.
Chapter Two
Getting Holy in McLeod Ganj The world is a book and those who don't travel read only one page. St. Thomas Aquinas
Thirty years ago I was living in the amiable, cockroach-infested Mount Kailash Hotel above Dharamsala in the small town of McLeod Ganj, the exile home of the Dalai Lama. McLeod Ganj is a beautiful little place, or was, at that time anyway. It's nestled in a pine forest beneath the Himalayan Range in Northern India. The Tibetans who lived there were noble and good-natured. At the time, there were a few hundred westerners in town as well. Bearded, long-haired, patchouli-scented searchers and seekers for the most part.
The hospitable Tibetans opened their world to us. You could attend a one-hour-a-day seminar - like I did - or study for twenty years and become a monk or nun. The most bright-eyed, jovial old Lama imaginable taught the class while a sweet-faced young monk translated his lessons for us into English. It was fall and the plum tree outside our little school had turned a dark crimson. As I came into the sun-filled classroom one afternoon long ago, I was feeling particularly pleased with myself. This place was really cool; I was making all kinds of spiritual progress here and getting holier all the time. With that pleasant thought in mind, I settled into a somewhat uncomfortable half-lotus position near the back of the class on one of the large rugs that covered the floor, prepared to listen to the lecture.
The Lama began, "The first thing I have to say is that we always have to be careful of spiritual pride."
Wow, I thought, that's interesting!
The talk rambled on. Golden shafts of afternoon sun began to stream in through a large bank of smudged windows, gently warming me. I slowly drifted off into a daydream.
Then, just barely through this gauzy mental haze I heard the Lama say, "The second main thing that I want to say today is that it's important to focus your mind and pay attention all the time."
I awoke with a start. Was this guy reading my mind?
Then, with a twinkle in his eye, the old man looked straight at me and said, "The third point I want to make today is that it is important to learn to read people's minds so you can help them." Then he burst into laughter.
Chapter Three
Advice to Travelers: Walk toward the Music
Say you are in a small town in Africa. You hear music in the distance. My advice is to follow that sound and find out what's going on. I can't tell you how many little adventures have resulted from doing this. I've been invited to weddings, witnessed fiery political rallies, seen colorful religious festivals, and attended some great parties in a lot of exotic places.
Speaking of Africa, an incident in Mali comes to mind. I was waiting in the dusty town of Mopti for the rains to start so the Niger River would rise. Then the rusty, old paddle wheel steamer that plied the river would be able to clear the thousands of sand bars and make it up past Timbuktu to Gao. From there I hoped to catch a sheep truck north across the Sahara.
Far away across town, I could barely make out some joyful music coming in through my open hotel window. I walked out of the seedy little building and into the dusty red dirt street in pursuit of the faint sound. It gradually grew louder and, a few minutes later, I emerged at a boisterous street party. I stood there flat-footed and feeling like a farmer come to town.
There before me was a tight circle of onlookers emitting a fetid warmth, keyed to a fever pitch and intensely alert. Within this circle, the drummers were pounding out an incessant beat with an all-consuming concentration. It felt as if something mysterious was attempting to be born.
Mali may be one of the poorest places in the world, but the women carry themselves like queens. Dressed in magnificent turbans and long flowing dresses made from incandescent textiles saturated with every hue and flecked with gold and silver, the very movement of their bodies speak of life. They radiate joy.
From time to time one of the women would move into the center and start to dance. She would begin to reveal something deep and true about herself as all eyes followed her. She allowed us to see her more naked than naked. Then, abruptly, the dancer would cover her face, suddenly embarrassed, and rush back out of the circle. Some were technically skillful, but this obviously wasn't the important thing.
As I stood there watching, someone entered the circle and the energy immediately changed. This woman was in charge. She knew who she was, and there was no fear in her. A spell was being cast. The atmosphere grew more intense, the musicians more focused. Everyone recognized that this person had IT. Time was suspended; all were entranced.
Then an official-looking guy in a suit rushed in and bedecked the dancer with a garland made of money. The spell ended in an explosion of celebration and the anointed one retired from the circle in triumph.
In the midst of this swirling tumult I noticed that a three-hundred-pound woman of enormous beauty had her eyes locked on me. I was a goner. I should mention here that my brother Richard can dance circles around me. Comparatively speaking, he is a real Nureyev. He is also known far and wide in our state as the second-worst dancer in Indiana. Nonetheless, the eyes of this African beauty looked deep into mine. There was no fighting it. The crowd was going insane. This poor Hoosier was in her hands. She willed me into motion.
Chapter Four
Best Things in the World
Jim Morrison's grave at Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. The graffiti and neon-colored arrows spray-painted on gravestones will guide you to the spot where he's buried. When you arrive you'll find a small group of people standing around, drinking whiskey and smoking pot. The faces change but there's always a party going on there.
The incredible break-dancing that goes on out in front of McDonalds on Khreshchatyk Street in Kiev
Revolutions in Bolivia.
I arrived in Bucharest, Romania with a dozen tangerines. It was a dreary winter day. The whole city, even the people, seemed colored in shades of grey. None of the buildings were heated and no one smiled. It was a couple of months after the ouster of Ceaucescu and the end of communism. I took a cab into the city from the airport and gave one of the fruits to my taxi driver as a tip. In all that gloom the tangerine seemed to glow like the sun. He was ecstatic to get it. Later that day I met a woman who offered to surrender her virtue for one.
The egalitarianism and rough courtesy of Australians. In the rowdiest bars out in the bush, drunken men in dusty, sweat-soaked shirts will still make a point of never showing their back to you.
Marcia Anderson's uncanny ability to pick out four-leaf clover in a field.
The lotus-shaped Bahai Temple in New Delhi.
The museum at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. It contains displays of all the tunnels, hot air balloons, submarines, and false-bottomed automobile trunks that clever and resourceful Germans had used to escape to the west.
I spent a week fasting in a cave in the Himalayas above Dharamsala. To add to the aura of the place, above the cave door was a metal piece representing Shiva's trident. The whole thing was sort of a lark actually. I was never lonely. Pleasant strangers dropped by to chat almost every day.
Cycle-rickshaw rides through the streets of Saigon on balmy nights many years ago.
Sea turtles nearly the size of VW bugs that crawl up on the shores of a beach in Malaysia to lay their eggs by the light of the full moon. It takes over an hour, and by the end of the ordeal their eyes are filled with tears.
Coming into a strange city late at night where no one speaks your language and you've no idea where you'll lay your head. Driving through the dark streets of Prague searching for a place to stay comes to mind.
Spicy chana masala made from chick peas. It's served up on the streets of India. You eat it with puri, a delicious bread that puff s up when you deep-fry the dough in a boiling black cauldron of hot oil. It's normally served on plates made of leaves stitched together by hand. A very upper-class young Indian girl once told me that it never tastes as good in a fancy restaurant "without the dirt."
Hitching down the rugged coast through Big Sur on highway 1 from San Francisco to L.A.
Chapter Five
Elephants 1
Twenty-five years ago, I was climbing Mt. Kenya with my dear old friend, Rick Owens. This magnificent mountain unexpectedly juts out of the flatlands of the great African savanna twelve miles from the Equator. The track to the peak starts on the dusty plain where giraffe graze indolently on spiny acacia trees. It ends with a steep climb through deep snow to the summit.
Early on the first day of the ascent, we were winding our way through dense bamboo thickets. The thirty-foot-tall stalks formed a corridor so thick with growth that it would have been impossible to stray from the trail. We rounded a bend and, without warning, found ourselves face-to-face with two elephants, a male and a female. For a single timeless moment the four of us froze in place, each equally shocked. The moment was abruptly ended when the male lifted his enormous trunk, trumpeting in outraged fury, and started towards us. Not to be bested, Rick instinctively picked up a stone and prepared to fire it.
I admired his pluck, but "FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, IT'S AN ELEPHANT!" I yelled hysterically. "DON'T PISS HIM OFF!"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from How an Average Man Lived an Adventurous Lifeby John Linnemeier Copyright © 2008 by John Linnemeier. Excerpted by permission.
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