Half Way Home

Temple of Heaven

(Paul) 107 days of traveling. Many people have said, what a great gift Navyn and I are giving our girls by taking them on a family adventure. The truth is the great gift is the time Navyn and I get to spend with each daughter and the time we get to spend with each other. The daily routine at home, mad dash to get the kids off to school, breakfast on the run, driving like a madman to make a morning meeting make you lose perspective. When Navyn and I are at home, after the kids go to bed, we focus on our emails, don’t talk much, and usually fall asleep holding our iPads. What a great gift to not always feel rushed, read a book or books and let life’s small distractions not be present.

Spending 107 days, 321 meals and traveling thru 11 countries with just your family has really been the true highlight of our trip. It really does not matter where we go, we laugh, we get grumpy, have fun and just spend all our time together.  We move on average every three days, but not once have the girls complained about our pace.

I wondered before the trip, would the girls remember everything we are doing, as every day has been action packed. At lunch or dinner, I occasionally will quiz the girls on the name of our guide in Argentina or the name of the restaurant in Queenstown and no matter how obscure the travel trivia, they remember everything.  Jolie seems to have the best recollection of just about every fact. Guess she is really paying attention.

What has been the most fun at our halfway point?

The beauty of Antarctica was a highlight. The magnificent icebergs, the fun watching penguins slide down the ice and then watching the kids slide down as well. The polar plunge into the icy waters with Jolie leading the way was great.

New Zealand was all about adventure. Bungy jumping, paragliding and luging down mountains. Australia and climbing the Sydney Bridge, riding elephants in Chiang Mai, and riding the Khmer magic music bus in Cambodia. Hot air ballons over Bagan and one legged rowing in Inle Lake, Myanmar. Playing cricket in India or staying in palaces in Jaiphur. Scuba diving in the Maldives and riding in sidecars on motorcycles in Beijing and taking a tai chi class in Shanghai are all highlights.

The other fascinating part of our journey has been experiencing the different cultures, religions and governments. So much of most of a country’s history are based on religion. The monuments, temples and wars all are very much a part of what that country is today. (One interesting fact is that there are more Muslims in India then there are in Pakistan, yet Pakistan and India still fight.) From Buddhism to Hinduism to Communist China, we have seen it all.

Experiencing Cambodia and spending time with a survivor of the Khmer Rouge was eye opening. Imagine a population of 7 million and Cambodians killing their own countrymen, more than 3 million, including all the doctors, teachers, artists and as many intellectuals they could find. How does a country come back from this, well Cambodia is 15 million strong today and growing. The resiliency of the human spirit never ceases to amaze.

China will dominate economic activity in Asia and globally for the foreseeable future. The infrastructure in Beijing and Shanghai are light years ahead of India and way ahead of the United States. We recently drove buy the Foxconn plant in Chengdu where all the iPhones are made. The factory went on for miles.  This may help answer why can’t we manufacture in the USA.

The amount of wealth creation in China in the last few years is incredible. In the last five years, people with over 500 million Yuan or $84 million of net worth has risen from just a couple of thousand to over 17,000 in 2014. That is staggering wealth creation. Between the real estate boom and now the tech bubble building in China, more millionaires are being created daily than anywhere else.  I sometimes wonder who is more capitalistic, China or the USA.

Editorial note: The best and only way for the USA to compete with China and India is through our brains. We need to continue to have the best and brightest live in the United States. The fact that we educate the best and some of the brightest foreigners in our great universities, and then send them home because we can’t get them a work visa is absurd. We should staple a work visa to the diplomas of our foreign graduates. The H-1B visa quota for highly skilled workers for 2015 was filled in one week, leaving thousands of high skilled workers to be sent back home to compete with us.

Wherever we go, I can’t help but think how lucky we are to live in the United States of America. Our democracy is far from perfect but we should continue to appreciate our freedom to do what ever we want. In Myanmar, our guide still worries about what he posts on Facebook since similar guides have been jailed because of their posts. Of course the Burmese feel lucky they can get Facebook, which is off limits in China. In fact Google, Facebook, Instagram and all western social media are shut off in China.  Imagine the shock of my girls that they cannot “communicate” freely with there friends back home. Prediction: Facebook will do more to change government behavior than war. You cannot stop the younger generations from communicating.

So halfway through our journey, I’m grateful for all the fun we have had, and look forward to even more adventures. Our goal of having uninterrupted family time has been awesome, now off to Nepal.