China Trip Updates and a Great Movie Trailer

I am gradually getting to updating the posts made during May's trip to China with pictures that are now on the Flickr site. So far, Days 1-3 have been updated with some pictures.

In the meantime, while surfing around our old blog home Boots N'All, I found a link to a documentary called "A Map for Saturday" about the phenomenon of RTW backpacking. If you've never had the experience of backpacking around the world, it gives you a taste of what you're missing. A young lady sums it up this way: "It sounds like one big, long holiday, but you've got to meet people, you've got to find someplace to live, you've got to communicate in a foreign language."

So true...and to me, some of the best reasons for traveling.

MAP FOR SATURDAY is the product of a year’s travel through 26 countries on four continents. Emmy winning producer Brook Silva-Braga left his cushy gig with American TV network HBO to travel the world with five pounds of clothes and 30 pounds of video equipment.

The barebones production set-up yields an intimate window onto the world of long-term, solo travel; moments of stark loneliness and genuine revelation.

During the year, two-dozen solo travelers intersect with Silva-Braga, helping tell the story of the place they’ve met and the experience they share.

The film lands in Australia at mid-summer and in Nepal on the eve of revolution. There’s the challenge of Vietnam’s absurd traffic and Europe’s steep prices.

Beyond clichés of shagging backpackers and dubious self-discovery, Silva-Braga finds a hidden world of long-term, solo travelers. At times lonely and difficult; more often joyous, and always adventurous, A MAP FOR SATURDAY completes an around the world trip in 90 minutes.