On my last day in Luang Prabang, Ker did something that will forever be one of the most incredible things I’ve seen on any of my travel journeys. How did a person, who sleeps on a bench, making 33 cents an hour, with no time to study,, and a desperate desire to get his family out of extreme poverty, find the heart to lend his time and money to a stranger who he knew was financially better off than himself?
The most important day of D-One’s life came in the year 2000 when his father brought home a black and white TV. The family sat down to watch one of the few channels they received and came across an American wrestling match. D-One was mesmerized by one particular wrestler who he describes “as the biggest man he had ever seen”. This man was, of course, Dwayne the Rock Johnson.
As a tour guide, Hicham has had the privilege of interacting with people from all over the world. His travel throughout the country and exposure to many different people has allowed him to develop a better understanding of Morocco and the world respectively. The perspective he now has didn’t always exist for him. Growing up, Hicham did not even know that there was a country called America. He lived a very different life as a kid and had limited knowledge of life beyond the mountain in which he lived. As he grew older, his life drastically changed several times and each change introduced new aspects of the world to him.
I never fully understood the power of the English language until I backpacked through South East Asia. It was during this trip where I realized just how many people make a living through the tourism industry. For many, learning English is the way out of poverty and hardship. This was the case for Siphai Thammavong.
I had the pleasure of meeting Hartanto Gunawan on my second day backpacking across south east Asia. Getting to talk to him and hear his incredible life story was eye opening. He was one of the more interesting people I have met on any of my travels and had tons of great insights into life and the mind. From CEO to being dropped off on an Island to becoming a monk, Gunawan has an incredible story. Here it is:
I was just a young lad of 7 years at the time of the ghastly incident, not old enough to understand, nor young enough to ever forget. Me, my mom, and my dad just moved into an apartment in Edison, NJ. Everything was going great, enjoying a simple life with my parents, learning and doing everything a 7-year-old kid would do. That morning started out like any other morning, just laying in bed and talking to each other, making a few jokes. However, there was a part of me that told her not to go into work that morning, sensing something was not right
It never mattered to Rajesh where he was, who he was with, or what he was going through; He did everything from his heart, with his heart’s values. For a while I thought it was his specific values alone that we all could learn from. But to some sense I was wrong. It wasn’t just the values he lived by but the fact that he truly lived by them…all the time.
“When you get old you will regret two things – what you did wrongly and what you have missed to do. What you did wrongly will hurt less than what you missed to do.”