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Long Way – Conversation Lesson

AJ: So I finally got around to watching Long Way Round and Long Way Down and I’m super inspired. It makes me want to go buy a motorcycle now and drive it around the world.

Joe: You already have a motorcycle, remember?

AJ: Yeah…

Joe: You’ve kind of…you kind of left one in storage here in San Francisco.

AJ: Get an adventure bike, like a BMW or…actually, even more generally than not really about motorcycles, just more generally the show made me inspired to just…do some kind of adventures again.

Like not just go to someplace I already know but to…it makes me just want to find some kind of adventurous journey that would have challenges, that would be tough, that would be new. And, I don’t know. It just…it’s really inspiring. I love seeing shows like there where people just take on some kind of tough challenge for themselves that’s also really rewarding.

Kristin: Yeah, I found it rewarding, too. I mean, it didn’t make me want to go out and motorcycle…y’know, buy a motorcycle and ride around. But I’ve been feeling lately like not inspired by travel, but that brought back inspiration again. And, yeah, there was like…there was something definitely adventurous about it which was inspiring. That’s how travel started out for me.

AJ: Yeah, I think it’s the difference between a journey with a kind of purpose and, again, with some difficulty built into it, some challenge, and, y’know, on the other hand just a vacation, which, y’know, some of our more recent trips have been, I think, more on the vacation side. Which is fine, it’s relaxing, but I haven’t done like a really inspiring, tough, challenging journey in a long time now.

Joe: Yeah, y’know what was cool was you were just saying about a challenge. There were times where there were some challenges, some obstacles, they had to overcome and, y’know, not only was it cool to see them actually overcome these obstacles but in many of these challenges that they met, they all had to work together in order to actually achieve whatever goal it was, to overcome the obstacle. Like, for example, when they had to…it seems like most of the obstacles they had involved trying to get their bikes and the trucks…

AJ: Hm…

Joe: …whatever the four-wheel cars…

AJ: The jeeps, or, yeah…

Joe: …yeah, the jeeps across some really treacherous terrain, y’know?

AJ: Yeah, yeah.

Joe: Like one car had to pull another car or they had to load their bicycles onto a truck or something like that. Or even there were times when Charlie or Ewan would fall and the other had to help the other lift the bike up because, jeez, those bikes looked really, really heavy.

AJ: Yeah, those BMWs, I can’t remember the exact model, but those BMWs are really big, heavy bikes.

You can’t just pick it up by yourself unless you’re super strong.

Kristin: Yeah.

AJ: I think that, like you said, that the team aspect of it was another part and that’s something I haven’t really done much except with Tomoe and I did this trip to Japan which we’ve had a conversation about before and that had an element of that. There were…there were challenges to that journey and then it was also nice doing it with her. It definitely brought us closer together because, y’know, we had to…we were in it together. And that’s cool. I like that about Long Way Down and Long Way Round, too.

Kristin: Y’know, something else that I really liked was how people…I don’t know how they were doing this, maybe they had a blog site or something, but how people were following them. So they would show up in a town and some people would, would be there, y’know, they’d be at a restaurant or something and people would see them and realize who they were, what they were doing.

AJ: Yeah, right, and like…like people would invite them to coffee or go to, y’know, have a little lunch with them or something, yeah. Yeah, very cool.

Kristin: Kind of…kind of reminds me of when we’re traveling and sometimes people will recognize us.

AJ: Yeah, and then, yeah…that is nice.

Joe: Or there was that time when AJ told one of the, one of our students from Indonesia that we would be at a specific hotel and then before we knew it him and his friends had showed up after an eight-hour journey.

AJ: Yeah, on motor…on little motor bikes.

Joe: That was unbelievable. Yeah, on a motor bike.

AJ: In the rain, remember they had to leave, it was raining?

Joe: I do remember that, that was crazy, but it was really nice to meet them and it really, y’know, it…I mean how could you not respect that much effort going into coming and meeting us. That was remarkable.

AJ: Yeah, that was amazing.

Kristin: You know something else great was really getting a feel of getting to know Ewan and Charlie.

AJ: Yeah, yeah.

Kristin: Kind of like people sometimes can…they feel like from our lessons, from our conversations or, AJ, from like Effortless English, your…your lessons. People get to know you if you’ve got these personal stories you’re telling, they really feel like they get to know a part of you.

AJ: Yeah, it’s…it’s also a really cool part of, of both those shows, Long Way Round and Long Way Down, that they’re obviously really likable people and they seem really nice. So it’s cool to see them experiencing all these different countries and challenges. And, y’know, for the most part they stay very positive through all those tough challenges. So, also, that’s another nice part. Because so much of reality TV is based on people just, y’know, being really negative and fighting and saying nasty things. So it’s cool to see these guys just as really good friends experiencing that.

Joe: Yeah, it seemed real. Like when they had an argument that would be normal in any relationship, they actually aired it. They didn’t just show things that were climactic, y’know? They actually showed just the normal day-to-day activities that they would, y’know, that they would do. And, y’know, another thing which is a little different topic, one of the things that I loved about the show was when they met the people who lived in the areas that they were traveling through.

AJ: Yeah, that was the best part…the meeting, that’s my favorite, too. I liked seeing them going through the struggles, that was cool. And then I also liked, as you said, their encounters with locals, local people.

Because they met so many cool people and they would take them to their homes or show them things or they spent the night with different, y’know, people they bumped into on the journey.

Kristin: Yeah, it’s reminded me of various times, whether living abroad or traveling abroad, people showing, y’know, many people showing hospitality like that. Realizing, y’know, I’m or whoever I’m with, me, Joe, we’re a stranger in their country and wanting to help us.

Joe: Do you remember when they were in, I guess it was Russia, yeah, it must have been in Russia, where they stayed overnight at that one person’s house?

AJ: Oh, I think it was Ukraine, with like the gangster guy with the guns… Joe: Maybe it was Ukraine, yeah, and he had all these guns and everything. Wow, that might have made me a little worrisome, I tell you what.

AJ: I remember Ewan at the end when they’re, they’re, y’know, videotaping him at night, he’s in his room. And he’s like, “I think I’m going to be relieved when we leave here.” They seem really nice but everyone had, y’know, automatic weapons and they…they were like 100 times richer than everyone else in the town…

Kristin: Yeah, it was really strange.

AJ: It was strange. They encountered some interesting people sometimes.

Kristin: Yeah.

Joe: These people also, I recall their house had these big walls around it also… AJ: Yeah, yeah.

Joe: …as if they were like expecting an invasion or something.

AJ: Like a compound.

Joe: Yeah, they basically had a compound, that’s a good way of describing it.

AJ: Yeah. Yeah, it…all that stuff it kind of…it reminds me of my very first trip abroad to India where the whole two months just felt like this up and down roller coaster of challenges and, y’know, unexpected surprises and all of these things. That’s a fun way to travel. It’s also, y’know, requires a lot of energy. It can be quite tough sometimes. But I think it’s the most rewarding way to travel and I definitely…well, Joe and I will be doing the Camino and I think that’s going to be that kind of experience.

Kristin: It is a fun way to travel and I know we’ve talked about this before. I think when you travel that way time seems much…it seems to expand, it seems much longer than if you’re at home in your daily routine and time just goes like really quickly.

AJ: Oh yeah, absolutely. Right.

Joe: Yeah, it’s true because you’re experiencing all these new things every day and it kind of makes you want to get up in the morning and, y’know, I’d kind of think you would be saying to yourself, “What am I going to experience today? What new adventure lies ahead today?”

AJ: Yeah, it’s like you have as many new experiences in one week as you normally would or most people normally do, y’know, in a full year. And that’s why you feel like, “Oh, it’s only been a month and I feel like I’ve been on this trip for five years,” or something.

Kristin: So I just had a quick question for you AJ. Did you…do you agree with me? Do you think that at the end of, well, after watching both of those did you feel that they were more touched by the Africa, the African one, going down through Africa?

AJ: Yeah, I felt like in Long Way Round, through Russia and all that, that it was more about the…the challenge, the difficulty of the terrain and the land. And I felt like in Africa they had more of a connection to the people and the cultures.

Kristin: And it makes you want to go to Africa, right?

AJ: It made me much more interested in Africa. Before I was not so interested in it, I don’t know why, but after watching that I’m very interested in going to Africa now.

Joe: Well, I think it’s because it’s a lot different than what you’re used to seeing in Europe or in America.

AJ: Yeah.