Glen Heggstad travelled the worls for two years on his motorcycle.
It's almost become a modern-day cliché. Guy - or gal - becomes disillusioned with life, decides that a change is needed, buys a motorcycle, travels the world, comes home, writes a memoir. Over the years, it's been done dozens of times and each traveller has their own unique take on the world we live in.
But with political tensions on the rise around the globe, it's not as easy to go globe-hopping on two wheels as it used to be. In some places - parts of Africa, South America, and the Middle East, for example - it's downright dangerous, and solo travellers take their lives into their hands when they pass through violence-plagued countries like, oh, Indonesia, Israel, Colombia or Namibia, if they're allowed entry in the first place.
It was for precisely this reason that globe-hopper Glen Heggstad embarked on a solo journey around the planet in 2001. "Travelling the earth alone was more than an adventurous challenge," he writes in the introduction to his book, One More Day Everywhere: Crossing 50 Borders on the Road to Global Understanding ($21.95, ecw press, 2009). "It was a direct message to terrorists wherever they lurked: we are not afraid. But more important, we refuse to hate."
Unfortunately, Heggstad ran smack into the hate-worthy terrorists and was held for ransom by Colombian guerrillas on his way out of Bogota during the first leg of his trek. Languishing in the jungle headquarters of terrorists for several months and tortured by his captors, his advice to anyone else caught in the same predicament is to instruct friends and relations not to issue a public plea for clemency. It only makes them think you're more valuable, he counsels. Heggstad chronicled his adventures and experiences in the first book in this series, Two Wheels Through Terror.
After extricating himself from Colombia, and settling back at home in Palm Springs, Calif., Heggstad remained restless and decided to get another bike to resume his world journey. "I decided living well was the best revenge," he writes, and "eventually concluded the only way to restore my psychological health and dignity was to continue what I had been doing - riding motorcycles to exotic lands."
Three years after his first trip, Heggstad started out in Japan and made his way through China, Russia, Mongolia, India and south through Borneo, Sumatra and Africa. His ride of choice: a BMW 650. All in all, he covered some 88,000 kilometres, over two years, and describes his travel arrangements as "a plan with no plan."
Heggstad is no ordinary saddle tramp. He says he is a former member of the Hell's Angels and a martial arts champion, with a purported 500 matches under his belt. He has done time in jail and comes across as a take-no-guff kind of guy. Nonetheless, his stated goal throughout the trip is to attempt to understand fellow human beings and separate fact from fiction when it comes to other cultures.
Although Heggstad cools his heels a lot in hotel rooms, immobilized by red tape and waiting for various bureaucrats and officials to process his travel documents, he does make a point of going off the beaten track and, among other things, lays claim to being the only motorcyclist to circumnavigate Borneo.
He spends his share of time getting completely lost in the jungle, but, as is often the case, helping hands seem to materialize out of thin air when things get really grim. Stuck in mud up to his axles deep in the wilds of Borneo, with night rapidly falling, he is rescued by "a lone Dayak teenager on a motor-scooter" who helps him pull the bike out of the gumbo and then guides him to a small village. With a broken headlight, he is also lost in the dark, and can only follow "the weaving silhouette" of his youthful saviour.
Although he routinely breaks frame components, panniers and suspension bits, Heggstad's 650 Dakar dual-sport bike gets him from one BMW dealership to another, going through several sets of tires, with flats and blow-outs beyond count.
Heggstad is a big guy, more than six feet in height, and the 650 Dakar is actually a mid-size motorcycle, smaller than the Boxer-engined GS series, which many global riders typically choose. But for hauling it out of mud-holes and wrestling it over through jungle trails, it's more practical than anything bigger. During his thrash across Borneo, Heggstad discovers that there isn't always a convenient road nearby and sometimes he has to enlist the help of locals to help manhandle the bike onto small canoes.
At some 420 pages - with plenty of pictures - the problem with One More Day Everywhere is not Heggstad's stated mission, but his writing style. He is a little too glib and bombastic for my tastes and his ruminations on the state of the planet often take the form of lectures and admonishments, rather than informed narrative. At times, he comes across as another guilt-ridden North American who feels that any other culture is preferable to the one he was raised in.
While making my way through this book, I sometimes found my mind wandering, despite the fact that the subject matter is usually high on my list of interesting things to read about.
Still worth it, though.
globedrive@globeandmail.com