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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Delae to Chuck Reboarding. And

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Speaker 1: not too long ago, we talked about a few real

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Speaker 1: Indiana Jones possibilities and one of the guys who made

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Speaker 1: our short list. We didn't go into too many details

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Speaker 1: about him, but one of the guys who made our

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Speaker 1: short list was the very famous T. E. Lawrence, better

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Speaker 1: known of course as Lawrence of Arabia. And I think

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Speaker 1: Lawrence of Arabia could still make a really great solo topic.

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Speaker 1: But today we're going to discuss someone who's occasionally associated

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Speaker 1: with him, Dame Freya Stark, who's sometimes called the female

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Speaker 1: Lawrence of Arabia. To me, those Stark really reminds me

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Speaker 1: less of Lawrence of Arabia and more of another podcast

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Speaker 1: subject we've discussed, Ottoman traveler Elea Cellaby. They explored mostly

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Speaker 1: different areas of the world. They were obviously separated by

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Speaker 1: several centuries, but they really stand out from other adventures

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Speaker 1: we've talked about before because of their attention to detail.

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Speaker 1: They were almost more writers before they were travelers. You

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Speaker 1: know that that was what they were really focusing on.

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Speaker 1: They bothered to meet all different types of people and

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Speaker 1: learn local customs, speak people's own languages, and they always

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Speaker 1: preferred the slow road to I think, if you remember

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Speaker 1: when we talked about Evlia, he didn't like ships, kind

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Speaker 1: of because he was scared of them, but it made

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Speaker 1: his travel really slow. And the same is true for Freya,

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Speaker 1: who could have taken a car a lot of places,

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Speaker 1: but preferred to travel by donkey or by mule, you know,

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Speaker 1: really take her time with it. There were some differences

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Speaker 1: between them, though. Chellaby ultimately produced one epic travel account

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Speaker 1: and one very impressive map. Stark, writing in the modern age,

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Speaker 1: broke her accounts down into volumes. In her one hundred years,

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Speaker 1: she produced twenty four travel books and autobiographies, and eight

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Speaker 1: volumes of letters. Many of them were best sellers, depicting

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Speaker 1: arrest by the French, trips to the fortress of the Assassins,

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Speaker 1: the secret life of Haren's, and a month long siege

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Speaker 1: at the British embassy in Baghdad. But her personal life

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Speaker 1: and her penchant for wild hats is really just as

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Speaker 1: interesting as this sort of professional life she had. It

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Speaker 1: all starts in an appropriately bohemian fashion. She was born

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Speaker 1: in January thirty one, eightee in a mom watch studio,

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Speaker 1: to artistic parents who were also first cousins. When she

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Speaker 1: was only two years old, her parents started wandering, carrying

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Speaker 1: her and her baby sister over the Alps in a basket. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: very romantic founding life. The most settled period of her childhood, though,

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Speaker 1: was spent in her father's home at Devonshire, where she

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Speaker 1: slept in a bed her mother had painted with ships.

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Speaker 1: Again all very romantic and appropriate for her later life.

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Speaker 1: But the family basically lived all over Europe, and she

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Speaker 1: grew up speaking English with an accent, which is kind

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Speaker 1: of ironic considering she was often thought to be quintessential

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Speaker 1: english woman. Um German was really her first language. She

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Speaker 1: also knew French and Italian as a child, and learned

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Speaker 1: a few other languages later on. As we'll see, it

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Speaker 1: wasn't really quite as fun as it sounds, though, this

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Speaker 1: life of childhood wandering, but it really did make Freya resourceful.

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Speaker 1: She didn't have very much formal education, and she and

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Speaker 1: her sister would instead study with occasional governesses, pick up

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Speaker 1: a few things, and just read as much as they could,

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Speaker 1: according to Jacqueline McLean and Women of Adventure. She later

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Speaker 1: said quote, our wandering life made us precocious and pretty tough.

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Speaker 1: But when Freya was ten years old, her mother left

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Speaker 1: her father for a twenty three year old broke Italian

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Speaker 1: count and took the kids with her to northern Italy.

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Speaker 1: Before her mother's money was cut off, the count bought

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Speaker 1: a rug and basket factory and the family managed to

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Speaker 1: make a meager living off of that. Then, just before

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Speaker 1: phras thirteenth birthday, while visiting the factory, she got her

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Speaker 1: hair caught in some machinery. It pulled her up to

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Speaker 1: ceiling and mangled her scalp and her right year before

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Speaker 1: she could finally be freed, so horrible infections almost killed her,

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Speaker 1: but doctors in turn ultimately were able to save her

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Speaker 1: life with skin graphs that came from her thighs. But

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Speaker 1: the accident really made her quite self conscious. She would

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Speaker 1: dress her hair over the right side of her face,

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Speaker 1: and later she would wear large hats. You know we've

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Speaker 1: mentioned that already, But um it also gave her some

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Speaker 1: time to recover too, and some time to start exploring

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Speaker 1: new things. While she was recovering, she started to read

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Speaker 1: adventure stories and get really fixated on the idea of travel,

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Speaker 1: something um I guess she had grown up doing but

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Speaker 1: wasn't really doing by this point, just sort of stuck

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Speaker 1: in northern Italy, where she was pretty unhappy. Eventually, though,

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Speaker 1: her father, who was now living far off in Canada,

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Speaker 1: agreed to send her to college in London, where she

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Speaker 1: studied English literature and history. She wasn't there for long, though,

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Speaker 1: before World War One began and she had to return

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Speaker 1: home to Italy, and there she became a nurse. During

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Speaker 1: the time that she was gone, though, her younger sister, Vera,

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Speaker 1: who was just eighteen at the time, married her mother's

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Speaker 1: Italian count boyfriend. Kind of a strange situation there, it is, indeed,

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Speaker 1: according to Claudia roth pier Point in The New Yorker,

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Speaker 1: there's some disagreement between Stark's biographers about how this actually

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Speaker 1: played out. Some of them suggests that the count first

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Speaker 1: courted Freya, or that he simply chose Vera instead, and

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Speaker 1: that whatever the case, they had a very happy life

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Speaker 1: together with four children, and this left Freya feeling either

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Speaker 1: that she had made the wrong choice or that she

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Speaker 1: had been passed over. Others suggests, though, that Vera had

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Speaker 1: a horrible life with the count and that Freya was

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Speaker 1: instead troubled by her sister's unhappy situation. Still, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'll say it again, just kind of a strange situation

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Speaker 1: more than kind of definitely odd to have your father

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Speaker 1: stepfather become your husband and since you were ten. But

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Speaker 1: Freya had her own broken engagement to while she was

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Speaker 1: acting as a nurse in Italy. Her fiancee had left

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Speaker 1: her when she got typhoid. But after the war was over,

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Speaker 1: Freya and her mother lived in a house on the

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Speaker 1: Italian riviera and they were just barely scraping by. They

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Speaker 1: were very poor. Freya grew flowers so that she could

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Speaker 1: sell them and supplement their income. Again, she was isolated,

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Speaker 1: she was bored, and to get away from this really

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Speaker 1: claustrophobic life, she got into mountain climbing and started scaling

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Speaker 1: the Alps. And she started studying again, something I guess

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Speaker 1: she had sort of put aside for a while while

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Speaker 1: she was nursing. A teacher of her suggested, well, why

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Speaker 1: don't you learn a new language? You know, she already

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Speaker 1: spoke English, German, French, Italian. Why don't you learn a

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Speaker 1: language that's a little bit outside of the ordinary, and

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Speaker 1: he suggested maybe Icelandic would be a cool one to learn.

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Speaker 1: But Frea had a smart hunch that there was potentially

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Speaker 1: more promise in learning Arabic. So after World War One,

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Speaker 1: the Ottoman Empire had been broken up and the British

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Speaker 1: and the French controlled much of the Middle East, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq,

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Speaker 1: Jordan's and Freya knew that large parts of the Air

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Speaker 1: speaking world were starting to open up two travelers, archaeologists, cartographers,

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Speaker 1: and people doing government work. And so she hoped that

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Speaker 1: no in Arabic would get her interesting work and quote

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Speaker 1: lead me out into some sort of fairy land of

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Speaker 1: my own. Plus she had romanticized notions of Arabian nights

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Speaker 1: from her readings as a girl. Yeah, she was hoping

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Speaker 1: it would be some grand adventure in a way for

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Speaker 1: her to go somewhere new, someplace far away from where

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Speaker 1: she was. So she took her study very seriously. She

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Speaker 1: saved you know, we mentioned she was barely scraping by here,

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Speaker 1: but she saved her lessons at the London School of

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Speaker 1: Oriental Studies and added Persian to her repertoire too, as

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Speaker 1: well as improving her Arabic. But it wasn't until nineteen,

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Speaker 1: after her sister Vera died from a miscarriage that Freya

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Speaker 1: decided that it was time to put her skills into practice,

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Speaker 1: time to go for it and travel like she had

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Speaker 1: always wanted to. So she started off by taking a

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Speaker 1: cargo ship to Barut, and she recognized that that was

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Speaker 1: a good starting place for her because had a strong

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Speaker 1: French influence. It wouldn't be completely foreign. She could work

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Speaker 1: her way in, she could keep studying Arabic, and she

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Speaker 1: was really welcome when she came to town because she

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Speaker 1: said that people thought she was their quote, neither to

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Speaker 1: improve nor to rob, just to learn stuff, just to

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Speaker 1: observe and really practice her language. By March of now

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Speaker 1: confident in her language skills, Freya traveled to Damascus. According

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Speaker 1: to McLean, this was kind of the first bubble popping

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Speaker 1: of that romantic Arabia idea that she had. She found

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Speaker 1: this city war torn, cold, full of fleas, and herself

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Speaker 1: sick with dysenterry. But she also proved her Early Travelers

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Speaker 1: medal by not letting any of that stop her from

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Speaker 1: exploring Ruin and wandering the city. Yeah, she really got

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Speaker 1: out there and did what she had hoped to do,

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Speaker 1: But of course she didn't get her eventual reputation as

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Speaker 1: a bold explorer for just powering through dysentery, you know,

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Speaker 1: getting out there. It is admirable, but um, you know,

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Speaker 1: she had to do more than just wander around an

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Speaker 1: already well known city. She got that reputation because she

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Speaker 1: went to places where she wasn't supposed to go in

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Speaker 1: the first place. And her first major expedition like this

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Speaker 1: was south of Damascus to the Druis tribe in a

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Speaker 1: region that had rebelled recently rebelled against French control and

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Speaker 1: had been suppressed by the French. And then the French

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Speaker 1: had actually placed the entire area under martial law and

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Speaker 1: bar travelers from entering. So she was definitely not supposed

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Speaker 1: to be visiting there, but Freya and a British friend

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Speaker 1: slipped at the border and dodged the French authorities as

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Speaker 1: long as they could. When they were finally caught, Freya

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Speaker 1: and her friend played dumb traveler lady. They were just

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Speaker 1: kind of like, oh, a goodness, are Thomas cook guide

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Speaker 1: book must have misdirected us? Why did we get here.

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Speaker 1: We shouldn't be Yeah, I didn't know. That didn't quite

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Speaker 1: work though. The French authorities thought that they might be spies,

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Speaker 1: and so they were sent to the army barracks. But

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Speaker 1: Freya managed to charm her way out of there. She

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Speaker 1: uh took part an army dinner's horse rides. She even

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Speaker 1: got permission to keep traveling. And most importantly, she had

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Speaker 1: Drew Street cred now since she had been arrested by

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Speaker 1: their enemies, the French. Yeah, she was cool with the

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Speaker 1: drews Now. So her next trip, which took place in

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Speaker 1: nine started in Baghdad, which at the time was British

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Speaker 1: controlled but very diverse. It was filled with Arabs and Greeks, Turks, Jews, Armenians, Kurds, Persians,

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Speaker 1: and she really took advantage of that diversity too. She

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Speaker 1: opped her study of Persian, she began learning folklore. She

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Speaker 1: was very interested in history and literature and that type

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Speaker 1: of thing, and this improved Persian of hers prepared her

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Speaker 1: for the main goal of the strip, which was to

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Speaker 1: visit the Elbors Mountains in modern Iran, which held the

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Speaker 1: ruined fortress of the Assassin. And um, I think I've

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Speaker 1: heard the assassins in conjunction with it's how we have

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Speaker 1: our word assassin or assassinate um. But I didn't know

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Speaker 1: too much about them, and I think they could make

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Speaker 1: a pretty cool podcast subject on their own. But they

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Speaker 1: were a murderous medieval fact that would do just what

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Speaker 1: you'd expect them to do infiltrate groups and then assassinate somebody. So,

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Speaker 1: traveling in what became her signature style, no servants, view guides,

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Speaker 1: lots of medicine, lots of little presents, and embossed letters

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Speaker 1: of introduction, starts set out with mules. The fortress had

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Speaker 1: already been explored, but Stark updated maps, she relocated a

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Speaker 1: misplaced mountain, and she documented all the people that she

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Speaker 1: met along the way. She also popularized the place writing

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Speaker 1: The Valleys of the Assassins and other Persian travels, which

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Speaker 1: became a hit not just for the main attraction and

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Speaker 1: which of course was the assassins, but for the other

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Speaker 1: personal details that contained, like an account of a poor

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Speaker 1: woman offering Freya the only tomatoes from her garden, but

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Speaker 1: secretly slipping her son the leftover juice that came out

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Speaker 1: of spicing them. And I think this is a good

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Speaker 1: point to mention too, that Stark is really well known

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Speaker 1: for her depiction of women's lives. According to Roth pier

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Speaker 1: Pont that New Yorker article we mentioned earlier, um she'd

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Speaker 1: often be the first European woman in an area, So

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Speaker 1: the first people who would be really interested in her

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Speaker 1: were of course the the local women. You know. They

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Speaker 1: were interested in seeing their first European lady, and so

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Speaker 1: she would make friends with them, start talking with them first,

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Speaker 1: and learn about bridal customs and clothes and jewelry and

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Speaker 1: harems and kids and just the day to day life,

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Speaker 1: and through them ultimately gained access to the men's world,

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Speaker 1: but pick up a lot about kind of an unexplored

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Speaker 1: aspect of life in the meantime. So after a third

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Speaker 1: two year trip, Stark began to be seen as Middle

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Speaker 1: East expert. Back home, the Royal Geographic Society honored her

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Speaker 1: and began to help fund future trips of hers. So

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Speaker 1: in four she decided her next trip would be less

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Speaker 1: about mapping and more about discovery. She really wanted to

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Speaker 1: find an ancient trading spot believed to be the origin

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Speaker 1: of the Frankinstance trade route and possibly the capital of

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Speaker 1: the Queen of Sheba. Pretty much any foreign explorer, we

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Speaker 1: should say here, um, pretty much any explore in the

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Speaker 1: Middle East at the time wanted to find Shablah, which

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Speaker 1: was believed to be buried, but the area was a

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Speaker 1: harsh desert and contested ground between two warring tribes, so

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Speaker 1: it's pretty dangerous to attempt this. And to make matters

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Speaker 1: worse and even more difficult, Stark would have to cross

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Speaker 1: into independently controlled northern Yemen, where foreigners were not welcome,

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Speaker 1: and so she'd have to do it in secret. So

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Speaker 1: she went traveling with Bedouin guides and um got you know,

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Speaker 1: decent ways before she caught measles from a child and

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Speaker 1: a harem on a stop along the way. She got

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Speaker 1: pretty near to sha Boa, but she got thick again,

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Speaker 1: this time with malaria, and then she made a bad

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Speaker 1: mistake about mixing medication. She combined her malaria medicine with

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Speaker 1: her dysentery medicine, which caused major heart problems and uh.

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Speaker 1: She ultimately had to be evacuated by the Royal Air Force.

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Speaker 1: But while she was in the hospital, this mustage has

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Speaker 1: been so disappointing. While she was in the hospital, a

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Speaker 1: German photographer found the fortress ruins. She did later get

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Speaker 1: credit from the guy who explored them more fully, but

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Speaker 1: she didn't get to see them or discover them herself. Rather,

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Speaker 1: when World War Two began, Freya chose her English alliances

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Speaker 1: over her Italian though her home was in Italy and

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Speaker 1: her nieces and nephews were all Italian. She joined the

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Speaker 1: Ministry of Information and was posted to Audun as the

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Speaker 1: South Arabia expert. Her job was basically to keep Yemen

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Speaker 1: and later Cairo and Baghdad pro British or at least neutral,

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Speaker 1: so she essentially became a pr woman, a propaganda woman.

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Speaker 1: She'd battle Nazi or fascist propaganda with pro British propaganda,

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Speaker 1: trying to convince people that the British could win the war,

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Speaker 1: which was something that was a little bit on the fence.

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Speaker 1: In the early years. She had also helped disseminate news,

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Speaker 1: she'd translate Reuter's reports for a broadcast, and she'd even

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Speaker 1: personally arrange propaganda exhibitions herself. In northern Yemen, for instance,

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Speaker 1: she snuck in a projector claiming that it was some

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Speaker 1: sort of portable commode and made friends with the minister there,

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Speaker 1: or made friends with the minister's wife there, she would

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Speaker 1: have tea with her, chat with her in Arabic to

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Speaker 1: sort of get comfortable with everybody. Movies and recordings were

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Speaker 1: forbidden there for religious reasons, but Stark found a way

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Speaker 1: around that by describing the movies to the ladies of

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Speaker 1: the Harem, and she must have done it enticingly enough

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Speaker 1: that the ladies were eventually allowed to watch. They eventually

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Speaker 1: pressured somebody to allow them to watch the movies, and

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Speaker 1: soon enough the men were also watching these pro British

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Speaker 1: propaganda films, and uh Many credits Stark for at least

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Speaker 1: partially being responsible for keeping Yemen neutral during World War Two.

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Speaker 1: In Cairo, she recruited members for an anti fascist pro

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Speaker 1: democracy group called Brotherhood of Freedom. She had just gotten

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Speaker 1: to Baghdad to start a new chapter there when a

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Speaker 1: pro Nazi coup took place in April. Most British allied

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Speaker 1: foreigners tried to hunker down at this point, but Stark

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Speaker 1: just took a jaunt to Tehran and then remarkably came

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Speaker 1: back to Baghdad because she was worried about all her

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Speaker 1: empty friends. She was arrested by frontier police but managed

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Speaker 1: to talk her way out of it, claiming that she

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Speaker 1: couldn't possibly stay without a lady's maid, and she kind

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Speaker 1: of flattered the guard a little bit um and this

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Speaker 1: was just the ladies made part of it was really

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Speaker 1: it was opposite to her actual way of living about it.

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Speaker 1: She's so good at talking her way out of these situations,

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Speaker 1: even if it involves saying something completely counter to what

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Speaker 1: she really believes. So the Guard did send her on

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Speaker 1: her way to Bagdad, where she slipped into the British

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Speaker 1: embassy just as they were stand backing the doors for

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Speaker 1: a month long siege. So Phrase spent the next month

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Speaker 1: with three and fifty other people inside that embassy. Since

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Speaker 1: the Royal Air Force Base had been closed by the

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00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:29,159
Speaker 1: Iraqi Army, the British were attempting to uh shell the

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Speaker 1: base try to reclaim it so they could get their

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Speaker 1: folks out. But despite sniper fire and summer heat and

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00:17:35,800 --> 00:17:39,040
Speaker 1: obviously close quarters in the embassy made people were sleeping

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00:17:39,080 --> 00:17:42,439
Speaker 1: in the lawns, Stark, who was after all by this

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Speaker 1: point kind of a British celebrity, really tried to keep

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Speaker 1: morale up and keep folks entertained. They were already piano

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Speaker 1: concerts and things that would be staged, but she gave

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Speaker 1: a lecture about her travels. She made sure that the

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Speaker 1: ladies were gonna have soap and face powder, even though

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Speaker 1: in that request is granted. Even the one Iraqi policeman

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Speaker 1: supposed at least that he couldn't imagine why the harem

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00:18:04,119 --> 00:18:08,000
Speaker 1: inside would bother thinking about something like face powder, because

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Speaker 1: they were all about to be murdered. Um. When the

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Speaker 1: siege finally did end, according to rough Pierrepont, Hitler was

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Speaker 1: only able to commit two squadrons of planes because he

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Speaker 1: had been in the process of sending these huge numbers

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Speaker 1: of troops to the Soviet Union. So when the siege

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Speaker 1: finally did end, Stark promptly headed out but three new

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Speaker 1: hats and um this kind of a side note there too.

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Speaker 1: She was really into not only hats, but close. She

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00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:38,760
Speaker 1: apparently wrote, there are few sorrows through which a new

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Speaker 1: dresser hat will not send a little gleam of hope. However, fugitive,

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Speaker 1: I think that's kind of a surprising reminded me of

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Speaker 1: Louise Boyd, almost with her flowers she would wear in

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Speaker 1: the Arctic on her Arctic expedition. Um that this lady,

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Speaker 1: who obviously could rough it for a while, was still

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Speaker 1: pretty interested in hats with clock patterns on them, in

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Speaker 1: interesting clothes and that type of thing. Well, in ninete

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Speaker 1: she took those hats with her on the road when

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Speaker 1: she was sent on a tour of the US to

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Speaker 1: try to influence American politicians to oppose the creation of

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Speaker 1: a Jewish state in Palestine. While she was welcomed as

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Speaker 1: a famous writer, her speeches did not go over well

337
00:19:18,080 --> 00:19:22,400
Speaker 1: at all, nor did her assertion that immigration required Arab consent.

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Speaker 1: She was really dismayed that many people considered her an

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Speaker 1: anti Zionist and was horrified to be considered anti Semitic.

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Speaker 1: While she wrote a book during this period, it was

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Speaker 1: her last on Arabia. Politics just turned out to be

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00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:37,960
Speaker 1: not really her thing. She preferred history instead, and she

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00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:41,480
Speaker 1: preferred its traveling to After the war, she moved back

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Speaker 1: to Italy. She found that Fascist officers had been living

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Speaker 1: in her house, and she got married. This is a

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Speaker 1: very odd interlude in her life. She married a historian

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Speaker 1: and diplomat who she had met through her wartime work

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Speaker 1: and who had she had known for a few years. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: he was known to be gay by pretty much everybody

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Speaker 1: except for her, and the marriage was not what she

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00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:08,600
Speaker 1: was anticipating. She had not been expecting a marriage between friends,

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Speaker 1: and the two separated pretty soon after. Though she did

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Speaker 1: continue calling herself Mrs Freya Stark, which I think is

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Speaker 1: an unusual little nod to her married state. She didn't

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Speaker 1: get divorced either. She must have really liked to have

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Speaker 1: that and Mrs title, but have her own name attached

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Speaker 1: to it. She was made a Dame of the British

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Speaker 1: Empire at age seventy seven. Wrote until her death in

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Speaker 1: nineteen at age one hundred, traveled until she was ninety three,

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Speaker 1: visited much of Iran, retracing the route of Alexander the

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Speaker 1: Great's army, going to remote spots in Afghanistan and her

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Speaker 1: seventies and uh. In her eighties and nineties she stuck

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Speaker 1: mostly to Europe, escorting her many god children on travels

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Speaker 1: as well, so she sort of passed on the travel

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Speaker 1: bug in a way. It sounds like she did some

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Speaker 1: of her god children to have even written about her accounts,

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Speaker 1: and of course later in life too, she was doing

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Speaker 1: a lot of photography and was considered pretty great at

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Speaker 1: documenting places in an interesting, interestingly architectural way. For such

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00:21:09,040 --> 00:21:12,040
Speaker 1: a lifelong traveler, though, it's maybe not too surprising that

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00:21:12,119 --> 00:21:15,200
Speaker 1: she even saw her own death as as a type

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Speaker 1: of journey. She told a friend quote, waiting for death,

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Speaker 1: my dear, is very much like being in an old

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Speaker 1: fashioned steam train setting out on a journey. Her story

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00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:27,720
Speaker 1: and her fame are more remarkable too, And you consider

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Speaker 1: that she wasn't a great explorer, as in, she didn't

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Speaker 1: make many important discoveries per se. Her bigger contribution was

378
00:21:35,119 --> 00:21:39,320
Speaker 1: really her ability to observe and to document change, you know,

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Speaker 1: paved roads, new states, things like that, as well as

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Speaker 1: traditions of all classes, men and men and women. And

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00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:50,840
Speaker 1: her books are filled with incredibly descriptive passages. And she

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00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:53,360
Speaker 1: could convince people to open up to her, and that

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00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:56,280
Speaker 1: was a real talent, partly because she spoke their language,

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Speaker 1: and many of the people she met on her travels

385
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:01,600
Speaker 1: became lifelong friends hers too. But I think what might

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00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:04,639
Speaker 1: be the most notable thing about for A Stark's life

387
00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:08,399
Speaker 1: was her almost complete disregard for danger. She just really

388
00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:11,240
Speaker 1: didn't care. She could almost always get out of things.

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00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:13,760
Speaker 1: I think a great illustration of this was when she

390
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:18,360
Speaker 1: was exploring ancient graves in what is today Iran and

391
00:22:18,480 --> 00:22:21,439
Speaker 1: she crossed yet another border illegally seems to be a

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00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:25,000
Speaker 1: common theme here and was stopped by the police. When

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00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:27,639
Speaker 1: she was delivered by the police to the governor, he

394
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:31,199
Speaker 1: was more amazed than angry because she was alive and

395
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:33,520
Speaker 1: she had been in this area that was riddled with bandits,

396
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:36,680
Speaker 1: and in fact, she later learned that murderers had been

397
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Speaker 1: stalking her right before she was captured by the police.

398
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Speaker 1: And I think that's a such a strange example because

399
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Speaker 1: we've seen all these ones where she talks her way out,

400
00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:49,960
Speaker 1: but how many near misses were there too, that's true.

401
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:52,560
Speaker 1: It's interesting too that she seems to have really like

402
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:57,280
Speaker 1: embraced this aspect of her personality of thirst, and it's

403
00:22:57,359 --> 00:23:00,440
Speaker 1: really indicative. I think in this quote of hers, she said,

404
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:05,480
Speaker 1: I wanted space, distance, history, and danger. So there you go.

405
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:11,359
Speaker 1: I know, I'm really envious about quality and people. Well, yeah,

406
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:14,360
Speaker 1: not recklessness. I mean, sometimes of course it's just crazy,

407
00:23:14,480 --> 00:23:16,960
Speaker 1: but sometimes I wish I had more of that, just

408
00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:21,720
Speaker 1: you know, disregard for danger, just go for it. Well, Deblina,

409
00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:24,120
Speaker 1: I think you will maybe want to listen to our

410
00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:27,800
Speaker 1: listener meal then, because we not only have some emails

411
00:23:27,840 --> 00:23:31,679
Speaker 1: from folks who recommended some great travel accounts. We have

412
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:34,399
Speaker 1: some travelers as well. Oh well, I can't wait to

413
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:40,919
Speaker 1: hear that. So loopen this thing. Back around to evah

414
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Speaker 1: l V who we mentioned at the beginning here. During

415
00:23:43,560 --> 00:23:46,160
Speaker 1: that episode, we had put out a call for favorite

416
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Speaker 1: travel narratives and we heard from a lot of people. Um,

417
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Speaker 1: I'm just going to name a few recommendations people had,

418
00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:54,919
Speaker 1: but like I said, also some folks who are doing

419
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 1: their own travels. I thought it was really interesting to

420
00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:02,080
Speaker 1: hear from those people. One recommendation, which came from Kathleen

421
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 1: was for Lefcadio Hearn, who she said was an excellent

422
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:09,920
Speaker 1: observer of life in Japan in the late eighteen hundreds

423
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:13,400
Speaker 1: who had a profound effect on the area. She also said,

424
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:15,880
Speaker 1: though he was apparently given a shout out in a

425
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 1: Bond film, so an effect on culture as well. But

426
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: that was pretty neat. We heard from nia To, who

427
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:26,399
Speaker 1: suggested a leaf Battaman's book by pronouncing that right the

428
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:30,720
Speaker 1: possessed adventures with Russian books and the people who read them.

429
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:33,879
Speaker 1: She said the book couldn't technically classify as travel writing,

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Speaker 1: it's more of travel through literature almost, but she said

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Speaker 1: that it had that strong sense of adventure, which was

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Speaker 1: something that I know we discussed a lot during the

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Speaker 1: the During our discussion of travel writing, we got another

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Speaker 1: email from listener Jordan's in Chicago and he said that

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Speaker 1: after he finished listening to the podcast from Eva Telobe,

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00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 1: our comments near the end about how we prefer travel

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00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 1: narratives to guide books quote really struck home with me.

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Speaker 1: He said, have a travel website, the Uneducated Traveler, and

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Speaker 1: I've always advocated traveling without a guide book, without a

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Speaker 1: structured plan. Since I travel without a guide book, my

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Speaker 1: trips never read like one either. That makes some mistakes myself,

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Speaker 1: but I want to encourage people to start exploring countries

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Speaker 1: and their people instead of reading about them. The world

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00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: should be ours to share, and that means traveling without

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Speaker 1: fear or hesitation, even if it's a little uncomfortable at times.

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00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:31,120
Speaker 1: That's very stark, Askna. And then finally, just one more here.

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Speaker 1: I loved this email from Scott and Eadie. They said, uh,

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00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: they're big fans of the podcast, and in November two

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00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, this is what they said. We left our

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Speaker 1: jobs in our apartments, sold their furniture, stored a few

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00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: remaining things and packed a truck to hit the road

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00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:49,640
Speaker 1: for a year or more of traveling. You all along

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Speaker 1: with others like this American Life, Snap, Judgment, Risk cover

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00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:56,040
Speaker 1: Bill from the Staple list of podcasts we listened to

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00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 1: while driving In the past five months, We've covered over

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Speaker 1: twelve thousand miles and have seen some amazing countryside from

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Speaker 1: Key West to Heila National Forests. That's a lot of

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Speaker 1: time to listen to the podcast. We listened to the

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Speaker 1: episodes about Evli Chellaby while driving into HeLa National Forests,

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00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 1: one of the most scenic and beautiful places we've seen.

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00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:18,800
Speaker 1: That episode was really interesting to us, but we have

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Speaker 1: much more infrastructure, you know, GPS, Internet, iPhones, etcetera. To

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Speaker 1: support us than he did. It was like hearing about

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Speaker 1: a kindred spirit. He set off to discover the world

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Speaker 1: in his own way. So another another really interesting connection

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Speaker 1: to somebody who has been dead for five hundred years

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Speaker 1: that travelers today can still feel a connection to. To

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Speaker 1: a fellow writer and a fellow traveler. Yeah, and I

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00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:46,920
Speaker 1: like that people are that travel has changed so much,

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Speaker 1: and that people are approaching it in so many different

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Speaker 1: kinds of ways. I like the don't use a guide

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00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 1: book tip, although I will say I've found some things

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00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:58,399
Speaker 1: in guide books sometimes, you know, sometimes it's like the

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Speaker 1: seventh thing on the top ten list or whatever, and

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00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: you think it's going to be a total bust anyway,

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00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:04,880
Speaker 1: but you just go because it's closest or something like that.

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00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:07,639
Speaker 1: You just need the map, you know. Un sometimes you

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00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: just need the map. That's true too, but sometimes you

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00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 1: discover some weird and neat things. But it is nice

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00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 1: to kind of go off the guidebook path. So thank

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00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 1: you all listeners who wrote in to share favorite travel

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00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 1: narratives or just tell us about your own travels. I

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00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:30,359
Speaker 1: think both Evliah and Freya would be be proud. And

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00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: if this has inspired you to go on your own adventure,

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00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:35,400
Speaker 1: we have a cool article on our website called ten

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00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:38,360
Speaker 1: Extreme Vacations, so maybe you can get some ideas there.

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00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:41,680
Speaker 1: You can find that by visiting our homepage at www

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00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:47,919
Speaker 1: dot how stuff works dot com for more on this

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00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works

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00:27:50,600 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 1: dot com puto