Photo babymellowdee
Does the old saying ‘do it while you’re young’ hold true? At the Cambodian border an elderly Parisian suggests otherwise.
In the Cambodian border town of Poipet, Bridget and I share a cab ride with an excitable and elderly Frenchmen named Pierre. Triumphantly old and traveling the world alone, he is strenuously hard of hearing and very happy to be in Cambodia. Climbing into the car he looks like a Parisian Mr. Magoo; squinting, holding his camera askew and always stepping accidentally over danger, not into it.
We zoom in a punished old sedan, jumbling about bumping heads on the dirt highway while Pierre shoots photos and shouts, “Extraordinary!”
Pierre, Bridget and myself were all told by the same smiling Cambodian that the bus had broken down. We opted to pay five dollars each for a ride to Siem Reap. Pierre’s camera clicks indiscriminately as the puddles and paddies go by.
“This is really something, huh? Cracker Jack! The quality of light is perfect. Extraordinary!”
I don’t think any of his pictures are going to turn out.
Photo On our second day of mountain biking around the temples of Angkor we were stopped on the bike path when Pierre shouts from behind,
“Jason, Bernice! I made it! Isn’t this the something, huh? Extraordinary!”
His knees and the rusty rental bike creak towards us.
“I saw you yesterday but you were a blur Jimmy, to be young again…oh well. Isn’t this extraordinary?”
I couldn’t help but think that Pierre in his shambling persistence to see it all was putting that apocryphal adage ‘Do it while you’re young’ on its head. Might he have something sage-like to impart on the topic?
“Hey Pierre, what would you say to those who tell me to ‘Do it while I’m Young?’”
“Huh?”
“I said, um, in regards to travel, what do you think of the statement ‘Do it while you are Young’?”
“Huh? Wait.Where?”
“People are always telling you to do it while you are young. What do you think?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know Jesse, I don’t think so. You go on ahead though, I should head back. I move pretty slowly you know.”
His face mustering the balance needed mount his bike is all the answer I’m gonna get.
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Is boots-to-the-ground travel for the young or the young at heart? Let us know in the comments below.
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13 Comments... join the discussion!
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Love it. If the worst thing that could happen to us is that we are gonna die then GAME ON! I saw this National Geographic article about the communities that have the oldest healthiest people, folks living to 100 routinely. Above diet (but they ate very healthy) the three things that the researcher said he thought were the correlating factors were
Gardening Family & CuriousityJust thought you should know.
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Being able to see it from both perspectives I’d say yes, there are many things that can be seen and experienced while young that are impossible at age. Often I see people in their 30s that are too old to travel. Minds closed too early. There is no substitute for the freshness and perspective of youth.
As a matter of fact I recomend reading Joseph Conrads short novelette by that title, Youth.
As an oldie I am immeadiately seen by the village headman, seated with the general, but youth is irreplaceable, use it wisely, dole it out as if it was a limited comodity.
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is youth wasted on the young?
The thing is when you are young you know you’re young, people tell you all the time, but you don’t KNOW you are young. Only age can bring and understanding to youth. While young you are too busy being young ( and backpacking around the world ) to look up.It’s funny, I don’t feel young but I don’t feel otherwise.
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I think there’s something to the idea of experiencing things at different stages of life. This is obviously a less extreme example, but I’ve always been glad I waited to do my big European backpacking trip in my mid-20s, rather than right after high school as I’d originally planned. Looking back, I knew I would have been one of those teenagers who romps through Europe drinking and partying and sleeping it off at the hostel all day. I think I got a lot more out of my trip by going a little later, and I’m sure later in life there’ll be other instances where I appreciate things more / get more out of a trip than I would have in my younger years.
Plus, I’ve shared a few dorm rooms with senior citizens in my day and I always think they’re the coolest folks – I hope to be that awesome when I’m old.
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Hats off to the awesome older expeditious agents of adventure!
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Proof that the spirit of travel comes from the heart and the mind – and not from a birth certificate…
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nice. I fancy we are all travelers all the time. That is why we call our life a Journey and our way a Path.
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big up Josh.
it’s all about staying stoked.
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Haha loved this article Josh. I could just picture Mr. Magoo shooting pics indiscriminately shouting “extradordinary”.
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Loved this: “His knees and the rusty rental bike creak towards us.”
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Hi Josh!
Great article. There’s a typo though- in the second line, it says “Frenchmen” instead of “Frenchman”
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wow, great article.
You experience traveling in different ways as a young or an old traveler. Then, you must begin traveling when you’re young and end, don’t know, when you die, so you will see the difference.“What’s the worst that can happen – I die?”
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