Travel Is Not Really About Leaving Our

Because I Don't Belong Entirely To Britain Or The U.s. Or India Or Japan, I Build My Foundations In Some Way Deeper Than Mere Passports, And More In The Light Of Where I'm Going Than Of "where I Come From."

I Think That America Is An Ideal Place For The Privileged Homeless, Who Are Used To Different Cultures. It's Easiest And Most Accommodating Because It Is A Country Of Exiles And Immigrants And Newcomers. There Are No Walls, In That Sense. There Is Always The Sense That Traditions Are Being Made As We Speak. So You Can Slot Yourself In. If You Are Living At A Distance In Society, This Is One Of The Most Congenial Societies To Live In.

Anybody Who Travels Knows That You're Not Really Doing So In Order To Move Around - You're Traveling In Order To Be Moved. And Really What You're Seeing Is Not Just The Grand Canyon Or The Great Wall But Some Moods Or Intimations Or Places Inside Yourself That You Never Ordinarily See When You're Sleepwalking Through Your Daily Life.

I'd Spent Thirty Years Visiting The Dalai Lama, And Twenty Years As A Journalist Going To Difficult Places, War Zones And Revolutions From North Korea To Haiti And Beirut To Sri Lanka, And The Question Came Up: What Does This Man Have To Offer To This World Which Seems So Torn Up And So Attached To Conflict?

I Think That Mass Communications As Well As Mass Travel Have Made The Whole World Available To Us In Ways That They Haven't Been. As With Any Kind Of Freedom, The More Of It That One Has The Greater The Need For Limit And Restraint. But I Think That It's A Nice Challenge To Be Saddled With.