Reactions from Australia and New Zealand

	Just dropping another line now that I've finished your book
(no wonder my Ph.D is taking so long ;-)

- thanks for including the maps showing where you were. That really
helped.

(I bit my tongue when I read your generalisations about
australians but then I figured I made plenty of generalisations about
americans from my couple of trips so I didn't say anything ;-)

Last comment: I was reading your thoughts about the trip and thought
they were pretty similar to the way I was thinking after my last trip.
(about a 8 week 'walkabout' through parts of Europe - pretty short
for an aussie traveller eh?) Anyway, I was wondering if anyone who has
never travelled by themselves in another country / culture can
really appreciated what you learned from your trip.

Not long after I got home I read Robert Pirsig's book 'Lila' 
(follow up to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) which
looks at the evolution of people's values. (basically stated as
biological - society based - intellectual). Maybe travelling in that
manner helps to elevate your values from society based (get a hair
cut and get a real job) to a more intellectual set of values.
I guess when your 'on the road' your not part of a particular 
society anymore and don't have the pressure to conform to its
values. You develop a different value system which perhaps explains
the difference in attitude between yourself and your friends when
you got home.

(I had to put up with your backyard philosphy for a while so I guess
I just throwing some back your way ;-)

I guess the worst part about being home was feeling myself being 
dragged back into this value system (gotta get that degree, gotta
get that job, gotta get that promotion instead of gotta have a good
time).

Time to tell the  supervisor I'm taking off for a while again I 
suppose...

Jason Baragry (baragry@latcs1.lat.oz.au)