The Statue of Liberty. Liberty Island.  New York City, New York, USA.

What you can do now:

• Leave a comment about this post below.
• See a collection of other photos of The Cow from Around The World
• Watch a short video following The Cow around-the-world.
• Read The Cow’s Story

Playing with the kids in Kamume Village, where I lived to learn to farm maize.  Kamume Village, Zambia. Photographed January 21, 2008.

Read, listen, watch and come along on my trip around-the-world on my travelogue at www.noboundaries.org

Welcome readers of The Daily Iowan and The World-Herald to Noboundaries.org. If this is your first time here, I’d like to welcome you and point you in a couple of directions.

Special thanks to World-Herald columnist Michael Kelly and Daily Iowan reporter Josie Jones for interest in the story.

• You can read more of my bio here.
• If you’d like to see my route around the world, check out the map page.
• Like photos?  Follow my journey and see some of the wacky things I’ve done around the globe in a short photo essay or check out the photo galleries.
• Learn more about the Iowa-raised Noboundaries.org Cow and check out the cow’s photos from around-the-world or ‘fan’ him on Facebook.
• Want to hear a story?  There’s a lot of travel stories to explore, but if you can’t decide where to start, check out some of my favorites.
• Want to hear more stories and get tips on how you can travel around-the-world?  There is tons and tons of new stories, videos, photos, travel tips and more coming from my travels in The Middle East, the former Soviet Union, Africa, Asia, Australia and The South Pacific in the coming months.  You can follow along on Facebook, Twitter or subscribe to get Noboundaries.org posts via email or RSS.
• Follow me on Twitter @noboundariesorg for all travel related tweets or @andystoll for all non-travel related things.
• Want to connect with me?  Add me on Facebook.
• If you are interested in having me speak at your school, business, club, conference or event, please send me more details.
• Do you have some questions for me or wish to take a similar trip of your own?  First check out the FAQ’s and see if you can find your answers there,. If not, post it in the comment box below, Tweet me your question or contact me via email.

Thanks for your interest!
Andy Stoll

What It’s Like: To Have A Poisonous Cobra On Your Back in Varanasi India from Andy Stoll on Vimeo.

(Click the Vimeo logo or on the ‘HD On/Off Button to click through to Vimeo and you can watch the clip in HD!)

• Leave a comment on the video in the box below.
• See some of the most recent other ‘What It’s Like’ videos:
  • To Fire A Machine Gun In Vietnam
  • To Climb Down The Temples of Angkor Wat, Cambodia
  • To Buy A Duck In China
  • What It’s Like: To Cook Chinese Cabbage In A Restaurant In Tibet.
• See the streets of India through the eyes of Guest Traveler and Photographer Shikha Khanna with her amazing candid portraits of Indian street kids.
• See some of my photo from Indian in a gallery called Indian Light.
• These videos are intended to give you windows into places, read about another window I found in Cambodia

Read, listen, watch and come along on my trip around-the-world on my travelogue at www.noboundaries.org

Eating pretzels in Mozart’s hometown, overlooking Salzberg, Austria with Pavel and Monika (of The Czech Republic).

Read about the cow’s trip around-the-world at www.noboundaries.org.

• Leave a comment in the box below
• See other photos of the cow from around-the-world and with new friends.
• Read the cow’s story

These sculptures face north, sitting atop a hill above the DMZ, which separates North and South Korea. The park was constructed to console those North Koreans who are unable to return to their hometowns because of the division of Korea since 1950.   Imjin Peace Park. Near Paju, South Korea.  Photograph taken February 7, 2009. [Click the photo thru to Posterous to see a larger version.]

Though India is a beautiful and amazing country, it is still very much a developing one.  It faces an entire slate of challenges, among others: overpopulation, ethnic conflicts, poverty, inadequate infrastructure, corruption, lawlessness and crime.  A quick trip around the country and you’ll see it all first hand and it seems much of the population seems complacent to do nothing to change it.

Touting itself as the “world’s largest democracy,” India seems to struggle between its traditional past and the modernity of its uncertain future, and it seems a lot of people don’t trust government, business or even the social sector to lead the country to change.

This is where The Times of India seems to be stepping in.

The newspaper’s multiyear ‘Lead India’ campaign (which often dominates the highly valued front page of the daily newspaper) involves a series of print, web and television advertisements and a reality television series, that are all part of an integrated campaign to identify and promote the best up-and-coming leaders in the country, while constantly peppering the Indian people with a populist message that hope to stifle corruption, promote democracy and inspire action in the common person.

What does it say about a country when its biggest promoter of change is not government leaders or social advocates, but a for-profit newspaper?

I think they’re on the right track, if only by representing the voices of much of the population.  Within the words of this campaign, you can hear the personal desires of many of the Indian people I came across as I traveled through the country’s bulging metropolises and small villages.

Does it sell more newspapers?  I’m not sure.

Does it affect change? Only time will tell.

Have you been to India? Do you live in India?  What do you think?

Leave your thoughts and comments below.

Text [this ad ran in the run-up to the national elections in the Spring of 2009]: “I swear. I swear that this time I will stand up.  Not for what I believe in, but for what I don’t. This time I will vote. Not for, but against. Against my own helplessness. Against my own laziness. Against two words called Chalta hai [an acceptance of mediocrity]. Against short cuts in queues. Against cheating in exams. Against Kharcha Paani [a bribe] in offices. Against powerless inquiry commissions. And powerful vote banks.  Against religion in politics. And against illegal constructions. And legal loopholes.  Against every cynic.  Every non-believer.  Against the belief that nothing will change. Against the feeling that my vote cannot make a difference. Against every excuse for not voting. And I will do this without fear or shame.  Because only by voting against all that is destroying our today, will I give my children something to vote for tomorrow.  Lead India ‘09. Let’s make this vote count.

Text at the bottom: The most important General Elections in our history are here.  And today. Lead India ‘09 takes a quite oath of its own.  To stir a nation’s conscience into overhauling the calibre of leaders we elect.  So if you are a straight-thinking citizen and believe you can make your voice count, join in and vote like everything depends on it, Because it does, log onto www.lead.timesofindia.com.

Text: “Imagine /  Bollywood is not called Bollywood / off-beat cinema becomes mainstream / A Hollywood movie copies a Bollywood storyline / We stop caring about The Oscars / The west adopts the Indian song and dance routine / Our family drama makes the Americans cry / Our movies make a hero out of a common man / The Indian Cinema that can be / The India that can be.

Television Commercial #1: Little Kid

Can’t see the video.  Click here to watch on YouTube.

Television Commercial #2: Shah Rukh Khan

India’s biggest contemporary movie star tells us to DO. Can’t see the video? Then click here to watch it on YouTube.

Campaign Overview From The Times of India

Can’t see the video. Click here to watch it on YouTube.

What you can do now:

• Do you think this can work? Is it effective? Leave a comment below.
• See more Lead India videos on YouTube.
• Visit the comprehensive Lead India website hosted by The Times of India.
• Read more about the Indian Dream and a generous helping of “F*ck Off’s” in the story My Name is Abhi…er, Brad.…
• See Indian Light: In our Photo Galleries.

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Cataracts cloud both of this woman’s eyes, leaving her effectively blind. Taveuni, Island Fiji. Photographed November 19, 2009.

I was working as part of a volunteer team doing cataract surgeries to help restore vision to people on the remote outlying islands of Fiji were these services would otherwise be unavailable (and unaffordable).

Read, listen, watch and come along on my trip around-the-world on my travelogue at www.noboundaries.org

Big apologies my loyal reader for my extended absence from the web (and lack of posts), but I’ve had little to no internet access in much of The South Pacific, since I left New Zealand in October. But we’re back on the net, and there’s a lot more adventures and stories to come!

• Leave a comment on this photo below.
• See more of my photo-a-week, random snaps from random moments (in no particular order).
• Check out my photo galleries from Japan, Hong Kong, India, China, Vietnam, San Francisco, Cambodia, Chicago and more on Flickr.

• http://twitpic.com/mxlnn – Surviving a plunge over the world’s highest commercially raftable waterfall (23ft) we were a bit self-congratulat #
• “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.”– G. K. Chesterton #

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Extra special THANKS to Haka World and Stay and Play Rotorua for the opportunity to learn.  I’d recommend the experience to anyone visiting Rotorua wishing to dig a bit deeper into Maori and New Zealand culture.

• Leave a comment on this post in the box below.
• Last time: I Finally Got a Cowboy Hat In The Australian Outback
• Watch The All Blacks Perform The Haka (video)
• Watch a more traditional performance of a Haka
• Come to Rotorua and learn the Haka yourself:  visit Haka World for more info.
• See what other things I’ve been up to recently in Around The World In Photos

Visiting a dress factory in the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand. Fay (front and center) is a bit puzzled about me and my camera. Photographed December 8, 2008.

Read, listen, watch and come along on my trip around-the-world on my travelogue at www.noboundaries.org

• Leave a comment on this photo below.
• See more of my photo-a-week, random snaps from random moments (in no particular order).
• Check out my photo galleries from Japan, Hong Kong, India, China, Vietnam, San Francisco, Cambodia, Chicago and more on Flickr.

It comes as a surprise for me to watch the reactions to the awarding of the The Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. Not because I think he doesn’t deserve it but actually because I think he does.

I whole-heartedly agree with what I believe is a rather astute choice; a choice that demonstrates that the Nobel Committee is far from out-of-touch, but actually strongly in-touch with what goes on at ground level, on street corners across the globe.  From what I have seen, this Nobel Prize is not an award for Obama’s work as president, but everything leading up to it.  I say this as a guy who’s been traveling around the world at street level, for the better part of the last three and a half years.  The media’s view and the street view, I’ve learned, are often two entirely different things.

Ultimately the question that the Nobel Selection Committee must ask is, ”Who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world?”  While there is certainly countless individuals from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe that are deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize, no one has done more for peace this year than Obama when measured on a global scale.

I left on a solo, independent journey around-the-world in 2006, with only my then virgin passport, a backpack and a plane ticket to China.  As a young American on his first overseas experience I have been greeted warmly as an individual in every country and every culture; though prior to Obama’s election, often at the mention of The United States as a country, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and especially George W. Bush, the talk turned critical, I turned defensive and I found myself continually making excuses for the ‘American way of life.’

Suffice it to say, from the chai stands of India to the kebab shops of Qatar, much of the world had (and has) lost faith in America.   Talking with people from the dusty cafes in Nairobi to the skyscrapers of Hong Kong, I learned that when America has been at its best, it has shown as a beacon of hope in all that is possible, and the enduring spirit of America, the belief that better days are always ahead, served to lift the spirits of many, but since the turn of the century, as the lethal combination of arrogance and ignorance, coupled with a big mouth, resonated from America—personifying the now enduring stereotypes of all Americans–the world’s view of the US, and the hope it had inspired, was marginalized and eventually manifested itself in, what Obama recently called, “reflexive anti-Americanism worldwide.”  The open armed embrace for Americans traveling abroad had become a cold shoulder, and I’ll tell you from personal experience, I’ve felt it more than once.

Things changed in 2008.  As the US election approached, as I made my way through the streets of Indonesia, the world’s curiosity turned to palpable excitement as it became clear that Obama may win. His victory in November of that year, nearly instantly changed the tone of everyone’s greeting when I mentioned ‘I am an American.’  The first question I was typically asked changed from, “Did you vote for Bush (skeptical)?” to “What do you think about Obama (hopeful)?”  Obama’s campaign of hope changed the world’s view of America and inspired people to hope not just for change in America, but change in their local communities and lives. I heard a collective sigh of relief from the streets of Melbourne to the tea shops of Shanghai the day of Obama’s election.  Nearly overnight, Obama and his message of hope change the atmosphere of the conversations I had with strangers on the street, and thus changed the tone of dialogue in much of the world.

“In a short time he has been able to set a new tone throughout the world and to create a readiness for dialogue,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel observed today in The New York Times.

You can’t create peace if no one is open to dialogue.  This new world climate, not only allows Obama to continue his work as president on climate change, nuclear disarmament, and such, but also gives the rest of us in the world an opportunity to roll up our sleeves and pitch in on the work needed in our own backyards.

From my vantage point on the streets of the world, one year ago today the world was not ready for dialogue, and it would have been hard to believe then that one person could be responsible for changing the way people talk on nearly every street corner in the world.  Billions of dollars are spent by governments and corporate advertisers to try and change the mind of the average person on the street, and Obama did it as just one person.

Obama has inspired much of the planet and the direct result, though not a tangible peace accord or the end of a war, is instead a shift away from the negative thought patterns that consumed many of us, and with that his vision has opened up a better space for all of us to move forward on the biggest of global challenges we face.

I’m not privy to what goes on in the halls of government, but I can tell you what it feels like here on the streets.

Obama did all of this before he spent a single day as president, and it is for that, that he is deserving of the award.

Big changes don’t always come in big boxes.

• Leave a comment on the post below.
• Read more ego talking from Andy:
  • How To Change The World: A Hand Up, Not Out
  • Welcome to The Real World
  • Marching For Democracy In China

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Students practice Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ at a grade school in the rural village of Akzhaik in Western Kazakhstan. Photographed November 2, 2007.

• Leave a comment on this photo below.
• See more of my photo-a-week, random snaps from random moments (in no particular order).
• Check out my photo galleries from Japan, Hong Kong, India, China, Vietnam, San Francisco, Cambodia, Chicago and more on Flickr.

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The Cow’s 3-Years Around-The-World on Vimeo

Also, The Cow has joined the 21st Century and is now on Facebook, and he’d love to have you as a friend.

• Leave a comment  on the post below.
• Friend The Cow on Facebook!
• Read The Cow’s Story
• See and Download the photos from this video (and more) in The Cow’s Flickr Galleries:
  The Cow Around The World and The Cow and Friends
• Read a bit about The Cow’s Photo Gallery Show in Seoul, South Korea.

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