Joe Rogan Experience #1832 - Charlie Walker

Joe Rogan 0:00 (drumbeats) Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

Charlie Walker 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays) And we're up. All right, Charlie. First of all, thanks for being here.

Charlie Walker 0:16 My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Joe Rogan 0:17 Very nice to meet you. Why do you do the things that you do?

Charlie Walker 0:22 First question is the hardest one.

Joe Rogan 0:23 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 0:25 Um, I, I guess over the years have formed a whole bunch of different answers to that, some of them flippant and sarcastic. Uh, without rambling on for ages and ages, I suppose it comes down to, I'm just really curious. I want to get to these places, see, you know, people living lives differently to mine. I grew up in a tiny little village where, you know, it was nice, but nothing happened.

Joe Rogan 0:44 Where'd you grow up?

Charlie Walker 0:45 Uh, just close to Salisbury in the southwest of England. Uh, about 10 miles from Stonehenge down there.

Joe Rogan 0:51 Oh, wow.

Charlie Walker 0:52 Um, and yeah, I suppose I, I started traveling when I was about 18. Took a year out between school and, uh, and university and just got more and more curious and slowly realized that I enjoyed traveling more if I was getting to places by, I suppose, physically difficult means.

Joe Rogan 1:08 Mm.

Charlie Walker 1:09 Um, um, and that particularly helps, I suppose, if you turn up in some remote community in a ... not that I've been doing this, but in a helicopter or 4x4, or whatever, there's instantly a, a distance, a sort of divide. You know, you're ... I spend most of my time, uh, traveling in the developing world, where that's just building a barrier. Whereas if you turn up on foot or in a little kayak or on a horse or whatever, then I think people kind of take to that a little bit more.

Joe Rogan 1:34 What was your first trip that you did like this?

Charlie Walker 1:38 Uh, besides backpacking around Africa, uh, the first time I did anything sort of particularly physically challenging was I flew to Beijing and I had a flight out of, uh, Mongolia. And kind of quite last minute I thought, "Oh, well, you know, it's, there's 1000 miles between the two, I'll take a bike, a bicycle."

Joe Rogan 1:59 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 1:59 Um, didn't get off to the best start. I, uh, I went to a friend's 21st birthday party about 10 days before leaving and, um, I don't really remember the party, but when I wake up in the morning, one of my quadriceps had snapped.

Joe Rogan 2:11 (gasps)

Charlie Walker 2:11 Not torn, but snapped. The, the doctor said that the two ends would kind of flap around like fishtails and eventually graft onto the rest. I don't know how scientific that that was. Uh, and then on my first night in Beijing, I fell over and broke my wrist a bit drunk. So-

Joe Rogan 2:23 Oh, Jesus.

Charlie Walker 2:24 ... two, two weeks later when I sort of cut my cast off and sort of, you know, strapped my knee up a bit and pedaled out, I wasn't in the best shape. And, and frankly, the following two-

Joe Rogan 2:32 So you just went with a torn calf, quadriceps muscle, fucked up wrist-

Charlie Walker 2:38 Yes.

Joe Rogan 2:38 ... just went anyway?

Charlie Walker 2:40 Yeah, I mean, I started slow. I'm not a ... Like, I'm not a sportsman. You know, I'm not an athlete. I've always just liked to ... I've never really particularly trained for anything. I tend to try and keep fit, but that's, that's, that's kind of it. Um, so I've, I've always sort of thought, start slow and build up. And the, the two ... It only took two weeks to, to cross up to the, to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. And once I crossed the border into Mongolia, there was just no road. It was, you know, it's just desert and there's kind of tire tracks all over the place and you've just got to, you know, take a northeast bearing and sort of stick with it. Um, and frankly, those two weeks were kind of shitty. Like, I didn't (laughs) particularly enjoy them. Um, but yeah, I mean, you're, you're probably aware of the concept of type two fun. You know, you've done something and once you've ... It's, it's crap-

Joe Rogan 3:23 Yes.

Charlie Walker 3:23 ... but then once you've finished, you start to rose tint it.

Joe Rogan 3:25 Right. Yeah.

Charlie Walker 3:26 And before I'd even left Mongolia, I was already thinking, "Yeah, there, this, there could be something in this." And, and I saw the potential of bicycle travel. You know, you, you, you can travel a fair distance, you know. If you want, you can go 100 miles a day, you can go 60 miles very comfortably and still have a lot of the day there. You can travel very cheaply, you can travel for ages, and you get to see all those places in between that you wouldn't really go near if you're, you know, on a bus or a train or a car or whatever it is.

Joe Rogan 3:50 Did you have any idea of like where food would be, how you would get through these areas? Like, did you understand like what towns were available?

Charlie Walker 4:01 I knew ... I mean, I had a ... for, for that first ride, I had a map and I knew, uh, that besides, uh, kind- I guess a 250 mile gap in the Gobi, uh, that there'd be, you know, enough towns to, to get, get resupplies.

Joe Rogan 4:15 So you just had to go 250 miles through the Gobi desert-

Charlie Walker 4:18 But you can carry-

Joe Rogan 4:19 ... on a bike with a torn quad and a fucked up wrist.

Charlie Walker 4:22 Yeah. Yeah, in short. But you can carry quite a lot on a bike, you know.

Joe Rogan 4:26 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 4:26 You can carry, if necessary, and in, you know, later, you know, in later years, you can carry, you know, two, three, four weeks of food pretty easily. It's not going to be very exciting. It's going to be just a lot of rice and noodles and stuff like that-

Joe Rogan 4:37 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 4:37 But, uh, you can, you can sort of stack it up.

Joe Rogan 4:39 Did you plan ahead for that? Did you, do you understand what your requirements were gonna be? Did you like, did you sit down and write it all out? "I'm gonna be there for X amount of hours. I'm gonna need Y amount of calories."

Charlie Walker 4:52 No, I've, I've never been good at planning. Uh-

Joe Rogan 4:55 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 4:55 Well, no, that's, that's not true. That's not fair. I've never loved getting granular with planning. Um, I, you know, when I'm planning food for, uh ... You know, earlier this year, I had to plan food for about a month. And I kind of looked, "That's about a breakfast," and just times that a bunch of times.

Joe Rogan 5:10 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 5:10 "That's about a lunch." And then just pack an extra, you know, 10%, 20% and should be all right. Um, which is, which is perhaps a slightly sort of scattergun, irresponsible approach, but I've, I've slowly got a bit better at knowing what's, what's needed. And I mean, I've never got into, um, calories and, and counting the numbers of it.

Joe Rogan 5:28 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 5:29 Um, I, I totally see the value in that and a lot of people who do similar sorts of things do. Um, but I've, I've generally thought, you know, I don't need to work out that I've got precisely enough protein for any given day or, or, or fat or carbohydrate, whatever it is, 'cause usually these aren't hugely long endeavors. You know, a few months you can go with a slightly imbalanced diet, maybe take some multivitamins.

Joe Rogan 5:48 I would imagine that you're burning a lot of calories, though, riding that bike through the desert for 250 miles.

Charlie Walker 5:55 Yeah. Um, I mean, I, I look back at that trip there and I think that was quite straightforward really. And I do think that I'm not one of these people who says, "Hey, anybody can do anything." But I don't think that-... particular ride across, you know, across to, to Mongolia was especially difficult. Um, but it was, it was, for me, it was, uh, revelatory 'cause I just got this idea of what bike travel could be. And it was, it was only a couple of weeks, less, probably 10 days after I finished that I got a bit drunk and made a, on, on a Genghis Khan bukka, and made quite a rash decision to cycle for what ended up being about four years. Um-

Joe Rogan 6:29 Genghis Khan booker? What are you saying?

Charlie Walker 6:31 Vodka.

Joe Rogan 6:31 Oh, Genghis Khan vodka.

Charlie Walker 6:33 Sorry, yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:33 Okay, no worries.

Charlie Walker 6:34 I've got a plummy accent.

Joe Rogan 6:35 No worries.

Charlie Walker 6:36 Um, yeah, and I made this decision to cycle, uh, from the UK back to the UK via the furthest away point in each of Europe, Asia, and Africa, uh, and that ended up taking about four years.

Joe Rogan 6:47 (Exhales) So, you do this first trip and you decide after it's completed that, you know, you get this i- interesting feeling, you know, it was fun, it was exciting, it was adventurous, and that this is something you're gonna do often. Are you writing about these things? Are you making videos? Like, what are you, what are you doing once you're done?

Charlie Walker 7:08 Um, I, I write basically. Um, I'm, I'm not a, you know, a videographer. I take photos. Uh, I didn't for, for the four-year trip that followed. I didn't have social media at that time, um, so I, I very much focused on writing. And every day, at the end of the day, doesn't matter how sort of sweaty and uncomfortable I might be in a tent or cold or whatever, I will write down what happened that day and just, just get it all down and later you can then kind of, you know, get yourself back into that frame of my mi- frame of mind.

Joe Rogan 7:35 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 7:35 And all these other details will suddenly start springing back in. It's, you know, it's quite a helpful sort of, uh, key to unlocking other memories. Um, yeah, but, uh, writing is my main focus.

Joe Rogan 7:45 How do you fund these trips?

Charlie Walker 7:47 Uh, initially I was saving, scrimping and saving, and, um, that first long journey I lived for four and a half years, as it turned out, uh, on about 12,000 pounds, which back then would've been I guess $16,000. Um, and so-

Joe Rogan 8:02 For four years?

Charlie Walker 8:02 Yeah, yeah. So I, I lived in a tent. I ate very cheaply. Occasionally I'd get a night in a hostel or something. Um, you can live for a r- really small amount of money if you're just out in the world. Um, more recently, I, I get sponsorship or grants that sort of, you know, help and cover expenses. But I've always done things in quite a lo-fi way. I've never done hugely complicated or expensive journeys. I've always quite enjoyed the, uh, I guess the accessibility of doing stuff that anyone logistically probably could do if they, if they put a bit of thought to it.

Joe Rogan 8:31 The four-year one, like, how does one go about deciding that you're gonna do something that's gonna take four years out of your life? Like, did you recognize that it was gonna take that long? Like, what did-

Charlie Walker 8:42 I reckoned it would take about that, a- and rashly is the answer. I kind of, you know, I came up with the idea before I really gave it a lot of thought. And the first thing I did is told a bunch of people, you know, family included, "Hey, I'm gonna, in a year's time, I'm gonna head off on a bike for about four years." And once I told a bunch of people, then it became almost a certainty to me because, you know, I think I would've been embarrassed to then back down.

Joe Rogan 9:04 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 9:04 Um, and so I guess, I mean, I've always found that quite handy with any, with any project, you know, just let people know, set yourself a start date, and then the wheels are already in motion, uh, and out of sort of shame or embarrassment, you'll probably end up going through with it.

Joe Rogan 9:16 (Exhales) That's, uh, I can't think that anybody would fault you for quitting. (laughs) I mean, I don't think anybody would say, "Oh, Charlie, you only did three years."

Charlie Walker 9:26 I came close a bunch of times.

Joe Rogan 9:27 Did you?

Charlie Walker 9:28 But, you know, by the time I got three years, you know, then it's like, "Well, I might as well, might as well finish it off."

Joe Rogan 9:32 And when you get to the end of that, are you gonna... did you write a book? Did you, did you-

Charlie Walker 9:36 Oh, I have something for you.

Joe Rogan 9:36 Oh, there you go.

Charlie Walker 9:38 (laughs) Before I forget. Actually, I've got something else as well. Um, bear with me. Let's see, what have we got here? These are, I believe for you, Joe.

Joe Rogan 9:49 Oh, thank you.

Charlie Walker 9:50 Um, those two books are about that four-year bike ride.

Joe Rogan 9:52 There you go.

Charlie Walker 9:53 Um, and I've got a couple for Jaime. I'll put them there.

Joe Rogan 9:55 And now once you do this, so you get back and I, I would imagine, like, writing down everything at the end of the day I'm sure helps, but it's gotta be difficult to sort of capture the s- the nuances of each ex- I mean, uh, you, if you're riding for four years-

Charlie Walker 10:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:16 ... I would imagine there's a lot of very notable experiences you're having during this time. Like, how are you remembering all these and documenting them and-

Charlie Walker 10:25 I mean, it, it, like, photos help as well. You know, over the course of four years, I probably had something like 15,000 photographs and that, that helps, you know, furnish a picture. But, um, I mean, it's really just what I said, about, what, 1,600 days I kept a journal every single day. Sometimes they're very brief, you know, just-

Joe Rogan 10:40 And you're just writing it down, hand to paper?

Charlie Walker 10:42 Just... Yeah, in, in a bunch of, you know, tatty old notebooks that I've got-

Joe Rogan 10:45 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 10:45 ... kind of, you know, falling apart on a shelf somewhere.

Joe Rogan 10:48 And what was the path?

Charlie Walker 10:49 Um, so I started, uh, near Salisbury where I grew up, um, headed across the channel up Western Europe through Scandinavia to Nordkapp, which is the, the northernmost point of Europe. It's up in the Norwegian Arctic. Um, that's quite a dramatic place. The, the sort of monument at Nordkapp is at the top of a, um, 300-meter-high or 300-yard-high cliff. You go and look over the railing and you've got the Arctic Ocean sort of crashing against it, the North Pole's-

Joe Rogan 11:13 Oh.

Charlie Walker 11:13 ... another 1,200 miles on. Um, then I took a sort of very long wiggly path across Eurasia to Singapore, which took, you know, nine, ten months or so.

Joe Rogan 11:23 Jesus Christ. (laughs)

Charlie Walker 11:25 (laughs) But I didn't know what route I was gonna be taking for that. Um, you know, I, I, I didn't... A- again, I didn't l- allow myself to get too bogged down with details. And also over the course of nearly half a decade, so much changes, you know, the-

Joe Rogan 11:36 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 11:36 ... the Arab Spring happened after I started, so-

Joe Rogan 11:38 Oh, wow.

Charlie Walker 11:39 ... the Middle East, you know, changed. The geography and the geopolitics of the Middle East totally changed after I started, before I got back around to that part of the world.

Joe Rogan 11:46 Mm, is this your bike?

Charlie Walker 11:48 Uh, that is the second of two bikes. Yeah, that one I-

Joe Rogan 11:52 Did one of them break?

Charlie Walker 11:53 So the, the, the other one, the one I started with, I got off of eBay for 100 pounds secondhand, so-

Joe Rogan 11:58 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 11:58 ... not, not a great bike, you know, basic. Um, and that one got me all the way about 34,000 miles to Cape Town. Uh, and then that bike was sadly stolen, just, I was locked up on... it was locked up on the street.

Joe Rogan 12:11 Oh, Jesus.

Charlie Walker 12:11 Uh, and coincidentally that afternoon I, I'd been invited on a radio show to talk about my trip and the, the DJ-... asked me about his bike, you know. And Capetonians, uh, you know, they're into cycling, mountain biking, and I think he was expecting some specs or, you know, what, you know, what I was riding. And all I could really say is, "Actually, it got stolen this morning." And he... I'm about to murder an accent and, you know, you'll get angry emails, but, uh, he said, (in a British accent) "Oh, no, that's absolutely terrible. Like, let's get this boyki a bicycle. We can get him back home." And he, uh-

Joe Rogan 12:37 That's not bad.

Charlie Walker 12:37 ... said, "Any of you, any of you listeners out there, you've got a bicycle, you send us a message, we'll get it to this boy." Um, and about six or seven bikes were sort of presented to me the next day.

Joe Rogan 12:46 Hmm.

Charlie Walker 12:46 Well, I had to go around the city and collect them all up, but a couple were kids' bikes, one was an antique, one had been found in a canal-

Joe Rogan 12:53 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 12:53 ... um, the frame of which I ended up using. So I took them all apart and I made-

Joe Rogan 12:55 Oh.

Charlie Walker 12:55 ... I made one bike from all the different parts. And I, I just, wha- the, the bottom bracket, the kind of part between the, the pedals in those, that sort of hub, that was the only part I got from a shop. And the rest, uh, was just these, these decimated bikes, kind of, you know, bastardized into this, this one Frankenstein frame.

Joe Rogan 13:12 Well, that's a cool story.

Charlie Walker 13:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:13 And so then this bike, you rode for the remainder of the journey.

Charlie Walker 13:17 Yeah, that got me 10,000 miles in one year back home.

Joe Rogan 13:20 Damn.

Charlie Walker 13:20 (laughs) And then it was stolen a few weeks later-

Joe Rogan 13:22 How wi-

Charlie Walker 13:22 ... in London.

Joe Rogan 13:22 Was it really?

Charlie Walker 13:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:23 Oh, wow.

Charlie Walker 13:23 It was basically unrideable by that point. Is that... I can't tell which one- Yeah, that's the first- ... that is. ... one. That's up in Tibet. Okay.

Joe Rogan 13:28 How long do bike tires last?

Charlie Walker 13:31 I-

Joe Rogan 13:31 Because I know that you change car tires. I don't think I've ever changed a bike tire, but I can imagine the rubber...

Charlie Walker 13:35 Oh, they definitely wear out.

Joe Rogan 13:36 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 13:37 Um, I think I, I mean, I kept a tally of all this stuff. I think I got through something like 20 tires, but, I mean, they last a little longer if you don't buy a pair for $3 in an African village that are made in China.

Joe Rogan 13:47 Is that what you did?

Charlie Walker 13:48 Um, no, I could j- you know, I just got whatever I could and I think 256 punctures, 20 or so chains. Like, you know, there, it was, um-

Joe Rogan 13:56 Wow.

Charlie Walker 13:56 ... there's a, a phrase in the UK, "Trigger's broom." There was an old TV show called Only Fools and Horses where some not too bright character gets an award from the council, he's a street sweeper, for having the same broom for 17 years.

Joe Rogan 14:08 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 14:08 And, uh, you know, after he's given this medal, he, you know, he says, "No, it takes a lot of dedication to care for a broom. This broom's had 17 new handles and 25 new heads over the years." And that, and that's kind of what the bike was like. You know, besi- besides the frame, just about every other part was slowly swapped out as I-

Joe Rogan 14:22 Phew.

Charlie Walker 14:22 ... as I went around.

Joe Rogan 14:24 Wow. And when you're traveling through, through all these places, what kind of language barriers are there? Do you... I mean, do you understand other languages besides English?

Charlie Walker 14:35 I'm not a natural linguist. Um, I, I can get by in French, and that was handy in sort of Central and West Africa. Um, I picked up and sort of worked quite hard at, at Russian. I've got some Russian, um, which in the, the -stan, the Central Asia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, et cetera, that was handy.

Joe Rogan 14:53 When you say picked up, did you pick up on the fly, or did you prepare?

Charlie Walker 14:56 I, uh, probably a few months before I got to that part of the world, I picked up some, um, uh, like audio lessons.

Joe Rogan 15:02 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 15:03 Uh, and just sort of listened to them while I was, while I was on, on the road. Um, and then I got quite good at just sort of, I guess, charades. You know, even, even if a, a... Like China was always linguistically the hardest place.

Joe Rogan 15:14 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 15:14 But even after I learned how to ask for an egg, you know, in a village shop to some rural area, I still preferred to do it the way I'd done for, (laughs) you know, for weeks up to that point, which was go into a shop and start sort of, you know, flapping, clucking your wings-

Joe Rogan 15:26 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 15:26 ... and sort of, you know, clucking slightly more and more manically. (clucking) And then (pops lips) putting out-

Joe Rogan 15:32 Oh, that's hilarious.

Charlie Walker 15:32 ... from behind me an egg and pointing it. And they go, "Oh, the foreigner wants an egg. Yeah, we'll get him some eggs."

Joe Rogan 15:35 Oh, that's hilarious.

Charlie Walker 15:36 Um, so you k- yeah, you can make a bit of a game of it, um-

Joe Rogan 15:38 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 15:39 ... and of course, yeah, in lots of parts of the world, there are plenty of people who do speak good English, um, so I, I will say, I wasn't, um, I wasn't washing a great deal (laughs) at this time in my life, you know, living in a tent, getting the odd splash wash in a puddle or a river or whatever. And so my hands, which were on front of me and the bike, uh, sorry, in front of me on the bike's handlebars most of the day, uh, it, when I arrived in a new country, I'd find the first English speaker I could and ask them how to count to 10 in their language, and then I'd write on my knuckles one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 on each hand. And then, you know, on the palm, hot, cold, yes, no, good, bad, up, down, left, right, just a whole bunch of vocabulary. And that, you know, you pick it up pretty quick when it's in front of you for maybe six, eight hours in a day. And when that was done, I'd wash them off and maybe learn some new words and sort of carry on. So even though I was passing through regions and, and didn't have all that long to get to grips with many languages, I, I got a bit of a head start with that.

Joe Rogan 16:31 Oh, wow. Um, what is it like when you're alone for that long?

Charlie Walker 16:37 That's probably the biggest challenge. And I've definitely got better at that over the years. But when I was off on that bike trip, you know, there were, there were times, particularly up in Tibet where that picture was, the, the road I was following in Tibet is the, the, the western sort of approach to Tibet, and on a good day... I was there in winter, which is not ideal, it's, it's cold, but on a good day, there'd be maybe one vehicle going in either direction. But often there'd be several days at a time with no vehicles and, um, there were, you know, no settlements along the way. And later on... So to get into Tibet, I didn't have permission, so I had to sort of (laughs) in, in the night, I cut a hole in the fence of a military base and snuck into, into Tibet. Uh, so beyond that point, I was having to kind of hide.

Joe Rogan 17:16 To get into Tibet? So, so it's difficult to get into Tibet?

Charlie Walker 17:19 Yeah. So, so the, you know, Tibet used to be a independent country.

Joe Rogan 17:23 Right.

Charlie Walker 17:23 A lot of protests, most, you know, ethnic Tibetan people don't want to be part of China, but in the '50s, the, the, you know, the, the People's Liberation Army marched in. Uh, and, uh, this was only a couple of years after the, um, the Beijing Olympics, and in the lead up to those, there were, in, in Lhasa, the, the capital, I think it was around three dozen, uh, self-immolations. Y- you're aware of that phrase?

Joe Rogan 17:46 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 17:46 Yeah. Uh-

Joe Rogan 17:47 Horrific.

Charlie Walker 17:47 ... usually monks. Yeah, and, you know, for the, for the listeners who might not know, this would be-

Joe Rogan 17:50 Well, they probably know from the Rage Against the Machine cover.

Charlie Walker 17:52 Yeah, yeah, exactly that.

Joe Rogan 17:54 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 17:54 So people marching out in, you know, in front of the, the, the soldiers or the police, pouring a tin of, uh, petrol over themselves, or gasoline, lighting themselves on fire, and, and burning to death, you know, i- in protest at what they see as the, the occupation of their, their country. Uh, and of course, the, the Chinese government doesn't want people seeing these sorts of scenes, so they, they, they made the whole area off-limits to foreigners, and basically, well, it still is really. Y- you, you can visit sort of limited little pockets in, in, in Lhasa, the capital, and a couple of other kind of temples and towns nearby.But to do that, you've got to be in a, in a group with a guide and a vehicle and permits and, you know, it's, it's, it's expensive and, and you, you're just not allowed to travel by yourself with a, with a bike. So that was the only way I could get in was to sort of sneak in. But after that point, I was then having to, to hide the whole time, and, and to bring, bring it back to your question, the loneliness there, I really, really struggled. You know, I was, I was up there for about six weeks and, you know, I probably had two conversations in that time. You know, it was, it was really hard. Um, but now I've got a lot better at it, and there's ... Ah, I, I keep meaning to look this up 'cause there was someone, it's one of those people that's always quoted, it'll be Oscar Wilde or Mark Twain, someone like that, once said that, uh, "Loneliness is the paucity of one's own company and, uh, solitude is the richness of it." Uh, and it's-

Joe Rogan 19:09 Hmm.

Charlie Walker 19:09 ... you know, it's two sides of the same coin. So being by yourself can totally suck, but if you just kind of try and flip the perspective of it, and you know, it's not always possible and it's certainly not easy, you can then sort of, you know, enjoy the pa- the space, the peace, the freedom, um, particularly if you've got a, you know, kind of a busy life when you go back home.

Joe Rogan 19:24 It is an interesting thing about human beings that we seem to have a requirement for other people's company.

Charlie Walker 19:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 19:30 I mean, we really do. Like, we do enjoy moments of solitude, you know, like sitting on a dock, you know, looking out at a, at an ocean, just relaxing, maybe having a cup of coffee by yourself. But if that goes on for too long, we have like a, a deep feeling of longing and a, a sorrow comes over us and ...

Charlie Walker 19:50 Well, we're pack animals.

Joe Rogan 19:51 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 19:52 And, and you know, I guess, uh, this is my cod evolutionary (laughs) uh, sort of take on it, but I suppose anyone over the millions of years of, of our evolution who had that instinct to always be there by themselves probably wouldn't have been passing their genes on so much. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:06 Right.

Charlie Walker 20:06 And so they, so you know, probably would have been bred out, you know, we, we've selected for people who live in communities.

Joe Rogan 20:11 Yeah, makes sense. It only makes sense, but it's, it's so strange how, uh, intense it is when, when you are alone for long periods of time, and for people that have never experienced that, it's, uh, I mean, what you've done in, in doing that is, uh, is really extraordinary, and I would imagine it gives you some very unique insight into how your own mind works.

Charlie Walker 20:34 Yeah. Uh, I think I've always been relatively good in my own company. I've, I, I, I suppose years ago I might have referred to myself as a, as a loner in the, in the sort of positive sense of that word as opposed to I guess it, you know, (laughs) it's probably a bit of an insult as well.

Joe Rogan 20:49 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 20:49 But I, you know, I do like my own company. I'm, I'm happy in my own company, but I have got, I, I suppose over long periods I, I, I would realize later that I'd sort of essentially de-socialized and, you know, suddenly being back in, in a community or around people where I can have a conversation, it just takes a bit of time to kind of, you know, r- equalize after, after being by yourself for a long time, um, because you've, I mean, you've got no one else to answer to.

Joe Rogan 21:13 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 21:13 You know, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's total freedom and that can be, uh, an indulgence, a self-indulgence.

Joe Rogan 21:21 One of the ... I mean, I've never spent that kind of time alone, but I, I've spent time in the woods and when you're s- when you're by yourself for a day or two, one of the things that always hits me is you start evaluating your own life, evaluating relationships, evaluating friendships, evaluating, you know, work, v- v- various things that you, you don't normally think about in such great depth, but when you're alone and you don't have anyone to talk to, it's like those are the things that the mind wants to dig up and maybe examine.

Charlie Walker 21:53 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:53 Did you find that?

Charlie Walker 21:54 Definitely, and it's, um, it's definitely a positive thing to do, you know, the more-

Joe Rogan 21:59 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 22:00 ... time you've got to chew things over, the, you know, the more to grips you're gonna get with any, any problems in your life or, you know, whatever it might be. And then there's always the temptation which I kind of, I'm quite, uh, regimented with myself about how long I allow myself to listen to music or podcasts or whatever in any given day when I'm off doing some trip like this. Um, I mean, I first came across your podcast when I was in the Congo, I think.

Joe Rogan 22:23 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 22:24 Um, and you know, it's, it's, you know, podcasts are great, you know, but suddenly you've got company all day and that's a way to, I suppose, you, you know, you'll be thinking about and learning about whatever's been spoken about, but you're not exploring things by yourself in, in the way that you can if you just have silence and, and-

Joe Rogan 22:37 Right.

Charlie Walker 22:38 ... and peace. And I'm quite strict with myself. Like on my latest trip, you know, I'd allow myself in the morning, you know, an hour of listening to something and then in the afternoon maybe another hour at some point and then while cooking dinner I could listen to something like that.

Joe Rogan 22:50 How did you decide that amount of time?

Charlie Walker 22:52 Uh, I mean, it was arbitrary essentially. It just needed to be-

Joe Rogan 22:57 Regimented?

Charlie Walker 22:57 ... to just needed to ensure that I wasn't, you know, you know, doing that all the time. So I'd, uh, it wouldn't always be exactly an hour, but maybe a podcast.

Joe Rogan 23:04 Right, yeah.

Charlie Walker 23:04 Uh, one of yours is, is the whole morning of course. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:06 Right. (laughs)

Charlie Walker 23:06 But, um, yeah, you know, something short like that.

Joe Rogan 23:09 You went through the Congo on a bike?

Charlie Walker 23:12 Uh, I started on a bike. Uh, I was actually with someone else for this part of, this is the, the bike journey.

Joe Rogan 23:17 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 23:17 Um, so this was 2014, um, a guy from Scotland who I'd met, he, he was motorbiking down the, uh, the east coast of Africa with a couple of friends and I, and I think about seven times we kept bumping into each other. They, they (laughs) were covering a lot more ground. They were taking a more sort of circuitous route than me. But in Cape Town, him and I spent a bit of time together and he said, "Hey, well, so you know, when you go to Congo, I'll fly up and I'll join you." And so in the capital of Zambia, Lusaka, he, he flew up, he bought a bike for I think about $90, like a sort of three gear, shitty, heavy, s- s- sort of strong bike. Uh, and we, we cycled into Congo, uh, DRC, you know, there's two Congos, the big one, the, the, the fucked up one I guess.

Joe Rogan 23:58 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 23:59 Um, uh, we cycled across the border in the south in, in the Copperbelt and then followed the border all the way across the south of the country 'til eventually the road we were following just kind of ran out. Um, but there was a river there and we, we'd been aware that this was gonna happen. The Lulu is the name of the river. And so we, uh, we bought a dugout canoe which is, or a pirogue they call it there, which is essentially just a, a tree trunk with the insides scooped out. You know, it's-

Joe Rogan 24:21 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 24:21 ... your sort of typical I suppose you'd say tribal canoe that you'd s- you'd see right across the world in all sort- you know, in South America or in Sub-Saharan Africa or in, you know, Papua New Guinea, the same sort of thing. And we bought one that was about five and a half meters long I think and...... for the next month, we kind of battled this thing down a river. Um, but as we... So it, it was not a, it was not in great shape. Uh, and we had to get in it, all our gear and two bicycles, and these things sit really low in the water.

Joe Rogan 24:46 Hmm.

Charlie Walker 24:46 We've got maybe two inches of clearance. You know, if the, w- y- any small rapids, the water's coming in and you're, you're going down. Um, but as we, after we bought it, we pulled it up onto the riverbank and we turned it upside down, and we were patching some little leaks and cracks and trying to kind of brace it. And the whole village just gathered around us in this big, excited, but concerned crowd. And they were tutting and shaking their heads. And a sort of spokesperson essentially stepped forward and said, "Really, I don't think you should go on the river. Um, there are, there are rapids and waterfalls." And we're like, "Yeah, no, it'll be all right." "And there are hippos and crocodiles and, you know, if you guys don't drown, you'll be eaten and you'll be dead in a day either way." Um, and we took it with a pinch of salt, and, and, and that month was probably the most fraught of my life. It, it was, it was ridiculous. Every day we'd be struggling down rapids. The smallest little rapid would be enough to sink us, and the boat wouldn't sink, it would just go, you know, down. It would sit, you know, f- two, three inches under the water. But unless we had them all strapped down, all our bags would start floating off in different directions-

Joe Rogan 25:43 Oh, Jesus.

Charlie Walker 25:43 ... and we're splashing around in the water trying to gather everything. "Oh, that one's got the money and the cameras. Oh, get that bag, that's got all of our food."

Joe Rogan 25:48 Oh, Jesus.

Charlie Walker 25:49 "Passports over there." And all the while you're wondering when is a crocodile just gonna come and sort of grab-

Joe Rogan 25:53 (sighs) Oh.

Charlie Walker 25:53 ... your ankle. Um-

Joe Rogan 25:53 Did you see them?

Charlie Walker 25:55 We s- we only saw one.

Joe Rogan 25:56 Really?

Charlie Walker 25:57 Um, they, so they, they, I mean, they're around. Everyone kept saying they're around, lots of people-

Joe Rogan 26:00 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 26:00 ... we met said they, you know, they, they do see them. I think they've been hunted quite a lot over the years. Uh, and although these are on the, the Congo, so this is a tributary of the Congo River, um, they're, they're Nile crocodiles, that's the species.

Joe Rogan 26:11 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 26:11 And they, they grow up to, I mean, they get really big.

Joe Rogan 26:13 They're 20 feet long.

Charlie Walker 26:14 Uh, yeah, yeah. I think that's about the max.

Joe Rogan 26:16 Yeah, they're huge.

Charlie Walker 26:17 Um, but we-

Joe Rogan 26:18 That's a, that's a dangerous animal.

Charlie Walker 26:19 Yeah. Well, I mean, it was, it was a, we were in a really remote area. There are no roads, there were just footpaths connecting villages, and no one else was stupid enough to travel up and down the river. You know, people had canoes, pirogues, uh, but they would just use them for fishing, so they would just sit on the water, you know, place some nets, come back out. Um, and we (laughs) , we, one afternoon paddling along, and there was this group of maybe 50 men on the riverbank, all just waving and singing and dancing around, sh- with, shaking machetes above their heads. And so we didn't pull over, you know, we thought, "We'll, we'll pass by." But, uh, a few hundred yards on, there were just two men by the, by the, on, on the bank. And we pulled up to them and said, "You know, what, what's going on up there?" And they said, "Oh, they just killed a crocodile, a big one." And I said, "How big?" And they said, "Five meters." So that's about 15, 16 feet.

Joe Rogan 26:58 Hmm.

Charlie Walker 26:58 Yeah. So big. Um, one night a hippo... Yeah, well, we'd hear the hippos sort of honking out on... Yeah, they made that very particular noise. We'd hear them out on the water for like-

Joe Rogan 27:05 What does a hippo noise sound like?

Charlie Walker 27:06 Sort of a honk, honk.

Joe Rogan 27:08 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 27:08 That's the, as best I can do. (laughs) Um, but yeah, we'd hear those quite a lot at night, and, um, y- you know, we had to camp on the riverbank, but the hippos go out for walks around at night, and sometimes there'd be, you know, shoulder-high elephant grass, and the only places that we could really pitch a camp would be in these channels that the hippos would tread through it. So it was, yeah, it was a, it was a difficult time. W- and after a month, we finally reached a road, uh, sort of sand tracks I guess, uh, and a couple days later just managed to get to a town in time for me to collapse into bed with a pretty severe case of malaria. Uh-

Joe Rogan 27:41 Oh, wow.

Charlie Walker 27:42 ... but I had typhoid fever at the same time, so it was like double trouble. Um-

Joe Rogan 27:45 Oh, boy.

Charlie Walker 27:46 So I couldn't really walk for about a week. Um, so yeah, that was a, that was a, that was quite touching day.

Joe Rogan 27:49 What did they give you to get over the malaria?

Charlie Walker 27:52 Was really lucky I managed to get, we managed to get to a town. Um, and I went to the Catholic mission, um, where they had a nurse and said like, "Please treat me." Um, Archie will buy... Archie is my friend. Um, he'll buy the drugs and, uh, so this, this nurse, um, a guy, uh, actually whose name I shouldn't say, um, he, uh, he gave me drips of, um, ciprofloxacin, uh, and th- I think... Oh, I'm trying to remember. Uh, metronidazole, I think. Two different antibiotics, um, just a, a lot of drips. But the drips were the most frightening thing, because he didn't use clean needles each time. (laughs) So-

Joe Rogan 28:29 Oh, boy.

Charlie Walker 28:30 He would sort of do the drip in the morning, yank it out my arm, and then just kind of hang it over the mosquito net, come back in the afternoon, kind of blow it off, and then plug it straight back into my arm.

Joe Rogan 28:38 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 28:39 Um-

Joe Rogan 28:39 Great, so if you don't die of malaria, you die of infection.

Charlie Walker 28:41 Yeah. You know, it was, it was a worrying time. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:44 Jesus Christ. So how long did it take you to recover from the malaria?

Charlie Walker 28:47 Well, I didn't have long because we had to get... You know, our visas were only three months, and, and we'd already been going for over two months. Uh, so we had to get out of the country within a certain amount of time. So, um, after I think it was probably about eight days, um, we then, uh, you know... I was, I was able to walk, yeah, but I was still super weak. We then had to go and sort of get passage on a, a bus as they call it there, but this is just a truck with a, you know, metal shipping container in the back of it. And we spent about five days on these trucks kind of bouncing around. You either cling to the top... There's no roads, it's all just mud tracks. Um, in, in the rainy season, which was kind of not far off, uh, it would take a month to do that five-day drive to the capital that, that we, um-

Joe Rogan 29:26 Because of the, so much mud?

Charlie Walker 29:27 Well, yeah, the roads just churn up.

Joe Rogan 29:29 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 29:29 You know, the, the, the roads, the tracks that we were on were sometimes these sort of, you know, channels carved ph- five, six yards deep into the mud, you know.

Joe Rogan 29:37 Wow.

Charlie Walker 29:38 And so as soon as it starts raining, they're all completely gone.

Joe Rogan 29:40 (exhales) Whew.

Charlie Walker 29:40 Um, I, I came across the... Uh, so the monsoon arrived six weeks or so later, by which time I was up in the other Congo, way up in the, in the north kind of, uh, near the border of Cameroon and Central African Republic on these mud tracks. And suddenly I just saw all these trucks that had kind of, you know, run off the tracks into the, into the trees, and there were people who had been stuck there for days and days and days, um, and... Uh, I, I mean, I couldn't even push my bike. I had to carry it for about a day and a half, take everything off, carry it for a mile, hide it in a bush, walk back. It was-

Joe Rogan 30:09 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 30:09 It was five miles for every one mile forward just portaging it back and forth.

Joe Rogan 30:12 Holy shit, man.

Charlie Walker 30:13 Um, yeah. That was-

Joe Rogan 30:14 How much crime did you encounter?

Charlie Walker 30:16 Not a huge amount. I mean, I, um, I mean, p- like, my, uh, pocket got picked in, in Malaysia, which is one of the safest (laughs) places in the world. Uh, my horse got stolen in Mongolia. That, that happens. Um-

Joe Rogan 30:32 You had a horse?

Charlie Walker 30:32 Yeah. They're not, they're not expensive. Uh-

Joe Rogan 30:34 How much is a horse?

Charlie Walker 30:35 I bought a horse for about 120 pounds, so I guess-

Joe Rogan 30:37 Really?

Charlie Walker 30:38 ... 150 bucks or so.

Joe Rogan 30:39 You could get a-

Charlie Walker 30:39 Uh-

Joe Rogan 30:39 ... horse for 150 bucks?

Charlie Walker 30:41 It, it depends how many... Eh, every few years Mongolia has, um, they, they call it a, uh-... uh, snow or ice event. Uh, so essentially the, the, you know, Mongolia winter is really cold. You know, it gets down to about -40 Fahrenheit or Celsius. Um, and if, uh, if it snows and then thaws and then freezes, you get this crust of ice-

Joe Rogan 31:03 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 31:04 ... over the ground. The, the horses, which are kind of left to their own devices over winter, they're, they're kind of semi-feral, it's called, you know, they're, they're kind of half wild. Um, they, they, they can't break through that crust of ice as they would with snow, with their hooves to get to the grass. Uh, so come spring, actually last time I was in Mongolia, the, the whole countryside was just littered with corpses of sheep and horses and-

Joe Rogan 31:23 Wow.

Charlie Walker 31:23 ... and goats. So if they've had a bad winter before, sometimes they lose up to about a third of their kind of national livestock. And horses cost quite a lot, but it wasn't too bad when I was there. Um, the, the horse I would sort of, at night... So I spent about two months hiking across Mongolia with this horse. I tried to ride it, but it was so small, the tiny little pony. I, I'd gone to quite a lot of effort to find a horse that was, you know, up to the challenge. And I went out into this sort of village outside the capital city, asked around and, and y- you can't do anything there without having to drink copious amounts of vodka. So it's a real pain in the ass, to be honest.

Joe Rogan 31:54 You have to?

Charlie Walker 31:55 Uh, yeah, I mean, that's just the way everything is done. Um, and-

Joe Rogan 31:58 How so?

Charlie Walker 31:59 "Well, hey, you wanna come and look at a horse? Great. Well, let's first, um, let's first, you know, let's first drink some vodka and, um, we'll pour a little offering to the gods and we'll flick a little bit into the sky as an offering to the sky god. And, you know, it'd be rude to refuse 'cause, you know, it's, it's an offering."

Joe Rogan 32:11 Right.

Charlie Walker 32:12 And then, I mean, to be fair, I was in my mid-20s, so I was, you know, I was quite happy (laughs) just to drink the stuff. Um, but, uh, you know, this kind of quite unpleasant paint-stripping vodka and just bottles and bottles and bottles. So I spent this long day going from person to person to person out, you know, in the sticks, um, you know, driving across, you know, grasslands, you know, off-road. And finally, we met these people who had a, this guy had a horse to sell and he said, "Yeah, here's the horse. Do you want to check it out?" And I was like, "All right." I didn't, I, I had never ridden a horse before. I didn't know what I was looking for.

Joe Rogan 32:39 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 32:39 But I thought, "I'll check out the hooves." I was about to try and check the back hooves and they're like, "No, no, no, don't do that. You'll, you'll get your face kicked off."

Joe Rogan 32:45 Yeah, Jesus Christ.

Charlie Walker 32:45 But I checked the front hooves, I checked his teeth, you know. Um, she, it was a, a, a female horse, didn't look too old. Um, you know, decent, strong, you know, coat was in good condition. I thought, "Yeah, this is fine." And we agreed a price and, um, about two days later I had to go back to the capital to get my stuff, buy a saddle. About two days later I came back, met the guy, and he presented me with this horse and it's like, "Well, that's a different color and it's got testicles." Um, so that's a, that's a different horse altogether, but, you know, there wasn't really much I could do ab- do about it. Um, so this horse didn't really take to being ridden. Um, I don't think... It was too small. I don't think he could really cope with me and my not very heavy bags. Um-

Joe Rogan 33:20 So you just used it sort of as a pack horse?

Charlie Walker 33:22 Pack horse, yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:23 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 33:23 Uh, so we, we walked, and at night I would make a fire. You'd hear wolves howling, um, you know, often. I'd make a fire and sort of tether the horse 10 yards away and that's kind of the first line of defense. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 33:33 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 33:33 Um, and one morning the horse had been, uh, you know, the tether had been cut and someone had been in the night. But I'd pretty much got to where I was going. Oh, before I forget.

Joe Rogan 33:39 Wow.

Charlie Walker 33:39 This is a Mongolian wolf tooth for you.

Joe Rogan 33:41 Oh, wow.

Charlie Walker 33:41 Which, uh, an old hunter gave me. He claimed that he shot the wolf, but I was not 100% sure-

Joe Rogan 33:46 Why is that?

Charlie Walker 33:46 ... about that. Well, uh, it's, you know, there's a kind of a, you know, braggadocio, braggadocio element to it. It's kind of a macho thing to have shot wolves. And I met a lot of people who said, "Yeah, I've killed many wolves." But back in Soviet times there were, you know, Mongolia was kind of a satellite. It wasn't technically part of the Soviet Empire, but it was sort of a protectorate. Uh, there used to be a quota. Every Mongolian man had to kill two wolves each year, um, to, to sort of keep their numbers down, otherwise they would decimate the, the livestock. Um, anyway, that's, uh, that's, uh-

Joe Rogan 34:12 Wow.

Charlie Walker 34:12 ... from a, from a wolf that he got hold of somehow, maybe he shot it.

Joe Rogan 34:16 You, you're skeptical though.

Charlie Walker 34:18 Well, I'm, I'm kind of a skeptic generally, I think. (laughs) Um, and the way he told me, it didn't give me necessarily the impression-

Joe Rogan 34:26 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 34:26 ... that he, that he had shot it.

Joe Rogan 34:28 Do you know the story about, uh, the World War I, uh, Russian-German standoff with wolves?

Charlie Walker 34:33 They, they, they took like a two day truce, right?

Joe Rogan 34:35 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 34:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:36 They took a truce, they, they stopped fighting to kill the wolves 'cause there were so many soldiers who were getting killed by wolves.

Charlie Walker 34:41 They were losing like one or two soldiers a day or something?

Joe Rogan 34:43 It was something insane.

Charlie Walker 34:44 Well, nights rather.

Joe Rogan 34:44 They had... Well, the problem was, you know, there were fighting trench warfare.

Charlie Walker 34:48 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:48 Right? And so they would get shot and they would be crying and screaming out in these trenches. And then you would hear... (mimics gun firing) (screams) People would be eaten alive by wolves.

Charlie Walker 34:58 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:59 The wolves would find these wounded soldiers and tear them apart. And then people would go out on scouting missions and they wouldn't find anything but boots and, you know, and, and pieces of their clothes covered in blood. And then they realized like, "Jesus Christ, we're losing more people to wolves than we are to the Germans or the Russians."

Charlie Walker 35:15 Actually, just, uh, earlier this year, I came across a memorial to, to Finnish sold- POWs who had been sent up to this distant part of Siberia from that war, people who'd been captured.

Joe Rogan 35:24 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 35:24 Um, it was crazy to think they'd been captured like way out there in sort of, you know, in Europe and they'd been sent to this desolate spot at the end of the continent and just told to fish to sort of supply the Russian Navy, I think it was. But they're all these like on, on the, the, the cliffs at the north of Asia, like facing out, I mean, you can't imagine a more like barren, isolated, brutal spot. And there was just, uh, I, I saw one, I was told there was another somewhere nearby that I didn't spot. Just a, a crucifix set up for the, for the, the dead Finns. I don't know how many were sent out there and, and what's left.

Joe Rogan 35:54 Wow.

Charlie Walker 35:54 Yeah. But yeah, so if you, you know, if the wolves don't get you and the Russians do, then, you know, the cold will get you eventually.

Joe Rogan 36:00 What was the, the like, what was the terrain like in Mongolia when you're making your way through this?

Charlie Walker 36:05 Um, mostly steppe, grassland. Um, but I went through some sort of low mountains. Um, they ha- it's the most... It's an incredible country, Mongolia. Like it's co- it's just so ripe for adventure. It, it's, uh, it's about the same size as Spain, France and Germany put together. Uh, but the population is just over three million. And-

Joe Rogan 36:25 Oh, wow.

Charlie Walker 36:26 ... most of it, it's the most sparsely populated country on Earth. Um-

Joe Rogan 36:29 Really?

Charlie Walker 36:29 It's, it's kind of a person per square kilometer. Um, but m-

Joe Rogan 36:33 (exhales)

Charlie Walker 36:33 But more than half the population live in the capital, and there are a handful of other, not big, but, you know, towns. And so the countryside's just-... open. And it's just, it's-

Joe Rogan 36:41 What is the capital like?

Charlie Walker 36:42 Uh, it, it's changed a lot since I first went. Um, you know, it was a, it was all just kind of grim, Soviet apartment blocks. Um, and it's set in this kind of valley. In winter, I've not been there in winter, but in winter, it's the most polluted city on Earth. Um, 'cause everyone to, to, there's kind of increasingly people are being drawn into the capital from outside, and they come in and set up their yurts, or gers, as they call them, these kind of circular felt tents, which you can survive, you know, the harshest conditions in. But to heat them, they're just using coal, or yak shit, or horse shit, or-

Joe Rogan 37:13 Hmm.

Charlie Walker 37:14 ... you know, um, cow shit. And so just all of the particulate matter that... So it's the, it's the most polluted by a particular count on the, the PM10, I think is the size of the particle, which y- I think if you breathe in, they can get quite deep into your lungs, but not all the way to the tips like that tiny ones in Beijing, for instance. Um, but, uh, yeah, there's just this kind of pall of pollution that hangs over this narrow, long valley that the capital's stretched along. But recently, you know, they've got, I think there's like a Shangri-La there now and some high glass buildings, and it's, it's changing quite a lot. They, they had in, in about 2012, they opened a huge mine that I think Toktogul, I think, the name. I, I forget. But in, (laughs) in 2012, uh, The Economist magazine found Mongolia to have the world's fastest growing economy because they opened this one mine, and overnight, the economy grew by 40%, like, that month. Um...

Joe Rogan 38:06 It's all relative, right?

Charlie Walker 38:07 Yeah. And it... Well, exactly. Yeah. It was still a very, very low base start line. Um, but yeah, I think that's largely gold and copper. Um, and since then, there's been a lot of wrangling over how much, you know, what percentage of the profits is, is, you know, kept channeled into Mongolia and what percentage goes outside. But, uh, that's t- I think that's turned the country around quite a lot. But, but there's no fences. The whole countryside's just... You know, there's, there's the Gobi Desert. There's sort of, um, taiga, like Siberian forest across the north. There are the Altai Mountains in the west. The rest is grasslands, and there's lakes and rivers everywhere. And there's just no fences. It's all common land, and you can just head wherever you want. It's awesome. It's really great.

Joe Rogan 38:42 It's wild that they still use those felt tents.

Charlie Walker 38:44 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 38:44 'Cause that was literally what-

Charlie Walker 38:47 They've changed them, but-

Joe Rogan 38:47 ... Genghis Khan.

Charlie Walker 38:48 Yeah, exactly the same. Um, and you know, nowadays, they'll have maybe a car battery to run. Uh, you know, they'll have a satellite dish and a TV, and you know, it's changing quite a lot. Um, y- y- there's, I mean, there's only one or two homes I visited that still looked really quite similar to how, in- internally, how they would have 800 years ago when Genghis Khan was charging-

Joe Rogan 39:08 Hmm.

Charlie Walker 39:08 ... across the continent.

Joe Rogan 39:09 Wow. And so, this trek through Mongolia took you how long?

Charlie Walker 39:15 Uh, I was there for f- three months in total. Um, so I did two, two months on the horse, and then once the horse was pinched, I'd got to more or less where I wanted to go. And so then I got, got the bike back and carried on cycling, um, sort of through to, to Central Asia.

Joe Rogan 39:28 And then once you get to Central Asia, then how long before you get back to where you wanted to go?

Charlie Walker 39:35 Uh, well, this was all part of that same long-

Joe Rogan 39:37 Right.

Charlie Walker 39:37 ... bike ride. So, you know, there was probably still two years to go to get-

Joe Rogan 39:42 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 39:44 ... to get, you know, down through-

Joe Rogan 39:45 Charlie, that's so crazy.

Charlie Walker 39:46 (laughs) Yeah. Two and a half, perhaps-

Joe Rogan 39:48 That is so crazy.

Charlie Walker 39:49 ... uh, to get down through, through like Central Asia, the Middle East, and down the whole east side of Africa

Joe Rogan 39:53 Now, are you corresponding with anyone back home while this is happening? Do people know you're safe? Like, how are you...

Charlie Walker 39:59 I emailed sort of as and when I could. I, I, um, when I (laughs) , when I took the, uh, ferry from, uh, Britain to France at the beginning of the trip, I had, um, you know, phones were different back then. I had a really old, it wasn't a Nokia 3310, but it was something along those lines. This is 2010. I think the first iPhone might have just come out, but it was a long time ago.

Joe Rogan 40:18 Hmm. I'm thinking that was 2007, if I remember correctly.

Charlie Walker 40:22 Oh, right. Okay. Um-

Joe Rogan 40:23 Was it? Something like that.

Charlie Walker 40:25 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:25 I think the first iPhone was somewhere around then because there's... Yeah.

Charlie Walker 40:29 They-

Joe Rogan 40:29 I think somewhere around then.

Charlie Walker 40:30 But I didn't want a phone, you know? I, I-

Joe Rogan 40:32 Hmm.

Charlie Walker 40:32 ... wanted sort of, you know, freedom from all that. And my, my plan had been, I left, you know, I arranged with my phone contract that the company that the contract would run out around about that time. And I'd planned when crossing the Channel to like go up to the top of the ferry, um, and just hurl it into the sea. And that's, you know-

Joe Rogan 40:45 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 40:46 ... The, the, the, the ferry company kindly gave me like a, a, a free crossing in their sort of club class, and the bar was quite, you know, open. Um, so I didn't get around to that, and a few weeks later, I just sort of tossed it in a lake in Sweden. Which with hindsight, I don't feel good about. You know, that's plastic.

Joe Rogan 40:59 Right.

Charlie Walker 40:59 I shouldn't have done that, but it was like a different time.

Joe Rogan 41:00 But it's symbolic.

Charlie Walker 41:02 Yeah. Um, so I, I didn't, you know, I, I kept in touch with family through email as best, as often as I could.

Joe Rogan 41:08 Did you use like internet cafes?

Charlie Walker 41:10 Exactly. Yeah. Or, or if, you know, if I couldn't find that, I would just... I mean, I got quite good at just like going into a, you know, some random office and saying, "Hey, can I use your computer?"

Joe Rogan 41:19 Really?

Charlie Walker 41:19 People were surprisingly receptive, you know. You're in the middle of, you know, Iraqi Kurdistan. "Can I use your computer?" "Yeah, yeah, sure. Just, um, turn it off when you're done." "Oh, thanks."

Joe Rogan 41:28 Wow.

Charlie Walker 41:28 Um, people, people are very friendly wherever you go, broadly speaking.

Joe Rogan 41:31 That's really fascinating because you, you probably have a different perspective of just running into strangers in other countries than most people do. Most people would think that people would be very hesitant.

Charlie Walker 41:41 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:42 You know, some weird Englishman shows up and wants to use your computer.

Charlie Walker 41:46 Well, I think I, wherever I go, I tend to sort of be a bit of a novelty, so people are interested initially.

Joe Rogan 41:53 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 41:53 Um-

Joe Rogan 41:53 Did you anticipate that, though? Like, like, what did you think you were gonna be able to do to, or did you just figure it out along the way?

Charlie Walker 42:00 Yeah, I just figured it out as I went. Um-

Joe Rogan 42:02 So you didn't have any plan, like, "This is how I'll make sure that everyone knows I'm okay."

Charlie Walker 42:06 No, no. Um, I, I, you know, back then, I probably wasn't great at sort of keeping my parents in the loop exactly as to where I was. And when I went to Afghanistan, I didn't tell them about it. I told one friend and said, "If you don't hear from me in six weeks, then perhaps call the, call the government." Um, and so I, you know, I, I, I tried to keep them sort of as unworried as possible, um, which, I mean, I've got three siblings, so there's, there's spares. It's all right.

Joe Rogan 42:32 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 42:32 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:34 Spares. So when you get done with this trip-

Charlie Walker 42:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:38 I mean, this is a four-year trip. What do you do? Do you have a home at this point in time, or did you not have an apartment anymore?

Charlie Walker 42:45 No, I, I, um, I, I hadn't, I had nowhere to... I mean, I went back to my parents' place for a few weeks, and I had no- I had 30 pounds to my name when I came back, you know.

Joe Rogan 42:53 What is the first day back like? Like, when you, when you show up at your parents' house, what is that like?

Charlie Walker 42:58 Weird. There was a, um, about two months before I finished, I think I was still somewhere in southern Morocco or Mauritania, my dad said via email, you know, "Let's have a party when you get back. Let's have a sort of a homecoming." And so we arranged, we picked a time and a date and arranged a place in London, um, a street where friends of mine, we could come and gather, and we had a little sort of welcome home party. So I was told, yeah, at se- at the stroke of 7:00 you gotta be here on this street. Um, and I, you know, turned up and there were, you know, I don't know, 120, 150 people, some of whom I hadn't seen for, for years and years and years, and it was totally surreal.

Joe Rogan 43:34 Wow.

Charlie Walker 43:34 I was still quite... The six months following, um, this was about six months on from when I was ill in Congo, my health hadn't been good throughout that. So I'd been on my ride up through France, for instance, winter was coming and I was getting these incredible, like, stomach cramps every now and then. And I'd have to... I remember one particular day when I basically just kind of veered off the road in a village and fell into someone's woodshed, and then about 10 minutes later I kind of came round and there was just this elderly French couple standing over me not wondering what to do with me. So I, I wasn't particularly well. But I turned up at this, this homecoming party, you know, with a beard down to my tits and, you know, hair down to my shoulders. I looked a right state, to be honest. Um, and it was strange how quickly I felt kind of normal back among people again, initially at least. It was over the coming days that, you know, the kind of the weird, you know, itch of wanting to move came back and...

Joe Rogan 44:22 So you got, like, wanderlust almost immediately afterwards?

Charlie Walker 44:25 In, yeah, in the- in the- so I guess a couple of weeks on, you know, the novelty...

Joe Rogan 44:28 Wow.

Charlie Walker 44:28 ... of having a comfy bed each night wore off pretty quick, and I needed to find a job to, you know, to earn some money, so I picked up the first job I could find. Um, and, you know, it was not the sort of job that I think I, you know, I was gonna do long term, but it was, it was just enough to get me back on my feet.

Joe Rogan 44:44 What did you do?

Charlie Walker 44:44 Uh, I sold luxury tours to China for a travel company.

Joe Rogan 44:49 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 44:50 And so I talked to clients saying-

Joe Rogan 44:52 How ironic.

Charlie Walker 44:52 Well, exactly. You know, I talked to clients saying, "Oh, you know, you gotta go to this place. It's great." And they say, "What was your experience like there?" And I say, "Well, the ground is good and firm. You can put a tent wherever you want, but, you know, the, the, the, the height will probably be comfortable. You'll be fine."

Joe Rogan 45:03 (laughs)

Charlie Walker 45:03 Um, yeah, it was, it was- that was, uh, not necessarily the, the best fit for me as a job. But soon after that, I started planning the next trip and started writing these books and, and sort of since then I've kind of turned that into a career.

Joe Rogan 45:16 So, immediately you sort of understood when you returned, like, this is not a one-off, this is something you're just gonna continue to do?

Charlie Walker 45:23 Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, people started asking me to give presentations about the trip I'd been on, you know, sort of photo slideshows, I guess, and I started doing more and more of those at, you know, to village halls and clubs and festivals and schools and businesses, and that slowly became, like, about half of my living. And I realized, oh, I could do this for a job, you know. This could be, this could be a living, um, and enable me to carry on, you know, taking on challenges. So since then, there's, you know, there's- there's always something in the pipeline, do some sort of journey, come back, relate the story, write about it, repeat.

Joe Rogan 45:55 Now, when you start up again, are you... is there any hesitation about, like, the length of the trip? Like, that four-year thing, even though I'm sure it must have been a fascinating and wonderful experience, there, there had to be a little bit of a hesitation of committing to that much of your life-

Charlie Walker 46:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:17 ... again.

Charlie Walker 46:17 I, well, I mean, the longest I've done since then is eight months. So-

Joe Rogan 46:20 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 46:20 ... you know-

Joe Rogan 46:21 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 46:21 ... it's, it's, it's a lot different, and the last couple have been sort of two or three months. Um-

Joe Rogan 46:24 But it was... Was it because of that four-year one where you're like, "That's a little much"?

Charlie Walker 46:29 Well, you just, you know, you get a bit more settled. Also, now I've started to kind of build a career, you don't want to totally put everything on pause for a huge amount of time again. Um-

Joe Rogan 46:38 You mean by build a career, the writing and the books?

Charlie Walker 46:39 The, uh, yeah, the writing and the speaking.

Joe Rogan 46:41 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 46:41 And, you know, it's not like I have, you know, a, a monthly paycheck, um, or a, you know, salary or pension, anything like that. So you kind of got to keep feeding the beast.

Joe Rogan 46:51 And so for the speeches, like, w- what are you doing? Are you, like, posting up at a theater and people come to see you talk?

Charlie Walker 46:57 Uh, I do some at theaters, um, a lot at schools, uh, ones for businesses will be at, uh, conferences or they just want someone to come in for the afternoon to kind of, you know, spark up their team or, you know, a, a real variety, all sorts of different events. Um-

Joe Rogan 47:09 You'd be the last person I would want to have come to talk.

Charlie Walker 47:12 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:13 Because I would say, like, "These people are gonna quit and they're gonna go wander the world."

Charlie Walker 47:16 I've spoken-

Joe Rogan 47:16 "I'm gonna have no workforce."

Charlie Walker 47:17 I've spoken to, to a handful of CE- CEOs about that, and, um, one, maybe charitably, but I think he was right. He said, um, you know, if... I, I kind of said what you said as a joke, and he said, "Well, you know what? If, if I've got a member, if I've got a member of staff, if I've got an employee who wants to go away for that huge amount of time, then they're- they probably shouldn't be working for me." You know, it's like-

Joe Rogan 47:37 Hmm.

Charlie Walker 47:37 ... you know, that's not gonna be the most motivated person. But I'm, but I'm not there to, you know, say, "Hey, you know, quit your job and fuck off for years on a bicycle." I'm there to try and... I'm with businesses. It's different, different talks, different events, it's all different. But with businesses, I'm there to, to sort of take some of the lessons about resilience, um, you know, ambition, et cetera, from what I've been doing, uh, and try and apply that to, to their lives, to their, to their setting.

Joe Rogan 48:03 But isn't... aren't those lessons only learned through the experiences? I mean, I would imagine...

Charlie Walker 48:09 They're definitely best learned through experiences.

Joe Rogan 48:11 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 48:11 But I think you can, in the same way that, um... I mean, one of the biggest genres of literature is self-help, right?

Joe Rogan 48:17 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 48:18 And that's just reading about it. That's-

Joe Rogan 48:19 I think most of that is nonsense, though.

Charlie Walker 48:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:22 I, I think in, uh, like, literally, when I look at, like, self-help books and self-help people and mentors and stuff, there's a large percentage, more than half, that's nonsense.

Charlie Walker 48:33 At the risk of insulting a few people I know, I totally agree with you. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:36 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 48:37 Um, but then again, I haven't read, you know, I haven't read those books, and also I-

Joe Rogan 48:40 I haven't read all of them.

Charlie Walker 48:41 No. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:42 Clearly.

Charlie Walker 48:42 Just, just a few.

Joe Rogan 48:42 But I've read enough bullshit where I'm like, "God."

Charlie Walker 48:45 Yeah. Well, there, uh, there's a, there's a huge tendency out there for people to kind of take on the persona of a guru, essentially.

Joe Rogan 48:52 Yes.

Charlie Walker 48:52 You know, and there's so many charlatans out there. There are so many... You know, it's like with a lot of, um, esoteric pursuits and alternative things.

Joe Rogan 49:00 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 49:00 You know, there's, there's, there's things that are rooted in, in fact or that are kind of, you know, veering that way, and there are things that are... I mean, like, uh, mediums, for instance.

Joe Rogan 49:09 Yes.

Charlie Walker 49:09 I mean, I, I've got-... I, I don't mind saying it, I don't care how many people are listening, I've got no time for that because as far as I'm concerned, they're either, I think the two ways they describe it are they're either open eye, which means they know they're conning everyone, or they're shut eye, which means that they, you know, they genuinely believe what they're doing. And, and, you know, that's, that's a different thing. I'm kind of fine with that. It's just I don't think they're right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:30 Yeah, I have a friend who went to a medium, and it's kind of a hilarious story 'cause he goes, "They're, he, he knew everything about my grandmother, knew everything about this." I go, "Don't you know everything about your grandmother?"

Charlie Walker 49:40 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:40 What the fuck is the point of someone telling you-

Charlie Walker 49:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:42 ... some things you already know?

Charlie Walker 49:43 Yeah, that are on our Facebook page.

Joe Rogan 49:44 And I go, "Do, did you, is, do you think that it's possible that these were leading questions, and that through these-

Charlie Walker 49:49 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 49:49 ... leading questions, they sort of talked you into giving them the answers?" And you could see the look on his face when he was kind of resisting, but realizing that I might be right, but didn't want to admit that he got ho- hosed.

Charlie Walker 50:01 I think there's a, a lot of people just want to believe it.

Joe Rogan 50:03 Yes.

Charlie Walker 50:03 And that's also totally understandable, you know? It's, it's the same, like, from my perspective-

Joe Rogan 50:06 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 50:06 ... with, um, you know, belief in afterlife, you know?

Joe Rogan 50:09 Right.

Charlie Walker 50:09 People want to believe that 'cause it's comforting and it totally makes sense to want to believe it. I personally don't, but any of us welcome to that-

Joe Rogan 50:14 You don't believe in any sort of afterlife?

Charlie Walker 50:16 I don't, no.

Joe Rogan 50:17 But do you disbelieve?

Charlie Walker 50:19 Meaning?

Joe Rogan 50:19 I don't believe in it either, but I don't disbelieve in it.

Charlie Walker 50:22 Well, I can never know that it's not.

Joe Rogan 50:24 Right.

Charlie Walker 50:25 But I guess the, uh, the burden of proof is on people who have come up with this idea because there's nothing to substantiate it.

Joe Rogan 50:33 But there's a long history of human understanding that there's something else besides what we experience in this realm. And I think a lot of that has to do most likely through either the consumption of psychedelic compounds or through ritual practices like holotropic breathing or something, where it gives them the sense that maybe what you see is only part of the picture. And then there's this feeling when someone dies, like they're not there anymore.

Charlie Walker 51:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:05 Like, have you, you've ever been around a dead body?

Charlie Walker 51:07 I have, yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:07 It's a weird feeling, right? It's like, there, it's, it's not just that they're dea- it's not just that they're not breathing anymore.

Charlie Walker 51:14 It's an emptiness.

Joe Rogan 51:15 They're not there.

Charlie Walker 51:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:16 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 51:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:16 It's, it's a, it's hard to explain, but the first time I ever saw a dead body was my grandfather. Uh, it was an open casket. And I remember immediately thinking, like, "Oh."

Charlie Walker 51:28 That's not him.

Joe Rogan 51:29 He's not there.

Charlie Walker 51:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:30 Like, he's not there. It's not as simple as... Well, it's also weird 'cause they had him made up and shit.

Charlie Walker 51:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:35 You know, they put makeup on you, which is very odd.

Charlie Walker 51:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:38 But it's this very clear feeling that he's gone. And so there's this thought, "Well, where did he go? Did he go somewhere else?" Is there a place where you go?

Charlie Walker 51:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:49 You know?

Charlie Walker 51:49 And, and that's a totally-

Joe Rogan 51:50 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 51:51 ... understandable thing to, to, to think and, and to, you know, to, to kind of experiment with the idea of, but-

Joe Rogan 51:57 Right.

Charlie Walker 51:57 ... I suppose it can never be-

Joe Rogan 51:59 Proven.

Charlie Walker 51:59 So it's kind of a moot point anyway, I guess.

Joe Rogan 52:01 I guess. I mean, it's interesting. It's interesting-

Charlie Walker 52:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:03 ... to discuss. I don't disbelieve, but I don't believe.

Charlie Walker 52:06 But I, I also think that's a slightly different thing to, to, to mediums. Um-

Joe Rogan 52:09 Oh, yeah.

Charlie Walker 52:09 And I'm a huge fan of, uh, uh, sadly he died last year, I think, The Amazing Randi.

Joe Rogan 52:13 Yes.

Charlie Walker 52:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:14 Yeah, James Randi, um-

Charlie Walker 52:15 Derren Brown, various people who-

Joe Rogan 52:17 Yes.

Charlie Walker 52:17 ... who sort of, you know, unlock or rather give away the secre- some of the secrets of cold reading and show you just how easy it is to manipulate people's belief, um.

Joe Rogan 52:26 Yes. Yeah, Derren is very open about that, and there's a guy named Banachek, who I've had on the podcast before as well as, as Derren, and Banachek, uh, uh, is the first guy that I ever met that openly talked about the techniques that he used. He's like, "I'm not gonna tell you the techniques, but I'm gonna tell you this is bullshit."

Charlie Walker 52:44 Yep.

Joe Rogan 52:44 "I am tricking these people-"

Charlie Walker 52:46 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:46 "... into thinking that I can read into them and find out about their past and find out about their life. It's just bullshit."

Charlie Walker 52:52 Well, Randi went to, um, you know, the, uh, sort of big evangelical churches where they have-

Joe Rogan 52:58 Mm-hmm.

Charlie Walker 52:58 ... um, you know, faith healers and-

Joe Rogan 52:59 Yeah. (laughs)

Charlie Walker 53:00 ... and people, you know, contacting the other side. And he, he went there, and I think, I think I'm re- remembering this right, either his, his, like, one of his accomplices essentially just went there with a little shortwave radio and just scanned through the settings until he found the feed to the, sort of, pastor's ear-

Joe Rogan 53:16 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 53:16 ... feeding the information that someone else was researching online for these, these, sort of, unsuspecting audience members, unwitting audience members. Um, which is, you know, it's hilarious and it's also deeply disturbing 'cause-

Joe Rogan 53:26 It's deeply disturbing.

Charlie Walker 53:27 ... people get, you know, taken for thousands and, you know, they, they can... It's, it's just taking advantage of the most vulnerable people.

Joe Rogan 53:35 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 53:35 And I've got no time for that.

Joe Rogan 53:36 And there's only one step removed from that to a lot of these motivational people because my, my feeling on these motivational people is they're take- a lot of them are taking advantage of the fact that some people have this longing for discipline and structure and, and some sor- like, they've experienced moments in their life where things are going well and then things fall apart or they self-sabotage or they start-

Charlie Walker 53:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:59 ... drinking or gambling or whatever the pro- their problem is. But these people that are motivating these people, these people that they're, they're charging exorbitant amounts of money for some structure that they put together they want these folks to follow, but then when you look into their lives, the people that are the motivational people, most of them haven't done shit. Like, all they're doing is motivating people-

Charlie Walker 54:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:21 ... which doesn't... You know, like, if you wanna have, uh, a conversation about how to invest with Warren Buffett, well, that makes sense to me. Like, here's a man who's spent his life investing successfully in businesses. He's, he's very-

Charlie Walker 54:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:35 ... well-versed in that and he can give you some understanding of the practices that he uses. But if you're gonna talk to someone who's m- trying to motivate you for success and his only success is to tricking people into coming to see him motivate people for success and charging them exorbitant amounts of money for it, well, then, I don't like that.

Charlie Walker 54:53 Well, it's the same as the irony of, of Trump having written The Art of the Deal, um, or rather having had someone ghostwrite it for him. You know, Trump, who was just born into a huge amount of money and by all accounts just slowly lost it over years and years and years.

Joe Rogan 55:05 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 55:05 Um, you know, it, I think it's, it's, it's far too easy for people to, uh, uh, uh, abuse other people's, sort of, good faith. We're, we're, we're-

Joe Rogan 55:13 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 55:13 ... generally credulous creatures, you know? We want to believe stuff. We want things to believe in. Um-

Joe Rogan 55:17 But we also don't... You know, there's, there's so much uncertainty about the future, and so there's this longing for someone to hold our hand. Someone please show me. Someone please give me a guide. Some please... So, tell me the steps to follow.

Charlie Walker 55:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:30 Um-... and, and when people see that people have this longing, they take advantage of it and they, they try to get these people to pay money for these secrets. "If you sign up now, I will give you the secrets of how you can bas- become successful." And you're sitting there in your shitty apartment and you're like, "Fuck, I wanna be successful. I'm gonna-"

Charlie Walker 55:49 It's Scientology, isn't it?

Joe Rogan 55:50 Similar.

Charlie Walker 55:50 Same thing.

Joe Rogan 55:51 Well, I don't- I think that's more in, like, how to organize your life. But it, but similar.

Charlie Walker 55:55 Secrets.

Joe Rogan 55:55 Similar. I mean-

Charlie Walker 55:56 It's, yes, the secrets that you unlock to success, yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:58 Yeah. I mean, written by one of the worst science fiction writers ever.

Charlie Walker 56:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 56:01 Have you ever read some of his stuff?

Charlie Walker 56:03 I, I don't, plan to.

Joe Rogan 56:04 Oh my God. Well, I've had, um, uh, the guy who's the, uh, head guy of Scientology... What the fuck's his name again?

Charlie Walker 56:12 David Miscavige.

Joe Rogan 56:12 Yeah, I had his, his, his, uh, dad, Ron Miscavige, on, and he explained to me how he got his son into it and the whole, the whole deal behind it. It's just fucking fascinating because it deals with those very questions. Like, it deals with psychology, it deals with, like, the, the longing for answers in this purely uncertain open-ended life that we exist in.

Charlie Walker 56:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:35 And so many people have that desire for structure and for someone to come along and tell them that everything is going to be okay if you follow these rules, which is obviously not true.

Charlie Walker 56:46 Yeah. I mean, I, I don't, um... You know, when I'm billed as a, quote-unquote, "motivational speaker," I actually don't like that phrasing. I would prefer, you know, "inspirational." Um, I tend to-

Joe Rogan 56:56 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 56:56 You know, it's, it's almost a- an entertaining storytelling exercise. But with, you know, certain themes that people can, you know, take away if they, if they want to. But I, I've never liked the idea of ramming down people's throats a bullet point- bullet pointed step-by-step of, you know, how to be better or more proactive or more motivated or anything like that, 'cause I, I, I think, as you're saying, it's- it's quite often disingenuous.

Joe Rogan 57:18 Most of the time. I know a guy who does it who used to be a terrible comedian and then he became a motivational guy, and now he's much more successful at that. But it's just so strange and sad to watch these people buy into his nonsense. Like, you know, he's not successful, like, except at taking people and getting them to pay a lot of money to teach them how to be successful, which is fucking strange.

Charlie Walker 57:43 Yeah, it's like a- it's like a shitty pyramid scheme.

Joe Rogan 57:46 It is a- in a way, but it's, you know, it's a confidence game. You're, you're, you're playing upon people's desire for answers that don't exist. I mean, you can motivate people. Like, there's a lot of people, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of people out there that are super successful that can tell you how they did it.

Charlie Walker 58:03 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:03 And there's a lot of benefit in that. There's great benefit in that. But most of those people are not charging you for that. I mean, they might write a book about it-

Charlie Walker 58:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:10 ... or they, you know, maybe they do a podcast on, you know, how to succeed a business or something like that. But they're good at it. They're actually, they actually have experience, but there's a fucking whole industry and online, because of social media, the barrier for entry is so small that you see so many people with these... They, all they ha- everything is motivational. All their posts are motivational. Like, surely you have to have something, other shit to say other than motivating people. It's weird.

Charlie Walker 58:39 Yeah. I mean, I try to focus on telling stories. You know, like, if you, if you read those, for instance-

Joe Rogan 58:43 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 58:43 ... you might find some inspiration within them, but hopefully it's just gonna be interesting, you know.

Joe Rogan 58:47 Well, what you're doing is... I mean, obviously you have these super unusual life experiences that you can relay. And what the... I mean, that's my, my thing about it, is like, God, if I heard those, I would be very tempted to go and, and want some of those experiences for myself.

Charlie Walker 59:04 Well, a lot, a lot of my experiences have been sort of how not to.

Joe Rogan 59:07 Right.

Charlie Walker 59:08 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:08 Well, that's how you learn, right?

Charlie Walker 59:09 Yeah, exactly. Learn from my mistakes. Actually, I think that's, that's always valid as well, you know. I- it's, it's a lot easier, I think, to take something on board from someone who says, "This is what I did and it went horribly wrong-

Joe Rogan 59:19 Yeah.

Charlie Walker 59:19 ... and this is why I wouldn't do it again like that," than to say, "I did this and I'm fantastic and it went really well. And you're a different person, it might be the same for you."

Joe Rogan 59:27 Well, speaking of horribly wrong, let's talk about your most recent one because, uh, this is what led you here and this is, this is a wild experience that you just returned from and, um, just so- tell people what you've done.

Charlie Walker 59:42 Sure. Uh, so I, I've been planning for almost a year to go to a region of Siberia called Yakutia which is, I mean, it's the largest administrative area in the world. Um, so it's one region of Russia. It's almost the same size as India. I think it's about 96% the size of India, uh, but only 1 million people. So it, it's massive and empty and it's far north. Uh, about half of it is north of the Arctic Circle. And there's, there's one large city, but outside that, there are scattered, some remote and very remote communities, um, and they're, for the most part, um, they're, there are plenty of sort of, you know, crumbling, near abandoned industrial towns from the Soviet era as well. But there are, there are lots of scattered small villages of indigenous Siberian peoples, particularly the Sakha who are the, the largest, uh, ethnicity in, in the region. Um, and then there are smaller peoples like the Eveny, the Evenki, who traditionally herded reindeer. There's all sorts of people scattered across this massive area. And I wanted to, to head out there. It's- it's the, it's also the coldest inhabited place on Earth. Um, so, uh, the, the record recorded low, and Jamie might be able to confirm this, but a place called Verkhoyansk. I can't remember the exact temperature, and it's in Celsius only, but about -67.3, something like that.

Joe Rogan 1:01:00 Whoa.

Charlie Walker 1:01:00 Um, and that's inhabited. People live there. And so every winter it's super cold and people survive in that. And they used to survive, m- many of them, in a sort of nomadic sense, living in, in sort of skin tents. Um, reindeer, you know, hide teepees, essentially. Um, so I wanted to get out there, experience some elements, not in the total depths of winter, but in sort of February, March, April, um, of that extreme cold.

Joe Rogan 1:01:24 Is in February the total depths of winter?

Charlie Walker 1:01:26 Um, I think January's their coldest time.

Joe Rogan 1:01:30 What is February?

Charlie Walker 1:01:31 Well, I mean, I was prepared for -50 Celsius, which is sort of minus-... I guess it's about -60 Fahrenheit. They hit the same at -40. - 40, yeah. But because the- Yeah, and then it branches off. ... each degree is different, it gets- Yeah. ... confusing straight away. Um, so I wanted to get out there, experience this cold, and, and just meet some of these people scattered around and just kind of see, you know, see what their lives are like and also see if they're changing with the, you know, if their lives, their sort of traditional ways of life are being threatened by the, the climate changing. You know, in, in, um, summer, last summer, when, you might remember there was, it was, uh, I mean, it was all over the news for a while, perhaps less so in America, 'cause you guys got your own wildfires here, but, um, an island in Greece, Evia, was, was on fire, like the whole island essentially, really bad wildfires. But at the same time, an area the size of Belgium, in Yakutia, was burning. Uh, all co- all collectively, all the different wildfires at the same time. Um, so they, you know, they have crazy bad wildfires out there. Uh, also just close to Verkhoyansk, that town with the record cold, they had a, a record arctic high of, um, 39 point something degrees Celsius. Again, I, that's about 100 and- Yeah, that's hot. That's about the same as it is here today, I think. Yeah. Um, and- All the way up there. Yeah, uh, in the Arctic Circle. Um, so- That's insane. Yeah, I just wanted to go and check it out and see what it was like, so I, you know, planned to hike, um, a few hundred miles along frozen rivers, which in winter, for about three months, get sort of plowed and turned into ice roads. Um, zimnik, or zimniki, as they call them there. A bit like your sort of ice road truckers, I guess- Yeah. ... I don't know. But it's on the river. The river's frozen perhaps two meters thick, uh, and towards the top on the frozen sea ice. Uh, and to hike up to this town called Tiksi up on the north coast, um, it's a port town. Um, but I arrived, I flew in on the 21st of February and the world changed a lot in the, in the sort of three or four days after that. Um, day after I arrived, uh, Russian forces marched across the border where they'd been massing, you know, up to, I think, about 140,000 troops by the time I flew out. And when I flew out, you know, with hindsight, it all seems kinda stupid to have gone, maybe foolhardy. But at the time, basically the entire world, except for presumably Putin, the US intelligence, and UK intelligence, which both seemed to think something's gonna happen, but all the world's media, all commentators, all pundits were saying, "No, this is just a bluff. You know, this is just Putin trying to, you know, scare NATO into concessions, you know, to get more promises that NATO won't spread it, you know, that Ukraine won't join NATO," whatever else. Um, but they marched, they marched across the border, um, and two days later, they formally in- formally (laughs) , a formal invasion, they, uh, they, they, you know, launched their full scale nationwide invasion, marched into Kiev, bombed everything. Um, and I was so far away from all this, you know, the, um, Batagay, the small town where I started hiking up in the Arctic, um, that is geographically the same distance from Vancouver as it is from Kiev. You know, so it's just really, really far away. I was closer to the North Pole, I was east of Pyongyang, I was on the same time zone as Central Australia, just really, really far away. And I kind of thought about it and I thought, well, A, I'm here, and it's gonna be interesting, you know, I'm possibly one of, if not the last tourists in Russia, certainly out in the east. Um, and I've got this almost unique but accidental opportunity to see this country and the lives of normal people, ordinary citizens, as what seems to be a horrific, you know, potentially the brink, the precipice of World War III starts to unfold. And so I thought, right, well I'm gonna, I'm gonna carry on with this trek, but I'll just try and keep across, you know, information. Um,