mixed by mistake in your food, you may find lizards, water bugs or spiders in or under your bed, you may get robbed or ripped off, you may have to travel with police escort because of bandits, you may be body checked for weapons or drugs, your taxi may be monitored by guys with Kalashnikovs to see what your business is over there or you may end up in a ruthless dictatorship that you always pondered to visit or not. We encountered many of these and even more, but in the same time we had wonderful experiences meeting, beside locals with their way of life, very interesting people, independent travelers also, people who you regret you have to part ways with, after several days and the only thing you hope is keeping in touch by e-mail and meeting them sometime in the future.
In our travels we try to be as free and flexible as possible so we never book anything in advance and we do not plan a complete itinerary. We buy only a plane ticket and a guide book and we take a backpack which we try to pack as lightly as possible and no matter that we arrive midnight in Bangkok or 4:00 am in Delhi or Lima, we find our way around the city, starting to discover it, usually, early in the morning.
Our travels are not relaxing at all and we generally return twice as tired as when we left, without taking in consideration the jet lag, which makes us zombing around for about two weeks after the return. But the enjoyment of travel and discovery is unmatched and we come back all the time tired but happy.

We traveled extensively in the last 18 years shooting hundreds of hours of video and taking thousands of pictures. We wished we were able to travel even more often but somebody had to pay the bills so we decided to build a business that would be based on what we like to do most. So, FlyingMonk emerged in year 2000, as a travel video and travel content provider, working today with many companies like National Geographic, History Channel, Home & Garden, Lycos, CBS News, Inside Edition, WETA, GT Advertising, etc. and selling its independent videos through the Public Library network in the USA, Amazon.com, etc. So, look for our videos at a library near you.
In our travel videos we tell the story of how you can see a lot of the world having a full time job, and how you can spend in the most efficient way a two week vacation in a particular destination. Definitely we would love to be able to stay longer in the places we visited, immersing in the world we discovered, finding out more things about the people around us, having the time to observe the streets and markets and to see the customs, hanging out with fellow travelers, but many other things, beside our business, are dragging us back to the base.

From our travel around the world we found out that wherever you go people are nice and friendly and if they turn sour is a result of the work of ruthless politicians or fanatical religious zealots that unfortunately abound all over. Also we were able to face first hand dismal poverty that does not even have a slight resemblance with the worst imaginable conditions of the Western World. Life in these few affluent countries conceals the real face of poverty that is endemic in the rest of the world.

 

FlyingMonk

 

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Travel is one of the most interesting experiences. It is exposing you to a different way of life, to different cultures and traditions, opening your mind and enriching your soul. Beside palaces and forts, museum and monasteries, seas and deserts, monuments and markets, beautiful peaks and tranquil beaches, traveling is, more than anything, about meeting people with their customs and traditions. You may be an avid museum visitor or culture consumer, but if you go in a country without seeing the people, your visit is as dead as the art from the museums you just finished to visit. Traveling independently, far from the organized groups of package tourism and far from the five-star hotels is the best way to experience the real life of the country you are in.
Of course, if you travel independently and in-not-so-common destinations life can be rough. You may get sick, you cannot drink the water that is in general contaminated, you cannot eat anything which is not boiled or fried, you may get poisoned by some kind of inedible herbs