Word: journeyer
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Stanley Stewart has written travel books on the Nile and the Great Wall. He spoke to TIME about his six-month journey through the empire of Genghis Khan...
...journey, Stewart discovers that his wanderlust is distinctly un-Mongolian. They are nomads, but their wanderings are circumscribed by traditions that have hardly changed for a millennium. It is Stewart who stands out as a badachir, a lone itinerant always searching for more. The Mongolians, who gave up the world, have long since accepted their fate...
...Stewart's sense of humor stands him in good stead during a forbidding journey that begins in Istanbul and then carries him through bleak Russia, bleaker Kazakhstan and into the finality of Mon-golia, a swept land that "made the sky ... seem crowded and fussy." Inspired by what he perceives as the Arcadian freedom of the nomads?the word Mongo-lian, he writes, "evokes the scent of grass and of fallen leaves, some atmosphere of twilight and horses"?Stewart plans to journey the 1,600-kilometer breadth of Mongolia by horse, not a good idea unless your last name...
...Time: How skillful a horseman were you when you decided to make this journey? Stewart: I'd ridden once before on a ranch trip in Wyoming. As it went on, I became a lot more accomplished and wanted more-and-more-eager horses. I actually rode up at each new camp in a grand style?galloped up and leapt off my horse?to let them know that I could handle their horses...
...Time: Your understanding of the nomadic culture changed as your journey progressed. Stewart: I went with the traditional idea of nomads as a free-wheeling, liberating force. But in fact, they are extremely conservative. I brought a saddle of my own, which shocked people because this was not a Mongol saddle. This was not the way things were done in Mongolia. It's a very non-experimental society. Very little had changed in 750 years...