This website illuminates my life and adventures. My longing for freedom has led me to over 2600 of the world’s 3978 provinces, to every country on earth and to the summit of the highest peak on each continent (thank heaven for good weather!). In my travels, I learned to respect the intelligence and ingenuity of people of all races and callings both past and present. Come see the world as I see it: as a peaceful place, full of nature and beauty. With the right spirit and intent, we can make our world a virtual Garden of Eden.
DISTINCTIONS: BBC 2017 Travel Pioneer • Journal Articles • Explorer’s Club Flag Expeditions
World Parks Project • Walk Across South America • Jeff Shea Travel Map
Cambodia, Prey Veaeng Prov, Countryside
Bangladesh, Brahmanbaria Prov, People
Bismarck Archipelago, Jeff Shea With Panguna Copper Mine Truck, Bougainville, 1983 - The amazing size of these trucks in the copper mine at Panguna is illustrated by this photo. I am 5' 10" and barely reached the center of the wheel!
Azerbaijan, Balakan Prov, Persimmon Gatherer
Turkey, Zonguldak Prov, Wedding Guests
Argentina, Jujuy Prov, Lithium Crystals
Pakistan, Wrestling Match In The Street, 1984 - While I waited for the bus to depart for the Iranian border, these men took to wrestling to the delight of the people standing by.
May 15, 1984
Quetta, Baluchistan, Pakistan
4:24 p.m.: I’m not really tired, but I feel a need to relax after sitting on a train for twenty–eight hours. The ride was all right. I will be the first to admit I’m out in the middle of nowhere and I’ve got a hell-of-a-long stretch to do before reaching Israel… my God, it’s a long way. I can’t say I’m unhappy, ‘cause I’m not, yet I think need a woman to be totally happy. (Should I try aero-hitching here??) Since St. Martin’s Island I’ve traveled maybe 1500 miles West and maybe twice that by the road. I figure that my next four hundred or five hundred miles West will mark my half way point around the world!! A day to rejoice if, as I will be in Iran, I am safe. This morning we rose up about two thousand meters (a bit less, maybe) to reach Quetta. The terrain is as one would expect… bleak, dry, barren, mountainous. At first, there were countless thirty degree rifts, shelves rising from the ground. On top was a layer of hard rock and beneath that, it was soft, then sometimes four and five such layers stacked on top of each other; and everywhere as far as you could see, were identically sloped rifts. Later on, these were forty five degree shelfs, almost swirl-like, much greater in size, but with the same uniform angle, profusely jutting out from the floor of the plateau.
11:45 p.m.: I’ve been sleeping for hours and I just woke up an took a cold shower. Brrr! Quetta is about six thousand feet up, and though it’s still warm, the water is sort of cold. Now I’m buzzing. I fell asleep at about 9 p.m., after devouring some big bowls of cornflakes, milk and bananas. After my last entry, I played the guitar for twenty minutes or so, and I then went to the bus station. On the way a hooded small truck (‘taxi’) gave me a free lift—nice of the guy to offer. The buses leave at “all” hours during the day seven to twelve, three and six, it’s eighty five rupees and it’s a sixteen hour ride to Tuftan, six miles away from Murjeveh, Iran (!). Somehow, knowing I’m only a day away psyches me up!!! The mountains here have an allure…. I’m tempted to climb one, but I won’t. I walked around, in my short pants since Peshawar—everyone gives me looks, but I want to enjoy my trunks because once in Iran I’ll be wearing long pants. I had some delicious beef kebab—about six pieces to a skewer for one rupee (seventy–five cents US). The Afghani refugee have their tents all over. There was a dancer with a crowd in the bus area. Camels. All very authentic.
May 16
Quetta, Pakistan
About noon: Diary, I practiced the first hour of the morning…I can’t stand it!! It just drives home to me how hopelessly bad I am. I want the guitar to make me feel good, but it doesn’t. I feel like I’m getting old. I feel energy–less, not inspired, left behind. Yuk! I’m getting rest and food, but I feel blasé. I want to keep trying though. I’ll never give up. What is especially bugging me today is the clothes I had tailored all shrunk, so much so that they look ridiculous. I’m in one of those moods where I feel like I can’t do anything right. (Stop the world!!) So I pulled out of the uptown plastic restaurant (in this town that reeks of advertising ideals—one of those places that begins to get a taste of Western society but it seems out of place—it’s raunchy), and I find a local place where the rickshaw drivers eat. Here I have a delicious chicken (boiled with tomato sauce) lunch with squash in tomato sauce and bread, on a marble table, for half the price. I’m served immediately and I am reminded of Gam (my grandmother) talking of the good old days and I believe in them. This humble restaurant turns out home–cooked food. The other restaurant had an intercom and it took them fifteen minutes to serve me, and I had to reject what they brought.
6:00 p.m. I went down to the Afghan Consulate and spent well over an hour talking with the secretary who educated me on the situation there. Six years ago, the revolution overthrew the King. According to him, the USA supplied arms to the “non-revolutionists” and three years later, the Russians were invited in to “help out.” He showed me a Russian-printed book with photos of Russian soldiers laughing with Afghan children and a uniformed rock band of the most ludicrously Nazi–looking Russian performers. (How weird to see the antithesis of rock stars on stage with electric guitars) as “proof” of the friendship between Russians and Afghanistan. He wrote off the three million (or sixteen million) refugees, formerly landowners, as unwilling and unable to comply with the Agrarian reform (distribution of their land) imposed by the new government. Now that I know the truth, I am shocked to realize Russia has won another country.
11:55 p.m. Well, the latter half of the day has lifted my spirits. A Scot and I had tea and he told me of how his money was stolen. We talked pleasantly of politics. I went to the Tourist Hotel on his advice. There I saw a magician and then changed $20 for 9,700 Iranian rupees. I spoke with several nice travelers who came from IRAN. And I am psyched up to see Persepolis!!
China, Shanghai, Country Girl In Big City, 1995 - June, the young woman in the photograph, hailed from a factory in Anhui Province. She was typical of so many Chinese migrating to the big city to find their calling and their fortune. She was a lovely woman, with a certain innocence and a gorgeous body.
Thailand, Nonthaburi Prov, Temple
Pastel Terrain, 2010
Chile, Antofagasta Province (Región)