Joe Rogan Experience #1832 — Charlie Walker Transcript

Transcript

0:00 the Joe Rogan experience train by day Joe Rogan podcast by night all day I want to get to these places, 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 a 4x4 or whatever, there's instantly a distance, a sort of divide. I spend most of my time traveling in the developing world where

2:01 I went to a friend's 21st birthday party about 10 days before leaving. And frankly, the following two – it and frankly those two weeks were kind of shitty I can't I didn't particularly train or a car, whatever it is. Did you have any idea of like where food would be, how you would It's not going to be very exciting. when I'm planning food for, you know, earlier this year, I had to

5:36 I've got precisely enough protein for any given day or fat or carbohydrate, whatever it is, mongolia was especially difficult um but it was it was for me it was uh revelatory because i just I've got a plummy accent. Are you making videos? Like, what are you doing something you're going to do often. Are you writing about these things? Are you making videos?

7:22 And every day, at the end of the day, Initially, I was saving, For four years? I guess, the accessibility of doing stuff that anyone logistically probably could do if they put a bit of thought to it. The four-year one, like, how does one go about deciding that you're And so I guess, I mean, I've always found that quite handy with any project, then it's like, well, I might as well finish it off.

9:50 These are, I believe believe for you joe oh thank you um those two books are about that four-year bike there you go um and i've got a couple for jamie and now I probably had something like 15,000 photographs, Western Europe through Scandinavia to Nordkapp, which is the northernmost point of Europe. It's And also, over the course of nearly half a decade, so much changes.

12:00 Not a great bike, basic. But he said, oh, no, that's absolutely terrible. were sort of presented to me And then was stolen a few weeks later in London. I don't think I've ever changed a bike tire, Is that what you did? besides the frame just about every other part was slowly swapped out as I went around. Wow. And when you're traveling through all these places, what kind of language barriers are there?

15:05 um and then i got quite good at just sort of i guess charades you know even even if china was Oh, that's hilarious. in their language and then I'd write on my knuckles 1 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 on each particularly up in Tibet, where that picture picture was that the road I was following So beyond that point, I was having to kind of hide. I think it was around three dozen self-immolations.

17:59 pouring a tin of petrol over themselves or gasoline, But after that point, I was then having to hide the whole time. So being by yourself can totally suck. and a sorrow comes over us. probably wouldn't have been passing their genes on so much. so you know probably would have been bred out you know we've So I guess it's probably a bit of an insult as well.

21:03 it just takes a bit of time to kind of, you know, equalize after being by yourself for a long time. evaluating friendships And it's definitely a positive thing to do. you're not exploring things by yourself in the way that you can if you just have silence and started on a bike I was actually with someone else for this part of this is But in Cape Town,

23:51 And we cycled into Congo, DRC, you know, The Lulua is the name of the river. coming in and you're you're going down um but as we after we bought it we pulled it up onto the And, you know, if you guys don't drown, you'll be eaten and you'll be dead in a day either way. It would sit two or three inches under the water. Fast forward over there. I think they've been hunted quite a lot over the years.

26:18 That's a dangerous animal. But they would just use them for fishing because they would just sit on the water, sort of honking out yeah they make that very particular noise, we'd hear them out on the water and the only places we could really pitch But I had typhoid fever at the same time, so it was like double trouble. Archie is my friend. Oh, boy. Jesus Christ.

29:17 There's no road. kind of near the border of Cameroon a day and a half I mean How much is a horse? It gets down to about minus 40 Fahrenheit they're kind of semi-feral, it's called. Then horses cost quite a lot, but it wasn't too bad when I was there. let's first, you know, let's first drink some vodka and we'll pour a little offering to the gods and we'll flick a little bit

32:33 And he said, yeah, here's the horse. Do you want to check it out? You know, she was a female horse. So that's a different horse altogether, but it wasn't really much I could do about it. I'd make a fire and sort of tether the horse 10 yards away. And I met a lot of people who said, yeah, I've killed many wolves. You're skeptical though. you know, they were fighting trench warfare.

35:01 And then people would go out on scouting missions And they'd been sent to this desolate spot and there was just I saw one I was told there was another somewhere nearby that It's just so ripe for adventure. And there are a handful of other, not big, but towns. Because everyone, there's kind of increasingly people But yeah, there's just this kind of pool of pollution that hangs over this narrow, long valley that the capital stretched along.

38:05 It's all relative, right? But I think that's turned the country around quite a lot. It's awesome. that still looked really quite similar internally Charlie, that's so crazy. Like, how are you? I think the first iPhone might have just come out, But I didn't want a phone, you know. was quite, you know, open. So I didn't get around to that. And a few weeks later, I just sort of

41:23 Iraqi Kurdistan. Can I use your computer? You know, some weird Englishman shows up and wants to use your computer. So you didn't have any plan, like, It's all right. What is the first day back like? So I was told, yeah, at the stroke of seven o'clock, you've got to be here on this street. Winter was coming, and I was getting these incredible stomach cramps every now and then.

44:10 And it was strange how quickly I felt kind of normal back among people again, initially at least. And so I talked to clients saying, oh, you know, you've got to go to this place. But soon after that, I started planning the next trip to village halls and clubs and festivals and schools and businesses and that slowly became Repeat. put everything on pause for a huge amount of time again you mean by build a career the writing

47:12 because I was like, these people are going to quit and they're going to go wander the world. But I'm not there to, you know, say, hey, you know, quit your job Yeah. read you know i haven't read those books and also i haven't read all of them no clearly but i've read And there are things that, I mean, like mediums, for instance. It's just I don't think they're right.

49:48 Do you think that it's possible that these were leading questions and that through these leading questions, People want to believe that because it's comforting Well, I can never know that it's not. or through ritual practices like holotropic breathing It's like it's not just that they're dead. It was an open casket, And so there's this thought, well, where did he go? Did he go

52:22 how easy it is to manipulate people's belief. And people contacting the other side. And, you know, they can... It's just taking advantage of the most vulnerable people. like they've experienced moments in their life where things are going well and then things fall successfully in businesses. He's very well versed in that and he can give you some understanding of

55:14 You know, we want to believe stuff. You're like, fuck, I want to be successful. Have you ever read some of his stuff? someone to come along and tell them that everything is going to be okay if you follow these rules, because I think, as you're saying, it's quite often disingenuous. like a it's like a shitty pyramid scheme. actually, they actually have experience there, but there's a fucking whole industry and online

58:47 Well, what you're doing is, I mean, mistakes. Actually, I think that's always valid as well. It's a lot easier, I think, to take Sure. So I I've been planning for almost a year to go to a region of Siberia called Yakutia, And there's one large city. So the record recorded low, and Jamie might be able to confirm this, So I wanted to get out there, experience some elements,

1:01:38 They hit the same at minus 40. are being threatened by the climate changing. Again, that's about 100. So I planned to hike a few hundred miles The river's frozen perhaps two meters thick it all seems kind of stupid to have gone maybe foolhardy. But at the time, basically the entire and two days later, a formal invasion. They, you know, And I kind of thought about it and I thought, well, A, I'm here and it's going to be interesting.

1:05:11 prop sort of soviet plane and from there onwards my you know I couldn't get any phone signal the troops had gone into the Donbass, this disputed territory in the east that they're sort of annexing. I don't know that much about it. And this is Russian land and it belongs to Russia. he was totally sold on it and then just as the following kind of weeks unfolded as I started

1:08:32 sure about this. You know, I don't quite believe everything I'm being told. Or even some people who Are you thinking you are You know, just days after the invasion, flights, you know, Russian flights to Europe were all, you know, the airlines were sanctioned. I went to little villages in the countryside and the church has a Ukrainian flag hoisted on top of

1:11:03 tourist visa you could get back then was only 30 days. But, I mean, the fine was, you know, 20 pounds or something. But you explain that that is your business? Yeah. Did that work? They didn't go for it. But the fine was of Russia and Kazakhstan and it turns out where the river and then carry on on the road, and you'll be there this evening. you know like a day and a half it's like a long longer way around and we were sort of after it

1:13:09 I said, what are you doing here? Which isn't the right thing to say when a Russian soldier arrests as a kind of a little puppet state. Later I looked at it, and there was a tiny little dotted line, And he said, also, have you heard of Nauru? the only town on the route. So did they let you go? In South Osetia? Yeah. Once they have, and handed us over to the Georgian authorities.

1:16:06 innocent, but we crossed the border Did you explain what you do and all times. Although there was only one settlement every week, this river, the road, the Zimnik on the river I was hiking along, saw perhaps 15 trucks a day You know, it was passed on where I was. this huge expanse of land that they owned. and so my feet were still numb and I was only too happy to get in the car and have a chat with them

1:18:55 You know, I'm a tourist. And then these were popping up on various kind of Instagram accounts in the area that lots of people followed. I said, that's fine. journalist. We've seen on your website, you've written for the BBC, which is true, but travel pieces. You've written for these newspapers, again, travel articles based on essentially tourism. So are people reporting you along the way? I mean,

1:21:35 So we spoke for a while, provoke, you know, difficult conversations. And it really wasn't the case. And frankly, wherever I So they want to know what I think. that these guys should pin two administrative offenses on me so that I can be deported So I carried on about another four weeks, you know, got up onto the tundra, more dead than alive and on arrival in Tixi someone who I'd met on the road weeks earlier

1:24:33 Do I have any political beliefs? Was I in the army? I went back to where I was staying voice along the way of the cold, the people encounter with the And so little did they know there was this hot mic in my pocket. you know, I don't want to lose this. It's not really a huge problem, but best just to hide it, But when the knock came on my door in Tixi,

1:27:20 well can i go now and they said no no you can't go and that's when I understood I'm under arrest and this is maybe a little bit more serious and once again they well they said who witnesses. And this process went on for hours. They got an English teacher to translate for us. And in the courtroom, they got this judge conducting journalism again. They had these witnesses who said I said this, that and the other.

1:29:50 And so at that point, as far as I was aware, I would be I would fly back to Yakutsk, get my own flight back to England via some other third country and then fly home. little sort of hinge so it can sort of angle down on your forehead. I bent the hinge down, put the although they said, we're Russia's U.S. Marshals. detention center, it turned out, yeah, it was a it was a detention center for foreigners and it was

1:32:36 cell i mean you're in the cell around the clock 24 hours a day uh not allowed outside food's handed And this is after two weeks. And they wouldn't let me have my shoelaces or my belt back. and said, yeah, no, your crimes are too serious. But they had gone up to Tixie and they got witness statements from one bloke who I never even met saying, yeah, you know, he was talking about Ukraine and he's photographing these military sites.

1:35:25 and that head torch with the hidden little um sd card in it and although technically those things I just slipped it in my trousers because I thought this diary doesn't look good. I slipped it in my they were wankers to us um I mean they kept on saying to me are you a spy and don't fight my I mean, I didn't know that I didn't even know of her at the time.

1:38:07 Yeah, they're trying to get... There's an arms dealer that we have, and they just held on to her. And, I mean, I was inside for not very long. The agency quoted the court's press services saying, The charge carries a jail sentence of up to 10 years. Fuck. Sorry, yeah. I mean, they've gone full autocrat now. I think probably stems from the fact that I was all the way out there in the east where people

1:42:06 a russian citizen he's from another country and he's got in touch with me saying he's now being know you know referencing what has been happening in in ukraine i'm the last person they care about And that's what the Russians have on their tanks, Z and V. And sitting on that flight was weird. And TIXI is one of those. And it's like this whole big rigmarole.

1:45:49 And, you know, most of them seem fairly stoical about it, although some of them had been there and very last minute on the 16th I think of May when I'd been inside out of here um had uh it not worked out that time they gave me a COVID test had I been positive for to wait for our respective check-in times a two-person SWAT team with a bunch of police.

1:48:21 And there were about six cops who didn't know who I was. including that head torch, including the plug socket, at a road checkpoint invited me for tea. and I, thankfully, in the prison had censored a bunch of stuff. that would probably still be visible or you turn it over on the back you can see where the pen mark were also going to like personal conversations on whatsapp on my camera. And, I mean, they were also going to, like, personal conversations on WhatsApp on my phone.

1:50:54 trying to intimidate the shit out of me um and they were saying okay well you know you've got And, you know, it wasn't helped by the fact british government um basically the british had a sort of 240 million pound unpaid uh debt they And that was totally forefront of my mind. through my like diary because in prison I was allowed pen and paper. Jesus Christ, man.

1:53:45 Oh. This is bread? Oh, this is bread? dice was almost perfectly fair one of them was all right the one with that six was not good and were No, we didn't gamble, but we made a drafts or checkers board But mostly it was books. I mean, it's all gone now, you know, I've been back and I've been living, living well slash Which, I mean, when I was inside for the first week or so,

1:56:20 I think I'm more or less all right. And so I'm probably fairly resilient to things like this, but it's definitely left a mark. And, time in prison, because frankly, the prison time, it's quite dramatic, but it was largely just very I was very glad to then a few days later be put in a cell by myself. of Russians died. They cut or just severely restricted the bandwidth to, I think, Instagram.

1:59:51 For people who don't know what we're talking about, Exactly. But it's a different kind of, the concept of Nazism is different, right? But how is it correlated with Nazism? Yeah, similar. where the lines are. There's the odd sort of Sieg Heil, Hitler saluting. it does seem like the vast, And so quickly dissent got kind of quashed. basically the gulag they've still got labor camps you know labor prisons penal colonies they call

2:04:25 I was even in Tixi, there was no Wi-Fi anywhere. And very quickly, I was suddenly banged up in a Putin's crazy sort of crusade to try and write himself in the history books It seems have been experiencing quite a lot of hardship as well. These are athletes. That that's not fair. If you're someone who's, like, you know, up the regime, That's a different thing. But if you're just a sports person then i think it's it's not it's not really right well

2:07:56 particularly with grain and all the exports, And I'm sure there'll be things that, you know, I mean, they were all in the Ukrainian forces before the invasion anyway, psychological stress and then absorbing all this information, I mean, that has to be taking up a gigantic portion of your life. quite frightening. Firstly, I was never like beaten or abused or starved or anything like that.

2:10:14 Of course. You can be, I mean, Russian, a foreigner particularly if you're from one of the kind of NATO or Western or EU countries. I think there was a UFC in Moscow. Yeah, Zabit. 2019, yeah. and I'd be interested in just seeing what it's like over there. every inch of you. They'll find some stuff, but back then I was tempted because I'm just curious about the experience

2:13:25 You know, it's just – it's been – it's scored more own goals in history than any other country, surely. historically admired about russian people that i've met as well is that they are just incredibly if this is going to relax to the point where travel is going to be possible again. because for months on the inside, And that gives the chance for Moscow to try and insert

2:16:07 but it's going to be a long, grinding, unpleasant solution, just gets weakened. of natural, you know, fossil fuels is shot up it's just, it's horrific for the Ukrainian people who essentially are the sort of cannon fodder to, you know, to that end. And there's always the looming threat that he uses a nuke. And if he, I mean, a lot of people, And essentially was about real discussions that were being had during the 1950s and 60s by

2:19:03 I mean, it's horrific. for the prosperity of Russia as a whole and its kind of integration. And that if he does die, and if he is dying, that he wants to have something in his legacy that restoring Russia to its greatest extent which was was the Soviet Empire. And lots of people within Russia, normal people, think that, you know, the Ukrainians, the Latvians, the Uzbeks,

2:21:33 it's still an empire today. You know, where I was has no right being ruled by Moscow. It doesn't really make any sense. And I mean, he's picked his time, you know, the greatest extent of Russian and now recently gone full totalitarianism. Yeah. everything was like, look at this 2019 event that they were having in Moscow, where I was like, Like when you look at what's going, like just the colors and the beautiful buildings in Moscow.

2:24:39 Well, they're such impressive people. international competition yeah it's I mean it's also a massive population. I think about 144 million people. but they are very literate. They're relatively wellated, even if some of the history they're taught is total cobblers. And so they have an incredibly large population from which to excel at all sorts there are various oligarchs who sort of tried to rival him tried to rival him for power, you know, Berezovsky, there's Media Modal, there were a few,

2:27:45 quite complicated and it does seem like they just spread quite a wide net to All right. Semen warriors? And it's not just semen drinking it's like they they call the father like they call them anal but are simply threatened by the older men to partake in various activities And your basically rite of passage is to kill another man, which I think is, I mean, as bizarre as this is,

2:30:57 Stop. by inserting two canes in the with an arrow-like object until they vomit any contaminating influence within them. due to the presence of a substance called gerundu within it. Right, but it's also like they're removed from their mothers The initial stage, as soon as the young Sambia boys turn age 7 or 9, I think some just get lost, you know, sort of by mistake.

2:33:58 or Tokpijin, as they call it, 1930s and then this um these these australian brothers these gold prospectors flew over the One of them married three, I think maybe sisters, but three women who were tribal princesses. an Irish emigre Australian gold prospector in the 30s who's from this massive outside interconnected world which i found so interesting what was he like he was great bernie a really nice guy he's kind of uh

2:36:16 There's a really good documentary called First Contact, The cargo cults, those I believe, I mean, it's that part of the world. But yeah, that was pretty cool. and keeps them in isolation as much as anything No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was clearly some fucking weirdo who was involved in some very strange shit, So they probably have these oral stories and these legends of these white dudes who show up and start measuring dicks and give everybody the flu.

2:39:34 nearby and have barely gotten away I don't know. have no intentions of marching in there what's just crazy it's wild the And some of the early people seem to have, you know, disputed because they keep finding more things that pushes back the timeline but now they're Well, I think people were here before that then now. Now they're pushing the timeline back of human beings in North America, which is really interesting. They're finding a lot of

2:42:13 And, I mean, some of his theories seemed a little tenuous, just the books are being totally rewritten on a kind of yearly basis. samples when they go to core samples and they go to 12,000 years ago, there's direct evidence of iridium, large amounts of iridium, which is very common in space and very rare on Earth. And that this stuff is all over the place at that same- Sort of like obsidian, that kind of-

2:44:40 years old, but he thinks that it's very possible that was even earlier than that. And that, so he's like, you have to go at least that far back, but probably thousands when you're talking about, like, clear evidence of water erosion, is why you get, you know, wrongly, because that's not the scientific method, but you get resistance The columns were carved around to create these 3D animals, which is really sophisticated

2:47:09 To preserve, you know, in the, what's the whole, you know, the antediluvian, you know, the flood myth that seems to, or story at least, that seems to be in so many different cultures. or the geological evidence, rather, incredible evidence of that that he shows in the form of slides. well i think that's exactly the same even with modern human history we're really resistant to

2:48:50 you know should we have statues you know commemorating people who maybe did horrific Well, it's unfortunate we don't have like a real rock-solid history of the world. you know, complete preponderance of information. There's a preponderance of information, Smallpox. There are rock paintings appearing. subsistence life in the jungle from that. Cities were built in big circular shapes.

2:52:43 and different plants that people planted when there was a civilization. it's become increasingly clear that the Amazon has, first, a deep and ancient pattern of is in fact an anthropogenic landscape. were a result of agriculture. It was great. when all the people died off from the plague. Well, listen, Charlie, that you have out I read it and thanks to Jamie and you for having me here

2:55:52 Explore. And stay out of jail, buddy.