Error #3

Be Careful What You (Don’t) Wish For
Back in the States I’d spent a great deal of time convincing everyone – and myself -- about the virtues of traveling without camera crew. In a way, I’d been absolutely right. A bunch of guys with lights and cables would have been disastrous in the Buddhist monastery where I spent three days chanting sutras before I dared take out so much as a clip-on mic. And where, exactly, would I have found a crew willing to hike 1,300 kilometers through the driving rain and snow, wearing a cone hat and Buddhist rosary?

But there were times when I would have handed over a finger joint to have someone reliable around to capture the moment… when the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia, let me carry their fighting shrine during the Sanja festival. When I found myself swimming – involuntarily – with 40 naked drunken Japanese fishermen on New Year’s Eve. And when, to my utter shock, I executed a perfect judo hip sweep – just nailed it – in a remote village dojo on the backside of Japan.

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