by Dr. Iain
Corness
After
17 years, Glen Heggstad returns to Pattaya, this time on his BMW
motorcycle on his four year journey to ride around the world. He is a man
who has fought his way through life, has been captured by Colombian
rebels, read Jack Kerouac’s book “On the Road” and hit the road
himself the next day, motorcycled across the Gobi desert and now sees
himself as raising world awareness to the fact that under our skins, all
people are the same, and it is governments that try to make us different.
With his Nordic blonde hair and blue eyes, plus his
height and a surname of Heggstad, you could be excused if you thought he
was Norwegian; however, he is American, having been born in San Mateo
California. “But I was conceived in Norway, and my parents were
Norwegian,” said Glen by way of explanation.
He also inherited another characteristic from the
Norwegian gene pool - Glen was a fighter and hell raiser. By the time he
was 13 years old, he was showing an independent streak that nobody could
break (or even tame), despite several visits to the headmaster’s office.
“It was total rebellion,” said Glen. “I left home at 13. I had to
make my own way. I wanted to play by my own rules. My father said,
‘Fine’ and placed a boot up my ass!”
He drifted through a series of foster placements and
juvenile homes until he left all forms of education and, in his words,
“I kinda bummed around on a motorcycle. Worked sometimes as a bodyguard,
or in security. I didn’t have any thoughts about a career. I never
figured on living past 25!”
It was during this time that he watched the memorable
film “Easy Rider” with Peter Fonda and Denis Hopper, and was
impressed, as were all of us way back then. However, we were voyeurs, but
Glen lived the roles. It was also then that he read the Beat Generation,
Jack Kerouac’s book. “I read it, and the next morning put my thumb up
and hitchhiked to New Orleans.”
As he grew older he bummed around the world, including
a brief time in Thailand 17 years ago. He gravitated even more to contact
sports. “I liked full contact fighting. Judo is the real thing. I just
loved to fight. You train for months and then get in the ring.” I asked
Glen if he was always a winner, but he had his defeats. “You learn more
from defeat than you do from victory. You just keep hammering away until
you win. Until I became a champion.” And if anybody feels like taking
him on, he has had 300 fights in the ring. Won several titles in judo
around seven years ago and the world titles, back to back, in the
Brazilian Ju-Jitsu Internationals four years ago.
Despite Ju-Jitsu skills, they did not do him much good
against loaded machine guns in Colombia. Typical of Glen, he decided, on a
whim, to ride to Colombia in 2001, during their civil war, only to find
himself staring down the barrels of machine guns aimed squarely at him. He
was dragged off his motorcycle and into the jungle where he was tortured
and interrogated for five weeks by a mobile guerilla force. On two cups of
rice a day he was marched through the jungle, while his captors waited for
word that somebody was missing him, so they could make ransom demands.
Unfortunately for them, or fortunately for Glen, nobody did, so he was
released in a prisoner exchange after five weeks. “One of the worst
things your family can do in a hostage situation is to go on TV and plead
for your release. It just makes your captors even more certain that they
will keep you to increase the ransom stakes.”
After his own release, he was heartened by a call from
one of his friends who said, “Don’t worry, Bro, another bike is on the
way!” That was enough for Glen and he decided that what he really wanted
to do was to ride around the world and meet what he calls the “real
people”. He returned to America and systematically sold everything he
had. “The ride became a mission at that point. Everyone said ‘Don’t
go’ and mentioned terrorism, but this was something I had to do. I
wanted to meet the people (of the world) and get to know the ‘real
people’ and then show the world how it is.”
He hopped on the bike and rode through Central America
and then returned to California, where the Dealers Advertising Group (DAG)
were impressed enough by his dedication and presented him with a new BMW
for the trip. “The deal was done on just a handshake, the way I like to
do business,” said the no-nonsense Glen.
So he flew to Japan and then ferried across to Russia,
riding across the Gobi desert and Eastern Europe, then through the Middle
East and back up through Turkey, Syria and Jordan and Pakistan, India and
Nepal and now to Thailand. In the trip he has spent much time with ‘real
people’ who have been traditional enemies of his country. “How do you
get over it? You embrace your enemy, that’s how you do it.”
Now in Pattaya, he is continuing sending reports to his
website, which will eventually become a book outlining his travel
adventures, and is planning the next leg back to the US, via Malaysia,
Indonesia, and Australia despite the fact that funds are tight. “It’s
an economic disaster. It’s a helluva gamble. I may end up on skid
row!”
However, meeting Glen Heggstad even briefly is enough
to know that this would never be the case. The motto of his judo school
was ‘All or Nothing’, and Glen has always lived his life that way.
His parting words outlined his simple truth. “If people can get
along, why can’t governments?” Indeed, why not?
