A Life in Travel

This special extended episode captures the best bits of Season 2 throughout 2020. This has it all – podcasting secrets, lost bamboo, crazy ideas that turn into successful businesses, a sea journey with a mysterious captain, climbing mountains in search of redemption, a bit of boogie-woogie and sitting next to Ol’ Blue Eyes on a flight.

Happy listening. And watch out for Season 3 coming your way soon.

 

Who’s the most interesting person you’ve sat next to on a flight?

As part of this special episode of Season 2, we are inviting you to send in your stories on the most interesting person you’ve sat next to on a flight.

Just submit an audio recording (no more than 2mins) to us, and the best story to be picked by us will win a two-night stay on Cempedak Private Island, off Bintan in Indonesia.

You can either send the recorded audio file to us at [email protected], or use the voice recorded on our website. The latter option will auto-submit your recordings direct to us.

Deadline for entries is January 31, 2021.

Travel has been a part of Cyril’s life from the time he was born. His mother was a flight attendant, and Cyril thinks that he probably took his “first flight on a baby chair.” After the sidelining of his plans to become a professional tennis player, Cyril went on the more conventional academic route and had goals to work to earn money to travel. Fast forward to years later, the current President for Travel Partners of Expedia Group is firmly planted within the ecosystem of an industry he had loved since he was a child.

In this episode:

Staying cool and calm in the face of current challenges affecting the travel industry“The hardest thing was to do the right things for our customers and our partners in a time when everybody was going crazy, with all (the) cancellations and restrictions, etc. And as an OTA, we were kind of in the middle. So remaining cool and calm, and trying to see through the clouds, what would be the impact of the decisions we took, was a challenge. So, done as best as I could, considering the unknown territory, I would say [laughs]…But one thing is that I've reflected on over the years is in our industry, I say never make enemies, so never go too far in what you can say or do in a way that would cut bridges forever. Because when we look at travel, it's an incredibly large industry on the outside, but it feels incredibly small and connected on the inside. So I try to stay cool and calm on the outside with everybody I meet in the industry.”

Professional tennis

Decision to stop“It was around 16. I was good, I was actually playing with some people who made it very, very high in the ATP rankings, (they went) to the final of Wimbledon, etc. But they were much better than me. You can feel where you reach your peak and they are just starting, and this is where I was [laughs], I was at my peak and they were just getting started. Then the gap was much bigger after that.”

Lessons learnt“With a sport like tennis, there's no excuse. If you don't have the discipline you don't perform, (don’t) train and make sacrifices etc. you don't perform, and when you lose it's all on you. So you can't find excuses. I think it's a good way to look at yourself in the mirror and reflecting on what you did right and wrong, which is then helpful in life. You can’t put the fault on your teammates or somebody else in a company that hasn't done what they had to do. I think it trains you to have an objective look at yourself and self-awareness.” 

With all the hours you have flown, do you still feel that flying is magical?“I do. I have to say I find it more magical when you go overwater, when you cross an ocean and you change continent, I find that quite magical than (being) on the short fights. Short flights are a little less magical. I guess when you leave Singapore, it’s very often you’re over the water…and has a special place in my heart, for the (Boeing) 747 which I know you too.”

Democratisation of air travel with the Boeing 747“I was a little touch when BA announced that they were retiring them, just because it democratised travel. It's a plane that opened the world to the middle class. So I think it actually had a huge impact not only on travel, but on the world. For me, it's always been a particular plane that I really liked. I had incredible moments in this plane, and I'll share one with you which, for me will also remain like the engine on fire. One of those days, I was going from Paris to LA and I was waiting in line at the counter, as I said, not knowing if I was going to get my ticket. At thay time, for the staff, they had a process which put the highest priority people in line first in Economy, so they filled the empty seats in Economy. Then as you as you went down the priority list, they were filling Business Class and then they were filling First Class. Since I was a son of a flight attendant, I was super low in the priority list. So I was always at the very bottom of the list. On that flight, I got upgraded to First Class, and I was paying $10. So it was really, really cheap [laughs] and the First Class ticket was, I don't know how much, but it was incredibly expensive. (In flights like these) you always got on late, the last one on the flight where everybody was already seated with their champagne waiting. I got to my seat, which was 1A in a 747. So (I was) getting in the seat, I'm sitting down, and there's a boarding pass of the passenger next to me that was just between the two seats. I looked at it and it said Frank Sinatra [laughs].”

Trade-offs between the positive and negative impact of the travel industry“I think the world is made of trade-offs and compromises. There's no black and white and the way I look at it is yes, travel is creating some pollution, like a tonne of other industries. But when you compare that to the wealth it creates; the employment opportunities for local communities around the world, to power the lodging business, the activities business, it's only travel that can employ that many people in that many places. There's no other industry that has a footprint as diversified as travel, literally. You can have a hotel anywhere, and that can employ 50 people locally, anywhere. That is only provided by travel. For that to exist, you need airlines, because if there's no airlines, if there's no flight, if there's no international connection, all these local businesses will die. Then all these jobs will go away and then we have a different problem than pollution. I'm not saying pollution is not an issue, but we've got to think of the impact that a healthy airline ecosystem around the world – the impact that it creates on the lives of millions and millions of people on the ground – just because these metal things are flying. So I think the push towards making airplanes more efficient and reducing the carbon footprint and getting hotels to be more sustainable, and hopefully we can help, like Expedia and others, promoting sustainable actions by hotels and airlines, and allowing them to differentiate in the rankings so that customers who want to play a role can select them. So hopefully, we can help steer the industry towards a lower impact, a lower carbon footprint. But at the same time, we have to understand the positive impact of travel on the world itself. That is pretty unique. So, it's easy to go look at the negative, but it's always a compromise.”

Danny has managed to combine his love for music and made it into a business which gives local musicians a platform to perform. His love for music has also brought him and his band, The Souls of Singapore, to different parts of the world. In this episode, Danny shares on his love for the blues, and the adventures that music has taken him on.

In this episode:

Being in the band, The Souls of Singapore“I'm one of the members of the band. It is a very big band, sometimes we are eight, nine, even 10-piece, and we celebrate soul music. It all started with tributes, all the favourite soul and Motown songs; songs by Al Green, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, all the real good stuff from that era. Daniel, who's our band leader got all us together. After a while Daniel just told us, ‘I think maybe it's time for us to do some original music,’ which got me excited. I think at the end of the day that's what you want to do. Do some original songs, songs you can call your own. That's how it all started, really.”

How did you fall in love with music?“I've always been in music – classical music. I mean my parents, as (with) a lot of Singaporean parents [laughs], put us into playing classical music and it's a good thing. It's a good basic thing to learn. But I was watching the World Cup, I don't even remember what year, and they used to have a music interlude, it’s about 15 minutes. I saw these two African American guys playing the piano, it was Boogie Woogie style. I was just so drawn to it. These two guys jamming together, and they were not reading notes, as I'm used to reading notes. But these two guys were just enjoying the music and I felt there's so much freedom when they were performing, and it just got me so interested. I actually went to the vinyl store. I collect vinyls from then till now. I didn't even know what the music was called. I just basically told a guy I’d like to buy some African American music and they pointed the gospel blues and all those Boogie Woogie style, and then from there on I kind of taught myself how to play Boogie Woogie. Then, years after that I started to really like the guitar, picked up the guitar from my teacher at the time, Bee's, he taught me for about three to six months. But he also got me to listen to the song by Eric Clapton, it’s called Have you ever loved a woman? It was actually the song that he did with Derek and the Dominoes, and that song stuck with me. That was one that got me really deep into the blues.”

Connection with blues music “Initially when I first heard it, I didn't really fully understand the history of it, only years after (did I understand). But initially when I first heard it, I couldn't explain it but the powerful vocals, the deep expressions that they had in the music, just felt there's something really deep in the music that I felt. Years after, when I studied in Australia, I had a few experience(s) of, and this is 1996, so it was four years after meeting BB King, I was in Perth studying in Murdoch. That was the years of the politician by the name of Pauline Hanson. When she spoke in parliament, there were incidences of racial abuse and few incidents against Asian students at a time. When I experienced that, it really got me even deeper into the music. But what's fascinating about it is that the African American people – very sad history in way. But when they get on stage to play, they put on their suit, and they stand up straight and they sing with that voice. They claim that space. For them to be able to stand up and sing that song and inspire other people, especially young men from Britain, I mean, people from Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin to Eric Clapton to the Beatles even, they were all listening to blues and rock and roll and they were inspired by them. There’s something about that music.”

Most memorable gig“The most memorable gig we did was the one we did in one of the homes of the blues, Memphis. I'm wearing my Sun Studios T-shirt today. I will never forget that trip. We had the opportunity to represent Singapore in the International Blues Challenge, which was held in Memphis, Tennessee. We had an album full of originals, so we did that, and we also did a few covers. The whole trip was the most amazing one. We played Memphis, we got into the semi-finals – we didn't get into the finals, unfortunately – but that day, when we were in the semi-finals, something really amazing happened. The bar owner liked us so much and asked us whether we were doing anything the next day. He said, ‘You guys didn't make it to the finals, right?’ So, I thought he was taking a piss (at us) so I said, ‘No, we didn't we didn't make it.’ He said, ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’, I said, ‘Nothing,’ you know [laughs]. We are just in Memphis, we could probably go check out some things, some museum, Graceland. He said, ‘Well, how about you guys do a gig here?’ And, and I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ and he said ‘How much do you charge for a gig?’ So that was a negotiation [laughs]. I don't even know what I said, ‘Oh 600 US,’ you know, I just counted in Singapore dollars. ‘600 US and you got us’ and he said, ‘Oh, that's a bit high.’ I said that's how much – I was actually negotiating with this guy [laughs] and then I said, ‘I'll talk to my business partner’. Five minutes after, he said, ‘Okay, you guys are on, you got a gig.’ And we came back the next day and we had our first gig in the US and then after that, we went to Chicago, we met Buddy Guy at his bar. Then we went to New Orleans.”

Remembering what made you fall in love “I want to thank you actually. Since we met for coffee, it was really nice coffee, and doing the show. You know, sometimes you just need remember why – when do you first fall in love your music, when you first fall in love you travel? You got me thinking, you know, you're really inspiring me. I've got to really write it all down and do some more new songs. So, thank you, actually.”

Two setbacks make the founding of a company for Rod. The founder of Viator, who subsequently sold the business to TripAdvisor, began the journey of creating Viator when he was fired from his job as the Vice President of Marketing. Rod then went on to create an online system for a client, but the project fell through. Thus, he set out on his own and based on that idea, Viator was born. In this episode, Rod shares the story of his journey, and his thoughts on travel.

In this episode:

Beginnings of wanderlust“Reading was the really big thing… I think that was really a thing that set me apart from the rest of my family was that I was just a voracious reader of anything that I can get my hands on. I can tell you those books weren't set in Tasmania; they were set in the rest of the world. I've thought about that question a lot about whether books – I know they inspire a lot of people to travel – (but) that wasn't the case for me. I was inspired by a book about travel much later on in my life. That was the book that the English philosopher Alain de Botton wrote called The Art of Travel, which just talks about the way we think about travel and the way we experience it and all the things that can do for us. That had a profound impact on me, and I think some of that fed back into the way we approach the market at Viator. So that had a big impact, but not until then.”

How did you start the business that became Viator?“Well, it was luck and circumstance. I had been working in Sydney for a company…it wasn't doing well because the internet had come along, so private networks like AOL and compuserve and this particular business didn't have much of an outlook. They fired me. I was the VP of Marketing and they thought that I wasn't doing a very good job…some people are good employees and other people are not such good employees. I think I fit into that latter category. So I got fired, I think it was a Tuesday and on the Wednesday, I went to see a guy who I'd been having some discussions with, who wanted to build some online content…And it was through that connection that we were introduced to Sabre, and Sabre told us about a project that they wanted to build, which was essentially Viator for travel agents. They wanted to allow their travel agents to sell tours and activities, and they wondered if we can build a web-based system that would do that. They gave us a couple of a hundred grand to build that system, and we did. Here's the luck and circumstance part. Sabre had a big cutback they fired like 2000 staff, and the entire team that had been working on our project, in fact, had commissioned the project, were let go. So, there was no owner at Sabre of our project. Eventually, I found somebody there who said, ‘Look, we have no interest in this project anymore, you should just take it and do it yourselves.’ So, we had built a system to sell tours and activities for a client. The client said, ‘We don't need it,’ and we decided, ‘Okay, we'll just do it ourselves.’”

How did you get venture capital funding?

I think there's a really quite humorous life or death moment that occurred in 2005. Barrie Seidenberg had come on board to help us take the company up to a new level. She and I were engaged in San Francisco in pitching the company to venture capital investors, and we'd had about 12 or 15 meetings. Whilst we've had lots of initial interest, there wasn't really an appetite for this particular sector of online travel at that time in the mid 2000s. We were running out of cash. We really needed an injection of funds, our investors from Australia had pretty much maxed out what they could put into the business. So, we really needed to convince one of these VCs and we were down to one last company that would see us, there’s a company called Carlyle Ventures. Carlyle is famous for investing in the armaments industry and oil companies, companies like Halliburton etc, but didn't have a presence at all in travel or online travel, so it was a bit of a long shot. In fact, the meeting ended fairly badly, or not badly, but it ended in the way most meetings ended, which was that the guy said, ‘Hey, this is great. Let me talk to my partners. If there's some interest, we'll get you back in,’ which is another way of saying you'll never hear from us again. So, we got up to leave, and I picked up his card and I noticed that his name was Danish, or I guessed his name was Danish. I said, ‘Are you Danish?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, I'm Danish.’ I said, ‘Man, we're almost related. We should talk,’ and he said, ‘What do you mean we're almost related? You're not Danish,’ and I said, ‘No, but I'm from Tasmania,’ and he knew enough about what was going on in Denmark. He'd been living in the US for a long time, but the Crown Prince of Denmark, Prince Frederick, had married a commoner, a young woman from Tasmania, who actually was a receptionist in a real estate agency. They had met during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney; he had fallen hopelessly in love with her. She had moved to Denmark, learned Danish, married him, bore him a son and heir which is a very important thing for a royal wife to do, and was, without doubt the second most popular person after his mother. In Denmark, he was the third most popular, but Mary Donaldson, a Tasmanian, was the second most popular. And this guy, this venture capital guy who was Danish, did not know this story. He just knew vaguely about it, that it had happened. But I knew all of it. I knew intricate details and in fact, my cousins had gone to the same school as this girl, which to hear me telling it, you know, we were at each other's houses all the time. I was intimately connected to them [laughs], which was a slight extension of the truth. But we sat and talked for 40 minutes, at the end of it he said, ‘I really enjoyed this. Let's get together again in a week or two and see if I can get my partners into the room.’ So, you know, he just enjoyed the discussion more when we found some common ground.”

The author of The Gift of Rain (2007) and The Garden of Evening Mists (2012), which were respectively longlisted and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, was in Cape Town during the recording of this episode due to worldwide lockdowns due to COVID-19. The hard pause to life as we know it has given him the space and time to focus on the writing of his third novel. While he enjoys his time in Cape Town, the Penang-born writer cannot wait to head back to the island he calls home.

In this episode:

Any hints on the novel you are working on right now?“No [laughs], it keeps changing you know the basic premise, so I don't want to be pinned down. (Because) what I say now and later my decide that the premise isn't working well and then I have to change it slightly, and then it becomes totally different from what I say now. All I'll say is that it’s set in Penang. But there are no Japanese there, there’s no second World War there [laughs]. I thought I’d want to do a so-called Malaysian trilogy. So, get Malaysia out of my system. It's my home, you know, and there's so many interesting stories. Especially Penang, you know that, every street there, every family has some sort of colourful, interesting history. And more of these stories should be made known to the rest of the world, to the rest of Malaysia as well.”

Which is more difficult to do – to write a novel or to get it published?“To have it published, because what you just said about the first book being very hard to write, it's actually not true because the first book is always the easiest to write. I feel that (is true) for any writer, because you have accumulated 15/20 years of material and experience to put down on paper. With your first book you tend to overdo things, you put everything onto the page, and it shows. That's why a lot of first novels are overwritten. The hardest thing to write is actually the second novel. Because when you come to the second novel you are already empty. The analogy I've used before is the well is empty now and you have to wait for the water to fill up again before you can draw from the well. I think it gets harder and harder with each subsequent book as well. The first book very often comes from your heart and the subsequent books come from your mind. So, the first book was a joy to write I feel. But getting published was incredibly hard. I got an agent quite easily. She had about 35 years’ experience in the industry and she's quite respected. I think she thought it would be quite easy to find a publisher for The Gift of Rain. To her surprise, she sent the book out to I think almost every publisher in London, and all of them turned me down. All of them. We asked for the reason why. So, a number of the editors liked the book, in fact they enjoyed it. But when they took it to their meetings to discuss the book (and) whether to buy, the marketing department said no, “This book is weird,” “It's very, very difficult to categorise,” “It is too difficult to market and promote and sell for the British market.” So, a lot of times it was the marketing department that said, “No, we're not buying this book.” That shows you how the industry works, that the bottom line always comes first.”

Being a patron of the Young Walter Scott Prize“It all happened years ago when The Garden of Evening Mists won the Walter Scott Prize. This was in 2013, I was the fifth winner and I had an email from them and they said, “Would you like to come to the Borders Book Festival?”… So I said yes and I went there and at the time The Garden of Evening Mists was just shortlisted for the prize. The other shortlistees were Hilary Mantel and Pat Barker. So, I really wasn't expecting to win. I thought, okay, let's go there anyway because they were kind enough to invite me and the place looks very beautiful. It was absolutely one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. From that connection there, a few years later, the patrons of the prize the Duchess of Buccleuch, she said, “Do you want to be a patron of the Young Walter Scott Prize?” which she is setting up and I said, “Yes, of course,” and it's a great honour. This prize is unique in the world because it's for teenagers. There are two categories in the prizes; the first category is for 11 to 15 years old and the second category is for 16 to 19 years old. It encourages not only the young people to read and write, but also to take an interest in history because the stories have to be based on a historical event. Not just well-known historical events, (they can be) any historical events. I think two years ago, a boy wrote about his grandfather's experiences in Shanghai before the war, because he found a suitcase of his grandfather's letters and he started reading them and he became interested. So, he wrote a short story about his grandfather's experiences living in Shanghai. So you can see how the whole prize helps to promote not just reading and writing, but also an interest in history and through that also, an interest in travel.”

Inspiration for The Garden of Evening Mists“Well, this family in Johannesburg were going to create a Japanese garden on their estate. They were wealthy enough that they hired one of the gardeners of the Emperor of Japan to fly over with his entourage to design and construct the garden. The main gardener himself came and he consulted and gave his design, and then his underlings stayed on to carry out his instructions. The brief to the gardener was that they didn't want any foreign plants, they wanted indigenous South African plants for the Japanese garden, which [laughs] very strange. But the man succeeded, it's considered one of the gardens to visit if you're there. I was invited to this coffee reception and I thought, okay, that was interesting to meet him and to hear his job description. So, from there, the job description continued to resonate in my mind. So, when I was starting my second book, I thought, okay, let's create a character that's a gardener of the Emperor of Japan from that.”

While growing up in Hong Kong, journalist Sophie Cairns has always dreamt of becoming a China watcher. Her work at South China Morning Post and then at Reuters have brought her to Shanghai for the Beijing Olympics, and then to Paris. The life-changing moment of her father’s passing set her off to climb seven volcanoes to raise funds for cancer research, and she’s also written a book of her personal journey, Climbing the Seven Volcanoes: A search for strength.

In this episode:

What got you into journalism? “My mother wanted me to marry a prince and she was actually very serious about that [laughs], because then I would never have to fear for my health or anything. My father just said one thing, ‘Don't become a lawyer’, because he was one, ‘We already have too many bad lawyers in the world [laughs]’. I (have) wanted to become a journalist my whole life because I read these books by so-called China watchers in the 80s. Those were the stories behind, at the time it was the Cold War still, and these stories from China, it was just over the border from Hong Kong, but I knew nothing about it. And I wanted to go and witness history and I thought, what better way to travel and chronicle these events, or history in the making, than being a journalist, because you're paid to travel as well. So that was my big dream. And I wanted to be only in China as a journalist basically, or Hong Kong, because in my head that was where all the events were happening, or everything was about to happen.”

Life-changing moment“After the (Beijing) Olympics, the very last day pretty much, my father took very ill; he fainted at home. My mother called up, and I (had) just woken up from festivities the previous evening to celebrate the end of the Olympics, and she said, ‘Dad is not well, we're in the hospital.’ They were living in France at the time, they retired to France in a countryside village, and she said, ‘Can you please come back?’ because her French wasn't very good. I'm the only child anyway, so I flew straight back to France to be with them. After a month, my father passed away, very sadly. We didn't think he was going to actually pass away; we didn't think it was anything that bad until the very, very end. So, I had to look after my mom, because [laughs] an Asian kid knows you can't just run off and abandon your family when they need you, you have to be there. I transferred basically, to the Paris bureau of Reuters.”

Climbing seven volcanoes“In the weeks after he passed, we were in shock, my mother and I, because it was just so sudden. We went from being told, ‘Oh, he doesn't have cancer, it's just some auto-immune thing’ to, suddenly he was gone. And I got back from Shanghai two hours too late… So, everything changed. My career, I was actually unemployed for four months, between jobs while my jobs changed from Shanghai to Paris. I was then financially the head of household suddenly, I had to take care of the bills and stuff too. It was just too much, and I felt myself getting depressed, I guess. I never get depressed, but I felt myself slipping into grief, and I felt like I had to do something just to turn things around. You know when you're feeling numb, you pinch yourself to wake up and take stock and rally. I thought, ‘To hell with this, I'm just going to do something to get out of this.’ My mother needs me to be functional, I have to work, you know… Just on a whim, I thought I'm gonna just go. I'm gonna book a flight with some friends and climb that mountain (Kilimanjaro). It didn't cost too much anyway, I got cheap, everything. So, just went, and I trained, and I thought I had to just give myself a shock to wake up. That seemed to do it. After five years of climbing one mountain a year for cancer research fundraising, I tried to break a world record by climbing these seven volcanoes in my dad's memory, and to raise more money and get more awareness of esophageal cancer. That's your food pipe, your gullet. So that's how it came, it was actually quite a gradual process in the end.”

Extract from your book that captures an unforgettable moment from the first climb“I’ll read the beginning of the chapter on Kilimanjaro, the first time I climbed it. It's called See you at the summit. ‘Boy did I hate mountain climbing. I couldn't remember a time or place before this dark night. The banshee wind screeched at me to turn around and head back down. The freezing gusts scoured my cheeks and tightened my throat. Every part of my body was in pain. The cold bit through my tooth and trousers and stung the skin around my eyes, easily finding their way past my ill-fitting goggles. I had long ago lost the feeling in my fingertips and smaller toes. Our summit push had begun at 11pm. I was operating on less than two hours sleep and the altitude made my head spin. For seven long hours, I fought the cold and the dark and the pain, as I struggled towards the summit of Kilimanjaro. The summit was invisible in these dark hours before dawn. All I can make out was a shuffling line of exhausted climbers above me, who were as ill-prepared and unfit as I was. If I raised my head, I could see pinpricks of light on the switchback trails high above. Sometimes I thought I was looking at head torches, but when I blinked, I realised they were stars. I had eaten nothing for the past several hours, except for a bite of frozen Sneakers that nearly cracked my teeth. During our short hourly breaks, I was able to take only one gulp from my water bottle before the oxygen drained from my system, and I had to snatch the bottle away, gasping.’ So that that's how it felt basically, to climb Kilimanjaro [laughs].”

What kept you going during the climb?“It was a goal. I think no one really enjoys the sensation of pain for hours and hours. It's like you being floored off a mountain. I think, this doesn't sound very healthy but wholesome, but I felt like I owed it to my father. I was in his debt because I’d made this mistake of missing him or saying goodbye, which is forever, you can never take it back or change it. I felt like I had to do it because it was like a penance, almost. I wanted to show his memory or spirit or whatever you want to call that, that I was sorry. There was another insane aspect to this, was that somehow when I got to the top of mountains, if I got to the top – it could be the thin air or feeling exhausted or lightheaded – but I felt like he was closest, somehow. It's a very magical place, the summit of of tall mountain. It feels completely unnatural, like you shouldn't be there and often, humans shouldn't be there. And it doesn’t feel like a top of the mountain, it feels like you're on a springboard to heaven, because it's just you and the sky. There's nothing between you in the sky, you look up and you see pretty much a dark blue of space through the atmosphere. It’s bright there and it's very intense. So in a way, I was closer to him, by climbing.”

Author, Britain

While growing up in Hong Kong, journalist Sophie Cairns has always dreamt of becoming a China watcher. Her work at South China Morning Post and then at Reuters have brought her to Shanghai for the Beijing Olympics, and then to Paris. The life-changing moment of her father’s passing set her off to climb seven volcanoes to raise funds for cancer research, and she’s also written a book of her personal journey, Climbing the Seven Volcanoes: A search for strength.

After five years into her banking job, Anqi caught the travel bug and fell in love with the sea. Her stints as a scuba diving instructor eventually brought her to Thailand where she discovered her love for freediving, which is breath-hold diving without any breathing apparatus. Last year, she set a new national record for Singapore at the CMAS 2019 World Freediving Championships in Honduras. Anqi’s love for the ocean also led her to set up the Sea Glass Project where she upcycles glass bits from beaches into jewellery pieces.

In this episode:

When did you first fall in love with the sea?“I've never really been like a strong swimmer or water kind of person. I would say probably, it happened when I started scuba diving. My very first time, or rather, even before scuba diving, snorkelling off the waters in Malaysia, in Tioman for example, and then I realised, ‘Wow, the underwater world seems amazing!’ I don't want to just be on the surface, I want to immerse myself into the waters and check out this incredible world that we have under water, which is 70% of our planet.”

Banking job in Thailand led to her to discover love for travel“I guess the travelling bug hit me during my stint in banking, I was actually in the Bangkok office for almost two years. So that opened me up to realising that ‘Wow, there is so much out there.’ It wasn't really my intention to be completely out of the industry, so after five years of working, I thought I never had the chance to travel. We Singaporeans have a job even before we finish our degree, so I just never had that chance to travel. I also really wanted to study abroad, but I didn't manage to have enough funds or scholarship. Therefore, after five years of working, I just thought that, ‘Oh, I'll just take a short break,’ but I didn't think that this break would be a change in my life’s direction in many different ways.”

Tips on breath hold for freediving

Physical“In order to have a good breath hold, you need to be able to completely relax before you hold your breath. Then the breath hold itself is a matter of understanding what happens to your body when you hold your breath, and what are the sensations that you feel. Because the initial part of the brain so it's actually quite comfortable, (and) some thoughts come into your mind. But basically, you should feel quite okay, and eventually you will start to feel the urge to breathe because your body's telling you, ‘You need to breathe.’ This is due to the carbon dioxide levels in your body, because you're not exhaling. That is the trigger for the urge to breathe, it’s not the lack of oxygen that most people think. Your body's telling you to, ‘Okay, start breathing now,’ because it's detecting this increased level of carbon dioxide, and you start to feel a little bit uncomfortable in your belly or your diaphragm area. So, the key to breath hold is just managing this feeling. It comes with practice.”

Mental“When I'm preparing for the breath hold for driving, then I try to just focus on the breathing. It's probably the same for the meditation classes that you go to, because it's almost impossible to say, ‘Empty your mind.’ The minute someone says, ‘Don't think of anything,’ you think of something, isn't it? So just by focusing on your breathing, and if you need to, picture something in your mind, something really calm. Yeah, something that keeps you nice and relaxed – I think that's the way, and with increased practice. But for me, it's actually not so much the meditative part, it’s not really the preparation before the breath hold. It’s the actual breath hold itself, because it's even more challenging. During the breath hold, you really can't think of anything. The minute you think of, ‘Oh dear, can I hold my breath for longer?’, or after you're right at the bottom, imagine 70 metres down there alone like, ‘How am I going to make it to the surface?’, the minute your mind starts to have such thoughts, it will create stress and then it will be more difficult to hold your breath. So, the actual dive itself on breath hold, forces a state where you can only focus on the present moment. You can’t think about whether I can reach the bottom, or I can reach the top, or any other things that would spoil that kind of present moment feeling. That is why for me, freediving is my meditation, because on land I'm not a very calm person [laughs]. But in water, it forces me to face this state.”

Participating in the 2019 World Freediving Championships in Honduras

Funding“So (in) 2019, I was hoping to join this World Championships, but wasn't sure whether it would be possible because it was a long way (away). The thing with freediving is that it’s not something that I could train effectively in Singapore in our waters here, which is too shallow and (has) strong currents. Which (also) means that I would have to spend quite a long-extended time training before the actual competition itself. I decided what could be the ways that I could get some assistance? I was running one day – I still run a lot here, it helps to clear my mind a little bit – (and) during my run, I was thinking, because I've seen other divers to do it as well, because similarly in some other countries, there's also not much support for this new and growing sport. Not yet at this moment, but I hope that in time to come, there will be more support. So, I decided that crowdfunding could be one way to help the situation because the registration fees were much more and it's a further destination. I was hesitant, because it just felt maybe a little bit embarrassing to reach out like this to ask for assistance. I think I was running the idea through some friends, and they told me, ‘So, what's the worst thing that can happen if you don't raise enough funds? Are you going to be okay with that, knowing that you don't meet your target?’ I said, ‘Yeah, okay, if I don't reach my target but maybe you know, half or less, at least it will help subsidise some of the expenses and I could see what I can still make it there.’ They say, ‘Ok yeah, then just go ahead.’”

Teammate“(Singaporean diver) Shuyi was with me almost the whole time in Honduras. She (hadn’t) really participated in so many competitions before, but she was there and you know, we are team Singapore [laughs]. Yeah, we are representing Singapore and I had already reached the (crowdfunding) target, and so I extended the campaign to say any other additional funds should cover her cost as well.”

Highlight of the whole experience“I think it was the fact that the event had all top divers from all around the world. So, imagine you're meeting all the world record holders, and I really enjoyed having a lot of time with the Italian team. They are really friendly, and they gave me so many tips for diving. They are great company; they make good pasta [laughs].”

Ocean conservation through Sea Glass Project“How I came about the Sea Glass Project was last year during my final competition in Indonesia, I booked an accommodation that was right by the ocean…I didn't have much money [laughs] to go for the competition, but it's like, okay, you know, right by the beach. And guess what? When I arrived there, it was just tonnes of trash on the beach. So, I went along the beach and started to clean up the beach a little bit, and I started to find all these glass pieces. I started a routine where I would clean up the beach every day. Eventually after two weeks, I had I don't know how many kilogrammes of glass.…I went to the tool shop and bought a drill, and that was how the Sea Glass Project started. I started to drill, and I started to realise I could make really nice jewellery out of this sea glass. The intention is to spread the message of ocean conservation because basically these glass pieces are all trash…the thing is that these glass pieces are actually not so common anymore. Because if you think about our history, we used to use glass bottles, isn't it? Your Coca Cola bottles (were) in glass, and now the manufacturers have changed the use of glass into plastic. These pieces (of sea glass) that you see today are from decades ago. So, I have a vision for the project. I just started on this last year over Christmas, started hand making these individual pieces and asking friends if they might, you know want to try it or give them out. My bigger vision is for the communities by these coastal areas to actually do the sea glass jewellery because this will provide them livelihood and they can keep the beaches clean, and for these to be on sale and for the proceeds to go to these communities. For now, it is still trial and error for me to see what kind of designs will work. But eventually, I would like the coastal communities and the women to be empowered to make this their livelihood.”

 

Note: This interview was recorded in the early part of the year before Covid-19 shut down travel. Anqi and I did continue our conversation off-air over coffee and she did tell me more stories about the mysterious captain she sailed with to Belize. Unfortunately, I can’t share them but what I can share is that she told me that her parents finally told her they were proud of her after she returned from the Honduras championship last year with the new record for Singapore. Guess at heart, no matter how far we travel or how deep we dive, we do want our parents to be proud of us. 

CEO, Queen’s Road CapitalEven as a young boy growing up in California, Fritz Demopoulos thought like an entrepreneur, finding a way to make money from distributing flyers. That lesson in distribution may have been what started him on his journey towards building China’s first travel search engine, Qunar, with his two co-founders. And that wasn’t even their first startup together. Their exit in 2011 to Baidu drew attention to China’s travel market.

In this episode:

Can you recall a mistake made in those early days of Qunar?“Yeah, innumerable mistakes. I mean, we're almost lucky we survived. But probably the biggest mistake that I think relates to both execution and strategy was, broadly speaking, we didn't value human resources as much as we should have. We didn't think about strategic people management from a top level. We didn't put as much emphasis on it, we were kind of like, ‘Nah, human resources…’ it's almost an annoyance, we just gotta somehow navigate. However, looking back, had we maybe spent more time thinking very carefully about our people resources – from recruitment, to retention, to smart compensation strategies – I think that would have solved a lot of problems that we faced later.”

Reason for starting venture capital firm, Queen’s Road Capital“We want(ed) to follow our own path. Broadly speaking, I think that if you follow your own path, you can make your own decisions. Yes, we want to be challenged, and sometimes being part of a larger vehicle, you're challenged and you can learn, which is amazing. I do have an affiliate relationship, I guess you could say. But at some institutions, there's a lot of give and take and learning. I guess you're suggesting, why didn't I join a venture fund? Yeah, some of these funds, they have a very specific mandate – their limited partners require them to just focus on China, just focus on Southeast Asia. There's this geographic boundary that many of these funds have to operate within and you know, that's just how the game works. I kind of felt I wanted to do more than that. For example, I wanted to go to Berlin and explore some interesting companies there, and obviously, we know Get Your Guide is an amazing company and I'm one of the first investors in that firm. Had I been part of a fund with those geographic boundaries, I don't think I ever would have had that opportunity to invest in that company. So, we want to try different things and carve out our own path.”

Life as an investor or entrepreneur – which do you prefer?"Well, I certainly miss the specific mission that one has running a business. That's just amazing and exhilarating, and the wide variety of things that you do when you're running your own company – from dealing with investors, to recruiting staff, to managing the daily or weekly team meetings, to solving all sorts of interesting problems to securing deals – just the wide array of things that we do, I miss that. And of course, underlying that mission of we're trying to really do something amazing. So I certainly miss that. However, as an investor, we get the benefit of, you could say, perspective. We're higher up in the atmosphere, we can see more things, we can get exposure to more things and so we get a bit more variety from that perspective, although we're not the captain of the ship. So, that's the trade-off."

On sci-fi and technology"In recent years, (science fiction projects) dystopian versions of the future. I guess that's the flavour of the month, really? Or flavour of the year? You know, before Star Wars, a lot of people thought the future would be a very clean, organised rows and columns environment. Star Trek, it's very clean, right?... like Isaac Asimov once said, science fiction is a description of humanity's reaction to technology. So, maybe some of the writers feel ,and of course many of us do feel that, maybe humanity's reaction to technology is slightly negative, ie dystopian, right? With the targeting that the internet companies do against us, and data privacy and some of these other things, you can see how there are some big concerns."

Should there be a day that extra-terrestrial life visits us, what’s the one place on Earth that you’d tell them is a must-see?“Amazing question. I think some place that is a reflection of humanity and our values – man or womankind, however you want to describe it. So it could be for example, the Parthenon in ancient Greece, because the Greeks were the first society to really say, ‘Hey, you know, all these ethereal gods, they have faults just like humans do.’ It's essentially indirectly elevating humans and, of course, being the birthplace of democracy, I think that might be one cool place. Or it could be fast forward a few hundred years or a few I guess 1000 years to Leonardo da Vinci's workshop in ancient Florence, which is a similar trend. The Renaissance was about capturing what the ancient Greeks had captured, in humanity being the centre of that, and the value of life and, of course, Leonardo da Vinci being like an amazing renaissance man, that might be interesting. Or it could be maybe Runnymede in the UK where they signed the Magna Carta. Again, (it’s) about no one person can break the law. Even the king has to follow the law, or we're going to chop off his head. So, that might be an amazing place to show. Or it could be, the Monty Python workshop, maybe, that might be another [laughs]. I guess we want to take things seriously, but we don't want to take ourselves too seriously.”

 

Note: This interview was recorded in the early part of the year, when Fritz and his family were planning a skiing vacation. Then chaos broke out with the coronavirus pandemic. Fritz says he’s enjoyed spending time at home for a change. The pandemic is certainly a good time to think about travel in a different light and tech investments which he’s focused on. Like a true entrepreneur, he sees opportunities in crisis and there will be new breakout sectors post-Covid-19. Given the closure of borders and the uncertainty of travel in the near future, he thinks it’s also a good time to explore Hong Kong and be a domestic traveller for now.

Full Potential Labs, Sydney Yes, travel changes lives, and sometimes not necessarily for the better. A young Claire Hatton, living in Singapore then, lost her husband Chris to the Bali bomb attack in 2002. From then on, Claire has lived with the adage that “nothing is to be taken for granted”. The tragedy set her off on an adventure where she took up photography, travelled the world and eventually ended up in Sydney, where she now runs Full Potential Labs, a ‘next gen’ learning and development business, with partner Greta Thomas. The dynamic duo is also behind the successful podcast series, Don’t Stop Us Now, featuring stories of successful women leaders.

In this episode:

Self-discovery and reinvention"What I learned was that I'm way stronger than I ever thought I was. I'm surrounded by loving friends and family…I wouldn't have been able to pick up I don't think, if I hadn't had that amazing support. His death actually brought our family even closer together, which is a really wonderful thing. Things don't last forever, and you have to acknowledge that. But I would never have not gone, I'd never regret that. We were living in Singapore at the time and I never regret that because Chris certainly, he died at the age of 30 and boy, did he live a full life. He was a real adventurer, so I don't regret any of it."

Thoughts on Google dominating the travel industry"When you talk about Google reaching its full potential and travel in 2020, I remember back in 2011, I was having conversations with OTAs and airlines about Google's travel products. These travel companies have had a long time to do something about it, innovate, find new ways to be relevant to the customer, to acquire customers. So, yes, I think Google is beginning to reach its full potential, but I also think travel companies need to take some responsibility to innovate more. But at the same time I want to hasten to add, I do believe that Google's powers do need to be watched and kept in check by policymakers, because they are becoming bigger and bigger every day and weaving into our lives in ways that we could never have imagined." 

About Full Potential Labs"Managing our mind is absolutely critical for us to reach our full potential and to be successful, as successful as we want to be. Many times, our brain trips us up, and so the more that you can understand how your brain works, the better. Understanding the fact that this part of the brain that's conscious, and then there's the non-conscious brain, and the non-conscious brain is what we're operating on 85% of our days. We do quite a lot of work both for mixed groups, but also for women's leadership programmes. One of the things particularly for women, is that we can actually have a very overactive narrative in our mind… we call it the evil DJ. So this evil DJ, it often has soundtracks. I know for me, my soundtrack is often 'I'm not good enough', or 'I'm not doing enough', and that can sort of take over. And that can then start to bring my confidence down."

How can people change that soundtrack?"Well, the first thing that you have to do is you have to become aware of it. What we teach is ways to check in with yourself, particularly when you are going through stressful times where perhaps your evil DJ might take over. So that's the first thing, you have to find ways to check in with yourself, whether that's putting (in) a calendar invite or wearing a band or having your watch remind you. You have to basically check in to see, 'Is my evil DJ in charge?' If you feel that your evil DJ is in charge, you'll find things like your evil DJ will be very black and white – I'm not doing a good job, it's very black and white, or I'm gonna get fired, or I can't do this – very black and white phrases. Once you've recognised that, then the most important thing is coming back and looking at the evidence (and) understanding what the evidence is, for you feeling this way…because your brain is run on emotions, so (when) you come back to the facts, then you can start to actually build a new narrative for yourself."

Reasons for starting the ‘Don’t Stop Us Now’ podcast series with business partner, Greta Thomas"I think the reason that we set this podcast up was because we believe that the world desperately needs more women to get involved in shaping our future, particularly in the era that we're in right now, which is one of rapid change and disruption. There really are too few female leader role models, and we're all about changing that. So, why in the 21st century? Well, the fact is that there still are not enough women in leadership positions. When you look around the world, only 24% of all seats in Parliaments around the world are held by women. Of 195 countries, women lead only 13 of them. That's completely echoed in the corporate world. In fortune 500 companies in the US only 4.8% of CEOs are women. Now get this, this is mind blowing. In Australia, there are more CEOs in the ASX 200 called Andrew, than there are women CEOs. How crazy is that?"

What does ‘Don’t Stop Us Now’ wish to achieve?"The first is that we're trying to showcase and celebrate stories of really inspiring and innovative women who have gone around the world, who are making great things happen. What we want to do is to bring their stories to life so that other women can see that everyone struggles, and everyone has doubts and fears and tough times, but they find ways to get through. So I guess we want to inspire and give women courage. That's one thing. Then the second thing is that we really want to equip our listeners to think bigger and importantly, to take action to pursue their goals. So we're all about action and every fifth episode, we've got a how to, which is all about sort of unpicking a common career or leadership issue, like how to have a difficult conversation or how to manage your inner critic as an example, to help people really get practical."

 

Note: This interview was recorded in the early part of the year, right after the bushfires in Australia and before the Covid-19 outbreak, which closed borders to travel. Claire says the hardest part has been the distance from her family, who lives in the UK. She also says it has made her “revere and respect” travel even more for what it does to create jobs and build bridges. It has also made her think of travelling in a different way – “maybe I will go for longer but fewer trips”, she says.