#2274 - Mike Baker

Joe Rogan (0:01)

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

SPEAKER_2 (0:03)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

SPEAKER_3 (0:06)

Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

Joe Rogan (0:12)

Mike Baker, good to see you, my friend.

Mike Baker (0:15)

It's good to be seen. Thank you, Mr. Rogan. Thank you.

Joe Rogan (0:19)

You're taking notes already?

Mike Baker (0:20)

I am. He said, good to see you. Yeah, I know. I don't know what to do. I do this.

Joe Rogan (0:26)

So tell everybody what you were doing in the Middle East because it's pretty crazy. Oh, thank you.

Mike Baker (0:30)

Yeah, thank you for that. Look, it all started with some colleagues of mine from the UK Special Forces Club. And these guys are tremendous, right? But Howard Leatham and some others who came up with an idea. They said, look, we have to do something to help the Benevolent Fund, which is for the UK Special Forces. It's like wounded warriors here in the States. But and I can say this because I'm a dual citizen with the UK.

The British don't tend to be very good at raising money or asking for money for very important causes. So here in the US where you've got 100,000 different groups that are advocating for veterans, over there it's not the case, right? But they have the same need, right? And they have all these wonderful people and their families. So the idea was what can we do? A big event, something massive that can really help to raise funds and awareness for the Special Forces Benevolent Fund. And they came up with this crazy idea at the time, still crazy, to recreate a 1917 epic journey that Lawrence of Arabia did through what was considered the unpassable deserts of Saudi and Jordan, to go from essentially northwest Saudi through these unpassable deserts and then into Jordan and then down to Aqaba to route the Turks, who at the time controlled the area. And, with a small Arab army, led by several sheiks and Lawrence, they did this trek of about 1,100 kilometers. Took them several months because they had to stop along the way, plus they were fighting Turks along the way. So we took off in January, mid-January, five riders, ten camels and an incredible support team, an incredible support team.

Joe Rogan (2:14)

Can I just stop you there? Is this your first time riding a camel?

Mike Baker (2:17)

Well, we went out in December, spent about a week and a half. Howard lives out there, has to do one of the other fellows.

Joe Rogan (2:27)

So you had to go through camel riding training?

Mike Baker (2:28)

Camel riding training. That's exactly what we did.

Joe Rogan (2:33)

What is it like riding a camel?

Mike Baker (2:35)

It is not comfortable in any fashion. It's not like a horse. A horse has, you can fall into sort of a rhythm, and a horse has a much smoother gait. So the camel, basically, all you're trying to do, there's the crew, wonderful guys, Howard, James, myself, Tomo, there's Craig in the back, an amazing crew. I've rarely worked with guys that are just so impressive.

And again, going with the support team, everybody that was on that group, a small group of eight or nine folks.

Joe Rogan (3:05)

Why does everybody ride with one leg to the side like that?

Mike Baker (3:10)

It's essentially a comfort issue. And because you'll notice there's no, they're not really saddles, they're called shidds, that sit on top of the hump. That's a Saudi shiddad. The Omani shiddad is different. It sits behind the hump and is even less comfortable. And now these things were probably designed some 2,000 years ago, and they've never felt the need to improve them. They're basically just some wood tied together. And then you try to throw a couple of things on top of this piece of wood to make it comfortable. And I think all the Bedouins and others were laughing at us because we just kept piling blankets on to try to see if we couldn't. It was tough.

And so, ass blisters are a real thing. Oh yeah. Yeah, so anyway, that's what you see there. But there's no stirrups on these things. Like a horse, you ride and you're on a saddle, you got stirrups. And it takes the pressure off your legs. You're just hanging on. So you don't want to ride with one leg on either side because it's just not comfortable. So you hitch your leg over the front, and then you kind of put your leg or your foot behind the other leg.

Joe Rogan (4:09)

Is it because they're too wide? Is that why you don't want to ride one leg on the other side? Or is it just a ball buster?