the wondering wanderer

The face in the mountain

2011-11-28T10:53:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I stopped in Mount Shasta, a small town close to the magnificent mountain with the same name. There was some kind of street festival going on and I mingled with the locals. I was suprised to see many new age shops. Surely the spiritual needs of the local people could be met by one shop and a dozen churches of different orientations. I met a guy who had a spiritual talkshow on the local internet radio. He told me you could clearly see a face on the mountain surface. Since it was already dark I couldn't see it. He showed me some pictures of the mountain, but you needed a lot of imagination to see a face in it. Imagination is something those spiritual relief seekers in general don't lack. He told me to go to a shop where they have the 13th maya cristal skull. My curiosity got the better of me so I went there. The woman in the shop told me mount Shasta is exactly opposite Tibet and is one of the earth chakra's. A lot of people come here to yeah, to do what exactly? She also told me some things about this 13th cristal skull (I only knew those skulls from the last Indiana Jones movie), apperantly it can change shape. I asked her where it was. The woman said you can only see it on appointment. Ofcourse, I could have guessed that.

Next day was a clear day, the first time I saw Mount Shasta summit. I tried to see a face in it, pinching my eyes a bit, but nothing. It was only on the highway going south, leaving the moutain behind me, that I saw in my rearview mirror the face of Elvis.

You have to be blind to not see a face in this mountain.
Picture from the internet by I don't know who

What time is the resurrection?

2010-05-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

A while ago I finally went to Tierra Santa. The worlds first religious amusement park. Last time I wanted to go there I was stopped at the gate, because in my enthusiasm to photograph everything I got my camera out at the gate and was told that I couldn't enter with a professional camera. I tried to convince them that it's a semi professional camera, but to no avail. So while in Holland I bought a canon powershot for the sole purpose to use when visiting the park again. (how crazy can you be?) However I found out that they changed the rules and that you can enter with a big camera now, as long as you don't point it to much in the faces of the people who work there and who are all dressed up as either a roman centurion (all masculine guys who also double as security guards I guess) or as Jewish people (some with Arafat scarfs though, I didn't know Jewish people in the times of J.C. wore Arafat scarfs).

That crown fits us all

So I enter the park after parking my bike in the parking zone (5 pesos) and paying the entrance fee (35 pesos). First I am treated with a show called the nativity which shows the stuff that you hear about with Christmas with a lot of bombast: a thundering voice explains the immaculate conception of Mary, the birth of Jesus and the star of Bethlehem and the 3 wise men from the east while mechanic figures and a light and smoke show take care of the visual part. It's overwhelming, especially the voice, although I didn't know what it was saying. After that we are let in the broad day light again and we find ourselves at the gate of Jerusalem.

"Whip me" said Jesus and god saw it was good

The park is modelled after the old city of Jerusalem, well kind of. Everywhere are dolls depicting the life of Jesus and everyday life from the first years of our calendar. All the time and everywhere you hear religious bombastic muzak. It really enhances the experience which in one word is hallucinogenic. It's so surreal. I have difficulty not to start laughing out loud, so amused I am and surprised. Here you see 2 employees walking in their Jesus jumpsuits carrying their lunch and a coke bottle. There is a centurion with a whip in one hand and holding a walkie talkie with the other, while a bit further is a young guy wearing a long dress guiding a group of visitors, explaining everything through a megaphone.

I notice that even though we are in a sub tropical climate and they could have put real palm trees, the designers of the park choose not to do so and put fake palm trees instead. It just ads to the experience. Around the main square there are some restaurants, one has a ancient Jew sitting at a table eating a pizza. Also this is new to me, never knew pizza was that old. Probably the Romans brought it with them when they conquered the holy land. I get the impression the management of the park isn't to concerned about showing the truth. After seeing a show called "the creation" which according to the small booklet that you get says it depicts the creation of the world with the first animals in it till Adam and Eva I am positive about my suspicion. Where are the dinosaurs I wonder? They are not shown. Only a elephant, zebra, lion and monkey (of course not in connection to the first humans). Also the crucifixion of Jesus is depicted of course with the Roman soldiers looking extra mean. I climb the hill to see JC hanging from the cross. (it's always good to see him suffer, so I can sin some more) The park is located near the airport so you can have a nice picture of Jesus hanging on the cross, some evil Roman soldiers around, some mourning women and a airplane flying over.

At a certain moment I walk around and a centurion comes to me. He says another show is about to start: the resurrection. According to the booklet the resurrection is another favorite with the audience and a technical miracle with a 18 meter tall Jesus with 36 mechanical movements. The music, the special effects and Jesus blessing everybody create the ideal atmosphere to live a magical experience in the park. I can't miss that, so I go to the main square where everybody is waiting with anticipation for the return of the lord. And there he is: a huge Jesus is moving slowly upward to the sky. Everybody is delighted to see this miracle. Many take pictures of course. When it is raised the mechanical Jesus turns his body from left to right a few times and moves his arms a bit in a rather mechanical way. And then it goes down again. After it disappeared all the people start clapping! It surely is one of the many highlights for many visitors to see the return of JC, maybe some of them feel really like they have been blessed. After this incredible experience I walk around a bit more until I decide that to every good thing must come an end and also to this mind blowing experience. Don't miss it when you visit Buenos Aires.

Jesus blessing all the visitors

"Thank you, see you next week!"

For more photos of Tierra Santa click here

Garbage never tasted this good!

2010-04-06T13:57:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I blogged, in this time I transformed into a experienced urban hunter gatherer. I have been in the community for a while now. And it's a very good and interesting experience. I'm grateful for the people who live here and opened up their heart to me and excepted this stranger that hardly speaks Spanish in their group.
Let me first tell you something about the place. On the terrain of the "cuidad universitaria" there are 2 foundations of huge ugly 70's concrete monsters that were never build. One of these construction sites is now overgrown with vegetation and trees, giving it a kind of 70's post nuclear war sci fi feeling with plants growing over the concrete floor and pillars. Together with the hippie graffiti on the pillars this picture is complete. It's all very symbolic with nature reclaiming the space.

Come fly with us

The people who live here build a shack out of adobe and thrown away material. It has a nice outdoor kitchen attached to it. They don't sleep in the shack though, most people sleep in their tents which are dotted around the place and some in constructed domes. They practice organic farming, but most food is provided by recycling e.g. dumpster diving. Now when I say dumpster diving I guess some people will frown and I admit I also had to turn a mental switch with recollections of seeing homeless people eating out of trash bins. This is different however. The food is collected by going at specific hours past grocery shops just after they put out all the food that has lost their economic value but which is, if treated, still eatable.
You have to be quick though because he garbage truck (our natural enemy) is there roaming the street to collect it. The food is of course cleaned and all the bad parts are cut away. You won't believe how much is collected every time. We easily collect 3 crates every time. It seems stupid to pay for food here with the relative high prices of it. Why work in order to pay for something that you can also get by just picking it up from the street? That is the general thought here. And it fits in the recycling spirit.

The profits of a normal day dumpster dive

It's good to meet people who think about this here because in general the people are to ignorant or apathetic about the state of the environment. In supermarkets you always have to say you don't want a plastic bag and you can notice that the cassiere is not used to this. Sometimes they, being on automatic pilot, get confused when their work rhythm is broken by somebody who doesn't want 5 plastic bags for his shopping. The state of the buses makes it more polluting to take a bus then driving a car I think. The number of bicycles is growing but still very small, it's more used for recreation then for going to work. And of course most people eat meat, lot's of it.
So I learn a lot about sustainable living, recycling and different permaculture techniques, one which involves making "balls of life", a technique developed by mr. Fukuoka. Here you put seeds in a ball of earth which you throw everywhere and then you let nature do it's job. Since permaculture is all about making as little change as possible to he environment it also fits in my philosophy of being a lazy ass. It's nice to plant seeds and see the plant starting to grow after a few days. It's nice to chop wood, making a fire, make bread, being freed from the work - consume cycle.

Testing a bike construction

The people who live here are all very nice, interesting people. The only thing in which I differ from them is that I'm a typical down to earth Dutch guy and most of them are into the Maya calender, mysticism and more of that. Ah well, live and let live.
So I'm really excited to live here and be part of this unique place, to only thing which I don't agree with is the mosquitos, there are so many of them. But it's gonna get winter here soon so they will be gone to come back in spring.

A slideshow of the place can be seen here

Candomble on the beach

2010-04-06T13:00:00.000-07:00

While in Montevideo there was also a candomble ceremony. Candomble is a Brazilian religion with African roots but it is also mixed with Catholicism. About 10 percent of the people of Uruguay practice it. I don't know much about it, but it seems that there are people who act as priests who get possessed by spirits and they can cleans people by whipping with their hands over their bodies and snapping their fingers. A lot of people think that they can get cleansed and are lining up for this. One guy who was possessed had a really ugly expression on his face with the corners of his mouth curled down all the time. The cool thing about is that they drink alcohol and smoke cigars or cigarettes to get in a more spiritual mood. That usually works for me too. On the second of February they make small boats out of foam in which they place offers for some sea goddess. I was walking from amazement to amazement on the beach. One guy that really got my attention was getting attacks every 15 minutes or so and in between the attacks he was blathering away.

The guy with the attacks

Standing in line to get cleansed

I did some healing myself

Elvis was also there

The guy with the ugly grin

Getting ready for another attack

More pictures of candomble can be seen here

Ta ta taa ta ta

2010-03-17T15:24:00.000-07:00

I went to Montevideo for the carnival because Uruguay has a stronger carnival tradition than Argentina. This most have to do with the fact that the black population of Argentina "miraculously" disappeared in the 19th century. Many died of diseases and many where given front row seats in the wars against the Spanish and Paraguay.There are different aspects of the carnival. You have the llamadas, which I prefer. The groups performing in the llamadas consist of about 20 to 30 drummers playing forceful rhythms to which a group of people dance.

The people dancing depict people from the days of slavery. So you have some women dressed up as the woman from Uncle Ben's rice, a guy with a walking stick and a bag with herbs dancing in a rather spastic way depicting the medicine man and a lot of barely dressed women. I don't know what they depict but they surely got my attention. One was dressed only with some tiny decoration put on her nipples and crotch. She could just as well have gone naked.

Front

Back

The groups practice the whole year and in general are made up by people who live in the same neighborhood. So it works like a kind of glue for the community.

The girl I was staying with says that the whole year on Saturday she can't go to sleep before 12 because the neighbourhood is practicing. There is no much use trying to get some sleep when 30 people are beating the shit out of some drums ion the street. Most groups are only from 2 neighborhoods: Palermo and another one which name I don't remember.

These neighborhoods used to be and still are neighborhoods with a big black community. I heard that until 20, 25 years ago the carnival was really a black thing, but that after the dictatorship also the other people got interested in the carnival. Although the carnival of Uruguay has a lot in common with the carnival in Brazil when it comes to the dressing up (or rather dressing down) of the "dansmariekes" (Dutch name for the girls that dance in the carnival parade), the rhythms are different. It's not samba, it's Candombe (not to be confused with Candomble about which is my next post).

And the rhythm goes a bit like this: ta ta taa ta ta. Okay not much sense in trying to describe it. It's ear deafening for sure. The drummers give 100%, at the parades I saw some drummers with big blood blisters on their hands. Every bang must hurted like hell.

The other element of the Uruguayan carnival is the murgas. This consists of a group of people dressed up like harlequins singing in a kind of off tune voice accompanied by a guitarist and a drummer. The songs are mostly about (local) politics and events and are supposedly very funny. I don't know; my Spanish is still very basic and my knowledge of Uruguayan politics is even worse. It was nice to visit the carnival also to be out of Buenos Aires for a while and also because Montevideo is a really cool city. It's so quite, streets are virtually deserted during the day, it has more the feeling of a pueblo. I wonder how the rest of Uruguay is since the capital is already so laid back. It also has a lot of colonial architecture almost crumbling down.I wanted to check some beaches in Uruguay but a check on my bank account made me return to Buenos Aires to the freegan community immediately.

Going back to nature in the big city

2010-01-19T16:53:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow a new episode in my life will start. I will become a urban hunter gatherer (well at least for the moment). Since I go live in a vegetarian community it will be more gathering then hunting. So doing perma culture and recycling of materials, including food (well if it doesn't kil you, it will only make you stronger right?) I will probably step down on the social ladder a few steps but this is not something I care about. And my social statues was already low: in Amsterdam one time I was called a "sad case" by a junkie haha.

I have always been interested in different ways of live instead of the destructive lifestyle most people live (anyone with a common sense should be, this also means less flying from now on) and since my money is going fast, this is a good opportunity to try something else. So it's killing 2 birds with the same stone except for the fact that that is not done there off course. The only thing I'm worrying about is that I will turn into some kind of hippie. Well I can't grow my hair anymore so that is a good thing. Okay I will keep you updated on my experiences.

Oh no, to late!

Ciao for now

Kurt

From outlaw to saint

2010-01-14T09:17:00.000-08:00

Hola, I haven't written much since I came to Argentina, mostly because I haven't done shit. I was in a state of laziness for a month, doing nothing mostly, enjoying the air conditioning in my room. I started to feel like a sloth but on the 7th of January (my birthday) I went on a pilgrimage (I'm always interested in scenes of mass hysteria) to the grave of Gauchito Antonio Gil. Now you may ask yourself: "Who is this gaucho Gil?" Well, gaucho Gil was a gaucho. Now of course you want to know what a gaucho is. A gaucho is a kind of cowboy, but then Argentinian style. The gaucho is much nestled in the Argentinian identity (Argentinidad), just as tango and beef. Many people are proud of the gaucho heritage and some still feel very gaucho, in fact are gauchos. They live the gaucho lifestyle. Riding horses, handling cattle and dressing up funny. They wear colourful gear including a wide brimmed low hat, loose fitting trousers (bombachas) that disappear into high cowboy euh I mean gaucho boots complete with spurs that resemble castanets which they use for dancing by stamping on the ground, and of course a knife to cut the beef.

A gaucho on his favorite place: a horse

They live primarily of beef and mate. The beef is prepared on the Argentinian barbecue: the assado. While on a normal barbecue the meat is neatly cut, the Argentinian way is to put a whole cow or pig on it, with half a kilo of salt sprinkled over it. Mate is the national drink, a kind of herby bitter broth that is sipped through a metal straw. In Argentina the rule is: don't leave home without your mate. And drink mate with your mate(s). It is a social thing, kind of the passing of a joint for the Dutch (the ones that smoke of course).

Now that's what I call a Gaucho Gill tattoo

So Gil was a gaucho that served in the army, however he didn't feel like fighting anymore and deserted. He became a outlaw that stole from the rich and gave to the poor. A kind of Argentinian Robin Hood. Apparently he also did some hand curing. However one day Gil's luck ran out and he got caught. A sergeant took him out to a place near Mercedes and hung him upside down to a tree and tortured him (people can be so cruel). Gill pleaded him to safe his life and told the sergeant that his child was very sick and that Gil could safe him. Not being moved by the pleads of Gil and in a blood thirsty mood, the sergeant cut Gil's throat. Upon returning home he found out that Gil was pardoned (whoops) and that his child was indeed very sick. However the child soon recovered. Gratefully the sergeant returned to the place where he had killed Gil to give him a proper funeral (the least he could do) and tell everybody who wanted to know and didn't want to know what a great guy this Gil was (that he killed). Although not recognised as a saint by the Vatican, many Argentinians see him as one and he is very popular. You can see many red flagged shrines for him along the roads (that's how I found out about him last year) especially in the North of Argentina. And many cars that you see have a red ribbon hanging from the rear mirror. Many trucks have the text "Gracios Gauchito Gil". So he is kind of the Saint Christopher of Argentina.

What started off as a simple shrine turned into a complex of restaurants, campsites and souvenir shops (religion, like sex, sells, you can ask that to the Vatican). And many go on pilgrimage in the week of his death (the 8th of January). A lot of stuff that is sold is of course made in China. I saw many Chinese lucky charms for sale with the picture of the Gaucho put over the face of the Chairman.

A vendor selling gaucho Gil souvenir, made in China

The shrine is 9 kilometer outside the otherwise sleepy town of Mercedes. Luckily it wasn't so warm because I heard a few days before the thermometer hit 49 degrees! Arriving at the shrine I saw a cue. After making sure it's not for the toilet I join the cue, thinking it will probably not gonna take to long. Many people around me are wearing a Gaucho Gil t-shirt or something else red. Either brought with them or bought from the street vendors that walk around. Red is the colour of the Gauchito because it resembles his red scarf (apparently it got a bit bloody when he got killed). The cue moved very slowly forward, I think every 5 minutes a meter or so. And I start to think that it might maybe take a bit longer then expected. Mind you: tens of thousands of people visit the shrine this week. I see many people wearing Gaucho Gil tattoos, one even covering somebodies whole back. Also a lot of people are drinking. Imagine that at Lourdes: pilgrims walking around bare chested with tattoos of the Virgin of Lourdes, getting drunk. So I get more the impression I'm at some 3 day music festival then on a pilgrimage. At some places bands are playing folkloric music. For the untrained ear it sounds a bit like tex mex but not so fast.. I'm not a big fan of it but it's always nice to see people enjoying themselves.

This is what Gaucho Gil probably looked like.
A Gaucho Gil impersonator standing in the cue

A accordeon player is giving some relief to the people who wait in line

One or two hours further (my sense of time is disappearing) I'm still in the cue and the point which I thought/hoped would be the destination is just a turn off point. I get a bit annoyed and ask myself who is more crazy here: all the other people who came to ask favours from a dead gaucho, or me, the unbeliever who is joining them, just to take some pictures. We pass (very slowly, approximately speed is 100 meters a hour) many stands and assado restaurants (for vegetarians there are biscuits at the kiosk). At many moments (actually all the time) I think of just stepping out of the cue and just wander and wonder around, there is enough to see. But for some reason I don't. It's the gaucho that is pulling me to his shrine. Such magnitude he has on me. After a few hours and a few turns more my mind has become totally numb, it's like I'm in a state of meditation. No thoughts at all.

Imagine this at Lourdes. A pilgrim drinking
one for the gaucho inside the shrine

Then finally after the last corner I can see the cue is directed between some riot fences into a make shift open construction with a roof over it. Until now all the people have been very calm, but now they get a bit more pushy and things get a bit crammed. In the construction there are a few police men who try to bring a bit of order in the chaos. Every time the let approximately 20 people in for 1 or 2 minutes. You can feel the tension mount, like you are at the start line of the 1000 meter Olympics. People get really excited. Finally after about 5 to 6 hours in the cue we will be let into the shrine, this is what everybody came for. Some will ask for help during their studies, for a good or better marriage or maybe for a divorce, for good health, for finding a good job. You can ask the gaucho anything and he will ask god for you. That is basically the idea. You also vow to return the next year if your wish comes true, since so many people show up every year it really is a miracle.
Then the whistle blows and we rush into the shrine, everybody starts touching the statue of the gauchito and doing their wishes. They also give offers like bottles of wine or tie a ribbon or a small flag to the construction. It's all very hectic and intense after 5 hours hardly moving. Then after one minute or so the whistle blows again (well several times actually, some people are not finished with their wish list to the gaucho I guess and want to stay as long as possible) and we have to move from the sanctuary. It's time for the next group of devotees.

I feel exhilarated and ecstatic, going along in the flow of excitement and hysteria (it's that easy). But fuck: I was so busy taking pictures I forgot to make any wish, oh well I will come back tomorrow, then I can stand in the cue again :-) I walk a bit around the area of the shrine, at some places people are getting a fresh Gaucho Gil tattoo, their pilgrimage isn't complete without one. There is also a museum but there is a cue for it and having enough of cues for today I decide to go back to the hotel.

Two pilgrims next to the shrine, if you look closely to the statue
you can see that Gil also had three testicles

Next day I go back not to stand again in the cue, but to see what's going on more. I see a lot of drunken people, some of them look a bit rough. This is not a good place to walk around in the dark showing off your digital SLR. At one point I notice my bag has been slashed, luckily nothing got stolen. Apparently there are some people here that follow his example of stealing from the rich (me, although it's not true, my bank account is dramatically low, I didn't even have enough money to buy a return ticket to Argentina, so I bought a single one :-)) and giving to the poor (themselves). So I carry my backpack in front of me and walk around. At a few places there is live music and at some times the dancing gets quite intense (amazing how intense some people can dance to such lame music). It's a beautiful sight. Gaucho's, ex convicts (after the bag slashing incident I'm convinced every dodgy looking drunk guy is a criminal) and normal people (well if it's normal to believe in a dead gaucho to grand your wishes) dancing their ass of. Some of the gauchos stamp on the ground, producing a extra rhythm to the music with their spurs. The gauchos are dressed at their Sunday best, with embroidered patterns on their clothes.

Foot stomping music. A gaucho creating a rhythm with his boots

Everybody was having a good time, except maybe this woman

I visit the little museum and wonder at all the gifts for the gaucho, a lot of bicycles, car plates, wedding dresses and photos. One even thanked the gaucho for passing the exam at the University for the course "air conditioning and refrigerator techniques" Didn't know that was a University course :-)
On some of the peoples faces the signs of drinking for days in a row are very clear and they look more rough then they normally do. What a difference with Buenos Aires with it's hip and chique people. About 7 I decide to go back before dark.

Having a one on one with the gauchito

My last day in Mercedes I go back to the shrine. Most people have left and it's much quieter now. I can just walk in the shrine without having to cue for 5 hours. If I had known that 2 days ago! Well yeah, it's all part of the experience right? Anyway now I do my wish to the gaucho. I don't know if you are supposed to tell your wish, but some of the people who know me will know. Yes indeed: a lot of se.. euh worldpeace.

The gaucho can use some new paint

Doing my wish to the gauchito, little did I know
it would be granted the same night!

Later I take a taxi back to Mercedes and shared it with 2 drunk, 130 kilo Neanderthal looking pilgrims.They shared their wine with me and the driver (why not, Gil is looking over us). 5 hours later I see them again on the bus station when I want to catch my bus. At this time they are really drunk, not much light coming out of their eyes. Like always when I take a bus in Argentina it's a total chaos and the bus I intented to go on was full so I have to wait for another one. In the mean time I witness a fight between some drunken racist Argentines and some Africans who have been standing on the market. It seems there are enough drunken Argentines willing to jump in, the atmosphere turns really bad. But things quiet down thank god, and no lynching is happening. Then I finally can board a bus, taking the last seat, all in the back. And next to who am I sitting? One of the neanderthals of the taxi. Everything is cool until he starts putting his big hand on my knee (well actually I'm fine with that if it's a sign of comradely non sexual feelings). However his hand starts to move more up, over my thighs towards my crotch, feeling a bit around. So here I'm sitting in the nights bus with no other seat available getting touched at my private parts by a 130 kilo sweaty drunk Neanderthal looking guy, most probably a ex convict, who's intentions I don't even know. Is he trying to rob me or sexual abuse me? Or maybe he is just mixing work with pleasure and doing both. After a few times putting his hand back where it belongs and saying I'm not into this kind of thing, since I have never been to prison and so I have never been introduced to this kind of brotherly love, he gets it. Well I wished for world peace and there you go.

I go to sleep a bit worried (to say the least), but to my delight I wake up to find my wallet still there and my ass still virgin. My neighbor doesn't say much and when he leaves he doesn't say goodbye. Maybe he was still hurt by the rejection or feeling pissed off of not being able to rob me. At 3 in the afternoon (after having a flat tire, I guess nobody on the bus praid for the journey back) I arrive safe back in Buenos Aires and so came a end to a crazy weekend. It still puzzles me, I will never understand religion and all it's crazy aspects. It's a complete mystery to me. I know now that many Argentinians are less rational then I expected them to be.

Ciao for now

Kurt

You can see a slide show of the festival here

My father's best friend

2010-01-14T07:18:00.001-08:00

When I visited my mother this summer a few times I decided to also go visit the man who was my father's best friend. He is a pensioned farmer and a friendly, characteristic man by the name of Fons Bolders. Despite his not so healthy diet: a lot of beer, sigarettes, meat, almost no vegetables and every morning up to 4 eggs with about a gram of salt, he turned 80 last year in good health. So you could say he is the Keith Richard of the farmer community of my hometown. The place where he lives is just the same as 25 years ago when I often came there with my father. Only the surrounding has changed: what was before farm land is now all industrial area. Except for his place, which is like a beacon from the past.

Peru, Bolivia, Argentina 2009: From the navel of the world to the guts ariving in heaven where the air isn't so good as they say.

2010-01-13T08:43:00.001-08:00

The last time I wrote I was in the navel of the world, after that I've been in the guts of the world, and now I must be in heaven: after spending most of my trip in South Americas countries with the biggest percentage of less attractive (plain ugly sounds so negative) women I'm now in Argentina. And the difference is staggering.

Unlike Peru and Bolivia Argentina doesn't have a big indigenous population. The area was sparsely populated and many of the hand full natives that there where in the south got massacred in 1879 in the "Conquest of the desert". So often you more have the feeling you are in South Europe, or Bavaria, depending on the place you are, then in South America. But like I said also in Heaven. After Cusco I went to the Colca canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world. The deepest is a bit further up but cannot be walked through because of it's wild river. I hadn't done any serious exercise for months so I still had difficulty walking the steep streets of La Paz where I was a few days later. Firm on the gringo trail between Colca and La Paz is also Copacobana on the shores of lake Titicaca (whats in a name?) but I didn't stay there. Not staying there alsomeant missing out on the Poncho museum as I saw when I passed that with the bus. Well you can't see everything right? But still it's a shame. So together with the Taj Mahal and Macchu Pichu stands the Poncho Museum of Copacobana of tourist attractions that I missed out on.

Taking a stroll through the Colca canyon

La Paz is a fascinating city. Actually it was the first real big city I was in South America. Of course I was in Lima, but only for a few days and mostly only in the suburb I was staying in and it's so spread out that you don't know where to start. But La Paz surely made a impression. Arriving is already a spectacle. You enter it from one of the hill sides, passing a statue of Che Guevara done by the amazing metal sculptress Hans Hoffmann. Now with the new socialist government of Evo Morales, the first indigenous president in South America and former coca farmer and probably also the first president to go on a hunger strike (he was getting a bit fat, maybe that was the reason), the former state enemy (he was (im)mortalized in Bolivia since if he wasn't killed there and of course if that one picture of him was never taken he would never have become the pop icon he is now, images of him are seen everywhere in South America) is getting a different kind of attention from the government then before. Okay that is a long and not very clear sentence. Let's just say that old Che is looked different upon by the new government.
So you pass his statue and there in the valley below you, crawling up from all sides, is La Paz. The highest capital in the world at a altitude of 3660 meters.

Statue of Che Guivarra by Hans Hoffmann

Bolivia is the poorest country in South America and you can notice it. Almost no cars on the road, a lot of adobe houses, many of them abandoned and in ruins, a high unemployment rate, social unrest (protest are often seen on the streets of La Paz, a few days after I left I saw images on TV of crowds getting dispersed with water cannons on the same street I had been roaming for some days) and so on and so on.
Doesn't matter how bad the economy is and how poor you are, you need clean shoes. And that's where the lustrabotas (shoe shiners) come in handy. This looked down upon profession is done by many young men who, in order not to be discriminated, hide their faces behind ski masks and also dress in a hip hop kind of fashion (sweatshirts with hoods, caps, baggy pants). You can see them everywhere on the streets trying to get as much costumers as possible by all the time judging peoples shoes, pointing to them and offering to clean them. Actually I had mine cleaned and still they where pointing to them so they don't judge to hard.

Lustrabota day dreaming about shoes

I decided to do a little project on them and spent some days taking pictures of them and trying to talk to them. But it's hard because my Spanish is still very basic and also I felt uncomfortable talking to guys looking like every moment they where about to rob a bank. So most of it was done secretly with a lot of hip shots with my camera (actually I think half of the pictures I took on this trip is taken like that). But I will go back later and try to get some portraits and small chitchats. I talked to a few of them who where really nice although some of them didn't tell me the truth concerning how much they made. Apparently the earn between 1 and 2 Bolivianos per shoe shine. That's 10 to 20 euro cents. I think more often 1 then 2 Bolivianos. Average amount of costumers must be between 20 and 40 a day depends on how much they work. Many of the younger shoe polishers go to (evening)school so they don't work the whole day. So they make about 4 to 6 euro a day. The guy who did my shoes must have been really glad with the 20 Bolivianos (2 euro) I gave him, a half days work.

Lustrabota with his toolbox

In La Paz I also visited the coca museum.. It gave me some insight on coca and how it's used by the indigenous population. Actually it's one of the few things left for the native people that isn't destroyed by the Spanish (they tried to abolish it but then they found out that it was quite helpful in the silver mines: the slaves could work longer, work"days"of 48 hours where no exception, before they would perish) So the use of coca is giving the Indian population some connection with their roots and is considered sacred. It also comforts against cold, fights fatigue and hunger, helps you deal better with the high altitude and is used to predict the future. So it's quite a wonderful plant. The Incas also used it as a anaesthetic, while we in Europe used to use alcohol or a bang on the head as anaesthetic. Unfortunately the use of coca is not being advocated by a lot of other countries in the world. Since out of coca you can make cocaine. Did you know that Sigmund Freud was the first official cocaine addict? He advocated the drug and died later of nostril cancer, which means he must have powdered his nose quite often.

After La Paz I went south over the Altiplano. Alti means high and plano means flat and that's just what it is: a very flat highland. In the South Western part of Bolivia you have the salt planes of Uyuni. Miles and miles (for some reason that sounds better then kilometers and kilometers) of white salt. The deepest point being 10 meters deep. It's very crowded with tourists who all want to make funny pictures of each other (since you have a white flat background you can make funny optical illusions). Of course I wanted to do the same. Unfortunately I didn't buy a toy dinosaur so no pictures of me getting threatened by a huge dinosaur, but I have a picture of me jumping out of a hat which came out very nice. So yes, for hours you ride over this arid terrain where nothing can live only punctuated by some islands inhabited by many cacti.
Next day you visit some lagoons (a red one, a green, all with some flamingos), you see some volcanoes, lay in the hot springs, marvel at some geysers and that's it. It's nice but it's a tour and I really don't like tours. So next time I will go with bicycle to enjoy more freedom. Also the driver wasn't one of the social kind, he hardly talked and couldn't explain much about the area. And the woman of the agency was a greedy bitch, not to mention the woman of the hotel I stayed when I came back from the tour: I was shaving my head (head not beard, that will stay, don't worry Stoyan) when suddenly she came around and pulled the plug out and said "basta". Apparently electricity is very expensive in Bolivia and even in a touristy place like Uyuni the people don't earn enough to let a gringo use some electricity. My head was half shaven! I asked her if she was loco and pointed at my head, but she said it looked okay. I almost lost control, but I kept cool and just put the machine back into the socket and went on shaving. Good thing she didn't know about my computer, mp3 player and loudspeakers who had used so much of her electricity. She would have gotten a heart attack.

In Uyuni there is also a train cemetery

So I wasn't to sad to leave this godforsaken place. I went to the highest city in the world and also formally one of the richest cities: Potosi at 4060 meters the highest city and with a huge silver mine behind it, it was (past tense) indeed one of the richest cities. But at what a price: approximately 8 million (that's half the population of Holland) Indian and African slaves died during the colonial area in the mines. Even today the mine gives and takes. Many miners die after about 15 years working in the mines because of lung diseases. The average lifespan is about 45 years old. For my western mind it's unthinkable that you would risk your life for making a living. But that is what poverty does to you and also love of your family members. If you don't work you family has no food, so you do the job in the knowledge that you seriously shorten your life.

You can do a tour in the mines. I did it, met some miners, there weren't many though because next day it was the Friday before Easter and many went home earlier. To bad I missed the Friday ritual: going to there god "Tio" (a deprivation of Dio, it was invented by the Spanish to get the slaves into the mines) to offer cigarettes and alcohol and also to drink the alcohol itself. Since offerings have to be pure, so is the alcohol: they drink alcohol with a alcohol contense of 96%!!!!!!!! I can't believe they don't burn their throats. Well I guess if you are a miner in the mines of Potosi you don't really care to much about health issues and maybe it's a good medicine to get all the dirt out of their throats.. The work is done almost in the same ways as in the colonial times, although now they can use dynamite. But for the rest everything is done manual.

Being in a crazy catholic country I hoped I could witness some loco locals crucifying themselves with Easter but my sensational lust had to be tempered because the celebration was all very civilized and boring. On my last night in Potosi I was walking down the street when suddenly the person in front of me dropped some name cards on the ground. He stopped to pick them up, I couldn't pass him, neither could I go back because behind and besides me where 2 other persons. I suddenly realized what was going on and in a Hulk like fashion I stretched my arms and pushed the fuckers away. One of them got angry with me, I apologised because maybe they didn't try to rob me, but then I thought again, I also read about this kind of thing happening but then in a different slightly situation: they are very cunning. Thank god I'm a street wise person, well kind of and I saw through there cunning plans. I also had my money belt tucked into my pants, so it would have been very difficult to get something from me.

Now here is something interesting: a poster of Alfa y Omega,
a self pronounced prophet from Peru, who links Christianity to aliens.
(if you look carefully you can see some UFO's behind Moses)
I saw it in this vegetarian restaurant in La Paz I always went to.

Rosita from the vegetarian restaurant,
behind her a poster of Alfa y Omega in his UFO
which has very little leg room.

I always thought Peru and Bolivia where safe countries to travel but they aren't: in Peru I had 2 times something stolen from me. I blame it on the religion. Well and poverty of course (although I seriously doubt that the schoolkid who stole my mp3 player needed it to fill his stomach). Maybe I see it very black and white but it's true: when you are a catholic you can do all bad things and go to confession and that's it. Try that as a Muslim. You can say what you want about them but at least they have respect for property, although it's forced upon them by fear of a vengeful god and having their hands chopped off. But at least most of them keep their fingers from your goods.

After Potosi I went to Tupiza, according to the guidebook the town and surrounding landscape makes you want to stay longer. I had seen enough after 1 day. Maybe I travelled to much in my life and it is getting more difficult to get excited from scenery's that you see. It was okay yeah but not mind blowing. The only remarkable thing is that in a village nearby Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid found their ends. So after finishing the distilled form of coca that I still had I crossed the border to Argentina. (it was a hard job, but somebody had to do it). I can understand people get addicted to it because the rush only last for a hour or 2 and then this uncomfortable feeling starts sliding in and you want to go back to the first feeling again which means buying more of the Bolivian marching powder.

So now Argentina, the north west still has a bit of a Andean feeling to it. Also here the women wear hats, although more flat and more in the gaucho style (Argentinian cowboy) then the Charlie Chaplin style that's popular among women in Bolivia. I wonder where this tradition of women wearing hats is coming from. A friend of mine told me it was a kind of rebellion against the Spanish colonisation. Argentina is more expensive then Peru or Bolivia, I had a 33 euro night bus, that almost blow me of my socks. It also seems that being a artisan is the biggest profession in Argentina. You see so many young (and not so young anymore) people trying to sell their handmade jewelry on the street.

In the small towns (more villages actually) in the north you expect Clint Eastwood to turn around the corner any time. Walking around the city centre of Buenos Aires makes you more feel like you are in Paris or London then in South America. It's the birthplace of tango, that sensual dance full of passion and desire first danced between men waiting for prostitutes in brothels. Apparently at some places this tradition is revitalised because I heard there are many gay tango clubs. Which sounds very photogenic, I was planning to visit some (only out of photographic interest of course) but they where very difficult to find. Of the addresses I found on a gay site I went to look for 3 tango clubs and they had all moved or vanished, it took me some hours to walk all this distances since Buenos Aires is huge and I didn't know which bus to take. So I kind of gave up on that idea. I did however photographed an amazing tango show what was more a combination of tango and an acrobatic circus act. It was amazing. At one point one of the male dancers had the woman he was dancing with with her back on his upper leg and he played her like a bandoneon (the accordion like instrument used in tango music).

Acrobatic tango

Also I wanted to photograph Tierra Santa, the first and only religious theme park in the world. With a reenactment of the resurrection every half hour and more interesting shows. All the personal is wearing the clothes that were in fashion in the Middle East in the times of Jesus. So unlike the poncho museum I was really looking forward to visit it, also because you had the hill where Jesus got crucified with a few guys on the cross (they don't have actors for this, they use clay or some other material figures) with airplanes flying over about every 20 minutes on their way to the airport. So yes I was really interested in visiting this tacky theme park and at the entrance I took my camera out of my backpack eager to start shooting when a guard came up to me and explained to me that I couldn't enter. Did he noticed that I, unlike all the other visitors, am not a good Christian? Could he see who was genuine interested from a religious point of view and who just wanted to see this freak show? No, as he explained to me the reason was that you can't enter with a professional camera. I tried to explain that my camera is semi professional and that there are much more professional cameras then mine, and that I really wanted to see it, but to no avail. So like God forbade Moses to enter Israel, I was not allowed into this Kingdom of Kitsch. Damn, I could leave my camera behind at the entrance but what use would it have had to go then? So that was really a pity but it gives me something to come back for because I really like Buenos Aires, to the point that I would like to live there. The nightlife is very good, you can go out every night till very late. In Amsterdammost bars close at one during the week. And did I mention the women already? I think I did, but will mention them again. I mean even the president is quite a sexy women. The only bad thing that happened to me is that I got ripped off at a change office. I was looking at a change office and then a guy in a suite came to me and said he had a better rate (4.74 instead of 4.72, not that much better) so I went with him. I thought of him to be a very slick looking guy but you shouldn't always judge the book by it's cover right? And in this office another guy was calculating for me on the calculator how much I
would get. I wanted to calculate myself later but he distracted me with questions about my country and calculated himself again, I even saw the figures he was typing and it looked okay but later on I did some calculations myself and noticed I got ripped of for about 10 euro. Well I don't have any money anymore anyway I believe (I lost my bankcard and cannot check my account, but actually also don't want to know how much I have or have not left) so that doesn't really matter anyway. So okay I'm no that street smart as I first wrote.

After Buenos Aires if time permits I will go to the Iguanza waterfalls, apparently they are quite amazing. Then into el republica del plantanas Paraguay, the country outside Africa with the biggest corruption and also mennonites: a kind of Amish that speak some German dialect. And then back to Bolivia, I wanted to visit the tinku, the most bloody fiesta in the world. But it's already very soon. I wouldn't have much time to spent in Paraguay. And also I heard the people at the tinku festival are not very keen on gringos with big cameras that come to "see the show". And they are all totally drunk and very aggressive. A guy I spoke to said he got harassed all the time, people throwing stones at him, poking him with sticks etcetera. I hope the mennonites are more peacefully. Maybe I will go to the tinku next year. Well if you made it to here: congratulations, because it was a long mail. I promise the next one will be shorter, also because I'm flying back to Hollanda within a month.

bye

Kurt

Photos from Peru can be watched here
Photos from Bolivia can be watched here
A slideshow about the lustrabotas here
A slideshow with photos from Argentina here
A slideshow with photos from Paraguay here

Peru 2009: Go Go dancing on the graveyard

2010-01-12T11:24:00.000-08:00

Sumaq llana! Qosqo llaqtamanta pacha. That it best wishes from the navel of the earth in quechua. One of the original languages of Peru. I'm now high up in the Andes in Cusco which the Incas thought to be the navel of the earth before their empire got smashed by the Spanish conquestadors who really took them by surprise with their horses and shotguns.

I'm now over 2 months in Peru so it's about time I let something hear from myself. Normally I write more often but this time I haven't been travelling that much around, more staying in one place and I also had a kind of writing block so that's why. One of the reasons I didn't do much travelling around is because I'm doing some photo project on graveyards. So I visit a lot of graveyards. I'm becoming quite an expert on Peruvian graveyards and find it very fascinating how the people here deal with the dead. It's much different then in Holland where things on the graveyard are a bit more formal.
Here it's normal to go to the graveyard with some beers, sit on the grave of the neighbour of the dead relative and drink to the deceased.

Typical way to spent the time on the graveyard: with some friends and family chatting and drinking

Or when there is a funeral talk to the gringo who is subtle making some pictures and make jokes with him. In Holland I would have been beaten up so many times I think. I guess it says something about the differences in mentality. Traditions do vary per region though. In some coastal towns (Chincha, Ica) it's common to hold a kind of party on the birthday of the deceased complete with balloons and live music. While the live music in Chincha is often a bit tacky with electric keyboard, I witnessed some surprisingly good and passionate performances in Ica, one of a Elvis look a like (graveyard rock), bones were shaking there. The graveyard in Chincha is however more exciting in the way that it is a bit dangerous. Often I got warned that I can get robbed and the ground keeper is walking around with a homemade gun (2 metal tubes in which he puts a shot of hail).

Birthday party for deceased child

The selfmade gun of the ground keeper

The most amazing thing I witnessed on a graveyard was in Cusco where I met this Afro Peruvian family. One woman was quite charmed by the author of this article and started to twist with her tongue in front of the camera and even held her enormous breasts while doing some erotic dance. This to the embarrassment and amusement of her family. The graveyard in Cusco is until now the most beautiful. Most graves are not underground, instead they are in a concrete structure with up to 6 layers, a kind of high rise apartment buildings for the dead. The coffin gets shoved into a hole, this hole gets closed up by cement and in front of the cement are placed items that corresponds with the live of the deceased. Like mini bottles of beer, toys or very tacky things like little figurines or Santa Claus postcards (I guess the deceased had a obsession with Santa Claus postcards), or like in some cases I've seen the place is made into a mini library complete with mini bookshelf's and mini books (the deceased was a teacher) or mini turntables (the person obviously was a DJ). Some are really well done. One I saw was from the owner of a bar and it was decorated like a bar complete with a mini TV with DVD, a menu, a table and some dolls sitting on a chair.

I was to shocked to take a sharp picture

Bar Restaurant La Gordita (the fat woman)

The graveyard in Ica is as I mentioned before almost bursting with life: creolian music, wines, piscos (a strong liquer made from grapes), dancing ect. It must be ond of the most lively graveyards on the planet. I hang out a bit with the musicians, one of them, Ceasar who was the most passionate performer I witnessed there, gave me a full bag with grapes and mangos on the day I left. Unfortunatly I washed the grapes in tabwater and was sick again for a few days. Well that's it for now. I made a selection of the pictures I took from the cemeteries, you can see a slideshow of them here

Ceasar giving away a show

Laos, Vietnam and China 2008

2010-01-12T11:13:00.000-08:00

Hi, I'm now in Yangshou, China, enjoying a rest after cycling almost 900 km in 9 days. It's been a while since I wrote a mail. This is because on this trip I don't get into many crazy situations of which I can write about. So no dick swinging Nubians or samurai sword caring Americans on a divine mission this time.
Last mail must have been from Thailand. From there I went to Laos. It is one of my favorite countries, very laid back and many friendly people. Also because there is almost no traffic it's nice to cycle. Laos is a communist country and the people are real proletarians: so many children and they all say "sabadee" and wave and smile at you when they see you. It automatically puts you in a good mood. So I did a lot of waving and high fiving when I was going through villages.

Kids fishing

Returning home after work

Sun falling on the limestone mountains

After Laos I went to Vietnam. I had heard some bad stories about Vietnam, but I was pleasantly surprised. For one thing you have to respect them for kicking the American out. Quiet diverse people though: from the very friendly to the utmost annoying; you meet them all. I had a guy who wanted to take my pants almost by force (I wasn't wearing them but had them drying on my bicycle) and another one who wanted to charge me money for walking over his rice paddy, but on the other hand I had somebody offering me a shot of heroine and one woman offering me her daughter. Some people really like to talk to you and they don't mind that you don't understand Vietnamese, they will tell you whole stories or keep on firing questions at you anyway. The Vietnamese are much more outgoing then the Laotians so you have more interaction with the local people.

War veteran with a picture of the statue of liberty

Many Vietnamese are still fighting a war, although it isn't any more against the imperialist Americans and their puppet regime (I love the communist terminology) in the hills and rice paddies. No, it's against their own comrades on the roads. The Kalashnikov is replaced by a horn which they use all the time and instead off the break. Some of the most reckless driving I saw on this trip was here. Well, travel rule number one is do what the locals do, so I also drove like a maniac. The big cities are swarming with motorcycles which make cycling not really a healthy enterprise. Although the weather wasn't so nice, it's fun cycling in the river delta's (finally flat land!) where you can see the people working on the rice paddies, which are also dotted with graves (maybe the corpses make the earth more nutritious), while you peddle by.

Good for nutrition: a grave in the rice field

I didn't have much trouble with dogs, but that is maybe because they are on many peoples menu so they rather keep a low profile.Like in many countries bad taste and money go hand in hand in Vietnam. This especially concerns the architecture. While there are many characteristic wooden and stone houses, once the people have enough money they have some monstrous concrete structure made, all of them designed obviously by the same mad man. It's hard to describe but just let's say if Liberacy was still alive today even he would doubt to set a food in one of those houses. They are the ultimate in kitsch with a lot of fake marble pillars and the most hallucinant colour combinations. Some time the people apparently don't have enough money to paint the whole house so they only do the facade and leave the rest nice concrete grey. I always thought the Chinese earned the first price for most ugly architecture with their "school of blue windows and white bathroom tiles" but they Vietnamese surpass them easily.

Beautiful Halong Bay

Nowadays American culture is more popular then before:
kids doing some amazing break dancing on a square in Hanoi

So now I'm in China and it's amazing how different people are again. So shy in Laos, outgoing in Vietnam and here in China most of the time you just get a blank stare, if they look at you at all (even if you are the first long nosed barbarian they see in real live). Not much greeting going on here. Well that's okay, can't greet everybody here right? I mean is over 1 billion people living here, I would get a bit tired from it. So they are much more indifferent although I had also situations I was in internet shops with loads of people following every movement I did on the keyboard. Apparently it's also very funny for Chinese when they hear a foreigner say hello. They will say hello to you and when you say hello back they start laughing like it's the funniest thing they heard in years. Mmh Chinese humor, I don't know. Of course they are all very happy that they host the Olympic games this year (it's quite a hype). And they probably all think it's very rude and mean of those Tibetans that they want to disturb that. Well what can I say? Maybe electro shock therapy works against all the shit that has been put in their head all their live.
The Chinese are hard working people. They don't only work hard, also long. On the countryside you see people working the land who in Holland would already be locked up in a retirement home. Not here though, they literally work till the grave where they become fertiliser (also here are the graves often in the rice paddies). They plough the land while carrying a grandchild on their back. Many old people walk like they are still picking rice, so bended are their backs.
I will fly back to Holland on the 21st of May to start working on the bicycle taxi again. It seems my life is revolving around bicycles nowadays. So this probably will be my last mail, but I hope I will be writing you new mails next winter from South America.

Kurt

Hmm, this gonna be a long one, since I found some another old email:

Hello, this will be the last message of this trip, written from the city of Amsterdam. Which means I made it back home alive. I am very lucky to have found a reasonably priced room in Amsterdam Oost and I started to work on the bike-taxi again with a lot of enthusiasm.

Some facts about the trip: I cycled about 5500 km with a top speed of 70 km and the longest distance in a day 127 km, I had a few flat tyres, broken spokes and one broken chain, got hit by a car twice (one of which was just a scrape) and once by a bat and almost hit a cow while going down a hill at 35 km per hour. That's enough facts about the cycling, now some facts about China and its many inhabitants. First of all I want to note that many people in Holland consider the Chinese to be strange or weird. We even say "rare chinees" which means strange Chinese person. But if you consider that strange behaviour is the opposite of normal behaviour and that normal behaviour is considered the behaviour of the majority of the people then actually the 18 million people in Holland are the strange ones, compared to 1.3 billion Chinese. So in that sense you can say on a global level normal behaviour is found in the countries with the biggest population: India and China. It makes you think doesn't it? Some of the normal behaviour I noticed while I was in China:

- It is either a fashion or probably just for convenience to walk around in your pyjamas on the street. Sometimes I saw people in nice matching pyjama suits strolling the street.

- Some other fashion news I have is for parents: in China the babies and little children walk around in pants with holes in them, so when they have to do peepee or kaka they don't shit or wet their pants. It looks very convenient. Fortunately they don't have these pants for adults.

- The women take a lot of care over their appearance. It's only too bad that many seem to lack any sense of taste.

A image from the old China

- Apparently half the population is deaf or they don't know how to turn up the volume level of their cell phones, because cell phones are in general not used to talk in but to shout at.

and one from the new China

- In Shanghai it's fun to ride the subway if you want to practise your rugby techniques. Instead of making space for the passengers who want to go out, the people who want to go in block the door and the moment the door opens all try to get in as fast as possible (even if there aren't any free seats anymore). There is a saying that civilisation is just a tiny layer; having used the subway in Shanghai, I'm convinced of this. Better grease your elbows when you take the subway (or put some pins on them).

For praticing your rugby techniques: the subway in Shanghai.
But better not with the guy in the red who was quite big for Chinese standards.

- For the food adventurers, China is paradise. Everything is eaten: from the dick of a donkey (for increased potency) to the feet of chickens. And what to think of a meal called "floating bladder"? Mjammie he? The most extreme thing I ate was pork intestine, but this was in a vegetarian restaurant and so not really the intestines of a pig. It's hard to be a vegetarian here since many people cook in pork fat and they use chicken extract as a flavouring. I did a cooking course and asked what I should use instead of chicken extract since I'm a vegetarian. "Just put some extra salt" was the answer.

- Because of the Olympics the government is trying to ban spitting. But of course you cannot just get rid of age old traditions so you can still hear the scraping of the throat (for some reason this has to be done very loudly) followed by a spit in many places.

- The Chinese have a bit of a bad rep for occupying Tibet and I have to say I didn't meet one Chinese who said Tibet should be an independent country, except for my friend in Hong Kong (but Hong Kong Chinese are very, very different from the Chinese people from the mainland). It's a touchy subject which I decided to avoid discussing since they always see you as the misinformed (that's funny) stranger who doesn't understand the topic. But on average they are not such bad and evil people, although they do tend to like karaoke.

- Chinese are in general very nationalistic people, they are proud of their country (including Tibet and Taiwan of course) and their long history and culture. Only too bad that long history in culture kind of took a dip. Present day culture is not something to be proud of. Interesting Chinese bands are very rare also when you think of the amount of people living there. Although I can recommend Er shou mei gui (Second hand roses). Since the "Let a hundred flowers bloom" campaign in the 50's the party doesn't take any criticism, so artists are very careful, although I saw some "reactionary art" in a Shanghai gallery with propaganda like paintings of soldiers waving the little red book while sucking on pacifiers. So there are some interesting artists in the big cities, but considering the size of the population it's on a really small scale.

- The military is, not surprisingly for an authoritarian regime, strongly represented. On tv you see many army soaps with sometimes crying soldiers (soldiers have feelings too!!), if you zap there is a big chance you see a concert of army brass bands (soldiers are culturally minded too!!!) and the army even has news reports in which you see the presenter (of course in uniform) talk about the latest news concerning fighter jets or tanks. (This is no joke!)

Chinese propaganda movie: Comrade Ping is watching you!

- They are very surprised to see a left handed person. When they see me write or eat, they always make remarks and act like they never saw something like that before. Because in the school where I was staying we ate communal on small tables I sometimes had chopstick fights with the person sitting left from me.

- Chinese people like to sit on small chairs.

- The Chinese government is blaming Western media for being manipulative and coloured. I have to say that considering the events in Tibet indeed there was some manipulation by some Western media. But it really is a case of "the pot calling the kettle black": in general, reading the newspaper or watching the English spoken news on CCTV9 makes you wanna throw up.

- Concerning the naming of rock formations in National Parks the Chinese have a vivid imagination and they use very poetic names. I went to one National Park which had amazing sandstone rocks that were eroded into pillars which together looked like a kind of stone forest. Unfortunately the park resembled an amusement park and was very overcrowded with many Chinese lining up to pose for pictures of course making the V sign while doing that. What to think of the following names of stone formation which not even being stoned out of your mind you could see in it: "Five ladies visiting the Generalissimo", "The supernatural hawk guarding the whip", "Commenting freely on a dominant position", "The god of longevity welcoming guest" and so on.

Wulingyuan national park: enjoy the eroded rocks among
thousands of Chinese who all want to pose in the picture
doing the v sign and sign karaoke on the mountain

- Concerning the hair growing out of moles: this should not be cut or pulled out, but grown long, apparently it is a sign of longevity. It really is a disgusting sight.

For a slideshow of Laos click here
For a slideshow of Vietnam click here
For a slideshow of China click here

Thailand 2008

2010-01-12T11:07:00.000-08:00

Rude and to direct, that is not something you can say about the Thai people. They are anything but that. Overly civilised is more what comes in mind. This is the 4th time I come to Thailand and I have to say it's also not in my top 10. Travelling in Thailand is convenient but also a bit boring. Actually for me a country is satisfying if I can take a lot of pictures. So far, in the 3 weeks that I'm here I have 3 or 4 pictures that I like, which is not that much. Also Thai people are quite introvert, so you don't have much interaction with the local people. Unlike a country like India, where there is always somebody to bother you, the people here leave you alone.

The duck, the budha and the king. This is on the
premises of a temple, I still don't understand
what Donald Duck was doing there.

I am now in Chiang Mai, Thailand's second biggest city. But what a difference with Bangkok: Chiang Mai is much more relaxed, almost no high buildings, a lot of quiet backstreets. There are many bars with sometimes some good live bands. Providing it's not Thai music they play which ranges from pretty bland music to music that resembles the sound of a cat being strangled played backwards with various speed. I arrived here on the 31th of december to celebrate the new year. When I wanted to go to the city just to do that the hotel owner asked if I wanted to drink a glass of whiskey. Well, it didn't stay with one glass. Being more a beer and wine drinker the whiskey brought me to new heights (or lows) of drunkenness. So much that when I woke up to pee I couldn't find the door of my room and I apparently thought it was a good idea to pee in my bidon. The next morning I woke up, remembering nothing and finding this strange liquid in my bidon.
My birthday was spent much more serene: camping in the mountains with the soothing sounds of different birds singing happy birthday to me. I was supposed to do a loop in the mountains. But for the first time I had to give in to the gravity (very steep hills), also the humidity didn't work in my benefit. The views weren't that rewarding either: most of the time you didn't see anything because of the trees, so what's the use of going in the mountains then? So I decided to hitchhike half of it. Pick up trucks are the most common cars in Thailand so it wasn't a problem to hitchhike with the bicycle.

Birthday present from mother nature

Although most people are really nice off course also some Thai people see the farang (Westerner) as walking banknotes. In one guesthouse I had the following conversation when I wanted to pay for the food: She: "That's 70 baht". me: "No, it's 50, 30 for the food and 20 for the coke". She (to defend herself): "I didn't know what you had". Me: "So you just say something?". She: "never mind". It's always wise to check the bill but that is also because it looks like most people never learned to count in school. For instance if you go to a shop and buy 2 things, one is 20 baht, the other 5 baht some shopkeepers will take their calculator and use it to calculate the price.

The amazing white temple near Chiang Rai, in the front
you see hell with all the hands of the unlucky souls
raised up, you can give alms to them.

Inside is a murial of september 11

The Thai love their monarchy up to a point that the king is considered some semi god. What is it that in some countries the people are so in love with their royal family? In Jordan I even met a young guy who had pictures of the funeral of the previous king on his cellphone. I don't think there is anybody in Holland who has pictures of the funeral of prince Klaus on his cellphone. I only heard that there was a site for pederasts (problably Holland is the only country where pederasts have a organisation, they even wanted to start a political party) who put pictures of the grandchild of the queen on their site. Also out of "love" for the monarchy.

Floating shrine or whatever for the king

Concerning the dogs I can say that Thailand is a bike friendly country, maybe it's because they are buddhist or maybe because in this heat they can't be bothered chasing you.

Jordan, Israel and Sinai 2007: Shalom/Salaam

2010-01-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

Hello, here a message for everybody who was afraid that I would have been kidnapped by, or joined some fundamentalist group. Well, I wasn't, didn't yet. The journey started good with me having the wrong flight date, luckily they could change it at the airport. So I landed at 1.20 in the morning in Jordan. After having put my bike together I set out for a nightly journey. It was weird to cycle in the dark in this unknown land. On the way I was greeted several times by some not so friendly dogs of which one was,I think, a chihuahua. Thank god dogs are stupid and not so tactical, who else attacks you while making a lot of noise? So I could easily scare them off with my headlight and some barking of my own. Anyway the behaviour of our four legged friends almost made me change my attitude towards eating meat: maybe next time when I'm in China I will try dog.
I arrived in the city of Madaba early in the morning. Madaba is famous for it's many mosaic floors. For the rest there is not so much to see, so next day I left. On the way I was harassed by some stone throwing kids. Well yeah, I thought: it's the middle east, it's all part of the experience. My next destination was mount Nebo. For those of you who are not aware with the bible: this is the point from where Moses, after miraculously getting lost for 40 years, finally saw the promised land. Unfortunately he himself was not allowed to enter, he had some little quarrel with god about how to get water from a rock, and died on the mountain, but he was already 120 years old which is quite amazing if not unbelievable.

From mount Nebo to the Dead sea is a nice route, since mount Nebo is a mountain (although not that high) and the Dead sea the lowest point on earth (400 mtr. below sea level). It was here that I broke my speed record: 67 km per hour which is quite fast with a fully packed bike. I was lucky the road was in good condition. As you all might know the Dead Sea is very salty. Normal seawater has around 3 to 4% salt, Dead Sea water contains over 30% salt. The Dead sea is supplied with water mainly by the River Jordan, this water is locked into the geological shape of the landscape and evaporates off the surface at the rate of millions a litre a day. This leaves a haze over it which filters out harm full UVB sun rays, so while at the Dead Sea you can tan, but you can't burn. The Dead Sea shore is populated by a few fancy 4 and 5 star hotels which use up big quantities of fresh water from a nearby nature reserve to water their lawns, flowers and trees (which would normally not be there) and to fill up the bathtubs of their guests. A bit dubious if you ask me. I camped at the less fancy Amman beach where they still charged me enough for putting up my tent. Jordan is not as cheap as I imagined/hoped for.

After having floated a few times in the Dead Sea water I went to Israel. Being already involuntarily baptized I skipped the baptism site where Jesus was probably baptized by John the Baptist. After a few hours cycling I got at the border. Ah that goes fast I thought: I will be in Jerusalem in no time. Well think again. Israeli border crossings are not the most fast ones in the world. Off course you and your luggage are being scanned. Then you have to step in some machine and something is being sprayed on you (I still don't know what that was, the people there couldn't or didn't want to say what it was) and then you get to immigration. There are some soldiers (all young girls, I have to say that Israel has the most charming army in the world) who ask you some questions. And there it went wrong: I guess I gave the wrong answers. First of all they asked me what I wanted to do in Israel and where I was staying. I said I would stay with friends (Oren which I know from travelling in China and the rest people from hospitality club), so they ask me names, I gave Orens name. And who is this other person then? You said you stayed with friends? I explain the concept of hospitality club (it's a website where you can find accommodation with members of this site in almost every country) but they didn't understand or didn't want to understand. Then there was also a misunderstanding about how long I wanted to stay. They said they would do a security check on me. They asked me in which country I have been before. I didn't want to keep anything behind so I mentioned all the countries I've been, some of which do not have a very good relation with Israel (like Iran, Pakistan, Yemen and Sudan). So they do another security check on me. Every time they come to me I think they want to let me through but they come to ask another question, sometimes the same question (they pretended to forgot the answer to check if I would say the same again), it's very frustrating, in the end I have to wait 4 hours before I can go. Well yeah, I think: it's the middle east, it's all part of the experience. At least now I can understand a bit the frustration the Palestinians have at the checkpoints. The difference is that the army people treated me in a gentle way, this is not what always happens to the Palestinians as I understand.

Because of terrorist attacks there are a lot of

guards for shops and public buildings.

It was too late to cycle to Jerusalem so I decided to split a cab with some other tourist who got held up at the border. Good that I did because it was mostly uphill. Having done the bicycle taxi job in Amsterdam I thought I would be fit enough for cycling on bike. I found out that on same level roads and downhill it's not a problem. The problem starts when the roads go uphill. Although Israel and Jordan don't have high mountains, they have roads which are very steep. Until now it has been mostly downhill, but I will go to the Golan height (it's called height so I guess it will be uphill) and back to Jordan so I expect some pretty rough times for my legs.

Talking to g*d

Tefillin - Just do it! In Jerusalem there are many orthodox jews
that try to convince non practicing jews (like the pot head in this picture)
to "light up their Jewish spark" by doing tefillin (praying)

After all this spirituality it was time to look for a more down to earth place. Tel Aviv is such a place. It's beautiful in it's own way with a lot of Bauhaus buildings which badly need renovation. Actually it's the only city in the world with so many bauhaus buildings. There is good night life, interesting neighbourhoods (especially around the old bus station which looks like a scene from a Charles Bukowski book) and pleasant beaches. After Tel Aviv I went to Haifa. Not much to see here except the Bahai gardens (another religious group who have a very known temple in Delhi in the shape of a lotus) and some Druze villages. (yet another religious group which is said to begun as a offshoot of the ismaili sect of islam).

Street scene in Tel Aviv

Charles Bukowski would have loved it:
the area around the old busstation in Tel Aviv

Since I also want to bike through the West bank I ask around if it's safe there. One person told me it's okay, I asked him about the changes on being kidnapped. His answer was not so reassuring: He told me I have a bigger change to get hit by a car then getting kidnapped. Until now I haven't seen so much crazy driving but everybody tells me people drive like crazy here and there are a lot of accidents. Well I've already done the most busy roads so I guess it will be okay. Driving around here makes me appreciate Holland more concerning bicycling: it's bike heaven: different roads for bikes, car drivers who are used to you and stop for you, it all seems so normal but when you get out of Holland it's exotic. Here you have to go over main roads and highways because there is no other option with cars driving past you with high speed, very annoying.

So what does Israeli people talk about in general? Well I didn't hear many conversations about world domination yet, but I heard quite some conversations about humus. So I guess that's what people talk about here, like we in Holland always talk about the weather, they talk about the humus. Talk about the humus, the food is great here: humus, tahina, fallafel, shakshuka: all very nice and cheap. Although I'm considered to be a humus blasphemist because I also like the supermarket humus. As you can see I already took over some local customs.
Well, that's it for now, I will leave tomorrow for Nazareth (where the world's most famous carpenter lived), then on to lake Kinneret or as it's also known the sea of Galilee (where he presumably walked over the water), after that the Golan Height.

Kurt

last time I wrote I was in Haifa. After Haifa I went to Nazareth, famous for his divine carpenter. On the outskirts of Nazareth I was taking some pictures of a garage there, the light was very beautiful, when some men approached me and asked me why I was taking pictures of the garage. I tried to explain but they didn't understand why somebody in Jehovah's name was taking pictures of a garage. They wanted to see the pictures I took and asked me if I saw a truck. I said no and started to realize that their business was, although they being Jewish, not completely "kosher".
The next day I left for Kinneret lake also known as the sea of Galilee where J.C. apparently walked over the water and did some miracle with one fish and one bread. On my way to my host (I'm a member of hospitalityclub.org, couchsurfing.org and warmshowers.org ) a bat flew against my helmet (which I normally never use) but for the rest nothing dramatically happened. By the way: these websites I mentioned are a excellent way of saving money (you stay for free at peoples homes) and to meet friendly, hospitable local people and to get to know the local culture. I can recommend it. I left some stuff at my host and went north to go to the Golan height. At the end of the first day I just got to the beginning of the height. It was getting late and I was looking for a place to pitch my tent. Well, there was enough empty space, the only problem was that all these empty spaces where fenced off and had signs saying "minefield" (from the 1967 war) Finally I found a space just before it got dark and decided to go to bed early (bedtime for me is quite often at around 7). After a while I was woken up by some noise next to my tent. Some animal was making some loud breathing noises. I realised it must have been a boar or wild pig. It didn't sound to friendly, a little bit annoyed even and my fear won over my curiosity so I didn't have a peak out of the tent. Next day I saw a dead one next to the road (I'm by now used to see all kinds of road kills, the smell is harder to get used to though) and I was glad I didn't open my tent, these animals are huge! I first thought it was a cow. The climb up the Golan Height wasn't as hard as I expected (or am I just turning into some kind of bike machine?) and unfortunately the views wee not so spectacular as I hoped for, so I only stayed one day. Scenery wise Israel is not so great, but who knows, I go to the Negev dessert later, maybe that will be better.

date Jan 19, 2008 8:30 AM
subject From the land of Moab to the land of the smile

Hello, I moved from the dry and arid lands of Moab and Israel to the lush and green land of the smile, Thailand. To be honest not so much has happened but I will try to put something in a story anyway, maybe make up something.

Dog 2 D

In Sinai I cycled to St. Catherina, the village from where you can hike up to Mount Moses. Having done that before and remembering all the christian pilgrims (there where a lot of them) bursting into psalms at the crack of dawn, I passed. I just wanted to ride the route which I remember was very nice. On the way I got filled till my nostrils with tea almost every time I bumped into a Bedouin (if you can live on tea alone you can travel for free in this part of the world). After that I went back to Israel. Of course I was hold up at the border again by some annoying border guards. I guess it's the bearded picture in my passport that makes them suspicious. From the border I cycled through the Negev desert which at some points was very beautiful. On the second or thirth day there where some fighter planes flying over very low and in the not so far distance I could hear the rattling of machine guns. What's this I thought? Israel got itself involved in another war? No, it's just that the Negev is one big playground for the Israeli army where the boys and girls can play with their deadly toys which include clusterbombs. Any "civilised" country doesn't use this kind of bombs, except Israel. However there is one country I know where the money you save for your pension plan is used to buy shares in clusterbomb manufacturers as a newspaper reported half a year ago. It's Holland. Am I glad I don't save any money for my pension. Of course I knew that they where just practising, I just wanted to spice things up a bit.

Cliffs in the Negev desert

Set Boker in the morning, being in a Ansel Adams mood again

After 5 or 6 days I finally reached civilisation again, I could notice it by the plastic garbage lining the road. I visited a friend I met in Nepal who lives on a kibbutz. For those who don't know what a kibbutz is: it's a community of people who work (mostly in agriculture) and live together started up in the beginning of the last century by immigrants from Russia. It used to be so that everybody earned the same amount of money (so somebody working in the canteen would earn as much as for instance a doctor) and that many things where free and communal. (food, creche). Nowadays most kibbutzes changed and you have to pay for the food and housing and their is a difference in wages, although not so big as in the "normal society". I visited another kibbutz near Gaza which lies in the range of the qassam rockets (the rockets fired from Gaza which miraculously miss their targets mostly). Here they still had the free food canteen. I would sign up for something like this: free food everyday and you can take as many plates as you want: paradise. Of course I only saw the benefits of the kibbutz: I never did any labour.

Heaving had some experience cycling on the highway in Israel before (not recommendable) I decided to take the bus to Tel Aviv. So I almost did a full loop (+/- 2500 km) of Israel, Jordan and Sinai except for the last 100 km.

Although Israel is not in my top 10 of favorite countries it's still a nice destination, especially if you are interested in archeology, want to have fierce discussions about politics or if you are a Jesus freak. Sometimes some over religious tourists go bananas when they come to Jerusalem (Jerusalem syndrome), overwhelmed by emotions they start to think they are the messiah himself and start to act funny, sometimes this ends in tragedy. Concerning the Israeli people I can say I was welcomed with great hospitality and warmth (also in Jordan and Sinai). Everybody who has experience with Israeli travellers just out of the army will be pleasantly surprised. Of course you meet sometimes rude and a bit to direct people, but at least they are themselves.

Jordan 2007: Rum the magnificent.... vast, echoin and godlike

2010-01-12T08:54:00.000-08:00

A certain Lawrence of A. wasn't talking about his favorite alcoholic beverage when he wrote these words in his book "The 7 pillars of wisdom". No, he was referring to the area in which I find myself now. The desert area in the south of Jordan with huge sandstone rock amids the often reddish sand. One feels small between these giants and you get a feel of the distances by walking in the wadis (valleys) linking the mountains.

Wadi Rum, indeed vast

A mountain might look very near at first sight, but once you start walking towards through the often loose sand you find out that it isn't. I had this once when I had to walk back after a beautiful sunset. I was happy to accept a ride (even if it was only the last few kilometers) with some Bedouins in a 4x4 complete with a Bedouin Disco Sound System on board. When I get out of the car my legs where like jelly and I made some kind of spastic dance and it wasn't because I was still hearing the infectious camel stumpin' desert disco classics.

In the mobile Bedouin disco

After having camped at the lake of Galilee I left for the border with Jordan. Leaving Israel was a lot easier then entering so I was able to do the route (south down the Jordan valley) back up but then on the Jordan side of the border. I made the mistake to ask a guy who stopped me to ask if the time was the same as in Israel. He started a fierce full monologue about Israel, bringing in Afghanistan and Iraq. I just nodded and kept my mouth shut. The Israel - Jordan - Syria border is heavily guarded (it's a bit different then the 3 landenpoint in Limburg), you are not allowed to take pictures (which is to bad, because the scenery is beautiful), off course I managed to take a few. Apparently they have never heard of Google earth. Almost every few hundred metre there is a checkpoint.

Some things I noticed about Jordan are that most businesses seem to be garages and barbershops. There are plenty of both of them. The garages don't seem to do much good work though: many cars blare out thick black toxic clouds that I inhaled frequently.
Bicycles are virtually non existing partly because of the steep hills and possibly also because most people don't want to get tired. So as a cyclist you get a lot of reactions. Sometimes I wonder who is the tourist attraction here. Many reactions are positive: you hear a lot of "welcome to Jordan" and people sound there car horns (some have stupid melodies) and wave at you. I had one time that a car stopped next to me to look (on the highway!). However some reactions are not that positive: kids throwing stones for one thing. One day I was in a bad mood a got of my bike and just nailed the fucker to the ground (he was of course smaller then me), he didn't see that coming ha ha. Not that it helped though: his friends kept on going throwing stones. Luckily they are not so good at it then there colleagues on the other side of the Jordan river. Or kids acting coming close to your bike and acting stupid. I found a nice solution for that. Nowadays every time before I enter a village I clear my throat to make some ammunition in my mouth. But I have to say it has been a few days since I had any problem with the local kids, I guess it's a regional thing. In the south most of the kids behave in a decent way.

It is (was) election time and people get very enthusiastic about it. They put posters almost everywhere, also on road signs which made navigation sometimes a bit difficult. Also they go in convoys with their cars and make as much noise as possible, hanging out of the car, holding posters of the one they want to get elected. Often young people, even preteens do this. They can't vote and I wonder they know where this man is standing for of which they hold his portrait.

Election time in Jordan

So Jordan is more or less a democratic country. This however doesn't mean there is freedom of religion. You cannot openly criticise or question Islam. You can do this among your friends, but you will loose many of them. This is what my host in Amman, a brave and kind man, found out. He dared to question his (ex)religion and talk about this with his friends and because of this lost many of them. The social pressure on issues like that is really big. Also like in many Islamic countries the Saudi funded Wahabism sect of Islam is winning ground. These "Wahabi's" claim to be the "real Muslims" and basically want to go back to the time of Muhammed and everybody with them. Many of the women who wore western clothes, even mini skirts, are now walking around with a headscarf or a black bed cover.

I wrote about Jordan's bad mechanics, well also the people who drive the cars could do better. In some causes it looks that they passed their driving exam if they could find the ignition. Some of them don't seem to understand that when they pass me they should keep some distance, it's quite scary if a car speeds by only half a metre from you or cutting you off. I even had one car hitting my mirror. In the dessert you apparently don't need a driving license: I saw many Bedouin kids driving a 4x4.

On the issues with dogs I can report that I haven't been bitten yet, although I came close to it a few times. Normally if a dog approaches you it's enough to to raise your voice, look at it or stop cycling. However one time it came close it would have been a big mistake to have stopped cycling. I had to put all my energy in keeping in front of 3 big, bloodthirsty hell hounds of which 2 came as close as half a metre. I think I will get rabbis shots in Thailand. I can however also report a cause where a dog turned overnight from a going-crazy-when-he-sees-a-cyclist kind of dog to a I-walk-quietly-with-you-while-I-wag-my-tail kind of character. I however went downhill in Wadi Mujib (Jordan's grand canyon) so it didn't last long.

Wadi Mujib, downhill in about 10 minutes, uphill about 3 to 4 hours

Jordan's nature is beautiful especially the scenery around the Kings highway. Beautiful scenery however also equals hard work to get from place to place since it involves climbing many steep hills and wadis.
Off course I also visited Petra, the famous Nabetian capital cut out of the mountain which is accessible through a siq. A siq is a gorge at some points only 1 metre wide. Amazingly strong natural forces just broke the mountain in 2 and the flow of water did the rest, making the walls very smooth and at some places it looked like the slides of swimming pools which they can easily become if you are there in the rain season and a flash flood occurs.

The small Siq through which I crawled

Hotels in Jordan are quite expensive. Like in Karak I paid 10 euro for a room with a shower in which the previous tenant apparently shaved of his/her pubic hair. I don't mind staying in sleazy, dirty hotels but the price should correspond with it. So I do as much (wild) camping as possible to keep the costs down. Food is quite cheap, except of course in the tourist restaurants.

Between writing this mail and sending it there was quite some time, I'm now in Dahab, Sinai visiting a friend who I met there 3 years ago and enjoying the Bedouin hospitality.

Kurt

More pictures of Jordan can be found on my flickr site

China 2005: Greatings from the socialist shopping paradise

2010-01-12T08:51:00.000-08:00

Ni hao, it's been quiet a while since I last wrote. Last time I was in Shigatse, now I'm about to leave China.

After all this trouble to get around in Tibet travelling in China was peanuts. First I went to Yubong village. I was also there 4 years ago and to my relief not much had changed. So no big resorts were build: it was still the same quiet, friendly village (no cars!) surrounded by glaciers, waterfalls, ice caped peaks and moshy forests. Some trees look like out of a fairy tale with elves hair hanging from their branches while other trees look very spooky as if they want to grab you with their branches. After Yubong I went to Zhongdian. Also there I was 4 years ago but here many things had changed. 4 years ago the old city was maybe not so interesting but at least it was authentic. Now they were "restoring" a lot of houses. Restoration in the Chinese sense means: stripping the whole house down and put in some new woodwork which maybe looks nice (if you like tacky things) but has nothing to do with the original. 4 years ago there was not 1 tourist hotel in the old city, now there are maybe 20 or so and of course a lot of restaurants, shops and bars.

The forest around Yubong village has a spooky beauty

With domestic tourism picking up I think China will be one big amusement park in 10 years. Already now you have places where you can pose sitting on a yak or dressed up in a sheepskin jacket waving a sword while sitting on a horse. Or you can pose with some local beauties in traditional costume, or like in Longshen, which is in the Guinness book of world records for being the village where the women have the longest hair, the women come up to you saying: "Long hair, long hair, you take picture". And in another place some women were walking around with a goat in their arms and they persisted I take a picture of that. I guess the majority of the Chinese tourist like to see this kind of things while they are lead around, all wearing the same yellow cap, by a tour guide holding a flag or a umbrella. This kind of "totalitarian tourism" gives me the creeps.

The long hair village from above

Chicken looking at the future

I met up with my mother and brother and we visited some cities in Yunnan, after that I went to Yangshou where I spent the last 3 months teaching English. I liked the job, it was the best job I ever had, but maybe it had something to do with the fact I only worked for 10 hours a week. I teached to teenagers and early people in their early twenties. In every other country teaching teenagers would be horrible, but in China the people respect authority so it wasn't that hard.

Fisherman around Yangshou

Because I only stayed in one place I also got to know some Chinese people. And more important what they think and feel. I consider most Chinese people a product of their government. You would be amazed about the effects that years of brainwashing in school and through the media have on somebodies mind. Sometimes I had the feeling I was talking to zombies. Always the same opinions that they learned in school, it really disgusted me. The people are not really encouraged to think (critically) and I have to say: it pays off. Politics is not a favorite topic, especially not with somebody with so "radical" viewpoints concerning Tibet and Taiwan like me.
Another thing I found out is that Chinese people don't understand the concept of irony. Many times my ironic remarks were taken for serious. Sometimes it also was the other way around: when I was making a serious comment people thought I was joking. While in Yangshou I started a movie club, which is not easy in a country where favorite titles include movies like "Gone with the wind", "Roman holiday" or "Titanic". So you have to be careful what you show. I had a woman walking away during "Team America" because there was to much violence and sex in the movie. It's a puppet movie for god's sake! Okay it's from the directors of South Park but still.

Amazing view from Moon Hill near Yangshou. This was about the
3th or 4th time I've been there. My Ansel Adams period

I also found many people very rational, not much emotions there. Like on the subject of marriage: the most important "characteristic" a man should have is money. I see so many beautiful girls walking around with fat, ugly guys, it makes me regret I don't have any money :-) On the whole I think Chinese people are a bit to obsessed by money and career. Long gone are the days of Mao. Thank god for that, to bad that his hardcore communism is replaced by empty hardcore consumerism. They still like him though, no bad words please about the man who is responsible for tens of millions dead comrades and counter revolutionaries. Better focus on those evil Japanese. They are still hated by many Chinese people including the youth for the excesses they committed during the second world war. It's good to have a common enemy, ask any regime or government, they will agree.
Maybe I'm a bit harsh on them, anyway besides being brainwashed materialistic zombies they are nice and friendly people who can cook great food. Also the people in general don't have much attitude, something I can appreciate.

I was planning to work for the school till the end of January, and I would have done that if it wasn't for the friendly Chinese person who solved my problem of carrying a heavy laptop around by stealing it from my room. Bye bye 2 months of pictures and work. You can understand I was very pleased and grateful for this. Another reason for leaving earlier was that I found out that the school I was working at was run by incompetent, greedy frauds who were reluctant to pay me. Just one day before I left (I had already bought my train ticket) I got paid the money of the 3 weeks they hadn't paid me. Only because I went into a strike and told them I would only start working if they would pay me this money, which I didn't. Sometimes you have to play it nasty.

A fine example of Chinglish

Tomorrow I will take the bus to friendly Laos, spent some weeks there and in Thailand and then back to Holland.

Xingjiang and Tibet 2005: Something to celebrate on the roof of the world?

2010-01-12T08:29:00.000-08:00

Tashi dele from the roof of the world! Tibet is an amazing country (not a province). The scenery is absolutly stunning: wide plains with rolling and sweeping hills in all kinds of colours. One time I had a ride over a vast plain, passing groups of yaks and wild asses. On the left some hills and on the right, dwarfed by the distance, the many peaks of the Nepal himalayas stretching out for maybe 100 to 150 km, an awesome sight. Not only the land is beautiful: up in the sky amazing clouds are formed which take on many colours at sunset.

A Uyghyr woman with her child in Kashgar

I came into Tibet via Xinjiang province, another "autonomous" region of the Chinese Imperialistic State. I stayed quite some time in Kashgar, recovering from dysentery which I got in Pakistan. Dysentery is a great way of losing weight. I think I lost around 7 kilo in about 1,5 week. In Kashgar I went to the hospital, gladfully there was a retired man, who so bored out of his mind that he visits the hospital every day, who spoke some English, nobody else did. They gave me drips and medicine, but I think I got some other form of diarrhea as well because the symptoms didn't change much. From Kashgar I went to Kargilik, where in order to get into Tibet illegaly I had to hide for 2 days from the police. This sounds more exciting then it really is. (I went through all my Simpsons episodes on my mediaplayer in these 2 days. A personal record!)

Sheep especially breeded for the lonely sheppard
(check out their asses) on the market in Kashgar

The Xingjiang - Tibet highway is the highest "highway" in the world with several passes over 5000 meter. The high in highway has more to do with the altitude then with the state of the road, which is crap.
A good torture technic for people with a little bit of taste must be the continues playing of Chinese music. The traditional music sounds like the tape is funky (in case it's from cd you know it's the music), the rocksongs contain all the cliches imaginable including the ever crying guitar and the popsongs are so sweet it makes you a diabetic instantly. Then you have the Chinese techno which is to horrible to mention let alone listen to. And in Tibet I heard a crossover between traditional music and techno which was at least quite amusing. I even heard the Tibetan Tom Waits.
Anyway the busride Kargilik - Tibet took 49 hours (thank god the music wasn't played non stop). On the last day the bus first got stuck for a few hours. A bit later the the bus stopped suddenly, I looked out of the window and saw 2 tyres next to the bus. My first reaction was: "Who put these 2 tyres there?" (I hadn't slept much), next moment I realized what happened: the tyres had almost got off the axe so we where stuck for another few hours, nice! An army truck picked us up to get a flat tyre a bit later. We have diner and then some young suicidal/homicidal soldier drives us to the next town. The ride feels more like a 3 hour non stop rodeo ride but the view is amazing.

After having arrived in Ali I got to the PSB office to pay the fine for getting in Tibet illegaly. This after the advice of some people I met in Pakistan and went the same way before me. Because I want to do the Mount Kailash trek and they told me you need a permit from the PSB for that. In the PSB office the officer says that since 2 weeks they changed the rules and you don't need the permit anymore. But I do need to pay the 30 euro fine. AAUUWW!

One of the biggest crimes the Chinese commited in Tibet (apart from suppressing the Tibetans and killing a lot of them) is the construction of these ugly Chinese towns (what do they have with white bathroom tiles?). Ali is no exception so I'm happy to leave to do the Kailash kora. A kora is a budhist or Bonpo (with : on the first o) pilgrimage. Like all religions Tibetan Budhism is surrounded with superstition (isn't religion one big superstition?). The Tibetans believe it's good for their karma to walk around holy things (lakes, mountains, monasteries, whatever). The budhist do it clockwise, the bon followers (Bon is the pre-budhist shamanistic Tibetan religion from which Tibetan budhisme took a lot of rituals and believes) anti clockwise. Some do the kora 1 time, some do it 13 times and some 108 times. Some even do it prostrating themselves (no they don't sell their bodies on the way). Prostration means they lie down at full length with their arms stretched over their heads, then stand up, place their feet where their hands ended up and repeat the process. So the 50 km which the kora encompass will take up to 3 weeks this way. Well, if you have nothing to do anyway...
Being the most holy mountain of Asia (also to Indians who do the kora in Indian fashion: in a bus and on horseback) you would think the pilgrims thread it a bit different then the rest of their country. Unfortunatly empty instant noodle packages, plastic bottles and even wet cell batteries (what a morons) can be found lying everywhere. And it's not only uneducated people doing this like somebody told me, I see everybody littering. A very frustrating sight which I see in many countries I visited.
On one part of the kora people leave some clothing behind as symbole for starting a new life. I even saw some bra's left behind, that must have pleased the gods.

Pilgrims prostrating themselves, this way their
pilgrimage takes about 3 weeks instead of the usual 2 days

Since public transport, like showers and decent public toilets (the few there are can hardly be described as decent and are very "public"), is virtually non-existent in West Tibet I had to hitch hike my way out of there. I was very lucky to meet an Italian tour group which had a truck transporting all the matrasses, tents and food. Especially the matrasses came in very handy on the bumpy roads. After 3 days of doing little distance (approx. 200 km per day which actually is quite a lot having done other rides later) and sneaking through 2 police checkpoints (most people are not allowed to take foreigners in their vehicle, we could poison them with our decadent Western liberal mind or something) I could finally take a public bus (is cheaper then hitchhiking) to Shigatse, the second biggest town in Tibet and the site of the Tashilhunpo monastery, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama (the second biggest man in Tibetan budhisme after the Dalai Lama). The current Panchen Lama is under house arrest somewhere in China since his 6th year (the Chinese are such sweethearts) and the Chinese appointed a more suitable kid (the son of some Communist Party members).

The girl in the back has yak milk in a yak stomach
and by moving the stomach back and forward
all day the milk will turn into nice yak yoghurt

After having destroyed most of the monasteries during the Cultural Revolution the Chinese came to the insight that there is some money to be made out of them (I still don't understand how Communisme could have gotten root in China, I don't think I met more greedy and capitalist people then the Chinese). So monks are allowed to do their thing again and monaseries are getting build up again. In the case of the Tushilhunpo monastery it reaks like a spiritual sell out. If you want to take pictures inside you have to pay 75 yuan (7,5 euro) per hall and video even costs 1500 yuan. That pays them well, those handy cam idiots.

Woman doing a kora around a monastery

Leaving Shigatse proved to be more difficult then expected. While it was perfectly easy to get on the Lhatse - Shigatse bus, foreigners are not allowed to travel in the other way by bus (after a while you really start to like the authorities). So I tried to take the bus for 2 days and then finally decided to use my thumb again. After 3 hours I got a 1 hour drive in a landcruiser, after that I had to wait for 5 hours to travel the last 100 km in the very bumpy and hard back of a mini traktor which took 8,5 hours (so an average speed of a bit more then 10 km per hour). Arriving in Lhatse at 2 o'clock in the night, 2 hotels didn't want to take me in and another smelled of piss, the forth one was finally willing to take me in. The next day I walked past the checkpoint to hitchhike again (the mini traktor driver was going the same way but I didn't fancy going with him after the severe ride the day before in which I suffered some internal bleedings?). Unfortunatly this was not my lucky day and around 7 o'clock I gave up and went back to ugly Lhatse.
Next day I finally get picked up by a bus after waiting for 5 hours and starting to think about buying a bicycle to do the trip on a bike. Luckely I didn't: the road is totally shit. It had rained a lot and this has turned the already bad road in a total mudpool. Even landcruisers get stuck on some parts: 70 km in 7 to 8 hours, nice.

Man doing a kora around a monastery

My goal is to go to Mount Qomolangma base camp a.k.a. Mount Everest base camp. This must be the most easy accesible basecamp in the world. If you want you can get there without walking. I decide to walk the last 8 km which, because of the altitude, are harder then I imagined. Unfortunatly Qomolangma decided not to show herself that particular day and I decide to get drunk (using the altitude as a way to get extra drunk) and that Mount Everest is a bit of a overrated mountain.

Leaving Basecamp is also not easy, well the first part is: you use your ticket for the "Non-pollution" bus (on diesel) but after that its more difficult: only tourist landcruisers on the road and the locals know you have money and not much choice.

I do some more hitchhiking during which I perfect my stone throwing- and walkingstick-balancing-on-index-finger-techniques. The waiting times are incredible: one time 8 hours after which I decide to show some money and what do you think: the first car stops. But the rides are again worth all the suffering.
The walking stick I originally bought to do the Kailash kora. Later on I used it succesfully agains Tibetan dogs, annoying children and cheating Internetshop owners. (I won't go into detail about the latter, but I did hear later from a fellow traveller that he was charged the right price a few days after I "renegotiated" the price I paid before).
"A man's best friend", better call the Tibetan dogs "hellhounds" because that's what most of them are: big, vicious and utterly annoying creatures who sleep during the day and roam the streets at night fighting each other and keeping you from your sleep with their constantly barking. They especially get agressive towards tourist whom smell differently then the Tibetans (thank god for that: the Tibetans are not known for their high standards of personal hygiene; some even have a "yearly bathing ceremony").

Two short rides with 5 minutes waiting time each bring me to Sakya monastery. A very fine monastery with nice monks who give me some candy out of a human skull. The Tibetans also use human bones for music instruments. And funerals are done in the following fashion: the corps is brought upon a hill or mountain. Then some funeral attendents start chopping away at the body ("whacking and hacking" as Gary Falkner would say) and the vultures do the rest. A very ecofriendly though a bit nasty way of dealing with the dead.

Besides sweets from a human skull, I also get treated
to some cacophonic music at Sakya monestary

After Sakya I finally went back to Shigatse where I am now. Having arrived here I couldn't help noticing the many little flags hanging everywhere in the street. But of course: it's the 40th anneversery of the TAR (Tibetan "Autonomous" Region). After being "liberated" of themselve in 1950 and in 1959 of that horrible man the Dalai Lama, 1965 saw the forming of the TAR. According to the Chinese "many happy Tibetans had problems fighting back tears of gratitude at becoming one with the grat motherland". If this all wasn't so sad you could problably laugh at the way the Chinese know how to formulate things. In what kind of reality live these people actually?
Anyway now every house in Shigatse sports the Chinese flag. If they don't the have to pay a fine. Sounds a bit like a forced "celebration" to me. If it already greatly annoyes me, how must the Tibetans then feel?
But Tibetans are high spirited people (and problably more used to all these Chinese nonsense).
Their apperance is much like that of the North American Indians. Not only the skin colour and facial features of some but also their long braided hair and their jewellery (although the Tibetans prefer to wear Cowboy hats). Even their singing (which they do often while travelling or working) is simular to that of the Native Americans so I'm told by an American tourist. They were and many still are a nomadic people so it's not so strange to make the conclusion that they went over and exchanged the yak for the bison a long time ago.

I have to admit that this is kind of a long email. But there were many things to tell, some with a bitter undertone. Even though the local authorities try to do much to annoy the individual budget traveller (they want you to go on expensive landcruiser tours, well maybe I will do that when I'm old and senile) Tibet is one of my favorite countries. But next time I will come back with bicycle and tent.

Kurt

P.s. I found one positive aspect of the Chinese occupation: the availability of delicious Chinese food. The Tibetan food is plain at best.

After Shigatse I went to Lhasa, which was a real disappointment after having heard so much about it. It definitely didn't live up to my expectations. Tibet is not the place where you should go for the cities unless you're interested in ugly architecture and dubious nightlife (karaoke and Chinese pop music).

On the way to Lhasa the driver played the same tape over and over again. Since that trip I'm a big fan of Tibetan techno. I had never heard Tibetan techno (or Yak techno) before so it was a real ear opener. The thing that makes Tibetan techno stand out are the long stretched female voices and the funny macho male vocals. Forget about Goa trance, urban, electro or drum 'n bass: Tibetan techno is the next big thing.

Chinese tourist posing with a calf on the background

In Lhasa I went to the Sega monastery. Here the monks have a daily debate corner. I don't know what they where debating (maybe they where discussing whose turn it was to do the dishes), but things got pretty lively. To stress their point the monks do a funny kind of hand clapping.

"You do the dishes tonight." "No, I won't, I already did them yesterday"

The Mekhong snaking it's way through the deep valleys of East Tibet

From Lhasa I got a 4 day ride through East Tibet. The scenery was again mesmerising: from arid, snowy passes to large forests. I don't think I saw so many tress in my life before as in those few days. In the last part of the trip we went over high mountains with steep valleys cut out by the Mekong river.. The only problem on this trip was that I didn't have a permit. Because of that I couldn't stay in any hotel. The 3th hotel I tried wanted to give me a room but then the guy at the reception made a phone call and gave me the receiver. The voice on the other end asked me where I was from and where I was going. He didn't answer me when I asked him who he was and told me to stay there. I kind of figured out that he was from the PSB (police) and didn't think twice: I quickly left the hotel. After that I got kind of paranoid: everywhere I saw police. When I walked back to the hotel where the drivers and the other tourists (who were Chinese and didn't need a permit) where staying I saw 2 police cars standing in front and at the back of the hotel. Now I really felt like a fugitive. Like in a movie it also started to rain. Luckily enough after a while the 2 cars left and I could sleep in the land cruiser.

India and Pakistan 2005: Looking for OBL on the KKH

2010-01-12T08:23:00.000-08:00

Hello. I'm now in the Karakoram range and on my way to China. To be honest I didn't do much lately: in Mumbai I didn't work as an extra, instead I had a lot of pictures printed, that costed a lot of time. I only went to one hill station, but the sky was so humid: I realized only after a few days there was a mountain on the other side of the valley. Weather in Mumbai was also very humid and hot, I took on average 3 times a day a shower.

Taking relief from the heat at a hill station near Mumbai

Chowpatti beach, the place to spent a free day in Mumbai,
you can't swim in the water though, well you can, but it's
not recommended.

Beggar at work

From the humidity of Mumbai I went straight to the baking heat of Delhi (44 celcius) aplied for my Pakistan visa and left for Amritsar, spent a few days at the Golden Temple and went on to the border. After Lahore and Rawalpindi I went to Peshawar. In Peshawar the people are mostly Pashtun: very hospitable people with some weird codes of honour involving bloody revenges over matters as lightly as just looking at a girl or talking to her. One Pashtun saying is: "Revenge is a dish best served cold", sounds a bit like Klingon to me.

The lighter and brighter side of Islam:
A sufi dancing himselve in a trance in Lahore

In Peshawar I befriended a shopkeeper from Afghanistan. (there are many Afghani refugees in this area) He was a young guy, speaking good English and modern looking. After a veiled women came in the shop, ofcourse with her husband, I asked him if his wife also wore a veil, his reply shocked me: "My wife never leaves the house" he said.
Same in Gilgit: I walk in the streets and no matter where I look: no women to be seen. Only a lot of bearded men (including myself) and many police and army posts because of secterian voilence between suni's and shii's. (a few days before I came 1 policeman got killed)

Not only the outside of the trucks are decorated excessively

It wasn't always like this: until 30 years ago people could drink and women where dancing on parties. Then fundamentalist "missionaries" spread over Pakistan and changed the whole country. So instead of going towards a more open and liberal society (which is a natural process) the people jumped back a few centuries. And after september 11 the people even got more conservative. If it wasn't for the present regime (regimes change quite often here) Pakistan would problably be a theocracy (or theocrazy?) like Iran. (Islam and democracy don't mix that well) So it's a bit like Turkey where the army keeps state and religion seperate.

Beautiful Hunza valley

But enough about Islam and politics. Although I didn't do much I did meet some quite remarkable persons, let me highlight a few.

Apart from the pseudo hindu's who when you ask them where they're from say: "I'm from the world" you also meet some really wierd and interesting people like Phil Mikal, a American kid who came to India with $20. Later on I heard it was part of a reality show.

There was also another guy in the dormatory of the salvation army in Mumbai, he was from North India and was there because he wanted to have a nose job done. (his nose seemed quite okay with me) Apparantly his dad didn't aprove with this operation which resulted in long, loud and whining telephone calls sometimes early in the morning which woke everybody up, except me. That is however not that strange, the most wierd thing about this guy was that he was whanking off in a dormatory full with guys. there are a few things that are absolutly not done and this is surely one of them. The sight of it still brings me nightmares.

Amazing mountain scenery on the Karakoram Highway near Passau

But the first price for most remarkable person I met must go to Gary Falkner. Gary travels around with a sword (actually he had 2 swords but one fell of the mountain). Gary is in Pakistan not as a tourist, oh no, Gary is on a mission, a mission from god. God told him, and I quote, "Pack your bags, you're leaving" because "once in two thousand years God magnifies himself through somebody" and god told Gary "to kick some butt" and catch Osama Bin Laden. Gary studies the bible a few hours a day. During one of this reading sessions he found the following sentence: "I will give him wings like an eagle and he will saw down upon you and cast you down." Since his last name is Falkner it's quite clear to Gary: he's the chosen one. So next year he will be back with a hangglider. I just hope he will go to that nice room with the soft stuffed walls before he kills himself (by flying into a mountain or when he thinks he sees Osama by cutting his hangglider in two while getting his sword out) or some innocent shepard. By the way shepards aren't that innocent: on a trek we met some young shepards and they offered us goatmilk. But every time they offered us that, something disapeared. Maybe there is a unwritten mountain law which says that if you give goatmilk you can take something unasked?

Boy on the street of Peshawar

In a few days I will be in China and then The Roof of the World, if I don't get stopped by the Chinese police.

Bye

Kurt

Yemen 2005: Qat, qat, qat

2010-01-12T08:20:00.000-08:00

Salaam, this time I write from wonderful Yemen. I think Yemen is one of the best kept secrets in the world: not many tourist visit it, but it has so much to offer: a awesome scenery, great hospitality of the people and amazing and unique architecture. Almost every hill- and mountaintop has a fortified village or house on it. Many old houses are beautiful decorated, especially the houses in the old part of the capital San’aa, which I think is one of the most beautiful capitals in the world. On the outside brown stone is used, which is decorated with white plaster (window frames and ornaments).

View over magnificent Sanaa, this day was the first day of the Monsoon,
giving the air a biblical appearance. I almost fell of the roof one time,
when I told the manager of the hotel that it's not so safe, he told me
that it's okay, there are enough graveyards in Yemen.

Life for most Yemeni men revolves around two things: qat and islam. About islam there is already enough said in the news lately, so let’s focus on the qat (which is called chat in Ethiopia). Brought in by the Ethiopians around 300 years ago, now it is in Yemen even more popular then in Ethiopia. Every afternoon you see many (in fact most) guys with one cheek sometimes the size of a tennis ball (unlike Ethiopia where the qat is chewed and then swallowed, here they stuff it in a cheek and chew it endlessly). The sight of it is quiet funny, less funny is that I also see sometimes 7 year old kids chew the stuff.

Terraced mountain hill, a lot of Qat plants on it off course

Chewing qat is a important social activity. Every day there are many qat parties hold. Important decisions are made informally on a qat party beforehand, even on political level. Yes, also the president is a chewer. There was even a banknote with a qat plant printed on it. Those who do not go to a qat party chew it while they work or sit on the pavement. It’s hard to imagine the effects on the Yemen society, but here are some statistics:

- 80% of the men and 25% of the women chew qat

- It is estimated that the trade in qat makes up for 20% of the BNP

- Daily an amount of ca. 100 million rial (around 420.000 euro) is chewed away

- Many people don’t work while they chew: a daily loss of 20 million working hours

- Some people spent up to 30% of their income on qat

Chewing qat on a wedding

Quite amazing he? So although qat is not physically damaging, you can say it’s not really helping the development of the country either. Although it makes up for 20% of the BNP.

Besides qat, Allah is very popular in Yemen,
people praying on the roof of a house in Sabaa

Families are enormous. 47 % of the people is under 14. A normal family consist of 7 to 10 children. In other words: a reproduction rate rabbits would be jealous of.

About the Yemeni women I can be brief. They have beautiful eyes. The rest I don’t know, because they don’t show. In Aden I went to the beach, unlike Iran the beaches are not separated so you can see the women go in the water fully clad. Contact with women is minimal, unless you count that stone throwing incident I had with one sheppard girl who didn’t like me taking a picture of a praying man.

In the last few weeks in Ethiopia there was one occasion where I was the one to pick up the first stone (and hit a kid right in the buttocks). When you start to throw stones at the locals, I guess it’s time to leave the country. The stone throwing seems to be an essential part on this trip, maybe it’s because of the region.

Also my money got stolen in Addis, together with my bankcard. Luckily the thief ignored my camera and mp3 player which were lying on the bed. After Addis I went to Harar, a walled muslim city. The only interesting town I visited in Ethiopia. The rest of the cities are more a collection of shacks and ugly new buildings. But this city has something to say for itself. I missed, because I was in a hurry, the famous hyena man of Hara, a person (tired of life?) who feeds hyena’s barehanded and even with his mouth.

Shibam Hadramut, the Manhattan of the desert

After Harar I went to Djibouti, where, because of the hotel rates, I only spent one day. (rates start at 25 euro a night). I flew from Djibouti to Aden, a port town in Yemen. After Aden I visited several beautiful mountain regions in Yemen. Some days I walked for 8 to 10 hours, not because I wanted but because I miscalculated the distance or because I got lost. Now I’m back in San’aa. After San’aa I will go to Shibam (called "The Manhattan of the desert" by Freya Stark, because of the towering houses. Yemen is the place where skyscrapers were invented) and then to Mumbai to work on my Bollywood carreer. As an extra that is. I will keep you informed about it.

Kurt

For a slideshow on Yemen, click here

Ethiopia 2005: You, you, you

2010-01-12T08:08:00.000-08:00

Addis Ababa, march 4, 1997

No I didn't fall into a timewarp. here in Ethiopia it's really 1997.This is because in 1582 the whole of the Christian world, except Ethiopia, dropped the established Julian calender in favor of the revised Gregorian calendar. That's why Ethiopia is 7 years and 8 months behind on the rest of the Christian world. Their newyear is on september 11.

That's not the only confusing thing considering the time: they measure the time in 12 hour cycles starting at 6.00 and 18.00. So their seven o'clock is our one o'clock and vice versa. In the beginning it's a bit confusing, but one get's used to it.

One thing harder to get used to is the so called faranji-hysteria. Except for Addis (where only the beggars and con artists bothering you) everything you do or everywhere you go will be accompanied by kids yelling "you", "faranji" (foreigner) or "one Bir" (Bir is local money) and a lot of staring and following you around (I even had one time in the fields while I was taking pictures a teenage kid following me for 20 minutes or so and in the end he asked for a schoolpen). No need to say that after a while this gets on your nerve.

Addis Ababe street scene

In the more touristic places they don't yell so much "you" or "hello" (or "yello" as the younger kids do), the kids there just follow you around, acting unasked as a guide and show you the obvious ("this is a restaurant", "this is a hotel", "this is a church"). I even had a kid of about 8 to 10 years who offered his sister to me!

Prostitution is wide spread. Almost every bar you enter doubles as a pick up place for commercial women. Also the really cheap hotels double as brothels. I found myself a few times looking for a cheap room and finding used condoms next to the bed. This country does make Amsterdam look like the Vatican.

Village in the Simien mountains

Aids is also widespread, devastating many lives and also the economy, which is already on a dramaticaly low level. But there is hope: according to some Ethiopians I met there are cases of people who were HIV positive but after they converted to the Orthodox church of Ethiopia they became HIV negative! Halleluja!

Having heard some Ethiopian music from the 60's and 70's before I came here, I was very enthousiastic to hear Ethiopian music. I got quite disappointed from hearing the contempary Amheric (main language of Ethiopia) pop. It sounds like it's produced on a whacky Casio keyboard and unlike West African music the rhythm is very simple and dull. The dancing is however quite amusing to see: it looks a bit like a controlled epeleptic stroke with shoulders almost getting dislocated and a lot of jerking of various bodyparts.

So this are some impressions, now let me tell you what I did. First I went on a 6 day trek in the Simien mountains. The mountains consist of a lower area which looks a bit like the Grand Canyon (what I saw of it from pictures) seperated from the higher area (which is more like highland) by steep mountainridges and smooth cliffs. You see many Gelada baboons (bleeding heart baboons, named so because their mating coloursare not, like most apes, on the buttocks, but on the chest). Especially the males are ferocious looking with their long mains and long pointy teeth. But they are not really harmfull and you can get quite close to them.

Beautiful Simien mountains just before sunset

This is how close I got to a Gelada baboon, unfortunatly
I didn't know what I was doing with my camera
(now I know a little better) and the shot is not that sharp

After the mountains I went to see the monolithic rock-hewn churches of Lalibela. Carved out of rock (according to the legend by one man, you hear quite amazing stories here in Ethiopia) these churches are pretty awesome. In the morning many people come to pray and chant and play music.

People praying outside one of the churches in Lalibela

I also took part in several chat ceremonis. Chat is a lightly narcotic plant which should be chewed intensively. Then after a hour or 2 the effect starts to take place: you become very talkative (chat?) although some people get quiet. I found the effect of chat comparable to amphetamin or ephedra, but without the energy rush, although you will suffer from insomnia if you don't indulge in a beer ceremony afterwards, which is with the local beerprice (around 30 eurocent) not a problem.

That's it for now. I think I will travel around a bit more and then go to Djibouti from where I will take a boat to Yemen.

Bye

Kurt

For a slideshow of pictures of Ethiopia click here

Egypt and Sudan 2005: A kid doing the helicopter and the demand for sexy books

2010-01-12T06:14:00.000-08:00

Sunny greetings from Sudan!

Merhaba, I'm now in Khartoum, the dusty capital of Sudan (or "The Sudan" as it's officially called). Before getting here I had to take several severly damaging bus rides. Tarmac roads are a luxury here, as well as busses that have glass in the windows and normal sized seats. So I ended up eating dust and sliding and bumping of my seat much of the time. Without doubt these bus rides were the hardest of all bus rides I have done so far.

Elvis is alive and lives in Cairo

The first few weeks of my trip I spent in Egypt, it was a bit like I expected: a lot of hassling and very touristic. But I met also some really nice people. First few days were spent in Cairo. Ofcourse I visited the pyramids at Giza. I found the people around the pyramids very pushy. Bloody bastards who make the Indians look like sweethearts.

Of course I needed to take a picture of this

From Cairo I took a bus to Dahab, in Sinai. I stepped in Mozes footprints and climbed Mount Sinai, this is the place where according to the old testament he received the 10 commandments from god. The view from the top was amazing, with the rising sun giving the desolate landscape a warm red colour. After that I spent some days at a "hotel" run by a bedouin guy, I was his only guest. he was a very funny and hospitable person. I had a really good time with him.

Thou shall not sing hymns in the morning on top of
Mount Sinai, thou crazy Azian tourgroups

From Dahab I took the bus to Luxor, marvelled at temples and thombes, but especially at the tourist madness. Then to Aswan where I visited some Nubian villages. The Nubian houses are painted in bright beautiful colours with nice sober designs.

A example of a Nubian house in Khartoum

I went to the other side of the nile to escape the tourist frenzy, there I met a guy who asked me if I had a book, while he said book he made some obscene gestures. He kept going about "Dutch book" and making obscene gestures. I told him I didn't have a book like that. Later I was approached by a young guy (approximatly 15, 16 years old). He started talking about going to see a obelisk. He got very pushy. After he showed me his own obelisk and doing the helicopter with it, I understood his motive was not money driven. (or maybe it was) The sheer size of his "obelisk" gave me an instant inferiority complex. Disillusioned I walked further and got harrased by some little kids. They got really annoying and did some wierd karate kicks behind my back. So I gave a backward kick and kicked one right in the stomach (by accident actually). That served him right. The rest of our short time together was spent throwing stones at each other. After all this I decided to back to the other site, at least nobody shows their genitals there at you.

Cairo market from the air

Today I tried to get money with my mastercard (no ATM's in Sudan). At the 5th bank I was finally informed that because of the international sanctions it's not possible to money by visa or by mastercard.
The town of Khartoum is filled with all different kind of ministeries and councils. You cannot think of anything or they have a ministery for it. I saw 2 buildings which belonged to the ministery of roads and bridges. I wonder what they do all day in these buildings. It is truly bureaucracy in it's purest form.
Also when you want to travel around you need a permit for it. Of course you have to pay to get this permit and everywhere you go you have to register. It looks like they want to get as much as possible out of the few tourists who visit their country. The people on the street are on the contrary very friendly and nice. It's just the government that sucks.
Well, that's it for now. Tomorrow I'm of to Ethiopia. I will keep you informed.

Bye

Kurt

Thailand 2004: Getting robbed and threatened by lady boys

2010-01-12T05:43:00.000-08:00

Greetings from.....

.... Amsterdam :-(

Yes, all good things come to an end. After wandering (and wondering) around for almost 11 months, the money ran out and my camera broke down (water + electronics = AAAARRGHHH!!!!). So no other choice than to go back and start working again (it sounds almost surreal to me). So now I dedicate my life again to the selling of cheese (for half a year - after that I hope I can escape again from Holland).

India is a great country to travel around - many things happening there, but after a few months I needed a holiday from the hassling and the goodname asking. So I went to Thailand. In Bangkok, I accidentally deleted the pictures of the last few weeks in India. This really freaked me out. It was also here that I found out that my camera isn't waterproof.

Thai woman are beautiful, but when they start talking… Let's just say Thai isn't the sexiest language in the world (unlike Turkish; when I heard a Turkish woman talk – it was almost like singing - so sweet and soft). Even guys talk with a high pitch voice, sometimes in a nagging way. It's hard to keep a serious face when you hear people talking like that.
Sometimes (actually a lot of times) you see a really beautiful Thai girl walk around with some kind of Western geek. You think something is wrong with this picture. Next thing you think: "Hey I'm also a Western geek, why don't I walk around with a beautiful Thai girl?" Well I guess I'm not geeky enough. Or maybe they could sense I'm a broke bum.

I didn't see much in Thailand. My camera was broken anyway. But I went to some islands to relax and dive. I did the diving on Ko Tao; that was pretty cool, although the visibility wasn't optimal because of the weather. But it's truly another world out there - fish in the most extraordinary colours swimming above and around colourful coral. You should see for yourself. From Ko Tao I went to Ko Phang Nang, the party island. The music was, in general, really shit (a lot of R&B).

On the full-moon party, I got robbed by a lady-boy. I lay passed out (like every night) on the beach. Suddenly I woke up because I felt somebody fumbling around near my groin. "Aahh, that's nice" was my first reaction. My second reaction, which came a bit too late was: "Fuck, my money". These lady-boys, by the way, are kind of scary. They are quite aggressive and I heard the story of one rubbin’ his genitals in some guys face who had passed out. How sick can you be?

I also got threatened by a waiter. The asshole wanted to charge us (3 vegetarians) for noodles with pork, which we obviously had not ordered, not even by accident. Of course, I didn't agree with him and I made this clear to him. His reaction was to slap me in the face (I didn't see that one coming) with the palm of his hand (he was a kind of sissy), and grabbed a pair of scissors and started waving it at me. After I realised what had happened I threw some beer in his face, but realising that Thai people can go blind with rage (the state he was in right now), I decided to leave the establishment. So if you ever go to Ko Pang Nang: don't go to Bottle beach, it kind of sucks.

On my last day in Bangkok, I went to the ATM machine and all I could dispense was about 10 euros, so it really was time to go home.

I have really good memories of this trip. I visited interesting, beautiful places, inhabited by the most wonderful and strange creatures (some of them not human). I will always remember the hospitality of some of the people I met in Romania, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. So many things were overwhelming. For now it's work, work, work again. But I hope to be able to go to Eritrea in January. Let me know what you're up to, I'm curious.

bye

Kurt

Nepal 2004: 21 days no cars and the gin accident

2010-01-12T05:38:00.000-08:00

21 days no cars, no roads, just mountain paths. Going up to 5400 metre, wading through snowfields, dodging rolling rocks, eating dal baht every day; it was hard, but worth it. I was glad to be on a bus again, it was the most fantastic bus-ride ever!

After Varanasi, I went to Nepal. I had to wait a few days in Varanasi because of a strike in Nepal. Nepali strikes are a bit different from European strikes; they involve the use of bombs. The Maoists (who the fuck calls himself a Maoist these days?) call for the strike and, for instance, that they don't want buses to drive during the strike. If they see a bus driving, they throw a bomb at it. Nice guys these Maoists.
That doesn't mean that the government and the Royal Family are the good guys. They also stink. Two years ago, half of the royal family was gunned down by another member of the royal family. It makes the troubles in the Dutch royal family look like peanuts. Anyway, it's a good way to get rid of royalty.

After having spent some time in Pokara, I went on doing the Annapurna circuit trek - more then 300 kilometres around the Annapurna range. On the way, many kids asking for school pens - they had better asked for tissues because many had big blobs of snot hanging under their noses.
The landscape offered some incredible panoramas, hard to describe. I also saw a bunch of Lammergeiers, with wingspans of 3 metres no small birdies.

We go up to Tilicho Lake, at 5000 metres, the highest lake in the world. The climb is rough but very rewarding. Walking over huge scree slopes, with eroded rocks on top, looking like ruined castles. Sometimes small rocks came tumbling down with a speed around 100 km/h. It felt like you were walking on a narrow path on a vertical shooting range - the same feeling of safety. We climbed up until 5000 metres (thank God without my 15 kilos luggage), which was very hard because of the altitude.
Later I found myself in fields of snow in which you sometimes half disappeared. Very exhausting (I bet Sylvester Stallone didn't do the-running-through-the-snow-scenes from Rocky IV at this altitude, otherwise it's very logical that he beat Ivan Drago) and when you think you're there, you find another snowfield behind the hill you just climbed (twice).
Struggling in the snow almost made me give up, but I went on and was rewarded with... a big piece of frozen water. So the view of the lake was not very rewarding, but the scenery before it was breathtaking. A huge wall of snow, sometimes with an avalanche coming down it.

A few days later I cross the Thorong La pass, 5416 metres - I have never been that high. From here it all goes downhill, which I didn't mind that much. Unfortunately, the view on this side of the pass was not that good - there is a lot of dust in the air. After having relaxed in the hot springs of Tatopani (which really were very hot), we decided to do a bit more climbing - also because the other way was cut off because of the severe fighting just a day before (over 400 dead Maoists, I heard later) a bit further ahead in Beni. The Maoists thought that they could surprise the local army base, but were surprised themselves.

The last few days we walked through green valleys into blooming rhododendron forests. From there, many metres down, zigzagging through a lush green forest with a tumbling waterfall with nice pools (unfortunately no time for a dive) and then I finally see my first car in 21 days. I'm relieved. After a final short but steep climb, I arrive on the road and kiss it. I put myself on the roof of a bus and have the nicest bus ride ever.

Having returned to Pokara, I hear that there's gonna be another strike in 2 days. So no time to rest, I buy a ticket for Kathmandu. Next morning we miss the bus, which we, after a fast car-chase (for as far that's possible with a Suzuki Alto), catch. At one point in the journey, a guy starts singing and torturing some kind of violin (and our ears). He works according to the "play till they pay" principle, which seems to work very well with this kind of music. His music seems to have a impact on my bowels. I have to go to the toilet soon.
Thank God there's a stop and I'm carrying Immodium (a kind of chemical butt-plug - nothing comes out anymore after you take one - very helpful during travelling). I also have egg-tasting burps. Last time I had those, somebody advised me to drink vodka to kill the bacteria causing it. I did so and it worked. So during a stop to make a convoy (the strike started earlier in another province) I go to buy some booze. They don't have vodka, so I buy gin. I take off the cap and take a sip. Now, I have never drank gin before in my life, but this was definitely no gin. It's was water with a very bad taste. So I go back to the shop to get a new bottle. The owner doesn't want to give one to me. What do you do in a situation like that? You just take it. He tries to stop me, but he doesn't succeed. I walk outside with my new medicine. He follows me, in front of all the tourist buses there is a scene between us, people gather and start to interfere, sniffing both bottles. The owner calls me a bad man: "You are bad man". So now, not only do I have a reputation with the other people in the buses for being an alcoholic who drinks gin at 12 o'clock in the afternoon, I'm also a bad man.
In the end, everything turns out okay; the guy leaves and I flush away the bacteria with gin that tastes like eau de cologne. So now I'm in Kathmandu, the day after tomorrow I will go rafting and after that I will go back to India, to the enchanting cow-dung city.

See you

Kurt

After the trekking, I spent some time in Kathmandu and went on a rafting trip. The rapids had challenging names like "Frog in the blender" and "Dazed and Confused" but could also be called "Child in a merry-go-round" or "jump off the sidewalk" because of the low water level. So it was a bit disappointing.

India 2004 part 2: Hindu wannabes and penis yoga

2010-01-11T21:29:00.000-08:00

Namaste. Last time I wrote, I was on my way to Varanasi - my favourite city in India. Two years ago, I stayed there for 1 month. This time, I did not have so much time. In this enchanting, but also very dirty town (the evidence that not only humans suffer from diarrhoea is frequently lying on the streets), it's good to stroll through the narrow alleys and streets and over the ghats. Many big bulls are found in the crowded streets, blocking the traffic by just sitting or standing around.

I saw 2 Hindu wannabes in my guesthouse. A guy from Utah, who looked like a white-washed sadhu, and a Japanese girl, complete with 3 white stripes (some Hindu thing) on her forehead and whom I even saw bathing in the heavily polluted Ganges (shit, burned and unburned human remains and everything else you can think about that is not good for your health).
I wonder what goes on in their minds, I really do, but I cannot understand it. They are the real freaks of India if you ask me, not the deformed beggars like the woman I saw in Mangalore, who was the size and shape of a basketball or other victims of inbreed or polio.

....after the rafting I went back to India, which was like stepping into a oven. The temperature had risen since I had left. I had to buy a train ticket; the hall was filled with long queues of impatient and restless people (including me). Sometimes people would skip the queue and go straight to the counter. This to the disapproval of many. You could feel the tension in the air and wondered when the Great railway ticket riots would start. Fortunately this didn't happen.

I spent some days in Varanasi (drinking bhang lassi), being struck by the overwhelming heat, and doing basically nothing. Sometimes there was a wind blowing but instead of cooling you down, it heated you up. It almost made me want to jump into the Ganges, but common sense stopped me from doing that.

Next on my agenda was the Kumb Mela in Ujian. A long time ago, the gods had a dispute over some nectar and dropped some of it on 4 places in India. Of course, these places became very holy and every few years, there is a big gathering of people taking a dip. In fact, it's the largest gathering in the world. 2 years ago 80 million (!!!) people came to Allahabad. Not at the same time, of course, but you can imagine the chaos.

Many sadhu's camp here. I don't know if you know what a sadhu is - in the western world they would be considered as unemployed dope-smokers - the Indians consider them holy men who can give them blessings (by putting ash on their heads and in their mouths) - and I consider them as people who want to smoke all my hashish.

I also met a "hanging baba" (a sadhu hanging in a kind of swing who hasn't sat or laid down for 4 years - God knows why), who wanted a gift from me (500 rupees). Another one wanted to change his camera for my digital one, and another went off with half of my friend’s hashish. They are interesting people and thought to be non-materialistic (except for when it comes to rupees, hashish and cameras I guess). I smoked some chillums with them, with the police standing just behind us and doing nothing about it. That was kind of surreal.

The nagababa's are especially interesting; they walk around naked and do a kind of yoga only men can do: penis-yoga. They role their dick around a stick and then turn the stick around like the propeller of a helicopter (don't try this at home kids), or hang I don't know how many kilo's off it. The trick is they have torn a muscle in their dick, which doesn’t allow them to get an erection (being celibate, they don't need to anyway - only when they decide to give up their celibate lifestyle they will have a problem), but it lets them do this Superman stuff with their dicks. So they are interesting, but when you're around some of them, you’d better watch your stuff.

I also stayed at the rainbow camp. Being there, I had the feeling I was in a Hair musical (except for the fact I don't have any). Before eating, we would all stand in a circle, holding hands and singing songs - Western people singing songs about Shiva. This went a bit too far, if you ask me. And being a hippie is okay with me, but where was the free love? I mean they let me stand in a circle holding hands (my right hand in the left hand of an Indian who doesn't use toilet paper, but indeed you guessed right (left actually) - and then I'm supposed to eat with that same right hand - thank God I'm left-handed) but when it came to the free love they stopped being hippies, these pseudo hippie Hindu characters.

So I left the camp and went to Ohm Kereshawar, an island in the shape of the Ohm symbol (if you have a lot of imagination, which many Indians have - why else would you touch the back of a cow believing this is good for your karma?), which was like a mini Varanasi without the cow-dung.
There was a fair and they had some cool attractions, like a mini train riding in mini circles, and also "the wheel of death", do you know this cylinder-shaped construction in which they defy the laws of gravity with a motorbike? They did this, but also with a car, which looked awesome. I also went on a Ferris wheel, which goes about 3 times the speed as a normal one and of which after every ride its bolts were checked and tightened. I didn't know if it was a good plan to go on it, but I survived.

From Ohm Kereshawar I went to Pachmarhi, a former hill-station of the British. At 1000 metres, this plateau is slightly less hot than the surrounding plains, and the views are superb. Many cliffs, canyons and hills, all covered by masses of green. One day I was walking next to a canyon, following a path. I had to climb up a bit on some rocks and suddenly I had a 360-degree view of this sea of green, with me standing on top of one of the waves.

I will surely go back to this place but for now, I'm eager to go to Thailand and rest on the beach, recovering from 4 months travelling in India. If you don't hear anything from me for a while, I will not be dead, just doing nothing.

bye

Kurt

India 2003/2004 part 1: The delights of Indian train travel and meeting THE artist

2010-01-11T21:12:00.000-08:00

India, what to say about India? Maybe this will give you a better impression: chai chai chai coffee chai chai, what's your countries? beep beep honk honk, come look in my shop, chai chai, I give you good price, you my special friend, bom shiva, only 5 rupees sir, beep beep, hey psst wanna buy charash? chai chai, I've got Manali cream, really good stuff, honk honk, mweuhh!! One tollar 1500 rupees, hello what's your name? chai chai, okay you my friend 1000 rupees, Splash!! (a cow with diarrhoea shits in front of you), yes rickshaw sir? beep beep, okay you my good friend: 900 rupees, chai chai, honk honk, you my very very good friend, last and best price: 800 rupees, real Manali cream, hello what's your goodname? miep miep, goods is your name? oh Kurts and your surname? prrrriiii, you don't wanna buy real Manali cream? 700 rupees last and best price, chai chai, yes rickshaw, want massage sir? good massage, 600 rupees for Manali cream, last price, honk honk, okay you buy for 200 rupees, beep beep, where you go....

24 hour Full Power!!

So from Pakistan I came into India. Every day there is a closing of the gate ceremony, which attracts people from both sides of the border. The whole ceremony looks very Pythonesque (Monty that is), so absurdly the border-officials parade and salute, it's totally ridiculous. What I found sad is that the people who watch let themselves be used by their government for this silly conflict and really hate the other side.

Amritsar was my first stop in India - for Sikh people this is their holy city. I kind of like these Santa Claus Indians. They are friendly and honest. Their place of worship is the Golden Temple. How much gold has been used for the temple I don't know, but its sight is magnificent (especially at night), so tranquil, it's lying in a big water tank. The tranquillity of the place almost makes you forget that in 1984, 2000 people were killed here in fights between militant Sikhs and the Indian army. Prime Minister, Indira Ghandi, who ordered the action, made one fatal and very stupid mistake: her bodyguards where also Sikhs.

After Amritsar, we went to Dharamsala, the place where the Dalai Lama hangs out since he was kicked out of Tibet by the Chinese. Since the start of the occupation in 1950, more then 1 million Tibetans have been killed, over 6000 monasteries have been destroyed and 46 % of the forests have been cut. But China is a big trading partner so that's okay. What I don't understand is that they have been chosen to host the Olympic games in 2008.
All the Tibetans who live in Dharamsala have fled Tibet by crossing the Himalayas - sometimes they walked for more then 1 month. Some suffered from frostbite and had their fingers and toes amputated.

From Dharamsala I went to Udaipur and from there to Mumbai. I met up with some friends, who I had met on my previous trip, and after that off to Goa. Here I could finally relax from high speed travelling. Just hanging on the beach and doing basically nothing. Unfortunately, there were not as many parties as 2 years ago. It was quite disappointing. One time at a party, I fell into a well. Luckily I managed to grab it with my arms and could lift myself out of it. I don't know deep it was, but my feet felt nothing.
In Goa I also heard the terrible news of the earthquake in Bam (this is, by the way, the place where they served me the pizza with the sausage - I hope this has nothing to do with it). It's very strange to realise that I had been there just less then 2 months ago and that most of the people who had been walking around then, were now dead. Really freaky.

I changed the Fred Flinstone scenery of Hampi for the laidback beaches of Gokarna. In Gokarna, days drift away like clouds (if there would be any). Here I heard the news that the bank, which was supposed to send my bankcard (which I lost 4 to 5 months ago in Romania), sent an empty envelope instead. There was no time anymore to send a new one to my friend who came over to India. I seriously think there is some great mysterious power who doesn't want me having my bankcard back. A strange feeling came over me, a feeling I hadn't felt for over 6 months: stress. Stress is not good, especially not when you are in a supposedly stress free place, like for instance a tropical beach. Luckily the stress didn't last long and I sank back in my relaxed travelling mood. I suppose the charash had something to do with that.

After Gokarna I went back to Anjuna to find the place (and especially the hotel I was staying in) taken over by all types of low-lifes. My neighbour for instance started and ended the day in a complete state of drunkenness. He's a British Indian who has a whisky shop in London. I could hear him mumbling in his room all the time. One night he set up a fight between a junkie (well at least he looked and acted like one) and Rocky (one of the regulars in the gurubar who is always involved in money getting lost). How he did it, I don't know. But he said to the junkie that he fucks his sister, or something in that category, and the junkie gets aggressive towards Rocky. Rocky who's talking with somebody, gets aggressive towards the junkie and almost smashes his face in with a bottle. But everything cools down and Rocky goes on talking to his partner like nothing happened.
Also I saw 2 French "la vie bas" - one who juggles with karate sticks and eats leftovers from other guests, but still has enough money to buy dope (life is all a matter of priorities) and the other one who clearly (well in his case, not so clearly probably) lost the way, even more then "Le Bruce Lee". Enormously fascinating to see all this, but time to move on.

So now I'm in Hampi, one of my favourite places in India. Big boulders and palm trees create a fascinating landscape which make you stay longer than you had planned (this is day 10). One day I was sitting on a terrace and a friend pointed to something walking just next to my leg: a scorpion. I was up in a fraction of a second.

I also had monkeys walking over my head on a few occasions. When I took a picture of this, the monkey saw himself on my Lcd-screen and walked down my arm towards the screen and touched it with his little monkey finger. I took maybe 200 pictures of the monkeys (the advantage of a digital camera, you can just go on shooting); they are so fascinating, so close to humans. The young ones look like very old men with their wrinkled faces. In the monkey temple I met a Hare Krishna dude. Somebody was preparing a chillum. "They are smoking" he said in an accusing way. "Shiva also smoked", I said. "Yes, but you're not Shiva, are you?" was his reply. Later on, he was talking about what the monkeys had been in their previous lives - in a way he was telling the truth. I really don't get it with these wannabe Hindus; I think when they are born, they have had a lack of oxygen or something. I mean if you're born here, okay, I can understand you believe some of this Hindu stuff, how unbelievable it may be, but as a Western guy, you really don't have any excuse. Well enough about this, I'm about to take a bus to Gokarna.

bye

Kurt

It's I think about one month now since I wrote my last message, so time for a update. During this one month, I only got violent with my fellow Indians twice (I have given up on peaceful resistance - sorry Gandhi).
One time when a guy touched the breast of a female friend, I grabbed him at his throat (felt really good actually) and yesterday I pushed away a guy who was trying to rip me off. He was very helpful with my train ticket (Indian railways are a bigger mystery then the oh so mysterious Hindu religion). I had a seat ticket and this was changed to a sleeper ticket (which I didn't understand, but surely didn't regret - the price was also the same) and he was helping me out. After a while he started mumbling something about 200 rupees extra that I had to pay (to him of course). When people can talk normally before and start mumbling afterwards you know it's fishy. I gave him 10 rupees for helping me out, but he was not satisfied. "Okay forget it", I thought and grabbed the money back. He followed me back to the train insisting I gave him the 200 rupees. At that moment, I decided to step out of the carriage and help him leave the platform (pacifist that I am - haha).

I'm now in the train from Bangalore (India's silicon valley; in the internet shop the first 2 computers didn't work) to Mumbai.
Train-travelling in India is quite different from train-travelling elsewhere. For one thing, almost every minute a guy is walking by saying, in a rather peculiar raspy way: "chai, chai, coffee, chai" or whatever he is selling. It almost sounds like they are repeating mantras. Vendors in India think it's necessary to say something with a funny, strange intonation. I wonder if when they come home, they still talk in the same tone or that they switch to normal again (if they can).

Also, beggars see the train as a perfect "working" place (the customer/client/victim cannot walk away - that's probably why). In one hour, I had 2 cripples, 2 small boys, one woman (without a baby this time) and one eunuch who badly needed a shave. Now I think: do you need a shave after being castrated? Is there anyone who knows the answer? Has nobody had experience with this? The eunuchs are mostly very irritating. I can understand that when you’ve lost your balls you start to behave differently, but still, don't bother me with it. Talking about beggars and their workplace: In Mysore I had a guy come into my hotel room and ask 10 rupees for food. I couldn't believe my ears and asked him, friendlily, to fuck off.

It's not that I don't give to beggars; usually I give sometimes to the crippled, lepers (in case they have a hands-free cell phone, I won’t) and very old, sad looking people, assuming they are beggars. Not always. Just when I feel like it. This is the best way to approach the whole begging thing, I think. You can't give everybody something: I would have been home by now, still crying my guts out about all these sad people in this sad country. Also, I suspect many beggars went to study drama after they graduated (or maybe it was a major in beggars’ university). Their sad expressions almost look real (maybe it is, who's to tell?) With children it's easy: when they look sad and you start playing with them, like touching their nose or stroking through their hair or throwing them in the air (and catching them again of course), every time (well almost every time) they start laughing. I never tried this with the grown ups - maybe I should.

Right now, there is a group of university students behaving like small children. Doing sing-a-longs very loudly, clapping, shouting etc. Everybody around is irritated. But since I already have a reputation as a violent mad traveller with a fellow traveller (she saw me removing the guy from the train yesterday), I decide not to interfere and let them do whatever makes them happy, while I dip myself under a sea of tranquillity.

Enough about train travelling in India (which sometimes looks more like a freak show on wheels); let me start where I finished last time. I changed the Fred Flinstone scenery of Hampi for the laidback beaches of Gokarna. In Gokarna, days drift away like clouds (if there would be any). Here I heard the news that the bank, which was supposed to send my bankcard (which I lost 4 to 5 months ago in Romania), sent an empty envelope instead. There was no time anymore to send a new one to my friend who came over to India. I seriously think there is some great mysterious power who doesn't want me having my bankcard back. A strange feeling came over me, a feeling I hadn't felt for over 6 months: stress. Stress is not good, especially not when you are in a supposedly stress free place, like for instance a tropical beach. Luckily the stress didn't last long and I sank back in my relaxed travelling mood. I suppose the charash had something to do with that.

I take several buses and one train to Mangalore, getting irritated by the littering people in the train. I wonder what's going on in their minds? Probably not a lot. I know it's complete ignorance, but I can't take it. What would they say if I would come with a big garbage truck and would empty it in their temple? The problem is that the people who were throwing things out of the train were very friendly, so you cannot really hate them.

While being in Mangalore I really have the feeling that one of these days I'm gonna seriously injure an Indian. I have never fought but I'm eager to start a fight. I mean you have to try everything once in your life don't you? (Exceptions made for heroin and gay sex) Luckily this feeling also vanishes quickly and I start appreciating my fellow Indian beings very strongly again. Such kind and genuine people. I'm not saying this sarcastically, am I? The second night in Mangalore, I found out that I have been travelling exactly for 6 months. Time for a celebration. Except there was nobody to celebrate with, so off to bed early instead.

Cochin was relaxed, but nothing more than that. There is a Dutch graveyard (which was closed) and some Dutch houses (with typical Dutch farmer doors). The Dutch used Cochin probably as a stopover point on their way to Indonesia to rob it empty (and of course to bring Christianity there).

In Cochin, I found a flyer about a "permafarm" run by "artist Joshe". In very crappy English, a place was described where you could: go trekking, enjoy the "endless" paddy fields and banana plantations, and "become a poet or painter in 2 days"; western, Indian and natural toilet facilities are available; also "She's international art centre" is mentioned - it consists of an art studio and gallery. "Gallery includes about 2000 genuine paintings, 500 telepathic (?) paintings only in the world." Art and meditation classes are available. Also "special dialogues about alchemy especially grass, liquor and smokes for meditational and creative purpuesses. In our faculty we have scholars of astrology, palmistry, face readers, leaf scientists and massagers" Apart from the astrology, palmistry, face readers, and leaf scientists it sounded good. You could also do colour therapy, memory therapy, tension and stress management, family counselling and floatation, pet- and plant therapy.

I just wanted to see the place. And boy what an imagination this guy had. When I got there, I found a guy, 34 years old, living with his parents on the "permafarm" (whatever perma means) doing mostly sleeping meditation sessions. He is convinced he is a great artist. On the door of his room, "She's international art galerie and studio" (I suspect him to use this name to attract Western women) is written "The great artist Joshe". I have to admit that some of his paintings where nice, but that the rest (around 90 %) weren't. They were really shit actually (but hey I'm not an art critic, so what do I know?) In his portfolio he had a letter from Tate gallery in which they thank him for the examples, that they found them interesting (amusing is maybe a better description), but that because of cut downs and some other reason I cannot recall they were not able to buy any work. Later on, he also told me he wanted to start a hostel but that this would be not good, "because I'm an artist". I wanted to advice him to focus more on a career in tourism rather then one in art, but I didn't.

So it was a kind of disappointing experience (the first hours or so). But the Artist is a funny and remarkable figure, so I had a good time anyway. We went to the riverside where I saw the nicest sunset ever (although I did in fact not see the sun going down on the horizon because of all the trees); the sky and its reflection in the river, which was completely filled with fluffy clouds turning totally pink at the end. After the sunset, we had some drinks in a toddy bar. Toddy is a kind of coconut beer and very tasty. The owner of the bar was a god-fearing communist (this is India, so it's possible). There are many communists in South India, but I don't know if they all believe in God.

Kurt

Pakistan 2003: Talibs on the bus and party on the cemetery

2010-01-11T21:04:00.000-08:00

Also Pakistan, like Iran, doesn't top the list of most popular holiday destinations. But I definitely fell in love with it, I will go back again for sure.

Highlights were my trip to the Karakoram mountainrange, a visit to a sufinight in Lahore (see diary) and the beautiful decorated buses driving through the country.

I’ve now been in Pakistan for a few days. It's very similar to the madness, dirt and chaos of India. So you don't have many dull moments while walking the streets. But I have the feeling you can trust the people more (I hope this feeling doesn't vanish), although we (me + Rob, a Dutch guy I'm travelling with) have already had a bad experience with a "donkeyhorse-taxidriver" (he tried to charge us double the price we had agreed).

When I crossed the border, I found out that the Pakistan mentality is very similar to the Indian mentality. The customs officer had his "office" outside. Sitting comfortably on a chair under the pleasantly warm sun he was more interested in a chat than what was in my luggage. A few Pakistanis entered his "office" trying to sell us bus tickets and to change money, of course for inflated rates. After a long journey (28 hours) with a lot of unnecessary stops, we reached the first town in Pakistan: Quetta. A lot of bearded men, many Chriet Titulaer/Kabouter Plop look-a-likes (beards around the face, so without moustaches). The (often-dyed red) beards and the clothes (brownish MC Hammer style pyjamas) made me sometimes feel as if I was walking on the set of Planet of the Apes.

Sometimes you see woman so covered up, you don't even see their eyes. This leaves a bit too much for the imagination and too little for the eyes if you ask me. Also, the people are doing Ramadan much more then in Iran. In Iran a lot of people didn't – and when you asked them why they were eating they would say that they had a stomach problem or something like that. And when they were travelling, they also ate (this is allowed by the way), but in Pakistan the people even do the fasting when they are travelling. (So everybody started to smoke and eat in the bus at the same time, after the sun had set).
In Quetta I was in search for bread. I finally found a bakery and was about to buy a bread, when I found out they where kneading the dough not with their hands, but with their bare feet!

After Quetta we had another gruesome bus journey (18 hours) to Multan - at some moments it was more like a rollercoaster ride - must have been very exciting for the people who were so unfortunate not to have a ticket for inside the bus, but who where sitting on the roof - they spent the whole night there in the cold! And me and Robert complained about our Asian people sized chairs!
The landscape was beautiful in the morning: Strange palm trees in different varieties, dotted along fields filled with cotton (or was it opium poppies?). Leftovers of the early morning mist floating in long strings above it, pipes of small stone factories puffing out fumes, people sitting next to their tents or houses here and there, and the sun, hanging low in the sky, looking like an orange.

From Multan we took the train to Islamabad, cutting through the landscape. The train gives you a good insight of the country: you can see the people working the fields, the children playing and waving or throwing things at the passing train. I also saw a shantytown, with a golf course behind it (it's a clich้, but a very powerful one). During one stop, I saw a guy in another train sticking his tongue out to me and making weird faces (this strengthened my belief that Pakistanis are crazy), and of course you see the garbage spread out over the country, although Islamabad is a remarkable clean city (for Pakistan standards anyway), probably because of all the embassies.

Let me also tell you about the Pakistani trucks and buses. They are amazing. If you think Indian trucks are well decorated, you haven't seen the Pakistani ones. All covered up in detailed paintings, mirrors, reflectors and shinning metal figures, they look like mobile temples. They are truly a treat to the eye. Too bad that most of the time, they rush by very fast.

Although the Pakistani are very welcoming, friendly people, things are not so relaxed everywhere; tribal rivalries and religious uprisings are still going on, some parts of the country you cannot visit without a permit and/or an armed guard, and you see a lot of policemen guarding hotels, shopping areas and other places of interest. We just found out that Quetta, the town we first visited, had been disturbed by a bomb explosion (probably planted by a Kabouter Plop look a like) the day we left (don't worry mom, I'm all right). Now we are in a much safer area, so I don't expect to get blown up - of course you can never be sure :-).

The hustle, heavy traffic, noise, claxons used at least 15 times a minute, getting lost in the too crowded streets with too curious people asking too much the same questions, the dirt, the amazed gazing of people who just stop doing what they do when you walk by and just stare at you like you're from another planet (this happened a lot in Quetta and Multan), beggars almost poking their mutilated body parts in your face. Things you have to get used to again, but not a culture shock - the real culture shock you get when you get home again, faced with all the stupid rules and regulations, people living in their own shell, not even daring to look in the other persons eye on the street or in the train, and when you start talking to them, they think you're mad. So, which society is advanced and normal and which is not?

Last time I mailed I was somewhere in Pakistan. I had a superb time there; went up the Karakoram highway, which connects Pakistan with China. It's always hard to describe landscapes, but I will try it anyway: greyish, light-brown and green valleys filled with terraces with huge leafless poplars looking like toothpicks surrounded by peaks which reach 8000 metres. Apart from "the Veluwe" in Holland, I didn't see such a beautiful, rough and impressive landscape before. Some people living here are of European descent, their skin more white than mine.
I also met a young boy called Sadam Hoessein. It was also here that we met "Conjo" (or Lulu - you could give him any name you wanted), a Spaniard ("I'm from Spain, but also not, I'm from the same place as you brother") raw-foodist who liked running up the mountain naked and who has a, to say the least, remarkable laugh: very loud and stopping just as abruptly as it started.

On the way back to Islamabad, we had, at least we think, a terrorist on the bus. He was a big European-looking man in a camouflaged army jacket wearing "LTS" glasses (the ones Ivor always wore before he became "fashionably aware") in a diagonal position. The strange thing is that he wore a different turban than anyone else in this region and that, despite his young age, he was leading all the prayers during the prayer-stops (we had 2 very shortly after each other). I had never seen anybody leading prayers. Since I never trust a religious leader, especially when he is wearing combat fatique, we can clearly state that he was a Chechnyan rebel recruiting people in Pakistan. Well we will never know. It was strange anyway and I wonder what he thought of me when I said to a fellow passenger that I don't believe in God - he turned his head and looked at me, the unbelieving kafir.

Lahore was the last stop in Pakistan: it was here that I witnessed the sufinight. Imagine yourself going to a church or graveyard, with your friends and many bottles of beer, and starting a party there. Only here, the beer is replaced by hashish (I even saw a guy with a carved out apple with about 15 joints sticking out of it) and the church is not a church but a Sufishrine (graveyard of Sufi's; Sufism is the mystical sect of Islam, they are the Pakistani equivalent of the Indian sadhu’s: holy man who smoke a lot).
There is music and singing, and in the last part of the evening, a space is created (by a stoned policeman waving his riotgun) where the sufi's start dancing: turning around for hours without getting dizzy (they hold their hands up and focus on that) or shaking their heads so fast you see 2 faces and you’re afraid their necks will crack. This all is accompanied by frantic drumming. The head drummer (a big guy in a long black dress) sometimes also spins around while still hitting his drum, which is floating through the air, and making space by scaring the crowd who are sitting in the first row (me included) with his drumstick and his big drum. Women are allowed to see all this, but they are put safely in a cage.

Before we went to the sufinight, our hotel-owner invited us for dinner. We thought this would be a quickie, but it appeared to be an evening organised by a welfare organisation. So first, we had to listen to speeches for 2 hours (in Urdu of course). Every time a person was invited on stage, the guy from the P.A. system put up all levels to play very loud techno music to suddenly break it off again (a bit like the laughing of Conjo). I thought this was very strange for a country where there are no bars or nightclubs, only sufinights.
After all these Urdu speeches, there were suddenly some words in English: a minister first did a propaganda speech about the Pakistan politics - that they had so many women in the government and that Pakistan had the name of being a country full of terrorists but that this is not true - and then finally he said that there were some foreign guests (us) on their way to Karachi (we were all going to India, but he didn't want to say this) and asked if one of them would like to say something. I looked at the guy next to me and saw that he was determined not to go on stage and I knew I was the one to do the job. So I went up onto the stage and said that I had been in Pakistan for 3 weeks and I was overwhelmed by the hospitality and friendliness of the people and that I hadn't seen a single terrorist (I lied).
After my very short speech, we really had it: too long without food and the sufinight about to start. So we sneaked behind the curtains where food was waiting for us and like animals who hadn't be fed for a week we indulged on the food. Unfortunately one of the organisers, who previously had been very welcoming and friendly, found us stuffing the food inside and started to get very angry at the hotel-owner (I don't understand Urdu, but this was very clear) who just went on eating like nothing happened. It was a classic scene. After the last person had finally spoken, the crowd, driven by an enormous appetite, almost tore down the curtains when they rushed towards the food.

Three weeks in Pakistan was surely not enough; I could stay for months in the north. I was, having travelled in India, surprised by the honesty and hospitality of the people. I hope this doesn't change in the future. Maybe it has to do with the religion. I don't know what the reason is for this difference. Of course, the fact that tourism is not as developed as in India has something to do with it.

Iran 2003: Vegetarian pizza with sausage

2010-01-11T20:57:00.000-08:00

Iran. Not the first country that pops up in your head when you think about a possible holiday destination. But it has a lot to offer: rough mountain area (you can even ski in Iran!), beautiful old desert cities, mindboggling mosques, relaxed teahouses and.... very hospitable and friendly people (sometimes too much).

Also very emotional people. Like we have holidays in the west to party, they use theirs to mourn. They mourn about the victims of the Iraq - Iran war (with thanks to that old US of A) or about Imam Husayn (most Iranians are shiite muslim), on his death anniversary you see mosques filled with weeping men.

Another thing that struck me was that many people are well educated and knew a lot about my country. Probably this is because on tv there are no movies or series containing violence, sex or kissing (this doesn't leave much space for Western productions). Only religious and/or informative programs. If I had to choose I would also go for the latter.

Finally I'm in one of the axes of evil, my god, they drink the blood of christian babies here. After practicing pandaism in Ankara for a very long time, I arrived in Iran almost one week ago. I had to stay there for a long time because money had to be sent over, I had lost my bankcard in Romania, had a new card sent over (which got "lost" in the not so reliable mail system) and finally the money arrived last week. My stay in this not so interesting capital was made more pleasant by the great hospitability of Can and Perry (who let me sleep at their place all this time and stuffed me with all kinds of exquised Turkish meals; thanks again. I will never forget it) and all the friends I made in this relatively short period. I will surely miss you.

So now I'm in Iran and I really like it. People are very friendly and hospitable. I was talking to an Iranian man on the bus from the border. The bus got stopped one time and the Iranian guy was taken outside and his place checked. Later he told me they asked him why he was talking to me. I also found out his sister lives in Bergen op Zoom. This is 20 km from the place I was born. It's a small world after all!

Second day I was walking around in Tabriz when suddenly, from a side street, 50 "black crows" came about (women in black veils), a strange sight you don’t see everyday. The Iranian fashion for women is quite monotone. After the age of 9 every girl has to wear a hejab (veil). I wonder how many actually want to wear this tent when temperatures rise above 30 easily! Even though you sometimes see women in jeans (of course with headscarf), the main womans outfit is of the pinguin/Darth Vader variety. On the street you can buy many posters of Bruce Lee, bodybuilders, an Iranian "pin-up" girl (of course fully dressed with headscarf) sitting on a donkey surrounded by a flock of sheep (I can imagine that this must really tickle the senses of the average Iranian man), and I even saw a poster of the new gouverner of California.

I was also witness of some Iranian top entertainment: renting a boat or waterbike (in the shape of a swan) and pedling around in circles in a very small pool. If it wasn't so sad it would be funny, well actually it was very funny. The Lonely Planet advices you not to talk about politics, but many of the (young) people I’ve met start talking themselves about how they hate the goverment and how Khomeini was a bad dude. So I didn’t have to bring it up. I hope for them things will change and get looser (actually things changed already: in the womans fashion and also they are allowed to listen to music, something which was forbidden a few years ago). President Khatami wants reforms, but in this country it is not the president who holds the power, but the religious fanatics and they don't want changes but maintain the status quo. So the President is right in the middle between those who want reforms fast and those who don't want reforms at all. Not an easy job. It's amazing and sad how the minds of some lunatics can influence the lives of so many.

From Tabriz I went to Quazvin and from Quazvin I went to Gazor Khan, from there you can visit the ruines of the castles of the assassins. For those of you who are not familiar with the story of the assassins, here it comes (with thanks to the Lonely Planet): The cult of the Assassins was founded in the 11th century by Hasan Sabah (1040-1124). This heretical and widely feared sect despatched killers to murder leading political and religious figures. Its followers, the Hashishiyun (assassins), were so called because of the cunning ruse used by their leaders of taking them into beautiful secret gardens (filled with equally enticing young maidens), getting them stoned on hashish, and then sending them on homicidal assignments believing that Hasan Sabah had the power to transport them to paradise.
Unfortunatly there were no hashish or maidens left (only an old Iranian woman), but the views from the castle was worth it. Actually there was almost nothing left at all and they were rebuilding the structure of the castle using cement, not very authentic if you ask me.

One thing about the sign language (which I use often since I don't speak Farsi): in the west the thumb up means okay, in Iran the thumb up has the same meaning as the middlefinger. So when people ask for instance: "Iran okay?", I almost automaticly put my thumb up. I have to learn to do the excellent sign (making a circle with your thumb and indexfinger) which - in Turkey - means gay or something, very confusing.

Of course I also visited some more cities in Iran, like Isfahan (Isfahan is half the world according to an Isfahan saying) with it's beautiful mosks with mindboggling tilework, geniusly repeating floweral designs. At night (because of ramadan) you could place yourself in a thea shop underneath the beautiful old bridges, smoking the nargile (waterpipe). In one of these shops I saw a family with children and there was a kid (aproximatly 7 years old) smoking the waterpipe like an addict. When his father threw away the leftovers from the smoking he got really upset but later when a new pipe was brought in, he was happy again and the first one to smoke it.

On friday (holy day for muslims) I witnessed a praying ceremonie. It was quite impressive to see all this hundreds of people praying with such a devotion. A very special event, even for a kafir (non believer) like me.

One day we met a guy at the Isfahan campus. He seemed like a friendly guy (like so many Iraniens), maybe he was, but after a while we found out he thinks a bit different than us. For instance he started to ask questions to us, non-muslims, like: "What do you do when you find your wife cheating with another man? Would you beat her up or kill her?" (according to Sharia law adultery can be punished by death sentence, if the person who is cheated upon requests this) or "What if you see your sister hugging a boy or putting her hand on his shoulder, doesn't this make you very angry, all this illegal things?". Also this one was very nice: "In Iran, when a woman doesn't wear a headscarf, men will attack her, (something which doesn't surprise me actually, the segregation of the 2 sexes does not really make the male libido smaller, something I discovered myself :-)) how's this in Holland?"

Apart from this total nutcase we didn't meet many people with such disturbed minds. Most people I met where quite open minded, modern and with both feet on the ground. And also very hospitable, helpfull and friendly. It's obvious Iran is suffering from a bad reputation which it doesn't deserve, in one month I only had one bad experience with the people I met. After Isfahan we went to Yazd, a deserttown with a labyrintious mudbrick old city of alleys. Here are also the Towers of Silence; big towers used by the Zoroastrians to bring their deaths, after which vultures would have a picknick there (a priest would watch the vultures feasting on the corpses, if they would first pick the left eye it meant a good future for the soul, right eye meant a slightly less fortunate future or vise versa). Nowadays there are not many Zoroastrians left (it was the major religion before Islam) and also the towers where not that silent because of youngsters riding around on their motors like mad men giving it a Mad Max kind of experience.

Shiraz was next on our agenda, next to it lie the ruines of Persepolis, a city build 2500 years ago by Darius the Great and burned down 300 years later problably by Alexander the Great. The palace must have been enormous: the pillars still standing are 20 meters high (so about as high as a 6 or 7 store building).

Bam was our last stop in Iran, here we visited the 2200 years old fort and citadel. At night I orded a pizza in a place, trying to make them clear by 3 times impersonating a sheep, cow and chicken that I didn't want meat on the pizza and ofcourse I got a pizza with meat. I just ate the damn thing, it was impossible to explain them the concept of vegetarianism, On other occasions when you said you don’t want meat, people would say: "Oh, in that case we also have chicken".

Turkey 2003: East meets West

2010-01-11T20:43:00.000-08:00

Turkey, a land of contrasts. From men selling porn DVD's and Viagra on the street to women walking around in their hejab (full body dress). In no other country did I see such a difference between tradition and modern life. This is also where East meets West, geographically and culturally.

While tourism is flourishing, it's still easy to find authentic, unspoiled places. I especially enjoyed camping in the mountains near Bolu and playing a game of football with some kids in the Ilhara valley.

Merhaba.

I’m now in the land of the Turks. I kind of changed my plans. Instead of travelling through the high North and freezing my balls off, I decided to take the old hippy trail, going through Turkey into one of the axes of evil (must be cool): Iran, then Pakistan and after that, India.

In Turkey, everybody is a millionaire. 1,5 million Turkish lira equals 1 euro - talk about inflation.
I arrived in a rainy Istanbul, so I had the feeling I was back home: many Turks and rain, feels like Holland. Istanbul is a fascinating city, on the one hand, you see Muslim woman in the traditional all-body covering dress, and on the other hand people selling viagra and porn cd-rom’s. It also looks like everybody has a shop. The people are very friendly and hospitable. It has happened to me a few times that I have been stopped on the street by somebody who started a conversation. You are just waiting for the moment he wants to sell you something, but this moment never arrives. Very nice indeed. They are genuinely interested in you and want to practice their English or German.

After Istanbul, I went to Ankara to arrange a visa for Iran and Pakistan. From there I went to the Mediterranean coast. I stayed a few days in a kind of cross between an Ewok village (tree houses) and a backpackers resort in Olympus. I think they put something in the food there that makes you wanna stay, because the place was hard to leave. One day I wanted to go for a hike in the beautiful pine-forested mountains. It was very interesting (especially when you’re into SM, I encountered, I think, every stinging plant in Turkey).

Cappadocia was next on my agenda. In a part of this area they shot parts of the first Star Wars movie, or was it the Turkish cult movie Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam? (the man who saves the world) I always get both movies confused, maybe it's because the Turkish movie litteraly stole some scenes from the first Star Wars movie. Indeed the landscape is out of this world. It consists of very strangely eroded volcanic stone. Some in the shape of giant mushrooms, some in the shape of giant penises. Many places were once carved out and inhabited - some still are. There are also many underground cities in this area, some 8 levels deep.

After the moonlike landscape I went to Guzelyurt, which was very pleasant because this was the first non-touristy place (besides Ankara, which is just a big city) I had visited in Turkey. Now I’m back in Ankara. Maybe I’ll go to another place in Turkey, but after that I’ll go to Iran.

Kurt

One time I took a side trip to Bolu to go camping - and suffered great pain to my fingers and toes because of the unexpected cold in the morning. The kind of pain with which, for unknown reasons, it is impossible to sit still: moving around and shouting until your body parts reach an agreeable temperature seems to help.
But the area was very nice; densely forested mountains with trees in their autumn colours - brown, yellow, red and green - making it a feast for your eyes (Bob Ross would have approved). Unfortunately, the 7-lake park (the reason I was there) was only accessible by expensive taxi, so I just went into the mountains by my self. But the view over the valley was great anyway. In the morning, the whole valley was filled with fog, giving the hills a blueish-white shade, like in the old nerofen commercials. The valley was also lit up by a strange red glow the first night. Unfortunately, I could only see a small piece through the trees - and the second night, when I had my camera ready and could see the whole valley, of course the glow didn't show up... or did I just see it because of the canned beans I ate the first night? Only Allah knows.

It was good to be out of the city and in nature; although you would be surprised how fast you start to talk to yourself once you're on your own.

In Ankara, I also came into contact with a family of political prisoners who were holding a hunger strike. Some prisoners are kept in isolation for years and other forms of torture are also still happening. I visited them several times (I had nothing to do anyway) and was very moved by their persistence and spirit. On the latest 2 occasions, there was a big squad of armed police officers (some with machineguns) posted just across from where they were. This really symbolizes how the Turkish government thinks and I think this is really a sad thing. As if these hunger-strikers would cause riots. But the government and some of the press see them (or want the public to see them) as terrorists. It was a really vulgar display of power.

One day I was standing with Can and Byran, a friend of his who sells copied Video discs (we were standing in his "shop" on the pavement), when suddenly a police car with flashing lights stopped. One police officer came out and started to talk to me, of all people. Of course I didn't understand what this guy was saying (later I heard he had asked me who was responsible for this). Then he talked briefly to Byran and he began to collect the VCD's of his liking, while his colleague waited in the car with the flashing lights. How about that!

I didn't do the trip to Iran in one leap, but stopped in Van. The eastern area of Turkey is remarkably poorer. I saw many tents and many jandarma (police). The area around Van is mainly Kurdish and was - until the arrest of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the PKK- not the best part of Turkey to travel around. But now things are more relaxed. Van was a bit disappointing so I didn't stay long. The people seemed interesting though. More rough and traditional. Unshaved faces and moustaches.

I left Turkey with some excellent Turkish music in my luggage (Kardes Turkleri), baklava (which didn't make it far past the border) and very good memories.

Romania 2003: Blessing midgets and drunken police

2010-01-11T20:22:00.000-08:00

Travelling to Romania is like travelling back in time in Europe. Life is still uncomplicated and simple and you see a lot of horse-drawn wagons. The people are, with the exception of the women working behind counters, friendly and hospitable. And also important: the beer is unbelievably cheap. Highlights were trekking in the Carpatian mountains and a visit to a gypsy village.

Hello everybody, I'm now in Romania, Sighisoira. Sighisoira is the birthplace of Vlad Tapes, the nice guy whose hobby it was to put a big wooden pole up his enemies’ ass so they suffered great pain for 48 hours before they died. Romania is really great. The people are very friendly, show great hospitality and when they see you have a camera they start saying, ‘posa, posa’. So, no problem finding people willing to pose. The scenery is very nice, with hilly countryside. Next up I'm going into the Carpatian mountains, I’ve heard that must also be great.

Arriving in Romania is like stepping into a time capsule - on the countryside you see a lot of wagons pulled by horses. You also see a lot of gypsies. The Romanians and the Roma (gypsies) live in the same country, but that's it. I don't think the gypsies have many rights and it's hard for them to find a job, maybe that's why they have quick fingers (they are very good with their fingers: playing music and pick-pocketing). As you might know, the Roma originate from Indians and the begging is in their genes, so it felt like I was back in India when I came near a Roma ghetto (most of the time you have a village and next to the village you have a spot where the Roma live in their slums) and got surrounded by 10 Roma children acting as sad as possible showing great interest in my money-belt.

The first contact I had with a Romanian was not such a good one actually: I arrived at the train station and this guy came up to me, started to talk to me and acted as if he was my friend. He walked all the way with me to my hotel and after I had checked in he invited me for a beer (“I'll buy you one” he said). I said I was tired and wanted to stay in the hotel, and then he said: “Oh, but can you give me some money for a beer then? Because I walked all the way with you.” Yeah right.

Yesterday I went biking around in the countryside; I wanted to go for 3 days. In the beginning I thought: “Shit I regret I didn't come by bike, it's great”. But after a while I got heavy saddle soreness and got really tired, so I guess it's not that bad to travel without a bike. But the trip was great, small villages on the way and always friendly people. I was almost set up with a Roma woman in one village. Let's just say she wasn't my type. Well that's it for now, I'll keep you informed.

La revedere

Kurt

I'm just back from the most extreme experience in my life: climbing the second biggest mountain in Romania: mt. Negoiu. With its 2535 metres, it's only 8 metres smaller then the biggest one - the Moldoveanu - but the Moldoveanu is easier to climb.

The first day in the mountains, we (me + 8 Polish people) were shown the way by a drunken policeman who also shared some of his beer with us (this is Romania). We passed some other people who gave us homemade wine and delicious chocolate cake (the Romanians are too friendly). On the second day, there were no trees anymore, just grass and rocks. We didn't make it to the next cabana, but could stay in a salvation shelter (a small metal box). Thank god the thing was there because there was a fierce wind blowing (I don't wanna know how it is in wintertime), any tent would have been blown away.

After that we headed of for Negoiu – up until now everything had been easy. But this mountain is different. When I saw how we had to get there, I thought: "This mountain is gonna be my grave". No path, just rocks to climb over and, of course, very steep. I was really scared and even wished I was back in good old flat Holland (for a second). But what a view: a big valley with big boulders scattered around and us climbing over this fields of rocks. Wow! Any step could have been the last. Of course we didn't make it to the next cabana, fortunately enough; once again there was another shelter in a moonlike surrounding with a small lake.

Next day we walked through the clouds with the sound of thunder in the background and reached the last cabana. We made it just in time - it started raining hard just as we put the first beer to our lips. After the beer followed the palinka so the next day was kind of hard; I had the feeling I was going to faint.

I came down from the mountains and went to a small village called Carta. And what did I see there to my big surprise? A campsite with the very un-Romanian name "De oude wilg". The campsite is run by a Romanian man, who had lived in Holland, and his Dutch wife. The father, mother and brother of the wife also live in this village and the brother just started a "stroopwaffel" business. The village is very nice so I will go there after Sibiu where I am now. I am staying at a friend’s place; I have my own room in the cellar, which is connected to the courtyard where the grapes are hanging peacefully.

Before I went in the mountains, I went to a gypsy village with a Luxemburgish photographer. The gypsies have already lived there, in their self-built "houses" (or slums), for 15 years and they don't have any water - every morning they have to walk to the city to get it. It was good to meet gypsies who don't beg and who do show respect. I had a good time with them. I think I will stay here 2 more days, then go to the "De oude wilg" and then further to Brasov. Time is running out, the Mongolian winter is getting closer. Too bad - I could stay here for a long time.

La revedere

Kurt

After staying in the mountains, I took the train to Copsa Mica to take some pictures of an old oil refinery there. I think it’s the most polluted area in Romania. The ground around this enormous factory is pitch black. I’d heard that you’re not allowed to take pictures there (it’s probably because they are not so proud of their status as the most polluted place in Romania), so more reason to go and do it. Joseph, the guy I stayed with in Sibiu told me he got chased by guards with machineguns. So I was kind of tense when I got there. I walked around on the tips of my toes… straight into a, fortunately malfunctioning, guard dog. He just gazed at me.
A bit later, I heard somebody talking on a cell-phone just a few metres away from me, so I ducked down, crouching on the heavily polluted ground, hiding behind some tall vegetation. Later, I was discovered by guards - thank god without machineguns – and they kindly asked me to leave, which I did.

After this, I went to camping "De Oude Wilg" in Carta. It was good to relax here from all the moving around and doing things. Next stop was Brasov. After a few days there, I wanted to take the train to Bucharest. So I got a ticket saying 1624. I thought this was the time, so I asked if there was no train earlier then 16.24. The woman behind the counter said in her friendliest and most cooperative way (which for her was really hard, I guess) "NO". And this was at 10 in the morning. So I waited and waited and waited, until at 3 o’clock I found out this 16.24 was not the time but the train number!

From Bucharest, I went to the Black Sea coast. On the train, a strange dwarf came in my compartment holding a picture of Maria and moving her hand quickly in a strange manner just in front of my face. She probably wanted to bless and save this old sinner (of course for money). It was a strange experience, like in a David Lynch movie.
The Black Sea coast was awful. A holiday in hell - so I only stayed one day. Loud, stupid music was played on the overcrowded beach and the place displayed a lack of taste (this included the food). After a few days, I took the train to Istanbul.

Romania left a very good impression. The hospitability of the people is enormous. Other things that struck me was the huge amount of crows, the unbelievable bad taste in music and fashion (Steven eat your heart out) and the rudeness of people working behind counters (like in many Eastern Europe countries).