Thursday, 14 January 2010
My father's best friend
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.
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
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.
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
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 canyonLa 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 HoffmannBolivia 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 shoesI 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.
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
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Peru 2009: Go Go dancing on the graveyard
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
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 drinkingOr 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
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 showLaos, Vietnam and China 2008
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
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
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 fieldI 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 amongthousands 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
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.
.jpg)
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.
The duck, the budha and the king. This is on thepremises 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 natureAlthough 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.
.jpg)
The amazing white temple near Chiang Rai, in the frontyou 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 kingConcerning 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
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
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.
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 jewsthat 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 againAfter 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.
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